102 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



" Some of the advocates of scientific training have damaged 

 their cause by claiming too much for their subject, and by 

 seeming to depreciate the value of the literary studies which 

 had tended to monopolise the attention of the ablest boys who 

 enjoyed secondary education. To many Greek and Latin 

 have seemed enemies who, from having occupied the educa- 

 tional ground betimes, have been able to dig themselves in and 

 to hold an almost impregnable position, due not to their merit 

 as educational instruments, but to the accident of priority. 

 There is truth in this, but we do not think that the surest 

 method of victory is to be found in the overstatement of the 

 merits of Science or the depreciation of the value of classics. 

 Some of the ablest minds have received from their classical 

 instruction enduring gifts that have been of great service to 

 the State and of great refreshment to their possessors. It is 

 our belief that a better service can be done and a like refresh- 

 ment gained by those whom we hope to see educated on the 

 wider lines laid down in our Report. The humanising influence 

 of the subject has too often been obscured. We are, however, 

 confident that the teaching of Science must be vivified by a 

 development of its human interest side by side with its material 

 and mechanical aspects, and that while it should be valued 

 as the bringer of prosperity and power to the individual or the 

 nation, it must never be divorced from those literary and 

 historical studies which touch most naturally the heart and the 

 hopes of mankind." 



Nor is this only a pious opinion. It is taken into account 

 in the recommendations of the Committee with respect to the 

 time to be allotted to the teaching of Science in schools. The 

 Committee demands in Secondary Schools for boys, not less 

 than four " periods " per week in the first year after the age of 

 twelve, and not less than six " periods " thereafter. It appears 

 that a " period " is three-quarters of an hour, so that all that 

 the Committee demands is, in Boys' Secondary Schools, from 

 three hours to five and a half hours per week, and in Girls' 

 Secondary Schools three hours per week. Even this scanty 

 allowance is difficult to obtain, owing to^he insistent demands 

 of other subjects that are already in possession of the field. 

 In my opinion it is too little, and might easily be increased by 

 dropping out of the regular curriculum subjects that should be 

 only exceptional, and restricted to a minority of the pupils. 

 The Committee, if it does not wholly accept, yet does not reject 

 the view that the prevailing curriculum is sacrosanct, and 



