September i6, 191 5] 



NATURE 



cause of the badness of the schools. The schools were 

 bad because the teachers were inadequately educated. 

 "The two capital defects of the teachers of girls," as 

 one of the Assistant Commissioners (Mr. Bryce, now 

 Lord Bryce) reported, '* are these : they have not them- 

 selves been taught and they do not know how to 

 teach." These defects were, of course, partly due to 

 the badness of the schools, and the w-ant of any 

 standard enabling the general public and the teachers 

 themselves to judge of their badness. So far it was 

 a vicious circle. The teachers w'ere badly taught in 

 bad schools and handed on the bad results to the 

 schools they later taught in. But the defects were 

 partly due to the absence of opportunity for them to 

 carry their own education beyond that of their elder 

 pupils— to obtain that higher education w-hich men 

 obtained at the universities. This was pointed out 

 by the Commissioners, and their report acted as a 

 great help and encouragement to those who had 

 already realised the need of higher education for 

 women, and gave an important stimulus to the founda- 

 tion of colleges for women, first at Cambridge and 

 then at Oxford. 



The Commissioners' report also greatly encouraged 

 the movement already in progress for the improvement 

 of girls' schools — the movement in which Miss Buss, 

 oi the North London Collegiate School, and Miss 

 Beale. of the Cheltenham Ladies' College, were among 

 the pioneers, and in which the opening of local exam- 

 inations to girls in 1865 by Cambridge was an impor- 

 tant step. The cautious and anxious way in which 

 the Commissioners refer to the possible effects on girls 

 of more exacting school work and of examinations is 

 amusing to read now. But the report of the Com- 

 mission helped in the progress of girls' education in 

 still another way, for it was instrumental in securing 

 the recovery for the secondary education of girls of 

 endowments which had been allowed to lapse into 

 the service of primary education or to be absorbed 

 by boys; and the division between girls and boys of 

 some endowments not specifically assigned to either 

 sex by the founders. Twenty years ago— in 1895 — 

 the Charity Commissioners in their annual report gave 

 striking testimony to what has been done both in this 

 way and by new endowments : — 



"There is reason to think," they said, "that the latter 

 half of the nineteenth century will stand second in 

 respect of the greatness and variety of the charities 

 created within its duration to no other half-century 

 since the Reformation. And, as to one particular 

 branch of educational endowment, namely, that for 

 the advancement of secondary and superior education 

 of girls and women, it may be anticipated that future 

 generations will look back to the period irnmediately 

 following upon the Schools Inquiry Commission and 

 the consequent passing of the Endowed Schools Acts, 

 as marking an epoch in the creation and application 

 of endowments for that branch of education similar to 

 that which is marked, for the education of boys and 

 men, by the Reformation." 



And the flow of endowments for this branch of 

 education has not ceased since the report just quoted 

 from was written. As examples of it I may remind 

 you of the St. Paul's Girls' School, the extension 

 and rebuilding of Bedford College, University of 

 London, and the large sums given for the domestic 

 department of King's College for Women. 



Though, however, as the Charity Commissioners say, 

 a great impulse was given to girls' education by the 

 report of the Schools Inquiry Commission and the 

 legislation as regards endowments that followed, I 

 think that, even without these, great progress would 

 have been made, though probably less rapidly. The 

 desire for it was already there.' Women^ who had 

 themselves suffered from the previous deficiency were 

 NO. 2394, VOL. 96] 



working ior improvement, and sympathetic men 

 friends were helping. It was becoming more and more 

 obvious not only that women teachers must have 

 adequate opportunities of learning, but that the home 

 no longer in itself afforded suliicient scope for the 

 energies of the daughters, especially unmarried 

 daughters, of the professional classes, and that they 

 must be trained for other useful work. The supply 

 of suitable education followed the demand, as gener- 

 ally happens when the demand is strong and clear. 

 The very mention by the Charity Commissioners in 

 the passage I have quoted of the creation as well as 

 of the application of endowments for the purposes of 

 female education is evidence of the active public 

 interest in the matter. The spirit which has led during 

 the last half-century to the liberal endowment of educa- 

 tion for girls and women from private sources has 

 also led the State, and public bodies generally, to 

 consider girls equally with boys in all public adminis- 

 tration of education or of educational funds. The 

 same spirit has led the newer universities without 

 exception to admit women to their benefits on equal 

 terms with men. And at the same time the creation 

 of some professions and skilled industries — e.g. sick 

 nursing — by women, and the opening to them of 

 others, together with the general movement in favour 

 of professional training for professional work, have 

 led to the great development of opportunities of 

 technical or vocational training for women as well as 

 for men. 



This immense — almost revolutionary — change, as 

 regards educational opportunities for women, which 

 has occurred within the recollection of people of my 

 age, and which must be attributed largely to the 

 efforts of women themselves, is, I think, very striking; 

 and it certainly, as I said, fully justifies the selection 

 of a woman to preside over the Educational Section 

 of the British Association. The apology I feel to be 

 needed is for the particular woman selected. For it 

 is the scfence of education, or at any rate the science 

 and art of education, that this Section presumably 

 exists to advance, and I am no educator, no teacher ; 

 I have made no psychological study of young people 

 from an educational point of view, nor of the different 

 methods of teaching suited to different ages, no 

 statistical investigation of the influence or particular 

 curricula in training the mind or furnishing it with 

 useful information. I have, in short, neither made 

 contributions to the science of education nor practised 

 the art. Any work I have done has been on the 

 administrative side, and I can speak only as a member 

 of the general public- — not as an expert. And what is 

 there new, in a subject so much discussed, for a 

 member of the general public to say? An illuminating 

 address is, I fear, in the circumstances impossible. 



Not that I regard the view of the general public as 

 unimportant. Indeed, I am not sure that a good case 

 could not be made out for having a mere meipber of 

 the general public as such as president from time 

 to time. The general public must, as all will admit, 

 deci'de what is to be spent on education, or, more 

 strictly, on schools and colleges and professional 

 educators, out of both public and private income — 

 it is for them to decide on its relation to other social 

 and family needs. But the concern of the public with 

 education is not merely financial and administrative. 

 It is more intimate than that. For education is not a 

 subject like physics or chemistry on which only an 

 expert has a right to an independent view. There are, 

 no doubt, aspects of it of which only the expert can 

 properly judge, there are experiments in it which only 

 the expert can advantageously try, and there are, of 

 course, departments of it in which the opinion of the 

 expert is indispensable. But without depreciating 

 either the science or art of education, it is clear that 



