TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 871 



took a wide departure from the traditional methods of the Department and created 

 a class of secondary school which differed totally from those then existing. 

 Needless to say the scheme was not received with favour on all sides, more espe- 

 cially by those who thought that serious damage would he done to secondary schools 

 by the competition from this new development of secondary education. _ I am not 

 ashamed to say that the disfavour shown on some sides made me rejoice, as ic 

 indicated that a move had been made in the right direction. At first it was 

 principally the higher-grade Board Schools that came under the scheme, and in 

 the first year there were twenty-four of them at work. This type of school gradually 

 increased until about seventy of them, and chiefly of a most efficient character, were 

 recognised in 1900. Their further increase was only arrested by the Cockerton 

 judgment, now so well known that I need only name it. But here we come to 

 a most interesting development. State aid, as already said, was at first limited to 

 the instruction of the industrial classes, but no limitation as to the status of the pupil 

 was made in this new scheme for the schools of science, and logically this freedom 

 was extended in 1897 to all instruction aided by the Department — the date when 

 all limitation as to the status of the pupil was abolished, the only limitation being 

 the status of the school itself. Thus, if a flourishing public school, charging hig-h 

 fees for tuition, were to apply to participate in the grant voted by Parliament, it 

 may be presumed, it would "have to be refused. The abolition of the restriction 

 as to the status of the pupils left it open to poorly endowed secondary grammar 

 schools to come under the new scheme. To a good many the additional income 

 to be derived from the grant meant continuing their existence as efficient, and 

 for this reason, and often, I fear, for this reason alone, some claimed recognition 

 as eligible. 



Such is an outline history of the invasion of science instruction into certain 

 secondary schools— an invasion which ought to be of great national service. In 

 my view no general education is complete without a knowledge of those simple 

 truths of science which speak to everyone, but usually pass unheeded day by day. 

 The expansion of the reasoning and observational powers of every child is as 

 material to sound education as is the exercise of the memory or the acquisition of 

 some smattering of a language. I am not going into the question of curricula in 

 schools, as I hope, regarding them, we shall have a full discussion. But of this 

 I am sure, that no curriculum will be adequate which does not include practical 

 instruction in the elementary truths of science. The President of the Royal 

 Society, in his last Annual Address, alluded to the mediaeval education that was 

 being given in a vast number of secondary schools. Those who planned the system 

 of education of those times deserve infinite credit for including all that it was 

 possible to include. Had there been a development of science in those days, one 

 must believe that with the far-seeing wisdom they then displayed they would have 

 included that which it is the desire of all modern educationists to include. Obser- 

 vational and experimental science would have assuredly found a place in the system. 



One, however, cannot help being struck by the broadening of views in regard 

 to modem education that has taken place in the minds of many who were certainly 

 not friendly to its development. Perhaps in the Bishop of Hereford, when 

 headmaster of Clifton, we have the most remarkable early example of breadth of 

 view, which he carried out in a practical manner, surrounding himself with many 

 of the ablest teachers of science of the day. There are other headmasters who, 

 though trained on the classical side, have had the prescience to follow in his 

 footsteps, and of free will ; but others there are who have neither the desire nor the 

 intention, if not compelled to do so, to move in the direction which modern 

 necessities indicate is essential for national progress. I am inclined to think that 

 the movement in favour of modernising education has been very largely quickened 

 by the establishment of schools of science in connection with endowed schools and 

 the desire for their foundation by the Technical Instruction Committees, who had 

 the whisky money at their disposal, and who often more than supplemented the 

 parliamentary grants which these schools were able to earn. It was the circum- 

 stance that the new scheme was issued when many endowed sphools w^re i?i low 

 •water that made it as successful as it has been, 



