[rAi.coxER] CONFLICT OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 237 



are the truly practical people, as has been proved to the hilt in this 

 war, for scientists have thought to good purpose and have rendered 

 the highest service to manufacturers and men of business in the 

 present emergency. Nor will the end of the war usher us into indolent 

 ease; we shall have to think harder than ever in order to solve the 

 problems that will then confront us. These problems will not be 

 entirely economic; we shall not drop back into listlessness after our 

 great awakening in industrial affairs which this war has produced, 

 but more than that, we shall not be allowed to forget that the questions 

 that move human society most mightily are other than those that 

 deal with the technique of trades and professions. The foundations 

 of education underlie these superstructures. And it will be necessary 

 to insist upon this fact, for though the public has paid homage of late 

 to the achievements of science it is doubtful whether this means a 

 real change of heart as to the meaning and value of education. It 

 will continue to pay this homage with all the more outward consent 

 because scientists have demonstrated during the war what wonderful 

 results their methods can accomplish, and the "efficiency" of Germany 

 has been placarded before our eyes. But not a few among those of 

 highest rank in science fear lest in the very success of the applications 

 of science the true essence of science may evaporate, and lest the dis- 

 interested idealism, which in the laboratory stimulates investigation 

 for the pure love of discovery and the advancement of knowledge, 

 may vanish through the windows of the factory in alarm at the noise 

 of its practical applications. At their best scientists and humanists 

 are alike idealists. When the former professes to be "a guardian of a 

 spiritual method from which flows knowledge" the latter may welcome 

 a fellow-toiler at another wing of the educational fabric who no less 

 than himself is a partner in the erection of a structure the several 

 parts of which constitute a harmonious whole. 



Let us not lose sight of this fact in the controversy as to the 

 relative amounts of science and classics which should be required in a 

 curriculum and the time at which science should be introduced. This- 

 is in truth a secondary problem, for provided agreement exists as to 

 the aim of education, experience, that approved teacher, will guide 

 humanists and scientists, who live in the spirit and not by the letter, 

 into a satisfactory solution of a problem unsolvable by men who stand 

 apart and fight for their own hand. Together they must proclaim 

 to a world, dull-hearted if not unrepentant, the gospel of true educa- 

 tional principle, which like all truth is so difficult to interpret that few 

 there are who get beyond its rudiments.- In striking confirmation 

 of this view I take these words from an article in the Times (Feb. 23 

 1917), by an officer who was wounded on the Somme. 



