TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 213 



35 j'ears, but the said shares would remain the property of the holders and 

 shall participate in all the profits after the guaranteed interest and working 

 expenses have been paid. 

 It will be readily seen that in the foregoing scheme capitalists in England and 

 India would bo attracted to embark ^■vit]l spirit and energy into Indian railways, 

 as there exists many important elements for realizing substantial profits in propor- 

 tion as the collateral trade in connexion with the traffic of a railwaj' became 

 developed, which elements, most must admit, are sadly wanting in the present 

 organization of Indian State Lines, whilst at the same time it embraces all the 

 advantages (and these are many) of the railways being owned and under the 

 control of the State. 



On the Standard of National Education'^ . By Mrs. Williak Gee v. 



The object of this paper is to draw some practical inferences from that on the study 

 of Education as a Science, read last year at Belfast, the most important of these being 

 that which forms the title. The definition of education in the former paper, as 

 the direction given to the development of the human being by the external influ- 

 ences brought to bear upon him, aiding, arresting, or distorting his growth, which 

 applies to national as to individual education, will include under that name all 

 direct instruction and influence, together with the indirect pressure of the social 

 iitmosphere and general conditions under which we live. It is on this indirect 

 and apparently uncontrollable social element that a national standard of education 

 would exercise the most powerful influence ; for every nation, class, and profes- 

 sion, having any vigorous life, has an ideal of what its members should be, whicli 

 affects each iiuli\-idual in them by a public opinion more potent than any law 

 Some such ideal of education does indeed exist now in all classes of society, and 

 creates a standard for each class. The question is, whether it is an adequate one, 

 judged from a general, not a class, point of view, and whether the scicutific study 

 of education would not give us one universally applicable and resting on the firm 

 ground of principle. The scientific view, taking human nature as its basis, makes 

 that principle the equable development of all the powers and faculties in their due 

 relation to each other. 



To begin with physical training : we have the Greek ideal preserved to us in 

 their statues, and should adopt it for ours, making our drill, gymnastics, and phy- 

 sical exercises for both sexes parts of a reall}' scientific physical training, directed 

 to attain the maximum of strength and grace, and reduce to a minimum wealcness 

 and deformity. This woidd give importance to the conditions of healthy develop- 

 ment before and after school-life, and scientific unitj^ to our sanitary legislation, 

 coordinating every measure to the same end, the improvement of our human 

 breed, hitherto infinitely less i-egarded tlian that of our cattle. 



Passing on to intellectual education, our ideal must include here also not only 

 development but harmony, the balance of intellectual forces which constitutes 

 fioimduess of mind and their due subordination to tlie supreme end of intellectual 

 life, right reasoning, the discernment of the true relations to ourselves and each 

 other of the objects and persons making up the world in which we live. Hence 

 the standard of intellectual education should be the formation of a sound judg- 

 ment, which exercised on common things is no other than common sense, and in 

 the region of abstract thought is the discovery of truth. How to attain this 

 standard by directing all our school teacbing towards it, is a problem the science 

 of education has still to solve ; for the testimony of examiners of every degree 

 and for every profession may be appealed to to prove that it is not solved yet, 

 smd that the development of intelligence producing a high average of reasoning- 

 power is not the general result of our present methods of teaching. 



In the higher education given at the Universities, or wliatever corresponds to 

 them, knowledge ceases to be a means only, and becomes an aid in itself, but 

 should lead to another end not less worthy, i.e. culture. This, which is too often 

 supposed to be mere ornament, has a high educational value by giving a keener 

 edge to our judgment, and training reason to deal with human probabilities, and to 



* Published in the 'Journal of the Women's Education Union,' for September IST.^. 



