Science in National Education 



its resulting applications to the mechanism and 

 opportunities of daily life. All, again, are some- 

 what connected, in the more advanced stages of 

 instruction, by the attendance of students from the 

 various parts of the United Kingdom at the great 

 Universities, at the most important technological 

 institutions and at some of the non-local secondary 

 schools. But in spirit and tradition, in the balance 

 of controlling influences, and in the prevailing 

 attitude of mind, the educational systems of the 

 four parts of the United Kingdom are markedly 

 unlike. Each makes its characteristic contribution 

 (and in the case of England and Ireland, especially, 

 more than one contribution) to the educational life 

 of the whole. Of the four the Scottish system is 

 the most homogeneous, the Irish the most divided, 

 the Welsh the most enthusiastic, the English the 

 most complicated and various. As has been well 

 said : " We can see England, businesslike and un- 

 philosophical, somewhat lethargic in her prosperity, 

 slowly realising first the commercial advantages of 

 education and then the possibility of applying scien- 

 tific methods to the process : great in self-govern- 

 ment, yet delegating to the localities only those 

 powers which she intends them to use; making 

 a working compromise at every step, and trium- 

 phantly disregarding consistency in details : strong 

 in her sense of duty, greatly proud of her ancient 

 institutions, liberal in grants once her hand is 

 opened. There are Wales and Scotland to whom 

 education is far more dear : Wales, in a newly- 

 born fervour for knowledge, producing, as it were 



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