TRADITION IN EDUCATION 185 



needs and capabilities of the pupils or is it frankly catchpenny, 

 a sop to the Cerberus of public opinion ? This superiority — 

 " notorious, at least to schoolmasters " — may be more apparent 

 than real and as a working hypothesis is probably invalid, as 

 it neither seems to explain and give meaning to the facts of 

 observation nor does it furnish any logical basis for a " vigorous 

 inductive inference of consequences which are in agreement 

 with reality." In short, we cannot concede the justice of the 

 claim until the one essential condition of accuracy be fulfilled, 

 namely, the careful taking into account of all authentic and 

 relevant facts. To adapt freely a passage from the author 

 quoted at the head of this essay, one might perhaps argue in 

 the following way : Education is partly concerned with the 

 acquirement of skill in thinking and it is certain that equal 

 facilities in acquiring this skill are not given by similar arrays 

 of facts ; some, e.g. lists of rivers, dates, melting points of 

 alloys, lists of exceptions to grammatical rules, atomic weights, 

 etc., may be useful items of knowledge but are poor as material 

 for play of thought ; others, e.g. mathematical data, may be 

 useless in themselves while suitable as mental gymnastics. 

 Facts are useful or useless not only as they are true and afford 

 exercise in hard thinking or not but also as they do or do not 

 serve to link up the past and present with the subsequent 

 experiences of the learner. They also derive value from the 

 way in which they are acquired and the manner in which they 

 are assimilated. Now a good educational system must both 

 serve to convey knowledge and involve the acquirement of 

 mental skill which will be useful not only in this or that 

 occupation but in the cultivation of mental power. Knowledge 

 and skill in using it are useful in this wide sense only when 

 actually utilitarian or when serving as a means to the acquire- 

 ment of a more extended and directly utilitarian knowledge 

 and skill. Further, the same kind of instruction is not always 

 of the same value, as environments vary. Now consider the 

 claims of supporters of the traditional form of education in the 

 light of the foregoing arguments, bearing in mind the fact that 

 the normal boy, like the normal man, finds it of more absorbing 

 interest to study facts arranged in chains of causation than in 

 any other way and longs to devote his attention to a study that 

 he knows will be useful to him, either at once or in the future. 

 The remainder of the part of Dr. Gow's paper dealing with 



