848 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. i 



and some educational methods are better 

 than others, and give the public some 

 knowledge which would enable them to se- 

 lect the best colleges, and some educators 

 of a progressive turn of mind the informa- 

 tion they are looking for in regard to 

 methods. 



The best possible result of such a report, 

 however, might be that it might induce some 

 multi-millionaire to think that he had a 

 duty to perform in helping to improve the 

 efficiency of educational methods, by con- 

 tributing the funds that would be required 

 to carry on an educational experiment sim- 

 ilar in extent to the experiments carried on 

 by Mr. F. W. Taylor in the Midvale and 

 Bethlehem Steel Works. It required more 

 than twenty years of labor and the expendi- 

 ture of some hundreds of thousands of dol- 

 lars to carry on his experiments on tool 

 steel, which have revolutionized machine- 

 shop practise, and on scientific manage- 

 ment, which bids fair to cause a far more 

 important revolution in all our industrial 

 systems. Mr. Taylor's system of manage- 

 ment can not be adopted without many 

 modifications by an educational institution, 

 but his system of experimentation can be. 

 It is simply the careful collection of all 

 the facts by an expert, their study by 

 mathematical methods, the making of ex- 

 periments to get more facts, their further 

 study, and careful reasoning to arrive at 

 correct conclusions. It takes years of time, 

 thousands of dollars of money, and can 

 only be undertaken with any probability 

 of reaching valuable results by a scientific 

 expert who is entirely unhampered by old 

 traditions. The motto of the conservative 

 is "whatever is is right," that of the sci- 

 entific expert is, "whatever is is apt to be 

 wrong; I am going to test it and find out 

 whether it is right or wrong. ' ' 



Here is the outline of an educational ex- 

 periment to take ten years of time and 



cost half a million of dollars — less money, 

 by the way, than one second-class univer- 

 sity has spent on its equipment for athlet- 

 ics within a few years, and less than has 

 been paid by some millionaires for a 

 couple of paintings. 



Appoint a commission of five well-edu- 

 cated men who are not connected with any 

 educational institution, say a minister, a 

 doctor, a farmer, a merchant and an engi- 

 neer, to secure a wide diversity in points 

 of view. Pay them $5,000 a year each for 

 the first year, and a smaller sum in succeed- 

 ing years, when their time will not be fully 

 occupied, and provide them with an office, 

 stenographer and clerk, and funds for 

 traveling expenses. Let them spend a pre- 

 liminary year in investigating actual edu- 

 cational conditions in this country, collect- 

 ing facts, statistics and expert opinions, on 

 which they should prepare a report. They 

 should also report their opinion on what 

 should be the course of education of a boy 

 between the ages of 14 and 16, if he in- 

 tends to go to work in the mechanical 

 trades or in commerce at the age of 16, 

 also what should be the course from 14 to 

 18 (1) if he intends to go to work at 18, 



(2) if he intends to enter a general college, 



(3) if he intends to enter a technical 

 school. The second year the experiment 

 is to be begun. Select a hundred boys who 

 are ready to enter high school, of the ma- 

 jority of whom there is a reasonable prob- 

 ability that they will, if they prove fitted 

 for it at 18, take a college course. Rent a 

 preparatory school, or a portion of one, 

 and have the boys taught, by selected 

 teachers, in the courses laid down by the 

 commission. Provide enough tutors or 

 preceptors to insure that the education of 

 the boys is properly supervised and that 

 their time is not wasted. Continue their 

 high school education, for as many of them 

 as stay in school, for four years. During 



