Science in National Education 



education as a basis for technical training, and, in 

 consequence, have sterilised much of our educa- 

 tional effort by premature specialisation. We are 

 sometimes severely criticised for looking at the 

 subject from an entirely wrong point of view. 

 "The real cause of failure in our efforts for 

 education hitherto," said Mr. Ruskin, "whether 

 from above or below, has been that there is no 

 honest desire for the thing itself. You must 

 forget your money and every other material 

 interest and educate for education's sake only, or 

 the very good you try to bestow will become 

 venomous, and that and your money will be lost 

 together." No one will deny that we are apt to 

 think at times too exclusively of " what will pay " 

 in a narrow sense, but I do not see that we can 

 fairly be blamed for asking practical questions 

 about the aim and purpose of education. Those 

 questions go to the root of the matter. The 

 business of education is to prepare for life, and 

 to ignore the requirements of life in planning a 

 course of training would be silly. "To educate 

 for education's sake " is too vague a prescription. 

 Our mistake has been that we have acted on a 

 wrong theory of education through not scientifi- 

 cally testing our assumptions. Experience shows 

 that a good general education, which touches the 

 imagination, opens the mind, trains the power of 

 tracing the connection between cause and effect, 

 and cultivates the power of expression, is the 

 only sound basis for technical education, for 

 higher studies and for civic efficiency. We have 



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