THE PLACE OF EESEARCH IN EDUCATION. 753 



schools to make the change possible. To repeat what I said in 1894 

 in the presidential address before referred to : 



"There can be no question that the future of this country is very 

 largely in the hands of its schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, and. 

 there are many among us who are convinced that our progress is much 

 hindered by their failure to feel the pulse of the times — who think, 

 indeed, that they do not suitably prepare the material which we sub- 

 sequently are called on to mold into its final shape. We look to the 

 new commission to recommend drastic changes which will enable us to 

 utilize to the full the marvelous ability latent in the English race, and 

 which will help parents in solving the truly terrible problem with which 

 they are confronted in these days of unreasoning and unreasonable 

 competition when the time comes to secure a career for their children. 

 English boys and girls at the present day are the victims of excessive 

 lesson learning, and are also falling a prey, in increasing numbers year 

 by year, to the examination demon, which threatens to become by far 

 the most ruthless monster the world has ever known either in fact or 

 in fable. Ask any teacher who has to do with students fresh from 

 school his opinion of them, he will say that in the great majority of 

 cases they have little if any power of helping themselves, little desire 

 to learn about things, little if any observing power, little desire to 

 reason on what they see or are called on to witness ; that they are des- 

 titute of the sense of accuracy and satisfied with any performance how- 

 ever slovenly; that, in short, they are neither inquisitive nor acquisitive, 

 and as they too often are idle as well, the opportunities offered to them 

 are blindly sacrificed. A considerable proportion undoubtedly are by 

 nature mentally very feeble, but the larger number are by no means 

 without ability, and are in fact victims of an acquired disease. We 

 must find a remedy for this state of things or perish in the face of the 

 terrific competition now setting in. 



"Boys and girls at school must be taught from the very earliest 

 moment to do and to appreciate. It is of no use our teaching them 

 merely about things, however interesting — no facts must be taught 

 without their use being taught simultaneously; and, as far as possible, 

 they must be led to discover the facts for themselves. Instead of our 

 placing condensed summaries in their hands, we must lead them to use 

 works of reference and acquire the habit of finding out; they must 

 always be at work applying their knowledge and solving problems. It 

 is a libel on the human race to say, as many do, that children can not 

 think and reason, and that they can only be taught facts; early child- 

 hood is the time at which these faculties are most apparent, and it is 

 probably through failure to exercise them then that they suffer atrophy. 

 The so-called science introduced into a few schools in answer to the 

 persistent demands of its advocates has been in most cases a shallow 

 fraud, of no value whatever educationally. Boys see oxygen made 

 and things burnt in it, which gives them much pleasure; but, after all, 

 this is but the old lesson learning in an interesting shape, and has no 

 superior educational effect. I would here repeat what I have recently 

 urged elsewhere, that in the future all subjects must be taught scien- 

 tifically at schools, in order to inculcate those habits of mind which are 

 termed scientific habits; the teaching of scientific method — not the 

 mere shibboleths of some branch of natural science — must be insisted 

 on. No doubt some branch of chemistry, with a due modicum of phys- 

 ics, etc., is the subject by means of which we may, in the first instance, 

 best instill the scientific habits associated with experimental studies, 

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