The Public Schools Commission

Abstract

THE claims of science to form an integral part of a liberal education are, without doubt, making progress. Readers of the early numbers of NATURE will remember how it was, with justice, complained that scarcely a single Scholarship or Fellowship was to be obtained at the old Universities for science alone. In more recent numbers the statement has to be modified— there is not yet a sufficient proportion. Now it is acknowledged on all hands, that the teaching of a subject at school and its recognition at the Universities are inseparably connected—and especially with regard to science. The Colleges say, We cannot give more scholarships, because a sufficient number of men of good attainments do not present themselves; and the Schools reply, We cannot spend our time on subjects for which there are so few rewards. Both profess willingness, but each calls on the other to take the initiative. One might, perhaps, be inclined to wonder that this question of pecuniary rewards should be of so much consequence as consciously to override the acknowledged main object in view—that of giving the best possible education. But it must be remembered that scholarships at the Universities are the honours of a school—the only means it has of showing to the world that it is doing its work well.