April 15, 1887.J 



SCIENCE. 



367 



sources, cominercial, mining, manufacturing, and 

 agricultural, for the purposes of prosperity and 

 progress, for the comfort and happiness of its 

 people, must have a large increasing force of 

 strong, active, intelligent working men and wo- 

 men. This force of men and women must be 

 educated and trained in the right way from early 

 childhood. Their number has been diminishing 

 of late. Manual training in the schools all over 

 the land will turn the tide, and have a tendency 

 to restore the country more nearly to a normal 

 condition. 



Now, is industrial or manual training good for 

 any child or youth ? We think so, and for all the 

 children and youth in the land, — for those in the 

 country as weU as for those in the city, for the 

 poor as well as the better-conditioned ; in short, 

 for all classes and all ages who are engaged in the 

 duties of school. So I think we may be assured 

 that some industry or manual art can be and 

 should be introduced into every country school, 

 whether the cottage by the road-side, or the more 

 pretentious structure for the hamlet, or even the 

 finely constructed institution for the village. 



"What industry can be profitably introduced ? 

 Why, any and every industry within the means of 

 the school, and suited to the capacity, attainments, 

 and age of the pupils in attendance. There are 

 many things that can be done with profit in any 

 and all schools ; and, as soon as the pupil enters 

 upon school-life, one of them should be taken up, 

 and each carried forward one after the other, just 

 as the subjects of study are taken up and com- 

 pleted. Samuel G. Love. 



THE RESPECTIVE FUNCTIONS IN EDUCA- 

 TION OF PRIMARY, SECONDARY, AND 

 UNIVERSITY SCHOOLS.' — I. 



It is generally understood that at conferences 

 such as this the papers read should be of a directly 

 practical kind. I have not always fulfilled this 

 expectation, nor do I mean to do so now. And 

 this partly because it seems to me that a confer- 

 ence of teachers should be held to be also a con- 

 ference of educationalists, and that questions may 

 therefore be quite fittingly treated in those larger 

 relations which, though not exactly philosophical, 

 are at least suggested by philosophy. Another 

 reason for not being directly practical is that I am 

 tired of the practical, and have nothing more to 

 say. In books, lectures, and printed addresses I 

 have exhausted myself, so to speak, and I am not 

 sure that debate on practical questions is now 

 much needed. We have reached that point at 



1 Paper read at the Educational congress, Edinburgh, on 

 the 31st of December, 1886. 



which we wait for action to be taken ; and the de- 

 partmental committee recently appointed, and the 

 universities bill now believed to be in proof, give 

 promise of immediate and salutary activity in 

 many directions. 



In primary education the department is now 

 moving on right lines : after many wanderings in 

 the wilderness caused by its own innate perversi- 

 ty, it has now reached the confines, at least, of 

 the promised land. Respectful advice, for the 

 further wise development of the Code, will now 

 be listened to at Dover House, if tendered by com- 

 petent persons. It has not yet been resolved that 

 ' designated ' inspectors who have not been teach- 

 ers shall go through a course of educational study 

 and scholastic training before entering on duty ; 

 but this reform must come. As to the training of 

 teachers, the key of the position, as I have again 

 and again pointed out, is the preparatory qualifi- 

 cation of the training-college entrant, and this re- 

 solves itself into the reform of the pupil- teacher's 

 schedule. This reform the authorities are now 

 considering. 



As to secondary education, the first question is 

 the prof essional training of the secondary school- 

 master at our universities ; and the second is the 

 better organization of our high schools. I entirely 

 dissent from those who would speak of the secon- 

 dary system we have as contemptible. On the 

 contrary, I say, without fear of contradiction from 

 any one even slightly acquainted with the his- 

 tory of education, that secondary instruction and 

 secondary schools were never in so vigorous a 

 condition in Scotland as they are at this moment. 

 I also continue to dissent from those who would 

 draw a hard and fast line for the education to 

 be given in primary schools, in the supposed in- 

 terests of secondary schools. An exception, how- 

 ever, is to be made in those small towns where 

 the secondary school is made easily accessible to 

 the poor man's child, and where the cheap and 

 necessarily inefficient competition of the primary 

 schools tends to starve out the secondary. For 

 secondary education, what we want in Scotland is 

 a permanent commission, elected by the universi- 

 ties and larger school boards, acting as a consulta- 

 tive body under the Scotch department, and em- 

 powered to administer a treasury grant of, say, 

 twenty thousand pounds a year in subsidy of local 

 efforts, and on certain conditions as to school staff 

 and organization. With this and a university 

 entrance examination, the secondary schools of 

 Scotland would be in a highly efficient state in 

 less than ten years. The same commission, as 

 regulating the examinations, would institute leav- 

 ing-examinations qualifying for the university, 

 and content itself, I am convinced, with a trien- 



