January y, iyiyj 



NATURE 



th 



of tip ■ assiduoush 



practised in the whole field of bodil) exi 



much, in my opinion, to our advantage. Thai field 



running, swimming, rowing, riding, and climbing: 

 ball, tennis, poll • 



others [thirdly, and 



hunting; fourthly, special ki i lar training, 



such as gymnasli ind fencing; and, lii hly, 



military training. Now all th [valuable, not 



only for the body, not only to maintain thi 



'/no, inn al mosl "i ill 



Faculties of the mind and spirit. Fur this re: 



attach the least value to the artificial exercises, so 

 popular on ni, as gymnastics and fencing; 



and not so much to the games as to the natural exer- 

 cises and sports, It has il merit ol British 

 education to have discovered the superlative educating 

 capacity of what are often called mere pastimes and 

 amusements. Wi this has been quite a modern dis- 



ry, and man} nations are still only just learning 



the lesson from us. When I read Russian and i 



novels, and even some works of Dickens and other 



English writers, I seem to be living in a museum of 



imens, and not among men and 



■ n who have breathed God's air and seen the sun- 

 light. 



This leads to the all-important question of human 

 physique- too large a theme for discussion now-. But 

 from my own observations made in many countries 

 I conclude that variations in physique show sucn 

 i" < uliar local distribution that we must attribute them 

 more to environment than to heredity. What the prin- 

 cipal cause of physical deterioration, combined as it 

 generallv is with menial and moral deterioration, 

 ran; be escapes me. Ii cannot be entirely disease, or 

 alcoholism, or underfeeding, or overcrowding, or 

 climate, but must be some unknown factor which has 

 ■ n discovered. On the Other hand, speaking 

 as a military medical officer, I will sa) with certainty 

 that a period of open-air military training under dis- 

 cipline, combined with good food, greatly improves 



physique, the health, and the mental power-, ol 

 young men, let alone their manners and morale. For 

 this reason I should I"' in favour of universal military 

 training everywhere; but, on the "'her hand, I admit 

 the force of the argument thai such military training 

 may be an incentive to puerile wars though I am not 

 sure of it. On the whole, tin;, for,, I would at least 

 suggest an alternatm scheme — that is, a scheme of 

 what I call "health conscription," consisting of at 

 leasl a fortnight's compulsor) physical training, under 

 discipline, in the open air, for both sexes every year 

 for five years between the ages, say, of fifteen anil 

 twen I ill, of coursi , bi the usual objections 



on the score of expense .and interference with so-called 

 liberty; l>ut (he al ipears to me to be con- 



tinued deterioration ol bod) and mind. The public 

 schools of Rritain have set the example in what mav 

 be called ph iposal is merely to 



extend that faith to all classes. 



Coming now to the actual knowledge obtained bv 

 the voting in our schools, I have concluded that it is 

 realh much. Mj complain! land that of 



others) is not so much total amount of 



information imparted as to the direction of it. As 

 everyone knows, our teaching has been concerned 

 chief!) with mathematics and th.- classics, with the 

 outlines of historv and of English literature. Fir-i 

 taking mathematics (which is a hobby of mine), my 

 itioii is that few voung men know- even the 

 aims and objects of the science, much less its applica- 

 although they mav have studied it for years at 



NO. 2^f)J. VOL. t02] 



] school, li i hem thej will reply, " Mathe- 



atii fine, bul I don'l know what 



■ ni , and, anyway, it is no use 

 to mi i i this is thai the schoolboy is 



not pushed fas) enough into the hear) ol the science, 

 which is the calculus. He is kept, so to speak, potter- 

 about with petty problems in of thi 

 temple, and is never allowed to look into the temple 

 E and to see tb beauti s within. In fact, the whole 

 subject is taught, not as a great science, but as an 

 opportunit) for exercising the mind by a system of 

 puzzles. The error is that of entering into too great 

 detail at the outset. Instead of climbing the moun- 

 tain, we are kepi wandering among the boulders at 

 its base; wi become tired; we abandon our enter- 

 ; and the time and money spent on it are almost 

 entirely wasted. I once wished to give a simple 

 mathematical demonstration to a class of more than 

 twenty medical officers; only one of them knew the 

 | meaning of a differential coefficient ! 



As regards the classics, my complaint is, not that 

 boys are taught the " humanities," but that they an- 

 no/ taught them. The fundamental mistake seems to 

 be the same as in mathematics — too great detail at the 

 outset. The study of the historv, literature, art, and 

 policies of the human race degenerates into the 

 meticulous studv of the alphabet of the subject only — 

 that is, Greek and Latin grammar. Why do we still 

 learn these languages? In order to read Greek and 

 Latin literature. But after we have spent years in 

 learning the languages, we become so tired of them 

 that we do not read the literature at all ! I am a bad 

 linguist, but an ardent admirer of classical literature; 

 vet when I was a voung man I noted that many of 

 my friends were good linguists, but hated the litera- 

 ture. Surely a waste of lime and money again. The 

 book is opened ; a few words are deciphered ; the 

 scholium is read ; and the book is closed again — and 

 for ever. 



So also with our teaching in most things — we potter 

 about the porch and never look into the temple at all. 

 How often, for example, are our boys taken into the 

 picture galleries, those great temples of the human 

 spirit, and there taught the history and the meaning 

 of the art enshrined in them? Or how often are 

 thev taken to hear the reading of our own national 

 poems or the music of the great composers? Seldom, 

 I think; and when thev escape from school thev take 

 to the reading of shilling novels and the viewing of 

 contemptible plavs. 



It is usually, and rightly, maintained that the aim 

 of all education is to endow the voung with character, 

 judgment, and knowledge; but when people argue that 

 the relative importance of these qualities is in the order 

 given— that character comes first, then judgment, and 

 lastlv knowledge — I am inclined to disagree. We have 

 here, indeed, a trinity of elements all necessary for 

 educational salvation, hut all three are so closely knit 

 together that we cannot do without one of them. 

 Without character one can possess neither judgment 

 nor knowledge; without judgment, neither character 

 nor knowledge; without knowledge, neither character 

 nor judgment. How, for instance, may a person who 

 consents to remain ignorant of all the knowledge which 

 science has «iven to us be said to possess character? 

 \nd as for judgment, it is not a faculty bestowed 

 upon us (i priori at birth, but one which grows with 

 exercise Sh( lley fixed the argument when he said of 

 one of tin- highest virtues : 



i . ■■ • , itting, ih?.t erows bright 



Gazing on cunv truths. 



Similarly, breathing, sleep, and food are all necessary 



for bodilv salvation; and one might as well say that 



