October 17, 1912] 



NATURE 



gogical thinking preceded and dominated his psycho- 

 logical theory. While Pestalozzi sought to psycho- 

 logise education, Herbart may be said rather to have 

 educationalised psychology. In any case, he supplies 

 us with a system that challenges recognition as 

 scientific, whether the claim be admitted or not. 



The other method by which a study may seek to 

 escape from mere empiricism is by dealing with 

 observed results so as to reach the underlying prin- 

 ciples. In this method, instead of setting up prin- 

 ciples and making the facts square with them, we 

 examine the phenomena and seek to discover the 

 underlying principles. Obviously this at once intro- 

 duces the e.xperiniental method, since no satisfactory 

 progress can be made by mere passive observation. 

 This is the stage we have now reached in educational 

 theory. We are passing from an appeal to experi- 

 ence to an appeal to experiment. Naturally, educa- 

 tional method has always had to stand or fall by its 

 results, but in estimating results there has too fre- 

 quently been a confusion between cause and effect. 

 .So soon as a conscientious analysis of educational 

 problems is attempted, there comes the need of ex- 

 periment. Certain questions have arisen demanding 

 a definite answer, and the answers supplied must 

 stand the test of practical application. Education is, 

 in fact, called upon to prophesy, and to stand or fall 

 by the results. Now the method of experiment is 

 really a system of tentative prophecy, under rigidly 

 determined conditions. We acquire skill in prophesy- 

 ing by a process of trial and error. We become pro- 

 phets by prophesying. From all the knowledge at 

 our disposal we calculate that a certain process will 

 give a certain result. We apply the process, and then 

 if the result is not what we expected, we examine all 

 the conditions, seek out the cause of our error, and 

 proceed to another tentative prophecy. By and by 

 we acquire the power of prophesying with confidence 

 within certain recognised limits, and within those 

 limits we may claim to proceed scientifically. 



But in the evaluating of results that is necessary 

 in this process of training in prophecy there is need 

 for some recognised standard. Unless this condition 

 be fulfilled there can be no general agreement among 

 investigators. .Accordingly, the first step in raising 

 a study to the scientific level is the establishment of 

 such a standard. In the study of education in the 

 past — and it must be admitted that the same is true 

 to a large extent at the present — the standard adopted 

 was in most cases a subjective one. There is a 

 tendency to have everything determined by individual 

 opinion. Certain educational processes are gone 

 through ; certain results follow in the lives of the 

 educands. The casual relations involved are arranged 

 bv the individual observer to suit his own views. 

 According to some, the battle of Waterloo was won 

 on the playing-fields of Eton ; according to others, the 

 battle of Colenso was lost there. We have need of 

 some standard that is independent of private opinion. 



Obviously the whole question of the relativity of 

 knowledge is here involved. The educator is too apt 

 to apply to his own case the Protagorean view, and 

 maintain that "man is the measure of all things; 

 of things that are, that they are, and of things that 

 are not, that they are not." Into this antique 

 problem we need not here enter. There is a sense in 

 which the epigram of Protagoras may be justified. 

 Without doubt, for his own practical purposes, the in- 

 dividual is the measure of his universe of experience. 

 But so far as his universe has to do with the universes 

 of others, the individual needs some common 

 standard, something outside of himself, something 

 that others besides himself recognise — in short, an 

 objective standard. 



NO. 2242, VOL. go] 



The matter may be illustrated by what took place 

 in the development of certain of the sciences. The 

 secondary qualities involved in the Lockean episte- 

 mology — such things as colours, tastes, smells, 

 sounds — lend themselves to a subjective standard ; 

 but so long as we confine ourselves to a standard of 

 this kind we cannot be said to treat such matters 

 scientifically. The individual is the sole judge of 

 how a particular sound or colour strikes him, and 

 against his decision there is no appeal. But it seems 

 as if we could not have a science of sounds or of 

 colours based on this individual judgment. Each 

 observer would rely upon his own sensations, and 

 would interpret them in his own way. Fortunately, 

 in the study of physics it was discovered that certain 

 of the conditions of sensation are constant. When 

 we get a knowledge of wave-lengths, and the laws of 

 refraction and reflection, we have passed from the 

 merely subjective sphere, we have an outside standard, 

 we can compare, abstract, and analyse independently 

 of the individual. " C natural " has a definite mean- 

 ing to science, even if there were not a single ear 

 that could hear the sound. It is true that, in the 

 ultimate resort, we cannot eliminate the individual 

 observer. He is too important in ordinary life, and 

 a great deal of the work of science is done, after all, 

 at his address. How red strikes an observer is as 

 important to a man of science as is the exact wave- 

 length that is necessary to produce red. The relation 

 between a certain wave-length and a certain sensa- 

 tion is complicated by the individual peculiarities of 

 the sense organs of the living being concerned. In 

 certain respects the science of optics is self-contained, 

 and has a definite objective standard. In certain 

 other respects it depends for its data on individual 

 experiences, and has to content itself with a sub- 

 jective standard. No doubt it can call in the aid of 

 physiology, a science that has an objective standard 

 of its own, and in this way eliminate a certain amount 

 of subjectivity. But in the last resort there is a 

 corner of the field m which no objective standard can 

 be obtained. 



It is true that in pure mathematics we appear to 

 get into a region where the subjective may be practic- 

 ally excluded altogether, but even here the science of 

 space and time is limited by the fact that it can deal 

 with its data only from the point of view of human 

 limitations. And there are certain borderline studies 

 that are mathematical in their essence, yet have a 

 direct reference to our bodily organs. Linear per- 

 spective, for example; is usually regarded as a science, 

 indeed, as an exact science. Yet when we look into- 

 the matter we find that linear perspective is nothing 

 more than a conventionalised method of treating, in 

 an exact way, the results of individual experience. 

 The whole science is really an objective standard bv 

 which the ordinary processes of vision may be com- 

 pared, analysed, and classified. Perspective tells us 

 what we ought to see. It is not independent of our 

 sense functions, it is only a mode in which the 

 variable subjective is reduced to uniformity by the 

 application of the objective standard. Indeed, in the 

 teaching of art there sometimes arises a curious con- 

 flict between the subjective element and the objective. 

 Students who have studied perspective before they 

 are called upon to draw real objects set before them 

 are very apt to draw according to the rules they have 

 learned, instead of observing what is actually before 

 them and reproducing that as it appears to their 

 senses. In other words, they set up the objective 

 standard as paramount. So markedly is this the 

 case that sometimes the study of perspective is for- 

 bidden until familiarity with model drawing has been 

 attained. When a teacher urges a pupil to draw 



