88 
NATURE 
[| NOVEMBER 22, 1906 
acted independently of the current from the trolley-wire, 
a faét quite sufficient to account for him attempting to 
apply the magnetic brake when the wheels were skidded. 
In regard to the hypothesis that the accident was due to 
improper fitting of the hand brakes, Colonel Yorke says 
that the shoes, which cleared the wheels 1/16th of an inch, 
as Stated, were new and of cast-iron. The rubbing surface 
would therefore have the rough skin characteristic of iron 
castings, and friction would be greater than when the 
blocks had been worn smooth by use. A very slight 
pressure would cause the wheels to skid, and as the 
springs which pull the brake off had only 1/16th inch 
compression, the brake might remain on after the driver 
had moved the brake lever to the release position. The 
position of the brake blocks, in regard to the vertical 
component, may also have had an effect in keeping them 
on, as Colonel Yorke points out in his report. The blocks 
were hung so that they would be below the centre of the 
wheels, and therefore the upward movement of the peri- 
phery of one wheel in each pair would tend to force the 
brake on when once it had made contact. Colonel Yorke 
very properly condemns this arrangement, as it prevents 
the brakeman from using any nice adjustment such as is 
needed to prevent the wheel from skidding. Sir Douglas 
Galton, in his paper before the Institution of Mechanical 
Engineers, recommends half an inch clearance between the 
wheels of a railway coach and the brake blocks, and it 
is usual in railway practice to place the blocks level with 
the wheel centres, or somewhat higher. The nice adjust- 
ment of control needed for working hand brakes efficiently, 
especially when rails are greasy, and therefore easily 
skidded, is hardly possible with brake rigging such as was 
used. The transmission was by a chain wound upon a 
spindle and through a series of rods and levers, ‘‘ often 
roughly shaped to size and length in a forge, and connected 
by ill-fitting pins and joints, or by short lengths of chain,”’ 
as the Board of Trade report states. It is easy to under- 
stand that lost motion, due to such rigging, would account 
for a good deal of lag even if the gear were new. 
AN EDUCATIONAL GAP) 
FOR many years past the attention of those who have 
been giving serious consideration to the complex 
educational problems which arise in this country has been 
directed to the gap which exists between the time at 
which pupils ordinarily leave the public elementary schools 
and that at which a very small proportion of them appear 
as students at our technical institutions and at various 
evening classes. Many attempts have been made to bridge 
over this gap by continuation classes of various kinds and 
under various conditions, but these attempts cannot be said 
to have been successful in the past to any extent com- 
mensurate either with the importance of the problem or 
with the amount of care which has been bestowed upon 
it. The causes of failure are deeply rooted in our social 
and economic organisation, whether we consider the large 
towns, the country districts, or the intermediate districts 
which are partly urban and partly rural. In the large 
towns, for instance, as soon as a lad is released from com- 
pulsory attendance at school, either by age or by the 
attainment of the necessary standard, his services have a 
market value which his parents are usually very un- 
willing to forego, though its immediate sacrifice may have 
an important effect upon the ultimate success of the youth 
in after life. The consequence is that, especially in 
London, large numbers of these boys take positions as 
van boys, errand boys, and in similar occupations, in 
which for a few years they can earn wages up to or 
exceeding 10s. per week. By the time, however, that they 
reach the age of eighteen or nineteen they cease to be 
eligible for such work, and, not having utilised the inter- 
vening years since leaving school in attaining expertness 
in any skilled occupation, there is no other course open 
to them but to join the ranks of unskilled labour, whence 
the step to those of the unemployed and unemployable is 
easy, especially as they have reached the age at which 
1 Report of the Consultative Committee upon Questions affecting Higher 
Elementary Schools. (Adopted by the Committee May 24, 1906, and issued, 
with a Prefatory Note, by the Board of Education, July 20, 1906 ) 
NO. 1934, VOL. 75] 
their parents can no longer be expected to contribute to 
their maintenance. In the country, other causes lead to 
somewhat similar final results. 
The inquiry of the consultative committee deals in great 
detail with one series of suggestions and experiments for 
bridging this gap for a minority of the pupils referred to. 
The particular problem minutely examined is that of pro- 
viding slightly *‘ extended facilities ’’ (in a secular sense) 
for the best pupils, who would otherwise leave the 
elementary schools at the usual age of fourteen years or 
earlier, and whose parents would be subjected to the 
temptations mentioned above. The question inquired into 
is how best to establish a type of school capable of 
educating such children, the parents being willing to main- 
tain them for the necessary time, to a somewhat higher 
standard without trenching on the proper province of the 
secondary schools, on the one hand, or of the training 
which prepares specifically for a definite career on the 
other. 
The problem is one well suited for the consideration of 
the consultative committee on account of the wide and 
varied educational experience of its different members. To 
strengthen its hands, and to obtain the necessary inform- 
ation which might not be available within the four corners 
of its own membership, it has examined a carefully selected 
number of representative official and non-official witnesses, 
twenty-five in all. For obvious reasons the names of the 
official witnesses are withheld, and therefore no names 
whatever are given; nor is the evidence published in full, 
but ample quotations are made from it wherever they are 
deemed necessary and relevant to support the arguments 
of the report. The only criticism one has to make upon 
the selection of the witnesses is that so few as five 
employers of labour can scarcely have had sufficiently varied 
individual experience to supply materials for dealing with 
so large a problem. 
That the present is a time of transition and experiment, 
and that the points of view from which educational 
problems are being attacked are rapidly changing, could 
receive no greater exemplification than is conveyed by this 
report. The gradual change of the official attitude towards 
such problems has been very apparent to outside observers 
during the last four or five years in the different reports, 
prefatory notes to codes, and other official publications 
issued by the Board of Education from time to time. This 
report deals in full detail with numerous points brought 
into view by the new standpoints, and it is to be hoped 
that the conclusions of the committee on these and cognate 
matters may be fully adopted by the Board in shaping its 
policy, without, however, rushing into opposite extremes. 
The swing of the pendulum from the time when “ pay- 
ment by results’’ was the fashionable official system has 
indeed been great, and every page of this report bears 
evidence of the distance which has been travelled from 
those ‘‘ dark ages.’’ In point of time, however, the period 
referred to is sufficiently close to have left a legacy, which 
forms a factor in the present problem, in the shape of a 
body of teachers some of whom still find it difficult to 
realise that they are ‘‘ freed from the trammels they have 
been accustomed to all their lives,’? and who have “a 
certain stock-in-trade which they think can be used 
anywhere.’’ 
The chief value of the report consists in the recognition, 
and some of the consequences of that recognition, of the 
proper function of education, in the root sense of the word, 
as a training of the moral qualities, the formation of habits 
of mind being regarded as more important than the acquire- 
ment of mere knowledge. Prominence is given to the 
importance of the development of self-activity and resource 
and powers of observation, the fostering of intelligence and 
interest in the work, and that training of the eye and the 
hand in conjunction with the brain which leads to 
““ general handiness.’’ These are some of the points dwelt 
upon, not once or twice, but many times and in varied 
aspects, in the pages of the report. 
The report also puts its finger upon some of the most 
glaring defects of the present and previous systems of 
education, both elementary and secondary. The results, 
which have long ‘been painfully evident to those who in 
any form have been entrusted with the further education 
of the pupils turned out, are that these pupils have not 
