NOTES 103 



must not be disturbed. The timidity with which it ventures 

 to suggest modification of the curriculum may very likely be 

 due to a hope of propitiating the party in possession, and 

 deprecating its opposition. This hope will probably be dis- 

 appointed, and I cannot but think that the Committee would 

 have had less chance of being stung if it had grasped the nettle 

 boldly instead of touching it gingerly with the tips of the fingers. 



A general education should, in the opinion of the Committee, 

 be pursued up to the age of sixteen, and should provide for 

 the study of English, including History and Geography ; 

 Languages other than English ; Mathematics and Natural 

 Science ; and a set of subsidiary subjects, such as Drawing, 

 Music, Handicraft, Domestic Subjects, etc., in various pro- 

 portions. It is satisfactory to find the study of English placed 

 first, and satisfactory, too, that the Committee insists again 

 and again throughout its Report on the importance of this most 

 neglected subject. If we may judge by the result, instruction 

 in the structure and use of the English language is utterly 

 unknown in schools, and the consequence is that not one 

 English writer in a thousand can use his own language without 

 making shocking and discreditable blunders. The study of the 

 mother tongue should be the very first and most prominent 

 subject in education, not only because of its direct importance, 

 but because clearness of expression means clearness of thought ; 

 and he who does not express himself clearly does not think 

 clearly. The inclusion of History and Geography in English 

 is of course absurd, but no doubt in acquiescing in this inclusion 

 the Committee was for politic reasons bowing itself in the 

 House of Rimmon. Of course these subjects should be taught, 

 but Geography might well be taught as a Natural Science, 

 which it is, and in conjunction with Physics, Physiography, 

 and Geology. 



It is with the second group of subjects that I quarrel. The 

 Committee takes it as a matter of course, as practically every 

 other authority uppn education does, that the acquisition of a 

 second, and even of a third language is of primary importance 

 in education. With this I profoundly disagree. I think it is a 

 superstition that has been inherited by the present generation 

 from the Dark Ages of education, when the acquisition of Latin 

 and Greek was the beginning, middle, and end of education. 

 The acquisition of a second and of a third language has an 



