OCTOBEE 1, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



457 



be very slight, and the reply to objections is, 

 that some provision for training the hands and 

 muscles to work is essential to an embryo work- 

 man, is beneficial to an embryo gentleman, and 

 must be had at any sacrifice if we, as a nation, 

 are to maintain our position in the face of 

 other competing nations." This idea is in a 

 few instances carried out in this country as 

 regards higher technical education and with 

 apparently good results, and would probably be 

 better in our high schools than the present 

 diversion of a part of our boys to manual train- 

 ing schools. But the greatest advantage would 

 seem to be with the children in the grades. 



. Again Dr. Brown takes issue with the pre- 

 valent craze for a practical education in the 

 sciences. " In the teaching of science it is a 

 great mistake to aim specially at imparting a 

 knowledge of facts which will be of use in 

 after life. It is the desire to do this which has 

 gone a great way in encouraging the multipli- 

 cation of science subjects in schools. It would 

 be far better to teach one science subject sub- 

 stantially and well than to teach a smattering 

 of several. Every boy and girl, in whatever 

 sphere of life, should be taught one science as 

 a part of ordinary school training, but the 

 mistake is too frequently made, both in sci- 

 ence teaching and in ordinary school routine, 

 of forgetting that it is the mental training and 

 discipline, and not the storage of facts, that 

 form the valuable feature of school work — the 

 training of the understanding and the develop- 

 ment of the reasoning faculties rather than the 

 exercise of mnemonics." He considers that 

 natural history, either vegetable or animal, is 

 best adapted to the purpose of training the 

 powers of observation and classification. 



Again emphasizing the same idea in another 

 address : " The use or object of education is not 

 to impart a number of facts useful or other- 

 wise, nor even to give useful hints and receipts 

 that will enable the scholar to pursue some par- 

 ticular occupation; not to enable him to earn 

 a living, or to earn a better living. That will 

 follow, of course, as a secondary result of edu- 

 cation, but its direct objects are of a far higher 

 character. (1) To train the mind and its vari- 

 ous powers, memory, reason, habit of precise 



observation, and arranging things which re- 

 semble each other and distinguishing things 

 which differ. (2) Not so much to impart 

 knowledge as to awaken the faculties and give 

 the power of acquiring unlimited knowledge 

 for oneself. (3) To cultivate the sense of the 

 beautiful, not only of artistic beauty, which is 

 of a material and physical kind, but a sense of 

 intellectual order and beauty also. (4) And 

 in all these ways to increase the happiness and 

 the capacity for happiness of human beings." 

 And then he adds : " If, in the course of educa- 

 tion, some store of facts can be acquired at the 

 same time, so far so good — for life is short — 

 but that is not the first object of education." 



To the young employees in the various works 

 and mines of England he would send this mes- 

 sage : " It is not merely by attending faithfully 

 to their routine duties and performing them to 

 the satisfaction of their employers that the 

 Germans are beating them as clerks, beating 

 them as inventors, beating them as workmen, 

 beating them as manufacturers, beating them 

 steadily in the markets of the world — ^for it is 

 true that the Germans are doing all this — ^but 

 because every German boy and girl, for more 

 than two generations, has received a broad and 

 thorough education, at institutions where every 

 one is compelled, not merely to do routine 

 lessons, but to think and train his intelligence; 

 to learn principles and apply these principles 

 in many practical ways; and unless the young 

 Englishman engaged in industrial or commer- 

 cial pursuits will set to work earnestly to 

 broaden and deepen his education by systematic 

 study after he has left the ordinary school, it 

 is certain that the German, who is rapidly re- 

 placing the Englishman in some of the markets 

 of the world, will replace the Englishman at 

 home also. I do not doubt that the English- 

 man can, by his energy, beat the German as 

 he has done in the past, but at present Tie is 

 not doing so, and he is not even training him- 

 self in the right way for the struggle of life." 

 " During my last visit to some of the industrial 

 parts of Germany, I was very much struck, as 

 every one would be, by the immense advance 

 which was apparent as compared with a previ- 

 ous visit. Not only the employers, but the em- 



