l86 



NATURE 



[May 26, 192 1 



The great problem in connection with oil fuel is 

 that of supply. It has been estimated that the 

 world has coal enough to last it for another five 

 hundred years. Nobody can estimate how much 

 oil we possess, for no one knows. So far as Great 

 Britain is concerned, we now- have to import most 

 of our stocks of this fuel, and for the time being 

 the supplies are equal to the demand. The shale 

 oils obtained in various parts of the United King-- 

 dom are nearly all suitable for fuel, but the yield 

 is very limited. Hopes are entertained that the 

 new field opened in the Fen district will even- 

 tually give large supplies, and it is reported that 

 oil can be obtained there at a cost of 2d. per 

 gallon, as compared with the \od. per gallon 

 for Scotch shale. Whether this hope will be ful- 

 filled or not we must " wait and see." However, 

 judging by prices quoted and reports from oil-pro- 

 ducing centres abroad, supplies available appear to 

 be sufficient for present requirements. How far 

 they would be equal to meeting a greatly extended 

 demand is quite another matter. 



Education as a Science. 



Education and World Citizenship: An Essay 

 towards a Science of Education. By James 

 Clerk Maxwell Garnett. Pp. x + 515. (Cam- 

 bridge: At the University Press, 1921.) 36s. 

 net. 



READERS of Mr. Garnett's papers in the 

 British Journal of Psychology and else- 

 where will open this stately volume expect- 

 ing to find substantial fare, nor will they 

 be disappointed. The book is full of vigor- 

 ous reasoning and independent thought. It 

 is written from a definite point of view, with a 

 definite purpose, which is systematically followed, 

 and it leads to clear-cut conclusions. Its aim is 

 given in its title. It is an attempt to outline a 

 provisional science of education. Mr. Garnett is 

 impressed by the need for an accepted body of 

 scientific principles which will make our educa- 

 tional thought and practice more coherent and 

 efficient. He has therefore made an effort to 

 supply the want, in the modest hope that his 

 attempt may stimulate others to more successful 

 endeavours. The result is one of the few recent 

 discussions of educational theory which deserve 

 to be taken seriously. 



Unlike too many writers, Mr. Garnett knows 

 what he means by a science of education. Science, 

 he tells us, is "an organised body of connected 

 facts graded according to their relative import- 

 ance " (p, 196). Such a body of facts when com- 

 plete constitutes the "endarchy of science," which 

 NO. 2691, VOL. 107] 



is the world of experience scientifically interpreted 

 — " the neat, trim, tidy, exact world which is t|;ie 

 goal of scientific thought." This ideal shapes his 

 conception of the science of education, which is 

 a portion of the complete endarchy of science. 

 It also determines the lines upon which he con- 

 siders education should be organised in practice. 

 The facts upon which a science of education must 

 be based he borrows from psychology, for psycho- 

 logy enables us to formulate "the laws of 

 thought " from which scientific methods of educa- 

 tion can be logically deduced. But the aim of 

 education which must synthesise its methods is 

 not given us by psychology. It depends upon the 

 aim of human life. Unfortunately, the latter aim 

 is still uncertain. We may, however, provision- 

 ally define it in the light of such agreement as 

 exists, and thus develop a tentative science of 

 education which will be a first approximation to 

 the truth, and may serve as a provisional guide in 

 practice. 



Mr. Garnett's pages are so full of matter that 

 points in his argument may easily be overlooked ; 

 but, unless we are mistaken, we have in his con- 

 ception of educational science one of the sources 

 of the dualism which is the great weakness of his 

 book. Speaking roughly, we may say that educa- 

 tion as a normative science must interpret facts 

 in the light of values; but Mr. Garnett gets his 

 facts and his values from different quarters, and 

 as a result they will not mix. His facts remain 

 facts and nothing more, and his values either 

 belong to a world apart from facts, or are 

 merely facts of a certain kind. Thus a man's 

 will is the most valuable thing about him (p. 138) ; 

 but will is unforeseeable, and possesses no quality 

 that characterises its owner except its strength 

 (p. 291). On the other hand, a fact gains value 

 simply by the frequency of its recurrence (p. 217). 

 This dualism is apparent throughout Mr. 

 Garnett's argument. His endarchy of science is 

 essentially a world of facts as such, and prefer- 

 ably of physical facts. Thus it is only unwillingly 

 that he speaks of the mind and its processes. He 

 prefers to speak of the "comparatively simple 

 material aspects of the brain " (p. 8). His first 

 "law of thought," for example, states that, apart 

 from the intervention of the will, our thought 

 activity at any momfent is determined "by the 

 neurones that are excited by the degree of their 

 excitement " (p. 66), which is a rather bold state- 

 ment. The elements of our mental life are "neu- 

 rograms "• — that is, "low resistance paths among 

 the neurones of the brain or among those of other 

 portions of the nervous system " (p. 42). Our 

 purposes, which recent experiment has shown to 

 play so important a part In our thinking, becorne 



