so natural and awakens so early in the normal child, that even if it
be somewhat less keen among English than among French or Scottish
children, we may well believe our deficiencies to be largely due to
faulty and unstimulative methods of teaching, and may trust that they
will diminish when these methods have been improved.

If it be true that the English public generally show a want of
interest in and faint appreciation of the value of education, the
stern discipline of war will do something to remove this indifference.
The comparative poverty and reduction of luxurious habits; which this
war will bring in its train, along with a sense of the need that has
arisen for turning to the fullest account all the intellectual
resources of the country so that it may maintain its place in the
world,--these things may be expected to work a change for the better,
and lead parents to set more store upon the mental and less upon the
athletic achievements of their sons.

Be this as it may, no one to-day denies that much remains to be done
to spread a sense of the value of science for those branches of
industry to which (as especially to agriculture) it has been
imperfectly applied, to strengthen and develop the teaching of
scientific theory as the foundation of technical and practical
scientific work, and above all to equip with the largest measure of
knowledge and by the most stimulating training those on whom nature
has bestowed the most vigorous and flexible minds. To-day e see that
the heads of great businesses, industrial and financial, are looking
out for men of university distinction to be placed in responsible
posts--a thing which did not happen fifty years ago--because the
conditions of modern business have grown too intricate to be handled
by any but the best trained brains. The same need is at least equally