440 
of Confucius and Mencius. He invited 500 of the teachers to 
bring their copies of these authors to Pekin, and after giving a 
great banquet in their honour, he buried alive the professors 
along with their manuscripts in a deep pit. But Confucius and 
Mencius still reign supreme. I advocate milder measures, and 
depend for their adoption on the force of public opinion. The 
needs of modern life will force schools to adapt themselves to a 
scientific age. _Grammar-schools believe themselves to be im- 
mortal. Those curious immortals—the Struldburgs—described 
by Swift, ultimately regretted their immortality, because they 
found themselves out of touch, sympathy, and fitness with the 
centuries in which they lived. 
As there is no use clamouring for an instrument of more 
compass and power until we have made up our minds as to the 
tune, Prof. Huxley, in his evidence before a Parliamentary 
Committee in 1884, has given a time-table for grammar-schools. 
He demands that out of their forty hours for public and private 
study, ten should be given to modern Janguages and _ history, 
eight to arithmetic and mathematics, six to science, and two to 
geography, thus leaving fourteen hours to the dead languages. 
No time-table would, however, be suitable to all schools. The 
great public schools of England will continue to be the gymnasia 
for the upper classes, and should devote much of their time to 
classical and literary culture. Even now they introduce into 
their curriculum subjects unknown to them when the Royal 
Commission of 1868 reported, though they still accept science 
with timidity. Unfortunately the other grammar-schools which 
educate the middle classes look to the higher public schools as a 
type to which they should conform, although their functions are 
so different. It is in the interest of the higher public schools 
that this difference should be recognised, so that, while they give 
an all-round education and expand their curriculum by a freer 
recognition of the value of science as an educational power in 
developing the faculties of the upper classes, the schools for the 
middle classes should adapt themselves to the needs of their 
existence, and not keep up a slayish imitation of schools with a 
different function. The old classical grammar-schools may view 
these remarks as a direct attack upon them, and so it is in one 
sense, but it is like the stroke of Ithuriel’s spear, which heals 
while it wounds. 
The stock argument against the introduction of modern sub- 
jects into grammar schools is that it is better to teach Latin and 
Greek thoroughly rather than various subjects less completely. 
But is it true that thoroughness in teaching dead languages is the 
result of an exclusive system? In 1868 the Royal Commission 
stated that even in the few great public schools thoroughness 
was only given to 30 per cent. of the scholars, at the sacrifice of 
70 per cent. who got little benefit from the system. Since then 
the curriculum has been widened and the teaching has improved. 
I question the soundness of the principle that it is better to limit 
the attention of the pupils mainly to Latin and Greek, highly as 
I value their educational power to a certain order of minds. As 
in biology the bodily development of animals is from the general 
to the special, so is it in the mental development of man. In 
the school a boy shauld be aided to discover the class of know- 
ledge that is best suited for his mental capacities, so that, in the 
upper forms of the school and in the university, knowledge may 
be specialised in order to cultivate the powers of the man to 
their fullest extent. Shakspeare’s educational formula may not 
be altogether true, but it contains a broad basis of truth— 
“* No profit goes, where is no pleasure ta’en ;— 
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.” 
The comparative failure of the modern side of school educa- 
tion arises from constituting it out of the boys who are looked 
upon as classical asses. Milton pointed out that in all schools 
there are boys to whom the dead languages are ‘‘ like thorns 
and thistles,” which form a poor nourishment even for asses. If 
teachers looked upon these classical asses as beings who might 
receive mental nurture according to their nature, much higher 
results would follow the bifurcation of our schools. Saul went 
out to look for asses and he found a kingdom. Surely this fact 
is more encouraging than the example of Gideon, who ‘“‘ took 
thorns of the wilderness and briars, and with these he éawg/¢ the 
men of Succoth.” } The adaptation of public schools toa 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, 
1 Judges, viii, 16. 
ee TOE 
[ Sept. 10, 1885 
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 vza antigua which leads to them is still 
broad, though a wa 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 70 per cent. of boys who leave schools for life-work with- 
out 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 the schools? 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 68 per cent. of tthe maxi- 
mum were given to candidates in Greek and Latin, only 45 per 
cent. were accorded to candidates in chemistry, and but 30 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 manu- 
factures, 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 these questions is that our systems 
of education are still too narrow for the increasing struggle of 
life. 
Faraday, who had no narrow views in regard to education, 
deplored the future of our youth in the competition of the world, 
because, as he said with sadness, ‘‘our schoolboys, when they 
come out of school, are ignorant of their ignorance at the end of 
all that education.” 
The opponents of science education allege that it is not 
adapted for mental development, because scientific facts are 
often disjointed and exercise only the memory. Those who 
argue thus do not know what science is. No doubt an ignorant 
or half-informed teacher may present science as an accumulation 
of unconnected facts. At all times and in all subjects there are 
teachers without zsthetical or philosophical capacity—men who 
can only see carbonate of lime in a statue by Phidias or Praxi- 
teles ; who cannot survey zoology on account of its millions of 
species, or botany because of its 130,000 distinct plants; men 
who can look at trees without getting a conception of a forest, 
and cannot distinguish a stately edifice from its bricks. To 
teach in that fashion is like going to the tree of science with its 
glorious fruit in order to pick up a handful of the dry fallen 
leaves from the ground. It is, however, true that as science 
teaching has had less lengthened experience than that of litera- 
ture, its methods of instruction are not so matured. Scientific 
and literary teaching have different methods ; for while the 
teacher of literature rests on authority and on books for his 
guidance, the teacher of science-discards authority and depends 
on facts at first hand, and on the book of Nature for their in- 
terpretation. Natural science more and more resolves itself into 
the teaching of the laboratory. In this way it can be used as a 
powerful means of quickening observation, and of creating a 
faculty of induction after the manner of Zadig, the Babylonian 
described by Voltaire. Thus facts become surrounded by scien- 
tific conceptions, and are subordinated to order and law. 
It is not those who desire to unite literature with science who 
degrade education ; the degradation is the consequence of the 
refusal. A violent reaction—too violent to be wise—has lately 
1 See Dr, Perkins’s address to the Soc. Chem. Industry, NaTurE 
August 6, 1855, p. 333 
