September 28, 191 1] 



NATURE 



43' 



In proportion, then, as favouritism ceases to 

 be a public danger, examinations will, I think, lose some- 

 thing of their fatal authority. It is difficult to doubt that 

 in the future candidates for public office will be required 

 to pass a qualifying examination, but that the election 

 will, at least in some degree, turn upon qualities which 

 are not so easily tested by examination in writing. 



Nor is this the whole evil. There is only too much 

 danger that examinations may create a false ideal of educa- 

 tional success. The object of all education, as I have said, 

 is to prepare pupils for the civic duties of mature life. 

 It is not the intellectual attainment of the young at the 

 age of thirteen or eighteen or even twenty-two, it is rather 

 which they render to the State in the maturity 

 of their powers, which is the proof of the teacher's influence 

 upon their lives. The preparatory schools, which have 

 -uch important features in the field of secondary 

 education, have done much useful work. The decadence 

 of bullying and perhaps of other evils in public schools is 

 largely due to the elimination of quite young boys from 

 public-school life. The years of a boy's life from nine to 

 lut not, I think, to a later age, may well be 

 reserved for the preparatory school, as the years from 

 thirteen to eighteen for the public school. But the forcing 

 process which is sometimes applied to young boys in 

 -ly schools, not only in their lessons but in their 

 games, is fraught with serious peril. A preparatory-school 

 master, if he thinks of his own school alone, may do 

 even worse harm than a public-school master bv sacrificing 

 the future of his pupils to the present. When I was a 

 headmaster, I knew of one preparatory-school master who 

 tried to win boys to his school by offering what he called 

 Be-preparatory scholarships to boys of eight or nine years 

 of age, in the hope that these hoys might after a time 

 advertisements for his preparatory school by winning 

 scholarships from it at the public schools. But preparatory- 

 school masters are not alone in fault. It is, I am afraid, 

 easy to think of headmasters who have attained what I 

 can only call an ill-deserved reputation, because their pupils 

 have won numerous scholarships and exhibitions upon 

 leaving school, when those same pupils had been mentally 

 Bhausted in youth, and their after-life in no wav answered 

 to the promise of their early days. " By their fruits ye 

 shall know them "; hut the fruits of a true education 

 are seen not in the spring but in the summer or the 

 autumn of a well-spent lit" 



It is with reference to the final goal of education that 

 the subjects suited to the secondary curriculum must be 

 judged. If the possible subjects are too many, it becomes 

 balance between utility and culture. 

 and so to decide which subjects are indispensable and 

 which may fairly he subordinated or postponed. 



The most striking change which has come over secondary 

 education has arisen from the number of subjects now 

 claiming admission to the curriculum. Scarcely more than 

 fiftv years ago the headmaster of a public school was 

 1 his wits' end to fill up the time-table of his 



pupils. Dr. Arnold was appointed to the headmastership 

 of Rugby in 1S2S, and Dean Stanley says of him that 

 " he was the first Englishman who drew attention in our 

 public schools to the historical, political, and philosophical 

 value of philology of the ancient writers, as distinguished 

 from the mere verbal criticism and elegant scholarship of 

 the last century." He adds that, " besides the general 

 impulse which he gave to miscellaneous reading both in 

 the regular examinations and by encouraging the tastes 

 of particular boys for geology and other like pursuits, he 

 incorporated the study of modern history, modern lan- 

 guages, and mathematics into the work of the school, 

 which attempt, as it was the first of its kind, so it was 

 at one time the chief topic of blame and praise in his 

 system of instruction." Other public-school masters fol- 

 lowed suit, hut they followed slowly. What the system of 

 education had hitherto been may be judged from Malim's 

 rConsuetudinarium," which specifies no subject of in- 

 struction except Latin, with a little Greek grammar in 

 the sixth and seventh forms. The dancing-master was a 

 more ancient and more honourable figure in some public 

 schools than any mathematical master. Mathematics, in 

 fact, were not introduced into Eton until 1S36. Other 

 subjects in addition to the classics came even later. 



NO. 2l87, VOL. 87J 



But within the last fifty years, not only mathematics 

 but the English language and literature, foreign languages, 

 natural science in its various branches, history and 

 geography, have become competitors with the ancient 

 classical languages for recognition in the curriculum of 

 public schools. There is no one of them which is not 

 worthy of such recognition. But the average intelligence 

 of a public-school boy has remained the same, and the 

 average length of his life in the public school has been 

 diminished by as much as one-half. It has become neces- 

 sary, therefore, to make a selection between the subjects 

 which might well, if they could, be taught to all boys 

 alike. Nor is this truth less applicable to girls than 

 to boys. 



It may be thought that not enough attention has been 

 paid to the order in which particular subjects are taught- 

 The number of subjects imposed upon a child of ten to 

 twelve years is at times not less alarming than forbidding. 

 Psychology suggests the adaptation of particular subjects 

 to the awakening of particular powers at different ages. 

 Even in literature there is a natural affinity which is too 

 often disregarded between books and the ages at which 

 thev ought to be read. How many children have read 

 " The Pilgrim's Progress " at too late, or have read 

 " Hamlet " and " Paradise Lost " at too early, an age 

 for true appreciation ! In literature as elsewhere discrimina- 

 tion is the watchword of educational success. 



From these considerations it seems to follow thai the 

 scientific educator must choose certain subjects as the basis 

 of secondary education, and I venture to think that these 

 subjects should be as nearly as possible common to boys 

 and to girls. Other subjects can be left to the choice of 

 particular students at a later period of their lives. Not 

 all subjects are possible or useful to all students. Soon 

 or late, then, uniformity of teaching must give way to 

 specialisation. 



Yet education loses a great part of its value unless it 

 ensures to all educated men and women what may be 

 described as a common educational property. It is 

 desirable that they should not only all learn some things 

 which are worth knowing, but that they should Jearn the 

 same things. For upon community of information or of 

 interest depends the sympathy of all educated people. If 

 one person knows nothing but French, a second nothing 

 but chemistry, and a third nothing but mathematics, it is 

 evident that they possess no common stock of knowledge ; 

 no interchange of sentiments or ideas is possible between 

 them. All sound secondary education, then, postulates a 

 broad basis of common knowledge, or, in other words, a 

 certain body of knowledge which is possessed by all 

 students in common. Upon this basis must be built a 

 superstructure varying in accordance with the needs or 

 capacities of the pupils. 



What, then, are to be the basal subjects of secondary 

 education ? 



They must be few, they must be suitable to the tender 

 years of school life, they must be practically useful, and 

 yet they must possess the element of culture. 



Religion, of course, will be one, for it is the paramount 

 factor in the discipline of character. 



The study of mathematics possesses the unique merit 

 that it shows what proof is ; it distinguishes certainty from 

 probability ; it evidences the narrow limits within which 

 certainty is possible. 



Natural science in its various branches is especially valu- 

 able as cultivating the faculty of observation. Scientific 

 facts can be generally tested by experiment. It is only the 

 pupil who has learnt at least the elements of natural 

 science that begins to feel at home in the world in which 

 he or she lives. 



But among educational subjects the palm, I think, 

 belongs to language, if only because language is the sub- 

 ject which stands, by its character as well as by its origin, 

 in the most intimate relation to human nature. Men and 

 women are not generally concerned with questions which 

 can be absolutely and ultimately determined. Most ques- 

 tions in life are probable, but not certain ; it is " proba- 

 bility," as Bishop Butler says, which is " the very guide 

 of life"; and such, too, are generally linguistic questions. 

 Thev do not admit of certainty ; they can be decided only 

 probably ; and the decision of them requires tact, judg- 



