Fan, 11, 1883] 
NATURE 
251 
one or two hours filched from the curriculum were more than 
made up for by the greater ease with which the other subjects 
could be learnt, in consequence of the additional training of the 
mind which the new subjects gave. We may hope, then, that 
in the course of time our secondary education may be much 
improved in the direction indicated. What we may expect, 
taking the principle of natural selection as our guide will be this. 
First, the head-masters will themselves be men chosen among 
other grounds for their knowledge of science, they will become 
more and moreall round men. Next, the curriculum will be 
arranged not for the few who go to the University, but for the 
many who do not. We shall have more science and less Greek 
in the early years of the school course. We shall have labora- 
tories, and drawing rooms, and workshops. In some schools 
we may find modern living languages taught in a living way re- 
placing the dead languages altogether. Now, here our difficul- 
ties begin. We are face to face indeed with the same difficulties 
which the Continental nations, our precursors in educational 
matters, have experienced. Our secondary education is at the 
present moment all but absolutely separated from the primary 
one. Of the 4,000,c00 scholars on the books of elementary 
schools last year there were only 44,000 over the age of fourteen, 
and it is to be feared that the remainder left school at that age, 
most of them, the best as well as the worst of them, to fight the 
battle of life with such an education as they had got up to that 
time. Germany, again, was the first to find out that this would 
never do, even though in that country science and art was taught 
in the Primary School. And for the reason that though such a 
meagre education might possibly do for ordinary workers in their 
hives of industry, it was totally insufficient for the future fore- 
men, overseers, and the like, and special schools were established 
to carry their education further. Quite of late years this ques- 
tion has been studied in the most interesting way in the Nether- 
lands, under the advice of a wise minister, whose example will 
be followed some day in our own country. Let me briefly refer 
to it. This work began in 1863. In that year in Holland there 
were no middle class or secondary schools for artisans, but there 
were evening schools for drawing which dated from 1827. 
“‘Burgher Schools” were established to provide the secondary 
instruction still felt to be needed by those who otherwise would 
have to content themselves with the primary instruction (although 
in its more extended form it contained natural philosophy, 
mathematics, and modern languages). In these schools—some 
day, some night schools (in these the lessons went on from 
September to May), with a course of two or three years, we find 
mathematics, theoretical and applied mechanics, and mechanism, 
physics, chemistry, natural hist ry, either technology or agricul- 
ture, drawing, gymnastics, and other subjects among the fixed 
subjects, modelling and foreign languages being permissive. 
These burgher schools were compulsory in all parishes of 10,000 
inhabitants. The evenimg burgher schools especially were at 
once seized on with avidity, chiefly by apprentices and the like. 
Here let me give you some statistics which will show you how 
these schools were working even ten years ago. They are much 
more flourishing now, but I have not the figures. I will show 
how the Dutch (of whom it cannot be said, to vary an old 
rhyme, 
In matters of /earning the fault of the Dutch, 
Is giving too little and asking too much. 
for the instruction is yractically free), who are already learning 
a trade or working at one, use the evening hours for the further 
cultivation of their minds, 
Number of students in 
Population. Burgher Schools. 
Delft... 23,000 171 
Utrecht 64,000 283 
Deventer 81,000 285 
Dordrecht 26,000 146 
Among the students at these schools in 1874 were 1582 car- 
penters and joiners, 472 smiths, &c., 236 plumbers and masons, 
170 goldsmiths, engravers, &c., 320 painters, to give examples. 
Higher burghar schools were also established in the chief towns. 
In these schools still more advanced instruction was given: and 
here the course was for five years. In all these schools there 
was a considerable state endowment, and an endowment on the 
part of the town, so that the fees were almost nominal, and in 
some cases even the instruction was gratuitous. When I was 
inspecting these schools in Holland with an eminent man of 
science, whose advice had helped largely to make them such a 
success, and when I expressed to him my astonishment at the 
smallness of the fees—only a very few shillings a year—he put 
before me the question of State aid to schools in a way which 
had never struck me before. Hesaid: ‘‘ We regard it as a sort 
of education insurance. A small tax is paid by everybody during 
the whole of his life, and in this way a man who brings up 
children for the service of the State is helped by him who shirks 
that responsibility ; and the payment which each citizen is called 
upon to make towards this instruction is spread over his whole 
life, and does not come upon him when he is probably most 
pinched in other ways. Now for one practical result of the 
establishment of these schools, The year 1863 found Holland 
full of the notion that every hour a child spent away from the 
desk or the bench after thirteen was time wasted ; but after 
these burgher schools were instituted a change came over 
the spirit of that dream, and now no employer of labour except 
of the lowest and most manual kind in Holland, will look at a 
boy who cannot produce a certificate from his burgher school. 
Another very remarkable thing was soon observed, with a most 
important moral for us. The great difference between their 
burgher schools and the old gymnasia, the equivalents of our 
grammar schools, was a greater infusion of science into the 
teaching, and the introduction of three modern languages in 
addition to Dutch, Latin and Greek being omitted altogether 
from the curriculum. After four years of this training, many of 
the boys showed such high promice that all connected with them 
thought it a pity that they should not enter a university. They 
were therefore allowed six months as an experiment to take up 
Latin and Greek, and the result was that in a great number of 
cases they beat the gymnasia boysin their own subjects, and 
passed with flying colours, The Real Schul in Germany and 
the modern sides of our own secondary schools are almost the 
exact equivalents of the higher burgher schools to which I have 
especially called your attention. What, then, is the experience 
which has been gained in these gigantic educational experiments, 
experiments by which we may profit, as we are so late in the 
race, if we care todoso. One point is that if a chance is put 
before those who have passed through the elementary schools of 
further culturing their minds, they seize upon it with avidity. 
Another is that the employers of labour appreciate the value of 
the greater intelligence thus brought about. It is better to have 
to instruct in a trade men who have shown themselves anxious to 
learn, than to have to do with blockheads. Another, I think, is 
this: Your best secondary school is best for everybody; a 
secondary school with a properly mixed curriculum of literature, 
science, and art, is best for him who proceeds either to the 
University or to the workshop. A second-rate education in a 
second-rate school, gives us a second rate man, and we do not 
want our national industries to be worked entirely by second-rate 
men. On this point I am glad to fortify what I have said by a 
reference to Dr. Siemens’ important address at the Midland 
Institute the week before last. He says: ‘‘It is a significant 
fact that while the thirty universities of Germany (you see they 
do not educate by halves in Germany ; they have seven times as 
many universities as we have in England) continued to increase, 
both as regards number of students and high state of efficiency 5 
the purely technical colleges, almost without exception, have 
during the last ten years been steadily receding, whereas the pro- 
vincial Gewerbe Schuls have, under the progressive minister, von 
Falke, been modified so as to approximate curriculum to that 
of the gymnasium or grammar school. ‘‘ As regards middle- 
class education, it must be borne in mind that at the age of six- 
teen, the lad is expected to enter upon practical life, and it has 
been held that under these circumstances at any rate it is best to 
confine the teaching to as many subjects only as can be followed 
up to a point of efficiency and have reference to future applica- 
tion. Itis thus that the distinction between the German gym- 
nasium or grammar school and the real Schule or technical school 
has arisen, a distinction which, though sanctioned to some extent 
in this country, also by the institution of the modern side, I 
should much like to see abolished.” We see then the gradually 
increasing weight of opinion, and the result of the experiments 
both in Germany and Holland, and I may add France, point to 
these conclusions. Some kind of secondary education must be pro- 
vided for the best students when they leave the elementary school, 
either before they begin work or while they are at work. Our 
secondary education should go practically along one line, how far 
soever the student goes along that line, some, of course, will go 
further than others; provided always that our secondary educa- 
tion is the best possible, that is, having the broadest base. 
Now, if this be generally conceded our problem in England, at 
