2IO SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



we need more experiment deliberately conceived, skilfully conducted, 

 accurately interpreted, and intelligently utilised ; for such experiments 

 a soil cleaned of the weeds which to-day choke the growth of education 

 is necessary. 



In recent years the Section has spread its net more widely over the too- 

 placid seas of educational discussion, and although we have landed some 

 queer fish, we have on the whole made valuable hauls. 



I do not propose in this address, as have many of my distinguished 

 predecessors in office, to venture far into the field of general educational 

 philosophy, but think it better to place on record the impressions and 

 convictions that remain from a long contact with teaching, inspection 

 and administrative problems. Nothing more is possible ; the worker 

 in education can seldom conduct true experiments — he can only attempt 

 remedies for existing evils, and this he must do often under conditions 

 that he cannot control. 



Has School Science advanced? — I make no apologies for plagiarising 

 the title of the Association for my address, but it seemed to demand a 

 sub-title, and, believing that science and its method is the most needed 

 force in education to-day, I have adopted for my purpose the character- 

 istics of a force — magnitude, direction and sense. In case my use of the 

 word ' sense ' may be regarded as frivolous, I may say I give to it no un- 

 common meaning. 



From the earliest times scientific thinkers, almost without exception, 

 have tilted with little effect against the academic and traditional training 

 given in the schools of their time. The astounding developments of the 

 last hundred years have moved the mass centre of human knowledge 

 towards natural science and away from literary teaching. Has the centre 

 of effort of our schools changed correspondingly, and is the magnitude, 

 direction and common sense of the effort satisfactory under the new 

 conditions ? 



We have, I think, recognised honestly this new distribution of the weight 

 of knowledge, and during the past half-century have provided gradually 

 a machinery through which these new educative forces may act. We 

 must test, from time to time, the efficiency of our machine, and if we find 

 it low, must reconsider its design and trace the causes of transmission 

 losses. 



Our Faith in Science Teachiftg. — We have urged the advancement of 

 science in schools in the belief that training in its methods should produce 

 habits of cautious and judicial approach to the problems that confront 

 us, and would give us courage and self-reliance in attacking them. We 

 believe that natural knowledge must inspire a reverence for the Creator 

 only to be obtained by direct contacts, and that our ability to use this 

 knowledge wisely adds greatly to our general efficiency and power for 

 good. 



The outstanding value of a scientific training should be the develop- 

 ment of a power of diagnosis, a quality essential to the majority of 

 occupations. Consider for a moment how constantly a critical diagnostic 

 faculty must be employed by the successful farmer, doctor, schoolmaster, 

 housewife, architect, motor-mechanic or plumber ; yet how frequently 



