Teachers Registration Council, on which all sorts and conditions of
education are represented.

The materialists have not been slow to see their chance, to challenge
the old tradition of literary education, and to urge the claims of
science. But the aim which they place before us is frankly stated--it
is the acquisition of wealth; they are "on manna bent and mortal
ends," and their conception of the future is a world in which one
nation competes against another for the acquisition of markets and
commodities. In effect, therefore, materialism challenges the
classics, but it accepts the self-seeking ideals of the past
generations, and accepts also, as an integral part of the future, the
scramble of conflicting interests, labour against capital, nation
against nation, man against man. Now the first characteristic of the
genuine scientific mind is the power of learning by experience. Real
science never makes the same mistake twice. Obviously the repetition
of the past can only eventuate in the repetition of the present. And
that is precisely what education sets itself to counteract. The
materialist forgets three outstanding and obvious facts. Firstly,
science cannot be the whole of knowledge, because "science" (in his
limited sense of the term) deals only with what appears. Secondly,
power of insight depends not so much upon the senses as on moral
qualities, the sense of sympathy and of fairness; it needs
self-discipline as well as knowledge both of oneself and one's
fellow-man. "How can a man," says Carlyle, "without clear vision in
his heart first of all, have any clear vision in the head?" "Eyes and
ears," said the ancient philosopher, "are bad witnesses for such as
have barbarian souls." Thirdly, the tragedy of the past generation was
not its failure to accumulate wealth; in that respect it was more
successful than any generation which preceded it. The tragedy of the