VIEWS ON EDUCATION 199 



the writer could adduce instances where the most incredible 

 assertions have lately been made and acted on, to the effect that 

 we have played into the hands of the enemy, and all because our 

 Government officials are not only ignorant, but have not even 

 the saving grace to know that they are ignorant and to seek in 

 the right quarters for scientific help." 



Had he lived a few years longer, Eamsay would have 

 recognised the conciliatory spirit in which the problems 

 connected with education are now being envisaged. 

 Amid the miseries brought on this country by the war, 

 at least one benefit has emerged in the recognition, by 

 all but the most prejudiced among the representatives 

 of the long-established classical system in schools, that 

 some knowledge of the external world and of the dis- 

 coveries which have been made as to the relations of 

 the earth and sky, and as to the forms and conditions of 

 life on this globe, is indispensable to every educated man 

 and woman. It is only those who possess some of this 

 knowledge who are able to shake off superstition, to 

 understand something of their own relation to the rest 

 of the human inhabitants of the earth, and in fact to 

 form a true theory of life. Eamsay was probably right 

 in assuming that invention and discovery are the true 

 keys to progress, and though it is not given to every 

 one to add to the common stock of knowledge by under- 

 taking the special kind of studies requisite for systematic 

 investigation, discovery by others cannot fail to rouse 

 some interest in every mind but the dullest. What is 

 wanted is a reform in the attitude of the public mind 

 which is too apt to ignore or to despise all knowledge 



