112 Bayleigh's Address to the British Association. 



must exert himself a little in puzzling out a sentence with gram- 

 mar and dictionary, while instruction and supervision are easy to 

 organize and not too costly. But when the case is stated plainly, 

 few will agree that we can afford so entirely to disregard results. 

 In after-life the intellectual energies are usually engrossed with 

 business, and no further opportunity is found for attacking the 

 difficulties which block the gateways of knowledge. Mathematics, 

 especially if not learned young, are likely to remain unlearned. 

 I will not further insist upon the educational importance of 

 mathematics and science, because with respect to -them I shall 

 probably be supposed to be prejudiced. But of modern languages 

 I am ignorant enough to give value to my advocacy. I believe 

 that French and German, if properly taught, which I admit they 

 rarely are at present, would go far to replace Latin and Greek 

 from a disciplinary point of view, while the actual value of the 

 acquisition would, in the majority of cases, be incomparably 

 greater. In half the time usually devoted, without success, to 

 the classical languages, most boys could acquire a really service- 

 able knowledge of French and German. History, and the serious 

 study of English literature, now shamefully neglected, would also 

 find a place in such a scheme. 



There is one objection often felt to a modernized education as 

 to which a word may not be without use. Many excellent people 

 are afraid of science as tending towards materialism. That such 

 apprehension should exist is not surprising, for, unfortunately, 

 there are writers speaking in the name of science, who have set 

 themselves to foster it. It is true that among scientific men, as 

 in other classes, crude views are to be met with as to the deeper 

 things of .Nature ; but that the life-long beliefs of Newton, oi 

 Faraday and of Maxwell are inconsistent with the scientific habit 

 of mind, is surely a proposition which I need not pause to refute. 

 It would be easy, however, to lay too much stress upon the 

 opinions of even such distinguished workers as these. Men who 

 devote their lives to investigation cultivate a love of truth for 

 its own sake, and endeavor instinctively to clear up, and not, as 

 is too often the object in business and politics, to obscure, a diffi- 

 cult question. So far the opinion of a scientific worker may have 

 a special value ; but I do not think that he has a claim, superior 

 to that of other educated men, to assume the attitude of a prophet. 



