576 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 670 



It is in Germany that this fact has re- 

 ceived the highest recognition and the 

 widest application, and for this reason we 

 have been accustomed to look to that 

 country for guidance in the organization 

 of our schools. We have looked to Ger- 

 many because we perceived that some re- 

 lation had been there established between 

 the teaching given to the people and their 

 industrial and social needs; and further, 

 that their success in commerce, in military 

 and other pursuits was largely due to the 

 training provided in their schools. Un- 

 mindful of the fact that education is a 

 relation, and that consequently the same 

 system of education is not equally applic- 

 able to different conditions, there were 

 many in this country who were only too 

 ready to recommend the adoption of Ger- 

 man methods in our own schools. Experi- 

 ence soon showed, however, that what may 

 have been good for Germany did not apply 

 to England, and that, in educational 

 matters certainly, we do well to follow 

 Emerson, who when addressing his fellow 

 citizens, declared: "We will walk on our 

 own feet; we will work with our own 

 hands, and we will speak our own minds." 

 Still, the example of Germany and the de- 

 tailed information which we have obtained 

 as to her school organization and methods 

 of instruction have been serviceable to us. 



Whilst all information on educational 

 subjects is valuable, I am disposed to think 

 that in our efforts to construct an educa- 

 tional science we may gain more by in- 

 quiring what has been effected in some of 

 the newer countries. Wherever educa- 

 tional problems have been carefully con- 

 sidered and schemes have been introduced 

 with the express intention and design of 

 training citizens for the service of the 

 state and of increasing knowledge with a 

 view to such service, those schemes may be 

 studied with advantage. Thus we may 

 learn much from what is now being done 



in our colonies. Their efforts are more in 

 the nature of experiments. Our colonies 

 have been wise enough not to imitate too 

 closely our own or any foreign system. 

 They have started afresh, free from preju- 

 dice and traditions, and it is for this reason 

 that I look forward . with interest to the 

 closer connection in educational matters of 

 the colonies with the mother country, and 

 I believe that we shall gain much knowl- 

 edge and valuable experience from the dis- 

 cussions of the Federal Conference which 

 has recently been held in Lendon, and 

 which, I understand, is to be repeated a 

 few years hence. 



But valuable as are the facts, properly 

 collated and systematically arranged, which 

 a knowledge of British and foreign 

 methods may afford us in dealing scien- 

 tifically with any educational problem, it 

 is essential that we should be able to test 

 and to supplement the conclusions based 

 on such knowledge, whenever it is possible, 

 by direct experiments, applicable to the 

 matter under investigation. We have not 

 yet recognized the extent to which experi- 

 ments in education, as in other branches of 

 knowledge, may help in enabling us to 

 build up an educational science. Some 

 year's since there was established in Brus- 

 sels an Ecole niodele in which educational 

 experiments were tried. I visited the 

 school in the year 1880, and I could easily 

 point to many improvements in primary 

 education which found their way from that 

 school through the schools of Belgium and 

 Prance to our own country, and, indeed, 

 to other parts of the world. From a spe- 

 cial report on schools in the north of Eu- 

 rope, recently published by the board of 

 education, we learn that in Sweden the 

 value of such experiments is fully recog- 

 nized. We are told that in that country 

 "it was early felt that the uniformity in 

 state schools was of so strict a kind that 

 some special provision should be made for 



