NATURE 



[October 17, 1912 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT DUXDEE. 

 SECTION L. 



EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 



Opening Address bv Prof. John Adams, M.A., 

 B.Sc, LL.D., President of the Section. 



An Objective Standard in Education. 



Of those who denj- to education a place among 

 the sciences the name is legion, for they are many. 

 The mere classification as a science is not perhaps of 

 much consequence, but it is useful for the student of 

 education to examine the popular view, and see how 

 far it is justified. The following statement, the 

 words of a former occupant of this chair, will be 

 generally accepted as representing the prevailing 

 opinion : — 



'■ If we take science to mean, as commonly under- 

 stood, organised l^nowledge, and if we are to test the 

 claim of any body of facts and principles to be re- 

 garded as science by the ability to predict, which the 

 knowledge of these facts and principles confers, can 

 we say that there exists an organised and orderly 

 arrangement of educational truth, or that we can 

 logically, by any causative sequence, connect training 

 and cliaracter either in the individual or in the 

 nation ? ... It is very doubtful whether we can say 

 that educational science is yet sufficiently advanced to 

 satisfy these tests." 



First, with regard to organised knowledge, there 

 is certainly a great mass of matter available in the 

 subject of education. It is true that tliere is nothing 

 easier than to show that this matter is not at pre- 

 sent well organised. It is onh- too easy to find 

 examples of contradictions among those who make a 

 study of education and venture to write or speak on 

 the subject. We are told that there is scarcely any 

 important statement made by a writer on education 

 that cannot be met by a direct contradiction in the 

 works of some other educational writer. It has to 

 be admitted that writers on education in the past 

 have been strangely opinionative and dogmatic in 

 view of the very complex and delicate problems they 

 have had to handle. Too frequently they assumed a 

 simplicity in their subject-matter that was certainly 

 not there. Even the massive common sense of Dr. 

 Johnson was not able to keep him from regarding 

 education as a study that had reached its limits long 

 before his time. But between those who regard 

 education as too simple to need any further examina- 

 tion, and those who treat it as so complex as to defy 

 human analysis, there are those wlio take the view 

 that education is a science like any other, though 

 they admit that there may be room for wide difference 

 of opinion regarding the stage of development it has 

 reached. 



At the present moment it is becoming increasingly 

 evident that educational theory is consolidating : it 

 can now be claimed that there exists a great body of 

 educational doctrine that is of general acceptation. 

 It need scarcely be said that there are man\' and deep 

 differences among the various scliools of educational 

 writers. But if we compare any two schools we 

 shall find that the points of agreement far outnumber 

 the points of difference. This was true even in the 

 older times of naive theory, but is making itself very 

 evident in these latter days. Anyone who has 

 occasion to read all the books on the theory of educa- 

 tion as they appear is impressed in spite of himself 

 by the large body of doctrine that is common to them 

 all. It is not that the books lack originality : each 

 writer has his new point of view or his new inter- 

 pretation of certain phenomena ; yet each either 

 baldly states or tacitly takes for granted a great body 



NO. 2242, VOL. 90] 



of truth that is held to be generally accepted. This 

 body of recognised truth is gradually increasing as 

 the result of collective thinking and the corrections 

 involved in active criticism. Already critics are 

 beginning to find fault with any writer who produces 

 a book — not avowedly a text-book — that professes to 

 deal with the whole range of education. He is re- 

 minded that what is now wanted is a special develop- 

 ment along certain definite lines. The general prin- 

 ciples of education are held to be established and 

 accepted. 



In confirmation of what has been said, it may be 

 added that within the past year or two have appeared 

 no fewer than five separate treatises each bearing the 

 same title: "The Principles of Education." These 

 books are mainly for the use of students, and contain 

 what are regarded as the accepted results of educa- 

 tional investigation up to the present date. Their 

 authors obviously recognise the existence of a certain 

 body of truths on which all are agreed. In some of 

 the professions it is customary to speak familiarly of 

 "the books," meaning the standard works to which 

 appeal is constantly being made. If among teachers 

 we have not yet reached this stage, we are obviously 

 far on the way towards it. The books are there, but 

 the profession needs some time yet before, in its own 

 deliberate way, it recognises their importance. Bv 

 and by it will realise the fact that it has at its dis- 

 posal material that will enable it to prophesy, and 

 thus fulfil, the second condition imposed upon all 

 who lay claim to scientific knowledge. It is true that 

 in the past there was little diffidence about prophesy- 

 ing : it was the fulfilment that gave trouble. Wolf- 

 gang Ratke supplies, if not the first, at any rate the 

 most dramatic application of a control test in the 

 working of educational prophecy. He went to 

 prison because the people of his time did not make 

 allowance for the msufficiency of the body of know- 

 ledge on which he based his predictions. There was 

 indeed nothing scientific about the procedure of 

 Ratke. He was at the empirical stage, and could 

 not rise above it. His modern fellows have not quite 

 got beyond the empirical, but they are on their way. 



No claim is here made that Education has yet 

 justified her demand to be recognised as a fully de- 

 veloped science ; but it may be fairly maintained that 

 she has at least entered upon the stage of scientific 

 method : she is seeking to free herself from mere 

 empiricism. In such a struggle there are at least 

 two possible lines of action. 



The first requires some ingenuity, but is natural 

 and pleasant. It consists in superimposing principles 

 upon the facts of the case. The educational theorist 

 invents or assumes certain broad general principles, 

 then proceeds to fit in all the observed facts, and often 

 shows great skill in the process. This method is of 

 very general application. Sometimes it is worked 

 consciously and deliberately, as in the case of 

 Socrates' doctrine of Reminiscence. Here we have 

 the whole scheme of teaching simplified by this super- 

 imposed generalisation. Quite frequently, however, 

 the broad underlying principles are not brought to 

 clear consciousness, and are, in fact, sometimes con- 

 tradictory to each other. Examples may be found in 

 Rousseau. For our present purpose this tendency 

 towards what may be called rational pedagogy is best 

 illustrated in the system of education elaborated by 

 Herbart. Though the metaphysical basis on which 

 he builds is generallv regarded as false, it was 

 deliberately adopted by him, and if it is once granted 

 to him, ail the rest of his system must be admitted 

 to be built up on strictlv scientific principles. It is 

 true that while logically Herbart's pedagogy was 

 built upon his psychology, in point of fact his peda- 



