TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 827 
Sretion L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 
PRESIDENT oF THE Srction—The Right Rey. the Lord Bisnop 
oF Hererorp, D.D., LL.D. 
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18. 
The President delivered the following Address :-— 
I am moved to begin this address with a word of personal apology, the 
strongest feeling in my mind, as I rise to deliver it, being that in the fitness of 
things some one of the many distinguished representatives of education in this 
University would have been the natural occupant of this chair on the present 
oceasion ; and for my own part I could hardly have brought myself to accept the 
invitation with which I have been honoured had I not been led to understand 
that on occasions of this kind it is preferred by the members of the University 
visited that some one from the outside should be invited as I have heen. 
Thus I have accepted, not without hesitation and misgiving, but with the more 
gratitude, as feeling that I am here because of the wish of the Cambridge 
authorities to have some one connected with the University of Oxford, and I 
desire that the grateful acknowledgment of this courtesy and kindness should be 
my first word as President of the Educational Section. 
The inclusion of Education among the various sections of this Association for 
the Advancement of Science is sufficient evidence that a new educational era has 
beeun in this country. 
Whatever may be the defects of our educational system or want of system, 
whatever changes may be necessary to bring it, in the current phrase, up to date, 
the days of unthinking tradition are over. 
Scientific method is entering on its inheritance, and it has begun to include the 
field of education along with other fields of life and thought within the sphere of 
its influence. 
And scientific minds are asking on every side of us what is the end of true 
education, and are we on the right way to it ? 
Mee education, almost insuperably difficult in practice, has been often defined 
in words, 
Plato told us long ago how it is music for the soul and gymnastic for the 
body, both intended for the benefit of the soul, how it is a life-long process, how 
good manners are a branch of it and poetry its principal part, though the poets 
are but poor educators, how great is the importance of good surroundings, how the 
young should be reared in wholesome pastures and be late learners of evil, if they 
must learn it at all, how nothing mean or vile should meet the eye or strike the 
ear of the young, how in infancy education should be through pleasurable interest, 
how dangerous it is when ill directed, how it is not so much a process of acquisition 
as the use of powers already existing in us, not the filling of a vessel, but turning 
the eye of the soul towards the light, how it aims at ideals and is intended to 
promote virtue, and is the first and fairest of all things. 
Tn this description, I take it, we most of us agree, though some of Plato’s views 
