VIU INTRODUCTION 



world to be able to speak the right word of com- 

 mand. 



Spencer's famous essay, on " What Knowledge 

 is of most Worth ? " may perhaps be said to mark 

 the beginning of the corresponding revolution 

 from the standpoint of theory. For though 

 Bacon and Comenius had insisted on the import- 

 ance of a knowledge of things, they were as voices 

 crying in the wilderness. When so great a scholar 

 as Erasmus could urge no reason for studying 

 nature except that it would throw light on liter- 

 ature, it was out of the question for others to get 

 a hearing, who insisted, not only that nature was 

 worth investigating on its own account, but that 

 it was the most important subject of study. It 

 was not until the slow progress of discovery and 

 invention had gradually changed men's attitude 

 towards the physical universe, that the appearance 

 of a brilliant and extravagant essay like Spencer's, 

 which put forth the claim that science was the 

 only subject worth studying, could form an epoch 

 in the historj? of education. 



It hardly needs to be pointed out that this 

 revolution in the history of thought has found its 

 practical expression in the history of education. 

 The elaborate and expensive laboratories for the 



