TRADITION IN EDUCATION 199 



when the boy may be expected to have some idea of his future 

 occupation and it might be desirable that the further training he 

 would undergo should exhibit some special bias to that end. 

 The essentials of secondary education which have been postu- 

 lated apparently leave time for the adequate treatment of the 

 classics only by the omission of more valuable subjects. 

 Let the secondary school then consist of an upper and a lower 

 division and let it be insisted that the curriculum of the latter 

 include only those branches of knowledge which have been 

 defined as forming the necessary basis of a liberal education. 

 [The classics as a formal study would be excluded ; but 

 obviously there is no reason for neglecting entirely certain 

 aspects of classical work : references would be unavoidable in 

 literature, history and grammar; it is merely its formal and 

 excessive consideration that would be out of place.] Then, at 

 the average age of, let us say, fifteen — by which time, presum- 

 ably, there would be a certain foundation of necessary experience 

 in the boy's mind and he would therefore be capable of appre- 

 ciating an extension of knowledge beyond his immediate 

 requirements; by which time, in fact, he begins to exhibit 

 definite tastes and preferences — let us permit a minimum of 

 specialisation which may and should gradually increase during 

 the remainder of the period devoted to secondary education. 

 The upper division of the school might, in short, consist of 

 classical, mathematical and scientific, commercial or mercantile and 

 other "sides." This is equivalent to allowing the upper school 

 to divide into sections each of which should exhibit a definite 

 bias whilst not neglecting the claims of general education and 

 development. For example, the classical side would require 

 special attention to literary work, to the study of the classics in 

 particular, whilst insisting on a certain minimum of mathematics, 

 science, modern languages and manual work; the work of the 

 mathematical and scientific side would include a certain minimum 

 of classical study — if such were thought desirable and advisable 

 from the point of view of general culture and necessary for the 

 proper development of English work — of modern languages 

 and of manual training, whilst the teaching of scientific method 

 and the applications of mathematics and science would receive 

 particular attention; the commercial or mercantile side would 

 specialise on modern language and perhaps, more doubtfully, 

 the more technical aspects of the necessities of commerce while 



