Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/393

Rh while piling up facts and figures, have done little to enable us to see wherein human fitness for its functions really consists. Their professors disagree, much as do those of another branch of the study of man—political economy. What weight have philosophy, anthropology or political economy at present in the field of statesmanship? Would the man who, rising in the House of Commons to-day, appealed to the laws of economic science, be even sure of a hearing? And if we turn to the study of history, surely more potent than these other branches in the aid it provides for the administrator, is not its lesson rather that of example and analogy than of true explanation and measurement of the causes of national evolution?

If the German people dominates to-day the French; if Japan rises like a mushroom—with the stability and the strength of the oak; if Spain and Holland disappear from the fore rank of nations, can we throw light even for an instant on these momentous facts of history by such studies of mankind as are summed up in philosophy, anthropology or political economy? I fear not. As instruments of education, as means of illustrating logical method, or of developing powers of healthy inquisitiveness and effective expression, they may be of value, in part indeed of unrivaled value. But as they stand at present they do not, alone or combined, form a technical education in statecraft.

And here I would like to make a fundamental distinction between what I understand by a technical education and a professional instruction. I do not believe that the university ought to busy itself in the least with the latter. It is taught most effectively in the barrister's chambers, in the architect's office, in the engineering workshop, in the government department, or in the hospital ward. The tendency nowadays to replace apprenticeship by professional instruction in college or university is a fatal one. The academic purpose should be concentrated on the development of the mind as an instrument of thought. It may do this by aid of philosophy, or by aid of language, or of science; but it can not do it by any form of purely professional instruction. By technical education I mean something very different from an instruction in the facts, formulae and usages of a profession. It consists, I hold, not in learning an art, but in developing the mind by studying that branch of science which must lie at the basis of each profession. The theory of elasticity is as potent an instrument for mental discipline if we illustrate it on bridge-structure, as if we confined our attention to metal spelks and snips of pianoforte wire in the physical laboratory. The science of medicine—think for a moment even of such points as immunity, incubation and crisis—affords material for reasoned observation and leads to a mental alertness, which may be equaled but can not be excelled in any other branch of biological inquiry. The true test of all technical education lies in whether we can answer in the affirmative the question: Does it provide adequate mental training for the