1897. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 291 



members of council, instead of writing abusive letters, devoted their 

 powers of organisation to the invention of a method of voting that 

 should give the nominees of the council and of the fellows an equal 

 chance, and should not result in so many spoiled ballot-papers. 



The Army Examinations and Science in Public Schools. 



The regulations recently issued by the War Office authorities 

 relating to the examination of candidates for the Army are of such a 

 nature as virtually to render it compulsory that all candidates should 

 offer themselves for examination in some branches of Physical Science. 

 Without expressing unqualified approval of the entire scheme, we 

 welcome this recognition of the educational claims of scientific 

 subjects. It is obvious that not infrequently a knowledge of physics, 

 chemistry, or geology may be of practical value to the Army officer, 

 and thus indirectly to the nation that he serves. The institutions 

 most affected by the new regulations are the Public Schools, for these 

 will be obliged to provide, as indeed some already do, scientific 

 teaching for their army-classes, unless they are prepared to lose all 

 boys who select a military career. 



We have lately made inquiries at most of the Public Schools 

 with a view to ascertaining their methods of teaching science, and 

 this leads us to speak not only of their arrangements for army-classes 

 but also of their entire system. At most schools special arrange- 

 ments are made for army-candidates, and they are accordingly 

 prepared with a view to particular examinations. With regard to the 

 remainder of the boys the provision seems to be utterly inadequate. 

 The Public Schools are dominated to an excessive degree by the 

 classical training; their Head-masters have failed to realise the value 

 of science as an educational instrument, while in many cases the 

 arrangement of the science classes and the number of hours devoted 

 by them to scientific work are such as to render the efforts of the 

 masters nugatory. In short, science is admitted to the Public 

 Schools merely as a sop to satisfy the demands of a public opinion 

 which as yet is too feeble to effect any reforms of value. 



We find that at Winchester, Shrewsbury, Charterhouse, 

 Tonbridge, and in part at Eton, Cheltenham and Uppingham, the 

 science classes are arranged according to the aggregate of marks in 

 all subjects, classics, of course, being of greatest weight. Thus, in 

 the worst cases, no matter how incompetent a boy may be in science, 

 if he is a good classic he is hurried up to the senior science division of 

 the school. It is almost inevitable that under such conditions every 

 science class should contain boys of all degrees of ability and its 

 opposite. Thus, the possibility of a rational course of science 

 teaching, beginning with the veriest elements and proceeding to a 

 fairly advanced stage, is absolutely prohibited. The effect produced 

 on any of our classical Head-masters by a term's work with some 

 ' ' Y 2 



