TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 205 
complexity of the facts on which a science of education, which can never be an 
exact, but only a mixed and applied science, must be based. If we had such a 
conception, giving us a standard by which to measure success or failure, we should 
at once feel the necessity of scientific methods to realize it. Instead of it we start 
with a confusion of terms, using education as synonymous with instruction; and 
the confusion of thought indicated by this misnomer runs through our whole 
treatment of the subject, theoretical and practical, as is shown in every parlia- 
mentary debate and in every discussion of the subject, public or private, especially 
where the education of the working classes and of women is concerned. It is 
surely time that this confusion should be replaced by a scientific conception of the 
rocess which should result in the most valuable of all products—human beings 
eyeloped to the full extent of their natural capacity, trained to understand their 
work in this world and to do it. The conditions of the problem are these :—We 
have to consider the threefold nature of the human being to be dealt with, physical, 
intellectual, and moral, together with his power of volition, which makes him a 
responsible agent, and to distinguish what elements of his constitution are common 
to him and his species, race, or family, and those peculiar to himself which con- 
stitute his individuality. Next come the external conditions under which he lives, 
| mental, and social (which also may be classed as those common to all 
uman beings), those common to all of his time, country, and social position, 
and those peculiar to himself and forming his individual lot. Throwing out that 
which is purely individual, and does not therefore admit of generalization, though 
forming a most important branch of study for the practical educator, there remains 
the wide field of general facts and forces ; and the study of the combination of these 
Forces, and their resultant influence on the formation of character, is the study of 
education as a science. It is at once apparent how vast a field of knowledge is thus 
covered. We must learn from physiology how to train the body not only to health 
and strength, but to grace and beauty; from psychology, how to train the intellect 
and moral nature, how to form habits, which is the master power of education ; 
from observation of human life in the world around us, and from the records of 
the history of human societies, of religion, art, literature, and science, how to reach 
the springs of human action, and especially the idealistic or spiritual element, 
which is the most powerful of all, and from these deduce the right order of educa- 
tion, the right methods of teaching, and the right subjects to be taught, relatively 
to the age and mental development of the pupil. 
The study of education as a science includes the education of nations as well as 
individuals. Nations have characters as well as individuals, on which their well 
or ill being depends; and no questions are more worthy of scientific study than 
how those characters are formed. The statesman is the most powerful of educa- 
tors, for he helps to form the social atmosphere, which is the most active force in 
the education of every individual. The educational influence of the poor-law, 
which was the real Elementary Education Act of England, may be cited ag an 
instance. Of the practical questions requiring solution by a scientific standard, 
only a few of the most pressing importance can be mentioned. The first is class in 
education. The impartial comparison of our own system, which preserves social 
- distinctions in education, with that of Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, and the 
United States, which disregards them, and makes the primary and secondary school 
and the University parts of one whole, adapted to different ages and degrees of 
mental development, not different classes of society—such a comparison, including 
social as well as educational results, would greatly assist us in the gradual re- 
modelling of our scholastic institutions, now going on under the influence of the 
yast movement of transition which characterizes our epoch. The second problem 
is that of sex in education; and as there is none that touches such burning ques- 
tions, so there is none that more urgently requires to be considered in the scientific 
spirit which seeks the truth only. Whether the difference between the sexes is 
one of kind or degree, or only of proportion, between the various mental and moral 
faculties, how this difference should be dealt with in education, whether women 
suffer physically from regular and sustained mental effort during the transition from 
girlhood to womanhood, or whether it does not rather steady the neryous system and 
preserve the due balance between the emotional and intellectual nature essential to 
