SCIENCE AND THE AVERAGE BOY 521 



boring, separation of sand and salt and a host of similar manipu- 

 lations should disappear from the programme of the average boy 

 either as ends in themselves or as objectionable preliminaries 

 to be mastered by a select few for whose benefit the majority 

 must be sacrificed. 



In fact many of us think that it is this very consideration of 

 the select few at the expense of the rest in other subjects than 

 science which is responsible for the comparative intellectual 

 failure of the average public school boy. 



All through their school career the majority of boys are 

 taught with reference to an ideal far beyond their capacity and 

 methods suitable to this ideal are in vogue. The ideal, of 

 course, is the production of such erudite classical stylists or 

 embryo pure mathematicians as may win scholarships at the 

 Universities. 



The result is that work for the average boy, instead of 

 depending on his reasoning power and stimulating his mental 

 self-reliance, is reduced to mere memorising. Consequently 

 there is a loss of plasticity and a lack of resourcefulness which 

 are highly detrimental to him in earning his own living. Now 

 that only a small percentage achieve administrative posts and 

 the professions are overcrowded, an increasing number of 

 average boys seek a livelihood as producers in the Empire either 

 at home or Overseas. There is a useful place for every citizen 

 of adequate moral strength Overseas and it is an Imperial 

 obligation upon us to make them as useful there as possible. 



But plasticity, resourcefulness and self-reliance are exactly 

 the necessary attributes. Hence it becomes more and more 

 important that science masters by their methods should seek 

 to strengthen and not thwart these characteristics as far as 

 possible. Especially since it is obvious that for the successful 

 development of the resources of the Empire these boys need 

 as far as we can give it to them a knowledge of the phenomena 

 of their environment and the laws controlling them. Even if 

 intellect can be trained, we must not forget that she is a female. 

 Consequently perfection lies for the average boy not in the 

 intellect so much as in her dressmaker ; but there is a danger 

 of our trying to deck her out in as ill-fitting garb as do some 

 of our colleagues in other subjects. 



Ideally it would probably be best for all boys of suitable 

 capacity to pursue the study of science and possibly engineering. 



