758 THE PLACE OE RESEARCH IN EDUCATION. 



not engage in research is the equivalent of the inartistic copyist. Ho 

 subject is at a standstill in these days — all progress involves research, 

 although not always original research. The young child, even, is con- 

 stantly engaged in research, and the habit is only gradually lost at 

 school under our highly developed, modern, soul-killing system of per- 

 petual lesson-learning, itself largely devised to satisfy a system of 

 payment on results. 



Let us hope, therefore, that every board of governors will soon learn 

 to appreciate the national importance of research, and will require 

 evidence from every candidate for a teacher's post of ability in this 

 respect. When such is the case, the research spirit will prevail also 

 amongst students generally. 



A most desirable example has been set in this direction by what, I 

 suppose, may fairly be termed the least pretentious of the London poly- 

 technics — that in the Borough road — which, with the assistance of the 

 Leather Sellers' Company, has just opened a branch tanning school at 

 Harolds Institute, Bermondsey, and with unblushing effrontery, one 

 may say, prints on the programme under il Tanning School" the words, 

 "with special research laboratory," and not content with this, informs 

 us on the next page that "the special research laboratory is fitted up 

 and supported by the worshipful company of leather sellers" — all hail 

 to the leather sellers, let us say. An industry which makes such a new 

 start, very late though it be, and recognizes the fact that research can 

 help it out of its difficulties, is phenomenal in this country, but on the 

 high road to retain its position if not to improve it. 



I was much struck at the opening of the school by a statement made 

 by the chairman, Mr. Lafone, M. P., who told us of an American cus- 

 tomer who was in the habit of buying large quantities of a particular 

 kind of leather here, of then taking it to America and manufacturing 

 it, returning the goods here for sale. This man had remarked to him, 

 he said, "that he had seen all our works and did not care a fig for our 

 competition, for we had not even begun to know how to make the 

 best." The introduction of the research spirit is sorely needed to cure 

 such an Old World state of affairs as this. 



Of course, whenever I advocate research in this way, and urge tbat 

 the research spirit must be infused into all our teaching as well as into 

 our national life, I am told it can not be done — that children can not 

 solve problems. But there is a saying that an ounce of practice is worth 

 a pound of theory; it is only a half truth, and a saying which is often 

 misapplied, but it consoles me somewhat on such occasions. I have 

 done it during the past fifteen years, since the opening of the Finsbury 

 Technical College. No one has the right to say that it can not be done 

 until they have tried; all who really try will succeed; those who do 

 not should not attempt to teach. 



