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Rh was really lost when a burning candle gradually disappeared, and he listened patiently and then said, 'I think I knew that when I was born'. But he was quite good at classics, and when, in the course of his public school career, it was considered that the time had come for him to work at science, his housemaster wrote to his father lamenting that he had chosen the lower part. The master was a mathematician, but then mathematics, being an ancient study, often prides itself on its aristocratic association with classics.

I trust I shall not be misunderstood in what I have said of the public schools. The spirit there fostered is one of the most precious possessions of the nation—how infinitely precious it is we never realized in full until now in our time of trial. One of our greatest hopes for the future rests in its growth throughout the community. And this bright hope is encouraged by the knowledge that the public school spirit is in no way dependent on the learning of classics, but is shared in equal measure by those who study science.

We look to the public schools more than to any other influence to rescue us from a dangerous condition; for it is dangerous that a country which depends on science for its existence and prosperity should be ruled by politicians and civil servants with hardly an exception utterly ignorant of science.

It is important to remember too that a scientific training brings other benefits besides the knowledge of science, benefits we terribly need to-day. It is not mere accident that has made all-round efficiency and competence, in this time of stress, so conspicuous in those departments which by their very nature are founded on science and must always keep in touch with science—the Navy and the Medical Service. And what