2. On School Curricula with Special Reference to Commercial

Education.

i. By J. L. PATON, M.A.

1. Special Commercial Schools Undesirable.

Whether it be medicine, law, the Church, or commerce, or even schoolmastering, it is hardly fair to earmark a boy at the age of ten, or perhaps younger, for this or that particular walk in life. Up till the age of fifteen every school ought to be what Ruskin calls a 'discovering school,' finding out for what a boy is best fitted. Specialised classes there must be, every secondary school must bifurcate towards the top, but such classes should be put as late as possible, not as early.

2. Not Manual Dexterity but Mental Discipline.

By education for commercial professions' is meant an education not only unmistakably secondary, but super-secondary; that is, based on a sound general education of a secondary grade. Up to the age of fifteen or sixteen-that is, up to the standard which is represented, at the very lowest, by Honours in the Junior Oxford and Cambridge Locals-the thing commercial education' should not be so much as named.

3. Character and Scope of Foundation Studies.

The mode or the method is the most important thing in these earlier stages. The mother tongue is not taught as well as it should be. Two things need to be insisted on: (1) Clear articulation, with some differentiation of the various vowel sounds, too apt to be lost in an indiscriminate er-sound; (2) The proper formation and management of sentences.

Again, in modern languages we must discard the heavy classical method of grammar and exercise. Sound must come first. Speech cannot be articulated till the vocal organs have learned to form the component sounds.

We will suppose now that our boy has passed through this stage, that he has a fair equipment in English, in one modern language at any rate, in arithmetic, geometry, and algebra, in the history of his country, and the geography of the chief countries of the world; also some elementary and practical knowledge of drawing, mensuration, physics, and, perhaps, chemistry; if Latin too, so much the better. We pass now to the commercial department, the specific preparation for commerce. We assume that, in whatever matters it is our duty to act, those matters it is also our duty to study.' How do we set about it?

4. Specific Preparation for Commerce.

The first subject in which specialisation is possible is Arithmetic. This must begin, if it has not begun already, with thorough drill in the metric system and the monetary systems, the weights and measures of other countries with which England trades. The next thing is to learn the decimalisation of English money, and therewith all manner of rapid and abridged processes of calculation. Closely in touch with arithmetic, and taught by the same master, must go commercial knowledge-questions of freight and navigation, insurance and tariffs, companies, shares, computation of annuities, mortgage loans, the elements of banking and bills of exchange; how debts incurred in London may be extinguished in Hamburg, the rate of exchange, and difference between gold and silver standards of currency. Systematic instruction in these things will involve the working out of practical problems by arithmetic at every step, and care must be taken that there is plenty of mental computation. The terms used must be made real as much as possible by reference to actual reports of commerce and current newspapers, also by visits to the Docks, to the Clearing House, to the Mint, to large commercial and industrial houses. Clearly this is not a matter of text-book

merely; no text-book, however good, will suffice in itself. The teacher must have actual experience of business.

The French and German must also begin to take a special bias. The language itself must be used as the vehicle of teaching; a complete series of letters should from time to time be written completing a transaction between an English and a foreign firm; and the composition should be what is called 'free composition' rather than literary translation.

In History the first year should be given to the history of the world, and then in the second year work over the same ground again, studying it from the special economic point of view.

Geography must also now become a world-subject, and no longer an affair of separate countries. It will begin with examining the world-distributions of temperature, pressure, wind, and rainfall, with the causes that produce them; the sea currents as they affect climate. This opens up the question of economic vegetation and the distribution of animals. Next come minerals and coal. And then, as the resultant of all these circumstances, comes the population. For all this work special maps are required; the Geographical Association provides some excellent slides. After this comes regional geography of the geographical areas. The region is first defined by emphasising the relief of the area under treatment with rough accounts of structure, climate, and vegetation, and population as before, with the special reasons which have caused the growth of certain towns. Then comes the question of routes within the area, as based on relief and water system, and last of all trade routes and trade relationships with other countries, transit, cable routes, and all communications.

Economics should not come till the second year, and they should be commonsense and practical thinking about the most obvious phenomena of our social life.

A high mathematical standard should be insisted upon for entry to the commercial department. The arithmetic cannot be done without it. Also, a boy should have, before going into business, some knowledge of the chemistry of common life and merchantable objects, of the mechanics and the main motor powers used in manufacture.

The English should be as little as possible formal or philological. The composition should arise out of the teaching, but it will not be by any means confined to the English class. The history, geography, and economics will all involve essay writing. The composition should not be all written, every commercial course should include practice in speaking, but this can hardly be a class subject, it should find its free and spontaneous scope in the school debating society.

ii. By W. C. FLETCHER, M.A.

It should not be forgotten that in discussion of curricula-still more, of course, in their enforcement-conclusions must not be sharply defined, and that behind any curriculum lies a much more important matter-the personality of the teacher.

1. Knowledge for its own Sake.

Utility is no guide. Not that utility is objectionable as extremists have urged, but that it is unattainable. Of no conceivable subject in a school curriculum other than reading, writing, and the bare elements of arithmetic, can it truly be asserted that it will be useful' to all, or even to any considerable fraction of the whole number of children.

2. Faculties to be Developed.

After the bare elements, the absence of which distinguishes the legal 'illiterate' from the rest of the community, the essentials to be secured, if possible, are: (1) the power of accurately following thought properly expressed; (2) the power of thinking accurately oneself; and (3)-which can perhaps hardly be separated

from (2)-the power of accurately expressing one's own thought. This is what we mean by mind training. Education does-or should-include also the discipline and development of the emotions and judgment, æsthetic and moral, as well as merely intellectual.

These two sides of education-disciplinary and aesthetic they may perhaps be called for shortness-constantly overlap, but they must both be kept in mind if a curriculum at all tolerable is to be secured.

3. Uniformity of Curriculum desirable in Lower and Middle Forms. Whatever differences exist between school and school, it is desirable that (in the lower and middle forms at least) all should follow the same curriculum.

A common curriculum is a powerful factor in that community of interest and feeling which should be maintained as far as possible, and whose maintenance is especially difficult under the conditions of city school life. No considerations of utility, which at best are uncertain and probably delusive, seem to me sufficient to outweigh this vital consideration. This does not, of course, apply to the top form of a school, where a considerable amount of variety and specialisation can, and should, be permitted.

4. Place of Manual Work.

Manual work-i.e. work in clay, wood, metal, &c.-does sometimes give the needed chance of interest and success to a boy who in ordinary school subjects is a hopeless duffer.' This alone would justify its inclusion in one form or another in all curricula, but it does not need this justification. It gives valuable assistance in making arithmetic and drawing more real and intelligible; some forms of it demonstrate as nothing else does the difference between accurate and inaccurate work, hence have a considerable moral value; it interests most boys, so making them more favourably disposed to school work as a whole, no small advantage.

5. The Discipline of Scientific Studies.

Natural science does not seem to come under the head of practical instruction in at all the same sense as manual work.

It is true that actual handling and examination of things, actual construction and measurement, is an essential part of it, but it is not the whole, nor, as every teacher knows, the most difficult part. Exact statement of what is observed, co-ordination of new experience with old, the disentanglement of the essential from the accidental, the building up by reflection and discussion of a coherent body of truth, demand clearness of thought and, what can seldom if ever be divorced from that, clearness of expression. These requirements make natural science properly handled an admirable discipline, but it is a discipline which has quite as much in common with the discipline of mathematics and literary subjects as with that of manual work. But further it should be added that the influence of natural science teaching has reacted most favourably on the older subjects. Anyone with the scientific habit of mind will approach the teaching of, say, Latin in a way very different from the traditional method. He will lay much more stress on observation and reason and inquiry than on dogma.

6. The General Curriculum.

Manual instruction, in one shape or other, should be carried on in the lower and middle forms, natural science in the middle and upper, not excluding, of course, simple observational science, even among the youngest boys if conditions permit, and literary subjects throughout.

As to the latter, they will include-besides mathematics-history, geography, and literature with languages. If adequate attention is to be given to other essentials, not more than two languages should be attempted except by boys in the upper forms specialising in this direction. Up to about the age of sixteen

boys should be kept together; if by this time they have a competent elementary knowledge of the subjects indicated, they may with advantage if they stay longer at school be allowed to concentrate on subjects which more especially interest them, whether for professional or purely scientific purposes. Earlier specialisation has no advantages.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14.

The following Discussion took place and Reports were read :-
1. Discussion on the Teaching of Geography.
Opened by H. J. MACKINDER, M.A.-See p. 722.

2. Report on the Teaching of Botany.-See Reports, p. 420.

3. Report on the Conditions of Health essential to the carrying on of the Work of Instruction in Schools.-See Reports, p. 455.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15.

The following Reports were read :

1. Report on the Influence of Examinations.-See Reports, p. 434.

2. Report on the Teaching of Science in Elementary Schools.
See Reports, p. 429.

INDEX.

References to reports and papers printed in extenso are given in Italics.

An Asterisk* indicates that the title only of the communication is given.

The mark† indicates the same, but a reference is given to the Journal or Newspaper
where the paper is published in extenso.