188 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



direction"? Has the much-boasted training so little lasting 

 effect as he would seem to indicate ? There is no answer to our 

 inquiries but the repetition of old formulae : discussion is only- 

 possible at the risk of excommunication ; the present organisa- 

 tion of schools takes for granted the desirability of the rigid 

 maintenance of prevailing orthodoxy. Of course no one would 

 wish to under-estimate in any way the value of atmosphere 

 and of the impress of tradition, the subtle, quiet, indirect effect 

 of ancient buildings and early formulae, which has helped to 

 build up our independent, alert and self-reliant race ; but to 

 confound these indirect aids to development with the narrow 

 formalism of a classical training is indefensible. Great head- 

 masters, like great generals, do not observe precedents ; they 

 create them : they are invariably opportunists and realise that 

 the perfection of the curriculum and the time-table are as 

 nothing compared with the importance of developing habits of 

 spontaneity in the minds of their scholars. But it is anomalous 

 to compel development along particular lines in these days of 

 freedom of thought and the chief complaints against formal 

 classical training are that it does not lead to acquisition of the 

 power to observe, to infer and to apply so readily as other 

 possible systems demonstrably do lead ; its victims have not 

 that vigorous grasp of fact — and by this one does not mean 

 bare fact without lesson or implication — so desirable in these 

 scientific days, whilst its methods and ideals savour of aristo- 

 cratic tendencies and lead to the fashioning of all boys into 

 one narrow mould. 1 No one would support the view that in- 

 tellect is to rule the world to the exclusion of character and 

 that knowledge of fact is more useful than knowledge of men ; 

 but while supporters of modern methods in education are not 

 entirely unconscious of the fallacies underlying some of the 



1 Of course not all headmasters are obsessed by classical formalism to the 

 exclusion of modern ideas. The Rev. W. Temple, Headmaster of Repton, while 

 admitting that only about 5 per cent, of the classical side achieve the aim of 

 grasping and realising the whole spirit of the Grecian age and people as revealed 

 in its language and literature, confesses that German might take the place of Greek 

 if studied in the same spirit and with the same motive — with the obvious reserva- 

 tion that whereas an ancient civilisation might be studied throughout its complete 

 cycle of birth, rise, fruition and decay, no modern civilisation could illustrate all 

 these stages. He, however, thinks that a bifurcation of the modern side into its 

 humane and scientific aspects might be of advantage in preventing overcrowding 

 of the curriculum. 



