Science in National Education 



who can learn from him. Pour faire quelque chose 

 de grand, il faut etre passionne. What is wanted 

 in the schools is more intellectual zeal. 



A great increase in Government grants for 

 secondary schools is urgently needed. It should 

 be large enough to make the payment of adequate 

 salaries possible. The payment of such salaries 

 to a staff of competent teachers should then be 

 made a condition for the continuance of the grant. 

 And the salaries should be progressive, so that 

 an assistant master or mistress could look for- 

 ward, after years of faithful and strenuous service, 

 to a fair competence in middle life. Such a change 

 in conditions would attract the right men into the 

 work of secondary school teaching. And their 

 work would train up competent successors. The 

 probable reason why there is so little of the teach- 

 ing instinct among men in England as compared 

 with Germany is that so few Englishmen have 

 themselves ever known what good teaching is 

 and what it can do. 



In the higher secondary schools of England 

 there is, alongside of merits which, it may be 

 said without exaggeration, are admired by the 

 whole world, one grave defect which could easily 

 be remedied and for the remedying of which the 

 masters themselves are anxious. The earlier years 

 of higher secondary education are, as a rule, 

 passed by English boys in a preparatory school. 

 The curriculum of these schools is controlled by 

 the entrance and scholarship examinations at the 

 public schools. The latter lay almost exclusive 



123 



