EDUCATIONAL CONFLICTS 283 



been able to intrench herself there. Even now, 

 although her ultimate victory is assured, the warfare 

 is by no means at an end. The jealousy of the 

 older regime and the strenuous, if sometimes blatant, 

 belligerency of the reformers have not yet been 

 pacified ; and, from time to time, within our public 

 schools and universities, there may still be heard the 

 growls of opposition and the shouts of conflict. But 

 these sounds are growing fainter. Even the most 

 conservative don hardly ventures nowadays openly to 

 denounce science and all her works. Grudgingly, it 

 may be, but yet perforce, he has to admit the teaching 

 of modern science to a place among the subjects which 

 the university embraces, and in which it grants degrees. 

 In our public schools a ' modern side ' has been intro- 

 duced, and even on the classical side an increasing 

 share of the curriculum is devoted to oral and practical 

 teaching in science. New colleges have been founded 

 in the more important centres of population, for the 

 purpose, more particularly, of enabling the community 

 to obtain a thorough education in modern science. 



The mainspring of this remarkable educational 

 revolution has, doubtless, been the earnest conviction 

 that the older learning was no longer adequate in 

 the changed and changing conditions of our time ; 

 that vast new fields of knowledge, opened up by the 

 increased study of nature, ought to be included in 

 any scheme of instruction intended to fit men for the 

 struggle of modern life, and that in this newer know- 

 ledge much might be found to minister to the highest 

 ends of education. Nevertheless, it must be admitted 

 that utilitarian considerations have not been wholly 



