136 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



main concern should be the education of the youth of the State. It 

 is humiliating to note that owing to party rancour and religious 

 prejudice the greatest legislature on this globe is powerless to deal 

 effectually with its most pressing problem. Looking round the world 

 to-day, there are two countries that are the cynosure of all, on the 

 score of great achievements gained solely by unremitting attention 

 to the thorough education and training of their youth and manhood. 

 One is the great German power on the Continent of Europe, and 

 the other the rising star of Japan in the East. Germany's Wissen- 

 schaft und Fleiss have put her into the saddle so firmly that nothing 

 that has yet appeared can possibly dislodge her. She is closely 

 rivalling the commercial and industrial supremacy of Great Britain, 

 whose petulant and hysterical alarm almost appears symptomatic of 

 decadence. The schoolmaster and the professor have made Germany, 

 and they are as a result not without honour in their own country. 

 They rank with the princes of the land, whereas in some other parts 

 of the world which we wot of, a subaltern of a marching regiment 

 has a status far superior to that of an assistant schoolmaster. The 

 teaching profession will never be on a satisfactory footing until the 

 status and emoluments of its members be such as to command the 

 best breeding and the best brains of a country. 



But the teacher himself should have a preparation adequate to 

 his high calling. Mere academic equipment alone, and an empirical 

 knowledge of educational methods, are not sufficient. Psychology 

 and physiology are as requisite for him as are chemistry and anatomy 

 for the physician. The training of its teachers is as important a 

 concern to a nation as the training of its citizens, for the one is 

 dependent on the other. There is, in my opinion, no branch of 

 instruction of more importance at the present moment than that in 

 the rights and duties that attach to citizenship, and no question is 

 more in the air, both in this Colony and in the Mother Country, 

 than the duty incumbent on every citizen to fit himself for defending 

 it. We still retain the insular prejudice against Continental con- 

 scription, but modern conditions alter with astounding rapidity, and 

 we may yet have to yield to the inevitable, and adopt the principle, 

 by whatever name it may be called. Repentance may come too late 

 when the Goth is at the gate. Any country worth li\'ing in is worth 

 defending, and the sooner we wipe out the reproach that we are 

 only a nation of shopkeepers, with a mercenary army, the better it 

 will be for us. Half a century ago Japan was still what Montgomery 

 wrote long before : 



" Zealous China, strange Japan. 



With bewildered thought I scan, 



They are but dead seas of man." 

 Her national training and her national spirit have put her to-day in 

 the foreground of the great World Powers. Again, I say, " Britons, 

 awake ! " It is, of course, disappointing to know that it was the 

 man who wrote " Dulce et decorum est pro -patria mori,'" who, 

 when a chance was afforded him of doing so, ran away and lived to 



