PRESIDENTIAL ADD&E,S!i. 5l3 



o<liiealiuii, .suiueliiuci tlie division into general and technical; and llieio arc 

 tliose again who contuse these two divisions. 



It is worth while, perhaps, to point out the particular confusions which 

 ;ire thus involved. There is no contrast in principle between a literally and 

 a scientific education ; the study of literature is a mere dabbling with amuse- 

 ments if it is not a scientific study. The real distinction, at which one only 

 hints, concerns not the method of inquiry but the subject considered. It 

 is the distinction between the study of man and the study of the physical 

 universe ; and as eoon as this is clearly realised it becomes apparent that 

 no education can pretend to completeness at all which does not in a very 

 considerable degree, at least, cover both fields. Human faculty being what 

 it is, the time available is for most people too short to make possible a thorough 

 study of both human and natural science, which we may take to designate 

 the inquiry into the behaviour of man and the inquiry into the behaviour of 

 tile physical world. But an education which leaves either entirely out of 

 sight, and indeed which fails to implant in the mind the governing principles 

 and ideas of both, can hardly be said to deserve the name of education at all. 



Before pursuing this theme it is worth while to turn for a moment to the 

 other distinction, which, as I have saidj is sometimes identified with this. 

 Here, again, the principle of the distinction is false. A general education must 

 include, if it is to be truly general, the training of all the faculties, and this 

 plainly covers manual work as well as mental work. Moreover, it appears to 

 be established that manual work is for children the best means of developing 

 brain faculty, and therefore has a direct value for the purely mental side of 

 education. 



Anyone who has taken any part in administering our present educational 

 methods must surely be convinced that we are relying far too much upon 

 books as our method of instruction. There are many people of very decided 

 intelligence and capacity who can liardly learn anj'thing at all out of books. 

 One of the developments which' we need is the far freer use of manual and 

 productive work as a means of education in the strictest sense ; as a means, 

 that is, of developing human faculty quite irrespective of the practical or 

 commercial value of such faculty when developed. 



But liere again, as in the former case, there is, underlying the false dis- 

 tinction, a real distinction between education whose aim is the employment 

 of leisure, and that whose aim is the practical work of life. But inasmuch as 

 work and leisure are both of them essential and necessary parts of human life, 

 it is clear that tlie distinction, though quite real, ought not to be allowed to 

 become a contradiction, so that the dilemma can arise whether we are training 

 people for work or for leisure ; plainly we must aim at training them for both. 



At this point it will assist the clearness of the subsequent discussion if we 

 refer to yet one more distinction which arises out of what has already been 

 said — namely, the distinction between technical education and technical instnic- 

 tion, if by the latter of these words I may be allowed to indicate the training 

 which aims at supplying .some epecific skill quite irrespective of the general 

 human development of the personality, and by the former phrase such a train- 

 ing in either physical science or its practical application as may be a real part 

 of the development of an entire human being. If the words are used in this 

 sense I should desire to say that technical instruction may be of commercial 

 value, and should, for aught I knoWj be definitely Encouraged or even enforced 

 by the State for the sake of its commercial value. But it has nothing to do 

 with education, and we, as interested in education, have nothing to do with 

 it, except indeed this : That we need vehemently to protest against such early 

 specialisation as may develop the wealth-producing capacities at the cost of 

 dwnrfing the human nature as a whole. 



When we analyse the prevailing conceptions current in most educational 

 discussion in the way in which I have attempted, it appears that there are 

 two broad divisions of the subject, one concerned with the matter of study, 

 and the other concerned with the educational needs of human nature. The 

 former gives us the broad distinction of human studies and pliysical studies ; 

 the latter gives us the broad distinction of spiritual and intellectual. The. 

 confusion to which allusion has been made arises in large part from the natural 

 tendency to identify these two methods of division, as though it could be said 



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