496 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 



SO much the fault of the teachers as of the system and the methods of 

 instruction. The teaching helps, no doubt, in creating certain aptitudes 

 and in imparting a limited amount of knowledge. But the aptitudes are 

 not permanent and the knowledge is too soon forgotten. The training is 

 defective as a preparation for practical pursuits, whether in the field, the 

 workshop, or the home. As a consequence, the unemployed and the 

 unemployable increase in numbers, and children seek the means of live- 

 lihood in occupations, such as messengers and newspaper-vendors, which 

 open up no avenue to more useful and more remunerative employment. 

 Some, it is true, by means of scholarships, scale the educational ladder and 

 find situations in the overcrov/ded ranks of clerks ; others — not many — 

 enter the learned professions, in which a few succeed. As a remedy for 

 this state of things compulsory attendance at continuation classes in day or 

 evening schools is suggested ; but the majority of parents are unable to afford 

 to maintain their children till the age of sixteen or seventeen ; only a few 

 can do so, and the prospects of such children are in many cases improved. 

 Experiments have been, and are still being, tried in the way of 

 establishing schools in which specific trades are taught and of combining 

 industrial work with general instruction, but no sure method has yet 

 been found of providing during a boy's or girl's school years the kind 

 of training which affords a satisfactory substitute for apprenticeship, 

 enabling a youth on leaving school to become at once a wage-earner. 

 The difficulty has not yet been solved. I have long thought that the 

 remedy may be found in a somewhat drastic change in the aim and 

 methods of our elementary education in substituting very largely 

 practical exercises for book-learning, and in grouping the necessary sub- 

 jects of instruction around some kind of hand-work, whether in the 

 workshop, in agricultural pursuits, or in the practice of the domestic 

 arts. This fundamental change is now favourably regarded by many 

 educational reformers here and abroad. Schools in which the teaching 

 is mainly practical have been established in many parts of the world. 

 They are more common in the case of boys than of girls ; but it is equally, 

 if not more, important that the training of girls should be on practical 

 lines, and that manipulative skill should be developed during their school 

 life. In the opinion expressed by Professor Smithells at a recent meeting 

 of the Northern Union of the Domestic Economy Association I fully 

 concur. He said : ' I believe, in fact, that in the household arts you 

 have a direct educational instrument for conferring upon girls the very 

 great gift of manipulative skill, and of doing it by teaching the very work 

 that will be nearest to them in their normal daily life when they have 

 left school.' 



A Committee of this Association was appointed in 1903 at Southport 

 ' to report upon the course of experimental, observational, and practical 

 studies most suitable for elementary schools.' The Committee nominated 

 several Sub-Committees, which have been actively employed in working 

 out the details of a scheme. Individual members of the Committee have 

 also been engaged on the problem, and have written papers and reports 

 on some of its special aspects. In 1904, at the meeting of this Association 

 held at Cambridge, I made some suggestions on workshop instruction 

 which, I am glad to note, are now bearing fruit. In 1906 at York 

 the Committee presented a report in which they indicated the cha- 

 racter of the changes to be introduced into our schools with a view to 

 make practical studies an essential part of the school curriculum. To this 



