TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 839 



work-a-day world : instead tbey will have certain tasks confided to them to do and 

 will be allowed considerable latitude in carrying them to completion. In fact, they 

 will be treated as rational beino-s ; their individuality and self-respect will be de- 

 veloped from the outset. The Boer War will have taught us to adopt open order 

 teaching as well as open order tiring. Schools will glory in turning out individuals, 

 not raachiues. The success of the Americans is largely due to the way in which Re- 

 publican doctrines are applied to tht^ up-briugiug of children in America. We must 

 follow their example and set our children free and encourage them to be free at 

 an early age. Tbe human animal develops at a sufficiently slow rate in all con- 

 science ; there is little need for man to retard his own development. School, 

 with its checks upon freedom and individuality, should be quitted at seventeen at 

 latest, I believe, and all subsequent systematic training should take place at 

 college. Boys are kept at school after seventeen mainly for the purposes of the 

 school. It is claimed that by remaininsr they gain most valuable experience by 

 acting as monitors and prefects ; but this experience is enjoyed only by the few 

 and might be obtained at an earlier age. Then it is said that seventeen is too 

 early an age to enter Oxford or Cambridge, but this has only been the case since 

 schools have retained boys to prepare them for examinations and in order that 

 they might assist in the management. I believe that the attempts which have 

 been made in these latter days to do college work at schools and to establish 

 engineering sides in order to find work for senior boys have had a most detri- 

 mental effect. It is said that the training given in technical schools is too far 

 removed from practice ; but how much more must this be true ot technical work 

 done under school conditions ? The excessive devotion to literary methods 

 favoured by schools and the older Universities tends to develop unpractical habits 

 which unfit many to face the rough-and-tumble life of the world and is pro- 

 ductive of a disinclination for practical avocations. By leaving school at a 

 properly early period this danger is somewhat lessened ; moreover it is necessary 

 in many walks of lil'e that school should be left early in order that the school of 

 practice may be entered sufficiently soon to secure the indispensable manual 

 dexterity and habits. For a long time past we have been drifting away from 

 the practical; those who are acquainted with the work of the schools, e.spe- 

 cially the elementary schools, are aghast at the influence they are exercising in 

 hindering the development of practical ability. We must in some way counteract 

 this tendency. On the other hand we have to meet the views of those who very 

 properly urge that it is cruel to withdraw children from school even at the age 

 we do. The two views must in some way be reconciled. The only way will be 

 to .so improve the teacliing in schools that school becomes a palace of delight and 

 the continuation school a necessity. The habits formed at school should be such 

 that study would never be intermitted on leaving school. At present, school so 

 nauseates the majority that on quitting it they have neither desire nor aptitude 

 to study left in them : the work done in it is so impossible to translate into 

 ordinary practice, so foreign io outside requirements. 



The problem can only be solved by the scientific use of the imagination. The 

 solution I would venture to offer is that an honest attempt be made to teach, not 

 only the three R's, but also a fourth, Reasoning — the use of thought-power — and 

 that a properly wide meaning be gi\en to all the R's. 



Of all powers which can be acquired at school, that of reading is of first import- 

 ance. Let teachers read what Carlyle says in the ' Hero as Man of Letters,' 

 correcting his exaggerations by reading into his words some of the lessons taught 

 by experimental science. Reading is not taught in schools in these days ; if it 

 were, people would not waste their time on the rubbish which now figures as 

 literature, for which a rational substitute must be found. A well-read man 

 is worshipped at the Universities and is held up to all comers as a pattern. Why 

 should not children be encouraged to be ' well read ' ? Let us admit this and sow 

 books in their path. Thring, in giving utterance to his * Practical Thoughts on 

 Education after Thirty Years' Work,' speaks strongly on this point. 'Great 

 ijiterest will make up for want of time, Create great interest,' he says. 



