October i/, 1912] 



NATURE 



207 



to prophesy in individual cases. This, indeed, is at 

 the root of a great deal of the criticism levelled at 

 the claims of education to rank as a science. A 

 parent or an education authority presents a boy to 

 an educator and calls for a prophecy. The educator 

 must decline, since he cannot honestly prophesy in an 

 individual case, though he may be prepared to 

 venture on a reasoned statement of what is likely to 

 occur in the bo\''s educational career. The educator 

 is, in fact, in precisely the same position as a medical 

 man called in to a case. He can prophesy, but only 

 in general terms. In both cases it is the application 

 of general principles to a particular case. 



This raises the whole question of the value of the 

 average in matters of education. Psychologists, in 

 addressing teachers, are beginning to warn them that 

 the average is only an abstraction, and really does 

 not exist. We are told that what the teacher has to 

 concern himself with is " the living child here and 

 now before him," and he is accordingly warned 

 against the insubstantiality of the elusive abstract. 

 But this is to confound two distinct things. It is 

 true that the teacher must always deal with a living 

 pupil here and now before him. But in his dealing 

 with that living pupil he has to apply a paid-up 

 capital of knowledge of men and of boys in general. 

 He must seek to understand the living boy by the 

 aid of knowledge previously acquired, and this know- 

 ledge is represented by the average. The master 

 may be unable to prophesy with certainty how Jones 

 minor will act under certain specified conditions. 

 But from a knowledge of third form boys in general 

 he can make a guess that is very likely to hit the 

 mark. The teacher who applies his knowledge of 

 the average third form boy to the minor Jones, 

 without modification to suit Jones's case, acts un- 

 intelligently ; but the possibility of blunders by a dull 

 master does not reduce the value of the knowledge 

 of the average in the hands of one who is capable. 

 The concept of the average boy as it is developed by 

 experience and study in the mind of the master forms 

 a standard by which other boys may be estimated. 

 This standard is partly subjective, partly objective. 

 In so far as the standard is acquired by the personal 

 experience of the master it is subjective. The un- 

 reasoned but very effective knowledge of boy nature 

 that enables an eflicient master who is guiltless of 

 any acquaintance with educational theory to know 

 how a boy is likely to act in given circumstances 

 results from the training of experience, and is 

 peculiar to its possessor. On the other hand, the 

 knowledge of boy nature that has been acquired by 

 deliberate study and by experiment is something that 

 has an existence independent of the individual. It 

 is objective, or at any rate has an objective bias. 



We must distinguish in practice between the 

 average and the type. The average boy mav have 

 no existence in reality, he may be a pure abstrac- 

 tion ; but the type is concrete, and may be regarded 

 as the embodiment of all the essentials that go to 

 make up the average, with the addition of certain 

 qualities that must be present in some form or other, 

 though the particular form is immaterial. The aver- 

 age is to the type as the concept is to the generalised 

 image. The type may form a very useful standard 

 for masters whose tendency is strongly towards the 

 concrete ; but the average has a special and a 

 different value, and in capable hands is more effec- 

 tively applied because it is of a wider range. To 

 consider a class as made up of types tends to break 

 up the class feeling, and make the master think of 

 his pupils as a mere group of separate individuals. 

 Undoubtedly the master must in certain connections 

 think of his pupils as individuals, but in other con- 



Mo. 2242, VOL. go] 



nections he must deal with his class as a whole, as a 

 psychological unit. 



This introduces one of the most striking develop- 

 ments of modern educational theory. The older 

 psychologists treated their subject as limited to the 

 study of the mature human individual. The intro- 

 duction of the idea of development led to the found- 

 ing of a genetic psychology with its consideration of 

 the individual at his various stages. A further 

 advance is marked by the appearance of collective 

 psychology, which carries the study of the individual 

 into his relations with other individuals. Naturally, 

 both changes were of the greatest advantage to 

 education. The first gave scientific guidance to the 

 popular movement known as Child-Study, the second 

 suggested fhe scientific study of the class as a collec- 

 tive organism. It is true that this collective psycho- 

 logy is at present in its infancy. But while we owe 

 much to the French psychologists with their dazzling 

 exposition, we are glad to turn to our more solid 

 McDougall for the best scientific basis available for 

 a sound collective psychology. The material he has 

 supplied is waiting to be worked up from the educa- 

 tional side. His statement of tlie relation between 

 the instincts and the emotions and his manipulation 

 of Mr. Shand's theory of the sentiments provide 

 tempting material for the establishment of an objec- 

 tive standard in connection with the training of the 

 individual character and the interaction of individual 

 characters in groups. Naturally, the results must be 

 expressed in averages, and equally naturally there 

 will be a complaint from certain practical educators. 

 What is the use, it will be asked, of information 

 about how classes in general act? What we want to 

 know is how this particular class before which I 

 stand is going to act. But this is to confound the 

 practice of a science with the science itself. There 

 must always be an intelligent intermediary between 

 the principles of a science and their application to 

 the affairs of life. In this respect the nascent 

 science of education differs in no way from those 

 that are more fully developed. The educator who 

 prides himself on being specially practical is fre- 

 quently very unreasonable in his demands from 

 educational theory. He is rather apt to complain 

 that it does not supply him with sufficiently detailed 

 instructions. W'hat he wants is a series of recipes 

 which, if scrupulously followed, will inevitably pro- 

 duce certain specified results. But such men take a 

 very humiliating view of their profession. So far 

 from seeking this spoon-feeding, they should rejoice 

 that their work demands the exercise of intelligent 

 initiative. Herein consists, in fact, the dignity of 

 the educator's office. He must be master of the 

 organised knowledge that education has acquired, 

 and must have the power of making the appropriate 

 application of that knowledge to every case as it 

 arises. To assist him in avoiding error he is entitled 

 to look for an objective standard at the hands of 

 those who make education their special study, but 

 for the use of that standard he must himself accept 

 the full responsibility. 



GEOLOGY AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



THE proceedings of the Geological Section at 

 Dundee were, of exceptional interest, and the 

 attendances were large up to the end of the meet- 

 ing. The success of the section was due to two or 

 three special features. Many of the papers dealt with 

 the problems of the Highlands and of the Highland 

 border, questions which are full of knotty points, and 

 the men who are engaged in solving these problems 

 were able to assemble in the meeting-room and there 



