5-- 



NA TURE 



[March 29, 1906 



State's welfare and continued progress under conditions of 

 peace or under conditions of war. We must face the appli- 

 cations of all the new sciences to every department of our 

 much more complex national life, from the lowest employ- 

 ment to the highest fields of statecraft. If this is anything 

 like true we have a great responsibility cast upon us when 

 we talk about education. And when we inquire into the 

 conditions we are still more impressed by this strenuous 

 necessity of looking the facts in the face and seeing how 

 this question affects us, not merely as being in this 

 Borough Polytechnic, but as being Britons, as being 

 members of a civilised community in the twentieth century. 

 I have already said that even so far back as the time of 

 Luther the Germans insisted that all their children should 

 be educated ; there should be no difference between the 

 rich and the poor. What has grown out of that? The 

 thing has gone on from strength to strength, until now in 

 Germany, to deal with the Old World, we find a country 

 with the greatest number of universities, with the greatest 

 possible desire, from the Kaiser down to the peasant, to 

 do everything for Germany that can be done by educating 

 every child that is born in the country. What did 

 democracy do when it had fair play in the" United States 

 of America? The first thing done was to apportion millions 

 of acres for the future endowment of education. The acres 

 did not mean much capitalised then, but thev mean a great 

 deal capitalised now; so that in the western States of 

 America, where you get the purest voiced democracy that 

 you can get, I think, on the surface of the plane't, the 

 children of the citizens, boys and girls, are educated from 

 the age of six to the age of six-and-lwenty without any call 

 upon the parents or without any hesitation to carry as 

 many as possible up to the very highest form of education. 

 And when does the technical instruction come in there? 

 The technical instruction is given only to those who have 

 taken degrees in the university. Japan is following on 

 tlie same lines. The educational system of Japan was 

 started as near as may be at the same time that the new 

 educational policy was begun here. The result of it has 

 been that you have in Japan now a completely trained 

 nation, trained to think, trained to do the best along any 

 line that may turn up, and the difference between the 

 existence of such a training and its opposite we have now 

 in comparing the present condition of Japan with the 

 present condition of China. Japan has become a world 

 Power with whom we are proud to associate simply be- 

 cause the Japanese children have been taught to think and 

 to do for thirty years. That is one of the most blessed 

 things to think of, because it shows that if any nation, 

 even the British nation, ultimately finds that it is back- 

 ward, some thirty years, or perhaps even twenty years, 

 spent in Japanese fashion may put everything right. But 

 if that is so, then it is my duty to point out to you that 

 we have a great deal to do. I have said that our present 

 system of education was commenced, roughly, some thirty 

 years ago, when the Japanese system was started, but at 

 pi' 'in our svstem deals only with primary and secondary 

 education. It is a most extraordinary thing that our 

 Minister of Education has not anything to do with the most 

 important part of education. It is a situation truly British. 

 Well, if we find that it is necessary to imitate the action 

 of other States in having a department which shall include 

 the top of education as well as the bottom, it is right 

 that I should tell you at once that this will cost a great 

 deal of money above what we spend at present. If we take 

 one German university, Berlin — the equivalent of the Uni- 

 versity of London — the German State spends on it the sum 

 of 169,000/. a year. That is to say, it spent that sum in 

 the year 1891-2 ; whereas for our higher educational 

 institutions — all the universities and university colleges in 

 England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales — until quite 

 recently, the British Government allowed a smaller sum. 

 That, I suppose, perhaps may be considered a fair estimate 

 of the importance of education in the eyes of the British 

 Government and in the eyes of the German Government. 

 The worst of all this is that it is not merely a question of 

 money and increasing taxation ; it is a question of the 

 hampering of all the industries of the country from top to 

 bottom, from John O'Groat's to Land's End. In an 

 "iTi ial document published by the United States Govern- 

 ment some four years ago, it was stated, as a result of 



no. 1900, VOL. "J2>~\ 



considerable inquiry, that, taking the day students in the 

 United States, in those colleges and universities where only 

 day students were considered, there were more teachers oi 

 science in the United States than there were students of 

 science turned out from the English colleges. Now, if 

 that or anything like it is true, do you think that in any- 

 continued competition along any line in connection with 

 any industry in the United States and here, we are 

 likely to come out top? It is absolutely impossible. Sir 

 William Mather, more recently, has given us some inform- 

 ation on this point. He spent four months in America 

 looking up the technical colleges and the conditions relating 

 to the education of the industrial classes. He found that 

 tin years 1140 there were attending educational establish- 

 ments, that is 10 say, universities and colleges, 32,000 day 

 students; all these were taking a three years' course. To- 

 day there are 65,000 students being educated at these same 

 colleges, and he says the spirit of America is so completely 

 aroused to the necessity of making science the basis of all 

 industry, it does not matter yvhichever it is, however simple 

 the undertaking, that the whole tendency and trend of 

 thought and feeling is to educate large masses of their 

 young men so that they may take their part, not only as 

 managers, employers, and capitalists, but as foremen and 

 chief workmen in their great industries ; and he ends by 

 saying that it is necessary that we should urge our Govern- 

 ment, whether it be Liberal or Conservative, to take care 

 that there should be sufficient expenditure provided to enable 

 our young people throughout the length and breadth of the 

 land to possess equal advantages to those of young people 

 of Germany and America. 



If it is right that there should be this education, con- 

 ferring upon the nation these enormous advantages, in 

 considering the thing from the point of view either of the 

 child or the child's parent, should there be one State-aided 

 education for the rich and another for the poor? That is 

 to say, if education — the best education — is worth all that 

 is claimed for it, should the State deliberately foster the 

 artificial production of a breed of second-rates? How can 

 every child have a fair chance? Some of the older ones 

 among you may remember Kingsley's "Saint's Tragedy." 

 I will just quote two verses, with a little alteration in 

 one : — 



" The same piece of clay makes a tile, 



A pitcher, a taw, or a brick ; 

 Dan Horace knew life— you may cut out a s:.int 



Or a bench from the self-same stick. 



" Wt* fall on our legs in this world, 



Blind kittens tossed in neck and heels ; 

 Tis education that licks Nature's cubs into shape, 

 She's the mill-head if we are the wheels." 



Surely, then, if we must not differentiate education, if 

 we must not knowingly support second-rate education, our 

 duty is to find the best. We come, then, to the problem 

 which I have not the courage to bring before you noyv. 

 because one might talk for a week about it, and I have 

 only twenty minutes' left, even if you will grant me as 

 inn' h as that. 



What is the best education? It has taken the world a 

 long time to find out what it already knows about it, but 

 I doubt whether even now the world has quite got lo tin 

 bottom of the problem. I think we may begin by saying 

 that the best education should teach us to learn how to 

 think, how to observe and how to use our hands, eyi 

 and brain ; how to exercise the body, how to become 

 good and useful citizens, and — this is my own notion, 

 perhaps you all will not agree with it — how to bear arms. 

 If you have such an education as that going on all over 

 the United Kingdom, my idea is that, whatever may 

 happen to them afterwards, whether the children become 

 archbishops or ploughmen, they would not be harmed by 

 such an education, and, as a matter of fact, they could 

 not have spent their time better. Now that is a very 

 important thing to bear in mind, because there are systems 

 of so-called education about which it could be shown in a 

 moment that those who have been put under them might 

 have spent their time very much better. We must dis- 

 criminate really very much more carefully than is generally 

 done between education, which I will define as the power 

 "I learning how to think, and instruction, which means 



