October i, 1914] 



NATURE 



I ^i 



be there can be no good results if the teachers are 

 cheap; cheap teachers are usually stupid and over- 

 worked. Men in charge of schools and colleges never 

 seem to learn this. Ihe market price must be paid 

 for a capable man. (lo) Fairly good results may be 

 expected from a good teacher, even when he is com- 

 pelled to work on a bad system, but really good results 

 can be obtainable only from a good teacher with a 

 good system. 



I need not go into details about all these principles, 

 but I sho4ld like to dwell presently upon a few of 

 them. At the beginning of this address I spoke of 

 the obstruction to great necessary reform — too much 

 antiquated machinery to "" scrap." Most school- 

 masters will admit the necessity for reform in the case 

 of the average boy, but they say that parents are 

 opposed to the reform. Unbelief in education tor the 

 average man is so general among the higher classes 

 that 1 am afraid we shall have no reform unless some 

 great national disaster causes conversion. There is a 

 lesson for England, and, indeed, for all European 

 races, in the recent history of Japan. The old struc- 

 ture of Japan was in many ways beautiful, but it 

 proved to be without physical -strength. Its extreme 

 weakness proved its salvation. Even the teachers of 

 ancient classics saw that for strength it was necessary 

 to let scientific method permeate the thought of the 

 whole population. And now, at the end of the first 

 chapter of Japan's modern history, we find a nation 

 which can not only defend itself, but which retains all 

 of its spiritual life which was beautiful. Every unit 

 of the population can not only read and write, but it 

 is fond of reading, and its education did not cease 

 when it left school. It is getting an increased love 

 for natural science, so that it can reason clearly ; it is 

 not carried away by charlatans ; it retains its indi- 

 viduality. One result of this is that in time of war 

 Japan has scientific armies. Not only SXf its admirals 

 and generals scientific, but also every officer, every 

 private is scientific. Ever\-thing in the whole country 

 is being developed scientifically, and we Europeans, 

 hag-ridden by pedantry in our schools and universities, 

 refuse to learn an easy lesson. At present we do not 

 even ask what is meant by education or what educa- 

 tion is necessary if a particular boy is to be fitted for 

 his life's work. In 1902, when I was president of 

 Section G, and in opening a discussion on the teach- 

 ing of mechanics at Johannesburg in 1905, I gave 

 my views as to the teaching of a young engineer, but 

 they apply also to the teaching of nearly all boys. 

 These views have been commended by experienced 

 engineers and teachers. To understand me it is first 

 necessary to try to cast away prejudices, and this is 

 especially difficult if one has a pecuniary interest in 

 education. The student of almost any other science 

 than education cares for nothing but the truth ; even 

 when he has committed himself to a theory and his 

 good name or credit is at stake the rule of the game 

 is perfectly well known and must be adhered to. The 

 student must not neglect fact or pervert fact ; he must 

 be quite fair. The student of physical science sees 

 at once whether or not he is olaying the gamq, because 

 the coordinates are few ; there are no complexities, 

 such as we find in our own life problems. This al':o 

 is why the study of physical science is so good in 

 causing boys to reason, for reasoning can only be 

 taught by constant practice on simple matters which 

 one thoroughlv comprehends. Consider a boy's views 

 about ordinary affairs. He is downright. A complex 

 thing must be greatly simplified to him. His paintina" 

 is in black-and-w hite ; there is no delicate shading in 

 his picture. He never sits on the fence ; he is never 

 a trimmer. An historical character is awfully good 

 or awfullv bad, very clever or very stupid. A boy is, 



NO. 2344, VOL. 94] 



in fact, cocksure about everything. He is incapable 

 of reasoning about complex things. And when we trj- 

 to teach him to reason about simple things we must 

 be quite sure that they really are simple to him, that 

 he understands them. For example, many educa- 

 tionists say that the study of geometry is just right 

 for a boy. Well, yes, for 5 per cent, of all boys, boys 

 who can take m abstract ideas. They take to Euclid 

 as a duck takes to water. But for the other 95 per 

 cent, geometry is very hurtful, because unless they 

 continually experiment with rulers and compasses they 

 do not understand what the reasoning is about. In 

 ancient times only very old and exceptionally clever 

 men were allowed to study geometry. VVe now 

 assume that it ought to be an easy study for the 

 average English boy. Generation after generation we 

 stupefy the average English boy with demonstrative 

 geometry, and we call him a duffer so often that he 

 thinks himself a duffer, and even his mother thinks 

 him a duffer, and, inded, we have done our best with 

 geometry and Latin to make him a duffer. Only for 

 his football and cricket, which teach him to reason 

 a little, he would become a duffer. And yet in my 

 opinion if this average boy were properly taught in 

 school he would prove to be ver}- superior to the boy 

 who is usually called clever. The schoolmaster calls 

 a boy clever because he is exactly like what the school- 

 master himself was when a boy ; but I am afraid that 

 I place little value on the schoolmaster's cleverness, 

 whether as a boy or a man. Reasoning can be taught 

 through almost anything that a boy does, but more 

 than all things through his 'experiments in natural 

 science. Formal lessons on reasoning, on logic, are 

 utterly useless, and I mav say that set lessons on 

 almost any subject are utterly useless for the average 

 boy. 



Slilton's poems are greatly praised. Well, T am not 

 going to say a w'ord against the people who talk in 

 public about the most wonderful epic in our language 

 and who never read it ; but how many people have 

 read Milton's magnificent prose works? Milton first 

 taught me the true notion of education, that the 

 greatest mistake is in teaching subjects in water-tight 

 compartments. It is the idea underlving one of the 

 most instructive books ever written, " Sandford and 

 Merton." When teaching a subject, teach all sorts of 

 other subjects as well. If Mr. Barlow's boys were 

 interested in astronomy he showed them stars and 

 planets through a telescope for a night or two, but he 

 gave them no stupefying course on astronomy. He 

 gave them stars and the solar system just as 

 long as they were interested. He used a 

 globe as w^ell as mere maps in teaching them 

 geography and history, but the soul-destroying idea of 

 a course of studv on " the use of the globes " did not 

 commend itself to him. They walked over the fields 

 and took an interest in trees and flowers, but he gave 

 them no stupefying course on botany. W'hen he gave 

 them a lesson on English grammar or literature he 

 taught them at the same time the geography and 

 history and the fairy stories of their country. How- 

 can a man give a course on grammar or geographv 

 or history or anything else without diverting his talk 

 in an interesting wav to other subjects? What is so 

 tremendously important about natural science labora- 

 tory work is that a student must be thinkine all the 

 time about the same matters, not from one but from 

 ten interesting points of view. He is not merely 

 observing, he is measuring, he is computing, 

 he is reasoniner; he has to write out de- 

 scriptions of what he sees and does, and he 

 thinks then of his spelling and grammar; he has to 

 sketch ; he has to read books about what other peoole 

 have done before bim on the same subject, and also 



