5 i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



becomes interesting when in coordination with experiments in mechan- 

 ics and physics; trigonometry becomes interesting in the actual meas- 

 urements of heights and distances. The infinitesimal calculus is bound 

 to be a weapon which any boy of fifteen easily gets to understand by 

 actual use when he is dealing with dynamic experiments. In fact, the 

 physical and mathematical laboratories are in one, and the same 

 teacher takes charge of both subjects and teaches them as much as pos- 

 sible together. 



Furthermore, in the preparation of an account of an investigation 

 there are practical lessons in English composition; there is sketching, 

 and also more careful drawing with instruments, and the finding of em- 

 pirical laws, using squared paper. In such a school every subject is 

 being taught through all the other subjects; every boy is doing the work 

 in which he is greatly interested, and no boy is attending merely and 

 putting in time. Furthermore, out of school-time there might be the 

 usual restrictions as to "bounds," but otherwise I would let a boy do 

 pretty much as he pleased. " Prep." at boarding schools and home 

 lessons for boys at day schools are to be quite discredited. I would — it 

 may cost a little more money — allow a boy to work in the workshops or 

 laboratories or library or in his own room or common rooms at anything 

 he pleases in this off-time, and I would give him advice only if he asks 

 for it. If I saw a boy reading a penny dreadful I would not stop him ; 

 nor if he were reading Paine's " Age of Eeason," or any wretched trea- 

 tise on psychology or logic. I would in no way discourage a boy from 

 acquiring a greater and greater fondness for reading, knowing that this 

 is the foundation of future happiness and education, and that no harm 

 which he can get from his reading is of the slightest importance in com- 

 parison with the importance of our main object. As he grows up he will 

 become less and less fond of the sixpenny magazine. The school can at 

 its best be merely a preparation for the lifelong education of the man. I 

 would not keep the boy at school after sixteen. Let him then go into 

 business, or to a science or technical school, or to the university. 



Unfortunately for the present no university will take men without 

 an entrance examination involving other languages than English. This 

 is a great evil, but it is not going to last much longer. In the meantime 

 a competent coach will prepare any student to pass the necessary exami- 

 nations (say, in Latin and Greek) in three months, even if there is much 

 other work to do. This is not a matter of learning any classics; it is 

 rather the manufacture of some contempt for the classics, a necessary 

 evil for the present. Indeed, for the present, but let us hope not for 

 long, there are many other necessary evils. We have to find competent 

 enthusiastic teachers, we have to persuade governing bodies to pay sal- 

 aries two or more times as great as at present, we have to make parents 

 see that some mental training and fondness for reading and writing are 

 really of value, and that Tom Sawyerism is only childish. 



