SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L. : 375 
by more even distribution. In former years the country child was of better physique 
than the town child, since he had fresher food and better air. Now the town house 
has improved out of proportion, and the countryside sends its fresh butter, and the 
country child lives on margarine ; thus the situation is reversed. 
Industrial conditions often produce similar conditions to actual lack of food by 
reducing the appetite. Sedentary occupations in warm moist atmospheres reduce the 
general metabolism, and acting through long periods may depress growth and diminish 
resistance to disease. Open-air teaching counteracts this, the additional light and air 
stimulates bodily activity. This has been proved again and again in the elementary 
school, and the same principle applies to teaching institutions of all grades. So far as 
children are concerned, nothing should be left to their own efforts, the diet supplied 
should be adequately balanced and appropriately distributed throughout the day. 
It is common to say a child wants only a proportion of what an adult requires, but the 
child both grows and works, so that this proportion must often be a very high one, 
and in later adolescence must equal that of a man at hard work. 
Friday, August 28. 
Mornine. 
3. Presidential Address by Dr. W. W. Vavenan on The Warp and 
Woof in Education. (See page 197.) 
4. Discussion on The Disciplinary Value of Subjects (Formal Training). 
Speakers: Prof. R. L. Ancuer, Dr. Kratrnes, Prof. F. A. Cavenacu. 
Prof. R. L. AncuER.—Thorndike’s denial of ‘ mental discipline’ is based on the 
assumption that the effect of experience can only be stored either 
1. In isolated, uniform and mechanical unconscious habits, or 
Be In dispositions which operate entirely through consciousness, which alone are 
plastic. 
It is now, however, beginning to be recognised that sub-consciousness can perform 
operations analogous to reasoning, feeling, deciding, and recognition of similarities, 
and is thus plastic. Innate general factors in mental outfit are now recognised ; and 
this suggests the possibility of acquired general factors. Such, in fact, appear to exist, 
and are more important than narrower habits. They are largely limited to the older 
pupils, and arise rather from the mind of mental activities involved in certain subjects 
than from the material dealt with by those subjects. Subjects do, however, differ in 
_ their power of training such general capacities; and the rule may be lost by over- 
_ specialisation. Secondary education should concern itself more with the development 
_ of these wider tendencies than with more specialised capacities. 
‘ 
} 
‘ Prof. F. A. Cavenacu.—In spite of the results of experiment there remains a 
doubt as to their validity ; ‘abeunt studia in mores’ we still feel to be true. The 
_ experiments have, generally, ignored content, interests, sentiments. The theory of 
_ common factors indeed justifies this view. Thus (i) a thorough training in language is 
_ essential for every subject, as its lack is a handicap (cf. recent criticisms of examina- 
tions). Similarly the power of mathematical expression spreads to all the exact 
_ Sciences. (ii) The increasingly felt unity of knowledge, in spite of increasing specialisa- 
tion, makes transfer more possible (e.g. the evolutionary aspect of all studies). Absence 
_ of transfer is thus due to artificial isolation of subjects ; e.g. teaching a science without 
understanding scientific method, or a purely linguistic treatment of the Classics. 
AFTERNOON. 
5. Prof. J. G. Gray.—New Gyroscopic Apparatus for use in Demon- 
strating the Principles of Dynamic Rotation. , 
