SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— L. 415 



Each modem school must develop according to its individual conditions, and the 

 more experimental it is the greater will be its success. Formal and traditional methods 

 should not hamper and restrict the functioning of the time-table. The woman of 

 to-day must be infinitely adaptable. Not only has she to be supremely competent 

 in the home, but she has also to take an increasingly responsible part in the work of 

 the State. She must therefore learn to attack her duties with enthusiasm, and her 

 judgment must be clear and unprejudiced. If the school of the future can develoj) 

 the characters and minds of the pupils so that they acquire a feeling of conscious 

 control over their destinies, so that they use life and are not merely used by it, if it 

 teaches them to appreciate to the full opportunities for self-development and social 

 service, to discriminate between the significant and the insignificant, it will become 

 the most potent factor in the creation of a vigorous national life. 



(e) Discussion (Mr. A. H. Ru.ssell, Dr. M. Boehmke). 



Report of Committee on The Production and DistribiUion of Educational 

 and Documentary Films. (Sir Richard Gregory.) 



Report of Committee on Educational Training of Boys and Girls in Secondary 

 Schools for Overseas Life. (Mr. C. E. Browne.) 



Report of Committee on The Teaching of General Science in Schools ivith 

 special reference to the Teaching of Biology. (Sir Percy Nunn.) 



Afternoon. 

 Visit to Local Schools. 



Saturday, September 6. 



Excursion to Dauntsey School, West Lavington and Devizes Castle 

 and Museum. 



Monday, September 8. 



Report of Committee on Formal Training. (Dr. C. W. Kimmins.) 

 Disciplinary Values in Education : — 



(a) Sir Percy Nunn. — The Conception of Mental Discipline. 



(b) Miss H. M. WoDEHOUSE. — The Discernment of Disciplinary Values 

 apart from Experiment. 



Our final answers to questions, in the science of education as in other sciences, 

 must rest partly on careful experiment and partly on the collection of statistics on a 

 very large scale. But these ' objective ' methods are beset with difficulties. Can 

 we supplement them ? e.g. as regards disciplinary value, can we obtain suggestions 

 and some amount of evidence in anj' less cumbrous way, that will be useful as far as 

 it goes ? The object of this paper is to defend a ' subjective ' method, of individual 

 observation and reflection on experience, chiefly the person's own experience in a 

 not too distant past. 



This method is obviously fallible, yet it may serve as check upon the principal 

 enemy : that custom of dogmatism which is far more fallible than anj' observation 

 and reflection can be. ' The study of this school subject has such and such effects.' 

 ' Did it have these effects on you ? If so, give details. If not, why not ? ' The 

 answers are often valuable in themselves, and also prepare usefully for objective 

 investigation. 



Such recollection, and the careful imagination which it guides, are needed for 

 examining notable dogmas, such as Bacon's on the training of attention by 

 mathematics. Strong points of the method are that it brings out (1) the vast 

 differences in the effect of a subject when it is handled by different teachers ; (2) the 



