6l2 
The British Association 
[October, 
the various interests of society. He did not enter upon any 
controversy attacking or defending any contested theories. 
His subject, that of secondary education, however important, 
was one of not unquestionable relevance. Further though 
many of his statements deserve the most eager and careful 
attention, he himself seems scarcely to have felt their full 
import. Had he done so he could scarcely have failed to 
draw and to emphasize certain conclusions of which we find . 
only the slightest hint. _ . 
He points out our deficiencies in secondary education,— 
deficiencies, perhaps, in no small extent due to the faFt that 
we have preferred to force primary education upon those 
who do not want it, at an untold cost, and we have a lack 
of funds for supplying higher education to those who crave 
for it. He says : . . , , . . . , 
“ Various royal commissions have made inquiries ana 
issued recommendations in regard to our public and endowed 
schools. The Technical Commission which reported last 
year can only point to three schools in Great Britain in which 
Science is fully and adequately taught. While the Com- 
mission gives us the consolation that England is still in 
advance as an industrial nation, it warns us that foreign 
nations, which were not long ago far behind, are now making 
more rapid progress than this country, and will soon pass it 
in the race of competition unless we give increased attention 
to Science in public education. A few of the large towns— 
notably Manchester, Bradford, Huddersfield, and Birmmg- 
ham __are doing so. The working classes are now receiving 
better instruaion in Science than the middle classes. The 
competition of aftual life asserts its own conditions, for the 
children of the latter find increasing difficulty in obtaining 
employment. The cause of this lies in the faCt that the 
schools for the middle classes have not yet adapted them- 
selves to the needs of modern life. A return just issued, on 
the motion of Sir John Lubbock, shows a lamentable defi- 
ciency in Science teaching in a great proportion of the 
endowed schools. While twelve to sixteen hours per week 
are devoted to Classics, two to three hours are considered 
ample for Science in a large proportion of the schools. In 
Scotland there are only six schools in the return which give 
more than two hours to Science weekly, while in many 
schools its teaching is wholly omitted. Every other part of 
the kingdom stands in a better position than Scotland in 
relation^to the science of its endowed schools. 
“As there is no use clamouring for an instrument of more 
compass and poiver until we have made up our mind as to the 
