about in the public mind a more appreciative attitude in 

 regard to the importance of original reasoning and discovery, 

 and so to a better understanding of the meaning to be 

 attached to natural science and to scientific methods. 



The first steps in the direction of true reform must be 

 taken, it seems to me, by the Universities in the readjust- 

 ment, to some extent, of the established methods and 

 subjects of their examinations, for only in this way can 

 the schools of the country, from the higher schools 

 downwards, be set sufficiently free to be able to improve 

 and enlarge their traditional teaching, which has been 

 carried down, with but little change, from the Middle Ages. 



This is not the place for a discussion of the extent to 

 which the studies of our higher schools, and secondary 

 education generally, require to be reformed to meet 

 adequately the larger needs of to-day, but it is obvious 

 that the direction in which changes should be made is in 

 that of the development of self-helpfulness and a spirit 

 of free inquiry, as opposed to the traditional teaching of 

 the past. 



Above all things, such a practical study of natural 

 phenomena should become an essential part of our national 

 teaching as would draw out and foster that noblest of our 

 faculties, the power of image-forming in the mind, which, 

 in its highest and productive form, does not consist simply 

 of the reproduction of old experiences from the stores 

 of memory, but by new combinations of them as by a 



marvellous alchemy so transmutes them as to lead to 

 c 33 



