326 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



shooting, fishing, motoring ; (5) football, cricket, tennis ; (6) endurance of fatigue, 

 heat, cold, hunger, and thirst. His arts should comprise (7) reading, writing 

 (legibly), arithmetic, mensuration, logarithms ; (8) sketching, singing (or a 

 musical instrument), dancing, photography, carpentry, camp-grooming, camp- 

 cooking, road-engineering, map-drawing and map-reading ; (9) intelligible 

 talking and writing; (10) good personal manners. His foreign languages should 

 comprise (11) the first elements of Greek, Latin, French, Italian, German, and 

 Russian, none excepted ; (12) the translation of easy Greek and Latin into English, 

 but not necessarily the converse ; (13) a colloquial efficiency in one or two 

 modern languages. His knowledges should comprise the outlines of (14) modern 

 geography; (15) general history; (16) mathematics (enough to understand its 

 objects and uses) ; (17) mechanics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, 

 physiology, natural history, botanical and zoological classification and evolution, 

 pathology, epidemiology ; (18) agriculture, manufactures, economics. His general 

 reading should comprise (19) poetry and the ancient mythologies; (20) histories 

 of the great arts ; (21) histories of law, politics, war, invention, science, ethics, and 

 literature ; (22) abstracts of philosophies ; (23) all the greatest books in verse or 

 prose, in original or in translation ; and (24) the Scriptures. And, finally, he must 

 hold (25) a sufficiently low opinion of his pleasures, privileges, and rights, and a 

 sufficiently high one of discipline, honour, work, duty, and the other virtues. 



A large programme, even if we use the words "first elements" and "outlines" 

 in very narrow senses — but we have seen young men who have nearly achieved 

 it, even after a " classical education." But these were probably exceptionally apt 

 pupils, and the real question is, by what curriculum can we raise the ordinary boy 

 to such a high level ? There can be only one answer — by taking him to the top of 

 the hill, so to speak, and showing him the whole great landscape of human 

 knowledge, effort, and duty spread out before him. Then, when he leaves school, 

 he will be able to judge better in which particular field he himself is fitted to work 

 for the rest of his life, and will also be able to form some Idea of the fields in which 

 others are toiling, and to accommodate himself to any sudden calls which fortune 

 may make upon him. The alternative course is to plunge him from the beginning 

 into a deep mine, out of sight of heaven and earth, and there keep him grubbing 

 for special knowledge which he may have no desire to possess and no natural 

 aptitude to acquire. This is the admitted error of too early specialisation. 

 Whether the mine be the classical mine, the theological mine, the mathematical 

 mine, or the scientific mine, the result is much the same — not a man at all, but a 

 Latin dictionary, a commentary, a demonstration, or a test-tube ! 



The grammarians have objected to science in education because, they say, it is 

 a case of too early specialisation ; but, as Dr. Mercier pointed out in the July 

 number of Science Progress, the teaching of Greek to the young is early 

 specialisation. So is the too-elaborate teaching of any one branch of knowledge. 

 It is like exercising one arm or leg to the exclusion of the rest of the body ; and 

 every limb of the mind should be trained. Early education should be wide, not 

 deep ; for the depths must be reached later when the mind is fully grown. But 

 parents have the right to take still more serious exception to the over-elaborate 

 teaching of knowledge which will not be required in after life, because this occupies 

 the time which might be used for giving a wider field of vision, or, if elaboration is 

 demanded, for the elaboration of useful knowledge. Now science and languages 

 are useful to many, but the composition of Greek and Latin verses to few ; and 

 this precisely is the justification of the complaints mentioned above. After all, 

 a public-school education costs from ^500 to ,£1,000 or more, and is therefore a 



