——— 
JANUARY 15, 1914] 
NATURE 
567 
EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCES. 
HE annual Conference of Educational Associations 
just concluded at the University of London was 
a strenuous business spread over eight days. The 
inaugural address by Mr. James Bryce contained a 
plea that the strongest and finest minds should be 
pushed forward. In reference to this key to national 
success, it was noted that the tide runs now towards 
scientific studies just as fifty years ago it ran towards 
humanistic studies, and it was pertinently asked: 
What subjects and what sort of teaching of those 
subjects, are best calculated to train men to think, to 
enable the mind to sce facts as they are, to analyse 
them, to draw just conclusions from them, to rise 
above prejudices, to play freely round the phenomena 
of life? Are mathematics and physics or chemistry 
sufficient for this purpose? The note of caution here 
applied in one direction was also sounded in connection 
with the additional expenditure of public money on 
education, with a single exception, that concerning 
the payment of higher salaries to the teachers. 
This same note of caution was noticeable in many 
of the speeches made both at the London conference 
and at the North of England Education Conference. 
The London paper, by Sir H. G. Fordham, on the 
problem of rural education opened with the reminder 
that so great has been the effect of modern methods 
of locomotion upon the movement of population, 
“there is nothing to be gained by attempting to make 
an educational distinction between the town man and 
the country man.’’ Agriculture, he asserted, can, in 
no circumstances, be usefully introduced as a subject 
of instruction in elementary schools, and can only very 
indirectly be utilised as a subject of instruction in 
secondary schools. 
Sir Robert Baden-Powell dealt with character build- 
ing in schools, and, after asserting that the Scout 
movement had captured the boys, truly laid his moni- 
tory finger on one of the defects of the Scout move- 
ment; it has not captured the teacher. Theoretically, 
the movement is good; how often does it fail because 
the teachers are not scout-masters ? 
Mr. H. Holman warned us that manual teaching 
was not going to transform education, however much 
it would reform it. It was not going to do away 
with reading, writing, and arithmetic, but it would 
deprive them of their usurped and false pre-eminence. 
These subjects would be better taught. 
In the north of England Dr. M. E. Sadler reverted 
to the review of education made by Principal Griffiths 
in his presidential address to the Educational Science 
Section of the British Association. In Dr. Sadler’s 
opinion English education is at the moment torn 
asunder by hesitancy as to ideals. It is puzzled, self- 
critical, harried by doubts. It is frightened of making 
a venture. But there is encouragement in this condi- 
tion; for the hesitation is the outcome, not of palsied 
will-power, but of harrassed fair-mindedness; and 
there are signs that a clear purpose is taking the place 
of this uncertainty. 
Consequently, the Geographical Association can be 
congratulated upon its definite successes. This year 
the association attained its majority, and Dr. Scott 
Keltie has become the president of the association 
thirty years after his issue of the famous report on 
geographical education. Dr. Keltie’s réswmé of thirty 
years’ progress was distinctly exhilarating. Geography 
has a definite place in education, and its sphere of 
labour is by no means circumscribed; the plan is in 
being, and the stately edifice is being erected. 
A definite aim in education emerges from these 
conferences in reference to examinations. On many 
NO. 2307, VOL. 92] 
occasions expression was given to the opinion that 
the written examinations, which Dr. Rouse labelled 
as the fetish of the British people for sixty years, 
required the definite addition of a face-to-face test. 
In connection with the examination of modern 
languages, a rough equivalent of the face-to-face test, 
viz. free composition, was stated to be showing bene- 
ficial results. : 
The meeting of the Private Schools Association in 
London was notable for the severe criticism levelled 
at the Board of Education. The Rev. G. H. Moore 
said that the Board had displayed such despotism that 
at times it might seem to be anxious even to deprive 
the parent of the choice of school for his own children. 
A single inspector’s opinion came with the whole 
weight of the Board behind it. The reputation of a 
teacher could be ruined in an hour by his inability to 
satisfy the standard of the Board’s inspector of the 
moment. ; 
The Montessori system was treated cautiously in 
the north and ambitiously in London. The title of 
the paper read in London is significant, ‘The New 
Hopes Due to Scientific Investigation of the Child’s 
Natural Development.” The London speakers revelled 
in their proclamation of a new scientific method, and, 
therefore, of a new science of experimental psychology. 
The Montessori system was claimed as the applica- 
tion, for the first time in the world’s history, of science 
to the problems of education. The system applies the 
laws of environment which are more powerful than 
the laws of birth; no more than 1 per cent. of young 
children are hopelessly inefficient from birth; on the 
basis of an experience of a few brief years and in 
reference to these young children, it was claimed that 
a class of forty children trained on the Montessori 
system became a class of forty efficient children with- 
out a single backward or stupid scholar. The caution 
which was absent on this occasion from the speeches 
in London must have risen to the minds of the 
teachers present as they heard acclaimed as new those 
methods of pedagogy which most good teachers have 
long practised, e.g. waiting until the pupil is ready 
before giving a lesson on a new subject. Teachers 
know they must so wait ; but owing to the fact that they 
teach classes, they cannot wait for all individuals; 
hence the novelty lies solely in individual instruction. 
In the north stress was laid on the need for caution 
in regard to the Montessori apparatus. There seems 
to be a very real danger in the overbalance of minute, 
isolated sense training, against the minimum of story- 
telling, of play, and happy dancing and singing. In 
relation to the Montessori principle of auto-education, 
of freedom, it was asked with due reason, ‘‘ But should 
not the apparatus give scope, so that it helps him at 
five years old to become aware of his neighbour? 
For this apparatus offers little, if any, scope for neigh- 
bourliness.’’ Similarly, the system demands that the 
child shall not be made aware that he has made a 
mistake. Is it not wise to realise that an intelligent 
failure is more hopeful for the future than an un- 
intelligent success? There is some hope in class- 
teaching after all. 
RHEOSTATS. 
AX example of the great attention given to details 
nowadays in connection with apparatus for the 
laboratory and lecture-room use, and general experi- 
mental work, is afforded by a 104 pp. list which a 
firm of electrical instrument makers (Messrs. Isen- 
thal and Co.) have sent us, devoted entirely to 
rheostats. It is not within the scope of the present 
article to indicate all the various patterns and modifi- 
