THE PROBLEM OF THE FUTURE 13 



as ineffectual as before. Then he repeated the whole 

 process and again the chisel failed him. Then he proceeded 

 to ' turn up ' his grindstone and replaced his oilstone 

 by an American product, but all in vain ; the chisel still 

 refused to do efficient work. Just as he was proceeding 

 to the process of ' hacking ' his grindstone and to trying 

 a brand new German hone, a fellow workman suggested 

 that the steel of his chisel might possibly he at fault. Instead, 

 however, of proceeding to test the amount of carbon in his 

 steel, or to try his workshop appliances on another 

 chisel, our first workman grew angry and asserted that 

 his colleague was neglecting all the resources of modern 

 technology, all the advances of applied science. If 

 hardening and tempering, if grindstone and oilstone 

 were idle, we might as well throw aside all mechanical 

 progress and again make our tools by chipping flints. 



Now it is not so many years ago that I ventured to 

 suggest in a lecture in a great provincial town that nature 

 might possibly play its part as well as nurture; that 

 elaborate schemes of primary, secondary, and higher educa- 

 tion could only be profitable if good material existed to 

 which they could be applied. Well, what seemed to me 

 an obvious truth, raised a little storm ; a great municipal 

 authority expressed regret that I had come to tell them 

 that all they had done for technical education, all the 

 vast sums they had spent in founding their university, 

 were idle. He for his part would not for a moment 

 accept such teaching. It was vain to cite the allegory 

 of the grindstone— in that great centre of political and 

 municipal activity the one thing that was worth con- 

 sidering was nurture. 



Now there would be no reason to criticize this attitude, 

 or to doubt the wisdom of much of liberal policy in the 



