NOVEMBEB 1, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



575 



I 



of the five articles of what is known as 

 the Japanese Imperial Oath states, 

 "Knowledge shall be sought for through- 

 out the whole world, so that the welfare of 

 the empire may be promoted"; and it may 

 certainly be said that, as the welfare of 

 our own empire is largely dependent on 

 educational progress, a wide knowledge of 

 matters connected with education is indis- 

 pensable, if we are to make advances with 

 any feeling of certainty that we are mov- 

 ing on the right lines. 



There can be no doubt that of late years 

 we have acquired a mass of valuable in- 

 formation on all sorts of educational ques- 

 tions. We are greatly indebted for much 

 of our knowledge of what is being done in 

 foreign countries to the reports of different 

 commissions, and more particularly to 

 those special reports issued from the board 

 of education, first under the direction of 

 my predecessor in this chair, Professor 

 Sadler, and latterly of his successor at the 

 board. Dr. Heath. But much of the in- 

 formation we have obtained is still await- 

 ing the hand of the scientific worker to be 

 properly coordinated and arranged. A 

 careful collation of facts is indispensable 

 if we are to deduce from them useful prin- 

 ciples for our guidance, and unfortunately 

 we in this country are too apt to rest eon- 

 tent when we have provided the machinery 

 for the acquisition of such facts without 

 taking the necessary steps to compare, to 

 coordinate, and to arrange them on some 

 scientific principle for future use. Within 

 the last week or two a bill has passed 

 through several stages in parliament for 

 requiring local authorities to undertake the 

 medical inspection of school children, but, 

 unless the medical inspectors throughout 

 the country conduct their investigations on 

 certain well-considered lines laid down for 

 them by some central authority, we shall 

 fail to obtain the necessary data to enable 

 us to associate educational and physical 



conditions with a view to the improvement 

 of the training given in our schools.^ On 

 the other hand, although I personally am 

 sceptical as to the results, we have reason 

 to believe that the inquiry recently under- 

 taken into the methods adopted here and 

 elsewhere for securing ethical as distinct 

 from specifically religious training will be 

 so conducted as to give us not only facts, 

 but the means of inferring from those facta 

 certain trustworthy conclusions. 



The consideration of education as a sub- 

 ject capable of scientific investigation is 

 complicated by the fact that it necessarily 

 involves a relation— the relation of the 

 child or adult to his surroundings. It 

 can not be adequately considered apart 

 from that relation. We may make a study 

 of the conditions of the physical, intel- 

 lectual, and ethical development of the 

 child, but the knowledge so obtained is 

 only useful to the educator when con- 

 sidered in connection with his environ- 

 ment and future needs, and the means to 

 be adopted to enable him, as he grows in 

 physical, intellectual and moral strength, 

 to obtain a mastery over the things ex- 

 ternal to him. Education must be so 

 directed as to prove the proposition that 

 "knowledge is power." It can only be 

 scientifically treated when so considered. 

 Education is imperfectly described when 

 regarded as the means of drawing out and 

 strengthening a child's faculties. It is 

 more than this. Any practical definition 

 takes into consideration the social and 

 economic conditions in which the child is 

 being trained, and the means of develop- 

 ing his faculties with a view to the attain- 

 ment of certain ends. 



^ Since this was written the president of the 

 Board of Education has stated in the House of 

 Commons that " it was the intention of the board, 

 if the bill now before parliament passed, to estab- 

 lish a medical bureau, which would guide and 

 advise the local authorities as to the nature of 

 the work they would have to do under the aet." 



