862 REPORT— 1901. 



admitted, and is still imperfectly estimated. Too little time is devoted to it as a 

 school subject: its investigations and its results are misunderstood and under- 

 valued. Tradition in most schools, nearly always literary, alters slowly, and tlie 

 revolutionary methods of science find all the prejudices of antiquity arrayed 

 against them. Even in scientific studies, laclc of time and the obligation to 

 prepare scholars to pass examinations cause too much attention to be paid to 

 theorjr, and too little to practice, though it is by the latter that the power of 

 original research and of original application of acquired knowledge is best brought 

 out. The acquisition of modern languages was in bygone generations almost 

 entirely neglected. In many schools the time given to this subject is still inade- 

 quate, the method of teaching antiquated, the results unsatisfactory. But the 

 absolute necessity of such knowledge in literature, in science, and in commerce is 

 already producing a most salutary reform. 



The variety of types of secondary instruction demanded by the various needs 

 and prospects of scholars requires a corresponding variety in the provision of 

 schools. This cannot be settled by a rule-of-three method, as is done in the case 

 of primary instruction. We cannot say that such and such an area being of such 

 a size and of such a population requires so many Secondary Schools of such a 

 capacity. Account must be taken in every place of the respective demands for 

 respective types and grades of secondary education ; and existing provision must 

 he considered. 



It must not, however, be forgotten that a national system of education has its 

 drawbacks as well as its advantages. The most fatal danger is the tendency of 

 public instruction to suppress or absorb all other agencies, however long esta- 

 blished, however excellent their work, and to substitute one uniform mechanical 

 system, destructive alike to present life and future progress. In our country, 

 where there are public schools of the highest repute carried on for the most part 

 under ancient endowments, private schools of individuals and associations, and 

 Universities entirely independent of the Government, tliei'e is reasonable hope that 

 with proper care this peril may be escaped. But its existence should never bo 

 forgotten. Universal efficiency in all establishments that profess to educate any 

 section of the people may properly be required ; but the variety, the individuality, 

 and the independence of schools of every sort, primary and secondary, higher and 

 lower, should be jealously guarded. Such attributes once lost can never be 

 restored. 



There still remains for our consideration the second division of Higher Educa- 

 tion, viz., the applied or technological side. It is in this branch of Education that 

 Great Britain is most behind the rest of the world ; and the nation in its efibrts to 

 make up the lost ground fails to recognise the fact that real technical instruction 

 (of whatever type) cannot possibly be assimilated by a student unless a proper 

 foundation has been laid previously by a thorough grounding of elementary and 

 secondary instruction. Our efibrts at reform are abrupt and disconnected. A panic 

 from time to time sets in as to our backwardness in some particular branch of 

 commerce or industry. There is a sudden rush to supply the need. Classes and 

 schools spring up like mushrooms, which profess to give instruction in the lacking 

 branch of applied science to scholars who have no elementary knowledge of the 

 particular science, and Avhose general capacities have never been sufiiciently 

 developed. Students are invited to climb the higher rungs of the ladder of 

 learning who have never trod the lower. But science cannot he taught to those 

 who cannot read, nor commerce to those who cannot write. A few elementary 

 lessons in shorthand and book-keeping will not fit the British people to compete 

 with the commercial enterprise of Germany. Such sudden and random attempts 

 to reform our system of technical education are time and monej' wasted. There 

 are grades and types in technological instruction, and progress can only be slow. 

 It is useless to accept in the higher branches a student who does not come with 

 a solid foundation on which to build. In such institutions as the Polytechnics at 

 Zurich and Charlottenburg we find the students exclusively drawn from those 

 who have already completed the highest branches of general education ; in this 

 country there is hardly a single institution where this could be said of more than 



