Section D.— ANTHROPOLOGY, ETHNOLOGY, EDUCA- 

 TION, HISTORY, MENTAL SCIENCE, PHILO- 

 LOGY, POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



President of the Section : — I. A. Foote. F.G.S., F.ET.S. 



FRIDAY, JULY ii. 



The President delivered the following address : 

 THE EDUCATION OF TO-MORROW. 



The educational subject which has aroused most interest 

 during the last two years m South Africa is the question of 

 the future University ; but University Education, important 

 though it undoubtedly is. counts as dust in the balance, wdien 

 compared with the education of the whole people. The highly 

 educated few at the top will avail South Africa little, if the mass 

 of the people is lacking in character, intelligence, training, and 

 skill. 



The social and political importance of the children — all the 

 children — has steadily increased in the eyes of those who give 

 serious thought to social and economic questions. The main 

 centre of interest therefore in the educational field should be the 

 iiverage boy, for national education is not organized for the bene- 

 fit of the few who climb to the highest rungs of the ladder. 

 " Education cannot save a nation, but no nation can be saved 

 without it," said Roosevelt. The salvation of South Africa is in 

 progress in the schools. But this saving process may be retarded 

 by influences both outside and inside. In England the interests 

 of the children are sometimes sacrificed to religious differences 

 outside the schools. It is to be hoped that in South Africa the 

 schools will be shielded from the blight of outside political an- 

 mosities. 



But the foes of Education are sometimes those of her own 

 household. Educational authorities are hopelessly divided on 

 many questions inside the school. One writer speaks of educa- 

 tion as " the sport of prophetic persons pointing in a mist." 

 Another, in a chapter headed " The Chaos of the Hour," gives a 

 list of the eccentricities of opinion among educational lecturers 

 and professors. But amid all this uncertainty of thought, the 

 idea is crystallizing that the object of education should be, more 

 directly than it has hitherto been, a preparation for life, and that 

 curricula should be so formed as to have more direct bearing on 

 the future careers of those taught. 



The education of to-morrow will be distinguished by the 

 predominance of the practical. Ruskin was no democrat. He 



