There is perhaps a middle term between elementary and "real" mathematics; that is the mathematics that is the handmaid of physics, and leads us on to the natural sciences.
To-day the claims of natural science are very insistent, and they come from more than one quarter. From one quarter comes the claim that science alone of the subjects in the time-table "means business," and makes money, and that in these strenuous times other subjects that lead to mere elegant accomplishments must crowd into a narrow space to make room for the one subject that makes for sheer efficiency. The point is often put with a certain crudity; but we may as well ignore that, and recognise that the just claims of commercial training will have to be met by the schools more fully than heretofore. Only let us recognise commercial training for what it is, and not pretend that it can ever offer a substitute for the liberal education which must continue alongside of it. But the teacher of science will more often take quite other ground, and will claim that his subject, over and above its commercial usefulness, provides most of the ingredients of a Liberal education in itself. He will point to the training it offers in habits of conscientious accuracy, its exemplification of the laws of cause and effect, its undeviating respect for truth, and the inspiration of its endless progress, built up on the heroic researches of the great pioneers.
This claim demands careful and sympathetic scrutiny. To begin with criticism, we are quite unconvinced that science alone can train the mind to logical methods, or imbue it with a respect for truth in matters outside the scientific sphere. "Science," as the term is commonly understood, deals with material things, and, as such, it gives but little support to the mind when confronted with the problems of humanity, whether personal or political. It is only too common for the science specialist to respect cause and effect in a test-tube and despise it in a newspaper. In science no passions are evoked in favour of one solution or another. The search for truth may well be disinterested, since it is, humanly speaking, uninterested. A liberal education must train the mind to master prejudice and self-interest, and this training cannot be given in a material where prejudice and self-interest will not come into play.
As regards ordinary laboratory work, and lectures on laboratory detail, of which science teaching at present, as many science masters agree, far too exclusively consists, our view is similar to our view on mathematics. It is often instructive, both for boy and master, to get the boys to draw up an ideal time-table. The results, as a rule, are disappointingly conventional, it is true. Few boys have ever criticised their education, except in a purely destructive and cynical spirit, and when confronted with the constructive task, produce something not very far removed from the time-table they follow out every week. But as regards science, it will often be found that the form falls into two clearly marked divisions. One part cut it down to a minimum, and would, if they had the courage of their convictions, cut it out altogether; the other part give it half, or more than half, the time-table. This probably marks the fact that for many boys a very small amount of laboratory experience, just enough to give them a notion of method, is all that they will benefit by. For the rest the training has real value and interest; but these are a minority.
But there is another aspect of science, receiving as yet far too little attention at school, which seems to us an essential part of a liberal education. Indeed, when our own sixth form time-table was remodelled, we put in a claim for a weekly lecture on General Principles of Science, alongside with modern history and political science and economics. The general principles of natural law, evolution and heredity, the nature and cure of disease, the atomic theory of matter, general principles of astronomy—these things seem to us second only in importance to the great principles of politics themselves. Here is an extraordinary record of patient achievement, some contact with which is in itself an inspiration not merely intellectual, but moral. For it seems to us hardly fanciful to suggest that such knowledge should react—so subtle are the reactions of the boy-mind, as we have already tried to show—most favourably on the political spirit. Dr. Gregory, in his enthusiastic work in praise of his subject, "Discovery: or the Spirit and Service of Science," writes: "In the discussion of political questions, prejudice and party determine the view taken, and facts are selected and exploited not so much with the object of arriving at the truth as to confound the other side…. A politician may place party above truth, and a diplomatist will conceal it on behalf of his country, but it is the duty of the man of science to attain truth at all costs. In direct opposition to the narrowness of thought which views all subjects through the distorting mirage of party prejudice, stands the absolute freedom of mind of the man of science who stands with open arms to welcome truth…." And Dr. Gregory's moral would seem to be: Eschew politics and devote yourself to science. As if the world could exist without politics! As if the happy alternative to bad politicians were no politicians! The right moral surely is that which we have been drawing, with possibly wearisome repetition, throughout this book; that all that is best in the scientific mind, all that is best in the literary and artistic mind, all that is best in the religious mind, must be brought to bear upon the problems of our corporate life.
[1] We offer no opinion, also, on the "oral method" of teaching both modern and classical tongues, as we have no experience at all to guide us.
[2] Surely, too, the third of the three R's should include a knowledge of book-keeping, balance sheets, etc. Here we join hands heartily with the "utilitarian" school of educational reformers. We also wish that every one learnt shorthand almost as soon as he had learnt longhand.
CHAPTER XI
THE YOUNG GENERATION AND THE OLD
"There, it is to be feared, they will find the parents most in their way. The normal father may endure his son being taught poetry, but he will object to the instilling of opinion other than his own."—Outlook.