782 Prof. H. E. Armstrong on Low-Temperature Research 



ledg-e and to inculcate the habit of inquiry has been absolute : nor is 

 this surprising, seeing that almost everywhere they have been in the 

 hands of men whose whole training has taught them to reverence the 

 past rather than to gaze into the future. As a nation we are proved 

 to be strangely lacking in foresight and most narrow in our outlook. 

 But this may be an acquired state, not congenital. And as, in the 

 past, our schools have been in the hands of men who have little desire 

 for progress, we must at least make the experiment of placing them 

 under the control of persons who wdll seek to develop a system more 

 in harmony with the times, whereby our innate disabilities may be 

 minimised, if not overcome. There will be no progress so long as the 

 clerical head-master is retained : being pledged to accept certain 

 dogmas, his mind is necessarily unscientific and cannot be open. The 

 advocate of classical study, who regards these as all sufficient and 

 superior to every other, is in a very similar position — even worse, 

 because he is under no professional obligation and the mere creature 

 of habit. 



The case for immediate reform is absolute. The development of 

 scientific appliances during the war, the many directions in which 

 scientific knowledge has been of avail, have led the public suddenly 

 to become alive to the need of developing scientific habits of thought 

 and of utilizing scientific knowledge to the full. It is realized that 

 the industrial if not the social future of the country is largely a 

 question of the extent to which we can make practical use of scientific 

 ability. Experience seems to prove, however, that this type of 

 ability is a very special and rare form : on this account, it is impera- 

 tive that those who are gifted with scientific attributes should, as 

 far as possible, be recognized at an early age : so that their talents 

 may be developed, not obscured ; that they may be directed into, 

 not diverted from, the path of inquiry and their apathy overcome. 



Faraday, a century ago, with wonderful perspicacity, considering 

 his youth, cautioned his fellow-members of the Philosophical Society 

 against allowing apathy to prevail : our cry to-day must be the 

 same ; apathy is clearly at the root of most of our difficulties. 



The youthful philosopher, however, though professing optimism, 

 could not but be logical and recognize the rocks ahead ; for after 

 saying — 



" Whatever be the reason, the melancholy truth is evident, that 

 we are fit for the noblest purposes but that we fulfil them not," 

 he ends on a note of pessimism : — 



" In pursuing the analogy in my own mind of this general 

 influence [of inertia] to which both matter and mind are subjected, I 

 was led to a conclusion respecting mental inertia, which, though I 

 have no reason to doubt, I should be fearful of uttering on my own 

 authority alone. I will therefore put it in the form of a query ; . . . 

 Inertia has a sway as absolute in natural philosophy over moving 



