KNOWLEDGE 



[Sept. 18, 1885. 



SCIENCE AND EDUCATION.* 



Bt Sir Lyon Platfair. 



VARIOT^S Commissions have made inquiries and 

 isov-^-d recommendations in regard to our public 

 and endowed schools. The Commissions of 1861, 1864, 

 1868, and 1873 have expressed the strongest disapproval 

 of the condition of our schools, and, so far as science is 

 concerned, their state is much the same as when the 

 Duke of Devonshire's Commission in 1873 reported in 

 the following words : — " Considering the increasing im- 

 portance of science to the material interests of the 

 country, we cannot but regard its almost total exclusion 

 from the ti-aining of the upper and middle classes as little 

 less than a national misfortune." No doubt there are 

 exceptional cases and some brillant examjjles of improve- 

 ment since these words were written, but generally 

 throughout the country teaching in science is a name 

 rather than a reality. 



The Technical Commission which reported last year 

 can only point to three schools in Great Britain in which 

 science is fully and adequately taught. While the Com- 

 mission gives us the consolation that England is still in 

 advance as an industrial nation, it warns us that foreign 

 nations, which were not long ago far behind, are now 

 making more rapid progress than this country, and will 

 soon pass it in the race of competition unless we give 

 increa-sed attention to science in public education. A 

 few of the large towns, notably Manchester, Bradford, 

 Huddersfield, and Birmingham, are doing so. 



The working classes are now receiving better instruc- 

 tion in science than the middle classes. The competi- 

 tion of actual life asserts its own conditions, for the 

 children of the latter find increasing difficulty in obtain- 

 ing employment. The cause of this lies in the fact that 

 the schools for the middle classes have not yet adapted 

 themselves to the needs of modern life. It is true that 

 many of the endowed schools have been put under new 

 schemes, but, as there is no public supervision or inspec- 

 tion of them, we have no knowledge as to whether they 

 have prospered or slipped back. Many corporate schools 

 have arisen, some of them, like Clifton, Cheltenham, 

 and Marlborough Colleges, doing excellent educational 

 work, though as regards all of them the public have no 

 rights, and cannot enforce guarantees for efficiency. 



A return just issued, on the motion of Sir John Lub- 

 bock shows a lamentable deficiency in science teaching 

 in a great proportion of the endowed schools. While 

 twelve to sixteen hours per week are devoted to classics, 

 two to three hours are considered ample for science in a 

 large proportion of the schools. In Scotland there are 

 only six schools in the return which give more than two 

 hours to science weekly, while in many schools its 

 teaching is wholly omitted. Every other part of the 

 kingdom stands in a better position than Scotland in 

 relation to the science of its endowed schools. 



The old traditions of education stick as firmly to 

 schools as a limpet does to a rock ; though I do the limpet 

 injustice, for it does make excursions to seek pastures 

 new. Are we to give up in (1.; I ;:• l.i,,, ,■ an exclusive 

 system of classical education ]: Im' assaults of 



such cultivated authors ok M , M :i_'ue, Cowley, 



and Locke? There was onci ;,;i , .W-Im, ^,1 Emperor of 

 China, Chi Hwangti, who knew that his country was 

 kept back by its exclusive devotion to the classics of 

 Confucius and Mencius. He invited 500 of the teachers 



ieeting of the British 



to bring their copies of these authors to Pekin, and, after 

 giving a great banquet in their honour, he buried alive 

 the professors along with their manuscripts in a deep pit. 

 But Confucius and iMciiciiis still reign supreme. I advo- 

 cate milder iin'iMin s, :iimI ilipend for their adoption on 

 the force of i-ullir oj mi ii. The needs of modern life 

 will force sclnii'L, lo a.lij.t i licmselves to a scientific age. 



Grammar-.schuul.s bulievu tliemselvfs fi hr iTiimrirtal. 

 Those curious immortals — the Struldbi:i _ ' 1- M.y 



Swift, ultimately regretted their iiiiin , I .use 



they found themselves out of touch, syinj J i; y. :n, 1 lit- 

 ne.ss with the centuries in which they lived. As there is 

 no use clamouring for an instrument of more compass and 

 power until we have made up our mind as to the tune. 

 Professor Huxley, in his evidence before a Parliamentary 

 Committee in 188i, has given a time-table for grammar 

 schools. He demands that, out of their forty hours for 

 public and private study, ten should be given to modern 

 languages and history, eight to arithmetic and mathe- 

 matics, six to science, and two to geography, thus leaving 

 fourteen hours to the dead languages. 



No time-table would, however, be suitable to all 

 schools. The great public schools of England will con- 

 tinue to be the gymnasia for the upper classes, and should 

 devote much of their time to classical and literary 

 culture. Even now they introduce into their curriculum 

 subjects unknown to them when the Royal 

 of 1868 reported, though they still accept 

 timidity. Unfortunately, the other grammar - schools 

 which educate the middle classes look to the higher 

 public schools as a type to which they should conform, 

 although their functions are so difierent. It is in the 

 interest of the higher public schools that this difference 

 should be recognised, so that, while they give an all-round 

 education and expand their curriculum by a freer recog- 

 nition of the value of science as an educational power in 

 developing the faculties of the upper classes, the schools 

 for the middle classes should adapt themselves to the 

 needs of their existence, and not keeji up a slavish 

 imitation of schools with a different function. 



The stock argument againt the introduction of modern 

 subjects into grammar-schools is that it is better to teach 

 Latin and Greek thoroughly rather than various subjects 

 less completely. But is it true that thoroughness in 

 teaching dead languages is the result of an exclusive 

 system? In 1868 the Royal Commission stated that 

 even in the few great public schools thoroughness was 

 only given to 30 per cent, of the scholars, at the sacrifice 

 of 70 per cent, who got little benefit from the system. 

 Since then the cun-iculum has been widened and the 

 teaching has improved. I question the soundness of the 

 princijjle that it is better to limit the attention of the 

 pupils mainly to Latin and Greek, highly as I value 

 their educational power to a certain order of minds. As 

 in biology the bodily development of animals is from the 

 general to the special, so is it in the mental development 

 of man. In the school a boy should be aided to discover 

 the class of knowledge that is best suited for his mental 

 capacities, so that, in the upper forms of the school and 

 in the university, knowledge may be specialised in order 

 to cultivate the powers of the man to their fullest extent. 

 Shakespeare's educational formula may not be altogether 

 true, but it contains a broad basis of truth — 



" No profit goes, where is no pleasure ta'en ; — 

 lu brief, Sir, study what you most affect." 



The comparative failure of the modern side of school 

 education arises from constituting it out of the boys who 

 are looked upon as classical asses. Milton pointed out 



