February 25, 1909J 



L'A TURE 



493 



oficrud to-day upo.i bulh these matters ; but being com- 

 pelled by the exigencies of the life 1 lead to deal with these 

 matters in a practical spirit — in other words, to calculate 

 the length, the breadth, and the weight of the obstacles 

 which have to be encountered — the remedy is not quite so 

 easy to discover and to apply as to the more sanguine 

 among us it may, at first sight, appear. For instance, 

 ihere is this question of raising the age of exemption. 

 There you are confronted with these discouraging figures 

 from the Lanjashire operatives, where, upon a poll on the 

 question of raising the half-time age to thirteen, barely 

 34,000 voted in the aftirmative and no less than 150,000 

 voted in the negative. I agree that a few years ago the 

 figures would have been much more discouraging than 

 they are now. But one hopes that with the advance of 

 information and the efforts of the enlightened leaders like 

 mv friend Mr. Shackleton there may be a considerable 

 movement in a better direction. But it is obvious that al 

 the moment it would be extremely difficult to apply by 

 any statutory form of compulsion a measure which, so far 

 as regards the great bulk of the operatives are concerned, 

 a large majority are not prepared voluntarily and spon- 

 taneously to accept. That is a case for what is called 

 spade-work, which I hope may produce its results before 

 long. When we come to the question of continuation 

 schools, I think the prospect is more satisfactory and 

 hopeful. We did something for Scottish education in the 

 Scottish .\ct last year, and I hope it is not too sanguine 

 a view to take if one expresses the hope that England will 

 soon level itself up to the standard of Scotland in that 

 matter. .Again there is a difficulty. As one of the speakers 

 pointed out, if the boys or the girls are kept hard at work 

 in a monotonous way at unintellectual occupations during 

 a great many hours of the day, you cannot expect them 

 to bring to the continuation school, or evening school, any- 

 thing like a fresh intelligence or that power of receptivity 

 which is essential to the efficient working of such institu- 

 tions. There comes in that question of the half-timer 

 again. I cannot help thinking that if employers of labour 

 would more generally take the course which Sir .Albert 

 Spicer has taken, and which Mr. Cadbury has taken, of 

 making it a condition when they employ these young boys 

 and girls in their works that they should spend one or two 

 evenings in a continuation school, their regular hours of 

 labour being so adjusted that it is not an excessive strain 

 either upon their intellectual or physical capacity, we should 

 find, if not a solution, the way of going very near to the 

 solution of that part of the problem. 



A report upon the problem of education in relation 

 to apprenticeship, especially as it concerns the 

 children of London, is to be presented by the Higher 

 Education Sub-committee of the London County 

 Council Education Committee at a meeting to be held 

 as we go to press. In this report the committee 

 urges that, inasmuch as industrial training is a 

 national and not a local question, technical institu- 

 tions and technical scholarships should be supported 

 to a much larg'er extent than at present out of funds 

 provided by the National Exchequer. 



.■\s remedies for what are pronounced defects in our 

 educational methods, leading to waste of effort and 

 the sacrifice of future prospects to immediate needs, 

 the committee makes a number of proposals which 

 are identical in principle with suggestions for 

 an organised educational system contained in the 

 report of the British .Science Guild Education Com- 

 mittee already published in these columns. The 

 proposals put forward by the London County 

 Council Committee may be summarised as follows : — 



(i) The age of compulsory attendance at elementary 

 schools should be raised to fifteen. 



(2) Certain children should be transferred at the age of 

 thirteen to trade or craft schools. 



(3) The elementary-school curriculum should be made 

 more practical by a considerable increase in the time 

 devoted to various kinds of manual training. 



(4) Local education authorities should be empowered to 

 compel employers to allow their apprentices and learners 



NO. 2052, VOL. 79] 



the necessary time during the day to attend classes, and 

 to enforce such attendance on thg apprentices and learners. 



(5) At least half the working day should be spent in 

 school. 



(6) .\\\ boys and girls not on the rolls of trade or 

 secondary schools should be required to pass through a 

 three years' course of " half-time " instruction at con- 

 tinuation schools. 



It is to be hoped that statesmen will not wait until 

 a mandate is received from those who benefit by 

 child-labour before attempting to make our educa- 

 tional demands comparable with those of Scotland 

 and Germany. Their duty is to safeguard the mental 

 and physical welfare of the coming generation if 

 our nation is to be kept in the van of progress. The 

 continuation of the present system involves grave 

 injustice to a not inconsiderable part of the child 

 population of England, for the mental, moral, and 

 physical training received during school life is soon 

 lost after a boy drifts into one of the occupations 

 of unskilled trades. As to further education, 

 whether in day or evening continuation schools, 

 or in secondary schools, there is much to be done 

 before we can approach the conditions existing in 

 Germany. While Germany is fast extending the 

 age of compulsory attendance through the critical 

 years of youth, in England and Wales not more 

 than one in three of the children who leave the 

 public elementary schools at thirteen or fourteen 

 years of age receives any further systematic care as 

 regards education of any kind. When our statesmen 

 realise what a study in contrasts is afforded by the 

 German and English systems of education, and what 

 an inferior position we occupy, judged by any 

 standard of educational measurement, they will per- 

 haps do something to prevent the waste of body and 

 mind which is a source of individual poverty and of 

 national weakness. 



SIR GEORGE KING, K.C.I. E., F.R.S. 

 CIR GEORGE KING, K.C.I.E., F.R.S., whose 

 •^ death at San Remo was announced in Natdre 

 of February 18, was born at Peterhead on April 12, 

 1840. He was educated at the Grammar School and 

 the University, .Aberdeen, graduating in medicine in 

 1865. In the same year he entered the Indian Medical 

 Service, and was posted to the Bengal Presidenc}-. 



Soon after reaching India, King was detailed for 

 military medical duty in Central India and Rajpu- 

 tana, where his leisure was devoted to work of high 

 quality as a field naturalist. From military duty he 

 was transferred to act temporarily as superintendent 

 of the Botanic Gardens at Saharanpur, in Upper 

 India; shortly thereafter he was induced to join the 

 Indian Forest Service, and was placed in charge of 

 the Kumaon forests. While so employed he was 

 selected by the Secretary of State for India as suc- 

 cessor to Dr. Thomas ."Anderson, whose death in 

 October, 1870, had left vacant the superintendentship 

 of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Calcutta and of 

 Cinchona Cultivation in Bengal. 



When, in 1871, King assumed charge of the Cal- 

 cutta gardens these were in the ruined condition to 

 which they had been reduced by severe cyclones in 

 1864 and again in 1S67. They had practically to be 

 renovated, and the charm and beauty for which they 

 are famed constitute an adequate memorial to King's 

 energy, patience, and skill as a landscape gardener. 

 The prolonged task involved considerable expendi- 

 ture, and the readiness with which the necessary 

 funds were supplied bears witness to the traditional 

 enlightenment of the Government of Bengal and to 



