INTRODUCTION 9 



most educational value. There are branches of 

 science which appear to be travelling on blind 

 roads, or have already been driven far ahead in 

 useless isolation. There are some, which, so 

 far as we can judge, are at present as purely 

 academic as the classics. On the other hand, 

 there are branches of science in which any 

 progress is at once turned to practical account ; 

 while there are industries whose work is 

 hampered because science does not give them 

 as much help as it would do, had important 

 lines of research not lagged far behind the rest. 



Some of the modern advocacy of technical 

 education is no doubt due to impatience with 

 anything that is not immediately useful. To 

 modify our educational system to satisfy that 

 spirit, would injure education, would cramp 

 scientific progress, and ultimately prove disas- 

 trous to industry. The best feeling in the 

 advocacy of technical science seems to me due 

 to the recognition of the alternative, that 

 scientific teaching must inevitably be restricted 

 in its range, or must become so superficial and 

 elementary in its standard, that it will lose 

 much of its value as a medium of education. 



It is generally held that the essence of true 

 education is method, not matter. As Mark 

 Pattison has so well put it in his Oxford 

 Studies, it is not knowledge, but a discipline 

 that is required, not science, but scientific 

 habit. In accordance with this principle, 



