from the Standpoint of Science 35 



tions, but on the social and civic life of the 

 educated ; the nation is thereby strengthen- 

 ing the reserve of trained brains upon which 

 it can draw in a crisis for all sorts of other 

 functions than those of a narrow trade. 

 Brain -stretching fosters an adaptability to 

 new environments. This is something very 

 different to a more complete knowledge of 

 trade processes or to proficiency in a special 

 handicraft. This is a form of education for 

 which the nation may legitimately pay ; it is 

 that which is essential to it in the struggle 

 for existence. 



I am not speaking without some ex- 

 perience. I have been engaged for twenty 

 years in helping to train engineers, and those 

 of my old pupils who are now coming to the 

 front in life are not those who stuck to facts 

 and formulae, and sought only for what they 

 thought would be * useful to them in their 

 profession/ On the contrary, the lads who 

 paid attention to method, who thought more 

 of proofs than of .formulae, who accepted even 

 the specialized branches of their training as 

 a means of developing habits of observation 

 rather than of collecting * useful facts,' these 



32 



