552 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



mind. But it cannot be seriously held that this type of mind 

 is that which we desire to select out of all others for the 

 service of the Empire. It has been clearly demonstrated, even 

 in recent times, that an attitude of philosophic doubt is not 

 conducive to sane and serious government. 



We need practically trained, useful and alert men, with 

 fully developed powers of insight— not walking dictionaries : 

 yet men who know how to use dictionaries when required. 

 It is more than strange that we should continue to encourage 

 what we know to be waste of brain-power by forcing our 

 students to learn dictionaries off by heart and exact no proof 

 that they really know how to use them. 



There is also urgent need of reform in the case of the 

 scholarship examinations at the Universities : in these again 

 the standard set is preposterously high and altogether academic. 

 The subversive influence of the examinations on the work of 

 the schools is only too well known— yet neither the Universities 

 nor the schools make the least effort to modify them. 



It is not so long ago that we were influenced almost 

 entirely by Oxford and Cambridge : now Universities are 

 springing up everywhere ; and County Councils are offering- 

 scholarships ad libitum ; consequently, examinations are domi- 

 nating education in all its branches : the outlook is very serious 

 if, as I have contended, undue encouragement is being given 

 to an unpractical type of scholar. 



Whilst the Chinese — led by Japanese if not by Western 

 example — are engaged in reforming their ways, we seem to 

 be bent more and more on aping the methods they are in 

 process of abandoning. We alone seem to be walking with 

 eyes shut into the bottomless pit of dependence. In London, 

 we seem to be thinking of nothing — talking of nothing — but 

 examinations ; we absolutely cringe before them, worship them. 

 The last thing to occur to us is to talk of our work — to consider 

 our methods of working. The fact is, we dare not : we know them 

 to be so antiquated — so perfectly Erewhonian in style. In my 

 early days, we took up subjects because they interested us or 

 because it was represented to us that they would prove to 

 be of value — not because we were compelled to undergo an 

 •examination in them. Thus, at Leipzig, although professedly 

 a student of chemistry, I not only attended Ludwig's course 

 but also the botany course ; and a number of us persuaded 



