Fan. it, 1883] 
NATURE 
249 
the full light of the experience gained elsewhere, instead of 
wasting let us say a quarter of a century in costly experiments 
which may perhaps leave us in confusion more confounded. To 
begin, then, why is this question being discussed now? ‘There 
is a, great fact embodied in the most concrete fashion in the way 
in which our Government is now compelled to deal with our 
national education. Side by side of the Education Department 
by which our Minister controls in the main that book learning 
which has been given time out of mind, there has sprung up 
during the last thirty years another department—the Science and 
Art Department— by which he controls a new kind of national - 
learning altogether. We have added to the old study of books 
a new study of things. This new learning was, we may say, 
only introduced in 1852, in which year the Queen in her speech 
on opening Parliament said: ‘‘ The advancement of the fine arts 
and of practical science will be readily recognised by you as 
worthy the attention of a great and enlightened nation.” We 
have since found out that they are indeed worthy the attention of 
a great nation, and more than this, that no nation can be called 
enlightened whose citizens are not skilled in both; in fact, that 
they are to peace what cannon and swords are to war. But for 
a nation to foster them is one thing, to include them in a national 
scheme of education is another. Ought they to be so included ? 
Let us see. What do we mean by education ? Roughly speaking, 
we may say that there are two distinct schools of thought on this 
subject, although the existence of these two schools is not so 
generally recognised as it should be. According to one view, the 
human mind is an elastic bag into which facts are to be crammed 
for future use. A variation of the view is that the mind is 
inelastic, and then the stuffing -process becomes more serious, 
and instead of depending upon a natural expansion, a process 
like that in use by the manufacturers of soda-water is employed. 
It is not to be wondered at that the youthful mind likes neither 
of these methods ; what ought to be a true delight becomes a 
real agony, and hence it is, as a Warwickshire man wrote many 
years ago— 
““ Love goes toward love 
As schoolboys from their books ; 
But love from love 
Toward school with heavy looks.” 
—The mind on this view resembles a store Where, as our 
American cousins say, everything, from a frying-pan to a 
frigate, which shall be useful to the owner in after life, is to be 
found. Hence such terms as Grammar School, Trade School, 
Science School, Commercial Academy, and hence I am sorry to 
say, systems of examination which too often only serve to show 
what a boy can remember, and little care about either what a boy 
can do, or whether he can think. So much for one view. Now 
for the other. It is more difficult to image it, but in the absence 
of a better illustration, the mind may be likened to the body—a 
thing to be trained so that its grace, its freedom, its strength, its 
grasp, indeed all its powers in all directions and in all ways may 
be brought out by proper training. If the training is one-sided 
its power cannot be many-sided, but it is most useful when 
many-sided. Therefore, as each muscle of the body has to be 
properly trained to make a perfect man, so must the educational 
system brought into play be such as to train to its uttermost and 
bring out each quality of the mind. Each faculty of it when 
called into play becomes as a two-edged sword in the arms of a 
strong man. In this, or some such way, then, may we picture 
to ourselves the difference between instruction in its real sense, 
and education in its real sense. Now, which of these systems 
is the better one? We shall see at once that the first may give 
us a mind stored with facts covering a large or a small area ; it 
may be bookkeeping, or it may be Latin, or anything else. But 
will the mind be able to use this store in all cases? We grant 
knowledge, but may not wisdom linger? Those of us who have 
got to Voltaire’s second stage, and who have studied men, know 
that this too often happens, and that much knowledge does not 
prevent the owner from being absolutely unfitted to grapple 
with the problems which each rising sun brings to him for solu- 
tion, The other system, on the other hand, if the training is not 
thoroughly all-round, may give us a man who finds that the 
questions presented to him on his entrance to active life are 
precisely those which require the application of that quality of 
mind, whichever it may be, which was least trained at school. 
He may find himself face to face with problems of the existence 
of which he never dreamed, and so far removed from his 
experience that his mind, however powerful in some directions, 
fails to grapple with them. We seem, then, on the horns of a 
dilemma. Instruction may provide us with a store of facts, 
which the mind does not know how to use. Education may 
provide us with a mind which has been trained in a world utterly 
different from the real one. How can we escape from this 
dilemma. Ve must use the materials of that instruction which is 
most useful to us in our progress through life as a basis for the 
complete education of the mind. Which instruction is the most 
useful tous? The poet tells us, that ‘‘the proper study of man- 
kind is man”; but when we come to prose and read the views 
of those who best know the needs of modern society, and espe- 
cially industrial society, we read something like this which I 
quote from the report on elementary and middle class instruction, 
published by the Royal Commission of the Netherlands : ‘‘ The 
idea of Zudustrial Society not limited to agriculture, manufactures, 
and trade or commerce, but understoud in its widest significa- 
tion, points plainly to the acquiring of the knowledge of the 
present world, and to its application to economical and technical 
pursuits.” Now, here is a subject on which a volume might be 
written, but I shall only point out to you the obviousness of the 
importance of the study, not merely of ourselves, ov of the world 
around us, but of ourselves, azd of the world around us. This 
lands us in the necessity of training our minds in literature or 
humanities, and science and art—the study of the humanities 
enables us to know the best thoughts, and the most stable con- 
clusions on vital questicns, arrived at by our forerunners and 
those who are fighting the same battles in other lands. The 
study of science enables us, on the other hand, to get a true idea 
of the beautiful universe around us, of our real work in the 
world, and of the best manner in which we can do that work in 
closest harmony with the laws of Nature. Did we study the 
external world alone we should not profit by the experience of 
those that preceded us. Did we study humanities alone we 
should be shorn of half our natural strength in face of many 
of the problems placed before us by the conditions of modern 
life ; and, more than this, all the glories of the beautiful world 
on which our lot is cast, and the majesty of the universe of which 
that world forms part would hardly exist for us, or give rise only 
to dumb wonder. Here let me tell you alittle story. Three years 
ago when travelling in America, one morning, at a little station 
—we were approaching the Rocky Mountains—I was astonished 
to see a very old and venerable French curé in his usual garb 
enter the car, and as he was evidently in some distress of mind, 
and as evidently had little command of English, I asked him in 
his native language if I could be of any service to him, There 
was a difficulty about a box which I soon settled, and then we 
sat down and entered into conversation. He soon found out 
that I was very astonished to see him there and told meso, [ 
acknowledged it. ‘‘It is very simple,” he said, ‘‘ 1 am very 
old, and six months ago I was like to die and I was doing my 
best to prepare myself for the long journey. In my fancies I 
imagined myself already in the presence of /e dom Dieu, and I 
fancied this question addressed to me, ‘M. le curé, how did ycu 
like the beautiful world you have left’? I rose in my bed as 
this thought came into my head for I—I who—figure to yourself 
—had dared to preach of a better world for fifty years, was, oh! 
so ignorant of this, And I registered a vow that if /e bom Diew 
allowed me to rise from that bed of sickness I would spend the 
rest of my life in admiring his works—et me voici! I am only 
on my journey round the world; I am going now to stop at the 
Yosemite Valley a few days ex route for San Francisco and 
Japan, and the box, Monsieur, which your kindness has rescued 
for me contains a little scientific library, now my constant com- 
panion in my delicious wanderings.” Our general scheme of 
education, therefore, unless it is to be one-sided, must combine 
science with the humanities. But, so far, I have said nothing 
about art. Now, from the educational point of view, science 
and art are very closely connected, inasmuch as in the early 
stages of both studies the student’s powers of observation are 
brought out and trained in the most perfect way, while in the 
later stages, to succeed in either, he must have learned that very 
important thing—how to use his hands—and at whatever age you 
put it that a boy ora girlshould use the hand neatly and skilfully, 
beforethatage youshould take care that some elementary grounding 
at all events, in the only training which can do this, shall have been 
given. No amount of Greek, or of useful or of useless geography, 
or even of rule of three, can prevent the fingers being all thumbs, 
unless some such training has been given, and for the very 
earliest training drawing is undoubtedly the best. But this is by 
no means the only advantage of the combination. Anyone who 
has to go over thousands of examination papers finds in nineteen 
