NOTES 503 



schools and the lower forms of public schools. It is stated by some of those 

 who oppose these innovations— e.g. Sir Sydney Lee — that " the exaltation of the 

 technological branch of school and college studies in Germany, to the exclusion 

 or neglect of the humane branches, had encouraged the systematized worship 

 of brute force, with its inevitable issue, in a brutal defiance of the usages of 

 humanity." Major Bryant quotes the obvious answer to this charge. The 

 gymnasien course in Germany, at which the whole of the nation, except those 

 trained in the elementary schools, are educated are even more classical than our 

 own public school courses. Latin and Greek receive 43 per cent, of the time, 

 science 7 per cent. ! If science is to be banned because of its misuse in the 

 hands of the Hun, would it be so utterly impossible to make out a case against 

 those very " humane branches " theology and literature ? 



• * * * * 



Since the above notes were written the detailed scheme for the decimal coinage 

 system already referred to has been received from the Decimal Association, and 

 also a detailed criticism written by Sir Ray Lankester, issued by the Committee on 

 the Neglect of Science. With regard to the former, the proposed unit is the mil, 

 the thousandth part of the £ sterling, whose value as a monetary standard remains 

 unaltered. The bronze coinage would consist of 1, 2, 3, and 4-mil pieces (this last 

 equal to '96 penny); 5 and 10-mil pieces would be coined in nickel, and the remain- 

 ing coins would remain as before, except that the half-crown would disappear, a 

 double florin (equal to 200 mil) taking its place if necessary. From a commercial 

 point of view the scheme has much to recommend it. The new bronze coins have 

 nearly the same value as the old, and the present 3-column method of cash entry 

 could be continued, the headings being changed to £.{.m., e.g. £1 18 n£ would 

 be replaced by £1. 948 or £1. 9. 48; four figures only being required instead of six. 

 The advocates of the scheme claim that those who are compelled to buy food and 

 other necessaries in small quantities would benefit by the finer grading of the small 

 coins. Thus, while the cost of a halfpenny or penny article may have increased 

 only by 20 per cent., the price has to be raised to a penny or three halfpence because 

 of the lack of intermediate coins ; the farthing being used but seldom. On the 

 other hand there would be undoubtedly a tendency for the penny to be replaced 

 by the 5-mil piece instead of the 4, with the result that the value of the shilling 

 would depreciate still more than it already has done. Of course, compensating 

 adjustments could easily be made ; but our unhappy experiences of commercial 

 methods to-day make that possibility very remote. 



The concluding paragraph of Sir Ray Lankester's report seems to summarise 



very pertinently the view of the position put forward by the Committee on the 



Neglect of Science : 



The object of the Committee en the Neglect of Science was (and still remains) to obtain from 

 the Civil Service Commissioners such a scheme of examination as would compel the managers of 

 the great public schools to adopt a more intelligent scheme of education. The Commissioners 

 are the only body in existence which can put pressure on the great schools and universities. Very 

 naturally — and perhaps correctly, but not courageously nor patriotically — Mr. Manley Leathes's 

 Committee refuses this responsibility. " Permissive legislation " is the limit of their courage. So 

 it has been in former times in regard to measures for securing the public health, elementary 

 education, and even national defence. But eventually legislation in these matters has taken a 

 compulsory form ; and so it must, without further delay, in regard to education. It is simply 

 absurd to allow the great schools and the old universities to administer great national funds so 

 as to maintain, decade after decade, century after century, the vested interests of a schoolmaster- 

 class, ignorant of, and therefore hostile to, the most important national interests — the education 

 of our best sons in the knowledge of nature. Mr. Stanley Leathes's Committee, instead of 

 rescuing education from the professional vested interests of the classical schoolmasters, hands 

 back the victim, after many professions of goodwill, to the tender mercies of those who are banded 

 together to starve, torture, and discredit her, and remorselessly to maintain the domination and 

 the pecuniary allurements of the " classical system." 



