868 EEPORT— 1901. 



apart altogether from the two or three departments of knowledge in which he may- 

 happen to be a specialist ? What are the chief topics in regard to which he ought 

 to seek after clear ideas and sound action ? 



We must begin, must we not r with a rough working definition of education 

 itself. Education is a living process in virtue of which the partly developed 

 young of the human species are adjusted by nourishment and exercise to the 

 environment in which, when fully grown, they will have to continue to live. 

 That environment is partly physical and partly human. 



Healthy activity in relation to nature and man may serve as a working defini- 

 tion of our end, and in order to obtain this for children we must aim nt clear ideas 

 about the following points : — 



{a) Physical health in the home and in school. 



{li) A sound correspondence, implying health of brain and nerves, between the 

 mind of the child and the natural phenomei\a which surround it, and which 

 form the background of human life. 



(c) A cultivation in the child of human sympathy with the community of 

 which he is to form a part ; a power to express that sympathy in clear language ; an 

 understanding of Iniman nature and of the art and literature in which that human 

 nature has most characteristically embodied itself; some knowlege of human history 

 an<d of the gradual process by which mankind has attained to the position in which 

 we find it. All this must be accompanied by constant habituation to healthy 

 acti\ity with other human beings in the social relations of home and school. 



These appear to be the indispensable conditions of adjustment of the growing 

 child to his environment. To aid that adjustment it is evident that the educator 

 must clear up his ideas on many points. Of these the most important and most 

 central might be specified as follows : — - 



(i.) The hygiene of human growth, with special reference to the healthy func- 

 tions of growing brains and nerves. 



(ii.) The theory of the curriculum, which must include a consideration of the 

 comparative value for growing children of difterent subjects of study, and of the 

 order and mutual relation in which these subjects should be presented to the 

 adolescent mind. 



(iii.) The theory of method, which must embrace a study of the conditions 

 under which the maximum of mental and moral activity can be attained without 

 overstrain. It will therefore comprise an investigation into the s3'mptoms and 

 causes of brain ftitigue. It will consider the circumstances imder which the 

 interest and self-activity of children are best roused and maintained. It will 

 require a series of practical experiments conducted ))y trained observers under the 

 ordinary conditions of school life. 



(iv.) The study of the conditions under which desirable qualities of character 

 are produced, such, for instance, as courage, kindness, initiative, firmness of will, 

 and the like. Under this head would come the scientific study of play, of imita- 

 tion, of the influence of suggestion, and so forth, as well as of the influence of the 

 school community and school institutions. 



In these four topics, which may be summed up as phj-sical and mental 

 hygiene, the theory of the curriculum, the theory of method, and the theory of 

 character, might be found a rough working scheme of the scope of educational 

 science. When we have arrived at some sort of agreement upon them we shall 

 have to consider the forms of administration and organisation most likely to foster 

 desirable conditions. For this we shall need a comparative study of educational 

 institutions, including those of foreign nations and those which have existed in 

 the past. After this we may proceed to the corollaries and riders of our main 

 topics, such, for instance, as the problem of how best to prepare children for par- 

 ticular trades and professions, such as engineering or law, and in especial how to 

 train those who are going to be educators, for the effective practice of the scientific 

 principles of their profession. 



