I do not wish to suggest that the humanistic elements in education are less important than the utilitarian elements. To know something of great literature, something of world history, something of music and painting and architecture, is essential if the life of imagination is to be fully developed. And it is only through imagination that men become aware of what the world might be; without it, “progress” would become mechanical and trivial. But science, also, can stimulate the imagination. When I was a boy, astronomy and geology did more for me in this respect than the literatures of England, France and Germany, many of whose masterpieces I read under compulsion without the faintest interest. This is a personal matter: one boy or girl will derive stimulus from one source, another from another. What I suggest is that, where a difficult technique is indispensable to the mastering of a subject, it is better, except in training specialists, that the subject should be useful. In the time of the renaissance, there was little great literature in modern languages; now there is a great deal. Much of the value of the Greek tradition can be conveyed to people who do not know Greek; and as for the Latin tradition, its value is not really very great. I should, therefore, where boys and girls without special aptitudes are concerned, supply the humanistic elements of education in ways not involving a great apparatus of learning; the difficult part of education, in the later years, I should, as a rule, confine to mathematics and science. But I should make exceptions wherever a strong bent or special ability pointed in other directions. Cast-iron rules are above all things to be avoided. In a mechanistic civilization, there is grave danger of a crude utilitarianism, which sacrifices the whole æsthetic side of life to what is called “efficiency”. Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I must confess that I view with alarm the theory that language is merely a means of communication, and not also a vehicle of beauty. This tendency is world-wide, but naturally it has advanced in America. In a more or less authoritative book published by the Children’s Foundation,[1] I find some remarks on the teaching of English which seem to exemplify the tendency I deplore. For example: