NOTES 511 



onistic, so unsympathetic has been the reception accorded to 

 science by the schools." " By placing classical scholars in 

 charge [of schools], we seem unconsciously to have selected 

 men of one particular type of man for school service — men of 

 the literary type ; and this type has been preferred for nearly 

 all school posts, mainly because no other type has been available, 

 this being the chief product of our universities. Such men, for 

 the most part, have been indifferent to subjects and methods 

 other than literary — I verily believe not because they have been 

 positively antagonistic or lacking in sympathy, but rather 

 because of their negative antagonism." " The literary type of 

 man apparently does not and cannot sympathise with the 

 practical side of modern scientific inquiry, because he has 

 neither knowledge of the methods of experimental science nor 

 the faintest desire for such knowledge." Referring to " our 

 chief English scientific Society," he says that " most un- 

 fortunately, the Society has no influence whatever either on 

 political or on public opinion ; it makes no attempt either to 

 guide the public or to give dignity and importance to the cause 

 of science in the eyes of the community. Its meetings are dull, 

 and its belated publications by no means represent the scientific 

 activity of its Fellows." " To improve our system we need to 

 get rid of our blind British belief in ' men of affairs,' especially 

 in the ' man of business,' so-called, really the man of commerce, 

 as persons capable of ordering everybody's affairs and every- 

 body's business." " Science must be organised, in fact, as other 

 professions are organised, if it is to be an effective agent in our 

 civilisation." 



There are really two points at issue in these papers, 

 first the general British disinclination for scientific work 

 and thought, and secondly the rejection of science in education. 

 Every one deplores the former defect, but we do not see clearly 

 how it really depends upon the latter. There has grown up an 

 entirely unreal system of education — as unreal as the square 

 root of minus one, but as much loved by some people as is that 

 mysterious entity or nonentity by others. Just as the mathe- 

 maticians make books out of their imaginary quantities, so do 

 schoolmasters try to make men out of theirs — and in both 

 cases the results are apt to be more curious than useful. We 

 would be the last to object to a true classical education ; but 

 then that education must always be combined with a scientific 



