RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 43 



tific age. Graminar-scliools believe themselves to be immortal. Those 

 curious immortals — the Struldbrugs — described by Swift, ultimately 

 regretted their immortality, because they found themselves out of 

 touch, sympathy, and fitness with the centuries in which they lived. 



As there is no use clamoring for an instrument of more compass 

 and power until we have made up our mind as to the tune. Professor 

 Huxley, in his evidence before a Parliamentary Committee in 1884, 

 has given a time-table for grammar-schools. lie demands that out 

 of their forty hours for public and private study ten should be given 

 to modern languages and history, eight to arithmetic and mathemat- 

 ics, six to science, and two to geography, thus leaving fourteen hours 

 to the dead languages. No time-table would, however, be suitable 

 to all schools. The great public schools of England will continue to 

 be the gymnasia for the upper classes, and should devote much of 

 their time to classical and literary culture. Even now they introduce 

 into their curriculum subjects unknown to them when the Royal Com- 

 mission of 1868 reported, though they still accept science with timid- 

 ity. Unfortunately, the other grammar-schools which educate the 

 middle classes look to the higher public schools as a type to which 

 they should conform, although their functions are so different. It is 

 in the interest of the higher public schools that this difference should 

 be recognized, so that, while they give an all-round education and ex- 

 pand their curriculum by a freer recognition of the value of science 

 as an educational power in developing the faculties of the upper 

 classes, the schools for the middle classes should adapt themselves to 

 the needs of their existence, and not keep up a slavish imitation of 

 schools with a different function. The old classical grammar-schools 

 may view these remarks as a direct attack upon them, and so it is in 

 one sense, but it is like the stroke of Ithuriel's spear, which heals 

 while it wounds. 



The stock argument against the introduction of modern subjects 

 into grammar-schools is that it is better to teach Latin and Greek 

 thoroughly rather than various subjects less completely. But is it 

 true that thoroughness in teaching dead languages is the result of an 

 exclusive system ? In 1868 the Royal Commission stated that even in 

 the few great public schools thoroughness was only given to thirty 

 per cent of the scholars, at the sacrifice of seventy per cent who got 

 little benefit from the system. Since then the curriculum has been 

 widened and the teaching has improved. I question the soundness of 

 the principle that it is better to limit the attention of the pupils 

 mainly to Latin and Greek, highly as I value their educational power 

 to a certain order of minds. As in biology the bodily development of 

 animals is from the general to the special, so is it in the mental devel- 

 opment of man. In the school a boy should be aided to discover the 

 class of knowledge that is best suited for his mental capacities, so 

 that, in the upper forms of the school and in the university, knowledge 



