August 4, 192 1] 



NATURE 



707 



Education and World Citizenship. 



The Salvaging of Civilisation. By H. G. Wells. 

 Pp. 202. (London : Cassell and Co., Ltd.) 

 75. 6d. net. 



A BOOK by Mr. Wells, and especially a book 

 on education, is always important. "The 

 Salvaging of Civilisation" is no exception. Part 

 of the book has already been published as a separ- 

 ate essay, part of it consists of lectures to an 

 American audience, and a third part was doubt- 

 less prepared for the present volume; but it all 

 fits together, because it all belongs to Mr. Wells's 

 remarkably clear and orderly thought. 

 • In his "Outline of History" Mr. Wells has 

 sketched, in amazingly firm lines, the uncertain 

 origins of our race. In the present book he pre- 

 sents, with the same firm touch, our equally un- 

 certain future. It would be tempting to compare 

 Mr. Wells as historian with Mr. Wells as 

 prophet, for this is a prophetic book. It is con- 

 cerned with the purpose and future of mankind, 

 but with the distant, rather than with the imme- 

 diate, future. Mr. Wells has gone scouting far 

 ahead of those whose principal concern is with 

 the next step towards international co-operation 

 and world citizenship. In this volume he tells us 

 what he has seen of the distant goal, but he has 

 little to say of the first practical steps towards it. 

 One thing, however, he is sure about. If the 

 goal is ever to be reached, it is education that 

 will get us there. "The task ... is not primarily 

 one for the diplomatists and lawyers and poli- 

 ticians at all. It is an educational one." 



It is true that thought tends always to end in 

 action, and it follows that deeds are the ultimate 

 {and ideas only the intermediate) product of a 

 system of education. The universities, for ex- 

 ample, because of their increasing concern with 

 applied science, especially during the war, are 

 realising that their business is not only to dis- 

 cover and to disseminate knowledge, but also to 

 see that practical effect is given to it. The prac- 

 tical effect here in question is no less than the 

 political reconstruction of the world, so that, as 

 Mr. Wells acknowledges, politicians, as well as 

 educators, have a part to play ; but " world-wide 

 educational development and reform are the neces- 

 sary preparations for and the necessary accom- 

 paniments of a political reconstruction of the 

 world. The two are the right and left hands of 

 the same thing. Neither can effect much without 

 the other." But in the beginning, and for most 

 of the way, it is the educator rather than the poli- 

 tician that plays the title-rdZe in Mr. Wells's out- 

 line of history yet to be. 



If, then, the end of education, like the end of 

 NO. 2701, VOL. 107] 



thought itself, is action, we are not to be edu- 

 cated passively to imagine, but actively to seek, 

 the ideal future for mankind ; and our immediate 

 purpose must be "to find release from the conten- 

 tious loyalties and hostilities of the past which 

 make collective world-wide action impossible at 

 the present time, in a world-wide common vision 

 of the history and destinies of the race." This 

 purpose is to be central and dominant in the out- 

 look that is to result from Mr. Wells's scheme of 

 education. (We remark parenthetically that Mr. 

 Wells's recognition of the supreme importance of 

 purpose in the make-up of character might illus- 

 trate, if further examples were needed, how 

 closely many of Mr. Wells's views accord with 

 much that is best in modern thought on educa- 

 tion. But there are some of Mr. Wells's opinions 

 that would not obtain assent from those who are 

 most competent to judge. Thus residence and 

 tutorial superintendence were considered by New- 

 man to be of the first importance in university 

 education, but Mr. Wells thinks that an under- 

 graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, has "no 

 very marked advantage " over an evening student 

 in a northern industrial town.) 



Mr. Wells further recognises that, to get things 

 done, there must be unity of purpose among large 

 numbers of men and women, as well as strong 

 purposes dominating each of them individually. 

 " It is manifest that unless some unity of purpose 

 can be achieved in the world . . . the history of 

 humanity must presently culminate in some sort 

 of disaster." But the unity which Mr. Wells 

 rightly demands for the central purposes of men 

 and women the world over, he would also have 

 for a large part of their outlook on the universe. 

 Unity of outlook upon natural science, upon his- 

 tory, and upon Hterature, as well as upon the aim 

 and purpose of human progress, he would secure 

 bv means of common text-books^ — "The Bible of 

 CiviUsation " — always being revised, but always 

 and everywhere in use. Many of his readers will 

 find this suggestion revolting; but they would be 

 ill-advised to reje.ct it without the most careful 

 scrutiny. From many points of view it is far in 

 advance of modern practice. Middle-aged students 

 of mathematics will gratefully remember what 

 Clerk Maxwell called 



Hard truths made pleasant 



By Routh and Besant 



For one who hasn't 

 Got too much sense. 



The codification of elementary applied mathe- 

 matics by these great Cambridge coaches enor- 

 mously facilitated the progress of most students 

 who would otherwise have had to depend upon 

 comparatively incompetent teachers and "over- 



