THE UNIVERSITY AND WOMEN'S WORK 69 



superior to a mere trade or handicraft '. Note the word 

 superior. Superior in what respect? I do not know I 

 cannot imagine in what respect, for example, is the work of 

 a trained surgeon to-day superior to that of a trained agricul- 

 turist. Certainly it is not intellectually superior. A good 

 farmer of the old-fashioned kind may remain what he was 

 a man who, by virtue of other things than scientific knowledge, 

 can successfully till the soil, rear good live stock and turn out 

 good produce ; but we know that real improvement and 

 progress rest with the trained agriculturist, with whom farming 

 is a science as well as an art a man who is working in 

 obedience to principles rather than precepts, and has the light 

 of connected scientific knowledge to guide his hands, to 

 interpret his own and other people's experience and to give 

 him new ideas. 



And so with a host of other practical arts. They have their 

 technologies ; they are linked to high learning ; they engage 

 the mind as deeply and as worthily as any learned profession. 



These things are being recognized, and special training is 

 now being provided, especially in our newer universities, for 

 many industrial callings. We are also seriously asking our- 

 selves whether the type of general education, which has so 

 long prevailed in our schools, is not capable of some readjust- 

 ment which will make it better subserve the life interests of 

 the average man and woman. The importance of such an 

 clement as manual training is being successfully urged, and, 

 indeed, there is at the present time, amidst the clamour of 

 religious controversy, a peaceful revolution taking place in our 

 methods of education. 



None of us, I suppose, would wish to forget that education 

 should concern itself primarily with man as a human being, 

 but I confess I become impatient when I find people exalting 

 this ideal to the exclusion of all others, and I have a particular 

 grudge against those people who will approve special education 



