LACK OF SCHOLARSHIP.

THE MISUSE OF WORDS.

The inaugural meeting of the twelfth annual conference of Educational Associations, embracing some fifty organisations, was held at University College yesterday afternoon, when the president of the conference, Sir W. Henry Hadow, Vice-chancellor of the University of Sheffield, presided and delivered the presidential address on “The Claims of Scholarship.” The lecture hall was crowded with educationists from every part of the kingdom, and the president was accorded a flattering reception.

“There is,” said Sir HENRY, “a disease that has been increasing with alarming rapidity during the last twenty years, which is almost epidemic, and which, if we are not careful, will ultimately devastate us. That disease is the prevalent lack of scholarship, using the term in its very widest sense, not advocating any particular set of studies or any particular method as indicating a habit of mind, not accepting the scholarly mind as one which in any field of inquiry shows the convergence of two qualities, namely, intellectual integrity and intellectual sensitiveness. The first entirely disdains to claim or pretend to any knowledge which it does not possess, and the second demonstrates that power of discrimination between intellectual, nuances which in every field is an indication of true Scholarship. I am sorry to find that a mixture of indolence and vanity is becoming a very prevalent characteristic of society at the present time, the one exceedingly anxious not to take any intellectual trouble, and the other equally anxious to gain credit for the intellectual trouble it has not taken.” (Laughter.)

Giving examples of what he described as “sloppiness and inaccuracy of mind,” Sir Henry said that such a condition frequently combined with it the desire to be regarded as knowing everything. It had been said of the examination system some years ago that it sought to promote a sort of diluted omniscience. “Well,” he added, “the dilution is now becoming oceanic.” (Laughter.)