238 
British industry. At the present moment a scheme 
which had every chance of success was being put 
forward by a Federation of the Central Committee of 
National Patriotic Organisations, the Herb Growing 
Association, and the Agricultural Organisation Society. 
Mr. Holmes, also of the Pharmaceutical Society, 
brought forward some interesting suggestions for the 
scientific improvement of medicinal plants, 
Sir Sydney Olivier, the secretary of the Board of 
Agriculture and Fisheries, pointed ouc how essential 
it was to success that the industry should be established 
on such lines that it took its place in the commercial 
world as a specialised market-garden crop, with the 
prospect of reasonable remuneration. 
Dr. E. N. Thomas raised the question of the rela- 
tive merit in certain cases of the extraction from 
fresh and from dried leaves. 
Among the other contributions to the section was a 
very interesting paper by Sir John S. Stirling-Max- 
well on afforestation after. the war. He advocated that 
the British Empire, as a whole, should aim at becom- 
ing self-supporting in the matter of timber. Dr. 
Borthwick, in the subsequent discussion, laid stress 
on the necessity for the training of those engaged in 
forestry in adequately staffed and equipped institu- 
tions. 
Miss E. R. Saunders presented a report on means 
of bringing into closer contact those engaged in scien- 
tific breeding experiments and those commercially 
interested in the results. She suggested that the 
trades concerned should be encouraged to organise 
research departments, while the scientific workers 
might well unite to form a genetics association. She 
further advocated the issue of a new and readily 
accessible vehicle for the publication of literature on 
genetics and the establishment of a sub-section of 
genetics to the British Association. 
The first of these proposals was warmly supported 
by Prof. Bateson, who saw difficulties, however, with 
regard to a new publication, which he did not consider 
was needed. 
As the result of these discussions a committee was 
appointed from Section K to consider provision for 
plant pathology, and a joint committee from the Sec- 
tions of Botany, Zoology, and Agriculture to consider 
provision for the application of genetics. 
The meetings of Section K were terminated by a 
very pleasant and instructive expedition on Saturday, 
September 9, to the salt*marshes at Alnmouth. 
E. N, Tuomas. 
THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT 
NEWCASTLE. : 
SECTION L. 
EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 
OpeninG ADDRESS (ABRIDGED) BY THE REv. W. 
TempLe, M.A., PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION, 
Tue spiritual side of human nature, the capacity for 
fellowship and for devotion, is best trained by the life 
of membership in a society. No instruction or study 
can take the place of this. This is. the great inheri- 
tance that comes down to us, in England at any rate, 
from the Middle Ages. The side on which those great 
private institutions which are called public schools, and 
the older universities, are particularly strong is the 
social life which is their most leading characteristic. 
As the personality begins to develop it requires some 
society of which it may be a member other than the 
home on one side and the nation on the other. The 
nation is clearly far too big for the child to realise, 
or indeed to possess any effective membership in it; 
NO. 2456, VoL. 98] 
NATURE 
[NOVEMBER 23, 1916 
and the home, though not too small, is yet unsuitable 
in one respect, namely, that it is bound to be too much 
under the direction of the parents. Where life in a 
school-room is possible, and where there is a large 
family to share that life, some of the conditions which 
we require are present, but what is needed is a society 
which shall indeed be under general supervision, but 
of which the members actually determine the character 
and life, so that each feels that he is a member of 
this community in the fullest sense, that its welfare 
depends upon his loyalty, while his welfare depends upon 
its general character. I confess that I doubt the pos- 
sibility of securing this fully realised membershi 
otherwise than in a boarding school, but here 1 spea 
with great ignorance; at any rate I am sure that for 
the spiritual development of the rising generation we 
urgently need that corporate life in schools which the 
so-called public schools possess in so large a measure. 
Every member of one of these schools, or of one of 
our older universities, knows quite well that what has 
been most valuable to him in his training has been 
the whole life of the place, and not the specific teach- 
ing of the class-room or laboratory. It is probably 
true that the educational institutions which have 
especially cherished this ideal have tended to be slack, 
as they have certainly been amateurish, with regard 
to the intellectual or scientific life; but they have 
maintained this fundamental principle, that the 
spiritual nature is best developed through life as a 
member of a society, and that a society of such a kind 
that the membership can be real and effective. 
Now, one main activity of a society composed of 
children or adolescents will necessarily be found in 
games. This is partly because physical growth is one 
of the main businesses of life at that stage, and it is 
right that the growing boy or girl should delight in 
developing and exercising the physical faculties. But 
it is also because a game is felt to be more communal 
than school work. With work arranged as it now is, 
it inevitably follows that school work is regarded as 
being done for one’s own sake, while the boy who 
plays hard is regarded as serving the community; he 
does it for his house or the school as much as for 
himself. I shall suggest in a moment that experience 
shows that by changes, which are otherwise desirable, 
with regard to school work itself a good deal of this 
difficulty may be overcome, but it will still remain 
true, at any rate with boys, that games are the 
dominant interest, and athletic heroes more admired 
than boys of intellectual promise; and I desire to 
insist that this is a perfectly right thing provided only 
that the elders, whether parents or teachers, do not 
themselves adopt the boy’s standard, and so fix it in 
the boy’s mind, but while sympathising with the 
boyish interests, yet constantly lead the mind forward 
to a truer perspective. 
We give too exclusive a place to books in school 
education. Many boys, not at all really stupid, are 
failures at school because they are bad at books. If 
manual work is given a larger place, it can be so 
arranged that the great moral difficulty about school 
work is removed—namely, its individualistic and com- 
petitive character. Co-operation cannot be carried far 
in book work. Learning from books must be done 
by each for himself. But manual work can be done 
in teams, so that a large co-operative element comes 
in, which is of great value as a training for citizen- 
ship. 
It is possible to do something of this sort with re-— 
gard to book work. At Repton a challenge-shield is 
at this time being presented, to be held by the house 
whose members together gain most marks according to 
a scheme which allots so many marks to a form prize, 
so many to a school prize, and so forth. This in so 
