TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 887 



from (2) — the power of accurately expressing- one's own thought. This is what 

 we mean by mind training. Education does — or should — include also the discipline 

 and development of the emotions and judgment, aesthetic and moral, as well as 

 merely intellectual. 



These two sides of education — disciplinary and esthetic they may perhaps be 

 called for shortness — constantly overlap, but they must both be kept in mind if a 

 curriculum at all tolerable is to I)e secured. 



3. Uniformity of Curriculum desirable in Lower and Middle Forms. 



Whatever differences exist between school and school, it is desirable that (in 

 the lower and middle forms at least) all should follow the same curriculum. 



A. common curriculum is a powerful factor in that community of interest and 

 feeling which should be maintained as far as possible, and whose maintenance is 

 especially difficult under the conditions of city school life. No considerations of 

 utility, which at best are uncertain and probably delusive, seem to me sufficient 

 to outweigh this vital consideration. This does not, of course, apply to the top 

 form of a school, where a considerable amount of variety and specialisation can, 

 and should, be permitted. 



4. Place of Manual Work. 



Manual work — i.e. work in clay, wood, metal, &c. — does sometimes give the 

 needed chance of interest and success to a boy who in ordinary school subjects is 

 a ' hopeless duffer.' This alone would justify its inclusion in one form or another 

 in all curricula, but it does not need this justification. It gives valuable assistance 

 in making arithmetic and drawing more real and intelligible ; some forms of it 

 demonstrate as nothing else does the difference between accurate and inaccurate 

 work, hence have a considerable moral value ; it interests most boys, so making 

 them more favourably disposed to school work as a whole, no small advantage. 



5. The Discipline of Scientific Studies. 



Natural science does not seem to come under the head of practical instruction 

 in at all the same sense as manual work. 



It ia true that actual handling and examination of things, actual construction 

 and measurement, is an essential part of it, but it is not the whole, nor, as every 

 teacher knows, the most difficult part. Exact statement of what is observed, 

 co-ordination of new experience with old, the disentanglement of the essential 

 from the accidental, the building up by reflection and discussion of a coherent 

 body of truth, demand clearness of thought and, what can seldom if ever be divorced 

 from that, clearness of expression. These requirements make natural science 

 properly handled an admirable discipline, but it is a discipline which has quite as 

 much in common with the discipline of mathematics and literary subjects as with 

 that of manual work. But further it should be added that the influence of 

 natural science teaching has reacted most favourably on the older subjects. Any- 

 one with the scientific habit of mind will approach the teaching of, say, Latin in 

 a way very different from the traditional method. He will lay much more stress 

 on observation and reason and inquiry than on dogma. 



6. The General Curriculum. 



Manual instruction, in one shape or other, should be carried on in the lower and 

 middle forms, natural science in the middle and upper, not excluding, of course, 

 simple observational science, even among the youngest boys if conditions permit, 

 and literary subjects throughout. 



As to the latter, they will include — besides mathematics — history, geography, 

 and literature with languages. If adequate attention is to be given to other 

 essentials, not more than two languages should be attempted except by boys in 

 the upper forms specialising in this direction. Up to about the age of sixteen 



