306 



PART V. WORKING STAGE. 



standard of attainment for the different ages to that of James 

 Mill's, and reduce the proportion of scholars under a teacher 

 to about six for the earlier and twelve or more for the later 

 stages; and, lastly, that the school is either doomed to be super- 

 seded partly or wholly by the home, or else should be trans- 

 formed root upwards in accordance with the above demands. 

 Indeed, from the point of view of a high conception of moral 

 education, the present method of herding the children together, 

 would be grotesque and criminal if it were not for the time 

 being, perhaps, inevitable. Those who profess faith in mass 

 education need to advance sterling reasons why it is necessary 

 to congregate large numbers of children, and how it is possible 

 in such circumstances to do justice to them either morally or 

 intellectually. Here, also, the simplest practicable case should 

 be applied. 



152. The simplest practicable case might be profitably 

 divided into: 



(a) centring an enquiry round one or a few instances which 

 can be easily and exhaustively studied in respect of the aspects 

 cited in our table of Primary Categories; 



(ft) scientific experiments where factors are isolated and where 

 quantitative results are aimed at; 



(c) use of instruments to aid the senses, and devising precise, 

 refined, and powerful instruments (as Davey's battery, Faraday's 

 magnet, the Ross telescope, Bose's magnetic crescograph, the 

 motor driven hammer and crane, the giant airship and aero- 

 plane, the towering factory chimney causing an enormous 

 draught, etc.), besides instituting well equipped laboratories, 

 experimental stations, and observatories; 



(d) mathematical, quantitative, or definite form of procedure 

 and statement; 



(e) idealised statements (e.g., the earth regarded as at rest 

 and as having an axis, conceptual and real models, economic 

 charts and diagrams, map projections and relief maps, sketches 

 and simplified substitutes generally where necessary); 1 



(/) scientifically established and universally accepted measures, 

 formulae, processes, methods, terms, etc., and preserving one 

 or more standard measures, etc. ; 



1 Simplification is very frequently resorted to in science. Here is a typical 

 example: "In connection with the general problem of aerial vibrations in 

 three dimensions one of the first things, which naturally offers itself, is the 

 determination of the motion in an unlimited atmosphere consequent upon 

 arbitrary initial disturbances. It will be assumed that the disturbance is 

 small, so that the ordinary approximate equations are applicable, and further 

 that the initial velocities are such as can be derived from a velocity-poten- 

 tial, or that there is no circulation. ... We shall also suppose in the first 

 place that no external forces act upon the fluid, so that the motion to be 

 investigated is due solely to a disturbance actually existing at a time (t = 0) 

 previous to which we do not push our enquiries." (Lord Rayleigh, Theory 

 of Sound, vol. 2, 1896.) 



