4<iS rrof. H. E. Armstrotu) on Loiv-Tem'peraiare B.esmrch 



but this purely literary education lias somehow left them with a bad 

 handwriting, with very vague notions of spelling and with minds that 

 can find satisfaction in nothing higher than sensational novels. The 

 parent takes refuge in the belief that at least their boys know Latin and 

 Greek ; but this is infinitely far from being the case ; of the vocabulary 

 they possibly know a little but of the grammar less and of the literature 

 nothing at all. It is certain that they will never open a Greek or Latin 

 book again ; and for these paltry and miserable results they have all but 

 sacrificed the happy seed time during which so much might have been 

 accomplished. The evidence of these facts, evidence given by most 

 friendly witnesses, stands in the Commission Eeports undisputed and 

 undisputable. It shows that for many a boy the years of school life are 

 wasted. It is as though he stood in the middle of a boundless plain, 

 waving on every side with golden corn, in the midst of which, trained to 

 despise the sickle as vulgar and the harvest as utilitarian, he had been 

 taught for years to occupy his time in plucking a few jDetals of the scarlet 

 poppies, which are crumpled as he gathers them and which giow rank 

 and flaccid even during the few moments he holds them in his hand. 



" The question then is, not whether the education is to be literary or 

 scientific but whether it is to be scientific or nil ; the struggle is not 

 between science and literature but between something and nothing, 

 between science and no science, between intellectual culture and its 

 almost total absence. It is a melancholy fact but it is a fact, that at 

 present we struggle almost in vain against the two potent elements of 

 intellectual progress — extravagant athleticism on the one hand and pro- 

 miscuous sensation reading on the other, of which the one poisons and 

 efieminates the mind, the other often tasks and overstrains the body ; the 

 one absorbs the strenuous ambition which might have been devoted to 

 nobler objects, the other wastes the inestimable leisure which might else 

 have been rich in mental and moral benefits for our country and for 

 mankind. 



" What, then, is to be done ? Some would say, ' Substitute for your 

 simulacrum of Greek and Latin an education which, if less pretentious, 

 shall at least be real and sound, in modern languages, in literature and, 

 above all, in science.' But it would be a great disaster if there were 

 supposed to be any antagonism between science nnd literature— both are 

 indispensal)Ie, each of them is an absolutely essential factor in an educa- 

 tion pretending to be liberal. Yet our present s\stem is neither literary 

 nor scientific, whereas it is perfectly certain that it might be both." 



Those who are conversant with our educational system are only 

 too well aware that the indictment laid by the late Dean forty years 

 ago accurately represents the position at the present day. Our 

 *' system " is still neither literary nor scientific — the fact is, we have no 

 system : yet we have experience enough to frame one, if we could 

 only agree to work together and to utilise our knowledge — if we 

 could only establish the necessary organisation. Our present tendency, 

 however, is to cast experience to the winds. 



" The Greeks were themselves illiterate," said the Rev. Mr. 

 Farrar ; " they knew little of scorch, but they made up for it by thought 

 ■ — by that power of deep reflection which makes facts luminous with 



