Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/52

44 may be specialized in order to cultivate the powers of the man to their fullest extent. Shakespeare's educational formula may not be altogether true, but it contains a broad basis of truth:

"No profit goes, where is no pleasure ta'en; In brief, sir, study what you most affect."

The comparative failure of the modern side of school education arises from constituting it out of the boys who are looked upon as classical asses. Milton pointed out that in all schools there are boys to whom the dead languages are "like thorns and thistles," which form a poor nourishment even for asses. If teachers looked upon these classical asses as beings who might receive mental nurture according to their nature, much higher results would follow the bifurcation of our schools. Saul went out to look for asses, and he found a kingdom. Surely this fact is more encouraging than the example of Gideon, who "took thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with these he taught the men of Succoth." The adaptation of public schools to a scientific age does not involve a contest as to whether science or classics shall prevail, for both are indispensable to true education. The real question is whether schools will undertake the duty of molding the minds of boys according to their mental varieties. Classics, from their structural perfection and power of awakening dormant faculties, have claims to precedence in education, but they have none to a practical monopoly. It is by claiming the latter that teachers sacrifice mental receptivity to a Procrustean uniformity.

The universities are changing their traditions more rapidly than the schools. The via antiqua which leads to them is still broad, though a via moderna, with branching avenues, is also open to their honors and emoluments. Physical science, which was once neglected, is now encouraged at the universities. As to the seventy per cent of boys who leave schools for life-work without going through the universities, are there no growing signs of discontent which must force a change? The civil service, the learned professions, as well as the army and navy, are now barred by examinations. Do the boys of our public schools easily leap over the bars, although some of them have lately been lowered so as to suit the schools? So difficult are these bars to scholars that crammers take them in hand before they attempt the leap; and this occurs in spite of the large value attached to the dead languages and the small value placed on modern subjects. Thus, in the Indian Civil-Service examinations, 800 marks as a maximum are assigned to Latin, 600 to Greek, 500 to chemistry, and 300 to each of the other physical sciences. But, if we take the average working of the system for the last four years, we find that, while sixty-eight per cent of the maximum were given to candidates in Greek and Latin, only forty-five per cent were accorded to candidates in chemistry,