230 



NATURE 



[February 23, 1922 



agreement, both in principle and detail, with those 

 recommended by the present Committee. 



There is little necessary connection between the 

 study of the humanities and the teaching of lan- 

 guages ; the latter properly falls under the head 

 of a science, and the traditional connection arises 

 from both having formerly been the province of 

 one group of men. Before the days of the con- 

 flict of studies, the time devoted to Latin and Greek 

 was far greater than was needed for the languages 

 themselves, and the remainder was well spent on 

 Literse Humaniores. The present Report deals 

 admirably with the question of the scientific and 

 grammatical study of language; sections 254 to 266 

 are well worth reading in their entirety ; but we 

 are not concerned at the moment with the training 

 of language specialists ; we are, however, deeply 

 interested in the problem of transferring to the 

 teacher of English the functions formerly performed 

 by the classics master in connection with the humani- 

 ties. The first requisite for this transfer is to pro- 

 vide teachers adequately cultured ; the next is to 

 ensure the right use by them of the material avail- 

 able. 



The Committee, therefore, had to decide what 

 are the ri^ht methods of teaching; it also had to 

 consider what modifications in these methods are 

 appropriate to public elementary and preparatory 

 schools, continuation, commercial, and technical 

 schools, teachers' training colleges, and the universi- 

 ties ; in addition^ it felt constrained to prove that 

 too little importance at present attaches to the 

 study of English in all these institutions. Hence 

 the Report covers so much ground that some search 

 is needed to discover the teaching methods advo- 

 cated. 



A few extracts may, however, give some idea of 

 the Committee's views. In commending recent pro- 

 gress it says : 



" Exercises in both descriptive and imaginative 

 writing, as well as practice in verse composition, 

 in letter writing, and in dialogue, are common in 

 the early stages. Many interesting experiments 

 have been tried with a view to encouraging self- 

 expression. These include debates, improvised dia- 

 logues, and dramatic scenes, and ten-minute lectures ( 

 by pupils, in class as well as in out-of-school 

 hours." " There is a far wider range of reading 

 than formerly. . . . Rapid and enjoyable reading 

 is no longer an exceptional thing ; the class them- 

 selves take more part in the lesson and express 

 their likes and dislikes freely." ..." Not less 

 important than the art of writing is the art of 

 speaking, which includes practice not only in 

 framing questions and answers, but also in reading 

 aloud, recitation, debating, and drama." "A 

 reasonable study of phonetics by the teacher should 

 NO. 2730, VOL. 109] 



enable him to give guidance and to correct some of 

 the most common and jarring mistakes of pronuncia- 

 tion." " The rendering of literature by the voice 

 is not a mere matter of mechanical correctness, but 

 is the final result of sympathetic entry into the 

 spirit of the writer, and without it no education in 

 letters can be complete." 



The interest in lessons on such lines need never 

 flag; but a note of warning is sounded. Since the 

 reading and writing of English have an intimate and 

 personal touch for the Englishman, they form a 

 perfect medium for a humane education, but there 

 is a possibility that an enthusiast may press this 

 advantage too far and thr.ust himself unbidden into 

 an inner sanctuary of the adolescent soul. It is 

 significant that the Committee has received warning 

 of this danger from headmasters of public schools, 

 and not from other teachers, for a man who works 

 in boarding-schools is apt to know more of the real 

 boy and his reticences than the master in a day 

 school. Hesitation on these grounds differs funda- 

 mentally from the objections of the conservative 

 teacher whose sense of the ludicrous is stimulated 

 by the thought of his class criticising a great author 

 or acting scenes from a play, or of the disciplin- 

 arian who prefers the rigidity of dullness to the 

 apparent disorder of a vividly interested class, or 

 even of the man who feels that literature would 

 be spoiled for the student by being read in school ; 

 but the Committee is probably right in holding that 

 the danger is not great, and that in any event the 

 gain is worth the danger. 



In fine, to discover a medium of education in the 

 humanities which is applicable to all sorts and con- 

 ditions of Englishmen has been a vexed problem 

 for many years, and the Committee has made an 

 excellent case for leading us from the Abana and 

 Pharpar of the classics to wash in the Jordan of 

 English in order to secure a healthy and truly 

 national system of education. 



Calcium Carbide and the Board of Trade 



What's a Word Worth? 



"'The Question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can 

 make words mean so many different things.' 



"'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which 

 is to be master — that's all.' " 



IT, is written : " A rose by any other name would 

 smell as sweet "; perhaps, yet there are occa- 

 sions when a name may be costly to play with. One 

 of these occurred recently, an amount running into 

 thousands of pounds having, it is said, changed 

 hands in the effort to disestablish the meaning of a 

 name. Called upon to interpret the Act, christened 

 by our Legislature the Safeguarding of Industries 

 Act but more appropriately described as an Act for 



