Abstract
IN the course of a recent address to the Ripon Diocesan Conference at Harrogate, the Archbishop of York, Dr. Temple, remarked that “there has sprung up an immense multitude of new schools which are predominantly scientific in type”, and that “while education until lately had been unduly literary in its emphasis, there is a risk now of its becoming unduly scientific”. Leaving out of con sideration for a moment the inferences drawn by Dr. Temple from these suggested developments, it would be interesting to know what group of schools he particularly had in mind. The largest group in which science occupies a place in the curriculum is the 1765 secondary schools recognised by the Board of Education as efficient. There are more than half a million pupils in these schools, and the attention given to the various subjects of instruction may be estimated from the subjects taken by candidates in School Certificate examinations. Of the 68,406 candidates who presented themselves in the First School examination last year, more than ninety per cent took English, history, French and mathematics. Latin, chemistry and art each attracted about forty per cent. In the Second School examination, the highest percentage of entrants was in mathematics (44-6), and succeeding percentages were French (38-3), English (37-5), history (33-1), physics (31-6), chemistry (31-0), Latin (21-5). This examination leads up to university scholarship standards and the number of open scholarships and exhibitions awarded by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge last year were in classics, 148; history, 115; science, 104; mathematics, 70; modern languages, 53; and others, 99.
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Science and Human Values. Nature 134, 764 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134764a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134764a0