SECTION L.— EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 



THE INFORMATIVE CONTENT OF 

 EDUCATION 



ADDRESS BY 



H. G. WELLS, D.Litt. 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



Section L of the British Association is of necessity one of the least 

 specialised of all sections. Its interests spread far beyond professional 

 limitations. It is a section where anyone who is so to speak a citizen at 

 large may hope to play a part that is not altogether an impertinent intru- 

 sion. And it is in the character of a citizen at large that I have accepted 

 the very great honour that you have offered me in making me the President 

 of this Section. I have no other claim whatever upon your attention. 

 Since the remote days when as a needy adventurer I taught as non- 

 resident master in a private school, invigilated at London University 

 examinations, raided the diploma examinations of the College of Pre- 

 ceptors for the money prizes offered, and, in the most commercial spirit, 

 crammed candidates for the science examinations of the university, I have 

 spent very few hours indeed in educational institutions. Most of those 

 were spent in the capacity of an enquiring and keenly interested parent 

 at Oundle School. I doubt if there is any member of this section who 

 has not had five times as much teaching experience as I have, and who is 

 not competent to instruct me upon all questions of method and educational 

 organisation and machinery. So I will run no risks by embarking upon 

 questions of that sort. But on the other hand, if I know very little of 

 educational methods and machinery I have had a certain amount of special 

 experience in what those methods produce and what that machine turns 

 out. I have been keenly interested for a number of years, and particularly 

 since the war, in public thought and public reactions, in what people know 

 and think and what they are ready to believe. What they know and think 

 and what they are ready to believe impresses me as remarkably poor stuff. 

 A general ignorance — even in respectable quarters — of some of the most 

 elementary realities of the political and social life of the world is, I believe, 

 mainly accountable for much of the discomfort and menace of our times. 

 The uninstructed public intelligence of our community is feeble and con- 

 vulsive. It is still a herd intelligence. It tyrannises here and yields to 

 tyranny there. What is called elementary education throughout the 

 world does not in fact educate, because it does not properly inform. 

 I realised this very acutely during the latter stages of the war and it has 

 been plain in my mind ever since. It led to my taking an active part in 



