Abstract
THE argument that British manufacturing and commercial superiority cannot be maintained unless the means of a sound scientific education be placed within the reach of all classes all over the kingdom, seems likely to be put to the proof. Oxford and Cambridge local examinations, the examinations by the Society of Arts and the South Kensington Museum, we are told, only serve to show how backward we are in real knowledge, and that we want more schools, more places of instruction. Well, by act of parliament, a number of our Public Schools are to be ruled by new “Governing Bodies,” the members of which are to be appointed by different authorities; but we confine ourselves here to the fact that among those authorities are “the President and Council of the Royal Society.” These gentlemen, the very head and front of British science, are to nominate a member of the “Governing Body” of each of seven schools, namely, Westminster, Eton, Winchester, Harrow, Charterhouse, Rugby, and Shrewsbury. Here is, indeed, an innovation! The President and Council of the Royal Society will of course nominate men of science. Consequently, science will be taught in all those schools, side by side with the classics. Can the two run together? If science goes up, will Greek and Latin and scholarship go down? We hope not; but these are questions for the future to answer. Meanwhile, we have much pleasure in stating that the two nominations already made by the Council of the Royal Society are such as will command universal approval. Prof. G. G. Stokes, Secretary of the Royal Society and President of the British Association, has been nominated for Eton School, and Mr. W. Spottiswoode, F.R.S., for Westminster School. The interests of science could not be in better hands than these, and we can only hope that the five nominations yet to be made will be equally acceptable. There is movement too in other quarters. The University of Durham is stirring, and desires to establish a school of Physical Science, and to change its humdrum terms of twenty-four weeks in the year, for terms of eight months. All bail to the innovation! Theology at Durham will now have Science for a companion. And the great county of York does not mean to be left behind, for a preliminary meeting of the general council of the Yorkshire Board of Education has been held at Leeds, to talk about the establishment of a Science college. Should this come to pass, the youth of the North of England will have a fair opportunity for scientific education, for Lancashire is already provided with a college at Manchester.
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Notes . Nature 1, 58–60 (1869). https://doi.org/10.1038/001058d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001058d0