400 THE SCHOOL BOARDS xv 



conveyed in the elementary schools; and in 

 this direction — for reasons which I am afraid 

 to repeat, having urged them so often — I can 

 conceive no subject-matter of education so appro- 

 priate and so important as the rudiments of 

 physical science, with drawing, modelling, and 

 singing. Not only would such teaching atford the 

 best possible preparation for the technical schools 

 about which so much is now said, but tlie organi- 

 sation for carrying it into eifect already exists. 

 The Science and Art Department, the operations 

 of which have already attained considerable magni- 

 tude, not only offers to examine and pay the 

 results of such examination in elementarv science 

 and art, but it provides what is still more impor- 

 tant, viz. a means of giving children of high 

 natural ability, who are just as abundant among 

 the poor as among the rich, a helping hand. A 

 good old proverb tells us that " One sliould not take 

 a razor to cut a block: " the razor is soon spoiled, 

 and the block is not so well cut as it would be with 

 a hatchet. But it is worse economy to prevent a 

 possible Watt from being anything but a stoker, 

 or to give a possible Faraday no chance of doing 

 anything but to bind books. Indeed, the loss in 

 such cases of mistaken vocation has no measure; 

 it is absolutely infinite and irre])arable. And 

 among the arguments in favour of the interference 

 of the State in education, none seems to be 

 stronger than this — that it is the interest of every 



