TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 793 



Education and local authorities can be coordinated witb requirements of examining 

 bodies. But present strain on headmasters very great. Time and energy taken up 

 on organisation of details which better spent on teaching or personal control. 



Solutions (a) to relieve them by appointment of an official v^ithin school, charged 

 with the task ; but (1) additional expense on non-productive labour ; (2) ultimately 

 all matters must be determined by headmaster. Special strain on poor schools. 



(6) To substitute general for special control. 



Present system of control in secondary schools imitated from system in ele- 

 mentary schools. Required more laxity in adjustment, e.//., a school to receive 

 general reorganisation, subject to, say, triennial inspection and occasional visits 

 from local inspector, without regulations of time for each subject, &c. 



Promotion at present administrative, i.e., to headmastership, not to the teacher 

 qua teacher. Desideratum, a career within the profession for the teacher without 

 the need of administrative work. 



7. Scientific Method in the Study of School Teaching. 

 By Professor J. J. Findlay, Ph.D. 



Progress in the study of education has been hindered : — 



(1) By the error made by the earlier advocates of ' training ' in treating 

 the study of education as a kind of applied philosophy ; the work of eminent 

 psychologists such as Professor James Ward and Professors James and Dewey in 

 America has, however, served to clear this issue. It is now recognised that the 

 chief service to be rendered from that quarter is in utilising the results of 

 experimental psychology, and especially of genetic psychology. The latter, in 

 its more popular form of child-study, is already producing definite results in school 

 practice. 



Apart from psychology, the relation of the philosophical disciplines (logic, 

 ethics, aesthetics) to education is similar to that presented in other social 

 sciences, and its value to the teacher is neither less nor greater than its value 

 to all educated men engaged in professions which deal with human affairs. 



(2) By the popular interest in education and in schools. Everybody has a 

 direct interest both in the political and personal aspects of the subject, and 

 readily adopts an opinion on many topics embraced under the term. Hence the 

 necessity for such prolonged investigation as is demanded by other branches of 

 science has been commonly denied — equally by men of letters and science as by 

 the general public. 



(y) By the extensive range of studies included under ' education.' Thus the 

 only topics so far handled in a scientific method by this Section are those con- 

 cerned with the public administration and organisation of education. In these 

 fields the method is similar to that pursued in economics or politics. But in 

 school teaching the method must be different. Results can only be secured from 

 the observation of children while actually acquiring school experience. 



(4) By the peculiar difticulties to which such prolonged investigation of 

 children is subject (difficulties which in part account for the reluctance with 

 which both teachers and public authorities welcome any ' reform ' in school 

 procedure). The achievement of any new ' result ' in school teaching requires 

 the co-operation of several teachers with children placed in their hands for 

 several years, the whole process being conducted with persistence and continuity. 

 From every quarter ' interference ' with the experiment while in process has to 

 be anticipated. Equally diflicult is it to secure a reliable judgment upon the 

 nature of the result when the work has been accomplished. 



II. Hence some of the important reforms introduced into English schools 

 (e.y., in manual training, modern language teaching, practical mathematics) 

 have been due, not to investigations conducted within the schools on a scientific 

 method, but to movements outside the schools, which have first of all gained 

 the public ear, and have then been adopted without an adequate inquiry into 



