L.— EDUCATION. 253 



18 equivalent to giving a patient a metallic-sodium pill with a snifE of 

 chlorine gas, when what he really wants is a pinch of common salt. The 

 two constituents given separately might be fatal, whilst the two in the 

 form of the compound sodium-chloride make an essential food. 



I have so far resisted the temptation to quote definitions of education, 

 but perhaps at this stage of the Address one may be permitted. Sir 

 Richard Gregory, in the Address that I have already referred to, defined 

 education as the ' deliberate adjustment of a growing human being to its 

 environment.' May I remind our teachers of science and technology 

 that their students are not wanted only as experts in the laboratory and 

 workshop ? — they have post-graduate duties to perform as citizens, and 

 must face relations — competitive relations — with other human beings, 

 with most of whom they cannot communicate in techm'cal terms alone. 

 To be appreciated they must understand and be understood by others : 

 they want the humanities, and the humanities are not the monopoly of 

 the classical scholar. 



My object in referring to the subject of Sir Richard Gregory's Address 

 is not to revise his remarks or even to supplement them : it would be 

 impossible for me to do either with advantage ; but it is important that 

 his advice should not be forgotten or displaced by influences altogether 

 different from those of the principles which !we 'are 'endeavouring to 

 discover and use in teaching. 



There are such influences at work mouldin^^ the trend of education 

 without regard to its fundamental essentials. I find that most of those 

 who enter the Imperial College as scholars have already attained a first- 

 year standard in Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics. These subjects 

 form a considerable section of their school training and are thus used for 

 purely commercial purposes — namely, the acquisition of scholarships. The 

 candidates for scholarships seem to dictate to their teachers the educational 

 principles which they should follow ; and, through economic necessity, 

 the teachers submit. 



At the universities we close the vicious circle, admit the brilliant 

 scholars to our Honours schools, and so produce a graduate in Chemistry 

 or Physics who is blind for the rest of his life to what lies before him 

 out of doors, where he ought to spend much, if not most, of his life. In 

 the old days, when Sir Richard Gregory and I were together at South 

 Kensington, a student could not obtain the College full diploma in any 

 subject, not even in Mathematics and Mechanics, without passing through 

 Part I Geology. Huxley and his colleagues believed that every man 

 ought to know something of the history and origin of the features of the 

 only world on which he will live in human form ; and that without an 

 acquaintance with those branches of science which are more observational 

 than experimental no man should be regarded as an educated man. 



Geology is now an optional not a compulsory foundation subject at 

 South Kensington : the Imperial College has yielded to outside influences 

 and the pressure which has followed the abnormal growth of each science, 

 with the consequent demand for more time to be given to the final 

 schools. Possibly, we turn out better Chemists, more specialised 

 Mathematicians, and more efficient Physicists than we did in the old days ; 

 but I imagine that we run the risk of producing less valuable citizens who 



