that the head of the Government does not yet consider that the question of education is one of importance sufficient to be discussed side by side with what in his opinion. is the much larger question of Parliamentary procedure. It is true a Select Committee has been agreed to, but it i to be feared that after Mr. Gladstone's speech very little will come of it, as has happened before.

The result remains that we are not to have a Minister of Education. There is agricultural business, including the rinderpest and other matters, and these are larger questions than that of national education! Therefore national education must wait. As was said before, we are a long-suffering and patient people. There is, however, little doubt that in some political programme of the future this question will find a place; equal electoral districts and the payment of members are not the only things to be cared for.

D

LORD PLAYFAIR AND OTHERS ON OUR

EDUCATIONAL NEEDS.

(1885.)

If it be fair to forecast the success of a meeting of the British Association by the quality of the addresses delivered by the various presidents, then it may be predicted that the meeting in 1885 at Aberdeen, with Lyon Playfair as President, will long stand out among its fellows.

The growing use, as well as the growing feeling for the need, of scientific methods comes out in a most unmistakable way, while there is no fear that either hearers or readers will be lulled into a sleepy hollow of satisfaction or a rest-and-be-thankful feeling. For that much remains to be done even in the way of initial organisation both of teaching and working is frankly and fearlessly acknowledged by several of the speakers.

These present needs, pointed out by the President of the Association himself, who speaks both as a man of science and a politician, may well occupy our attention. No one knows better than Sir Lyon Playfair how science can aid the body politic, or knows better how each party when in office neglects or uses this powerful engine for the nation's good. He begins by quoting these noble words from the address of the President at the Aberdeen meeting in 1859 -the lamented Prince Consort:

"We may be justified in hoping... that the Legislature and the State will more and more recognise the claims of science to their attention, so that it may no longer require the begging box, but speak to the State like a favoured child to its parent, sure of his paternal solicitude for its welfare; that the State will recognise in science one of its elements of strength and prosperity, to foster which the clearest dictates of self-interest demand."

One can get no better idea of the Philistine condition of the Government and of the House of Commons in matters of science than from the fact that much of what follows in the President's Address has not been said in the House itself instead of at Aberdeen. The real reason, perhaps, is to be gathered from a remark made by Professor Chrystal in his address in Section A:

"We all have a great respect for the integrity of our British legislators, whatever doubts may haunt us occasionally as to their capacity in practical affairs. The ignorance of many of them regarding some of the most elementary facts that bear on every-day life is very surprising. Scientifically speaking, uneducated themselves, they seem to think that they will catch the echo of a fact or the solution of an arithmetical problem by putting their ears to the sounding-shell of uneducated public opinion. When I observe the process which many such people employ for arriving at what they consider truth, I often think of a story I once heard of an eccentric German student of chemistry. This gentleman was idle, but, like all his nation, systematic, When he had a precipitate to weigh, instead of resorting to his balance. he would go the round of the laboratory, hold up the test-tube before each of his fellow-students in turn, and ask him to guess the weight. He set down all the replies, took the average, and entered the result in his analysis."

Now if this view of our legislators is shared by men of such acumen as Sir Lyon Playfair and others in the House of Commons more or less connected with science, we can well understand their silence in the modern council of the nation which so little resembles the Witanagemote of former times.

In his pleading for more State recognition of science the President points out the present activity of Germany and France, and especially of the United States :

“... Both France and Germany make energetic efforts to advance science with the aid of their national resources. More remarkable is it to see a young nation like the United States reserving 150,000,000 acres of national lands for the promotion of scientific education. In some respects this young country is in advance of all European nations in joining science to its administrative offices. Its scientific publications, like the great palæontological work embodying the researches of Professor Marsh and his associates in the Geological Survey, are an example to other Governments. The Minister of Agriculture is surrounded with a staff of botanists and chemists. The Home Secretary is aided by a special scientific Commission to investigate the habits, migrations and food of fishes, and the latter has at its disposal two specially constructed steamers of large tonnage. The United States and Great Britain promote fisheries on distinct systems. In this country we are perpetually issuing expensive Commissions to visit the coasts in order to ascertain the experiences of fishermen. I have acted as Chairman of one of these Royal Commissions, and found that the fishermen, having only a knowledge of a small area, gave the most contradictory and unsatisfactory evidence. In America the questions are put to Nature, and not to fishermen. Exact and searching investigations are made into the life-history of the fishes, into the temperature of the sea in which they live and spawn, into the nature of their food and into the habits of their natural enemies. For this purpose the Government give the co-operation of the Navy and provide the Commission with a special corps of skilled naturalists, some of whom go out with the steamships, and others work in the biological laboratories at Wood's Hall, Massachusetts, or at Washington... The practical results flowing from those scientific investigations have been important. The inland waters and rivers have been stocked with fish of the best and most suitable kinds. Even the great ocean which washes the coasts of the United States is beginning to be affected by the knowledge thus acquired, and a sensible result is already produced upon the most important of its fisheries. The United Kingdom largely depends upon its fisheries, but as yet our own Government have scarcely realised the value of such scientific investigations as those pursued with success by the United States."

He quotes with approval a passage from Washington's farewell to his countrymen : "Promote as an object of primary importance institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a Government gives force to public opinion it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened." He next points out that it was not till 1870 that England established a system of education at all, and that now, while all great countries except our own have Ministers of Education, we have only Ministers who are managers of primary schools. Passing on to the State need of abstract knowledge we read as follows:

"Ali, the son-in-law of Mahomet, the fourth successor to the Caliphate, urged upon his followers that men of science and their disciples give security to human progress. Ali loved to say, 'Eminence in science is the highest of honours'; and 'He dies not who gives life to learning.' In addressing you upon texts such as these my purpose was to show how unwise it is for England to lag in the onward march of science when most other European Powers are using the resources of their States to promote higher education and to advance the boundaries of knowledge. English Governments alone fail to grasp the fact that the competition of the world has become a competition in intellect."

We have seen how Sir Lyon Playfair twits the heads of the Education Department with being merely managers of primary schools. The President of the Chemical Section, Professor Armstrong, also shows reason why their functions must be expanded if science is ever to get on here. He holds that without State action the difficulties which at present prevent the existing teaching institutions from exercising their full share of influence upon the advancement of our national prosperity are all but insuperable. He foresees the objection that such an interference would deprive teaching centres of their