Up to the time of the publication of this volume it was almost impossible for a student to obtain a comprehensive idea of crystallography without first having to consult the more advanced text-books on the subject. In Elementary Crystallography, however, the subject is presented in a concise and scientific manner."-The Naturalist.

1 FLEET LANE

Demy 8vo. Paper Covers. 1s. 6d. net.

LOCAL GEOGRAPHY

A GUIDE TO THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION with map to illustrate author's methods of map-making.

By C. G. BEASLEY, B.A., F.R.Met.Soc., F.R.Econ.Soc., F.R.G.S., Head of the Geography Department at Nottingham University.

A Companion Pamphlet to Dr. Morley
Davies's Local Geology.

Local Geography" is addressed primarily to teachers of geography. It suggests that part of the usual school courses on the geography of the British Isles should be replaced by a method which would combine some of the more helpful features of the various "individual work" schemes now in vogue with the much sought for correlation of the several subjects of the school curriculum, and this method is the application of the principles of regional survey to the general treatment of the major natural regions of the Home Land.

It emphasizes the value of an intensive survey of a small unit near the school

Two New Books on GEOLOGY

A HANDBOOK OF THE

GEOLOGY of
IRELAND

By the late

Prof. GRENVILLE A. J. COLE,
Director of the Irish Geological
Survey;

and T. HALLISSY,
of the Irish Geological Survey.
Price 8s. 6d. net.

This volume is based on the late Prof. Cole's contributions to The Handbook of Regional Geography, published some years ago in Heidelberg. The copyright was purchased from the German publishers, and it was decided to issue a revised edition in two volumes, of which one should be devoted to Ireland.

USEFUL ASPECTS of GEOLOGY

By S. J. SHAND, D.Sc. Ph.D. F.G.S., Professor of Geology in Stellenbosch University, S. Africa. Price 7s. 6d. net.

A book for those who have never picked up any systematic knowledge of Geology, and who are interested in one or other of the many undertakings that depend for their success upon the application of Geology.

GEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS AND APPARATUS

The Publishers of Prof. Shand's Useful Aspects of Geology, at the author's special request, have selected from the Leaflets issued by their Department for the supply of Geological Collections and Apparatus such items as would be probably most useful to readers of this book. This booklet will be sent post free on application.

LONDON, E.C. 4

68

70

"Science and Labour was the attractive title of a Conference held last year at the British Empire Exhibition, one of a series of conferences which mitigated in some measure the commercial and industrial character of that great enterprise; and the same title has been selected for the report of the proceedings recently published*. The Conference was initiated by the British Science Guild and arranged by a joint committee of the Guild and the Trades Union Congress and Labour Party, presided over by Sir Richard Gregory. At the time of the Conference, in May, 1924, the first Labour Government was in the hey-day of its short but not inglorious period of office, and several members of the Government, including Mr. Sidney Webb, then President of the Board of Trade, Miss Margaret Bondfield, and Mr. Arthur Greenwood, assisted by contributing papers or by presiding at meetings. Subjects for discussion were carefully selected to illustrate the diverse ways in which--as Lord Askwith observes in the Introductionscience can be applied more widely and effectively "to increase human health, happiness, and efficiency, to reduce human toil, and to develop human personality and these subjects-Science in Government, Scientific Research in relation to Industry, Science in Production, Science and the Human Factor, and Science in Educational Organization, were introduced by recognized experts such as Mr. Sidney Webb, Sir Oliver Lodge, Lord Ashfield, Sir Arthur Newsholme, Sir Daniel Hall, and at the educational session-Mr. R. H. Tawney, Sir Thomas Holland, and Dr. R. P. Scott.

⚫ 'Science and Labour,' edited by T. Ll. Humberstone; with an Introduction by Lord Askwith. (Ernest Benn, Ltd., 7s. 6d.)

Before considering in detail the special educational questions discussed during the conference, it may be appropriate to say that the general viewpoint throughout the discussions was impartial and scientific. The Labour Party would not, we presume, desire to claim any privileged position in the matter of bringing scientific method to bear on national problems. We have no difficulty in accepting Lord Askwith's assurance that the publication of the proceedings was undertaken by the British Science Guild, not for any political reason, but in the confident hope that the addresses would contribute to promote a spirit of sympathy and co-operation with the progress of science in all departments of human thought and endeavour." Not only are the discussions scientific in spirit and intention, but the subjects are presented in a fresh and vivid way and in non-technical language to be understood by the general public, whose interest it is desired to enlist. The value of the Conference would have been destroyed if political prejudices or technical jargon had been allowed to obtrude unduly. Without attempting to deal with any of the economic questions discussed during the Conference, we may refer, by way of illustrating the spirit of the discussion, to Mr. Hugo Hirst's reply to the contention, often voiced in heated language, that the only object of the industrialist is to obtain increased profits. No wellconducted big industrial concern, works he said, merely for profit." Profit may be a measure of success, but those concerns which have earned profit are constantly struggling not to part with more than is necessary to attract capital in future for development. Expansion and development are bound to create employment and must be for the benefit of Labour. It is well to be reminded that the manufacturer is also a servant of the public.

"

Mr. Tawney outlined a generous and comprehensive programme of educational reform, and maintained his thesis with adroitness and confidence. He starts with the human child. Our educational systems, he says, "will be effective in proportion as they are related, not to our economic conditions, or our social prejudices, or our passing intellectual fashions, but to the needs and capacities of the children themselves." We must remove the physical ailments of children-42 per cent of the children who come to our elementary schools for the first time are suffering from some kind of physical defect-establish more nursery schools and open-air schools, increase the minimum floor-space and reduce the size of classes in our elementary schools, raise the school age for all children to 16 or 18, develop adolescent education, promote educational research, and organize more effectively the "staff work"-using the term in the military sense of the Board of Education. Administration must not degenerate into routine. The Board of Education must be a "centre of enlightenment" educating the public which at present refuses to co-operate because "it has not got the data upon which alone intelligent co-operation can be founded." We have got brains. What we want is a brain.

This general statement of educational policy—with which teachers will find themselves in sympathy-was followed by two addresses on more specific issues. Sir Thomas Holland contributed an eloquent plea for the humanizing of scientific education. The scientific man, he points out, has duties as a citizen and has to face competitive relations with other human beings. Alarm must be felt at the decline of classical studies

not only by the classical teacher but also by the teacher of science and technology. Can the science teacher provide an efficient substitute for the grand old fortifying classical curriculum? "When one remembers that our principal public men and the great army of administrators who have made the British Empire what it is, have been brought up mainly on a diet of classics, we ought to realize the great responsibility that is now being transferred to the shoulders of teachers of applied science." Sir Thomas Holland's modest and sweetly reasonable approach to this great educational question is preferable to the dogmatic way in which scientific enthusiasts have at sundry times and in diverse places expounded their views. With specialization, the humanistic study of the classics may be swamped by its linguistic, grammatical, and purely rhetorical aspects. Science teaching may equally be reduced to pedantry. Do not let us claim that science can give a mental training as good, when in reality we mean as bad, as that afforded by classics."

Dr. R. P. Scott urges the need for administrative reforms, a subject on which he is able to speak with

THE

Conferences:

authority based on long experience as an officer of the Board of Education. That Board he attacks with vigour for its vacillating policy. He reinforces Mr. Tawney's plea for greater publicity in regard to educational effort and achievement. The Board of Education should, he suggests, be reconstituted so as to become an effective organ for advising the Minister on questions of policy and for the co-ordination and development of our educational system. We venture to doubt whether the reform of the War Office effected after the South African War, including the creation of a General Staff by Lord Haldane, is the best model which Dr. Scott could have selected for the reform of the Board of Education. The military mind is constitutionally opposed to that freedom of thought and opinion which is the seed-bed of educational progress. Is it not high time that teachers were more articulate on the subject of educational administration? Officials are tongue-tied until their retirement from public service. It is disquieting that Dr. Scott and Mr. Holmes, to quote only two names, should have to wait until their retirement from official life to be at liberty to suggest reforms of our educational system.

HE January conferences held in London and in the North have now become an established and recognized feature of the educational life of this country. Up to a few years ago, every association-and the number of associations is a large one-pursued its own course and made its own arrangements, with the result that neither teachers nor administrators had much opportunity, nor even much motive, for attending to any but their own immediate concerns. And as for the general public, that large class of " persons interested in education," a class which in an ideal democracy ought indeed to be co-extensive with the adult population, no adequate means existed of enlisting their interest in the cause of progress. Things are widely different now. These annual conferences are an annual reminder that, notwithstanding all our specialized institutions, specialized aims, and specialized functions, there is a deep sense in which, in the realm of education, all is one. Another great advantage is that the programmes of these conferences help the discerning eye to take in at a glance the problems that are uppermost in the minds of modern educators, and to judge to what extent they are concentrating upon really big questions, and to what extent they seem to be in a backwater of minor issues.

BUT

And the Conference Spirit.

UT besides testifying to the fundamental unity of education, and drawing general attention to the needs of schools and colleges through the agency of the public press, these great conferences have a subtle influence upon those who are actually engaged in one part or another of the field of education. It is easy enough to indulge in cheap sneers about eternal palavering. But it must be remembered that many teachers, perhaps most of them, are normally occupied in ploughing a lonely furrow, and that the mere fact of coming together, and taking even a silent part in a series of discussions covering a far wider area of thought and practice than any individual experience can cover, is all to the good. Further, there is in education as in other parts of our national life, a class consciousness to

Notes

be reckoned with--a class consciousness, not only of rich and of poor, but also of very learned and not very learned, ancient foundation and recent provision from public funds, liberal and vocational, and so forth. The gradual softening of prejudices and removal of artificial barriers has, we believe, made some real progress in our time, and one of the main causes of that progress is the habit of conference which has grown upon us. The conference spirit, as manifested in these great annual gatherings, works in a direction which is the precise opposite of the old exclusiveness.

"

Educational Economy.

CONOMY" in educational expenditure has come in for well-merited abuse. Lord Eustace Percy's evasion of the word by referring to the "temptation of over-budgetting" is not altogether encouraging. In a recent speech the President of the Board of Education has thrown cold water on the policy of raising the school-age to 15 by suggesting that this would mean using the existing elementary schools as waiting rooms or isolation hospitals. He hoped that we should rely on the enlightenment of parents rather than on the efficacy of the use of compulsory powers. With its large staff of inspectors, the Board should not be dependent entirely on the local education authorities for framing "a real policy of permanent and continuous advance." It is gratifying to learn, however, that the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Winston Churchill, is showing the greatest consideration towards the financial demands of the education service.

NOW that arbitration has been agreed upon, the

Teachers and Salaries.

country may expect an equitable settlement of the difficult question of salary scales. The choice of Lord Burnham, chairman of the three Burnham Committees, as single arbitrator, affords striking testimony to the esteem in which he is held, and the confidence with which he is regarded, not only by teachers generally, but by local education authorities. To find any other single arbitrator equally fitted in every way would be

difficult. The main reference is the claim of the local education authorities' panels for a reduction of scale figures as against the claim of the teachers' panels for a return to full payment of the Burnham Scales. In agreeing to arbitration, the teachers have acted wisely in view of the undoubted support given to their contention by the Press and by members of Parliament. While the discussion has been confined mainly to the narrower issue of salaries for existing teachers, it is clear that what is required is a scale of salaries combined with conditions of service which will suffice to attract, and retain, an adequate and well-equipped supply of teachers for all categories of service. Nothing less will satisfy either teachers or other true educationists. Further, the teachers' associations can ensure the full acceptance by teachers of the arbitrator's award. Can the authorities' associations ensure full acceptance on their side? We note that if the occasion arises, both panels will jointly ask the Board of Education to intervene.

R. H. P. HAIN FRISWELL, in a letter to The

MR. Emer, has put before the public a scheme for

A School of Landscape Art.

founding an open-air school for students of English landscape in the heart of Constable's country. Sir Arthur Churchman, a Suffolk man and member for the Woodbridge Division, has offered to give the group of buildings at Flatford (Willie Lott's house, which appears in Constable's epoch-making pictures "The Hay Wain" and "The Valley Farm") with about nine acres of land on the banks of the Stour to the Royal Academy of Arts or any public body on condition that they put them in repair and maintain them. Mr. W. H. Anderson of Hoylake, Cheshire, and some friends have offered to contribute £1,000 to the endowment of a landscape school on condition that it is open to all students who can pay their fees. The plan is advocated by Sir David Murray and Mr. W. L. Wylie, while Sir Aston Webb and Sir Frank Short are placing the proposition before the Academy. The advantages of such a school would be great. A beautiful environment is

education of the children but to ensure that if they have to hear of these things, they should hear both sides dispassionately, "because you cannot prostitute your position to sectarian ends." The primary concern of the teacher is the unfolding of the child's personality, and not the victory of party. Notwithstanding the authority of W. S. Gilbert, children are not always born little Conservatives or little Liberals. May the schools conserve their political innocence as long as possible.

Politics in

Irish Education.

RIS RISHMEN, who, before the advent of the Free State three years ago, were generally regarded as enlightened and progressive in their educational views and policy, are now looking with grave misgivings on the course of educational reform. The reason may be put into a single sentence. Education is in danger of being used for political ends. In the primary schools, Irish was introduced at once as a compulsory subject to which an hour a day is being given. As in addition half an hour is devoted to physical exercise, less than three hours remain for all other secular subjects. As a result all extra subjects, such as drawing and handcraft, which the Department of Technical Instruction had during the past twenty-five years developed with much efficiency, have disappeared; other subjects are taught with diminishingly good results; Irish itself, in the hands of teachers who three years ago for the most part knew little or nothing of the language, is being taught with little zeal and often without intelligence; and in spite of greatly increased salaries the output is seriously less in value, and it is difficult, certainly in the Protestant schools, to find sufficient numbers of candidates to be trained for the profession. It is not surprising, therefore, that on all sides there is an outcry as to the disastrous results, if this policy is continued, and that the threat of compulsory Irish in the secondary schools in 1928 is occasioning criticism of an outspoken character from both Catholic and Protestant representative headmasters.

impossible in our large cities and towns. It is true that Turner was born in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, but generally speaking great art has been produced by men whose eyes were accustomed to dwell on beauty. Who shall say how much Giotto owed to the Apennines, or Titian to the hills of Cadore, or Constable to this same river Stour! We hope the proposed school will take Constable's sincerity for its watchword. There should be no room on the banks of the Stour for any of the wilful eccentricities, often a mere cloak for incompetence, which disgrace the exhibitions of students' sketch clubs at many of our art centres.

IS politics to take the place of religion as a bone of contention in our educational work? Captain Gee's suggestion that fully fifty per cent of the teachers in our Council schools are socialistic is not in

Schools.

Medical Education in the Irish Free State.

passed, has produced a crisis in the Irish medical schools. The British Medical Register was common to the British Isles, but when the twentysix counties became a Dominion like Canada, the Free State students on being qualified were no longer placed automatically on this Register. The solution is simple. The Free State Government must request the British Medical Council to continue its recognition. Time, however, is passing, and this is not being done. Dr. Maunsel, the President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, has last month stated publicly that matters are critical, and it is not clear at the moment what the Government intends to do.

To do nothing would mean the extinction of all the Free State Medical schools, which for education and for medicine would be an appalling catastrophe.

HE Belfast Education Committee has put its hands THE to the plough and is driving a good furrow. A census in February showed 59,370 children of compulsory school age, viz. over six years. Sohool Building În March there were 63,199 pupils from in Belfast. three years of age, with an average