10 REPORT—1885. 
much higher results would follow the bifurcation of our schools. Saul 
went ont to look for asses and he foundakingdom. Surely this fact 
is more encouraging than the example of Gideon, who ‘ took thorns of 
the wilderness and briars, and with these he taught the men of Succoth.’ ! 
The adaptation of public schools to a scientific age does not involve 
a contest as to whether science or classics shall prevail, for both are 
indispensable to true education. The real question is whether schools 
will undertake the duty of moulding the minds of boys according to their 
mental varieties. Classics, from their structural perfection and power of 
awakening dormant faculties, have claims to precedence in education, 
but they have none to a practical monopoly. It is by claiming the latter 
that teachers sacrifice mental receptivity to a Procrustean uniformity. 
The universities are changing their traditions more rapidly than the 
schools. The via antiqua which leads to them is still broad, though a 
via moderna, with branching avenues, is also open to their honours and 
emoluments. Physical science, which was once neglected, is now 
encouraged at the universities. As to the seventy per cent. of boys who 
leave schools for life-work without going through the universities, are 
there no growing signs of discontent which must force a change? The 
Civil Service, the learned professions, as well as the army and navy, are 
now barred by examinations. Do the boys of our public schools easily 
leap over the bars, although some of them have lately been lowered so as 
to suit theschools ? So difficult are these bars to scholars that crammers 
take them in hand before they attempt the leap ; and this occurs in spite 
of the large value attached to the dead languages and the small value 
placed on modern subjects. Thus, in the Indian Civil Service examina- 
tions, 800 marks as a maximum are assigned to Latin, 600 to Greek, 500 
to chemistry, and 300 to each of the other physical sciences. But if we 
take the average working of the system for the last four years, we find 
that while sixty-eight per cent. of the maximum were given to candidates 
in Greek and Latin, only forty-five per cent. were accorded to candidates in 
chemistry, and but thirty per cent. to the other physical sciences. Schools 
sending up boys for competition naturally shun subjects which are dealt 
with so hardly and so heavily handicapped by the State. 
Passing from learned or public professions to commerce, how is it 
that in our great commercial centres, foreigners—German, Swiss, Dutch, 
and even Greeks—push aside our English youth and take the places of 
profit which belong to them by national inheritance ? How is it that in 
our Colonies, like those in South Africa, German enterprise is pushing 
aside English incapacity ? How is it that we find whole branches of 
manufactures, when they depend on scientific knowledge, passing away 
from this country, in which they originated, in order to engraft themselves 
abroad, although their decaying roots remain at home ?? The answer to 
1 Judges viii. 16. 
? See Dr. Perkins’ address to the Soc. Chem. Industry, ‘Nature, Aug. 6, 1885, 
p. 333. 
