JANUARY 22, 1914] | 
masters could have their pick of the boys in all the 
public schools. I warrant that that statement would 
never be made again. I have often urged on head- 
masters the advisability of allowing more boys of pro- 
nounced ability to do more science at school. Over 
and over again I have been told that boys ought not 
to specialise at school, as if the sixteen or seventeen 
hours a week spent at classics was not more specialisa- 
tion than the ten or twelve hours’ science which was 
recommended. One might expect that, in these more 
enlightened days, more parents would rebel against 
a medieval system of education, but as a rule a parent 
does what he is told. 
He lets the boy specialise in classics, although his 
future career may require a scientific training. In a 
very large number of cases men have come to me, 
both at the Imperial College and at Oxford, 
who want to be doctors, engineers, and _ the 
like, who have done little or no science, even 
when the schools from which they came _ were 
exceedingly well equipped for science teaching. 
In nearly every case the reason was the same, the 
parent had consulted the classical master, and taking 
what he thought was an expert opinion had decided 
to let his boy spend his time on classics. I say 
“spend,” not ** waste,"’ for it really is rather a pleasant 
thing to have a knowledge of Latin and Greek. It 
is pleasant, and even sometimes useful, to know the 
derivation of words, but since, if we may accept an 
estimate quoted by Emerson, five-eighths of the words 
in English are not derived, either directly or indirectly, 
from the classical languages, the argument would be 
much stronger in favour of boys learning Anglo- 
Saxon. Latin and Greek ought to be regarded as 
luxuries, not as essentials, in education. It is to be 
hoped that in the near future there will be an 
organised revolt of British parents, and that they will 
demand that their boys shall be taught what will be 
of use to them afterwards, modern languages, includ- 
ing English, science, and mathematics. I suppose it 
is too much to hope that the new Education Bill, since 
apparently it is to touch the public schools, will help 
in making the education given in them more prac- 
tical, doing, in fact, what classical masters will not, 
and science masters and parents cannot do. 
The number of clever boys in any class is quite 
small. By cleverness I do not mean the capacity for 
learning; real cleverness, I take it, is the almost auto- 
matic power of picking out the essentials from a mass 
of inessentials, getting, in fact, to the root of the 
matter at once. Now it is too frequently the boy with 
a good memory, and that alone, who is picked out of 
the elementary school and sent on his upward way 
as something out of the common. Such boys have, 
of course, their proper and useful place in the scheme 
of things, but they are not going to do great things 
in the world. It is the other kind of cleverness that 
the country needs at the top, but there must be more 
than this cleverness even; the boy must have grit 
besides. He must be able to struggle and fight his 
way up, and, for this reason, let us earnestly hope 
that all the difficulties will not be cleared away. It is 
a ladder we want, not a moving staircase. 
It is more and more common for the public-school 
boy to choose an engineering career, and it will be 
well for science masters to guard parents against 
sending boys into works, say at the age of sixteen, 
with an insufficient mathematical and scientific basis. 
Many engineers, and successful men, too, have recom- 
mended this course, saying the boys can pick up their 
mathematics and science for themselves. 
The best course for an aspiring engineer is that he 
should have two years of good practical mathematics 
and science in properly equipped engineering labora- 
NO. 2308, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
S97 
tories, and when he gets into works he will have the 
seeing and understanding eye. The last two years of 
his school life should be mainly devoted to mathe- 
matics, chemistry, physics, and both French and Ger- 
man, of which languages he should have a speaking 
as well as a reading knowledge. 
I wish it were possible to include among possible 
careers for science boys the home Civil and the Indian 
Civil Services, for it is undoubtedly the case that those 
services would benefit greatly by such inclusion. The 
regulations at present in force, however, give too great 
an advantage to the classical boy. Out of the 6000 
marks which it is possible for a candidate to aim at no 
fewer than 4400 are assigned to the subjects ordinarily 
included in a classical training. These marks are 
given for Latin, Greek, Roman and Greek history, 
logic and psychology, and mental and moral philo- 
sophy. Against these a science man can, as a rule, 
offer only lower mathematics and two science subjects, 
aggregating two thousand marks less. It is true that 
he might learn two more science subjects up to the 
not very high standard required, and that would add 
another 1200 to his possible marks. If he did so, how- 
ever, and failed to get in, he would not be fit for any 
scientific career, except perhaps an inferior teaching 
post. The standard of the subjects in this examination 
is too low for it to be of use to him in any way, except 
it be supplemented in one subject by two years more 
advanced study. If science men are desired for these 
two great public services a much higher standard in 
at most two science subjects should be demanded, with 
a corresponding increase in the total marks attainable. 
For those boys who have made physics their chief 
study at school and at college, there are fewer careers 
open than to those who have specialised in other 
branches of science. But I understand that aviation 
is going to bring this branch of science into prominent 
and practical usefulness. If one thinks also of the 
number of meteorologists in this country and its 
dependencies, it is obvious that here is an outlet for 
the physicist. The main bulk, however, of physics 
men become teachers. 
To the chemist many avenues are open, and this is 
largely due to the awakening of the manufacturer to 
the usefulness of research work in all directions. I 
need not again recall to you the contrast of the Ger- 
man works and our own, but it would certainly be no 
exaggeration to say that, even now, for every indus- 
trial research chemist in this country there are twenty 
in Germany. However, there is no doubt that in the 
last five years the number of works chemists, of the 
research type, has enormously increased. It is for us 
who teach the boys and men to see that this most 
healthy movement, which is of Imperial importance, 
is not checked by the poor quality of the men sent into 
the works. Unless they are men with a natural apti- 
tude for investigation and have been properly 
imbued with the research spirit, both at school and 
at college, it will be nothing less than a great mis- 
fortune for the country. 7 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Campripce.—Mr. G. R. Mines, of Sidney Sussex 
College, has accepted a temporary post as demon- 
strator of physiology in the University of Toronto. 
He will return to Cambridge about the middle of May. 
Announcement is made that part i. of the examina- 
tion for the diploma in psychological medicine will 
begin on Tuesday, June 2, and part ii. on Tuesday, 
March 31. The examination for part i. will be held 
in Cambridge; that for part ii. will be held in London. 
The acting director of the observatory gives notice 
