Science and Physical Development 



can be stopped in a few days." It remains for 

 the system to be extended to the districts not yet 

 provided for, for greater thoroughness and more 

 unity of plan, and for means to be found to compel 

 careless parents to give attention to, or procure 

 treatment of, ailments or defects in their children 

 to which attention has been called. 



In dealing with the primary subject of their 

 reference the Scottish Commissioners found great 

 need of more, and especially of more systematised, 

 physical training in every class of school, even 

 including the Universities, where they discovered 

 much injury to health due to hard reading for 

 examinations unrelieved by proper exercise, for 

 which the University authorities afford neither 

 adequate opportunities nor facilities. To those of 

 us who are familiar with the great English Public 

 Schools and with Oxford or Cambridge this in- 

 dictment of the Scottish Universities is rather a 

 surprise. The leading Scottish Public Schools, 

 such as Fettes and Loretto, are not behind Eton 

 and Harrow in their zeal for athletics, and a 

 certain minimum of football or cricket is made 

 compulsory, but the system of living in private 

 lodgings, which at Edinburgh and Glasgow takes 

 the place of collegiate life, does not lend itself so 

 easily to the development of athletic clubs. An 

 exacting curriculum of studies allows little time 

 for play, and it will be probably admitted that, 

 partly from temperament and partly from poverty, 

 the Scottish student reads harder and with more 

 zest than his English fellow. But even in England 



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