550 



NATURE 



\Oct. 28, 1875 



of a crammer at eight years old, that at thirteen he may 

 turn out Latin verses as a Buddhist prayer-mill turns out 

 prayers, and may manifest, as a distinguished head- 

 master has lately said, to the eye of a teacher searching 

 for intelligence, thoughtfulness, promise, intenseness, " a 

 stupidity which is absolutely appalling." His scholarship 

 won, he is pledged to pursue a course whose benefits are 

 tangible and its evil consequences remote. The Univer- 

 sities have stamped upon all the schools one deep cer- 

 tainty, that for a boy to be " all round," as it is called, is 

 the irremissible sin ; that a schoolmaster who teaches 

 with reference to intellectual growth and width of culture 

 sacrifices thereby all hope of the distinctions which make 

 a school famous and increase its numbers. If a classical 

 scholarship is desired, science and mathematics are 

 abandoned : nay, the palm of literary excellence 

 is conceded even to men ignorant of the noblest 

 literature in the world, their own birthright and in- 

 heritance, and knowing less of the history and structure 

 of the English language than a fourth form boy knows 

 of Greek. If mathematical success is aimed at, Hterature 

 and science are ignored ; if the few science scholarships 

 existing tempt candidates from any of "the thirteen schools 

 which possess a laboratory," mathematics in part and 

 literature altogether must be given up. It would be waste 

 of words to point out the fatal tendency of this separative 

 process ; to show how mere linguistic training needs the 

 rationalising aid of scientific study, or how exclusive 

 science hardens and materialises without the refining 

 society of literature ; yet such divorce is inevitably due 

 not to the convictions of schoolmasters, not to the in- 

 fluence of parents, not to the prepossessions of the public, 

 but to the irresistible force of the University system, which 

 makes nairowness of intelligence and imperfect knowledge 

 the only avenues to distinction or to profit. 



It is true that an attempt to alter this involves little 

 short of a revolution ; but by all accounts a revolution is 

 at hand. It is not for nothing that a parliamentary in- 

 vestigation into the expenditure of college endowments 

 should have been supported by members of the colleges 

 themselves, or that a proposal to distribute college scholar- 

 ships and exhibitions by a central authority in accordance 

 with the results of the leaving-examination should have 

 emanated from eminent university teachers. For it 

 cannot be too strongly urged that college scholarships 

 stand on very different ground from university prizes or 

 degrees. It is easy for Parliament to lay down rules 

 which shall control the latter once for all ; it is not easy 

 to bind the actions of some forty different foundations, 

 each electing its own scholars according to its own 

 idiosyncrasies, or in obedience to the changing wills of 

 bodies in a perpetual state of flux. It may still be 

 audacious, but it is no longer novel, to suggest that, 

 supposing future legislation to retain the college scholar- 

 ships at all, they should be awarded by the authority of 

 Government, in strict connection with leaving-exami- 

 nations which Government shall conduct, and in reward 

 not of special but of general proficiency. For this the 

 scheme of the Commissioners virtually contends ; into 

 regions beyond this the Report before us necessarily does 

 not enter. 



It will be seen that we accept, and recommend all 

 teachers to accept, the scheme of the Commissioners 



unreservedly as a working basis of educational improve- 

 ment. It may not be ideally perfect ; it may invite oppo- 

 sition on points of detail ; but it is the resultant of all the 

 intellectual forces which have hitherto been brought to 

 bear upon the subject ; and while agreeing with all its 

 witnesses on the principle that wide general training 

 should precede specialisation of study, it attains extreme 

 simplicity of arrangement by allotting the first of these 

 to the Schools and the'lastjto the Universities. Do not let 

 us forget that the cry which has arisen hitherto from all 

 the head-masters on the point of scientific teaching has 

 been a cry for [guidance ; for commanding and intelligent 

 leadership; for authoritative enlightenment as to the 

 relative value and the judicious sequence of scientific sub- 

 jects ; for information as to text-books, apparatus, teachers. 

 For the 'first time this cry is met by an oracle whose 

 authority no one will question, and whose completeness of 

 delivery all who study its utterances will appreciate. 

 Schoolmasters anxious to teach science, and doubtful how 

 to set about it, will meet all the facts which can enlighten 

 them in the Appendices to the Report. They will find 

 lists of accredited text-books, specimens cf examination 

 papers, varieties of school time-tables, priced catalogues 

 of apparatus, syllabi of lectures and experiments, bota- 

 nical schedules and tables, plans and descriptions of 

 laboratories, workshops, m.useums, botanic gardens ; pro- 

 grammes and reports of school scientific and natural 

 history societies. They will learn how costly a temple 

 could be built to Science at Rugby, and how modestly 

 it could be housed at Taunton. They will see how 

 Mr. Foster teaches physics, how Mr. Hale teaches 

 geography, how Mr. Wihon teaches Erdkiinde. And they 

 will accept all this as coming from men who have a right 

 to speak, and who wield an experience such as has not 

 been amassed before. On any legislative change which 

 impends over the system and the endowments of the 

 higher English education, the body of scientific opinion 

 is strong enough, if united, to impress its own convic- 

 tions ; disunion alone can paralyse it. All who feel the 

 discredit of past neglect, its injury to our national intel- 

 lect, and its danger to our national prosperity, will do well 

 to support by unqualified adhesion the first attempt that 

 has been made to probe its causes, and the first consistent 

 and well-considered scheme that has been put forth for its 

 removal, W. TucKWELL 



DREW'S "yUMMOO AND KASHMIR" 

 The Jwnmoo and Kashmir Territories. A GeoQ^raphical 

 Account. By Frederick Drew, F.R.G.S., F.G.S., Asso- 

 ciate of the Royal School of Mines. (London : Stan- 

 ford, 1 87s.) 

 THE author of this work was for ten years, from 1862? 

 in the service of the Maharaja of Kashmir, 

 his primary duty apparently being the investigation 

 of the mineral resources of the territory. During this 

 period his duties led him to visit many parts of the 

 Maharaja's dominions, and thus he had unusual oppor- 

 tunities of becoming well acquainted with the various 

 districts and peoples under the sway of that ruler. Mr. 

 Drew's previous training had quahfied him to take intelli- 

 gent advantage of his position and opportunities, and 

 the result is the present bulky work, occupying 550 pages, 



