\UY 23, 1919] 



NATURE 



4'5 



01 the breeder's pen. It recognised that it was dealing 

 with a very complex organism, which was at least as 

 much mind-body as body-mind; thai the thinking, 

 feeling, willing sit!.- of man'- constitution was jusr as 

 real as the throbbing muscle and thrilling nerve. It 

 believed thai character was as vital an organismal 

 quality as stature, or weight, or length of life, or 

 fecundity, and they must rid their minds for ever of 

 the prejudice thai the eugenic ideal smacked of the 

 farmyard in any objectionable way. There was need 

 for a wider and deeper recognition of the commonplace 

 that young people are organisms — growing, developing, 

 varying, too, if we would let them — serving whaC 

 should be a joyous apprenticeship to the serious busi- 

 ness ol life. These children were nol onh little men 

 and women in the making, hut also young mammals 

 really and truly young mammals. Their health was 

 nol incidental it was well-nigh everything; their 

 — item was not irrepressible without serious 

 risks; their play was not a luxury, but an essential; 

 their adolescence in the novel, artificial conditions of 

 civilisation needed to be guided sympathetically; their 

 adult functions and environment must be looked for- 

 and prepared for. 



\n address was delivered by Lord Gorell, Deput\ 

 Director of Stall Duties (Education), to the meeting 

 of the Teachers' Guild on January j on "The Educa- 

 tion of Men on Military Service," in which he related 

 thi steps that had been taken .1- opportunity served 

 for providing means of instruction and education for 

 men engaged in war service. Lord Gorell stated that 

 there were at the present time at least three million 

 The work had risen from below; it had 

 not been in an) way put upon the Army from above. 

 The tit si aim was to give the soldiers some diversion 

 from the stress of war; the second was the high ideal 

 of education, to brighten intelligence and promote self- 

 realisation ; and the third was to help definitely in 

 what they intended to do in the future. 



Addresses were delivered to the members of the 

 Teachers' Guild on "National and' International 

 [deals on the Teaching of Histor) " bj Prof. F. J. C. 

 Hearnshaw, of King's College, and by Miss A. H. 

 I. own, Vice-President of St. Hilda's Hall, Oxford. 

 'I be former pleaded that the Spartan sought his ideal 

 man of the type of Leonidas, the Athenian that of 

 the Roman thai of Caesar, the medieval 

 schools that of Aquinas ; bul our present ideal is a 

 communal one. We w • re seeking to evolve thi excel- 

 I craftsman or the man of trained mind ready 



to take up work. Discipline and the sense of duty 

 fitted men and women to plaj a right part in national 

 life. They needed a knowledge of history which 

 trained the imagination by the pageanl of stories, then 

 showed the relation of cause and effect. Later on two 

 side, of a question were perceived, and so impartiality 

 might be learnt. The mind's horizon widened bv the 

 study of great men and great careers. Miss Lovett 

 urged in her addles, thai the word "international" 

 should connote added understanding and sympathy, 

 dj of history affected action. Nol only must 

 truth be sought, but the question should also ' 

 stantly present : Are our ideals and aims for the 



aggrandisement of our country or for the world's g 1 



and the glory of God' 



To the member, of th< Civic and Moral Education 

 an address on "The- Physical and Psycho- 

 logical liases of Education" was given by Dr. Eric 

 Pritchard, in which he churned thai the same prin- 

 ciples which led to good physical development applied 

 to the mtiking of good moral character. In describ- 

 ing at some length the nervous and cerebral 

 mechanism of the formation of habit, he said that 

 man) disturbances, such as bad circulation, were, in 

 fact, a kind of bad habit of the system. The first 

 NO. 2569, VOL. I02] 



impression made n the tabula rasa ol the virgin 

 nerve-cell was ol paramount importance. He had 

 traced back chronic nervous coughs to over-stimula- 

 tion of the respiratory apparatus at birth. The sug- 

 gestive power of home environment often counteracted 

 the work ol the school. So bad was the influence of 

 many homes m great industrial centres, and so 

 strongly did he believe in the educational influence of 

 the home, that he would almost be willing to see the 

 homes of this country sacrificed for a generation if 

 the bringing up of these expatriated' children in 

 orderly, disciplined institutions would provide a race 

 of parents capable of making proper homes for the 

 next generation. Dr. Constance Long, dealing with 

 the same subject, said that character was the per- 

 petual acquisition of something that was at all times 

 incomplete, and its first requisite was that it should 

 be capable of growth. National action was individual 

 action multiplied a thousandfold, and to understand 

 an individual it was necessary to studv, not onlv his 

 conscious, but also his unconscious' mind. ' The 

 psycho-analytic view forced us to realise that the un- 

 conscious side of the mind played a far larger part 

 in our actions than was general'lv supposed. 



Memorable addresses were delivered in various 

 sections of the conference on art and its applications, 

 on manual training and hand-work, on Nature-study, 

 and on other subjects of deep interest to teacher,! 

 The various audiences had the advantage of inspecting 

 a splendid exhibition of books, maps, wall-illustra- 

 tions, and a variety of school apparatus. Such con- 

 ferences at this critical time cannot fail to be of 

 supreme value in widening the aims and strengthen- 

 ing the purposes of all engaged in the work of 

 education. 



At the annual meeting of the Association of Direc- 

 tors and Secretaries of Education, held in the Countv 

 Hall, Westminster, on January 6, the newly appointed 

 chairman, Mr. W. A. Brockin'gton, Director of Educa- 

 tion for Leicestershire, delivered an inspiring address 

 in which he dwelt upon the vital significance of the 

 Education Act of 1918, which he characterised as the 

 realisation of a dream rather than as the development 

 of a system — a phrase which would well describe the 

 Acts of 1S70 and 1902 with all their attendant statutes. 

 The mind of the nation was open to receive new and 

 enlarged ideas, and better educated than in 1870 and 

 1902 ; hence the Bill came into being at a happy 

 moment. The administrative officers of education 

 throughout the country welcomed the Act, since it 

 realised in so large a measure the aims thev sought, 

 which were that the schemes of the local education 

 authorities should embrace not only elementary, but also 

 all other forms of education included in their jurisdic- 

 tion, proportionate block grants, the control of laggard 

 or recalcitrant authorities, the abolition of differential 

 rating, the declaration of higher education as a duty, 

 and the consequent removal of the rate limit in countv 

 areas ; and, on the social side, the universal raising 

 of the compulsory school age, the provision of ade- 

 quate maintenance scholarships so that no capable child 

 shall be debarred by poverty from the fullest educa- 

 tional facilities, the establishment of day continuation 

 schools for those in employment between fourteen and 

 eighteen, together with full freedom of organisation 

 according to local conditions, the provision of full- 

 time advanced schools of varied type, the restriction 

 of child-labour, the adequate provision of physical 

 training, medical inspection and treatment, and, 

 lastly, the endowment of scientific and industrial re- 

 search. It is a matter for much rejoicing that these 

 aims have found expression under the guidance of a 

 master-pilot in an Education Act. But the realisation 

 of its provisions are beset with many and peculiar 



