764 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



Section L.— EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 

 PnESiDENT OP THE SECTION — Professor M. E. Sadler, M.A., LL.D. 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 2. 



The President delivered the following Address : — 



The Committee of this Section, feeling that in England we are at the opening of a 

 new chapter in our educational history, have endeavoured to arrange a programme 

 which, so far as the limits of time allow, will suable members to discuss the chief 

 aspects of the many-sided problem of school reform. Some sides of this question, 

 political and ecclesiastical rather than educational in character, are by the rules of 

 the Association rightly excluded from debate as beiug unsuitable for discussion in 

 such an assembly as this. But plenty has been said about these topics elsewhere, 

 and there remains for us a series of questions not less pertinent to the main issue, 

 and scientific in their range without being politically controversial. With your 

 leave, therei'ore, but with a strong sense of the difficulty of the task and of the 

 greater fitness of several other members happily present among us to undertake it, 

 I will attempt in this address to say something by way of general introduction to 

 the debates which lie before us during the next few days. 



During the last ten years more thought and labour have been given to edu- 

 cational questions in England than at any earlier period in our history. If we 

 compare the present state of things with that of a decade ago, we have good 

 reason for encouragement and hope. Great additions have been made to the 

 number of our schools and universities; great changes have been made in the 

 machinery of educational administration, and an even greater change has come 

 over the attitude of mind in which thinking people approach the question of what 

 our schools should teach, how they should teach it, and what should be the 

 social purpose underlying, directing, and inspiring their work. We have moved, 

 often unconsciously, from our old moorings. A strong current which we could not 

 resist has shifted us from where we lay, more or less comfortably, before. And 

 •we have had to move in a fog, a puzzling and dangerous fog, now impenetrably 

 thick and now lifting enough to show that we are still moving fast into unfamiliar 

 waters. First on one side and then on another we have heard angry cries at 

 impending collision. But the current carries us on amid conflicting advice as to 

 the handling of the boat and much discord of opinion as to whither we are really 

 going. 



If, however, we review the general course of events in English education 

 during the last few years, certain changes stand out conspicuously and call for 

 special notice. There has been a great growth in public control over educational 

 work. The chief tendency of recent legislation has been to strengthen the powers 

 of the Board of Education on the one hand and of the local authorities on the 

 other. It is true that many of these powers have not yet been fully exercised, 

 but they have been granted, often without serious challenge, and they lie in 



