Otherwise it would be impossible to explain the fact that the Debating Hall, for instance, of the House of Representatives at Washington is no more fitted for debates carried on by human beings than would a spoon ten feet broad be fitted for the eating of soup.

The able leaders of the National Congress movement in India made the same mistake in 1907, when they arranged, with their minds set only on the need of an impressive display, that difficult and exciting questions of tactics should be discussed by about fifteen hundred delegates in a huge tent, and in the presence of a crowd of nearly ten thousand spectators.

I am afraid that it is not unlikely that the London County Council may also despise the quantitative method of reasoning on such questions, and may find themselves in 1912 provided with a new hall admirably adapted to illustrate the dignity of London and the genius of their architect, but unfitted for any other purpose.
Nor is the essence of the quantitative method changed when the answer is to be found, not in one, but in several 'unknown quantities.' Take, for instance, the question as to the best types of elementary school to be provided in London.

If it were assumed that only one type of school was to be provided, the problem would be stated in the same form as that of the size of the Debating Hall.

But it is possible in most London districts to provide within easy walking distance of every child four or five schools of different types, and the problem becomes that of so choosing a limited number of types as to secure that the degree of 'misfit' between child and curriculum shall be as small as possible.