NA TURE 



oj7 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1888. 



MESSRS. GOSCHEN AND HUXLEY ON 

 ENGLISH CULTURE. 



WITHIN the last few days two noteworthy utterances 

 on the subject of our national prospects have been 

 made by men whose opinions deserve and command at- 

 tention. Prof. Huxley has told us, in the Nineteenth 

 Century, that though the restraints imposed by civilization 

 have altered the methods by which the struggle for existence 

 is carried on, they have not made it less real or less bitter. 



" In a real, though incomplete, degree we have attained 

 the condition of peace which is the main object of social 

 organization ; and it may, for argument's sake, be assumed 

 that we desire nothing but that which is in itself innocent 

 and praiseworthy — namely, the enjoyment of the fruits of 

 honest industry. And lo ! in spite of ourselves, we are 

 in reality engaged in an internecine struggle for existence 

 with our presumably no less peaceful and well-meaning 

 neighbours. We seek peace, and we do not ensue it." 



This application of Darwin's great theory to commer- 

 cial competition is more than a parable. It is the scien- 

 tific explanation of causes which have wrecked civilizations 

 in the past and may wreck them in the future. 



The struggle must go on while men are impelled by the 

 desire for a greater profusion of what sustains life or 

 makes it happier. It often has been, and often is, carried 

 on by the sword, but important victories may be won, and 

 disastrous defeats sustained, by more peaceful means. 

 The discovery of the passage round the Cape transferred 

 the trade of the East from the Mediterranean to London 

 and Amsterdam, and most merchants in the City affirm 

 that the cutting of the Suez Canal has once more deprived 

 England of the advantage of situation. The commercial 

 success of Switzerland, however, proves that national 

 characteristics are at least as important as geographical 

 position, and it is well from time to time to ask if we are 

 doing all that in us lies to train those who shall follow us 

 to maintain what our predecessors have won. 



It is from this point of view that the second of the two 

 utterances we have referred to is specially interesting. 

 Mr. Goschen is at one with Prof. Huxley as to the severity 

 of the struggle in which we are engaged. " Our position 

 in the race of civilized nations," he told the undergraduates 

 at Aberdeen, "is no longer what it was. We had a 

 great start in industries and commerce, and by virtue of 

 that start we attained to a station of unprecedented and 

 long unchallenged supremacy. That supremacy is no 

 longer unchallenged. Others are pressing on our heels. 

 We require greater efforts than formerly to hold our own." 

 Theory and experience agree. The biologist tells us that 

 a state of struggle is the normal condition of man as of 

 all other living beings, and that it must become keener as 

 our numbers augment. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, 

 with his hand on the pulse of English trade, is witness 

 that the strife is growing in severity. 



And this is not all. Mr. Goschen is not satisfied that 

 we have as a nation all the qualifications for success. In 

 a powerful address, which evidently expressed a matured 

 conviction, he insisted that Englishmen lack " intellectual 

 interest" in their work. They regard their business as a 

 necessary evil, from which they delight to sever themselves 

 as often and as completely as possible. They are ignorant 

 Vol. XXXVII. — No. 954. 



of 'the general principles which underlie the conduct of 

 trade, or at least are careless in noting their application 

 to particular instances. It is quite in accord with this 

 that they regard education not so much as an essential to 

 fit a man for the battle of life as an ornament for his 

 leisure hours. And here again Professor and politician 

 are at one. The highest intellectual ideal of our Univer- 

 sity men, says Mr. Goschen in effect, is, or at all events 

 until very lately was, perfection of literary form. Our public 

 schools have aimed chiefly at turning out scholars who could 

 write Latin verse. Our educational systems, echoes Prof. 

 Huxley, were fashioned " to meet the wants of a bygone 

 condition of society. There is a widespread and, I think, 

 well justified, complaint that [our system of elementary 

 education] has too much to do with books and too little 

 to do with things." 



To discuss the whole question thus opened — an indict- 

 ment of University and Board-school alike— would be 

 impossible in the limits of space at our disposal, but 

 regarding it from the point of view in which our readers, 

 like ourselves, are specially interested, we cannot but note 

 a sad corroboration of Mr. Goschen 's words. In no trades 

 could a genuine intellectual interest be more easily 

 excited than in those which involve a knowledge of 

 science, and in none have EngHshmen more conspicuously 

 failed. It is needless to recapitulate stories like that of 

 the discovery of the aniline dyes in an English laboratory, 

 and the wholesale appropriation of the trade to which that 

 discovery gave rise by German manufacturers. The fact 

 is patent and obvious to all who have studied the ques- 

 tion. Science can only be successfully cultivated by men 

 who take an "intellectual interest" in their work ; and in- 

 trades which depend upon a knowledge of science, it is the 

 foreigner who achieves success. Where does the fault 

 lie 1 For the masters and foremen, the colleges which 

 are springing up all over the country may do much. They 

 are, we believe, slowly creating a class of men who have 

 a sound foundation of scientific knowledge, and a genuine- 

 interest in scientific progress. But for the rank and 

 file, for the clerk and artisan, it is upon evening 

 classes that Prof. Huxley thinks we must chiefly rely, 

 and here the main difficulty seems to be to secure good 

 teachers for classes in science and technology. They are, 

 says Prof. Huxley, "not to be made by the processes 

 in vogue at ordinary training colleges." "As regards evening 

 science teaching" — we quote from the Report of the Royal 

 Commissioners on Technical Instruction — "there seems 

 to be nowhere in Europe any organization for systematic 

 evening instruction comparable, as regards the number of 

 subjects taught, and the facilities afforded for the establish- 

 ment of classes, and for the examination of the students' 

 work, with that undertaken by the Science and Art De- 

 partment in this country, and recently supplemented, in 

 the application of science to special industries, by the City 

 and Guilds of London Institute. 



"At the same time it must be borne in mind that in 

 many towns visited by the Commissioners the evening 

 science teaching was conducted by Professors of higher 

 standing than, and of superior scientific attainments to, 

 the ordinary science teachers who conduct courses in 

 some of the largest and most important of the manu- 

 facturing centres of this country." 



Here, then, appears to be at all events ope weak point. 



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