Part 7 (1/2)

It is our ideal on the one side to be ”all things to all men”: and for any approach to this ideal, as we have seen, the knowledge and sympathy born of literature are indispensable But on the other side no man or woman is completely fitted out without provision for the blank spaces, the passages and waiting roo of the actual ”recreation rooms” of the house of life And there is no provision so abundant, so accessible to all, so per and fortifying, as literature Our happiness or discontent depends farelse, on the habitual occupation of our mind when it is free to choose its occupation And, since thought is instantaneous, even the busiest of us has far more of that freedom than he knohat to do with unless he has a s new and old It is ierate the importance of hobbies in a man's own life--and of course indirectly in his relations with his fellows A single hobby is dangerous You ride it to death or it becomes your master You need at least a pair of them in the stable What they are must depend, you say, upon the temperament, the bent of the individual True: but ourof the twig” It is not temperament nor destiny which renders so many men and wo e Perhaps the greatest blessing which a parent or a teacher can confer on a boy or girl is discreet, unpriggish, and unpatronising, encourageuidance in the discovery and development of hobbies: and if I may venture on a piece of advice to anyone who needs it, I should say: ”Try to secure that everyone grows up with at least two hobbies; and whatever one of them may be, let the other be literature, or some branch of literature”

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good; Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastirow

(3) At this point I can inises the importance of literary culture in the equipment of a ly the truth su the doubt whether the second at least of these objects can be secured, or will not rather be precluded, by ad the study of literature as such into the school curriculum

This doubt, which I have heard expressed by er, is not lightly to be disregarded It is to beclearly before our eyes the third of the objects which we assumed to be aimed at by literary studies as a branch of education--the immediate pleasure of the student The two objects which we have already discussed are ulterior objects, which should be part of the fundamental faith of the teacher; but while the teacher is in contact with his pupils they should be forgotten in the glowing conviction that the study of literature is, at that veryin the world Of course we all know, or should know, that this is the only attitude ofin any subject whatever It takes a great deal more than enthusiasm to make a competent teacher; and it is easy to prepare pupils successfully for almost any written exa except success But, cra one: and while unfortunately the converse is not universally true and an enthusiastic teacher may fail to communicate his enthusiasm, yet it is quite certain that you cannot communicate enthusiasm if you are not possessed of it

But this enthusias, is, so to speak, doubly indispensable for even co of literature On the one hand the ulterior objects of the study, of which I have tried to indicate the importance, are of an impalpable kind I doubt if there is any subject of the curriculum which it would be so difficult to commend to an uninterested pupil by an appeal to sis to literature, and particularly to poetry, which is the quintessence of literature, an air of pleasure-seeking, of holiday, of irresponsibility and detachment from the work-a-day world, which must captivate the student, or else the study itself will see compared with football or hockey If the attitude of the teacher reflects the old question of the Latin Grammar ”Why should I teach you letters?” he would better turn to sonise as appropriate to school hours

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her--

unless indeed he be a candidate for Responsions?

”Ah! it is just as I expected,” says my friend Orbilius at this point: ”this literature-lesson of yours is to be mere play, a 'soft-option'

for our modern youth, who is not to be eometry” Softly, ines of education, classics andpractice, but partly, as I too believe, by their very nature, to discipline the youthful mind to habits of intellectual honesty, of accuracy, of industry and perseverance It is true that they accoh at what a cost!--in the hands of indifferent teachers It is true that every other subject of the usual curriculuers of idleness, unreality, false pretence; and that the scoffs, for instance, about ”playing with test-tubes,” ”tracingup history notes,” are in fact too often deserved But in the first place, if the object to be attained is a worthy one, it is our business to face the dangers of the road, and not to give up the object If a knowledge and love of literature is part of the birthright of our children, and a part which, as things are, very many of them will never obtain away froive it theraeometrician And, secondly, it is not true that the study of literature, even in the ether The two are very far from incompatible: indeed that discipline is most effective which is almost or quite unconsciously self-ienuine footballer and the genuine scholar will both agree with Ferdinand the lover, that

There be soht in theirl who is really wrapped up in a play of Shakespeare or is striving to express the growing sense of beauty in fitting fore, is no less truly spiritual discipline because it is felt not as pain but as interest and delight

It is fortunately no part of my business to endeavour to instruct teachers in the e of literature But the value of literary studies in education depends so much upon the spirit in which they are pursued that I may perhaps be permitted a few more words on the practical side of the subject I have already repeated the truism that no one can impart enthusiasm who is not himself possessed of it: but even the lover of literature sometimes lacks that clear consciousness of ai of the personality of his pupil; which are both essential to successful teaching Just as the clever young graduate is tempted to dictate his own admirable history notes to a class of boys, or to puzzle they or philosophy, so the literary teacher is apt to dazzle his pupils with brilliant but to theible criticism, or to surfeit them with literary history, or to impose upon them an inappropriate literary diet because it happens to suit his maturer taste or even his caprice No one is likely to deny that such errors are possible; but I should not venture to speak so decidedly, if I were not aware of having too often fallen into theuard for the teacher is the familiar ”Keep your eye on the object”--and that in a double sense Wesympathy with our pupils I have atteirl for civilised life and for spiritual enjoyment It will be sympathy with our pupils which will chiefly dictate both the es of education this syenerally to be found either in parents, if they are fond of literature, or in the teacher, who is usually of the more sympathetic sex The stories and poetry offered to children nowadays seem to be, as a rule, sympathetically, if sometimes rather uncritically, chosen The i the due inised; and the value of the child's own expression of its iinations and its sense of rhythm and assonance is understood Probably more teachers than Mr Lalows in his delightful little book _The Rudih thereit

It is e coirls' schools I aood deal to be done before the cultivation of literary taste, and all that this carries with it, will be successfully pursued In the past, the Latin and Greek classics were, for the feho really absorbed them, both a potent inspiration and an unrivalled discipline in taste: but it is noteworthy ho even of the _elite_ acquired and retained that lively and generous love of literature which would have enabled them to sow seeds of the divine fire far and wide--”of joy in widest co the intensity hich the classics have been studied in the old universities and public schools of the United Kingdom, the fine flower of scholarshi+p achieved, the sure touch of style and criticis amazed at the low standard of literary culture in the rank and file of the classes from which this _elite_ has been drawn How rare has been the power, or even apparently the desire, of a Bradley or a Verrall or a Murray, to carry the flower of their classical culture into the fields ofthe attempts of ordinary classical teachers to train their pupils in the appreciation of our English literature!

In recent years a new type of literary teachers has been rising, e little, at any rate directly, to the old classical training; and although their zeal is often undisciplined and ”not according to knowledge,” with the in our schools They bring to their task an enthusias classical curriculum”; but it is to be hoped that, as the inised, they will achieve a method which will eAnd in particular may they all realise, as many already do, what the classical teacher, however unconsciously, held as an axiom, that in order to enter into the spirit of literature, to appreciate style, to understand in any true sense the h for pupils to listen and to read, and then perhaps to write essays about what they have heard and read They , exercise that creative, and at the same time imitative, artistic faculty, which surely is the ress, at least in early life Nothing has struck me more forcibly than the intense interest which boys will take in their own crude efforts at writing a poem or a story or essay, while they are still quite unable to appreciate with discri, the poetry or prose of the greatin this I know very well that it riting Latin verses that taughtjuvenile epics that led ress which we school our pupils to appreciate e know to be good work before they have that elementary, butthe tools of the craft The creative and ireatto exact forer find it anything but a drag upon their progress along the unfolding vistas of knowledge and appreciation Our object is not to increase the nue, but to increase the nue, to raise the standard of literary taste, and so to spread pure enjoyment and all the benefits to society which joy, and joy alone, confers

Inspired with such an aim, common sense and sympathy will enable us to overcome the difficulties and avoid the pitfalls which undoubtedly beset the teaching of that htful, but most elusive and imponderable subject, the appreciation of literature

VII

THE PLACE OF SCIENCE IN EDUCATION

By W BATESON

Director of the John Innes Horticultural Institution

That secondary education in England fails to do what it nitude of the failure will be appreciated by those who knohat other countries accomplish at a fraction of the cost Beyond the adreement We are told that the curriculum is too exclusively classical, that the classes are too large, the teaching too dull, the boys too much away from home, the examination-systes are probably true Each cause contributes in its degree to the lamentable result Yet, as it seereat improvement

All the circumstances may be varied, but that intellectual apathy which has becolish life, especially of English public and social life, may not improbably continue Why nations pass into these e, that ”polarisation of society” as Tarde[1]

used to call it, in a definite direction, is brought about by no cause that can be named as yet It will reet soy That the attitude or pose of the average Englishely a phenomenon of infectious iinal, perhaps real, perhaps fictional, person--for in all likelihood there was such an one--wholish society in its folly unconsciously selected as a y of imitation is still impenetrable and likely to remain so The simple interpretation of our troubles as a for lines of least resistance--can scarcely beand science were the fashi+on Whether society benefited directly therefro did Secondly there are plenty of men who under the pressure of fashi+on devote much effort to the improvement of their foro a considerable way in the ie of interests

Of late things have become worse In the middle of the nineteenth century a perfunctory and superficial acquaintance with recent scientific discovery was not unusual a the upper classes, and the scientific world was occasionally visited even by the august These slender connections have long since withered away This decline in the public estireat increase both in the nu science It has occurred also in the period during which soun to be revealed Great regions of knowledge have been penetrated by the human mind The powers of man over nature have been s literally on the issue of conteovern the E of all this Intercoovernment departments and scientific advisers has of course much developed That, even in this country, was inevitable Otherwise the E since Experts in the sciences are from time to time invited to confer with heads of Depart to them, as best they may, the rudiht-school talks to the great are an inadequate recognition of the position of science in a ht round the corner by the draht in which every action and every policy ed

To scientific ine what the world looks like to other people They cannot realise that by a majority of even the educated classes the phenomena of nature and the affairs of h the old screens of ards nature as in great and ever increasing measure a soluble problem For the layman such inquiries are either indifferent and somewhat absurd, or, if they attract his attention at all, are interesting only as possible sources of profit I suspect that the distinction between these two classes of ree a product of education

It is contemporary commonplace that if science were more prominent in our educational systeht That interest in science would be extended is probable