330 



NATURE 



[February 3, 1898 



water in the beak excite a congenital response, while the sight 

 of water fails to do so ? I believe it is because under natural 

 conditions the chicks peck at the water in imitation of the 

 mother, who thus shields them from the incidence of natural 

 selection. Under these circumstances there is no opportunity 

 for the elimination of those who fail to respond at the mere 

 sight of water, and consequently no selective survival of those 

 who do thus respond. But though the hen can lead her young 

 to peck at the water, she cannot teach them the essential move- 

 ments of beak, mouth, and gullet, which are necessary for the 

 complex act of drinking. In this matter she cannot shield 

 them from the incidence of natural selection. Those which, on 

 pecking the water, failed to respond to the stimulus by drink- 

 ing, would assuredly die of thirst and be eliminated. The rest 

 would survive and transmit the congenital instinctive tendency. 

 Thus it would seem that when natural selection is excluded a 

 special mode of behaviour has not become congenitally linked 

 with a visual stimulus ; but, when natural selection is in oper- 

 ation, this behaviour has become so linked with a touch or taste 

 stimulus in the beak. Similarly in the case of the pheasants 

 and the dog. The parent birds warn the young of his approach, 

 and thus prevent the incidence of natural selection. Hence 

 there is no instinctive response to the sight of a terrier. 



No doubt there are many cases of complex behaviour, seem- 

 ingly instructive, which are difficult to explain by natural 

 selection alone, and which have the appearance of being due to 

 the inheritance of acquired habits. I have, however, elsewhere 

 suggested that acquired modifications may, under the conditions 

 of natural selection, foster the development of "coincident" 

 variations of like nature and direction, but having their origin in 

 the germinal substance. But into a consideration of this hypo- 

 thesis I cannot here enter. Without assuming a dogmatic 

 attitude, I am now disposed to regard the direct transmission 

 of acquired modes of behaviour as not proven. 



Thus we come back to the position, assumed at the outset, 

 that heredity plays a double part It provides, through natural 

 selection or otherwise, an outline sketch of relatively definite 

 behaviour, racial in value ; it provides also that necessarily- 

 indefinite plasticity which enables an animal to acquire and to 

 utiUse experience, and thus to reach adaptation to the circum- 

 stances of its individual life. It becomes, therefore, a matter of 

 practical inquiry to determine the proportion which the one kind 

 of hereditary legacy bears to the other. Observation seems to 

 show that those organisms in which the environing conditions 

 bear the most uniform relations to a mode of life that is relatively 

 constant, are the ones in which instinct preponderates over in- 

 telligent accommodation ; while those in which we see the most 

 varied interaction with complex circumstances, show more 

 adaptation of the intelligent type. And the growth of individual 

 plasticity of behaviour, in race-development, would seem to be 

 accompanied by a disintegration of the definiteness of instinctive 

 response, natural selection favouring rather the plastic animal 

 capable of indefinitely varied accommodation than the more 

 rigid type whose adaptations are congenitally defined. 



I have dealt, it will be observed, only with the lower phases 

 and earlier manifestations of intelligence. Its higher develop- 

 ment, and the points in which it differs from the more complex 

 modes of human procedure, offer a wide and difficult field for 

 careful observation and cautious interpretation. I have recently 

 attempted further investigations in this field ; but they concern 

 rather the relation of intelligence to higical thought than that of 

 instinct to intelligence, which forms the subject of this discourse. 



THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE ON 

 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 

 AT Eastbourne on Saturday last the Duke of Devonshire 

 addressed the students of the art and technical classes, and 

 in the course of his remarks he referred to educational questions 

 of more than local interest. His remarks upon proprietary and 

 private schools call attention to what is probably the weakest 

 link in our educational system. In order to qualify for an 

 assistant mastership in an elementary school, it is necessary for 

 a teacher to serve a term of years, during which period his 

 knowledge of the theory and practice of teaching is periodically 

 tested ; but in our private and proprietary schools any one can 

 be a teacher, whether he possesses qualifications or not. In 

 other words, the elementary school teacher must prove his 

 efficiency, while the teacher in the middle-class schools— the 

 respectable proprietary establishments — may or may not be 



NO. 1475 VOL. 57] 



competent to impart instruction. The result is that some of our 

 higher-grade primary schools are the best organised and equipped 

 institutions for teaching elementary science in the country, while 

 the science which figures in the prospectuses of many private 

 schools is entirely unworthy of the name. Unfortunately, the 

 sons of artisans and shopkeepers are compelled to leave school 

 at an early age, and so cannot take full advantage of the facilities 

 provided by the higher-grade schools. On the other hand we 

 have the private schools where the age of leaving is later, but 

 there the facilities for scientific instruction are inadequate. The 

 general result is that only a small proportion, either of the artisan 

 class or of the sons of commercial men, receive technical in- 

 struction. It is, of course, not suggested that all private schools 

 are inefficient, but a large proportion of them are, when con- 

 sidered as schools in which science is taught ; and the Duke of 

 Devonshire has done a public service in pointing out the need 

 of subjecting them to some system of supervision. 



The following is abridged from the Thnes report of the Duke 

 of Devonshire's address : — 



Proi'RIEtary and Privatk Schools. 



I suppose that there are in Eastbourne a larger number of 

 proprietary and private schools than in almost any other town 

 of the same size in the country. It would be extremely interest- 

 ing to have full information as to what these schools are doing 

 and the nature of the instruction which they provide. I doubt very 

 much whether there is any one here, or whether there is any- 

 body anywhere, who has the means of forming or giving a com- 

 plete account of what the proprietary and private schools of any 

 particular district in the country are doing, or what is the nature 

 of the instruction which they are providing. That appears to 

 me to point to the need for some better organisation of education 

 than we at present possess. Of the students who are receiving 

 their education in the numerous proprietary schools here and in 

 other similar schools in the country there are many, no doubt, 

 whose future would not be dependent upon their own exertions, 

 and who are only educating themselves, or being educated by 

 their parents, to make them good citizens and cultivated people ; 

 but there must be a very large number in addition who are 

 looking forward to entering into some profession or another, or 

 into some branch of industry or of commerce. And to the 

 parents of such students it would be of immense value and 

 importance to have full knowledge and full information upon the 

 character of the education which is being given at these pro- 

 prietary and private schools. Some of them, no doubt, are 

 more efficient ; some are less efficient than others ; but, even 

 amongst those which are the most efficient, there must be some 

 which are capable of giving a more valuable hint and direction 

 of instruction to those who are going to enter upon industrial 

 and commercial pursuits than those which may be in other 

 directions equally efficiently organised ; and it would be of the 

 very greatest importance, in my opinion, to the schools them- 

 selves, to the parents, and to the community at large if means 

 were at our disposal to know more of the manner in which 

 these schools are organised and of the work which they are 

 doing. 



Technical Education Abroad. 



Foreign nations have anticipated us to a very great extent in 

 realising the close connection which exists between education 

 and industrial and commercial success. That is a fact which is 

 being brought home to us almost daily in various directions of 

 the increasing competition to which we find ourselves in every 

 quarter exposed. It is a subject which, as your chairman has 

 reminded you, I have frequently discussed on previous occasions, 

 and I am not going to enter into it at any length again to-night. 

 I will only say that the urgency of this question is now recog- 

 nised by those who are educational experts or educational 

 enthusiasts. The urgency of the question is coming to be 

 recognised by practical men of business. Only the other day 

 the education authority of Manchester sent out a deputation of 

 its members to ascertain what provision was being made in 

 Germany and Switzerland for the industrial and commercial 

 education of the people. They published a most valuable 

 report, in which they spoke almost with dismay of the complete- 

 ness with which the education of those who were leading and 

 directing the manufacturing and commercial enterprise of those 

 countries was being organised ; and they urged upon their 

 fellow-citizen.s, in the very strongest terms, that they should not 

 allow themselves to be left behind in the race, but that they 

 should make an effort for the organisation of the education of 



