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perfectly consistent with that nation being highly scientific'; and, as we have also seen, many men of science consider that the classics are a better preparation for a scientific career than is a 'modern' curriculum.

Now, passing from facts to theory, I wish to ask on what qualities are based the claim of Latin and Greek to a place in education, and what are the virtues which have made great scientists prefer their training to that of 'modern' subjects. In doing so I shall try to meet the stock objections that they are not 'modern' (p. 186 f.), that the ancients, being far more ignorant of science than we, are not worth study (p. 101 f.), that it is absurd for those boys to learn Latin, who will never learn to read it fluently (c. 5), that modern languages can take the place of Latin and Greek (c. 4 and c. 5). To guard myself against certain criticisms, I would say that nothing in this book is inconsistent with a belief that everyone ought to know some science, that we need more science in national life, that a narrow classical specialism (like all narrow specialism) is bad, that a classical education does not fully meet the needs, or suit the capacities, of every boy, and that the teaching of classics

needs continual improvement-in which point it resembles the teaching of all subjects.1

1 Nothing would be more useful than for competent and experienced teachers of science to put forward their views on a satisfactory science curriculum, stating what branches of science they thought suitable to boys at what ages, and how they should be taught. Laboratory work with big classes is for most boys a pleasant, but otherwise unprofitable, way of wasting time; and it is difficult not to feel that sciences like physics and chemistry, where it is essential to grasp abstract laws, are far less suitable for the concrete mind of a boy than geology or perhaps physiology. It would be a great improvement if some science could be included, possibly as an alternative subject to philosophy or to ancient history, in the Oxford Greats School; philosophy and science illuminate each other, and such a change would give a chance for clever boys, whose interest in science developed late, to take it up properly. Whatever changes are made, it is to be hoped that science will not be given a preferential place in the Civil Service examination. That it is not unfairly treated, is shewn by science men occupying the first and third places in the list in 1913, and the second place in 1914. But it would be disastrous for the nation, and very inconvenient for business men, if our young scientists were tempted away from commerce, research and teaching into a place for which their training was not designed, and where their peculiar gifts were only occasionally exercised. The Civil Service, with its excellent salary, already absorbs

security, its pension and its talent which might often be better used elsewhere; and if it took the ablest young men of science, the nation certainly would not gain.

CHAPTER II

PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES

THE aim and office of instruction . . . is to enable a man レ to know himself and the world. MATTHEW ARNOLD.

THE study of letters is the study of the operation of human force, of human freedom and activity; the study of nature is the study of non-human forces, of human limitation and passivity.

Id.

WE are going to ask why the modern world studies the classical literatures. But some one may raise the previous question: Why study literature at all? This question is often asked in letters written to the papers by indignant fathers, who want to know why their sons, destined for business, learn fancy subjects instead of things serviceable to them in after-life. They expect their sons to pick up certain knowledge at school, and are disappointed if they confuse Alexandria with Alexandretta, do not know what ice-free ports Russia has, fail to

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supplement the parental knowledge of history, or make fools of themselves by some obvious ignorance. They are always rather disappointed because the amount of knowledge gathered at school is small, because there is so little to show' for the years in the class-room, and—the standing grievance-because very few boys acquire modern languages during them. What, they ask, is the good of an education which doesn't even teach French and German properly?

There is something in these complaints; boys might be taught geography and physical science and modern languages better, though few will learn at school to talk fluent French and German. But no one would suffer more than the complainants if they were allowed to impose on us the curriculum of their dreams. I say nothing of the effects on a boy's character of training him for the business of money making, and making this from the outset the object of his efforts. Horace noted such a habit in the Roman parent, and its effect on the boy:

Our Roman boys, by puzzling days and nights,
Bring down a shilling to a hundred mites.
Come, young Albinus, tell us, if you take
A penny from a sixpence, what 'twill make.

Fivepence; good boy! you'll come to wealth some day. Now add a penny. Sevenpence he will say.

1

O how this cankering rust, this greed of gain, Has touched the soul and wrought into its grain . But apart from the results of a deliberately cultivated materialism, the business man would soon find out that an education may impart all the knowledge in the world, that its victims may be walking dictionaries, but that it fails, or is successful by the qualities it develops in its pupils and not by the knowledge it puts into them. Lord Morley says somewhere: "An educated man is one who knows when a thing is proved and when it is not. An uneducated man does not know." This is a partial definition of education, yet the educational reformer will do well continually to remember it. It may be inconvenient to be unable to place Alexandretta, but not to know when a thing is proved that is a real disaster. To be unable to sift the evidence, to confuse the essential facts with unimportant details, to miss the bearing of a point, to be deluded by sentiment or passion or rhetoric or humbug, whether it be in politics, education, business or private life, means failure, as its opposite means success.

1Ars Poetica, 325, tr. Conington. (I have slightly altered the last line but one.)

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