616 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 
our hands. But the schools neglect hands and attempt the impossible by trying 
to cultivate non-existent wits. Man is doubtless pretty much what he was and 
it is useless trying to make of him what he has never been. The harmless vision 
by which Mr. Wells and other windy idealists are obsessed of a perfect man in 
a perfect future may safely be left out of account for the present. 
We are seeking to educate all. What does this mean? Practically that 
we are seeking to teach all to read. But when they have learnt, what are the 
majority to read—what will they care to read? At the schools for young 
gentlemen, the reading taught hitherto has been mostly the reading of Latin 
and Greek. We know the result—the number of persons above school age who 
can and do read either language is negligible. Some of us learn French, 
scarcely any learn German, Spanish is all but neglected : when, therefore, we 
visit the Continent of Europe or South America we can only mumble a few 
words of the language of the country and usually allow the foreigner we visit 
to speak broken English for us: few of us read his literature. 
The vain attempt is made to put us in touch with the past but no real 
effort is exerted to bring us into contact with the present. We have not yet 
taught English in our higher schools but are beginning to think of doing so— 
to this end, we are urging that attention be paid to so-called classical literature, 
forgetting, of course, that for the most part this was written for grown-ups 
and not as food for babes of school age. 
The difficulty is still greater in the case of those who have only passed 
through the elementary schools—the literature that will appeal to most of these 
will be very limited in scope. Our newspapers show pretty clearly what will go 
down : not much—but it represents what is going on in life. In London, when 
the theatres are under discussion, it is often said that people want to be 
amused, not instructed; to cudgel our dull brains is a dull business to most 
of us. It seems to me that this doctrine should be applied more than it is in 
the schools. At all events, we shall do well to remember the words of the 
holy lama in Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Kim’: ‘ Education is greatest blessing if of 
best sorts. Otherwise no eaithly use.’ 
To discover the best sort for each sort of student is our difficulty—who will 
do it? Here comes my point. Not the present race of schoolmaster or of 
educational authority. By placing classical scholars in charge, we seem uncon- 
sciously to have selected men of one particular type of mind for school 
service—men of the literary type; and this type has been preferred for 
nearly all school posts, mainly because no other type has been available, 
this being the chief product of our Universities. Such men, for the most 
part, have been indifferent to subjects and methods other than literary— 
I verily believe not because they have been positively antagonistic or lacking 
in sympathy but rather because of their negative antagonism: of an innate 
inability to appreciate the aims and methods of any other school of thought 
than their own, especially on account of their entire ignorance of the experi- 
mental method. I believe, moreover, that the difference is fundamental and 
temperamental, not to be overcome by training. Oxford, owing to the bait 
of its classical scholarships, seems to have attracted an entirely peculiar type 
of ability and to stand alone in consequence; at Cambridge, owing to the hold 
obtained by mathematics, the field has been divided but the mathematician, in 
his way, is often as unpractical by nature as the classic; fortunately, of late 
years, owing to the rise of the Medical School and that of Natural Science, other 
elements have been introduced and the University has a future of infinite 
promise in consequence, if it will but realise that its primary function is to 
inculcate wisdom rather than to give purely professional training. 
Sympathy is only begotten of understanding: the literary type of mind 
apparently does not and cannot sympathise with the practical side of modern 
scientific inquiry, because it has neither knowledge of the methods of experi- 
mental science nor the faintest desire for such knowledge. 
We need a more practical type of mind for our schools. Pessimist though 
I may appear to be, having watched with close attention, all my life, the great 
struggle that has been going on in and between schools—having had the great 
good fortune also myself to be one of the early workers jn the proyince of 
