acquiring for the first time an insight into the methods of the investigator; he will thus be spared the unpleasant discovery which the advanced student now too often makes that his early training has unfitted him, rather than prepared him, for the task of original inquiry.
Much to be feared, also, is the tendency to overestimate the value of examinations, and the great work of the future will be so to improve these that they shall have no prejudicial influence on the student's work and in no way check the development of original methods of teaching; we must fix our attention mainly on the influences to which the student is to be subjected during his career; the competent teacher will ever study his students while they are at work, and do the best for them, provided he be not rendered powerless by the trammels of an examination system which heeds "results" only and not individuals.
Finally, let me say that, while sympathizing most fully with those who advocate a complete course of study, I feel that it is very easy to demand too much—very easy to make it impossible for students to do justice to their work by imposing too many subjects. Our chief desire must always be that students shall acquire a knowledge of scientific method and the power of working independently. Certain subjects must be insisted on—for example, mathematics and drawing—if a knowledge of these be not acquired early it will never be acquired; but apart from these and a competent knowledge of the main subject, we probably may, as a rule, be satisfied with comparatively little. Those who have once learned to work and acquired a knowledge of scientific method will, of their own accord, in proportion to their intelligence, apply themselves also to the study of other subjects—as many among us have done; those who are not sufficiently intelligent to do this are not, as a rule, improved by being forced to pay attention to unpalatable studies; on the contrary, they are, more often than not, thereby hindered from acquiring a competent knowledge of some one subject which does appeal to them, and are spoiled for life in consequence.—Reprinted from Nature.
