130 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE.—1917, 
and, although a few of these are inspected by the Board, the majority 
are inspected by the Universities, and have therefore no connection 
with the Board. In most of these there is a strong classical tradition. 
The actual number of boys (about 36,000) taught in these schools is 
small compared with those who receive their education in State-aided 
schools, but the fact that the public schools educate the majority of 
the future statesmen gives them special importance. The Headmasters 
are with few exceptions classical specialists. The leaving age before 
the war was nominally nineteen, but a considerable number of boys 
leave when they are eighteen. 
The schools are generally, but not always, divided into classical, 
modern, and Army sides, science being taught universally on the two 
latter sides, but to only a certain number of the boys on the classical 
side. On the Army side the science subjects are determined by the 
requirements of the Civil Service Commissioners, and are consequently 
entirely confined to chemistry and physics; on the modern side the 
tendency is also to limit the science teaching to these two subjects, 
although in some schools the younger pupils are given courses of 
geology and elementary biology. Of course, the senior boys who 
specialise in science have a considerably wider range, but these do 
not form a part of the Modern side proper. On the classical side 
progress has been made during the past twenty years. Formerly few 
schools made any provision for science teaching; now it is the excep- 
tion to find a school in which science does not appear in the time- 
table of the great majority of boys at some period of their school career. 
Since these boys have, as a rule, no science examination in view, 
educational experiments are more frequently made upon them than 
on others; hence there is far less uniformity in the teaching in this 
part of the school than on the modern side; in some the work is 
of the same nature as upon the modern side; but, since the time 
devoted to science is as a rule less, the standard attained is naturally 
lower, whilst in others the ‘ object’ rather than the ‘ subject ’ method 
is pursued—e.g., water is investigated in its biological, geological, 
sociological, chemical, and physical aspects in one course. 
In addition to the fact that some attention is now given to the 
teaching of science on the classical side, the more important changes 
which have taken place since a Sub-Committee presented a report to 
Section L. at the Dublin meeting in 1908 seem to be that (1) less 
attention is now paid to elementary practical measurements; this is 
partly due to the difficulty which has been experienced in many schools 
in persuading the mathematical staff, without whose co-operation pro- 
gress is impossible, to undertake laboratory work. There can be but 
little doubt that many science-masters have found that such work does 
not interest their pupils, and is apt to give them a disinclination to 
science. (2) Mechanics is less frequently made a part of the science 
curriculum, and there is a growing tendency to leave it to the mathe- 
matical staff, with the unfortunate result that the experimental side is 
neglected. (3) Biology is certainly receiving more attention than it 
did; this may be due to the action of certain Universities in making it 
a compulsory subject for their first M.B. examination; but it is 
