L.— EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 213 



therefore, far less dogmatism about methods and far more emphatic 

 definition of our objectives. 



The aims of science teaching are admittedly the aims of all sound 

 education ; it must provide the pupil with that knowledge and those 

 mental and personal characteristics that the demands of employment 

 and leisure will make upon him. In this broad sense education must 

 be directly or indirectly vocational, but does not imply any neglect of 

 mental and sesthetic development. I refrain from the use of the term 

 ' cultural,' as I have yet to discover the meaning of this password to 

 respectability. On the one hand, one finds subjects labelled cultural 

 which, pursued to the extent that the average boy follows them, produce 

 little or no effect upon his adult life and thought ; on the other hand, 

 subject-matter which leads to an understanding of and a reverence for the 

 wonders of the creation is often classed as non-cultural. 



Every teacher of practical subjects knows of boys, failures in the class- 

 room, who have first gained scholastic self-respect in the laboratory or 

 workshop^a vital turning-point in their school career. To assert that 

 practical studies do not constitute a powerful factor in the formation of 

 character implies an ignorance both of school and of life. 



The old grammar-school tradition, much of which we still inherit, 

 provided an education which, for the few who profited by it, was more 

 vocational than cultural ; the majority left school half-way through the 

 course with an equipment little better than the three R's. 



We have scattered the same scholastic seed upon soil of all kinds in the 

 blind hope that it will germinate and mature. We have paid little attention 

 to the soil or to the variety of crops that are necessary. 



Need for Vocational Outlook. — We must not constrain every boy into 

 a course of study culminating at eighteen or nineteen years, and allow 

 90 per cent, to drop out at various points along the route without heed to 

 their requirements at the point of departure. We must cater for the boy 

 and the girl leaving school at fourteen, at fifteen, and at sixteen, and 

 must endeavour to place them in a position to face with success the 

 employment and the problems that will confront them. The last year 

 or so of school life must have a frankly vocational trend. 



We must envisage the demands of the office and the shop, the factory 

 and the workshop, the building trades and transport services on land and 

 sea, the farmer and the fisherman, domestic service and home duties ; 

 even the messenger boy and other blind-alley employments should not be 

 forgotten. 



At this final stage of the child's schooling, whatever the age may be, 

 the teacher's work is as much concerned with character-building as with 

 instruction ; he must lead his pupils from the sheltered irresponsibility 

 of school life to the habits of self-reliant and conscientious work that the 

 world will demand of him. 



No common school examination could direct usefully the varied types 

 of training necessary, and inevitably it would divert attention from the 

 more essential aspects of the teacher's work. 



Natural Knowledge. — Natural knowledge renders possible aims and 

 therefore methods applicable in only a limited degree to other subjects 



