, as opposed to the way in which they are trying to do it,
makes one a Socialist," said the Professor, "then I am a Socialist." Here
also we may sympathise with the aim, but the results are largely dependent
on the method; and that method is the offspring of ignorance and
inefficiency. The results may be summed up in one word--superficiality. I
have elsewhere warned readers not to think that this word means simply a
slight knowledge of, a subject. A slight knowledge is all that most of us
possess, or need to possess, about most subjects. I know a little about
Montenegro for instance--something of its origin and relationships, its
topography, the names and characteristics of a city or two, the racial and
other peculiarities of its inhabitants. Yet I should cut a poor figure
indeed in an examination on Montenegrin history, geography or government.
Is my knowledge "superficial"? It could not properly be so stigmatised
unless I should pose as an authority on Montenegro, or unless my
opportunities to know about the country had been so great that failure to
take advantage of them should argue mental incapacity. The trouble with
the reading-lists and programmes of our women's clubs, inherited in some
degree from our general educational methods, is that they emphasise their
own content and ignore what they do not contain, to such an extent that
those who use them remain largely in ignorance of the fact that the former
bears a very small proportion indeed to the latter.

It was once my duty to act as private tutor in algebra and geometry to a
young man preparing for college. He was bright and industrious, but I
found that he was under the impression that when he had gone to the end of
his text-books in those two subjects he would have mastered, not only all
the algebra and geometry, but all the mathematics, that the world held in
store. And when this story has been told in despair to some very
intelligent persons they have commented: "Well, there isn't much more, is
there?"

The effort of the text-book writer, as well as that of the maker of
programmes, lists, and courses, appears to have been to produce what he
calls a "well-rounded" effect; in other words, to make the student think
that the whole subject--in condensed form perhaps, but still the
whole--lies within what he has turned out. Did you ever see a chemistry
that gave, or tried to give, an idea of the world of chemical knowledge
that environs its board cover? One has t