THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION 513 



The imjjortance of primary education is now well recognized. Eich 

 and aristocratic folk know that they are now in the hands of the com- 

 mon people in a democratic country, and it is important to see that the 

 common people shall be made fit to rule and shall have a real sense of 

 fairness and reasonableness. Above all, if they are to be good citizens 

 we must cultivate their common sense. I think that in the schemes and 

 the administration of primary education by the Boards of England and 

 Scotland it is in a good way; but there is one great curse upon it, and 

 the enormous sums of money spent upon it are greatly wasted. The lo- 

 cal authorities give to every teacher far too much to do, and they give 

 him only half his proper wages. In a few years the government of our 

 democratic country will be in the hands of the boys now at school. That 

 they should be good citizens full of common sense is more important 

 than any other thing. If they are without fondness for books, and if 

 they can not reason, their votes will be at the command of fraudulent or 

 foolish, or perhaps only selfish or self-deceiving speakers. Our empire 

 was ruled by George the Third, and by God's grace we only lost America 

 and piled up the national debt; but think of an empire ruled by millions 

 of Georges ! Teaching the young requires great wisdom and sympathy, 

 and we trust it to people paid half wages, the " otherwise unemployed.*' 

 In the secondary schools also we find this penny wise pound foolish 

 policy, and it is particularly evil in the great technical schools. A city 

 is proud of its magnificent college of science, first because of its archi- 

 tecture: secondly, because of its equipment in apparatus, perhaps in 

 steam and gas engines and other expensive machinery. And the man 

 in charge of the most important department of that college receives per- 

 haps £250 a year. He ought to get at least £600. That is the market 

 price of a fit man, and without a fit man the whole money and the time 

 of students are being wasted ; the thing is really a fraud, a whited 

 sepulcher, and of course the principal is always a classical non-scientific 

 man. Photographs of the building and its laboratories are very fine to 

 look at in guide-books of the city, and the managers of the college get 

 public thanks for their services. I know nearly all the technical and 

 science colleges of Great Britain, and I hardly ever see any of their com- 

 placent managers, members of their governing bodies, without wish- 

 ing that I had some of the powers of the familiars of the old Spanish 

 Inquisition. What right have they to undertake duties which require a 

 knowledge of natural science? 



The latest proposal of our callous copiers of the Germans is to make 

 attendance at evening classes compulsory up to the age of seventeen. At 

 present working boys attend evening classes voluntarily, although in 

 many cases they are too tired to learn much. Yet many of them do 

 learn. These boys are almost martyrs. They sacrifice so many of their 

 poor pleasures, and indeed duties, that they certainly deserve success in 



vol. cxxxv. — 35. 



