PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 719 
defence of our shores from foreign aggression have been taught and 
construed into terms of scientific training and co-operative action with a 
rapidity equally surprising and welcome to those who, a few years ago, 
looked with something more than apprehension on the supineness of the 
youth of England in all patriotic regards. 
‘The flannelled fool and muddied oaf,’ 
though they have not yet received their quietus, have been less rampant lately 
in our educational institutions, and something like an Imperial instinct, born 
of increasing knowledge both of the glory and dangers of our vast Empire, 
has, at least in the more cultured classes, taken the place of apathy, dis- 
regard, and ignorance. In hours formerly lavished to an abnormal extent 
on trivial amusements, and even in hours hitherto devoted to more academi- 
cally intellectual training, we find young men in our schools and colleges 
now with arms in their hands, shooting, signalling, scouting, and studying 
scientifically the art of defensive warfare. This at least is ‘a beam in 
darkness, of which we pray that it may grow.’ 
Time and your patience will not allow me to touch on more than the 
fringe of the great educational problems which have to be solved before 
we can approach in English education to what I venture to call the ideal 
of Imperial responsibility. 
In criticising the old medizval system of education which prevailed in 
England till comparatively recent years, and which still has far too great a 
hold on the more venerable and important institutions of our island home, 
I would not have you suppose that I am an advocate of a complete, or even 
approximately complete, basis of utilitarian education. It is an easy charge 
for those who desire stare super antiquas vias, to throw in one’s teeth. I 
have little hesitation in expressing my belief that the time has come (and I 
speak as one whose training was that of a classical scholar, for I was brought 
up in the straitest sect of academical Pharisees)—I say I have no hesitation 
in expressing my belief that the time has come, not only that the study of 
the two ancient languages should be reduced to one for all except scholastic 
specialists, but also that both should yield pride of place in our educational 
system to the claims of English, modern languages, mathematics, natural 
science, and, not least, manual training, so that our young men should be 
fitly equipped to put their hand to any work which may confront them 
amid all the complex problems and critical situations to be found within the 
world-wide boundaries of the British Empire. 
Germany, France, and the United States have been beforehand with us 
in the working out of such a reformed system of education. I am by no 
means one of those who believe that we should be wise in copying the 
methods in their entirety of any of these three peoples in their educational 
methods. Undoubtedly in all three there has been a more organised 
connection between the actual teaching given in their respective 
schools and the industrial, social, and political needs of the respective 
peoples. But no one nation is exactly like another nation in its 
temper and genius, and I should be sorry to advocate, for instance, 
the highly organised system of State education in Germany, under 
which it could be predicted to a certainty that boys and girls in every 
secondary or primary school on any given Friday morning should be studying 
(say) the geographical importance of Natal or the outlines of the coast of 
Lincolnshire. There must be many educational differences, because the 
idiosyncrasies of each nation differ from those of another, and I do not think 
we need ever fear that our intrinsic individuality will be crushed into any 
Teutonic cast-iron mould or ground down beneath the heel of some bureau- 
cratic educational despotism. But that we ought to change our ways still 
more than we have, and adopt saner educational models, many searchings 
