524 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



encouragement, and cooperation, not forcible feeding on a diet of codes and 

 regulation. — Only by hard, honest, skilful, int-elligent work, with a living element 

 of spontaneity in it, hand-work as well as head-work of every kind i^ossible t-o 

 man. can we redeem our future as we should. 



THUBSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7. 

 The following business was transacted : — 



1. A Scheme of Secondary Educaiioii for Children. 

 By Mrs. T. W. Wallis. 



2. The Present Posilion of Science in Secondary Schools. 

 By J. Talbot. 



o. The Importance of Combining Literary and Scientific Subjects in 

 the Course of General Education. By Eev. H. B. Gray, B.I). 



The general principle sought to be enforced in this paper was that a due 

 balance should be maintained between naturalistic studies on the one hand 

 and litei-ary studies on the other in the education of all boys up to a certain 

 limit of age — which limit should vary in accordance with the age at which 

 they are destined to end their school life altogether. 



I. The Preparatory School. 



To begin wiLh the preparatory school, where children of the prosperous 

 classes are generally educated. 



The subjects to be taught may be summed up as follows :^ 



(") English, to include reading aloud (with just emphasis and elocution) 

 of simple literature. 



(/;) History grouped round lives and characters. 



((') Arithmetic, with mensuration. 



((/) The elements of mechanics. 



(c) Nrt'ure study on a gradually expanding scale from local to national 

 environments. 



(/) Geography on a modern and scientific basis. 



{.'/) One modern language, which should be French. 



(//) Manual training, to be taught for one-third of the weekly periods now 

 spent in non-productive games, such games to be limited to thr^e afternoons 

 a week, while one afternoon at least should be devoted to physical training. 



II. The Continuation and the Technical Schools. 



These should be made compulsory on all boys up to the age of eighteen, 

 (in the plan known as the Cincinnati system, according to which two boys, 

 pursuing the same trade, are paired, one pupil attending the school, and the 

 other the works or shop, every alternate week. 



III. The Public and the Secondary School.?. 



For the purpose of dealing with the subject in hand, a distinction must 

 be drawn between the (so-called) public school, where the leaving age' ranges 

 from eeventeen to nineteen, and the secondary school, where it ranges from 

 fifteen to sixteen. This distinction of name is in itself illogical, but the 

 variation in the leaving age involves slightly different problems and therefore 

 somewhat different treatment. 



(a) In the public school the educational curriculum should, from the age 

 of twelve or thirteen to sixteen, be conducted on the Grand Trunk principle. 

 There .should he no such line (.f demarcation as that now i;i vogue, known 

 as ' the Classical and the Modern Sides.' 



