SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THE CHILD. 773 



Are we aiming at breaking through these brazen walls'? 

 Our civilisation has very much that is unnatural. It requires 

 little in the way of muscular development, and makes no imperative 

 demand for a body of the utmost vigour. The use of machinery is 

 reducing the necessity for muscular work in many departments of 

 life; but bodily development is absolutely necessary" if we are to get 

 the best brain work. Gaiter, in his work, " English ISIen of Science ; 

 their Nature and Nurture," shows us that the great scientists were 

 men of remarkable physical powers. Some could walk sixty miles in 

 one day, and others hardly knew what fatigue was. I do not for one 

 mom.ent mean to imply that all our boys are overworked. I refer 

 more specifically to the boys who go through the examination courses. 

 I do say this, that our examination system, in which the pace is set 

 by the university, is incompatible with the best development, physical 

 and mental, of our youth. They are to do less as boys because they 

 are to do more as men. He who overdraws at fourteen goes short at 

 forty. University standards are being raised, and all subordinate ones 

 likewise. Boys are still expected to get through scholarships and the 

 university examinations at the same age as in older days, when the 

 standards of examinations were lower. We are trying to do too much 

 in a given time. We are so obsessed by the idea that all knowledge 

 is good that Ave have not the courage to say of any particular branch 

 of knowledge, '" No, it doe's not matter about that. We want to 

 teach the primary school child eveiything. The child cannot hug 

 the universe." We attempt to teach the minutiae of knowledge, and 

 not the great fundamental impressive truths. The possession of a 

 great idea is worth the knowledge of a thousand trifling facts. To 

 liear the wind make music or to hear the music of the spheres 

 is better than to know the technicalities of musical theoiy. A 

 Taird's-eye view of the great peaks in a panorama of the world's 

 history is better than a knowledge of the changes in party govern- 

 ment. Minutiae are all right in their place, but the question is what 

 shall a boy take away with him from school? To understand the 

 great idea of evolution is better than to understand the anatomy of 

 a butterfly. To know that trees have " tongues" is better than to 

 know their botanical names. English literature, I hold, is not for 

 youth a good subject for examination. The beauty of literature is 

 felt in the blood and the heart, and such feelings are difficult 

 to express, most of all by our youth. Feeling outruns the power 

 of expression, and to be compelled to express kills the emotion. 

 A cram in literature for an examination is one way of hardening a 

 youth's heart. Youth should be supplied with great ideas and great 

 ideals, and all literature should be ransacked for such. Books of golden 

 deeds and biographies of knightly men should be available in abund- 

 ance, but they are not — at anj'" rate not in Brisbane. 



We are not well disposed to admit that the deplorable facts in 

 our civic life are the results of our educational systems. Why not 

 admit these as well as the good results, so that we may know what 

 we are fighting against, and what to avoid? We regard with fearful 

 complacency things which blight our civic life. Half of our Statutes 

 would be unnecessary if men were educated properly and really honest 

 from within, or were allowed to be honest — honest enouofh for 



