1 56 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



by every other country. If we go to nature for our lessons 

 there will be found differentiations and adaptations everywhere, 

 and they are ever in process and active, because whether it be 

 in vertical or horizontal space life is dependent as much upon 

 external as upon internal and local conditions. 



The conditions of life in the British Isles and on the Euro- 

 pean Continent are such that every energy must be brought to 

 bear on the progressive tendencies of the people. Differen- 

 tiations are various and complex, and the utilisation of waste 

 products and the specialisation of production are carried on 

 in a way that would be deemed absurd, or even impossible, in 

 newer and less populous lauds. But competition is a hard 

 taskmaster, and if interchange is needful in the case of our- 

 selves, for example, it must be an interchange of food — of 

 sustaining-power — for those things that art and science have 

 been able to devise by the utilisation of some of nature's 

 bounties in lands where greater differentiations have taken 

 place. It would be hard to say how many devices have 

 been adopted in the preparation of the young to fight their 

 way in the world of industry such as is being made possible 

 by means of science and art. And the means that have been 

 and are being taken in England, and in countries where the 

 problems of living are a hundredfold more complex than they 

 are in this country, have already had an effect upon the 

 thoughts and actions of many persons interested in the fur- 

 therance of education. 



The claim has been put forward that because science is 

 being fostered in England and on the European Continent 

 therefore we in our public scheme of education should 

 adopt a similar scheme for the benefit of the children. 

 From what has been already stated it must be evident 

 that the needs of the people of this country, both for to- 

 day and to-morrow, cannot be the same as the needs of 

 the people in other lands, where population, climate, com- 

 petition, social and political life are so unlike our own. 

 None would venture to urge that the children of any civil- 

 ised land should receive no preparation for life in face of 

 the fierce competition and struggle through which they will 

 all have to pass. A stepping-stone is a necessity, and the 

 duty of a State is to anticipate the manhood and woman- 

 hood of its future citizens and provide accordingly. But 

 what are to be the characteristics of our citizenship as 

 compared with the characteristics of those in other lands? 

 Governments differ, laws differ, necessities differ, and citi- 

 zenship differs. In New Zealand the products of the soil 

 are largely in excess of the actual wants of the people. 

 Nothing shows clearer than our productions how largely 

 the individual, by means of machinery — or, in other words, 





