30 PRESTDENTIAI. ADDRESS SE( TION D. 



more practical Geometry, more practical Geography, more prac- 

 tice in the laboratory and more manual activity in the workshop — 

 these will be feature 5 of the education of to-morrow. 



But not only will the education of to-morrow tend to lay 

 more stress on motor activity, but it will tend to become more 

 vocational in character. The pressing subject of vocational 

 education cannot be dismissed by mumbling old formula? about 

 earlv specialization. In future there will be more points of 

 contact between the school life of the pupil and his future occui^a- 

 tion. Modern psychology has all but rejected the old idea of 

 faculty training. " No one." says Bernard Shaw, " learns to do 

 one thing by doing something else." This remark states aptly 

 the new psychological dictum which is to the effect that 

 there is no evidence that the power of reasoning, cultivated 

 through, say, mathematics or classics, " transfers '" or " flows 

 over " to the affairs of everyday life. In fact, say the psycho- 

 logi.sts, there is e.xpermiental evidence to the contrary. We are 

 even told nowadays that the cultivation of the memory in one 

 direction does not guarantee that there will be retentiveness in 

 other directions. Dr. Roberts may know the name of every star 

 in the firmament. Professor \\'ager, like Solomon, may know 

 the names of every tree, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the 

 hyssop that springeth out of the wall. Others among our mem- 

 bers may know, again like Solomon, all beasts, fowl, creeping 

 things and fishes — and yet they may forget to post their wives' 

 letters. 



Mr. W. P. \\'elpton, lecturer on education in the University 

 of Leeds, in a book nublished last month, says : — 



'■ There are many who are doubtful about incUiding utilitarian work 

 in their conception of education. The very mention of utility gives their 

 educational conscience a painful shock. Education to them is the prepara- 

 tion for a cultural spiritual life in which 'bread and butter' work finds no 

 place. The term ' manhood." of course, is frequently mentioned in their 

 educational theory, Init it is an emasculated manhood, divorced from all 

 concerns of daily toil. What is such manhood worth ? What appeal to 

 virile youth can a manhood have that is unsullied l\v the taint of utility. 

 that is dissociated from those activities that every boy of the middle and 

 working classes is looking forward to during adolescence as the essential 

 and distinctive work of man's estate." 



Why do many boys leave school so early ? Frequently it is, 

 of coiu'se. from economic necessity. More often it is because 

 they see no connection between school and reality, at a time of 

 life when reality is beginning to appeal to them. School is 

 nothing to them but c-n enforced contact with the unreality of 

 books ; and they leave as soon as they persuade their parents to 

 let them. Every boy towards the end of the primary school 

 course experiences what I might call a " vocational itch." He 

 wants to be doing, or, at least, preparing for the real things of 

 real life. This healthy instinct — for it is healthy — persists 

 throughout the secondary school course, but there it is held in 

 check by the knowledge that the objective of the secondary 



