736 j TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION L. 



existence. This is certainly not the attitude of a good citizen — and to produce 

 good citizens should, as we probably all agree, be the principal aim of education. 

 The particular difficulty to which I have referred seems inseparable from com- 

 pulsory education, and probably cannot be altogether got over. The thoughtful 

 girl of twelve, not absorbed in herself, must sometimes wonder whether her 

 school-work is really as valuable as the help she could give her mother in some 

 special difficulty or strain, except on the assumption that her own development 

 ranks above all other objects. 



Of course, the higher the relative value we put on scholastic education the 

 less important will the loss of other educational influences appear to us. And 

 perhaps at this point I had better frankly confess — what is, I fear, another 

 defect in my qualifications as President of the Educational Section — namely, that 

 I am not an enthusiast about education in the same sense that most of my 

 hearers probably are. I read the other day in a review of the life of an 

 American educationist that — 



' He was penetrated with two characteristics which are the saving clause of 

 the American and every other democracy, a reverence for learning and a flaming 

 belief in education as the condition of success in any scheme of popular self- 

 government.' 



In the reverence for learning I am with him, but I could not describe my 

 belief in education — education, that is, in the sense here meant, namely, school 

 and college education — as ' flaming.' I cannot, for instance, believe, as some 

 seem to do, that by keeping children a year longer at school we should 

 regenerate mankind, or at least secure as a matter of course great improvement. 

 Why, you may ask, if I am not an enthusiastic believer in education, have 

 I spent so much of my life — my time, my energy, my means — in helping to 

 provide opportujiities of University education for women? The answer is that 

 I do believe very much in giving to as many people as possible educational 

 opportunities — meaning by that in the first place the means of preparing for 

 their work in life. Those who are going to teach, for instance, must obviously 

 learn first, and, as I have just reminded you, women's opportunity of doing 

 this was lamentably deficient half a century ago. 



But secondly — and this is not at all less important — I mean by educational 

 opportunity the means of satisfying intellectual curiosity, every spark of which 

 should be fostered. For it is to intellectual curiosity that progi'ess in knowledge, 

 including physical science, is mainly due. And intellectual curioeity is an 

 important adjunct to the mental processes involved in understanding the world 

 we live in, a valuable aid in the formation of a good judgment, and a great 

 assistance in practical life. Intellectual cui'iosity and aesthetic sensibility are, 

 moreover, the mainsprings of culture — that is, of some of the highest pleasures 

 we can enjoy. 



You will doubtless agree with this, and will agree, further, that without 

 intellectual curiosity no amount of accumulated information can be properly 

 assimilated, or will produce either culture or knowledge of permanent value. In 

 its absence the pupil may pass through school and college with little advantage 

 apart from discipline, beyond the acquisition of elementary skill in reading, 

 writing, and arithmetic, and if he has a good memory a barren knowledge of 

 some facts. You will probably add that it is one of the most important func- 

 tions of the teacher to endeavour to produce this intellectual curiosity when 

 absent or in abeyance, and that the zeal of the professional educator in this 

 direction is a strong reason for enthusiastic belief in school education. It 

 would be, I grant, if we could hope that the teacher's success would always 

 be equal to his zeal ; but notoriously this is far from being the case, and the 

 failure is by no means always due to want of intelligence in the pupil any more 

 than it is due to want of capacity in the teacher. In many cases, in all classes 

 of society, the spark of intellectual curiosity — the response in the pupil's mind 

 to educational stimulus — cannot be fanned into flame through book-learning 

 alone, and yet may be there all the time ready to burst forth when it comes into 

 contact with the needs of actual life and work. It may even be there, and fail 

 to respond to imposed lessons, while it would blaze up if the pupil could by any 

 means be induced to desire to learn before he is taught. It is partly because 

 it is so important, if and when the desire to learn comes, that the boy or girl, 



