222 



NATURE 



[July 5, 1900 



of five line-of-battle ships shall be started immediately. 

 The scientific constructor knows that he ought to throw 

 away — waste — 100,000/. in making experiments to find out 

 how the older type of ship may be greatly improved. 

 But his superiors have made the rule that for money ex- 

 pended there must be something to look at. Hence no 

 experiments may be made, and the constructor starts at 

 once to expend five millions of pounds on building ships 

 which are nothing like so good as they might be made. 



Other examples. For many years huge guns were built 

 of tubes. It was known to the few scientific men who can 

 calculate about such things — the men who are never con- 

 sulted — that it was not possible to turn and bore those 

 tubes with the accuracy required by the theory. It 

 happens that nature applies a correction to a wrong 

 method of manufacture, and so these guns are not 

 useless. It is quite well known that a little science 

 and expensive experiment would cause the present 

 wire method of manufacture of guns to be discarded 

 for a simpler, quicker, better, cheaper system. The 

 water-tube boilers, so numerous in our Navy, have 

 proved as worthless as the best scientific men thought 

 them from the beginning, and possibly now it is absurdly 

 assumed that all water-tube boilers are useless. The 

 construction of efficient submarine boats was possible 

 thirty years ago. Many electrical and mechanical 

 engineering appliances that might be very useful to an 

 army or navy have never yet been tried under the direc- 

 tion of competent engineers. Above all — and this in- 

 cludes everything — men of scientific training are not 

 chosen for the Government, civil, and naval and military 

 posts where such training is necessary. 



If our leaders were merely unscientific — if they were 

 merely like Boers, and had no scientific knowledge — it 

 would not be so bad, for they would probably appoint 

 scientific men to posts in which a knowledge of physical 

 science is needed, and they might accept the opinions of 

 scientific experts. Even if they were like savage chiefs 

 there would possibly be equal chances among all candi- 

 dates for posts ; but, unfortunately, it is as if our leaders 

 possessed great negative knowledge of natural science, 

 and as if a man's chances of being appointed to a scien- 

 tific post, or of having his advice listened to, were in 

 inverse proportion to his scientific qualifications. 



Scientific men look around them and see that every- 

 thing is wrong in the present arrangements, but they also 

 see that it is useless to give advice which cannot be 

 understood by our rulers. And, indeed, I may say that 

 when by accident a scientific man is appointed on a 

 committee, there is a negative inducement for him to do 

 anything. 



Many men enter the services by examination. In 

 some cases the examination is supposed to be in science. 

 In truth, the scientific habit of thought, the real study 

 of science, the very fitness of a boy for entrance to the 

 service, would unfit him for passing these abominable 

 unscientific examinations. For some posts — the Royal 

 Artillery and Engineer services, for example— further 

 scientific food is provided by the Government after a 

 man enters. If one wishes to hear how evil this system 

 of pretended education is, let him ask the opinion of some 

 of the professors who are condemned to help in carrying 

 it out. The whole system is foolishness from bottom to 

 top, and the men prepared by the system cannot see 

 how abominable it is even when they are afterwards 

 trying to improve it. 



But however harmful the present state of things may 

 be for the Government services, I think that it is much 

 more pernicious for the country at large. We see that 

 the greatest intellects of our time have been developed 

 through an education other than scientific ; and . as 

 nobody can commend it for the mere knowledge given 

 at school, it is commended for its importance in mental 

 training. 



NO. 160I, VOL. 62] 



It has been so often asserted by parrots, that many 

 people do really believe that only mere mental train- 

 ing need be given until a boy is sixteen years of 

 age. When one hears such a statement for the hun- 

 dredth or thousandth time, he sometimes wonders if 

 anybody ever does think for himself. Why, the early 

 period of a boy's life is the time when he is not only 

 getting mental training, but also collecting the largest 

 part of all the knowledge that he ever will possess of 

 the world into which he has come. So great is this 

 stock of facts and theory, that when he looks back upon 

 his life in old age he can hardly find that he has added 

 much to it in the intervening years. Is he a musician 

 in after life ? then he certainly learnt his skill, acquired 

 his touch, trained his ear, and learnt thousands of airs 

 in early youth. Is he a poet ? it is to his earliest efforts 

 that he looks back most fondly, and it was in his early 

 youth that he learnt off by heart all the poetry that he 

 really knows well in after life. He learns to read and 

 write and cypher with ease and readiness ; is this mere 

 training of the mind ? This craze for mind-training is 

 really the worst thing that has happened to the hurt of 

 children. It does not seem to be known to the mind- 

 trainer that a child's mind grows most healthily when 

 let alone — when the child is picking up knowledge in 

 his own way. Give a boy a chance of seeing things for 

 himself, and direct him as little as possible. Is there any 

 kind of knowledge likely to be needed by him in after 

 life ? let him, when quite young, have some chance of 

 picking up something of it for himself. He learns about 

 people ; he cannot help it, as he lives among people. 



I take it that whatever kind of knowledge the race 

 has been in the habit of picking up in youth is more 

 easily picked up than any other by a boy himself A 

 boy takes to thinking for himself so naturally that the 

 greater parts of some vile systems of education seem to 

 be the destruction of this habit. Yes, education often 

 means merely training a boy out of the way he zuould go 

 into the way that we poor creatures think that he should 

 go. And hence it is that the boy whose education is 

 neglected, but who has chances of seeing things for 

 himself, has often a much better chance in life than the 

 well-trained prig. 



Now there is a kind of knowledge greatly needed in 

 life, that knowledge which is enabling us to fight with 

 and use the powers of nature as they never were 

 fought with or used before our time. The race is 

 not accustomed to picking up this kind of knowledge, 

 and so there i§ this one case in which artificial help 

 to the child is absolutely necessary. Natural pheno- 

 mena are complex ; let him have a chance of using 

 apparatus that will simplify these phenomena for 

 him. It seems to me that natural science is almost 

 the only study in which instruction from a father or 

 teacher will not obstruct a boy's own natural method of 

 study. And see hov/ many ways of study are offered by 

 it to a boy. Some of the sciences are greatly observa- 

 tional. If he is fond of abstract reasoning, he attacks 

 things from the mathematical side. If he is fond of fire- 

 works, he can attend popular lectures. If he loves to 

 make and fiddle with apparatus, and use it quantitatively, 

 he has an altogether new method of study. He may 

 choose which method he pleases ; the study is utterly 

 unlike a series of tasks ; he does not get to think of a 

 duty as something disagreeable ; and, above all, he is 

 encouraged to think for himself. Instead of constant 

 correction, criticism, and reproof or punishment because 

 he will think for himself, he is encouraged to consider 

 that opinions which he disagrees with are to be criticised 

 by him. If he feels that it is quite hopeless for him to 

 follow abstract reasoning, say about a whole being 

 greater than its part or the ratio of two incommensur- 

 ables, or justification by faith, we reply to him— Yes, my 

 boy, you have a good healthy mind like 98 per cent, of 



