NOTEMBEB 1, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



585 



all classes, apart from social conditions — 

 a system educationally sound, both as a 

 preparation for immediate wage-earning 

 pursuits and for more advanced and some- 

 what more specialized training in a sec- 

 ondary school, many of the difficulties 

 which confront the board of education, 

 and which are largely of an administra- 

 tive order, would disappear. The difficul- 

 ties are in part dependent on the question 

 of curriculum, to the discussion of which 

 a day will be devoted during the present 

 meeting. 



University education in this country, 

 and indeed in other countries, has also suf- 

 fered much from the hands of the unscien- 

 tific reformer. In Germany, owing to 

 many causes, the higher education has 

 made considerable advances during the 

 past century; but, even in that country, a 

 more critical study of the development of 

 university education and a truer recogni- 

 tion of the twofold function of a univer- 

 sity might have prevented the early separa- 

 tion in distinct institutions and under 

 separate regulations of the higher tech- 

 nical from university instruction. Only 

 within recent years has France retraced 

 ler steps and returned to the university 

 ideal of seven centuries ago. But perhaps 

 the climax of unscientific thinking was 

 reached in the scheme, happily abandoned, 

 of founding a new university in Dublin 

 on the lines suggested by Mr. Bryce in his 

 now famous speech of January last. 



Our conception of the functions of a 

 university has undergone many violent 

 changes. Between the ideal of the Uni- 

 versity of London prior to its reorganiza- 

 tion and that of a medieval university, in 

 which students were never plucked, ob- 

 taining their degrees whether they did 

 their work well or badly, there have been 

 many variations; but I think it may be 

 said that, recently at any rate, we have 

 come to realize the fact that our universi- 



ties, to fulfil their great purpose, must be 

 schools for the preparation of students for 

 the discharge of the higher duties of citi- 

 zenship and professional life, and institu- 

 tions for the prosecution of research, with 

 a view to the promotion of learning in 

 all its branches, and that examinations for 

 degrees, necessary, as they undoubtedly 

 are, as tests of the extent of a student's 

 acquired knowledge, must be regarded as 

 subordinate to these two great functions. 



I will not detain you longer. I have 

 endeavored to show under what limitations 

 education may lay claim to be included 

 among the sciences, and how a knowledge 

 of the history of education and the applica- 

 tion of the methods of scientific inquiry 

 may help in enabling us to solve many of 

 the intricate and complicated questions 

 which are involved in the establishment on 

 a firm foundation of a national system of 

 education. I have taken my illustrations 

 mainly from the reform of elementary, or, 

 as I prefer to call it, primary education, 

 and I have sought to indicate some of the 

 errors into which we may fall when we 

 fail to apply to the consideration of the 

 problem the same principles of inductive 

 inquiry as are employed in all investiga/- 

 tions for the attainment of truth. 



I believe that this section of the British 

 Association has the opportunity of render- 

 ing a great service to the state. Numerous 

 educational societies exist, in which ques- 

 tions of importance are discussed, and all, 

 perhaps, do useful work. But none is so 

 detached from separate and special in- 

 terests; none stands so essentially apart 

 from all political considerations ; none is so 

 competent to discuss educational problems 

 from the purely scientific standpoint as are 

 the members of this association. If, in the 

 remarks I have offered, somewhat hastily 

 prepared under the pressure of many dif- 

 ferent kinds of work, I have contributed 

 anything to the solution of a problem, the 



