NATURE 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1917. 



41 



HE PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND NATIONAL 



SUPREMACY. 

 riie Puhlic-School System in relation to the 

 Coming Conflict for National Supremacy. By 

 V. Seymour Bryant. Pp. xviii + 78. (Lon- 

 don: Long^mans, Green, and Co., 1917.) Price 

 i^. 6d. net. 

 PHE author has done useful service in writing 

 -■■ this little volume. It contains la large 

 amount of valuable information, while, of course, 

 it raises a host of controversial points. His 

 statement in the preface that " in the struggle for 

 national supremacy education is the vital factor " 

 will be disputed by few. It is when he comes to 

 laying down the lines on which a reformed curri- 

 culum for both the preparatory and the public 

 schools should be constructed that the whole of I 

 the forces of conservatism represented by the 

 existing system will unite in a stubborn resistance. 

 A pomt Mr. Bryant makes early in the intro- 

 duction consists in directing attention to the fact, 

 familiar enough to those conversant with the 

 educational world, though generally unappreciated 

 by the public, that the headmasters of our great 

 pubhc schools are, practically without exception, 

 classical scholars. Of the 114 schools repre- 

 sented in the Headmasters' Conference, ninety- 

 two have classical headmasters, ten mathe- 

 matical, seven jointly mathematical and scientific, 

 four scientific, and one historical. And from the pub- 

 lished numbers of boys in the schools 82 per cent, 

 are under classical domination, while only 7I per 

 cent, are in schools where the head has" any 

 academic qualifications in science whatever. 



This fact alone is sufficient to explain most of 

 the difficulties encountered in all attempts to 

 obtain more time and attention for natural science 

 studies. 



Every Englishman is proud to acknowledge the 

 splendid spirit shown by all the public schools and 

 their boys in connection with the war. It may 

 be true that this is attributable to the conditions 

 of life in the public schools, which favour the 

 development of fine character. The amount of 

 direct evidence for this conclusion is, however, 

 very small, and it may be asked whether, after 

 all, it is not something- deep down in the Eng-lish 

 nature which is the real explanation of these i 

 things. Otherwise, how do we account for all | 

 the V.C. 's and other distinctions which rightly I 

 decorate so many of our brave fellows who have I 

 not had the advantage of a public-school educa- 

 tion? The fact is sufficient that the boys from 

 tlie public schools have made a fine show and 

 have quitted themselves like men. But this does 

 not abolish the other fact that the great majority 

 of them when they leave school are very igfiorant. 

 How many can speak any language but their 

 own? How many are really familiar with the 

 great classics in their mother tongue? How- 

 many clergymen, whose office it is to search the 

 Scriptures daily, are capable of studying the 

 NO. 2499, VOL. 100] 



Gospels m the original Greek? Our Ministers 

 and heads of Government departments have been 

 almost to a man trained in the great public 

 schools, but this has not saved them from the 

 grossest kind of mistake in referring to common 

 materials and processes of manufacture. 



The public-school system of to-day, which is so 

 largely due to Dr. Arnold at Rugby, owes all its 

 best results to the principle of self-government by 

 the boys themselves. The teaching in every 

 subject and in every respect has improved since 

 his time, but is still open to serious criticism. 

 John Stuart Mill states somewhere that "the 

 source of everything respectable in man is that 

 his errors are corrigible," and that is all that 

 can be said of the teaching in the public schools 

 at this day. It is the prejudice of the head- 

 masters and of the literary members of the staff 

 which in most cases prevents that complete re- 

 casting of the time-table which alone will bring 

 satisfaction to those who are interested in tlie 

 use of scientific method and the sufficient teach- 

 ing of natural and experimental science. Among 

 other obstacles in the way of reform the author 

 mentions examinations and the subordination of 

 curricula to their requirements, the diflRculty of 

 obtaining properly qualified teachers, and the 

 financial waste under the house system. With 

 regard to the last point a great deal might be 

 said. The fault lies primarily with the British 

 parent, who is not w-illing to pay an adequate 

 fee for his boy's education, but is ready to meet 

 the charges of a comparatively expensive and un- 

 necessarily luxurious kind of hotel. The true 

 duties of a schoolmaster are so important that 

 his pay and prospects ought to be both liberal 

 and secure. But to give him a salary on which 

 he cannot keep a wife and family in comfort and 

 to allow him to compensate himself out of the 

 profits of hotel-keeping is to adopt a system not 

 far removed in principle from that of the Turkish 

 Government, which pays no salaries, but allows 

 extortion and pillage. W. A. T. 



USEFUL MATHEMATICS. 

 (i) Commercial Arithmetic and Accounts. By 

 A. Risdon Palmer and J. Stephenson. Part i. 

 Pp. xvi + 292 + lvi. (1908.) Part ii. Pp. 

 xii + 293-514 + lvii-cliv. (n.d.) (London: G. 

 Bell and Sons, Ltd.) Price 25. 6d. each part. 



(2) Arithmetic for Engineers, including Simple 

 Algebra, Mensuration, Logarithms, Graphs, 

 and the Slide Rule. By C. B. Clapham. Pp: 

 xii + 436. (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 

 1916.) Price 55. 6d. net. 



(3) Practical Mathematics for Technical Students. 

 Part ii. By T. S. Usherwood and C. J. A. 

 Trimble. Pp. x + 565. (London : Macmillan 

 and Co., Ltd., 1916.) Price 7s. 6d. net. 



(i) " T^HE present treatise on commercial 

 -»- arithmetic and accounts has been 

 written to rneet the needs of that great and ever- 

 increasing army of students which is receiving a 

 thorough commercial training in our modern 



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