190 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



benefits as were derivable from modern languages, possessed 

 peculiar advantages in virtue of their remoteness and these 

 advantages were particularly clear when an ancient tongue 

 stood in the relation of Latin to the Romance languages. 

 Arguing thus, he concluded that it was of vital importance that 

 Latin should be one of the subjects constituting the permanent 

 basis of education in all secondary schools and that, apart from 

 the subjects mentioned, viz. religion, English, a modern 

 language such as French, Latin, Mathematics and Natural 

 Science — there was none which could justly claim part in that 

 knowledge which he ventured to describe as the common pro- 

 perty of all boys and girls in secondary schools ! Here again, 

 in spite of valid and rational hypotheses, in spite of the reference 

 to the well-known fact that psychology suggests the adaptation 

 of particular subjects to the awakening of particular powers at 

 appropriate ages and its peculiar bearing on the supreme import- 

 ance of handwork, we have the perfectly astounding conclusion 

 that such work may be excluded from the ideal curriculum. 

 With but the barest evidence of the necessity for classical study, 

 the usual conclusion is reached that classics must indisputably 

 form part of the normal curriculum, whilst the educational value 

 of training which involves development of tactic powers is — as 

 we have learnt to expect when a representative of the vested 

 interests speaks — utterly ignored. Of course Dr. Welldon is 

 not entirely ignorant of recent developments, he must know 

 something about the possibilities of the methods connoted by 

 the term " Manual Training." His silence about the subject is 

 significant of the whole attitude of the " knowledge caste." 

 But since the "man in the street" is likely to attach undue 

 weight to the pronouncements of so exalted an individual as the 

 President of a section of the British Association, it is necessary 

 to ventilate the whole question, to demand a reconsideration, 

 a scientific examination of the educational problem and to insist 

 on the fact that there are fatal omissions in the summary of 

 the subjects considered essential to the ideal curriculum by the 

 representatives of the vested interests, by supporters of the 

 classical tradition. It is not that manual training as a school 

 subject is to be regarded as a universal panacea : it, like any 

 other single subject, is only adequate as a centre for a limited 

 number of interests in school. But it is more than probable 

 that its scope, its appeal, is far wider than that of any other 



