August 22, 1907] 



NATURE 



435 



years, whether in Chemistry, Physics or Biology, can be 

 staled. Can the same be said, and in the same sense, 

 of Education? It is true that the area of educational 

 influence is being constantly extended. Schools of every 

 type and grade are multiplied, but is there any correspond- 

 ing advance in our knowledge of the principles that should 

 govern and determine our educational efforts, or which 

 can justify us in describing such knowledge as Science? 

 If we take Science to mean, as commonly understood, 

 organised knowledge, and if we are to test the claim of 

 any body of facts and principles to be regarded as Science 

 by' the ability to predict, which the knowledge of those 

 facts and principles confers, can we say that there exists 

 an organised and orderly arrangement of educational 

 truths, or that we can logically, by any causative sequence, 

 connect training and character either in the individual 

 or in the nation? Can we indicate, with any approach to 

 certainty, the effects on either the one or the other of any 

 particular scheme of education which may be provided? 

 It is %-ery doubtful whether we can say that educational 

 science is yet sufficiently advanced to satisfy these tests. 



But although education may not yet fulfil all the con- 

 ditions which justify its claini'to be regarded as a science, 

 we are able to affirm that the methods of science, applic- 

 able to investigations in other branches of kno%Yledge, are 

 equally applicable to the elucidation of educational 

 problems. To have reached this position is to have made 

 some progress. For we now see that if we are ever to 

 succeed in arriving at fixed principles for guidance in 

 determining the many difficult and intricate questions 

 which arise in connection with the provision of a national 

 sj'stem of education, or the solution of educational 

 problems, we must proceed by the same methods of logical 

 inquiry as we should adopt in investigating any other 

 subject-matter. 



In order to bring Education within the range of sub- 

 jects which should occupy a place in the work of this 

 Association, our first efforts should be directed towards 

 obtaining a sufficient body of information from all avail- 

 able sources, past and present, to afford data for the 

 comparisons on which our conclusions may be based. One 

 of the five articles of what is known as the Japanese 

 Imperial Oath states, " Knowledge shall be sought for 

 throughout the whole world, so that the welfare of the 

 Empire may be promoted " ; and it may certainly be said 

 that, as the welfare of our own Empire is largely depen- 

 dent on educational progress, a wide kno-wledge of matters 

 connected with Education is indispensable, if we are to 

 make advances with any feeling of certainty that w'e are 

 moving on the right lines. 



There can be no doubt that of late years we have 

 acquired a mass of valuable information on all sorts of 

 educational questions. We are greatly indebted for much 

 of our knowledge of what is being done in foreign countries 

 to the Reports of different Commissions, and more par- 

 ticularlv to those special reports issued from the Board 

 of Education, first under the direction of my predecessor 

 in this Chair, Prof. Sadler, and latterly of his successor 

 at the Board, Dr. Heath. But much of the information 

 we have obtained is still awaiting the hand of the scien- 

 tific worker to be properly coordinated and arranged. A 

 careful collation of facts is indispensable if we are to 

 deduce from them useful principles for our guidance, and 

 unfortunately we in this country are too apt to rest con- 

 tent when we have provided the machinery for the acquisi- 

 tion of such facts without taking the necessary steps to 

 compare, to coordinate, and to arrange them on some 

 scientific principle for future use. Within the last week 

 or two a Bill has passed through several stages in Parlia- 

 ment for requiring Local .Authorities to undertake the 

 medical inspection of school children, but, unless the 

 medical inspectors throughout the country conduct their 

 investigations on certain well-considered lines laid down 

 for them by some Central .Authority, we shall fail to 

 obtain the necessary data to enable us to associate educa- 

 tional and physical conditions with a view to the improve- 

 ment of the training given in our schools.' On the other 



I Since thi>; was wriUen the President of the Board of Education has 

 slated in the House of Commons that " it was the intention of the Board, if 

 the Bill now hefore Parliament passed, to establish a medical bureau, which 

 would guide and advise the local aulhorities as to the nature of the work 

 they would have to do under the Act." 



NO. 1973, VOL. 76] 



hand, although I personally am sceptical as to the results, 

 we have reason to believe that the inquiry recently under- 

 taken into the methods adopted here and elsewhere for 

 securing ethical as distinct from specifically religious train- 

 ing will be so conducted as to give us not only facts, but 

 the means of inferring from those facts certain trustworthy 

 conclusions. 



The consideration of Education as a subject capable of 

 scientific investigation is complicated by the fact that it 

 necessarily involves a relation — the relation of the child 

 or adult to his surroundings. It cannot be jidequately con- 

 sidered apart from that relation. We may make a study 

 of the conditions of the physical, intellectual, and ethical 

 development of the child, but the knowledge so obtained 

 is onlv useful to the educator when considered in connec- 

 tion with his environment and future needs, and the means 

 to be adopted to enable him, as he grows in physical, 

 intellectual, and moral strength, to obtain a mastery over 

 the things external to him. Education must be so directed 

 as to prove the proposition that " Knowledge is Power." 

 It can only be scientifically treated when so considered. 

 Education is imperfectly described when regarded as the 

 means of drawing out and strengthening a child's faculties. 

 It is more than this. Any practical definition takes into 

 consideration the social and economic conditions in which 

 the child is being trained, and the means of developing 

 his faculties with a view to the attainment of certain ends. 



It is in Germany that this fart has received the highest 

 recognition and the widest application, and for this reason 

 we have been accustomed to look to that country for 

 guidance in the organisation of our schools. We have 

 looked to Germany because wc perceived that some rela- 

 tion had been there established between the teaching given 

 to the people and their industrial and social needs ; and 

 further, that their success in commerce, in military and 

 other pursuits was largely due to the training provided 

 in their schools. Unmindful of the fact that Education is 

 a relation, and that consequently the same system of 

 education is not equally applicable to different conditions, 

 there were many in this country who were only too ready 

 to recommend the adoption of German methods in our 

 own schools. Experience soon show^ed, however, that 

 what may have been good for Germany did not apply to 

 England, and that, in educational matters certainly, we 

 do well to follow Emerson, who, when addressing his 

 fellow citizens, declared : " We will walk on our own feet : 

 we will work with our own hands, and we will speak 

 our own minds." Still, the example of Germany and the 

 detailed information which we have obtained as to her 

 school organisation and methods of instruction have been 

 serviceable to us. 



Whilst all information on educational subjects is valu- 

 able, I am disposed to think that in our efforts to con- 

 struct an educational science we may gain more by in- 

 quiring what has been effected in some of the newer 

 countries. Wherever educational problems have been care- 

 fully considered and schemes have been introduced with 

 the express intention and design of training citizens for 

 the service of the State and of increasing knowledge with 

 a view to such service, those schemes may be studied . 

 with advantage. Thus we may learn much from what is 

 now being done in our Colonies. Their efforts are more 

 in the nature of experiments. Our Colonies have been 

 wise enough not to imitate too closely our own or any 

 foreign system. They have started afresh, free from pre- 

 judice and traditions,' and it is for this reason that I look 

 forward with interest to the closer connection in educa- 

 tional matters of the Colonies with the mother country, 

 and I believe that we shall gain much knowledge and 

 valuable experience from the discussions of the Federal 

 Conference which has recently been held in London, and 

 which, I understand, is to be 'repeated a few years hence. 



But valuable as are the facts, properly collated and 

 systematicallv arranged, which a knowledge of British and 

 foreign methods mav afford us in dealing scientifically 

 with any educational problem, it is essential that we 

 should be able to test and to supplement the conclusions 

 based on such knowledge, whenever it is possible, by 

 direct experiments, applicable to the matter under investi- 

 gation. We have not yet recognised the extent to which 

 experiments in education, as in other branches of know- 



