there are exceptional cases and some brilliant examples of improvement since these words were written, but generally throughout the country teaching in science is a name rather than a reality. 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 commission 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 Birmingham, are doing so. The working-classes are now receiving better instruction in science than the middle classes. The competition of actual 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 themselves to the needs of modern life. It is true that many of the endowed schools have been put under new schemes, but, as there is no public supervision or inspection of them, we have no knowledge as to whether they have prospered or slipped back. Many corporate schools have arisen, some of them, like Clifton, Cheltenham, and Marlborough Colleges, doing excellent educational work, though as regards all of them the public have no rights, and can not enforce guarantees for efficiency. A return just issued, on the motion of Sir John Lubbock, shows a lamentable deficiency in scienceteaching 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. The old traditions of education stick as firmly to schools as a limpet does to a rock; though I do the limpet injustice, for it does make excursions to seek pastures new. Are we to give up in despair because an exclusive system of classical education has resisted the assaults of such cultivated authors as Milton, Montaigne, Cowley, and Locke? There was once an enlightened Emperor of China, Chi Hwangti, who knew that his country was kept back by its exclusive devotion to the classics of Confucius and Mencius. He invited five hundred of the teachers to bring their copies of these authors to Peking, and, after giving a great banquet in their honor, he buried alive the professors along with their manuscripts in a deep pit. But Confucius and Mencius still reign supreme. I advocate milder measures, and depend for their adoption on the force of public opinion. The needs of modern life will force schools to adapt themselves to a scien

tific age. Grammar-schools believe themselves to be immortal. Those curious immortals-the Struldbrugs-described by Swift, ultimately regretted their immortality, because they found themselves out of touch, sympathy, and fitness with the centuries in which they lived.

As there is no use clamoring for an instrument of more compass and power until we have made up our mind as to the tune, Professor Huxley, in his evidence before a Parliamentary Committee in 1884, has given a time-table for grammar-schools. He demands that out of their forty hours for public and private study ten should be given to modern languages and history, eight to arithmetic and mathematics, six to science, and two to geography, thus leaving fourteen hours to the dead languages. No time-table would, however, be suitable to all schools. The great public schools of England will continue to be the gymnasia for the upper classes, and should devote much of their time to classical and literary culture. Even now they introduce into their curriculum subjects unknown to them when the Royal Commission of 1868 reported, though they still accept science with timidity. Unfortunately, the other grammar-schools which educate the middle classes look to the higher public schools as a type to which they should conform, although their functions are so different. It is in the interest of the higher public schools that this difference should be recognized, so that, while they give an all-round education and expand their curriculum by a freer recognition of the value of science as an educational power in developing the faculties of the upper classes, the schools for the middle classes should adapt themselves to the needs of their existence, and not keep up a slavish imitation of schools with a different function. The old classical grammar-schools may view these remarks as a direct attack upon them, and so it is in one sense, but it is like the stroke of Ithuriel's spear, which heals while it wounds.

The stock argument against the introduction of modern subjects into grammar-schools is that it is better to teach Latin and Greek thoroughly rather than various subjects less completely. But is it true that thoroughness in teaching dead languages is the result of an exclusive system? In 1868 the Royal Commission stated that even in the few great public schools thoroughness was only given to thirty per cent of the scholars, at the sacrifice of seventy per cent who got little benefit from the system. Since then the curriculum has been widened and the teaching has improved. I question the soundness of the principle that it is better to limit the attention of the pupils mainly to Latin and Greek, highly as I value their educational power to a certain order of minds. As in biology the bodily development of animals is from the general to the special, so is it in the mental development of man. In the school a boy should be aided to discover the class of knowledge that is best suited for his mental capacities, so that, in the upper forms of the school and in the university, knowledge

may be specialized in order to cultivate the powers of the man to their fullest extent. Shakespeare's educational formula may not be altogether true, but it contains a broad basis of truth:

"No profit goes, where is no pleasure ta'en;

In brief, sir, study what you most affect."

The comparative failure of the modern side of school education arises from constituting it out of the boys who are looked upon as classical asses. Milton pointed out that in all schools there are boys to whom the dead languages are "like thorns and thistles," which form a poor nourishment even for asses. If teachers looked upon these classical asses as beings who might receive mental nurture according to their nature, much higher results would follow the bifurcation of our schools. Saul went out to look for asses, and he found a kingdom. Surely this fact is more encouraging than the example of Gideon, who "took thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with these he taught the men of Succoth." The adaptation of public schools to a scientific age does not involve a contest as to whether science or classics shall prevail, for both are indispensable to true education. The real question is whether schools will undertake the duty of molding the minds of boys according to their mental varieties. Classics, from their structural perfection and power of awakening dormant faculties, have claims to precedence in education, but they have none to a practical monopoly. It is by claiming the latter that teachers sacrifice mental receptivity to a Procrustean uniformity.

The universities are changing their traditions more rapidly than the schools. The via antiqua which leads to them is still broad, though a via moderna, with branching avenues, is also open to their honors and emoluments. Physical science, which was once neglected, is now encouraged at the universities. As to the seventy per cent of boys who leave schools for life-work without going through the universities, are there no growing signs of discontent which must force a change? The civil service, the learned professions, as well as the army and navy, are now barred by examinations. Do the boys of our public schools easily leap over the bars, although some of them have lately been lowered so as to suit the schools? So difficult are these bars to scholars that crammers take them in hand before they attempt the leap; and this occurs in spite of the large value attached to the dead languages and the small value placed on modern subjects. Thus, in the Indian Civil-Service examinations, 800 marks as a maximum are assigned to Latin, 600 to Greek, 500 to chemistry, and 300 to each of the other physical sciences. But, if we take the average working of the system for the last four years, we find that, while sixty-eight per cent of the maximum were given to candidates in Greek and Latin, only forty-five per cent were accorded to candidates in chemistry, * Judges viii, 16.

and but thirty per cent to the other physical sciences. Schools sending up boys for competition naturally shun subjects which are dealt with so hardly and so heavily handicapped by the state.

Passing from learned or public professions to commerce, how is it that in our great commercial centers, foreigners-German, Swiss, Dutch, and even Greeks-push aside our English youth and take the places of profit which belong to them by national inheritance? How is it that in our colonies, like those in South Africa, German enterprise is pushing aside English incapacity? How is it that we find whole branches of manufactures, when they depend on scientific knowledge, passing away from this country, in which they originated, in order to ingraft themselves abroad, although their decaying roots remain at home ?* The answer to these questions is that our systems of education are still too narrow for the increasing struggle of life.

Faraday, who had no narrow views in regard to education, deplored the future of our youth in the competition of the world, because, as he said with sadness, "our school-boys, when they come out of school, are ignorant of their ignorance at the end of all that education."

The opponents of science education allege that it is not adapted for mental development, because scientific facts are often disjointed and exercise only the memory. Those who argue thus do not know what science is. No doubt an ignorant or half-informed teacher may present science as an accumulation of unconnected facts. At all times and in all subjects there are teachers without æsthetical or philosophical capacity-men who can only see carbonate of lime in a statue by Phidias or Praxiteles ; who can not survey zoology on account of its millions of species, or botany because of its 130,000 distinct plants; men who can look at trees without getting a conception of a forest, and can not distinguish a stately edifice from its bricks. To teach in that fashion is like going to the tree of science with its glorious fruit in order to pick up a handful of the dry fallen leaves from the ground. It is, however, true that, as science-teaching has had less lengthened experience than that of literature, its methods of instruction are not so matured. Scientific and literary teaching have different methods; for, while the teacher of literature rests on authority and on books for his guidance, the teacher of science discards authority and depends on facts at first hand, and on the book of Nature for their interpretation. Natural science more and more resolves itself into the teaching of the laboratory. In this way it can be used as a powerful means of quickening observation, and of creating a faculty of induction after the manner of Zadig, the Babylonian described by Voltaire. Thus facts become surrounded by scientific conceptions, and are subordinated to order and law.

* See Dr. Perkins's Address to the Society of Chemical Industry.-"Nature," August 6, 1855, p. 333.

It is not those who desire to unite literature with science who degrade education; the degradation is the consequence of the refusal. A violent reaction-too violent to be wise-has lately taken place against classical education in France, where their own vernacular occupies the position of dead languages, while Latin and science are given the same time in the curriculum. In England manufacturers cry out for technical education, in which classical culture shall be excluded. In the schools of the middle classes science rather than technics is needed, because, when the seeds of science are sown, technics as its fruit will appear at the appointed time. Epictetus was wise when he told us to observe that, though sheep eat grass, it is not grass but wool that grows on their backs. Should, however, our grammarschools persist in their refusal to adapt themselves to the needs of a scientific age, England must follow the example of other European nations and found new modern schools in competition with them. For, as Huxley has put it, we can not continue in this age "of full modern artillery to turn out our boys to do battle in it, equipped only with the sword and shield of an ancient gladiator." In a scientific and keenly competitive age, an exclusive education in the dead languages is a perplexing anomaly. The flowers of literature should be cultivated and gathered, though it is not wise to send men into our fields of industry to gather the harvest when they have been taught only to cull the poppies and to push aside the wheat.

IV. SCIENCE AND THE UNIVERSITIES.-The state has always felt bound to alter and improve universities, even when their endowments are so large as to render it unnecessary to support them by public funds. When universities are poor, Parliament gives aid to them from imperial taxation. In this country that aid has been given with a very sparing hand. Thus the universities and colleges of Ireland have received about £30,000 annually, and the same sum has been granted to the four universities of Scotland. Compared with imperial aid to foreign universities such sums are small. A single German university like Strasburg or Leipsic receives above £40,000 annually, or £10,000 more than the whole colleges of Ireland or of Scotland. Strasburg, for instance, has had her university and its library rebuilt at a cost of £711,000, and receives an annual subscription of £43,000. In rebuilding the University of Strasburg eight laboratories have been provided, so as to equip it fully with the modern requirements for teaching and research.* Prussia, the most economical nation in the world, spends £391,000 yearly out of taxation on her universities.

The recent action of France is still more remarkable. After the Franco-German War the Institute of France discussed the important

*The cost of these laboratories has been as follows: Chemical Institute, £35,000; Physical Institute, £28,000; Botanical Institute, £26,000; Observatory, £25,000; Anatomy, £42,000; Clinical Surgery, £26,000; Physiological Chemistry, £16,000; Physiologi cal Institute, £13,900.