NATURE 



6i 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1917. 



EDUCATION REFORM. 

 Education Reform : being the Report of the 

 Education Reform Council inaugurated by the 

 Teachers' Guild. Pp. xxxii + 215. (London: 

 P. S. King- and Son, Ltd., 1917.) Price 55. 



IT would be impossible to say much that is new 

 on the subject of education. For three 

 hundred years, at any rate, the objects, methods, 

 and conditions of education from the nursery to 

 the hig-hest places at the university have been the 

 topic of an unbroken and ever-increasing stream 

 of essays, treatises, and newspaper articles. But 

 here is a book in which everything of importance 

 which has been spoken or written about education 

 is reviewed and put into a new order. A national 

 stocktaking' is begun, and the Teachers' Guild has 

 got to work with praiseworthy promptitude to 

 provide for the systematic study of the present 

 state of education in England and of the reforms 

 which are needed. The result is the creation of a 

 council to carry out its business. At the initiatory 

 meeting in April, 1916, it was determined that this 

 body should consist of a president (the first 

 president is Sir Henry A. Miers), vice-president, 

 treasurer, honorary secretary, and not fewer than 

 thirty, nor more than fifty, additional members. 

 But the council was given power to co-opt new 

 members, and this power has been exercised so 

 freely that the council is more than double the size 

 orig-inally contemplated. The wonder is that with 

 so many cooks the broth has not been completely 

 spoiled. The reports of the nine committees 

 afford, however, quite interesting and instructive 

 reading. 



Readers of Nature will naturally turn to the 

 reports on university education and the secondary 

 schools, and will look to the position which it is 

 proposed to assign to natural science. Universi- 

 ties and schools have now got past the stage at 

 which it is necessary to discuss the advisability of 

 admitting natural science to a place in the cur- 

 riculum, and, of course, there is no committee 

 appointed by the Education Reform Council 

 specially to consider what is admitted by the most 

 conservative of "humanists." With regard to 

 universities, it strikes one that while there is much 

 that is admirable in the report, the committee 

 is not strong enough in representatives of the old 

 ! universities and of the provincial modern universi- 

 ' ties. It speaks too much from the London point 

 of view. The report points out the desirability of 

 a larg-e increase in the number of students resort- 

 ing to the universities, so that education of this 

 type may become more commonly a normal part 

 of the preparation for life, and that graduates 

 should find their way more frequently not only into 

 the professions, but also into active life in every 

 direction. With regard to the view, hitherto so 

 common among- men of business in this country, 

 that the "university man" has been by his very 

 trainingf at school and university unfitted for busi- 

 ness, the report properly points out that graduates 

 differ among themselves perhaps more than any 

 XO. 2500, VOL. 100] 



other body of men with a common status. The 

 universities attract a large proportion of the best 

 ability of the country, and much of this ought to 

 be utilised in directing industry and commerce. It 

 should hv added that the whole of it ought to be 

 turned to account in one direction or another for 

 the benefit of the country. The sporting land- 

 owner who knows nothing about agriculture and 

 does not understand the management of his estate 

 ought to disappear. In the direction of the definite 

 application of science to industry there can be no 

 doubt that there has been a great improvement of 

 late years in the employment of university-trained 

 chemists and engineers, and there is hope that the 

 interests of agriculture will continue to get help in 

 increasing degree from the universities. 



As to school curricula, it seems as though the 

 Committee on Secondary Schools had been too 

 much under the influence of tradition or did not 

 possess the boldness necessary to assign a due pro- 

 portion of time to natural science in the time-table ; 

 for in the scheme suggested on p. 69 four hours 

 a week is the maximum. Referring to the correla- 

 tion of studies, the committee says : — "Training in 

 expression, oral and written, should be given in 

 connection with almost every subject in the cur- 

 riculum, while the methods of science should 

 permeate the whole course of study.'' The mean- 

 ing of the words italicised here is far from clear. 

 Correlation between literature and history, between 

 physics and geographical phenomena, one can 

 understand, but science here seems to mean logic, 

 or at least common sense, which is obvious. 



In all these discussions it is not suflficiently kept 

 in mind that from the young student's point of 

 view subjects are divisible broadly into — not 

 literary and scientific, the usual antithesis — but 

 "booky" and "non-booky." The former includes 

 even mathematics, the latter means the study of 

 things. There are minds which revel in the 

 former, while there are others which the printed 

 page seems to repel. Even among the latter it 

 must not be forgotten that tastes differ. A young 

 artist has been heard to say, " I enjoy looking at a 

 flower, but when you begin explaining the uses of 

 its difi"erent parts I lose interest in it." Young 

 boys also, as a rule, love experiments of all kinds, 

 but hate explanations, and, notwithstanding what 

 has been said to the contrary, the curiosity of most 

 children is soon satisfied, and it is only in later 

 vears that explanation of a fact or phenomenon 

 has an interest equal to that of the fact itself. 

 From all these considerations it follows that pupils 

 should be classified not only according to age or 

 as clever or stupid, but al.so according to the con- 

 stitution of the mind and its inclination towards 

 i thinking or towards doing. The great principle for 

 I the teacher to remember is that, before all things. 

 ' it is necessary to be interesting to the majority of 

 I the class. Without this neither rewards nor 

 I punishments will secure real attention. Now to be 

 1 interesting requires that the subject should be 

 I well chosen and the teacher himself filled with the 

 1 enjoyment of it. To secure this condition more 

 commonly, teachers must be not only better 

 qualified, but also better paid. 



