630 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Colleges. The arrangements made by Brig. -Gen. H. Hartley were admirable. 

 The attendance was only one or two short of 200 — a most gratifying record 

 for an association numbering about 575 members domiciled all over Great 

 Britain, Ireland, and the Colonies. 



A notable feature of the educational side of the meeting was that the 

 members were expected to, and indeed did, drop back again to something 

 approaching the status of undergraduates, and received instruction, sometimes 

 from former tutors, sometimes from those who were once fellow under- 

 graduates, and sometimes even — not without feelings of pride and satisfaction 

 — from their own old pupils. 



Since the days when some of the members were " up," a lot of water has 

 passed under FoUy Bridge. Let those who scorn the impUcation perpend 

 the book of Ecclesiastes or the writings of Dean Inge. In the meantime, the 

 progress of science has been very rapid, and many have been left behind, 

 for, amid the multifarious duties of a science master, very httle time is left 

 for study and contemplation. It was, therefore, most stimulating and 

 encouraging to members to be brought once again into an atmosphere of 

 recent advance, and was, at the same time, most salutary to be kiiidly but 

 firmly reminded of the perishable nature of their stock-in-trade. 



The proceedings started with an address by ^Ir. Archer Vassall of Harrow, 

 a member of the Association, one of its founders, and the first member to 

 be caUed to the office of president. Mr. Vassall's address dealt with the 

 following professional topics, among others, as they appeared to him looking 

 back over his twenty-five years' experience. 



Preparatory School Scierice. — The relation between the curricula of the 

 preparatory school and the pubhc school has always presented difficulties. 

 With one or two exceptions, science is unknown in the preparatory school ; 

 consequently, so far as science is concerned, the boy of fourteen comes to the 

 public school with his mind, as John Earle puts it, " yet a white paper 

 unscribbled with observations, wherewith at length it becomes a blurr'd 

 note-book." Nevertheless, he has the valuable quaUty of freshness and 

 unbounded curiosit^^ This ignorance of elementary science may be no great 

 drawback. By the introduction of a paper in the common entrance and 

 scholarship examinations, preparatory schools might be compelled to teach 

 " science," though the remedy might be worse than the disease, for boys 

 might then come knowing no real science, but only "examination science," 

 and, as a result of that, their ardour might be somewhat abated. 



English in Preparatory Schools. — The halting way in which boys of fourteen, 

 whether from the preparatory school or the primary school, use their mother 

 tongue, their scanty vocabulary, their ignorance of the significance of even 

 common words, are far greater drawbacks than ignorance of formal science. 

 To quote Mr. Vassall's own words : " Except for a few gifted boys amongst 

 the scholars, our present material, though having the invaluable quahty of 

 freshness, has a handicap which in many cases more than neutrahses the 

 virtue. This handicap, as you know, is that boys arrive at our schools having 

 spent four or five years playing at three or four languages and having a mastery 

 of no single one, least of aU — in the case of British boys — of their mother 

 tongue." If Enghsh were taught, and properly taught, " we might hope 

 for much more average inteUigence at fourteen, and for material which we 

 could use in our own branch of education during the next year or two up to 

 a standard undreamt of at present." 



Science for All. — As to the aims of science teaching in schools, emphatically 

 it should not be merely the training of the best boys only, to the total neglect 

 of the weaker brethren. The classics did this, and did it very thoroughly, 

 both in developing the faculties of the " best " boys and in crushing the less 

 able hke a Juggernaut car. It was precisely in consequence of this that the 

 classicists lost their hold in the schools. There is a danger that scientists 



