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 might is
scarcely in dispute. The magnitude of the failure will be appreciated
by those who know what other countries accomplish at a fraction of the
cost. Beyond the admission that something is seriously wrong there is
little agreement. 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-system too oppressive,
athletics overdone. All these things are probably true. Each cause
contributes in its degree to the lamentable result. Yet, as it seems
to me, we may remove them all without making any great improvement.
All the circumstances may be varied, but that intellectual apathy
which has become so marked a characteristic of English life,
especially of English public and social life, may not improbably
continue. Why nations pass into these morbid phases no one can tell.
The spirit of the age, 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 remain beyond volitional control at
least until we get some real insight into social physiology. That the
attitude or pose of the average Englishman towards education,
knowledge, and learning is largely a phenomenon of infectious
imitation we know. But even if we could name the original, perhaps
real, perhaps fictional, person--for in all likelihood there was such
an one--whom English society in its folly unconsciously selected as a
model, the knowledge would advance us little. The psychology of
imitation is still impenetrable and likely to remain so. The simple
interpretation of our troubles as a form of sloth--a travelling along
lines of least resistance--can scarcely be maintained. For first there
have been times when learning and science were the fashion. Whether
society benefited directly therefrom may, in passing, be doubted, but
certainly learning did. Secondly there are plenty of men who under the
pressure of fashion devote much effort to the improvement of their
form in fatuous sports, which otherwise applied would go a
considerable way in the improvement of their minds and in widening
their range of interests.

Of late things have become worse. In the middle of the nineteenth
century a p