A vigorous attack on our educational system was made by
Principal Griffiths on Thursday. The burden of his complaint was that we proceeded on the false assumption—combated many years ago by Mr. Gladstone—that all children were fitted to profit by more than the rudiments of academic education—a method which he compared to entering cart horses for the Derby. Again, "a nation which spends four millions on higher education and research, and thirty millions on the rudiments, cannot be said to lend recognition and encouragement to the best brains of the country." He paid a high tribute to the Boy Scout movement, expressing the wish that General Baden-Powell might be made Minister of Education for ten years, pleaded eloquently for the national endowment of research as a means of national defence, and impressed on his hearers the need of bringing home to the working man his indebtedness to the pioneers of science— Faraday, Davy, Pasteur, Röntgen, Kelvin, and Lister.
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