nces.

To-day the claims of natural science are very insistent, and they come
from more than one quarter. From one quarter comes the claim that
science alone of the subjects in the time-table "means business," and
makes money, and that in these strenuous times other subjects that lead
to mere elegant accomplishments must crowd into a narrow space to make
room for the one subject that makes for sheer efficiency. The point is
often put with a certain crudity; but we may as well ignore that, and
recognise that the just claims of commercial training will have to be
met by the schools more fully than heretofore. Only let us recognise
commercial training for what it is, and not pretend that it can ever
offer a substitute for the liberal education which must continue
alongside of it. But the teacher of science will more often take quite
other ground, and will claim that his subject, over and above its
commercial usefulness, provides most of the ingredients of a Liberal
education in itself. He will point to the training it offers in habits
of conscientious accuracy, its exemplification of the laws of cause and
effect, its undeviating respect for truth, and the inspiration of its
endless progress, built up on the heroic researches of the great
pioneers.

This claim demands careful and sympathetic scrutiny. To begin with
criticism, we are quite unconvinced that science alone can train the
mind to logical methods, or imbue it with a respect for truth in
matters outside the scientific sphere. "Science," as the term is
commonly understood, deals with material things, and, as such, it gives
but little support to the mind when confronted with the problems of
humanity, whether personal or political. It is only too common for the
science specialist to respect cause and effect in a test-tube and
despise it in a newspaper. In science no passions are evoked in favour
of one solution or another. The search for truth may well be
disinterested, since it is, humanly speaking, uninterested. A liberal
education must train the mind to master prejudice and self-interest,
and this training cannot be given in a material where prejudice and
self-interest will not come into play.

As regards ordinary laboratory work, and lectures on laboratory detail,
of which science teaching at present, as many science masters agree,
far too exclusively consists, our view is similar to our view on
mathematics. It is often instructive, both for boy and