224 



NA TURE 



[July 5, 1900 



not only some of the very cleverest men of the country, 

 but they have the ears of nearly all the other clever men. 



In the time of Henry VII. the new learning fought 

 and conquered the schoolmen, and England soon became 

 covered with good grammar schools. Then mathematics 

 came gradually in, fighting a hard fight till it has made 

 its way and established itself— not on equality terms, 

 but on terms of sufferance and recognition. To meet 

 modern wants, to equip our men for the fight of to-day, 

 we find that it is absolutely necessary to introduce the 

 study of physical science, and lo ! we have opposing us 

 the combined forces of classics and mathematics, each 

 with its own kind of weapon. The weapon of the mathe- 

 matical pedant is the more dangerous, for he says that 

 he already represents science. 



This teaching of pseudo-science in schools has created 

 a manufacture of teachers. At all the universities we 

 are now manufacturing science B.A.'s and B.Sc.'s be- 

 cause there is a new profession where money may be 

 earned by the holder of such a title. This manufacture 

 is called scientific education, and our real scientific men, 

 pleased with the name, pleased at any experiment in 

 scientific education, afraid that if they object there \yill 

 be no education whatsoever in science, weakly give 

 their countenance to it. To illustrate what I mean : — 

 .At the greatest of our universities there is an ex- 

 amination in which experimental physics plays an 

 important part. A friend of mine coaches men for 

 this examination. He tells them : " Listen to my 

 coaching, read the books as I tell you, take care not to 

 attend the physics laboratory. For in one day's reading 

 you will get to know all that there is in thirty pages of 

 the book ; you may spend a month at the laboratory and 

 you will have gained practically nothing to fit you for 

 any possible kind of examination. The laboratory does 

 not pay." Of course he is right, but if mere learning, if 

 mere knowledge of certain facts, mere power to pass an 

 examination, are what is aimed at, surely there is no 

 scientific education here. My friend asserts that the 

 system by which he earns his living is abominable. The 

 whole thing is so wrong that one wants an earthquake or 

 a fire, one prays for wholesale destruction of the easily 

 working examination machinery. 



I remember teaching physics at a school in which the 

 time for science was so limited that only one half-hour's 

 lecture per week could be given to the best men in the 

 school. There were about loo of them, from the sixth 

 and fifth forms. Some of them are now leaders of 

 English thought. Well, they were actually examined 

 once a fortnight— a paper examination, lasting an hour. 

 Of course, they were not examined on the two lectures ; 

 they were really examined on two chapters of the text- 

 book. I am told, and I believe, that in many of the 

 best girls' schools science is supposed to be taught by a 

 teacher reading things from a text-book, the girls taking 

 notes. I should think it an excellent system if girls are 

 required to pass the usual examinations. 



Examinations are said to be in mechanics or dynamics, 

 or mathematical physics, or mechanical or civil engineer- 

 ing. They are not ; they are fraudulent substitutions of 

 the stupidest kind of mathematics for these sciences. 



Assume something or other to be true, that the co- 

 efficient of friction is constant, for example, or that a 

 specific heat is constant, and, after covering the paper 

 with easy mathematical exercise work, arrive at mathe- 

 matic expressions which are as worthless as the mental 

 training is bad. What a wonderful and useful weapon 

 one possesses in mathematics 1 In the hands of a man 

 like Rankine, or Kelvin or Maxwell, it removes mountains 

 of difficulty. What a stupefying and useless weapon it 

 is in the hands of a skill- less person who cannot think 1 

 And our examination systems and methods of education 

 seem framed to cultivate one Kelvin to 10,000 of the 

 pedantic non-thinking users of mathematics. 



NO. 1 60 1, VOL. 62] 



My theme has been the necessity for a complete change 

 in our system of early education of everybody. The 

 necessity is specially great in the case of the captains of 

 industry. Many people think that if men are to be 

 taught the scientific principles underlying the proper con- 

 duct of business or manufacture, it is only necessary to 

 establish Technical Schools for them. When I was 

 young I remember that there were many agricultural 

 colleges in Ireland ; they have all but one been failures. 

 Why ? Because the entering pupils were not fit to receive 

 instruction. Instead of their having been prepared for 

 instruction by their earlier education, this had done as 

 much as possible to unfit them. We have just this sort 

 of experience in our Technical Colleges. Great boys 

 enter them, and it is difficult to find out what are the 

 scraps of Euclid and mechanics known to these boys on 

 which one has a chance of building technical instruction. 

 It would almost be better to send such boys direct into 

 practical work ; they would probably do as well as the 

 average workman ; their fathers' influence and money 

 would get them superior positions, and in a country like 

 England they would do as well as their competitors in 

 business. Yet there can be no doubt that it is of the 

 utmost importance to our country, if we are to retain our 

 supremacy in manufactures, that all managers of works, 

 and many of the superior persons employed in large works, 

 should be scientific men, who are also well experienced 

 in the applications of science to their particular industry. 

 But this is not all. I have heard it said, quite truly, that 

 for a great mechanical engineering works what is needed 

 are well-trained managers and foremen, the best labour- 

 saving tools, and an army of negroes as workmen. I am 

 inclined to think that this statement is true ; but there is 

 something to be said for the employment of well-educated, 

 intelligent workmen. First, because they are citizens of 

 the country having votes ; second, because I believe that 

 all invention comes up from the common workman 

 These men make thousands of observations, which some- 

 how get to their superiors, and it is through these tha 

 inventions come unconsciously ; an inventor makes use of 

 ideas received from hundreds of men ; the invention is 

 truly his own, but he receives suggestions, unconsciously, 

 from the men who work with their hands at the bench 

 and in the machine shop. If then, I am right, the 

 manufacturing country that depends upon a i^"^ good 

 managers and an army of unintelligent slaves will fall as 

 the Roman Empire fell. 



Now a workman's intelligence must come through his 

 trade, else he cannot be happy ; and if he is unhappy in 

 his trade he cannot be a good citizen or an efficient 

 workman (from the above point of view). At present we 

 pitchfork many boys into a factory, and depend upon the 

 good nature of the workmen for their learning their 

 trade. It used to be that a master taught such a boy his 

 trade as a member of his own family. This personal 

 teaching is no longer possible ; but nothing has taken its 

 place. Attendance of apprentices at evening classes 

 after a hard day's work is quite out of the question for 

 all but a small number of very clever young martyrs who 

 sacrifice, not merely their own health and comfort, but the 

 comfort of their families and their duties as citizens. I 

 have myself publicly suggested several times a remedy 

 for this state of things, which has been praised by com- 

 petent persons, but it seems to me that it is hopeless to 

 expect any adequate remedy to be applied until the 

 influential people of this country are made to see the 

 gravity of the present position. 



The great remedy for all our troubles lies in con- 

 vincing all influential people in this country that we 

 really must make great radical changes. I have known 

 the subscribers of money to a large technical college in 

 England (the members of its governing board) to laugh, 

 every one of them, in private over the idea that such an 

 institution could do any good to the trade of their town. 



