Year: 1873

The President OF the British Asso-


citation ON National system OF


Education.


The great gathering Of the scientific clans,
represented in the recent meeting Of the
British Association, will not be in vain if the
opening address of its distinguished Presi-
dent serves the declared purpose of agitating
new system of national education. This
topic, more than any special phase Of scientific
thought, appears to have riveted attention OF
Bradford and well it might, at q time when
the university and college systems of England,
venerable as they are, have fallen into state
of decrepitude or decadences


In bringing forward the outlines of an
educational system the President of the as
sociation makes the grand proposition to or
ganize the different grades Of scholastic pre-
ferment SO that they may provoke o spirit of
original investigation and give rise to band
Of well qualified and efficient inquirers in the
various domains of scientific research. The
objective point in the system, which COM
mends it to the true educator, is to give the
young favorable opportunities of acquiring
clear and thorough knowledge Of some truths
of nature, with increased opportunities to
selected class desirous Of obtaining more
knowledge, while the best students shall be
enabled to see what original investigation
really is, or to assist in it themselves, and,
finally, when they show the requisite capacity
to be put in a position where they may con-
duct researches for themselves. Such is, in
substance, the aimed-at desideratum The
means Of attaining it are not Utopian, but on
the contrary, practicable and easy. Let the best
pupils from the primary or secondary schools
be sent to the school next higher in grade and
there maintained for one year, and when the
highest grade has been past let the best
scholars be sent, free Of expense, to some col
lege or well-equipped university, on condition
of their devoting their undivided energies to
research. This maintenance of the young inves-
tigator, under competent college inspection,
could be kept up two or three years, when he
could probably turn his proficiency, without
further aid, into the channels of self-sustain-
ing and independent labor.


| In connection with such system, establish
ments for the observation of special pheno-
mena were proposed, and this latter idea will
be easily grasped in America, where the ten
dency is to study and investigate individual
subjects and to make specialties in every
branch of inquiry.


The manifold advantages Of such system
Of national education are apparent at glance,
and if the suggestion is good for England it
is doubly 80 for the United States 1t has
been remarked that the majority Of European
investigators have been men Of independent
means, who can feel superior to the wants
which press 30 heavily on the mass of hu-
manity In the old countries it is the excep-
ton when poor youth is enabled as Faraday
did, to give the world an earnest of the intel
lectual powers which President Williamson
says '1ie fallow in the great mass Of the peo-
pie" But il is otherwise in the United States
where, as in Germany, the poorest collegian
will, if he displays high order Of talent, out
rank the inferior son Of the most opulent
patron Of the institution.


If we are to have original investigators in
the various departments of science they must
be provided for during the period of their
spontaneous and independent researches, and
supplied with the material aid and equip
ments required in their high vocation. 1t
may not, perhaps, be feasible to inaugurate
institutions like that of the Royal Society,
under government patronage, but the great
end proposed by President Williamson might
be attained by slight notifications in our ex-
listing school system, providing for the gratu-
itous higher education of the poor but tai
ented elite of the elementary and other free
schools.


PpoGRFss IN THE EAsT-A cable despatch