520 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



the subject used. Unless there is some identity they suggest 

 that improvement in one special power means little or no 

 improvement in its general applications. Identity, in this 

 connexion, means the existence of elements common to both 

 the subject in which the training is given and that to which 

 the so-called faculty is to be transferred. Thus addition assists 

 multiplication because multiplication consists largely of addition. 

 But increased accuracy in weighing does not increase accuracy 

 in any other mental or manual occupation which has nothing 

 in common with weighing. 



Whether or no the experiments of the psychologists justify 

 their inferences is an open question. But their inferences in 

 certain cases appear to coincide with normal experience and 

 common sense. At all events they coincide with a growing 

 belief that the subject really does matter and that if a boy is to 

 excel in any power, he must get knowledge and training in the 

 subject to which the power is to be applied, however little 

 contingent benefit may accrue outside the subject in which he 

 gets the knowledge. 



This, however, implies the corollary that in the early stages 

 knowledge should be as wide and varied as possible. The 

 faculty of observation affords an admirable analogy. For 

 increased powers of observation it is not the training of 

 the eye, the ear, the hand to extreme sensitiveness but the 

 working up of well organised knowledge within the mind itself 

 which is necessary. Powers of minute observation in some 

 given direction will only be obtained by cultivating special 

 knowledge and so interest to correspond. Powers of general 

 observation will coincide with the cultivation of wide interests. 

 Interest and knowledge are then twin sisters. But for interest 

 to arise there must be some aptitude or capacity. Hence 

 science for the non-scientific is not likely to be more educa- 

 tionally beneficial than classics for the non-literary mind ; 

 except in so far as information about certain scientific facts 

 is desirable for general culture. 



To attempt to arouse interest in the average boy or to train 

 his mind by dosing him with treatment which is suitable for boys 

 who will pursue the study of science systematically later on seems 

 particularly futile. If he derive no contingent benefit from this 

 training, the waste of his educational birthright is criminal. 

 Weighing, specific gravity determinations, bulb-blowing, cork- 



