Abstract
THE Oracle has spoken. In fact several Oracles have spoken. Let us take them seriatim. From the lips of two of the most enlightened members of the Cabinet we have had at last an authoritative expression of the desirability — nay more, of the absolute necessity – of scientific education for the country at large. Addressing his constituents at Bradford on Monday the 2nd inst. in a speech to which we have already alluded, on the occasion of the opening of the new Mechanics' Institute for that town, Mr. W. E. Forster, the Minister for Education, as he ought to be styled, made use of the following emphatic language:—“The old grammar-school teaching was almost framed upon the advantage that Latin and Greek well taught gave to the boys; now, we find that the boys cannot do without the use of more general knowledge than is given by Latin and Greek; that there must be a knowledge of modern languages. But there may be also a feeling that we ought to know something of the “daily facts of life, and the rudiments of Science. There, again, I speak from a sense of my own want, and I have often thought how much more useful I might have been —at any rate, how much stronger I might have been—if I had had given to me a scientific education, such as I think we may now hope that our children will attain” And again: “We now believe that we have taken measures by which we may secure elementary education to all children of all classes in our borough, and throughout the country, and, consequently, those who attend this institution will have the foundation of a training that will enable them to fulfil the original idea of its promoters,”that is, “to give mechanics scientific knowledge.”
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Recent Utterances . Nature 4, 461–462 (1871). https://doi.org/10.1038/004461a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/004461a0