September 21, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



363 



meetings of examiners, and to mark the 

 effect of examinations on the teaching in 

 our "universities. 



We now expect a student to acquire in a 

 three years' course a far greater amount of 

 information than was considered necessary, 

 say, twenty-five years ago. The attention 

 both of the teacher and of the taught is 

 naturally directed to those extremities of 

 the branches of science in which the growth 

 has been most marked in recent years, and 

 I venture to think that there is in conse- 

 quence some danger of our neglecting the 

 roots of the whole matter. Compare, for 

 example, a final paper in chemistry in any 

 one of our universities with its predecessor 

 of a quarter of a century ago. 



The enormous advance of organic chem- 

 istry has necessarily reacted on the exam- 

 inations, and thus the student is unable to 

 devote an adequate proportion of his time 

 and attention to the foundations of the sub- 

 ject. The same remark applies in the do- 

 main of physics. There is a danger, there- 

 fore, of our educational edifice becoming 

 top-heavy. 



I have heard complaints, on the one 

 hand, from the examiners that while the 

 candidates frequently exhibit considerable 

 knowledge of the most recent scientific de- 

 velopments, they show a lamentable ig- 

 norance of the simple phenomena and the 

 principles they illustrate. On the other 

 hand, I have heard from candidates that 

 many of the questions were too simple — 

 that they were concerned with principles 

 and facts to which their attention had not 

 been directed since they first began the 

 study of natural science. 



My own experience has been that the 

 simplest questions are those answered in 

 the least effective manner, A candidate 

 unable to give satisfactory illustrations of 

 Newton's laws will discourse upon the mass 

 of an electron or the nature of the Rontgen 



rays, and attempt the solution of problems 

 on such subjects as Hertzian waves and 

 electric convection. 



I hope that the attention of both exam- 

 iners and teachers may be directed to the 

 best methods of dealing with what appears 

 to me to be not only a serious but an in- 

 creasing evil. 



To pass from one of the inconveniences 

 which inevitably arise from growth, it is 

 pleasant to dwell upon its more gratifying 

 consequences. 



Perhaps one of the most marked char- 

 acteristics of the progress of science in re- 

 cent times is the increasing public appre- 

 ciation of the importance of original in- 

 vestigation and research. 



The expansion of the university colleges 

 in number and importance has greatly as- 

 sisted and quickened this movement. 



Twenty-five years ago there were com- 

 paratively few laboratories which held out 

 any possibility of research to the English 

 student. True, there were giants in those 

 days, men, as a rule, working under diffi- 

 culties greater than those encountered by 

 their successors of to-day. The better 

 equipment of our laboratories and the 

 growth in the number and activity of our 

 scientific societies have played no small 

 part in stimulating public interest. Never- 

 theless, much remains to be done. Those 

 who have read Professor Perry's somewhat 

 pessimistic words on England's neglect of 

 science must admit that, however rapid our 

 progress, the British people have not yet 

 so fully awakened to the national impor- 

 tance of this question as some of our com- 

 petitors. 



The idea that a degree is one of the chief 

 objects of education yet lingers amongst us. 

 The conviction that it is a national duty to 

 seek out and, when found, utilize the latent 

 scientific ability of the rising generation 

 for the purpose of adding to our stores of 



