TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 633 
domain of pedagogy. It has been discovered among other things that the body 
and mind are inseparably interconnected, and that the evolution of the child has 
as its prototype the evolution of the race; secondly, that the higher we go up 
the scale of creation, the more vast is the difference between the infant and the 
adult life, and that hence arises not only the capacity but the necessity of 
education to man as distinguished from the lower animals. This necessity begins 
from the cradle onwards, and the training of childhood in the informal education 
of the home becomes infinitely important. These theories, however, can only be 
touched upon in passing, as the special subject of the Paper is the school or 
formal iraining for public life. 
Success and value in public life presuppose a well-balanced and ordered educa- 
tion. Such an education can only be gained by a due balance between the study 
of the works of Nature and the works of man, between linguistic and literary 
subjects on the one hand, and mathematical and natural-scientific subjects on the 
other. The adolescent who has been trained in the one to the exclusion of the 
other emerges as a narrow man. This pedagogic principle has been but slowly 
recognised in our ancient universities and historic public schools, which have 
derived their curricula by long tradition from the ecclesiastical seminaries of four 
centuries ago, although the Humanists were regarded originally as the foes of 
the Church. The persistence of class interests and class prejudices in England 
has kept this tradition alive, long after a philosophic pedagogy recognised its 
inherent unwisdom. 
A long race of schoolmasters also, trained on the narrow ancient methods, has 
perpetuated the superstition, and has not yet by any means shaken off the 
trammels. Their want of intellectual equipment in other subjects has been a 
collateral drawback—and this notwithstanding calls, more or less intelligent, 
from the industrial classes, and from the more progressive ideals of other 
nations. 
The devotion to literary and linguistic to the exclusion and disparagement of 
scientific studies in the curricula of our universities and schools carries with it, to 
a certain extent, a justification, inasmuch as it is undoubtedly true that concen- 
tration on the struggles and achievements of men in the past confers on the 
aspirant to public life a greater power of expressing himself more clearly and 
forcibly, of impressing his views and convictions on other men. On the other 
hand, his ignorance of the laws of Nature, and want of practice in tracing from 
the laws and phenomena of the known to the laws and phenomena of the unknown, 
have a tendency to give him a narrow outlook on the social and political problems 
with which he has to deal in governing and regulating the lives and ameliorating 
the condition of his fellow-men. 
This becomes more painfully apparent when he is brought into contact with 
the phenomena of a vast and complicated Empire, and not merely of an insular 
people. It is not surprising, therefore, that the policy of our statesmen and 
public men generally has been lacking in (what may be called) imperial instinct, 
and this lack of a wide horizon may constitute a real danger to the future 
integrity and consolidation of the Empire. 
To descend, then, from the general to the particular, the youthful aspirant to 
public life ought to spend far less time in the study of the two ancient languages 
which (until the past twenty-five years) occupied more than three-quarters of the 
educational periods of the young among the governing classes. He ought to 
devote not more than one-quarter or one-sixth of his student-life to such sub- 
jects. Political and commercial geography, a thorough knowledge of one modern 
language, of English literature and European and English history, ought to be 
part of his intellectual equipment. Civics and political economy ought to be care- 
fully studied; while on the scientific side he should be taught at least the 
elements of physics and chemistry, and electricity, with a certain amount of 
general applied mathematics. The connection between mind and hand in manual 
training should also be a part of each student’s equipment. 
With regard to the social side of school-life, the great weakness, both in our 
schools and universities, has been a want of large outlook. Both types of 
institutions are excellent training-grounds for character: in both the 
adolescent learns effectively the knowledge how to command and _ how to 
obey. But the sympathy and camaraderie engendered have been confined 
to those of the boy’s own rank and position in life. The republic in which he 
