42 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



broken down this nervous tissue is " thrown back," as it were, 

 to a more primitive type and pain supervenes. 



Medical Progress and the State. — ^The retirement of Dr. 

 Addison from the Ministry of Health has this bearing on medical 

 progress, that it seems to suggest a halt in the movement to- 

 wards a state system of medicine. The greatest achievements 

 of the British school have always been individualistic, and many 

 viewed the tendency to a socialistic conception with misgiving. 

 They believe that it is the proper function of the Ministry 

 to follow rather than to attempt leadership, for they hold that 

 any attempt to influence medical thought or method from 

 outside must prove disastrous. 



EDUCATION. By A. E. Heath, M.A., University, Liverpool. 



The Educational Conferences in January were overshadowed 

 by fears for the new Education Act. Educationists realise 

 that economy is necessary ; but they mean by economy the 

 wise control of expenditure. Refusal to spend what is necessary 

 to develop the nation's resources in capacity is not, however, 

 economy, but waste. It will probably need a wide extension, 

 among ordinary citizens, of a more definitely scientific outlook 

 on educational questions before the community recognises 

 to its full extent the gross waste involved in leaving untilled 

 the vast field of adolescent youth. To the psychologist nothing 

 could be clearer than the vital necessity that none should be 

 denied help, guidance, and training during the important 

 years between 13 and 18. Not only is potential capacity 

 thrown away and previous schooling made of no avail, but 

 also the untilled field is left unprotected against weeds that 

 threaten the very existence of any social order. It was, per- 

 haps. Professor Adams's wise way of reminding us indirectly 

 of these things to choose, for his inaugural lecture to the London 

 Conference, the subject " Instinct and Education." For 

 modern psychology has to a great extent centred round the 

 problems raised by instinct, and in so doing has taught us 

 to look with new and somewhat apprehensive eyes on those 

 critical years of adolescence, as well as those of early childhood. 

 Side by side with the more lively recognition of the dangers 

 and difficulties of these two periods has come a new sense of 

 their importance as factors in the making of the adult creature. 

 The provision of adequate control and guidance is therefore 

 essential at both periods ; provided that the control is 

 sympathetic and the guidance well informed. 



The study of recent work on instinct can, moreover, give 

 us — in addition to this insight into fundamental necessities — 

 an admirable starting-point for an incursion into current 



