_The Social Problems Series_ EDITED BY OLIPHANT SMEATON, M. A. , F. S. A. THE CHILDREN _The Social Problems Series_ THE CHILDREN SOME EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS BY ALEXANDER DARROCH, M. A. PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK16 HENRIETTA STREET, W. C. AND EDINBURGH1907 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. INTRODUCTION--THE PRESENT UNREST IN EDUCATION 1 II. THE MEANING AND PROCESS OF EDUCATION 13 III. THE END OF EDUCATION 22 IV. THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION--THE PROVISION OF EDUCATION 31 V. THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION--THE COST OF EDUCATION 46 VI. THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION--THE MEDICAL EXAMINATION OF SCHOOL CHILDREN AND THE MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS 54 VII. THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION--THE FEEDING OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 66 VIII. THE ORGANISATION OF THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 77 IX. THE AIM OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION 85 X. THE AIM OF THE INFANT SCHOOL 98 XI. THE AIM OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL 107 XII. THE AIM OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 118 XIII. THE AIM OF THE UNIVERSITY 126 XIV. CONCLUSION--THE PRESENT PROBLEMS IN EDUCATION 131 THE CHILDREN CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION--THE PRESENT UNREST IN EDUCATION The problems as to the end or ends at which our educational agenciesshould aim in the training and instruction of the children of thenation, and of the right methods of attaining these ends once they havebeen definitely and clearly recognised, are at the present day receivinggreater and greater attention not only from professed educationalists, but also from statesmen and the public generally. For, in spite of allthat has been done during the past thirty years to increase thefacilities for education and to improve the means of instruction, thereis a deep-seated and widely spread feeling that, somehow or other, matters educationally are not well with us, as a nation, and that inthis particular line of social development other countries have pushedforward, whilst we have been content to lag behind in the educationalrear. The faults in our present educational structure are many, and in somecases obvious to all. In the first place, it is said, and with muchtruth, that there is no systematic coherence between the different partsof our educational machinery, and no thorough-going correlation betweenthe various aims which the separate parts of the system are intended torealise. As Mr. De Montmorency has recently pointed out, we have alwayshad a national group of educational facilities, more or less efficient, but we have never had, nor do we yet possess, a national system ofeducation so differentiated in its aims and so correlated as to itsparts as to form "an organic part of the life of the nation. "[1] Aneducational system should subserve and foster the life of the whole: itshould be so organised as to maintain a sufficient and efficient supplyof all the services which a nation requires at the hands of its adultmembers. For it is only in so far as the educational system of anycountry fulfils this end that it can be "organic, " and can be entitledto the claim of being called a national system. This lack of coherence between the different parts of our educationalsystem and the want of any systematic plan or unity running through thewhole is due to many causes. As a nation, we are little inclined tosystem-making, and as a consequence the problem of education as a wholeand in its total relation to the life and well-being of the State hasreceived but scant attention from politicians. Educational questions, inthis country, are rarely treated on their own merits and apart fromconsiderations of a party, political, or denominational character, andhence the problems which have received attention in the past and evokediscussion at the present are concerned with the nature of theconstitution, and limits of the power of the bodies to whom should beentrusted the local control of the educational agencies of the country, rather than with the problems as to the aims which we should seek torealise through our educational organisation, and of the methods bywhich these aims may be best realised. Hence, as a nation, we haverarely considered for its own sake and as a whole the problem of theeducation of the children. And until we have done so--until we have madeclear to ourselves the kind of future citizen which as a State we desireto rear up--our educational agencies must manifest a likeindefiniteness, a like inconsistency, and a like want of connection asdo our educational aims and ideals. Again, closely connected with this first-named defect in our educationalorganisation, and in fact following from it as a logical consequence, isour fatal method of developing this or that part of our educationalsystem and of leaving the other parts to develop, if at all, without anycentral guidance or control, until at length we realise that theneglected parts also require attention, and must somehow or other berefitted into the whole. _E. G. _, since 1870 there has been a greatadvance in the extent and intent of elementary education in both Englandand Scotland, but this progress has been of a one-sided nature, andthere has been no corresponding advance either in the perfecting of theeducational system as a whole, or in the co-ordination of the variousgrades of education. In Scotland, since the passing into law of theEducation Bill of 1872, the means of elementary education have beenwidely extended and the methods of teaching have been greatly improved, but there has been no corresponding advance in the provision of themeans of higher education, and as a consequence, at the present day, wefind many districts without adequate provision for carrying on theeducation of the youth of the country beyond the Primary School stage. Secondary education has been provided in some centres by means ofendowments; in others through the extension of the term "elementary" soas to include education of a more extended nature than was originallyintended to be covered by that term. In England until 1902, very muchthe same conditions prevailed, but since then, mainly in order to remedythe state of things created by the judgment in the Cockerton Case, thecontrol of primary, secondary, and technical education has been placedin the hands of the County and Borough Councils, who are empowered "toconsider the educational needs of their area, and to take such steps asseem to them desirable, after consultation with the Board of Education, to supply or aid the supply of education other than elementary, and topromote the general co-ordination of all forms of education. " Tinder thepowers so granted much has been done throughout England during the pastfew years to extend and make efficient the means of higher education; toerect schools which shall provide training for the future servicesrequired by the community and the State of the more highly gifted of itsmembers, and to co-ordinate the work of the various agencies entrustedwith the care and education of the children of the nation. Through the failure of the Education Bills of 1904 and 1905 to pass intolaw, Scotland still awaits the creation of local authorities chargedwith the control and direction of all grades of education, and in thisrespect her educational organisation is much more loosely compacted thanthe system which now exists in England. Further, in Scotland, on account of the absence of one controllingauthority, we often find in those districts in which the provision forhigher education is ample, imperfect co-ordination between the aims andwork, on the one hand, of the Primary School, and on the other, ofschools providing higher education. From this cause also it followsthat, unlike our German neighbours, we have made little progress indetermining the different functions which each particular type of HigherSchool shall perform in the social organism, and have not assigned theparticular services which the State requires of each particular type ofHigher School. It is surely manifest that the service which the modernindustrial State looks for from its members is not the same in kind andis much more complex in its nature than that which was required duringthe mediæval period, and that if this service is to be efficientlysupplied, then there is need for Higher Schools varied in type andhaving various aims. This want of unity between the various parts of our educational systemmanifests itself again in the indefiniteness of aim of many of ourHigher Schools, and in the lack of co-ordination between the HigherSchool on the one hand, and institutions providing university andadvanced instruction on the other. Up till quite recently, the sole aimof our Secondary Schools was to provide students for the Universitiesand to supply the needs of the learned professions. But with theeconomic development of the country, and as a consequence of the keeninternational competition between nation and nation in the economicsphere, there has arisen a demand for a higher education different inkind from that provided by the older Universities, and a need for a typeof Secondary School different in aim and curriculum from that whichlooks mainly to the provision of students intending to enter upon someone or other of the so-called well recognised learned professions. It ishere, when compared and contrasted with the educational systems of someof our Continental neighbours, that we find the weakest point in our ownsystem, and at the present time our most urgent need is for theextension and better equipment of the central institutions of thecountry which provide higher technical and commercial instruction. This unsatisfactory condition of things is due in large measure, as wehave already pointed out, to our innate dislike as a nation of allsystem-making, and to the distrust felt by many minds of any and everyform of State control of education. Hence, partly from these causes, partly as a result of historical conditions, it has followed thatvarious authorities have in this country the guidance and control ofeducation, with the usual result of want of unity of aim, of lack ofcorrelation of means, and in some cases of overlapping and waste of themeans of higher education. In the second place, while much has been done since the advent ofcompulsory elementary education to better the means of education and toincrease the facilities for the higher instruction of the youth of thecountry, there is a widespread belief that all the hopes held out bythe early advocates of universal compulsory education have not beenrealised, and that our Primary Schools in large measure have failed toturn out the type of citizen which a State such as ours requires for herafter-service. Universal education has not proved a panacea for all the social evils ofthe Commonwealth, and while it must be admitted that much good hasresulted from the adoption of universal and compulsory education, yet atthe same time certain evils have followed in its train. Since the institution of universal education, it may be argued that thechildren of the nation have received a better training in the use of themore mechanical arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but thetendency has been to look upon the acquisition of these arts as _ends inthemselves_, rather than as mere instruments for the further extensionand development of knowledge and practice, and hence our Primary Schoolsystem, to a large extent, has failed to cultivate the imagination ofthe child, and has also failed to train the reason and to developinitiative on the part of the pupil. There has been more instruction, ithas been said, during the last thirty years, but less education; for theprocess of education consists in the building up within the child's mindof permanent and stable systems of ideas which shall hereafter functionin the attainment and realisation of the various ends of life. Now, ourschool practice is still largely dominated by the old conception thatmere memory knowledge is all-important, and as a consequence much of theso-called knowledge acquired during the school period is found valuelessin after life to realise any definite purpose, for it is only in so faras the knowledge acquired has been systematised that it can afterwardsbe turned to use in the furtherance of the aims of adult life. From this it follows that, since much of the knowledge acquired duringthe school period has no bearing on the real and practical needs oflife, the Primary School in many cases fails to create any permanent orreal interest in the works either of nature or of society. But a much more serious charge is laid at times against our PrimarySchool system. It is contended that during the past thirty years it hasdone little to raise the moral tone of the community, and it has donestill less to develop that sense of civic and national responsibilitywithout which the moral and social progress of a nation is impossible. Our huge city schools are manufactories rather than educationalinstitutions--places where yearly a certain number of the youth of thecountry are turned out able to some extent to make use of the mechanicalarts of reading and writing, and with a smattering of many branches ofknowledge, but with little or no training for the moral and civicresponsibilities of life. This is evident, it is urged, if we considerhow little the school does to counteract and to supplant the evilinfluences of a bad home or social environment. What truth there may bein these charges and what must be done to remedy this state of matterswill be discussed when we consider later the existing Elementary Schoolsystem. Here it is sufficient to point out that one of the causes atwork to-day tending to arouse a renewed interest in educational problemsis the feeling now beginning to find expression that the kind ofuniversal elementary education provided somehow or other fails, and hasfailed, to produce all that was in the beginning expected of it--that ithas in the past been too much divorced from the real interests of life, and that it must be remodelled if it is to fit the individual to performhis duty to society. A third fault often found with our existing school system is that in thecase of the majority of the children the process of education stops attoo early an age. The belief is slowly spreading that if we are toeducate thoroughly the children of the nation so as to fit them toperform efficiently the after duties of life, something of a moresystematic character than has as yet been done is required, in order tocarry on and to extend the education of the child after the Elementaryschool stage has been passed. For it is evident that during the PrimarySchool period all that can be expected in the case of the larger numberof children is that the school should lay a sound basis in the knowledgeof the elementary arts necessary for all social intercourse, and for therealisation of the simpler needs of life. A beginning may be made, during this period, in the formation and establishment of systems ofknowledge which have for their aim the realisation of the more complextheoretical and practical interests of after life, but unless these arefurthered and extended in the years in which the boy is passing fromyouth to manhood, then as a consequence much of what has been acquiredduring the early period fails to be of use either to the individual orto society. Again, it is surely unwise to give no heed to the systematic educationof the majority of the children during the years when they are mostsusceptible to moral and social influences, and to leave the moral andsocial education of the youth during the adolescent period to theunregulated and uncertain forces of society. Lastly, in this connection it is economically wasteful for the nation tospend largely in laying the mere foundations of knowledge, and then toadopt the policy of non-interference, and to leave to the individualparent the right of determining whether the foundation so laid shall befurther utilised or not. A fourth criticism urged against our educational system is that in thepast we have paid too little attention to the technical education ofthose destined in after life to become the leaders of industry and thecaptains of commerce. Our Higher School system has been toopredominantly of one type--it has taken too narrow a view of the higherservices required by the State of its members, and our educationalsystem has not been so organised as to maintain and farther the economicefficiency of the State. For it may be contended that the economicefficiency of the individual and of the nation is fundamental in thesense that without this, the attainment of the other goods of life cannot or can be only imperfectly realised, and it is obvious thataccording to the measure in which the economic welfare of the individualand of the State is secured, in like measure is secured the opportunityfor the development and realisation of the other aims of the individualand of the nation. Thus the present unrest as regards our educational affairs may belargely traced to the four causes enumerated. We have begun to realisethat our educational system lacks definiteness of aim, and that itsvarious parts are badly co-ordinated; that, in short, we do not as yetpossess a national system of education which ministers to and subservesthe life of the State as a whole. We are further beginning to perceivethat the provision of the means of higher education is too important amatter to be left to the care of the private individual, and thateducation must be the concern of the whole body of the people. Hence ithas been said that on the creation of a national system of education, fitted to meet the needs of the modern State, depends largely the futureof Britain as a nation. Again, all that was hoped for as the result of universal compulsoryeducation has not been realised, and the feeling is growing that thereis something defective in the aims of our Primary School system, andthat it fails, and has failed, to develop in the individual the moraland social qualities required by a State such as ours, which is becomingincreasingly democratic in character. Further, we are learning, partlythrough experience, partly from the example of other countries, that theperiod during which our children must be under the regulated control ofthe school and of society must be lengthened, if we are to realise thefinal aim of all education, which is to enable the individual on theintellectual side to apply the knowledge gained to the furtherance andextension of the various purposes of life, and on the moral side toenable him to use his freedom rightly. Lastly, as a nation, we are beginning to discover that without thebetter technical training of our workmen, and especially of those towhom in after-life will be entrusted the control and direction of ourindustries and commerce, we are likely to fall behind the other advancednations in the race for economic supremacy. But, in addition to these negative forces at work, tending to producedissatisfaction with our educational position, the opinion is growingstronger and clearer that the education, physical, intellectual, andmoral, of the children of the nation is a matter of supreme importancefor the future well-being and the future supremacy of the nation, andthat it is the duty of the State to see that the opportunity isfurnished to each individual to realise to the full all thepotentialities of his nature which make for good, so that he may beenabled to render that service to the community for which by nature heis best fitted. Compulsory elementary education is but one stage in theprocess. We must, as a nation, at least see that no insuperableobstacles are placed in the path of those who have the requisite abilityand desire to advance farther in the development of their powers. Moreover, if need be, we must, in the words of Rousseau, compel thosewho from various causes are unwilling to realise themselves, to attaintheir full freedom. This demand for the better and fuller education of the children of thenation is motived partly by the growing conviction that the freedom, political, civil, and religious, which we as a nation enjoy, can only bemaintained, furthered, and strengthened in so far as we have educatedour children rightly to understand and rightly to use this freedom towhich they are heirs. Democracy, as a form of government and as a powerfor good, is only possible when the mass of the people have been wiselyand fully educated, so that they are enabled to take an intelligent andcomprehensive interest in all that pertains to the good and futurewelfare of the State. A democracy of ill or partially educated peoplesooner or later becomes an ochlocracy, [2] ruled not by the best, but bythose who can work upon the self-interest of the badly or one-sidedlyeducated. A true democracy is in fact ever aristocratic, in the originalsense of that term. A false democracy ever tends to become ochlocratic, and the only safeguard against such a state of conditions arising in acountry where representative government exists is the spread of highereducation, and the inculcation of a right conception of the nature andfunctions of the State and of the duties of citizenship. But further, the demand for increased facilities for higher andtechnical education is motived largely by the conviction that in theeducation of our children we must in the future more than we have donein the past take means to secure the fitness of the individual toperform efficiently some specific function in the economic organisationof society. And the demand proceeds, not from any desire to narrow downthe aims of education, to place it on a purely utilitarian basis, butfrom the belief that the securing of the physical and economicefficiency of the individual is of fundamental and primary importanceboth for his own welfare and the well-being and progress of the State, and that in proportion as we secure the higher economic efficiency of alarger and larger number of the people we also secure the essentialcondition for the development and extension of those other goods of lifewhich can be attained by the majority of a nation only after a certainmeasure of economic prosperity and economic security is assured. The social evils of our own or of any time cannot, of course, be removedby any one remedy, but an education which endeavours to secure that eachindividual shall have the opportunity to develop himself and to fithimself for the after performance of the service for which by nature heis suited may do much to mitigate the evils incident upon theindustrial organisation of society. If this end is to be realised, thenthree things at least are necessary. We must seek by some means or otherto check the large number of our boys and girls who, after leaving thePrimary School, drift year by year, either through the ignorance or thecupidity or the poverty of their parents, into the ranks of untrainedlabour, and who in the course of two or three years go to swell theranks of the unskilled, casual workers, and become in many cases, in thecourse of time, the unemployed and the unemployable. In the secondplace, we must endeavour to secure the better technical training of theyouth during their years of apprenticeship, and so tend to raise thegeneral efficiency of the workers of the nation whatever thenature--manual or mental--of their employment. In the third place, wemust endeavour, by means of our system of education, to increase themobility of labour. In the modern State, where changes in the industrialorganisation are frequent, the worker who can most easily adapt himselfto changing circumstances is best assured of constant employment, and agreat part of the social evils of our time may be traced to this want ofmobility on the part of a large number of our workers. The mobility of labour is of course always determined within certainlimits, but much may and could be done by pursuing from the beginning aright method in educating the child to develop its power ofself-adaptation to the needs of a changing environment. If these results are to be attained, then we shall have, as a nation, tomake clear to ourselves the real meaning and purpose of education; weshall have to make explicit the nature of the ends which we desire tosecure as the result of our educational efforts, and we shall have toorganise our educational agencies so that the ends desired shall besecured. Let us now consider the question of the meaning, purpose, and ends ofeducation. FOOTNOTES: [1] _National Education and National Life_, p. 1. [2] _Ochlos_, a mob. CHAPTER II THE MEANING AND PROCESS OF EDUCATION "Of all the animals with which the globe is peopled, there is nonetowards whom nature seems, at first sight, to have exercised morecruelty than towards man, in the numberless wants and necessities withwhich she has loaded him, and in the slender means which she affords tothe relieving of these necessities. In other creatures these twoparticulars generally compensate each other. If we consider the lion asa voracious and carnivorous animal, we shall easily discover him to bevery necessitous, but if we turn our eye to his make and temper, hisagility, his courage, his arms, and his force, we shall find that hisadvantages hold proportion with his wants.... In man alone thisunnatural conjunction of infirmity and of necessity may be observed inthe greatest perfection. Not only the food which is required for hissustenance flies his search and approach, or at least requires hislabour to be produced, but he must be possessed of clothes and lodgingto defend him against the injuries of the weather: though to considerhim only in himself, he is provided neither with arms, nor force, norother natural abilities which are in any degree answerable to so many'necessities. ' 'Tis by society alone he is able to supply his defectsand raise himself up to an equality with his fellow-creatures, and evenacquires a superiority over them. "[3] In these terms Hume draws thedistinction between man and the animals, and if, for the term Society, we substitute the word Education, then we shall more truly describe themeans by which man overcomes his natural infirmities and meets hisnecessities. But we have to ask, Wherein does man differ from the animals? what poweror faculty does he possess over and above those possessed by himself andthe animals in common? and how does it happen that as his wants andneeds increase and multiply the means to satisfy them also tend toincrease? Now, the animal is guided wholly or mainly by instinct. In thecase of many animals the whole conduct of their life from birth to deathis governed by this means. In the case, indeed, of some of the higheranimals, there is a limited power of modifying this government byinstinct through the experience acquired during the lifetime of theindividual. But man alone possesses the power or faculty of reason. Andit is through the possession of this power that he alone of allcreatures can be educated; it is the possession of this power whichplaces him above the rest of creation, and it is in the possession ofthis power that the possibility of his greatness, and also of hisbaseness, lies. Now, an instinct may be defined as an inborn andinherited system of means for the attainment of a definite end of such anature that once the appropriate external stimulus is applied the systemtends to work itself out in an automatic manner until the end isattained, and independently of any control exercised by the individual. The working out of such an action may be accompanied by consciousness, but the power of memory would only be valuable in so far as the instinctwas imperfect, and in so far as the better attainment of the end wasfostered by direct individual experience. Thus the greater the range ofinstinct the less the scope of and the less the need foreducation--_i. E. _, for acquiring experiences that will function inrendering more efficient future action; and conversely, the less therange of instinct the greater the need for education, for acquiringexperiences that may function in the guidance and direction of futureaction. Now, in man the range of instinct is small. In fact, it is questionablewhether in the strict usage of the term he possesses any one perfectinstinct. But to overcome this weakness of his nature he possesses thepower or faculty of reason, and this consists in the ability toself-find, to self-adapt, and to self-establish systems of means for theattainment of definite ends. "Man's splendid power of learning throughexperience and of applying the contents of his memory to forecast andmould the future is his peculiar glory. It is this which distinguisheshim from and raises him above all other animals. This it is that makeshim man. This it is that has enabled him to conquer the whole world andto adapt himself to a million conditions of life. "[4] This it is thatalso makes possible the education of the child, and raises the hope thatby a truer and deeper conception of the process of education we shall beenabled to mould the character of the children to worthy ends. But although man is pre-eminently the rational animal, yet reason onlyoperates, and can only operate, in so far as it is called into activityby the need of satisfying some inborn or acquired desire. That is, manpossesses not only reason, but also certain instinctive tendencies toaction. In early life, the instincts of curiosity, of imitation, ofemulation, and the various forms of the play instinct are ever incitingthe child to action, and ever evoking his reason-activity to acquire newexperiences which shall function in the more efficient performance offuture action. At a later stage other instinctive tendencies make theirappearance, as _e. G. _ the parental instinct, and serve as motives forthe further acquisition of new experiences--for the establishment ofother systems of means for the attainment of desired ends. But as thechild passes from infancy to youth and manhood, these instinctivetendencies, although ever present, alter their character, and acquiredends or interests become the motives of actions. But these acquired endsor interests are not something created out of nothing: they are graftedupon and arise out of the innate and inherited instinctive tendencies ofman's nature. Thus, _e. G. _, the instinct of mere self-preservation maypass into the desire to attain a certain standard of life, or tomaintain a certain social status; the instinct of curiosity into thedesire to find out and to systematise knowledge for its own sake. Butfor the realisation of these instinctive ends, whether in their crude oracquired forms, the finding and the establishment of systems of means inevery case is necessary, and in order that they may be realised man mustacquire the requisite capacities for action. In the case of the animalthe instinct or impulse to action is inherited, but the capacity foraction is also inborn or innate. Man possesses all the innate ends orinterests which the animal possesses. Moreover, upon these innate endsor interests can be grafted ends or interests innumerable and varied incharacter, but in order that they may be satisfied he must through theevoking into activity of reason find and adapt means for theirattainment. Thus the general nature of our conscious human life is thatthroughout we are striving to attain ends of a more or less explicitnature, and endeavouring to find out and to establish means for theirattainment. Whether in the performance of some simple, practical act, orin trying to observe accurately what is presented to us through thesenses, or in endeavouring to realise imaginatively something notdirectly presented to the senses, or in performing an abstract processof thought, the activity of reason in its formal aspect is ever one andthe same. Hence in education we have not to do with the development ofmany powers or faculties but with the development or the evolution ofthe one power or faculty of reason, and the process of development inits general nature is always the same in kind--viz. , the process ofsystematically building up knowledge which shall function in the futuredetermination of conduct. What varies in each case, at each stage ofdevelopment, is the nature of the material which goes to form this orthat system, and the character of the identity or link of connectionwhich binds part to part within any given system. A system of knowledgemay be built up of perceptual elements, of ideas derived directlythrough the medium of the senses. Of such a character are the systems ofknowledge possessed by the artist and the musician. Again, a system ofknowledge may be composed wholly or mainly of images--of rememberedideas, so altered and so modified as to form and fit into a new whole. Lastly, the elements which go to form the component parts of the systemmay be of a conceptual character. Thus we may select the number aspectof things for consideration and treatment, and so build up and establishwithin the mind of the child a number system. But in each and every casethe power at work is the activity of reason, and the end ever in view inthe selection and in the formation of the system is the satisfaction ofsome end or interest desired either for its own sake or as a means tosome further and remoter end. Further, a system of knowledge may differ not only in the nature of thematerials of which it is composed, but also in the mode of itsformation; _i. E. _, the nature of the identity which binds part to partwithin the system may vary in character. Now it is upon the nature ofthe systems which we ultimately form in the mind of the child and uponthe method which we pursue in our process of system or knowledge makingthat the resultant character of our education depends. A system of knowledge may be related as regards its parts by somequalitative or quantitative bond of identity. All sciences of mereclassification are formed in this way, and the formation of such systemsis in some cases a necessary preliminary to the evolution of the higherforms of system. But the important point to note is that all suchsystems are valuable only as a means to the further recognition, thefurther classification, of similar instances. An individual whose mindwas wholly formed in this way might be compared to a well-arrangedmuseum, where everything is classified and arranged on the basis ofqualitative identity. But manifestly this mere arranging and classifyingof knowledge has only a limited value. Such systems can never be used asmeans for the realisation of any practical need of life, can never bythemselves lead us to intrinsically connected knowledge. A second and higher form of system is established whenever the bond ofconnection between part and part is an identity of function or of law. All language systems are of this nature, and the more highly syntheticthe language the more intrinsic the connection there is between theparts of the system. Further, it should be noted that systems of thischaracter can be used for the attainment of other ends than those ofmere recognition and classification. They, of course, can be used asinstruments of intercourse, of culture, and of commerce. But they mayfurther be utilised in education in the training of the pupil toself-apply a system of knowledge to the solution of relatively newproblems, and it is for this reason mainly that the ancient languagespossess their value as educational instruments. Lastly, systems of knowledge may be formed in which the inter-relationof part to part within the system is that of identity of cause andeffect. In the establishment of scientific knowledge the aim is to showthe causal inter-relation of part to part within a systematic whole orunity. Hence also, as in the case of language systems, systems of thisnature are capable of being used to train the pupil to self-applyknowledge in the solution of practical and theoretical problems, and inthe realising of the practical ends of life. Once again it must be notedthat in the establishment of the various systems of knowledge the oneactivity ever present is that of reason seeking ever to connect part topart in order that some end or interest may be attained. Moreover, wemay misuse the power of reason, and employ it in the attainment of endswhich are valueless in the sense that they further no real interest orend in life. This is done whenever knowledge is crammed, whenever thebond of connection between one part of knowledge and the other isextrinsic, and whenever facts are connected and remembered by bonds of amore or less accidental or factitious nature. And since such knowledgecan further no direct interest or end in life, its acquisition must, asa rule, be motived by some strong indirect interest. As a consequence, whenever the indirect interest, whatever its nature may be, --the fear ofpunishment, or the passing of an examination, --ceases to operate, thenthe desire for further acquisition also ceases. Hence it follows thatthe establishment of any such system is of comparatively little value. It may pave the way at a later period for the formation of a system ofintrinsically connected knowledge, but as a general rule such systems, because they cannot be used, tend soon to drop out of mind, and to be ofno further consequence in the determination of conduct. But further, this misuse of reason, this inciting of the mind to memorise factsunrelated except by their mere accidental time or space relations, willif persisted in tend to render the individual dull, stupid, andunimaginative. The systems of knowledge, then, of most value are those which establishintrinsic connections between part and part; for it is only by means ofsystems of this character that action can be determined and knowledgeextended. In this sense we may agree with Herbert Spencer[5] thatscience or systematised knowledge is of chiefest value both for theguidance of conduct and for the discipline of mind. At the same time wemust not fall into the Spencerian error of identifying science "with thestudy of surrounding phenomena, " and in making the antithesis betweenscience and linguistic studies one between dealing with real things onthe one hand, and mere words on the other. Further, since the establishment of a system of means is always throughthe self-finding and the self-forming of the system, this furnishes thekey to the only sound method of education--viz. , that the child must betrained in the self-discovering and the self-connecting of knowledge. This does not mean that the method should be heuristic in Rousseau'ssense, that the child should be told nothing, but be left to rediscoverall knowledge for himself. But it does mean that in the imparting of thegarnered experience of the race the child must be trained in the methodsby which the race has slowly and gradually built up a knowledge of themeans necessary for the realisation of the many and complex ends ofcivilised life. Before passing on to consider the ends at which we should aim in theeducation of the child, it may be well briefly to summarise theconclusions reached. 1. Man is distinguished from the rest of creation by the possession of reason: the animal life is mainly or wholly guided by instinct. 2. Man like the animals possesses instincts or instinctive tendencies, but for their realisation he must seek out and establish systems of means for their attainment. Bereft of these instinctive tendencies of his nature, man would have no incentive to acquire experiences for the more efficient guidance of his future conduct. 3. In the course of the development and extension of experience there gradually becomes grafted upon these innate instincts, interests or ends of an acquired nature, and one of the main functions of education is to create, foster, and establish on a permanent and stable basis, interests of ethical and social worth. 4. The power of reason is no occult power: it is simply the capacity for finding and establishing systems of means for the attainment of ends; or it may be defined as the power of acquiring experience and of self-applying this experience in the future guidance of conduct. 5. The evolution of intelligence in man is the evolution of this reason-activity to the attainment of new and more complex theoretical and practical ends or interests. At an early stage the systems of knowledge established are for the attainment of the relatively simple needs of life, and are composed of perceptual and imagined elements. At a later stage the systems formed may be of the most complex nature, and are composed of conceptual elements. 6. Man is the only being capable of education in the strict usage of the term. He alone must acquire the means for the realisation of the various desired ends of life. 7. The process of education is a process which, utilising as motives to acquirement the instinctive tendencies of the child's nature, seeks to establish systems of means for their realisation, and upon these innate or inborn instincts to graft acquired ends or interests which shall hereafter function in the attainment of ends of economic, ethical, and social worth. 8. The only truly educative method is the method which trains the pupil to find, establish, and apply systems of knowledge in the attainment of ends of felt value. FOOTNOTES: [3] Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_, Bk. III. Part ii. Sec. 2. [4] _Principles of Heredity_, by G. Archdall Reid, p. 235. [5] Cf. Herbert Spencer, _Education_, especially chap. I. CHAPTER III THE END OF EDUCATION We have seen that the process of education is the process of acquiringand organising experiences that will function in the determination offuture conduct and ensure the more efficient performance of futureaction; or we may say that the process is one by which means aregradually established and fixed in the mind for the attainment of endsof value for the realisation of the varied and complex interests oflife. Now, this acquisition and organisation of experience is never entirely"left to the blind control of inherited impulse, " nor is the childwholly left to gather and organise his experiences upon the incentive ofany innate or acquired interest that may for the time engage his will. The various agencies of society--the home, the school, the shop andyard--are ever constantly seeking to establish such or such systems ofideas, and to prevent the formation of other systems. Hence it followsthat education is not a mere natural process--not a process of acquiringexperience in response to the demands of this or that natural need, butthat it is a regulated process, controlled with the view of finallyleading the child to acquire certain experiences, to organise certainsystems of means for the attainment of such or such ends. Moreover, at various periods in history, the end or ends of education, the kinds of experience thought necessary and valuable for the child toacquire have varied, and still vary, and must vary according to thenature of the civilisation into which the child is born and to which hiseducation must somehow or other adjust him; _i. E. _, there is no onetype of experience, no one kind of education, which is equally suited tomeet the needs of the child born in a modern industrial State and thechild whose education must fit him hereafter to fulfil his duties as amember of a savage tribe. Further, in determining the nature of the experiences useful to acquire, we must take into account not only the civilisation to which the childis to be adjusted, but we must also take note of the nature of theservices which the given society requires of its adult members. Theseservices vary in character, and there can be no one kind of educationwhich equally fits the individual to perform efficiently any and everyservice. To postulate this would be to affirm that there is a kind ofexperience useful for the realisation indifferently of any and everypurpose of adult life, and to affirm that a system of knowledge acquiredand organised for the attainment of certain definite ends can be usedfor the furtherance of ends different in character and having nointrinsic connection with each other. Further, to assert that there isone type of education equally suited to train and to develop thereason-activity of the individual in every direction is to neglect thefact that individuals differ in innate capacity. These differences aredue in part to differences in the extent and character of the receptivepowers of individuals, and are to be traced, probably, to differences inthe size and constitution of the sensory areas of the brain, and are duealso in part to inborn differences in the capacity for acquiring andutilising experiences. As a consequence of these differences oneindividual will acquire and organise certain kinds of experience morereadily than others. But not only have the ends sought to be realised through the educationalagencies of society varied in the past--not only do we find that theideals at present vary in character according to the stage ofcivilisation which the particular country has reached--we also find thatthe agencies of society determining the character and end of educationalso vary. For in the discussion of the ends sought to be attained bymeans of education, we must remember that these are not determined bythe teacher, but by "the adult portion of the Community organised in theforms of the Family, the State, the Church, and various miscellaneousassociations"[6] desirous of promoting the welfare of the community. Atone time the Church largely determined the character and ends ofeducation, but the tendency at the present time is for the State tocontrol more and more the education of the rising generation. In somecountries the entire control of all forms of education, primary, secondary, and technical, has come under the guidance of the State, andin our own country elementary education is now largely under the controlof the State authorities, and the other forms of education tendincreasingly to come under this control. Not only is this so, but theperiod during which the State exercises its control over the educationof the child is gradually being lengthened. Many causes are at work tending to produce these results in the firstplace, it is being clearly realised that there can be no thorough-goingco-ordination of the various grades of instruction until all theagencies of education in each area are placed under one authority actingunder the guidance of some central body responsible for the organisationand direction of the education of the district as a whole. Further, there can be no satisfactory settlement of the problem as to whatparticular function each distinct type of Higher School shall performuntil the whole means of education are under one determining authority. In the second place, the higher education of the children of the nationis too important a matter to be left entirely to the care of the privateindividual, and its cost is too great in many cases to be wholly borneby each individual parent. But this provision, organisation, and controlof the means of higher education by the State does not necessarilyimply that it should be free--that the whole burden should be laid onthe shoulders of the general taxpayer. Yet unless means are provided bywhich the poor but clever boy can realise himself, then there is so muchloss to the community. In the third place, the organisation of all forms of education and themore extended provision of higher and especially of technical trainingis necessary, if for no other reason than as a means of economicprotection and economic security. Lastly, the better organisation of our educational agencies is necessaryas a means of securing a democracy capable of understanding the meaningof moral and civic freedom and of using this rightly. But while the concrete nature of the ends to which our educationalefforts are directed may vary in accordance with the needs of a changingand progressive civilisation, nevertheless the general nature of theends sought to be attained by the education of the children of a nationis permanent and unchangeable. That is, we have to recognise a universalas well as a particular element in our educational ideals. Now, theuniversal aim of all education is, or rather should be, to correlate thechild with the civilisation of his time; to lead him to acquire thoseexperiences which will in after-life enable him to perform ably andrightly his duties as a worker, as a citizen, and as a member of anethical and spiritual community organised for the securing of thewell-being of the individual. And the higher the civilisation, the moredifficult, the more complex, and the more lengthened must be thisprocess of acquiring experiences necessary to fit the individual to hisenvironment. Hence, whatever the particular nature of the environmentmay be, the aim of education must be the fitting of the individual tohis natural and social environments. Hence also any organisation of themeans of education must have as its threefold object the securing of thephysical efficiency, of the economic efficiency, and the ethicalefficiency of the rising generation. In short, as Mr. Bagley[7] putsit, the securing of the social efficiency of the individual must be theultimate aim of all education. To be socially efficient implies that asthe result of the process of education certain experiences, and thepower of applying them, have been acquired by each individual, so thatby this means he is enabled to perform some particular social servicefor the community of a directly or indirectly economic nature. For if, as the result of the educative process, we establish systems of meansfor the realisation of ends which have no social value, then so far wehave failed to make the individual socially efficient. "The youth wewould train has little time to spare; he owes but the first fifteen orsixteen years of his life to his tutor, the remainder is due to action. Let us employ this short time in necessary instruction. Away with yourcrabbed, logical subtleties; they are abuses, things by which our livescan never be made better. "[8] In these words Montaigne writes againstthe false ideal that the mere accumulation of knowledge apart from anypurpose it may serve in enabling us better to understand either theworld of nature or of history should be the aim of education, andthroughout all education we must ever keep in mind that knowledgeacquired must be capable of being used and applied for the realisationof some social purpose, otherwise it is so much useless lumber, to theindividual a burden, soon dropped, to society valueless, since it canmaintain and further no real interest of the community. But to be socially efficient implies not merely that the individualshould be fitted to perform some service economically useful to thecommunity, it further implies that as the result of the process ofeducation there should have been acquired certain capacities of actionwhich restrain him from unduly interfering with the freedom of others. He must acquire certain experiences which restrain him from hinderingthe full and free development of others; he must be trained to use hisfreedom rightly, to acquire those capacities for action which fit him totake his place in the moral cosmos of his time and generation. Further, as Mr. Bagley also points out, to be socially efficient implies inaddition that the individual should contribute something further to theadvancement of the civilisation into which he is born, and thus pass onto his successors an increasing heritage. The threefold aim of all education, then, is to secure the physical, theeconomic, and the ethical efficiency of the future members of thecommunity; and our educational agencies must throughout keep thisthreefold aspect in view. To secure the physical efficiency of the child is necessary, in thefirst place, because a strong, healthy, vigorous body is a good initself, apart from the fact that without sound health the other ends oflife cannot, or can be only imperfectly realised. It is an erroneouspoint of view to maintain that many men have done good intellectual workin spite of physical ill-health, and even in cases where there waspresent some physical defect. The real thing to keep in mind is thatthese individuals do not represent the average, and that for the normalindividual weak health or the presence of physical defect lessens hisintellectual and moral vigour. We can, in the light of modernpsychology, no longer regard mind and body as separate entities having adevelopment independent of each other, but must regard them asconditioning and conditioned by each other. In the second place, the care of the physical health of the child isimportant, because any impairment or defect in the sense organs--theavenues of experience--implies a corresponding defect or want in mentalgrowth, and as a consequence tends to render the individual economicallyand socially less efficient in after-life. In the third place, and this truth is being gradually put into practicein the education of the weak-minded and of the physically defective, sound physical health is one of the conditions of right moral activity. This truth Rousseau emphasised when he declared: "that the weaker thebody, the more it commands; the stronger it is, the better it obeys. Allthe sensual passions find lodgment in effeminate bodies, and the lessthey are satisfied the more irritable they become. The body must needsbe vigorous to obey the soul: a good servant ought to be robust. " We shall inquire further into this question when we come to treat of thephysical education of the child, but what we wish to point out is thatone aim of all our educational efforts must be to secure the physicalefficiency of the rising generation, on the grounds that sound physicalhealth is a good in itself; is a means to the securing of the economicefficiency of the individual and of society; and is a condition ofsecuring the ethical efficiency of the individual. In the second place, the securing of the economic efficiency of theindividual must be one of the aims of our educational efforts. This doesnot imply that our educational curriculum should be based on purelyutilitarian lines, and that all subjects whose utilitarian value is notimmediately apparent should be banished from the schoolroom. But it doesimply that whether in the education of the professional man or of theindustrial worker all instruction either directly or indirectly musthave as its final result the efficiency of the individual as a worker. An education which fits the individual to use his leisure rightly mayhave as much effect in increasing the productive powers of theindividual as that which looks more narrowly to his technical training. Further, we must remember that the larger number by far of the childrenof the modern State must in after-life become industrial workers, andthat any system of education which neglects this fact, which makes noprovision for the technical training of the children of the workingclasses, and has no adequate system of selecting and training those whoby innate capacity are fitted to become the leaders in industry, is asystem not in harmony with the characteristics of modern life, and thatunless this economic efficiency is secured, then the opportunity for thedevelopment of the other ends of life cannot be secured. Lastly, the securing of the ethical efficiency of the future members ofthe State must be one of our ultimate aims. The ethical aim of educationmay be said to be the supreme end, in the sense that it is the essentialcondition for the security, the stability, and the progress of society;and also from the fact that the ethical spirit of doing the work for thesake of the work should permeate all education. In concluding this chapter what needs to be emphasised is that while theprocess of education remains ever the same, ever consists in acquiringand organising experience, in and through the working of reason incitedto activity by the need of satisfying some natural or acquired interest, in order that future action may be rendered more efficient, and whilstthe general nature of the ends to be attained may be said to bepermanent and unchangeable, yet the particular and concrete ends atwhich we should aim in the education of our children is a practicalquestion which every nation has, from time to time, to ask and answerafresh in the light of her national ideals and in view of her nationalaspirations. Nay, further, it is a question which with every necessarychange in her internal organisation, and with every fundamentalalteration in her relation to her external neighbours, has to be askedand answered anew by each and every State desirous of retaining herplace amongst the nations of the world and of securing the welfare andhappiness of her individual members. It is mainly because we as a nationhave not realised this truth that our educational organisation has, neither in the explicitness and clearness of its aims, nor in thedistinction, gradation, and co-ordination of its means, attained thesame thoroughness and self-consistency as that possessed by theeducational systems of some of our Continental neighbours. FOOTNOTES: [6] Cf. Professor Findlay, _Journal of Education_ (Sept. 1899), also"_Principles of Class Teaching_, " p. 2. [7] Cf. _The Educative Process_, chap. Iii. , esp. Pp. 59, 60(Macmillan). [8] Montaigne, _The Education of Children_, L. E. Rector, Ph. D. (_International Education Series_), Appleton, New York. CHAPTER IV THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION--THE PROVISION OF EDUCATION The end of education is, as we have seen, the securing of the futuresocial efficiency of the rising generation, and the method in every caseis through the evoking of the reason-activity of the individual toorganise and establish in the minds of the young and immature, systemsof ideas which will hereafter function as means in the attainment ofends of definite social worth. The question now arises as to whether the provision and organisation ofthe agencies of education may be safely left to the care andself-interest of the individual parent, or whether on principle suchprovision is a duty which devolves upon the State. The principle of the State provision of the means of elementaryeducation has now practically been admitted, and whether wisely orunwisely, the larger part by far of the cost of this provision now fallsupon the shoulders of the general and local taxpayer. _E. G. _, in Englandin 1902 there were six hundred and thirty-three thousand fee-payingchildren in the Public Elementary Schools, and over five millionsreceiving their education free. [9] Further, by the Education Act(England) of 1902 and by the Education and Local Taxation Account(Scotland) Act of the same year the principle of the State aid for theprovision of the means of secondary and technical education may be saidalso practically to have been recognised. By the former Act certainImperial funds derived from the income on Probate and Licence dutieswere handed over to the Councils of counties and boroughs forexpenditure on the provision of the means of education other thanelementary, and at the same time these bodies were empowered, if theythought it necessary, to impose a limited rate for the same purpose. InScotland at the same time a certain part of Scotland's share of the"whisky" money was set aside for the provision of secondary education inurban and rural districts, and Secondary Education Committees wereappointed in the counties and principal boroughs charged with theallocation of the funds towards the aid and increase of the provision ofhigher education in their respective districts. But while this has been done, the question as to whether and to whatextent the State should undertake the provision of the means of highereducation is still one on which there is no general agreement. If it isthe duty of the State to see that the provision of the means ofeducation, elementary, secondary, technical, and university, is adequateto the attainment of the end of securing the future social efficiency ofall the members of the community, then it must be admitted that themeans at present provided for this purpose are totally inadequate, andthat the method followed in furnishing this provision is not of a kindto ensure that the funds granted are spent in the manner best calculatedto extend the agencies and to increase the efficiency of the highereducation of the children of the nation. This latter objection appliesmore especially in the case of Scotland. In that country certainnominated bodies who are responsible only to themselves and to theScotch Education Department are entrusted with the expenditure of themonies received for the extension of the means of higher education, andsince these bodies stand in no intimate connection with therepresentative bodies entrusted with the control of elementaryeducation, no efficient co-ordination of the two grades of education ispossible. Further, in some cases sectional interests rather than theeducational interests of the district as a whole are the main motives atwork in determining the distribution of the funds amongst the variousbodies claiming to participate in its benefits. The uncertainty of theamount of income available for this purpose, and the limitation inEngland of the power of rating, might also be urged in objection to thispeculiarly English method of providing the means for the highereducation of the youth of the country. Similar reasons to those urged prior to 1870 in favour of the Stateprovision of elementary education may be urged in favour of theextension of the principle to higher education. These reasons arenowhere more clearly stated than in the writings of John Stuart Mill. In discussing the functions of government, Mill lays down that educationis one of those things which it is admissible on principle that aGovernment should provide for the people, and although in adducing thereasons for the State undertaking this duty he is concerned mainly withthe provision of the means of elementary education, yet looking to thealtered social conditions of our own time, and taking into account thedifference in the economic relations which exist now between GreatBritain and her Continental rivals, the arguments advanced by Mill areno less applicable now to the extension of the principle of Stateprovision. Let us consider these arguments. In the first place, Mill declares that there are "certain primaryelements and means of knowledge that all human beings born into thecommunity must acquire during childhood. " If their parents have thepower of obtaining for them this instruction and fail to do so, theycommit a double breach of duty. The child grows up an imperfect being, socially inefficient, and members of the community are liable to sufferseriously from the consequences of this ignorance and want of educationin their fellow-citizens. In the second place, Mill urges that unlike that the giving of otherforms of help, the provision of education is not one of the things inwhich the tender of help perpetuates the state of things which rendershelp necessary. Instruction strengthens and enlarges the activefaculties; its effect is favourable to the growth of the spirit ofindependence--it is help towards doing without help. In the third place, he declares that the question of the provision ofelementary education is not one between its provision by the Governmenton the one hand, and its provision through voluntary agencies on theother. The full cost of the education of the children of the lowerworking classes in Great Britain as in other countries has never beenwholly paid for out of the wages of the labourer, and hence the questionlies between the State provision of education and its provision bycertain charitable agencies. As a rule, when provided by the latter, itis both inefficient in quantity and poor in quality. Lastly, Mill lays down that in the matter of education the interventionof Government is necessary, because neither the interest nor thejudgment of the consumer is a sufficient security for the goodness ofthe commodity. But at the same time he strenuously insists that there should be nomonopoly of education by the State. It is not desirable, he declares, that a government should have complete control over the education of thepeople. To possess such a control and actually to exert it would bedespotic. The State may, however, require that all its people shall havereceived a certain measure of education, but it may not prescribe fromwhom or where they may obtain it. At the present day, and under the changed economic conditions which nowprevail, it can no longer be asserted that the imparting of the mereelements of knowledge is adequate either to secure the future socialefficiency of the children of the lower classes of society or that sucha modicum of instruction as is provided by our Elementary Schools issufficient to protect the community from the ignorance of its illeducated and badly trained members. The "hooliganism" of many of ourlarge cities is due to our system of half educating, half training thechildren of the slums, of laying too much stress on the acquisition ofcertain mechanical arts in our Primary Schools and in conceiving them asends in themselves. Further, our system of primary education fails onits moral side, and this in two ways. It seems unaware of the fact thatall moral education is an endeavour to implant in the minds of the youngdesires that shall impel them hereafter to good rather than to evil, andthat this end can only be attained in so far as the natural instinctivetendencies of the child's nature which make for good are cultivated andtrained, and in so far as those other instinctive tendencies which makefor social destruction are inhibited by having their character alteredso as to be directed into channels which make for the social welfare. Inthe second place, we leave off the education of the children at tooearly an age. We hand over the children of the poorer classes during themost critical period of their lives to the influences of the streets andof the bad home, counteracted only by the efforts of the slum visitor orthe missionary. After furnishing them with the mere instruments ofknowledge, we entrust either to them or their parents the liberty ofusing, misusing, or non-using the instruments provided. Moreover, we donothing of a systematic nature to instil into the youth of our poorercitizens the fact that they are members of a corporate community andfuture citizens of a State, and that hereafter they have duties towardsthat State the performance of which is the only rational ground of theirpossession of rights as against the State. _E. G. _, in many of our slumswe have the best examples of individualism run mad, of the conceptionthat the individual is a law unto his private self, and that allgovernment is something alien, something forced upon the individual fromthe outside and impinging upon his private will, instead of law beingwhat it really is, an expression of the social conditions under whichthe welfare of the individual and of society may be attained. Further, it must be maintained that our present policy in education iseconomically wasteful. To spend, as we do yearly, larger and larger sumsof money on the elementary education of our children, and then, in alarge number of cases, to fail to reach the ends of securing either thesocial efficiency of the individual or the protection of society againstthe ignorance of its members, is surely, to say the least, unwise. Again, if we really set before us this aim of the social efficiency ofthe future individual, we must do something to carry on the education ofthe children of the poorer classes after the Elementary School stage hasbeen passed. One of the strongest points in the German system of education, ascompared and contrasted with our own, is the care which is taken of thehigher education of the children of the working classes during theperiod when it is most important that some control should be exercisedover the youth of the country, throughout the time when the boy is mostopen to temptation, and when the moral forces of society are potent forgood and evil in shaping and forming his character. The great majorityof the children in a modern State are and must be destined forindustrial service; the great majority of the children of the workingclasses must, at or about the age of fourteen, leave the Primary Schooland enter upon the learning of some trade. But manifestly at this earlystage the larger number are not fitted to guide and control their ownlives; and if moral education aims, as it ought to aim, at fitting theindividual for freedom, at fitting him to guide and direct his own lifein the light of a self-accepted and a self-directed ideal, then somemeasure of control, of guidance, and of regulation is necessary in theyears when the child is passing from youth to manhood. Now, it is thisfact, this truth, which the Germans as a nation have realised. Theydeclare that it is neither wise nor prudent nor for the ultimate benefitof the State to leave the vast majority of the youth without guidance, and sometimes even without proper moral control exercised over themduring the great formative period of their lives. Nay, further, theybelieve that a State which neglects its duty here is not doing what itought to do for the future moral good, for the future economic welfare, and for the future happiness of its individual members. Hence, inseveral of the German States, the State control over the child does notcease when at fourteen years of age he leaves the Elementary School, butis continued until the age of seventeen; and this is effected by theestablishment of compulsory Evening Schools. In particular, by a lawwhich came into force in Berlin on the 1st April 1905, every boy andgirl in that city, with certain definitely specified exceptions, mustattend at an Evening Continuation School for a minimum of not less thanfour hours and a maximum of not more than six hours per week. Moreover, this enactment has been rendered necessary not to level up the majority, but to level up the minority. This development is a development forwhich the voluntary Evening Continuation School prepared the way; andcompulsory attendance has become possible on account of the willingnessof the German youth to learn, and of his desire to make himselfproficient in his particular trade or profession. Further, the schoolauthorities, in this matter of compulsory attendance at an EveningContinuation School, have with them the hearty co-operation of the greatbody of employers; and the burden of seeing that the pupil attendsregularly is not put upon the parent but upon the employer. By thesemeans, and by other agencies of a voluntary character, every care istaken that the Berlin youth shall have the opportunity of finding thatemployment for which by nature he is best suited, and that thereafter heshall learn thoroughly the particular trade or calling he may enterupon. Contrast what we do, or rather what we do not do, in this matter ofproviding higher education for the sons and daughters of the workingclasses. In our large towns the great majority of our boys and girlsleave the Elementary School at or before the age of fourteen. In manycases the instruction given during this period soon passes away, andleaves little permanent result behind. Evening Continuation Schools areindeed provided, but only a small proportion of our youth takesadvantage of this means of further instruction. The larger number of thechildren of the lower working classes drift, for a year or two, intovarious forms of unskilled employment, chosen in most cases because theimmediate pecuniary reward is here greater than in the case of learninga trade; and after spending two or three years in employments which donothing to educate them, some drift, by accident, into this or thatparticular trade, while the others remain behind to swell the number ofthe unskilled. During this period nothing of an organised nature is doneto secure the physical efficiency of the youth of our working classes;nothing or almost nothing is done to secure his future industrialefficiency; and, as a consequence, year after year, as a nation, we goon fostering an army of loafers, increasing the ranks of the unskilledworkers, and even in our skilled trades adding to the number of thosewho are mere process workers, at the expense of producing workersacquainted both theoretically and practically with every department oftheir particular calling. No wonder that the delegates of thebrass-workers[10] of Birmingham, contrasting what they have seen inBerlin with what they daily see in their own trade at home and in theirown city, bitterly declare that the Berlin youth has from infancy beenunder better care and training at home, at school, at the works, and inthe Army; and consequently, as a man, he is more fitted to be entrustedwith the liberty which the Birmingham youth has perhaps from childhoodonly abused. Space does not permit me to go at fuller length into this question, butbefore leaving the particular problem let me put the issue plainly, because it is an issue which we as a nation must soon clearly realise, and must answer in either one or other of two ways. We may go on as atpresent, insisting that a certain amount of elementary education iscompulsory for all, and leaving it a matter for the individual parentand the individual youth to take advantage of the means of highereducation provided voluntarily, and as a rule without any great directcost to them. In this way, trusting to the voluntary agencies at work insociety, we may hope that either through enlightened self-interest, orthrough a higher conception of the duty of the individual to the State, or through a loftier moral ideal becoming prevalent and actual insociety, an increasing number of parents will see that the meansprovided for the higher education of their children are duly takenadvantage of, and that the majority of the youth will make it their aimto use these means to secure their physical and industrial efficiency. If we adopt this course, then it must be the duty of the schoolauthorities of the various districts to see that Evening Schools ofvarious types suited to the needs of the various classes of students areduly provided, and that no insurmountable obstacles are placed in theway of those desirous and anxious to take advantage of the means ofhigher education. Further, it must become the duty of the employers ofthe country to see that the youth are encouraged in every way to takeadvantage of instruction designed with the above-named end in view, andmoreover the general public must do all in their power to co-operatewith and to aid the endeavours of school authorities and employers oflabour. In this way, as has been the case in Berlin, the voluntarysystem of Evening Continuation and Trade Schools may gradually and intime pave the way for the compulsory Evening School. Without doubt thiswere the better way, if it could be effected and that quickly. But if in this matter we have delayed too long--if we have allowed oureducational policy in the past to be guided by a one-sided and narrowindividualism--if for too lengthened a period we have permitted ourpolitical action to be determined by the false ideal that, in thematter of providing for and furthering his education as a citizen and asan industrial worker, liberty for each individual consists in allowinghim to choose for himself, regardless of whether or not that choice isfor his own and the State's ultimate good, then it may be necessary inthe immediate future to take steps to remove or remedy this defect inour present educational organisation. For it is necessary--essentiallynecessary--on various grounds that the education of the boys and girlsof our working classes should not cease absolutely at the ElementarySchool stage, [11] but that, with certain definite and well-consideredexceptions, all should continue for several years thereafter to fitthemselves for industrial and social service. If this result can beeffected by moral means, good and well; if not, legal compulsion must, sooner or later, be resorted to. For it is, as it has always been, afundamental maxim of political action that the State should and mustcompel her members to utilise the means by which they may be raised tofreedom. The second line of argument which Mill follows in his advocacy of theState provision of education is that instruction is one of the cases inwhich the aid given does not foster and re-create the evil which itseeks to remedy. Education which is really such does not tend toenervate but to strengthen the individual. Its effect is favourable tothe growth of independence. "It is a help towards doing without help. " On similar grounds, we may urge that it is the duty of the State to seethat the means for the higher education of the youth of the country areadequate in quantity and efficient in quality. The better technicaltraining of our workmen is necessary if we are to secure their economicself-sufficiency and fit them to become socially useful as members of acommunity. One aim therefore underlying any future organisation ofeducation must be to secure the industrial efficiency of the worker andto ensure that the results of science shall be utilised in thefurtherance of the arts and industries of life. This can only beeffected by the better scientific training, by the more intensive andthe more thorough education of those children of the nation who bynatural ability and industry are fitted in after-life to guide andcontrol the industries of the country. Mr. Haldane, [12] during the past few years, in season and out of season, has called the attention of the public of Great Britain to the fact thatin the organisation and equipment of their system of technical educationGermany is much in advance of this country, and that the German peoplehave thoroughly and practically realised that, if they are to competesuccessfully with other nations, then one of the aims of theireducational system must be to teach the youth how to apply knowledge inthe furtherance and advancement of the economic interests of life. Withthis end in view we have the establishment throughout the German Statesof numerous schools and colleges having as their chief aim theapplication of knowledge to the arts and industries. In our own countrythis branch--this very important branch--of education has been left, forthe most part, to the care of private individuals, and although theState has done something in recent years to encourage and develop thisside of education, yet much more requires to be done; and, above all, itis desirable that whatever is done in the future should be done in aregular, systematic, and organised manner and with definite aims inview. But it is not merely in the higher reaches of German education that theindustrial aim is kept in view. It pervades and permeates the wholesystem from the lowest to the highest stages. Even in the Primary Schoolthe requirements of practical life are not left out of sight. In school, said a former Prussian Director of Education, "children are to learn howto perform duties, they are to be habituated to work, to gain pleasurein work, and thus become efficient for future industrial pursuits. Thishas been the aim from the earliest times of Prussian education; and tothis day it is plainly understood by all State and local administrativeofficers, as well as by all teachers and the majority of the parents, that the people's school has more to do than merely teach the vehiclesof culture--reading, writing, and arithmetic"--that the chief aim israther "the preparation of citizens who can and will cheerfully servetheir God and their native country as well as themselves. " In the third place, the question of the provision of the means of highereducation is not one between its provision on the one hand by means ofthe Government, and on the other by means of purely voluntary agencies. Higher education, _e. G. _, in Scotland has rarely been provided and paidfor at its full cost by the individual parent or by associations ofindividual parents, but has been maintained, in some cases in a highdegree of efficiency, by endowments left for this purpose. Theseendowments are now in many cases insufficient to meet the demand madefor education, and the stream of private benevolence in providing themeans of education has either ceased to flow or flows in an irregularand uncertain fashion. Further, the incomes of even the moderatelywell-to-do of our middle classes are not sufficient to bear the wholecost of the more expensive education required to fit their sons anddaughters for the after-service of the community. Hence, just as inMill's time the question of the provision of elementary education laybetween the State provision and the provision by means of charitableagencies, so to-day the problem of the provision of secondary andtechnical education is between its adequate provision and organisationby the State, and its inadequate, uncertain provision by means of theendowments of the past and by the charitable agencies of the present. Manifestly, in the light of modern conditions, with the economiccompetition between nation and nation becoming keener and keener, andknowing full well that the future belongs to the nation with the bestequipped and the best trained army of industrial workers, we can nolonger rest content with any haphazard method of providing the means ofhigher education: whatever the cost may be, we must realise that thetime has come to put our educational house in order and to establish andorganise our system of higher education so that it will subserve eachand every interest of the State. This can only be effected in so far asthe nation as a whole realises the need for the better education of thechildren, and takes steps to secure that this shall be provided, andthat there shall be afforded to each the opportunity of fitting himselfby education to put his talents to the best use both for his ownindividual good and the good of the community. Lastly, as Mill urges, the self-interest of the individual is neither sufficient to ensure thatthe education will be provided, nor in many cases is his judgmentsufficient to ensure the goodness of the education provided by voluntarymeans. But, in addition to the reasons urged by Mill for the State provisionand control of the means of elementary education, and these reasons are, as we have seen, as urgent and as cogent to-day for the extension of theprinciple to the provision of the means of secondary and technicaleducation, still further reasons may be advanced. In the first place, there can be no co-ordination of the differentstages of education until all the agencies of instruction in each areaor district are placed under one central control. Until this is effectedwe must have at times overlapping of the agencies of instruction. Insome cases there may also be waste of the means of education. In everycase there will be a general want of balance between the various partsof the system. In the second place, one object of any organisation of the means ofeducation should be the selection of the best ability from amongst thechildren of our Elementary Schools and the further education of thisability at some one or other type of Intermediate or Secondary School. In order that this may be economically and efficiently effected, theinstruction of the Elementary School should enable the pupil at acertain age to fit himself into the work of the High School, and ourHigh Schools' system should be so differentiated in type as to furnishnot one type of such education but several in accordance with the mainclasses of service required by the community of its adult members. Manifestly such a co-ordination of the means and such a grading of theagencies of education, if not impossible on the voluntary principle, isat least difficult of complete realisation. Hence, on the ground that the higher education of the young is necessaryfor the securing of their after social efficiency, on the ground that itis necessary for the economic and social security of the community, onthe ground that aid in higher education is a help towards doing withouthelp and that its provision in many cases cannot be fully met by thevoluntary contribution of the individual, we may urge the need for theState's undertaking its adequate and efficient provision. Further, we must remember that the State must take a "longer" view ofthe problem of education than is possible for the individual. At bestthe latter looks but one generation ahead. He is content to secure theeducation and the future welfare of his children. In the life of theState this is not sufficient. She must look to the needs of the remotefuture as well as of the immediate present, and hence her educationaloutlook must be wider and go farther than that of any mere privateindividual. Lastly, if we understand the true nature and function of theState, we need have no fear that the State should control the educationof all the people. What we have to fear on the one side is thebureaucratic control of education, and on the other its control anddirection by one class in the interests of itself. The State existsfor--the reason of its very being is to secure--the welfare of theindividual, and the State approaches its perfection when itsorganisation is fitted to secure and ensure the widest scope for thefull and free development of each individual. The evil of bureaucracy can be removed only by our representative bodiesbecoming more effective voices of the social and moral will of thecommunity, just as the evil of class control can only be effectuallyabolished by the rise and spread of the true democratic spirit, everseeking that the agencies of the State shall be directed towards theremoving of the obstacles which hinder the full realisation of the lifeof each of its members. FOOTNOTES: [9] Cf. Graham Balfour, _Educational System of Great Britain_, p. 27, 2nd ed. [10] _Brass-workers of Berlin and Birmingham_ (King). [11] "It must not be forgotten that the instruction of the commonschools (_Volksschule_), closing with the pupil's fourteenth year, endstoo soon, that the period most susceptible to aid, most in need ofeducation, the years from fifteen to twenty ... Are now not only allowedto lie perfectly fallow, but to lose and waste what has been solaboriously acquired during the preceding period at school. " In therural parts of Northern Germany efforts are being made to remedy thisevil by the institution of schools providing half-year winter courses. Cf. Professor Paulsen's _The German Universities and University Study_, p. 117 (English translation). [12] Cf. _Education and Empire_. CHAPTER V THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION--THE COST OF EDUCATION But while we may hold that it is the duty of the State to see that themeans for the education of the children of the nation is both adequatein extent and efficient in quality, and so organised that it affordsopportunities for each to secure the education which is needed to equiphim for his after-work in life, it by no means follows as a logicalconsequence that the whole cost of this provision should be borne by thecommunity in its corporate capacity and that the individual parentshould, if he so chooses, be relieved from any direct payment for theeducation of his children. To assert this would be implicitly to affirmthat the education of a man's children is no part of his duty--that itis an obligation which does not fall upon him as an individual, but onlyas a member of a community, and that so long as he pays willingly theproportion of the cost of education assigned to him by taxes and rates, he has fulfilled his obligation. Education, on such a view, becomes amatter of national concern in which as a private individual the parenthas no direct interest. This position carried out to its logicalconclusion would imply that the child and his future belong wholly tothe State, and it would also involve the establishment of a communalsystem of education such as is set forth in the _Republic_ of Plato. Further, such a position logically leads to the contention that theother necessities of life requisite for securing the social efficiencyof the future members of the State should also be provided by the Statein its corporate capacity acting as the guardian of the young, and fromthis we are but a short way from the position that it belongs to thecommunity to superintend the propagation of the species, and to regulatethe marriages of its individual members. This is State socialism in itsmost extreme form, and is contrary to the spirit of a true liberalism, atrue democracy, and a true Christianity. The opposing position--the position of liberalism untainted bysocialism--is that it is the duty of the State to see that as far aspossible the social inequalities which arise through the individualisticorganisation of society are removed or remedied, and that equality ofopportunity is secured to each to make the best of his own individuallife. In the educational sphere this implies that any obstacles in theway of a man's educating his children should be removed, if and in sofar as these obstacles are irremovable by any private effort of his own, and that the opportunity of obtaining the best possible education shouldbe open to the children of the poor if they are fitted by nature toprofit by such an education. It further implies that the means of highereducation, provided at the public expense, should not be wasted on thechildren of any class if by nature they are unfitted to benefit by themeans placed at their disposal; _i. E. _, a national system of educationmust be democratic in the sense that the means of higher education shallbe open to all, rich and poor, in order that each individual may beenabled to fit himself for the particular service for which by nature heis best suited. It must see, further, that any obstacles which preventthe full use of these means by particular individuals are, as far as maybe possible, removed. A national system of education, on the other hand, must be aristocratic in the sense that it is selective of the bestability. Lastly, it must be restrictive, in order that the means ofhigher education may be utilised to the best advantage, and not misusedon those who are unfitted to benefit therefrom. Closely connected with the position that it is the duty of the State tosee not merely to the adequate and efficient provision of the means ofeducation, but also that the whole cost of the provision should be borneby the State, is the contention that because the State imposes a legalobligation upon the individual parent to provide a certain measure ofeducation for his children, it is also a logical conclusion from thisstep that education should be free. "The object of public education isthe protection of society, and society must pay for its protection, whether it takes the form of a policeman or a pedagogue. "[13] But the provision of the means of elementary education, and the imposingof a legal obligation upon each individual parent to utilise the meansprovided, is not merely or solely for the protection of society. Education confers not only a social benefit upon the community, but aparticular benefit upon the individual. Its provision falls not withinthe merely negative benefits conferred by the State by its protection ofthe majority against the ignorance and wickedness of the minority, butit belongs to the positive benefits conferred by Government upon itsindividual members. The State in part undertakes the provision of themeans of education, as Mill pointed out, in order to protect themajority against the evil consequences likely to result from theignorance and want of education of the minority. As this provisionconfers a common benefit on all, so far, but only in so far, aseducation is protective, can its cost be laid upon the shoulders of thegeneral taxpayer. But the provision by the State of the means of education is not merelyundertaken for the protection of any given society against the ignoranceand the lawlessness of its own individual members, it is also undertakenin order to secure the increased efficiency of the nation as an economicand military unit in antagonism, more or less, with similar units. Atthe present day this is one main motive at work in the demand made forthe better and more intensive training of the industrial classes. Tosecure the industrial and military efficiency of the nation isexplicitly set forth as the main aim of the German organisation of themeans of education. We may deplore this tendency of our times. We maycondemn the rise of the intensely national spirit of the modern world, and regret that the ideal of universal peace and universal harmonybetween the nations of the earth seems to fade for ever and for ever aswe move. But we have to look the facts in the face, and to realise thatthe educational system of a nation must endeavour to secure theindustrial and military efficiency of its future members as a means ofsecurity and protection against other competing nations and as one ofthe essential conditions for the self-preservation of the particularState in that war of nation against nation which Hobbes so eloquentlydescribes: "For the nature of war, consists not in actual fighting; butin the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is noassurance to the contrary. "[14] In so far, then, as the provision of education by the State isundertaken with this end in view, it may be maintained that part, atleast, of the cost of its provision should be borne by the generaltaxpayer in return for the greater national and economic security whichhe enjoys through the greater efficiency of the nation as an economicand military unit. But the spread and the higher efficiency of education confers inaddition both a local and an individual benefit. It confers a localbenefit, in so far as by its means advantages accrue to any particulardistrict. It confers an individual benefit, in so far as through themeans of education placed at his disposal the individual is enabled toattain to a higher degree of social efficiency than would otherwise havebeen possible. Further, if we look at this question not from the point of view ofbenefit received, but from that of the obligation imposed, we reach asimilar result. It is an obligation upon the State to see that themeans of education and their due co-ordination and organisation are ofsuch a nature both in extent and in quality as to furnish a completesystem of means for the training up of the youth of the country toperform efficiently all the services required by such a complexcommunity as the modern State. This duty devolves upon the State chieflyfor the reason set forth by Adam Smith in his discussion of thefunctions of government. It is the duty of the sovereign, he declares, to erect and maintain certain "public institutions which it can never befor the interest of any individual to erect and maintain, because theprofit could never repay the expense to the individual, or small numberof individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to agreat society. "[15] It becomes further an obligation placed upon the local authority to aidthe central authority of the State in the establishment and distributionof the means of education. The local authority by its more intimateknowledge of local circumstances is the most competent to judge of thenature of the education suited to serve its own particular needs, and isbest qualified to undertake the distribution of the means. But the obligation to take advantage of the means for the future benefitof his children is a moral obligation placed upon the shoulders of theindividual parent. It becomes a legal obligation only when, and in sofar as, the moral obligation is not realised by a certain number of thecommunity. Certainly one reason for the making of the education of aman's children a legal obligation is the protection of society againstthe ignorance and wickedness of the minority, but the other andprincipal aim is to endeavour to secure that what at first was imposedas a merely external or legal obligation may pass into a moral andinherent obligation, so that the individual from being governed byoutward restraint may in time be governed by an inward and self-imposedideal. It is no doubt difficult in any particular case to determine exactlywhat precise part of the cost should be allocated to each of the threebenefiting parties, but in any national organisation of the means ofeducation this threefold distribution of cost should somehow or other beundertaken. From this it follows, that while it may legitimately be laid down thatupon the State must fall the obligation of securing the adequateprovision and the due distribution of the means of education, yet thefurther duty of the State in this respect is limited to the removing ofobstacles which stand in the way of the fulfilment of the parent'sobligation to educate his children, and to the securing to each childequality of opportunity to obtain an education in kind and quality whichwill serve to fit him hereafter to perform his special duty to society. Although since 1891 elementary education has been practically free inthis country and the whole cost of its provision is now undertaken atthe public expense, yet except from the socialistic position that theprovision of education is a communal and not a personal and moralobligation, this public provision of the funds for elementary educationcan be upheld from the individualistic point of view only on twogrounds. In the first place, it might be maintained that the protectivebenefit derived from the imparting of the elements of education is sogreat to all that its cost may legitimately be laid upon the communityin its corporate capacity. It is on this ground of education beingbeneficial to the whole society that Adam Smith declares that theexpense of the institutions for education may, without injustice, bedefrayed by the general contributions of the whole society. But at thesame time Adam Smith recognises that education provides an immediate andpersonal benefit, and that the expense might with equal propriety belaid upon the shoulders of those benefited. In the second place, it may be maintained that the imposition of schoolfees created such a hindrance in a large number of cases to thefulfilment of the moral obligation that it was expedient on the part ofthe State to remove this obstacle by freeing education as a whole. Insupport of this, it might be further urged that the difficulty ofdiscriminating between the marginal cases in which the imposition ofschool fees really proved a hindrance and those in which it did not isgreat, and that the partial relief of payment of school fees laid thestigma of pauperism upon many who from unpreventable causes were unableto meet the direct cost of the education of their children. But, except on the grounds that either the protective benefit to societyis so great and so important, or that the charging of any part of thecost directly to the parent imposes a hindrance in a large number ofcases, there is no justification for the contention that because theState compels the individual to educate his children, therefore theState should fully provide the means. If this be so, then the further contention that the means of educationfrom the elementary to the university stage should be provided at thepublic expense, and that no part of the cost should be laid directlyupon the individual parent's shoulders, must also be judged to beerroneous. The first duty of the State, in the matter of the provision of highereducation, is limited to seeing that the provision of the means ofhigher education is adequate to the demand made for it; further, it mayendeavour to encourage and to stimulate this demand in various ways. Themeans being provided, the second duty of the State is to endeavour tosecure that any hindrance which might reasonably prevent the use ofthese means by those fitted to benefit therefrom should be removed. Butthe only justification for the interference of the State is that thecompulsion exacted in the matter of taxes or otherwise is of smallmoment compared with the capacity for freedom and intellectualdevelopment set free in the individuals benefited. In other words, thecost involved by the removal of the hindrance must be reckoned as smallcompared with the ultimate good to the community as manifested in thehigher development--in the higher welfare of its individual members. But the practical realisation of the ideal need not involve thateducation should be free from the lowest to the topmost rung of theso-called educational ladder. It is indeed questionable whether theladder simile has not been a potent instrument in giving a wrongdirection to our ideals of the essential nature of what an educationalorganisation should aim at. Education should indeed provide a system ofadvancing means, but the system of means may lead to many and variousaims instead of one. However that may be, what we wish to insist upon isthat the State's duty in this matter can be fulfilled not by freeingeducation as a whole, but by establishing a system of bursaries orallowances, enabling each individual who otherwise would be hinderedfrom using the means to take advantage of the higher education provided. In the awarding of aid of this nature, the two tests of ability toprofit from the education and of need of material means must both beemployed. If the former test only is applied, then the result is that inmany cases the advantage is secured by those best able to pay for highereducation. If the objection be made that the granting of aid on mereneed shown is to place the stigma of pauperism upon the recipient, thenthe only answer is that in so thinking the individual misconceives thereal nature of the aid, fails to understand that it is help towardsdoing without help--aid to enable the individual to reach a higher andfuller development of his powers, both for his own future welfare andfor the betterment of society. FOOTNOTES: [13] _National Education and National Life_, ibid. P. 101. [14] Hobbes, _Leviathan_, p. 1. Chap. Xiii. [15] Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, ed. J. Shield Nicholson (Nelsons). CHAPTER VI THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION--MEDICAL EXAMINATION ANDINSPECTION OF SCHOOL CHILDREN In considering the question of the relation of the State to education, we have adopted the position that it is the duty of the State to see tothe adequate provision of the means of education, to their duedistribution and to their proper organisation. At the same time we foundthat the obligation of the State in this respect did not necessarilyinvolve that the whole cost of this provision should be borne at thepublic expense, and that no part of the burden should be placed on theshoulders of the individual parents. As regards the provision ofelementary education, we indeed found that the whole burden might belegitimately laid upon the general taxpayer, upon the grounds eitherthat the protective benefit of elementary education to the community wasgreat, or that the hindrance opposed by the imposition of school fees tothe fulfilment of a man's moral obligation to provide for the educationof his children was so general that a case might be made out for freeingelementary education as a whole. But except from the position that theprovision of education was a communal and not a personal obligation, wefound no grounds for the contention that education throughout itsvarious stages should be a charge upon the community as a whole. But the provision of the means of education may involve much more thanthe mere provision of adequately equipped school buildings and of fullytrained teachers, and we have now to inquire what other provision isnecessary in order to secure the after social efficiency of the childrenof the nation, and what part of this provision rightly may be includedwithin the scope of the duties of the State. Is the medical inspection of children attending Public ElementarySchools one of these duties, and, if so, what action on the part of theState does this involve? The importance of the thorough and systematic medical examination ofchildren attending school as a necessary measure to secure their afterphysical and economic efficiency as well as for their intellectualdevelopment and welfare during the school period has been recognised bymany Continental countries. To take but one or two illustrativeexamples, we may note that in Brussels every place of public instructionis visited at least once in every ten weeks by one of the sixteendoctors appointed for this purpose. The school doctor amongst otherduties has to report on the state of the various classrooms, theirheating, lighting and ventilation, and also upon the condition in whichhe has found the playgrounds, lavatories and cloakrooms attached to theschool. Cases of illness involving temporary absence from school arereported to him as well as the cases involving prolonged absence fromschool. Children are medically examined upon admission to school, and a recordis made of their age, height, weight, chest measurement, etc. "Anynatural or accidental infirmity is chronicled, state of eyes and teeth, dental operations performed at school, etc. This examination is repeatedannually, so as to keep a record of each child's physical development. "Great attention, moreover, is paid to the cleanliness of the childrenattending school, and the children are examined daily by the teacherupon their entrance to school. [16] In most of the large towns of Germany a system of periodical medicalexamination and inspection of children attending school has also beenestablished. _E. G. _, in 1901 Berlin appointed ten doctors for thispurpose, with the following amongst other duties:-- 1. To examine children on their first admission as to their fitness to attend school. 2. To examine children with the co-operation of a specialist for the presence of defect in the particular sense organs (sight, hearing). 3. To examine children who are supposed to be defective and who may require special treatment. 4. To examine periodically the school buildings and arrangements and to report on any hygienic defects. [17] In England, although there is no specific provision for the incurring ofthe expense of conducting the medical inspection of children attendingthe Public Elementary Schools, it is generally held that the expense maybe legitimately included in the general powers assigned to educationalauthorities under the Act of 1870; and, especially since 1892, inseveral areas, a definite system of medical inspection has beenestablished, and in many others there is a likelihood that some systemof medical inspection will be organised in the immediate future. According to the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on theMedical Inspection and Feeding of School Children, published in November1905, out of 328 local education authorities, 48 had established a moreor less definitely organised system of medical examination, whilst ineighteen other districts teachers and sanitary officers had undertakenorganised work for the amelioration of the physical condition ofchildren attending Public Elementary Schools. As a rule, this inspectionis limited "to the examination of the children and to the discovering ofdefects of eyesight, hearing, or physical development. " When theexistence of the defect is discovered, the parent is notified, but as ageneral rule the public authority does not include within its duties thetreatment of the ailments and defects or the provision of remedialinstruments when required. Further, in no case has there been carried out a thorough anthropometricrecord, such as that in vogue in the schools of Brussels, of thecondition of the physical nature of the child upon admission to schooland his subsequent physical development. In Scotland we find no general or adequate system of medical inspectioncarried out by the local school authorities. The Report of the RoyalCommission on Physical Training (Scotland), issued in March 1903, declares, however, that such a system is urgently needed, mainly forremedial purposes. By this means defects in the organs of sight orhearing, in mental development, in physical weakness, or in state ofnutrition, such as demand special treatment in connection with schoolwork, might be detected, and by simple means removed or mitigated. Butalthough in the Education (Scotland) Bill of 1905 provision was made forthe institution of medical inspection at the public expense, yet throughthe failure of the Bill to pass nothing of a systematic nature has beendone to organise the medical inspection of Elementary School children inany district in Scotland. From this brief account of what either has been already done or isproposed to be done, it is apparent that there is a gradual awakening ofthe nation to the fact that the care of the physical nature of the childduring the school period is of fundamental importance from the point ofview of the future welfare and efficiency of the nation. In theendeavour to reach this aim it is necessary that the examination of thechild should be undertaken in a systematic manner, and that means shouldbe adopted for the remedy of any defects. In particular every child onadmission to school should be examined in order to discover whetherthere is any defect present in the special organs of sense, [18] andperiodical examinations should be made in order to discover whether theschool work is tending to produce any injury to the various senses. Forit is a well-known fact that often cases of seeming stupidity andseeming carelessness are not due either to the want of intelligence onthe one hand or of inattention on the other, on the part of the child, but may be traced to slight defects of eyesight and of hearing. In orderthat they may discover these defects teachers ought to be trained in theobservation of the main symptoms which imply defects, and should bepractised in the art of applying the simpler and more obvious remediesfor eye and ear defects. More difficult cases should be referred to themedical officer of the school. Again, it ought to be a matter of inquiryat the beginning of the school period as to whether the child possessesany physical defect which would make it difficult for him to undertakethe full work of the school. In some cases it would be found that thechild was altogether unable to undertake this work, and measures shouldbe taken to remedy the defect before the child enters upon the schoolcourse. Lastly, it is now realised that more attention must be paid tothe differences that exist between individual children, and that in thecase of children with a low degree of intelligence it is much betterboth for themselves and for the school generally to institute specialclasses or special schools for their education. But in order that this medical examination may be thoroughly andsystematically carried out, special legislative authority must be givento education authorities to incur expense under this head, andregulations must be laid down by the central authority for the carryingout of this inspection so as to secure something like a uniform systemof examination throughout the country. For this purpose there should beattached to each school area a medical officer, or officers, chargedwith the sole duty of attending to the hygienic conditions under whichthe school work is carried on, and of periodically examining thechildren attending the schools of his district. That the duty of carrying out the medical examination of schoolchildren falls upon the State and should be met out of public funds maybe justified on various grounds. In the first place, it is necessary asa measure of protection, in order to prevent the child's growing upimperfectly, and thus becoming in adult life a less efficient member ofsociety. School work often accentuates certain troubles, and these ifneglected tend gradually to render the individual more and more unfittedto undertake some special occupation in after-life. Any eye specialistcould furnish evidence of numerous cases in which the eyes have beenruined through some slight defect becoming intensified through misuse. In the second place, the examination for physical and mental defectcannot in a large number of cases be left to the self-interest andjudgment of the individual parent, and unless undertaken by the publicauthority will not be undertaken at all. In the third place, if it is left to merely voluntary agencies, it isimperfectly done, and in many cases recourse is had to the variousvoluntary agencies when the trouble has become acute, and in some casesimpossible of remedy. On these three grounds--of its necessity for the future public welfare, that the self-interest of the parent often proves but a feeble motivepower, and that the voluntary agencies placed at the disposal of thepoor are unable systematically to undertake this work--we may maintainthat the duty may legitimately be laid upon the State. But the further question as to how far it becomes the duty of the Stateto undertake the provision of remedial measures either in the way ofsupplying medical aid or in the provision in necessitous cases ofremedial measures, as _e. G. _ spectacles in the case of defectiveeyesight, is a question of much greater difficulty. At present any positive help of this nature is the exception rather thanthe rule, and is undertaken by agencies worked on the voluntaryprinciple, and the remedial measures adopted are limited to thetreatment of certain minor ailments. _E. G. _, in Liverpool, Birmingham, and other places, Queen's nurses regularly visit the schools, andundertake either in school or at the homes of the children simplecurative treatment of minor surgical cases. But while it may be heldthat the duty of the State is limited to the medical examination ofschool children in order to discover the presence of physical and mentaldefects, and that this being done, any further responsibility, whetherin the way either of providing or procuring remedies, falls upon theindividual parent, yet we have sufficient evidence to show that, in manycases, either through the poverty or the apathy and indifference of theparents, no steps are taken in the way of providing the necessaryremedies, and as a consequence we have growing up in our midst childrenwho in after-life will, through the lack of simple curative treatmentundertaken at the proper time, become more or less socially inefficient. Moreover, it is to be noted that in this matter the State has alreadyrecognised its public obligation to provide remedial aid in itsprovision for the education and lodging of the blind, the deaf and thedumb, and in the measures taken within recent years for the specialeducation of the defective and the epileptic. The provision for thesepurposes may indeed be justified on the grounds that the expense of theeducation of children of the industrial classes so afflicted is beyondthe powers of any one individual, or group of individuals, to supply, and that unless undertaken by the State it would not be efficientlymade, with the consequence of throwing the maintenance hereafter ofthese particular classes upon the community: on the ground, therefore, of the future protective benefit to society, such expense may belegitimately laid upon the community as a whole. Further, in thesecases, the danger of the weakening of the sense of parentalresponsibility is not an extreme danger to the Commonwealth, since theaid is definitely limited to a restricted number of cases, and sincethe moral obligation imposed upon the individual to provide for theeducation of his children could in many cases not be fulfilled withoutthe by far greater portion of the expense being provided by means ofpublic or voluntary aid. In like manner, the expense of the special education of the morallydefective in Industrial Schools and in other institutions may bejustified on the ground of the present and future protective benefit tosociety. In these cases parental government has either altogether ceasedor become too weak to act as an effective restraining force, and as aconsequence the community for its own self-preservation has to undertakethe control and education of the actual or incipient youthful criminal. In their Report the Royal Commissioners on Physical Training (Scotland)sadly declare that Industrial and similar institutions certainly givethe boys and girls who come under their influence advantages in feedingand physical training which are not open to the children of independentand respectable though poor parents. _The contrast between the conditionof children as seen in the poorer day schools and children in Industrialinstitutions, whose parents have altogether failed to do their duty, isboth marked and painful. _[19] And yet it might be urged that the protective benefit likely to bederived in the future by the provision of remedial means for the removalof the simpler defects in the case of the children of parents unablewithout great difficulty to supply these themselves is no less evidentthan in the more extreme cases. But here the only sound principle ofguidance is to ask whether the remedial measures required are reasonablywithin the power of the parent to provide. If they are not, no communitywhich exercises a wise forethought will suffer children to grow upgradually becoming more and more defective, more and more likely inafter-life to be a burden upon its resources. But this question of theprovision of remedial aid involves a much larger question, which weshall now discuss. APPENDIX As showing the need for the systematic examination of the special senseorgans, I append a summary of the results arrived at and the conclusionsreached by Dr. Wright Thomson after examination of the eyesight ofchildren attending the Public Elementary Schools under the GlasgowSchool Board:-- "The teachers tested the visual acuteness of 52, 493 children, and found 18, 565, or 35 per cent. , to be below what is regarded as the normal standard. "I examined the 18, 565 defectives by retinoscopy, and found that 11, 209, or 21 per cent. Of the whole, had ocular defects. "The percentage with ocular defects was fairly constant in all the schools, but the percentage with defective vision was very variable--_i. E. _, many children with normal eyes were found to see badly. "The proportion of these cases was highest in the poor and closely-built districts and in old schools, and was lowest in the better class schools and in those near the outskirts of the city. "The proportion of such cases in the country schools of Chryston and Cumbernauld was much lower than in any of the city schools; and in Industrial Schools, where the children are fed at school, the proportion was lower than among Board School children of a corresponding social class. "Defective vision, apart from ocular defect, seems to be due, partly to want of training of the eyes for distant objects, and partly to exhaustion of the eyes, which is easily induced when work is carried on in bad light, or the nutrition of the children defective from bad feeding and unhealthy surroundings. "Regarding training of the eyes for distant objects, much might be done in the infant department by the total abolition of sewing, which is definitely hurtful to such young eyes, and the substitution of competitive games involving the recognition of small objects at a distance of 20 feet or more. "Teachers can determine the visual acuteness, but they cannot decide whether or not an ocular defect is present. "Visual acuteness, especially among poor children, is variable at different times. "Teachers should have access to sight-testing materials at all times, and should have the opportunity of referring suspected cases for medical opinion. "An annual testing by the teachers, followed by medical inspection of the children found defective, would soon cause all existing defects to be corrected, and would lead to the detection of those which develop during school life. " An examination of 502 children attending the Church of Scotland TrainingCollege School, Glasgow, as regards defects in eyesight and hearing, wasmade by Drs. Rowan and Fullerton respectively, with the followingresults:-- "As regards eyesight-- "61. 55 per cent. Were passed as normal, while of those defective 7. 57 were aware of the fact; some few of these had already received treatment, but 30. 88 were quite unaware that there was anything wrong, these unfortunates being expected to do the same work as, and hold their own with, their more fortunate classmates. "As regards hearing-- 54. 4 per cent. Were found normal. 27. 6 " " were defective. 18. " " were distinctly defective. " I append the very valuable suggestions and conclusions of Dr. Rowan, who conducted the examination on the eyesight of children:-- "After examining 502 children, which involved the examination of 1004 eyes, one is forced to certain conclusions. These children are taken at random, and in this way they may be considered as a fair sample of their age and class. "I think one of the first things that force themselves on our notice is the difficulties under which many of those children labour, and of which they, their parents and teachers are quite unaware. The children are considered dull, careless, or lazy, as the case may be: they themselves, poor unfortunates, do not know how to complain, and seem just to struggle along as best they can, though this struggle, without adequate result, must discourage them, and in this indirect way, too, make their future prospects more hopeless. "Some would be considerably benefited by treatment and operation, or both, while for some little can be done. Some of those who could be benefited are deprived of help by their parents' ignorance or prejudice. "In the case of those for whom little or nothing can be done, and whose sight is very defective, it seems to me the question ought to be raised as to whether their present mode of education should not be replaced by some other, which would endeavour to develop their abilities in other ways than through their eyesight; in short, they should have special training with the view of fitting them for some form of employment for which they are more fitted than the ordinary occupations of everyday life. This raises a difficult question, and each case would have to be settled on its merits. The difficulty must be faced; otherwise the children will simply drift and become idle and useless, while, if educated, at any rate partly, on the system for the blind, they would become useful members of society. "I think no one, after studying the result of this examination of what may be by some considered a small number of children, can doubt that a thorough medical examination of all school children should be made when they enter school, and this examination repeated at regular intervals. "I hold this applies not only to the children of the poor, but to children in all ranks of life, as one constantly, and that, too, in private practice, meets with cases where children are considered dull and lazy, while the real fault lies with the parents, who have not taken the trouble to ascertain the physical fitness or unfitness of their children. "I am glad to say it is now becoming more common for children to be taken to the family doctor, to a specialist, or to both, to be thoroughly overhauled before starting school-life; and in many cases with most satisfactory results, as their training can be modified or treatment ordered which prevents the development of those pathological conditions which, in many cases, would limit the choice of occupation, or, if these are already present, they can at least be modified or even overcome. "I wish to emphasise the fact that those thorough medical examinations should be repeated in the case of all children at regular intervals, as in this way alone can a proper physical standard be maintained, and deviations from the normal detected promptly and in many cases cured before the sufferer is aware of their presence. "How often in examining our adult patients do we find them much surprised when they are told and convinced by actual proof that all their life they have depended on one eye only! This fact, of course, they sometimes accidentally discover for themselves, and come with the statement that the eye has suddenly gone blind. In the majority of these cases the weaker eye is useless, and the possibility of making it of any use is, at their age, practically _nil_. " FOOTNOTES: [16] Cf. _Special Report on Educational Subjects_, vol. Ii. [17] Cf. _Report on Elementary Schools of Berlin and Charlottenburg_, byG. Andrew, Esq. [18] Cf. Appendix, pp. 62-65. [19] _Report Royal Commission on Physical Training_ (_Scotland_), vol. I. (Neill & Co, . Edinburgh). CHAPTER VII THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION--THE FEEDING OF SCHOOL CHILDREN A much more important and far-reaching question than that of the Stateprovision for the medical examination and inspection of childrenattending Public Elementary Schools is the question of whether, and towhat extent, the State should undertake the provision of school mealsfor underfed children. Of the existence of the evil of under and improper feeding of children, especially in many of our large towns, there is no doubt. The numerousvoluntary agencies which have been brought into existence to cope withthe former are sufficient evidence that the evil exists and that it isof a widespread nature. Again, the high rate of infant mortality amongstthe children of the lower classes is largely due to ignorance on thepart of parents of the nature and proper preparation of food suitablefor children. Further, the social conditions under which many of thepoor live in our large towns is a contributing cause of this improperfeeding. In many cases there is no adequate provision in the home forthe cooking and preparation of food, and in others the absence of themother at work during the day necessitates the children "fending" forthemselves in the providing of their meals. However, in considering thisquestion we must carefully distinguish between three distinct causesoperating to produce the condition of underfeeding, and as a consequenceresulting in three distinct classes of underfed children. As the causesor groups of causes are different in nature, so the remedies also varyin character. Moreover, in many cases we find all three causesoperating, now one and now the other, to produce the chronicunderfeeding of the child. In the first place, the underfeeding of the child may arise through thetemporary poverty of the parent due to his temporary illness ortemporary unemployment. In normal circumstances, in these cases reliefis best afforded by means of the voluntary agencies of society. Inabnormal circumstances, such as are caused by a widespread depression ofindustry, the evil may be met by a special effort on the part of thevoluntary agencies or by municipalities or other bodies providingtemporary relief-work. In the second place, the underfeeding of the child may be due to thechronic and permanent poverty of the parent. The wages of thebreadwinner even when in full work may be insufficient to affordadequate support for a numerous family. This condition of things is notpeculiar to Great Britain, but is a common characteristic in the life ofthe poor of all civilised nations. This is where the real sting of theproblem of underfeeding lies, and the causes at work tending to producethis condition of things are too deep-seated and too widely spread to beremoved by any one remedy. Moreover, in endeavouring to cure thisdisease of the Commonwealth we are ever in danger of perpetuating andintensifying the causes at work tending to produce the evil. In the third place, the underfeeding of the child may arise through theindifference, the selfishness, or the vice of the parents. In such casesthe parents could feed their children, but do not. Manifestly in casesof this character there is no obligation placed upon the State and norightful claim upon any charitable agency to provide food for thechildren. To give aid simply weakens further the parental sense ofresponsibility, and leaves a wider margin to be spent on viciouspleasures. But while there is no obligation placed upon the State toprovide the necessaries of life for the child, there is need andjustification in such cases for the intervention of the State. There isneed, for otherwise the child suffers through the criminal neglect ofthe parents, and the community must interfere for the sake of the futuresocial efficiency of the individual and of the nation. There isjustification, for here as in the case of the parents of the morallydefective, parental responsibility has either ceased to act or becometoo weak a motive force to be effective in securing the welfare of thechild. As the individual parent neglects his duty, so and to thecorresponding degree to which this neglect extends, must the duty beenforced by the State. But in the enforcing of this or of any duty wemust be quite sure that the neglect is really due to the weakened senseof responsibility of the parent, that it is a condition of things whichhe could remove if he had the moral will to do so, and that the neglectis not due to causes beyond the power of the parent to remove. Cases in which there is culpable neglect of the child due not topoverty, but to the fact that the money which should go to the propernutrition of the child is squandered in drink, or on other enervatingpleasures, are therefore cases in which recourse must be had to measureswhich enforce upon the parent the obligation to feed and clothe hischildren. The really difficult question is as to the best means ofenforcing this obligation. Manifestly to punish by fine or imprisonmentdoes little in many cases to alleviate the sufferings of the children. The punishment falls upon them as well as upon the parent, and where thelatter is dead to, or careless of, the public opinion of his fellows, itfails to initiate that reform of conduct which ought to be the aim ofall punishment. If indeed by imposition of fine, or by imprisonment, theindividual realises his neglect of duty, repents, and as a consequencereforms, then good and well, but as a rule the neglect of the child isin such cases a moral disease of long standing and not easily cured, andso we find often that neither punishment by fine nor imprisonment, evenwhen repeated several times, is effective in making the parent realisehis responsibility and reform his conduct. All the while the child goeson suffering. He is no better fed during the period of fine orimprisonment, and the wrath of the parent is often visited upon hisunoffending head. The second method of cure proposed is to feed the children at the publicexpense and to recover the cost by process of law. But the practicaldifficulties in carrying out this plan are similar in kind to thoseformerly experienced in the recovery of unpaid school fees. The cost ofrecovering is often greater than the expense involved, and as aconsequence local authorities are not inclined to prosecute. Further, there is the difficulty of discriminating between underfeeding due towilful and culpable neglect and underfeeding due to the actual chronicpoverty of the parent. If this plan is to be effective, some simplermethod of recovery of cost than that which now prevails must be adopted. _E. G. _, it might be enacted that the sum decreed for should be deductedfrom the weekly wages of the parent by his employer. Here again manydifficulties would present themselves in the carrying out of this plan. In the case of certain employments this could not be done. In othercases, employers would be unwilling to undertake the invidious task. Moreover, the cost of collection might equal or be greater than the costincurred. Above all, such a method would do little to alleviate thesufferings and better the nutrition of the child. In most cases theschool provides but one meal a day. Experience has shown that in thecase of children of the dissolute the free meal at the school means lessfood at home. Were the cost deducted from the weekly wages of theparent, the result would be intensified. So great have been thedifficulties felt in this matter that with one or two exceptions noforeign country has made the attempt to recover the cost of feeding fromthe parent. Yet the disease requires a remedy. The evil is too dangerousto the future social welfare of the community to be allowed to go onunchecked and unremedied. Moreover, to endeavour to educate thepersistently underfed children of our slums is to do them a twofoldinjury. By the exercises of the school we use up, in many cases, withlittle result, the small store of energy lodged in the brain and nervoussystem of the child, and leave nothing either for the repair of thenervous system or for the growth of his body generally. We prematurelyexhaust his nervous system, and by so doing we hinder his bodily growthand development. To make matters worse, we often insist that the childin order to aid his physical development must undergo an exhaustingsystem of physical exercises when what is most wanted for this purposeis good and nourishing food and a sufficiency of sleep. At the same timethat we are neglecting the nutrition of his body we are spending anincreasing yearly sum on the so-called education of his mind. What, then, is the remedy? If fining and imprisonment of the parent onlyaccentuate the sufferings of the child, if they fail to make the parentrealise his responsibility and reform his conduct, if the provision of afree meal at school means less food at home, then there is only onethorough-going remedy for the evil, and that is to take the child awayfrom the parent, to educate and feed him at the public expense, and torecover the cost as far as possible from the parent. In Norway thisdrastic method has been adopted. Under a law passed on the 6th January1896, the authorities are empowered "to place neglected children insuitable homes or families at the cost of the municipality, the parent, however, being liable, if called upon, to defray the cost. "[20] The reasons for taking this extreme step are obvious. By no method ofpunishing the persistently dissolute and neglectful parent can you beassured of securing the proper nutrition and welfare of the child. Parental affection in these cases is dead, and parental responsibilityfor the present and future welfare of the child has ceased to act as amotive force. As a consequence, the child grows up to be, at best, socially inefficient, and liable in later life to be a burden upon thecommunity. In many cases, the evil and sordid influences of his home andsocial environment soon check any springs of good in his nature, andmore than likely he becomes in later life not merely a sociallyinefficient member of the community but an active socially destructiveagent. Hence, on the ground of the future protective benefit to society, on the ground of securing the future social efficiency of theindividual, on the ground that it is only by some such system we canever hope to raise the moral efficiency of the rising generation of theslums, the method above advocated is worthy of consideration. Against the adoption of such a method of treatment of the dissoluteparent many objections may be urged, and it would be foolish to minimisethe dangers which might follow its systematic and thorough carrying intopractice. But the possible injury to the community through the weakeningof the sense of parental responsibility seems to me small in comparisonwith the future good likely to result from the increased physical, economic, and ethical efficiency of the next generation which mightreasonably be expected to follow from the rigorous carrying out of sucha plan for a time. The fear lest a larger and larger number of parentsmight endeavour to rid themselves of the direct care of their children, if this plan were adopted, need not deter us. If this plan were carriedinto practice, then some extension of the scope of the Industrial Actswould be rendered necessary, and some such extension seems to have beenin the minds of the Select Committee in their Report on the Education(Provision of Meals) Bill, 1906, in considering theirrecommendations. [21] But the importance of the two classes of cases already considered sinksinto comparative insignificance compared with the third class of cases. Temporary underfeeding caused by temporary poverty can be met in manyways without to any appreciable degree lessening the sense of the moralobligation of the parent to provide the personal necessities of food andclothing for his children. In the case, again, of the persistentlydissolute and neglectful parent, moral considerations have ceased tooperate, and so the individual by some method or other must be forced toperform whatever part of the obligation can be exacted from him. But in the third class of cases parental responsibility may be an activeand willing force, yet the means available may be so limited in extentthat the child is in the chronic condition of being underfed. No one whocarefully considers the information recently supplied by the Board ofEducation as to the methods of feeding the children attending PublicElementary Schools in the great Continental cities and in America canarrive at any other conclusion than that here we are in the presence ofan evil not local but general, and apparently incidental to theorganisation of the modern industrial State. For whether by voluntaryagencies, by municipal grants, or by State aid, every great Continentalcity has found it necessary to organise and institute some system offeeding school children. The only inference to be drawn from such a condition of things is thatin a large number of cases the normal wages of the labourer areinsufficient to maintain himself and his family in anything like adecent standard of comfort. How large a proportion of the population ofour great cities is in this condition it is difficult exactly toestimate, but there is no doubt that a very considerable number of casesof the chronic underfeeding of school children may be traced to theinsufficiency of the home income to support the family. The moralobligation to provide the personal necessities of food and clothing forhis children is active, but the means for the realisation of theobligation cannot be provided in many cases the endeavour fully to meetthe needs of the child results in the lessened efficiency of thebreadwinner of the family. The real causes at work tending to keep the wages of the unskilledlabourer ever hovering round a mere subsistence rate must be removed, ifanything like a permanent cure of this social evil is to be effected. Wemust endeavour on the one hand to lessen the supply of unskilled labour. By so doing the reward of such labour will tend to be increasedmaterially. On the other hand, we must during the next decade or twoendeavour by every means in our power to ensure that a larger and largernumber of the children of the very poor shall in the next generationpass into the ranks of skilled labour. But in the meantime something must be done. The children are there; theystill suffer; and their wrongs cry aloud for redress. It is certainlytrue that any aid given to the child will tend meanwhile to keep thewages at bare subsistence rates. It is also true that the distributionof relief only tends to make the poor comfortable in their poverty, instead of helping them to rise out of it. All this and much more mightbe urged against the demand to institute and organise the systematicpublic feeding of school children. But these evils are evils which fallupon the present adult population. Education has, however, to do withthe future, with the next generation and not with this. Its aim is tosecure that as large a number as possible of the children of the presentgeneration will grow up to be economically and ethically efficientmembers of the community. To secure this end the problem of underfeedingis only one of the problems that must be solved. If we adopt somesystematic plan for securing the full nutrition of the children of thepresent, this must go hand in hand with other remedies. During the stageof transition we shall have to take into account that for a time thewages of the poorest class of labourer will tend to remain at theirpresent low rate; we shall have to face the danger that by giving suchaid we may in some cases still further weaken the sense of moralobligation of the parents of the present generation. If, on the otherhand, we do nothing, or if we look to the present voluntary agencies togo on doing what they can to remedy the evil, what then? Will the evilbe lessened in the next generation? Assuredly not, if the experience ofthe present and of the past are safe guides as to what we may expect inthe future. Hence we have no hesitation in urging that the feeding of childrenattending the Public Elementary Schools should be organised on linessimilar to the recommendations laid down in the _Special Report from theSpecial Committee on Education_ (_Provision of Meals_) _Bill_, 1906. [22] But if we carry out these recommendations and do nothing else, then itmay be that we shall partially remedy the evil in the next generation, but we shall to a large extent perpetuate the present condition ofthings. Side by side with this, we must institute and set other agenciesat work. By the institution of Free Kindergarten Schools in the poorerdistricts of our large towns, by postponing the beginning of the formaleducation of the child to a later age, by a scientific course ofphysical education, by better trade and technical schools, and if needbe by the compulsory attendance of children at evening continuationschools, we must bend our every effort to secure that the ranks of thecasual, the unskilled, and the unemployable shall be lessened, and theranks of the skilled and intelligent worker increased. As the freeing of elementary education can be justified on the groundthat the education of the child is necessary for the future protectionof the State, so on similar grounds it may be urged that the nutritionof the child is also necessary. Without this our merely educationalagencies can never adequately secure the social efficiency of the cominggeneration. At the same time, unless in the future the need for freeeducation and free food becomes less and less, and unless by the meanssketched above we rear up a generation economically and morallyindependent, then truly we have not discovered the method by which mancan be raised to independence and rationality. APPENDIX _Recommendations of the Select Committee on Education_ (_Provision ofMeals_) _Bill_, 1906. "The evidence, verbal and documentary, placed before the Committee has led them to arrive at the following general conclusions:-- "1. That it is expedient that the Local Education Authority should be empowered to organise and direct the provision of a midday meal for children attending Public Elementary Schools, and that statutory powers should be given to Local Authorities to establish Committees to deal with school canteens. "2. That such Committees should be composed of representatives of the Local Education Authority, representatives of the Voluntary Subscribers, and where thought desirable a representative of the Board of Guardians, and of the local branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, where such exists. That the Head Teacher, the School Attendance Officer, and the Relieving Officer should work in association with such Committee. "3. That power should be given for the Local Education Authorities, when they deem it desirable, to raise loans and spend money on the provision of suitable accommodation and officials, and for the preparation, cooking, and serving of meals to the children attending Public Elementary Schools. "4. That only in extreme and exceptional cases, where it can be shown that neither the parents' resources nor Local Voluntary Funds are sufficient to cover the cost, and after the consent of the Board of Education as to the necessity for such expenditure has been obtained, a Local Authority may have recourse to the rates for the provision of the cost of the actual food; the local rate for this purpose to in no case exceed ½d. In the £. "5. That the Local Education Authority should, as far as possible, associate with itself, and encourage the continuance of, voluntary agencies in connection with the work of feeding of children. "6. That whatever steps may be necessary, by way of extension of the Industrial Schools and the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Acts or otherwise, should be taken to secure that parents able to do so and neglecting to make proper provision for the feeding of their children shall be proceeded against for the recovery of the cost; and that the Guardians, or where available the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and not the Local Education Authority, be empowered to prosecute in any cases coming under the law in respect to the neglect of parents to make proper provision for the feeding of their children. "7. That payment for meals, prior to the meal, whenever possible, should be insisted upon from the parents. "8. That it is undesirable that meals should be served in rooms habitually used for teaching purposes, and that the Regulations of the Board of Education should carry this recommendation into effect. "9. That whilst strong testimony has been placed before the Committee to the effect that the teachers have given and are giving admirable service in the way of supervising the provision of meals to the children, it is the opinion of the Committee that it ought not to be made part of the conditions attaching to the appointment of any teacher that he (or she) shall or shall not take part in dispensing meals provided for the children, and that the Board of Education should carry this recommendation into effect. " FOOTNOTES: [20] Cf. Underfed Children in Continental and American Cities (presentedto Parliament, April 1906). [21] Cf. _Report on Education_ (_Provision of Meals_) _Bill_, especiallyRecommendation 6, Appendix, p. 75. [22] Cf. Appendix, p. 75. CHAPTER VIII THE ORGANISATION OF THE MEANS OF EDUCATION Throughout we have assumed that it is the duty of the State to see tothe adequate provision, to the due distribution, and to the properco-ordination of all the agencies of education, and we have taken upthis position mainly on the ground that neither the adequate provisionnor the proper co-ordination of the means of education can be safelyleft to the self-interest of the individual or any group of individuals. If left to be accomplished by purely voluntary agencies, both theprovision and the co-ordination will remain imperfect, and as a nationwe can no longer neglect the systematic organisation and grading of themeans of education. But a misapprehension must first be removed. In declaring that all theagencies of formal education should be under control of the State, it isnot to be inferred that this control should be bureaucratic. In manyminds State control is synonymous with government by inspectors andother officials of the central authority. But bureaucratic control in anation whose government is founded on a representative basis is adisease rather than a normal condition of such government. In a countrywhere the sovereign power is vested in an individual or in a limitednumber of individuals, bureaucratic control is and must be an essentialfeature of its government. On the other hand, where the government isfounded upon the representative principle, the appearance of bureaucracyis an indication of some imperfection in the organisation of the Stateitself. The introduction of the representative principle may have beentoo premature or its extension too rapid, and as a consequence thegovernment of the people by themselves is ineffective through thegeneral want of an enlightened self-interest amongst the majority of thenation. In such a condition of affairs, if progress is to be made, itcan only be accomplished effectively through an enlightened minorityforcing its will upon the unenlightened and ignorant majority, and as aresult we may have the creation of an army of official inspectors whosechief duty becomes to secure that the will of the central authority isrealised. In such a condition of things the tendency ever is for moreand more power to fall into the hands of the permanent officials. But this condition of things may arise in a government founded upon therepresentative principle in another way. The organs through which thewill of the people makes itself known may be imperfect, so that as aconsequence it fails to find adequate expression, or its expression isfelt only at infrequent intervals. If, for example, the centralauthority is so overburdened with work that little or insufficientattention is given to many matters of supreme importance for the welfareof the nation, then it follows that more and more power will pass intothe hands of its executive and advisory officers. This condition ofthings will be further intensified if the governing bodies charged withthe local control of national affairs are too weak or too unenlightenedto make their voice effective. Now, the tendency to the bureaucraticcontrol of the educational affairs of our own country may be traced toall three causes. The want of an enlightened self-interest in the matterof education amongst a large number of the people, the ineffectivenessof Parliament to deal thoroughly with purely educational questions, andthe weakness in many cases of the local governing bodies have allcontributed to the gradual creation of the bureaucratic control ofeducation in Great Britain. But this form of control is not entirelyevil, and in certain cases it may be a necessary stage in thedevelopment of a democracy passing from unenlightenment toenlightenment. The remedies for this imperfection, this disease ofrepresentative government in the matter of educational control, are (1)the spread of a more enlightened self-interest as to the value ofeducation as a means of securing the social efficiency of the nation andof the individual, (2) the effective control of education by the centralauthority, and (3) the strengthening of the local authorities bydevolving upon them more and more important educational duties. By thismeans the control of education by the State will become more and morethe control of the people by themselves and for themselves, and thechief function of officials and inspectors will then be to advisecentral and local authorities how best to realise the educational aimsdesired by the common will of the people. Let us now consider the main principles which should guide the State inher organisation of the means of education. In the first place, and upon this all are agreed, the control of allgrades of education, primary, secondary, and technical, should beentrusted to one body in each area or district. For there can be noco-ordination established between the work of the various schoolagencies, and there can be no differentiation of the functions to beundertaken by the various types of school, until there has beenestablished unity of control. In England, by the Act of 1902, a great step was taken towards theunification of all the agencies of education. According to itsprovisions, the School Board system was abolished. "Every County Counciland County Borough Council, and the Borough Councils of every non-countyborough with a population of over 10, 000, and the District Council ofevery urban district with a population over 20, 000, became the localeducation authority for elementary education, while the County Counciland the County Borough Council became the authorities for highereducation, _with the supplementary aid of the Councils of all non-countyboroughs and urban districts_. " By this means the unification ofeducational control has been realised, and already in many districts ofEngland much has been done to further the means of higher education andto co-ordinate this stage with the preceding primary stage. In Scotland the question of the extension of the area of educationalcontrol and of the unification of the various agencies directingeducation still awaits solution. Several plans have been put forward toeffect these ends. [23] In the first place, it has been proposed to retain the present parishSchool Boards for the purpose of elementary education, and to combinetwo or more School Boards for the purposes of providing secondary andtechnical education. This plan, however, meets with little favour. Itwould be difficult to carry into practice, and if realised wouldimperfectly fulfil the end of co-ordinating the work of the variousschool agencies. Its only recommendations are its apparent simplicity, and the fact that it could be carried out with the least possible changein the existing conditions. In the second place, it is proposed to retain the School Board system, but to extend the area over which any particular educational authorityexerts its control, and to place under its direction all grades ofeducation. In the practical carrying out of this plan the presentdistrict areas of counties selected for other purposes have beenproposed as educational units. On the other hand, it has been declaredthat in many cases these areas are unsuitable for educational purposes, and it has been proposed that new areas should be delimited for thispurpose. The chief merit, if it be a merit, of this plan is the retention ineducational control of the _ad hoc_ principle--_i. E. _, of the principleof entrusting one single national interest to a body charged with thesole duty of conserving and furthering the interest. The only reasonsadvanced are the great importance of the educational interest and thefear that if it is entrusted to bodies charged with other duties thisinterest may tend to be neglected. But although both sentiment and theinterests of political parties are involved in the advocacy of the _adhoc_ principle, it must be kept in mind that the School Board system inScotland is universal and that the difficulties of the system whichprevailed in England before its abolition do not exist in Scotland. As aconsequence, it has been much more effective in Scotland than inEngland, and has a much firmer hold on the sentiments of the people. In the third place, it has been proposed to hand over the educationalduties of the country to the County Councils and to the Burgh Councilsof the more important towns, to adopt, in principle, a system ofeducational control similar to that established in England by the Act of1902. Many reasons may be urged for the adoption of the last-named plan, andwe shall briefly state the more important. 1. An _ad hoc_ authority by its very nature is necessarily weaker thanan authority entrusted not merely with the care of a single interest butwith the care of the public interests as a whole. If there is to bedecentralisation of any part of the functions of the central authority, then any form of decentralisation which consists in the handing over ofparticular interests to different local bodies, however it may be forthe advantage of the particular interest is radically bad for thegeneral interests of the community. The calling into existence of anumber of local authorities each having the care of one particularinterest, each pursuing its own aim independently and withoutconsideration of the differing and often conflicting aims of the otherbodies, each having the power of rating for its own particular purposewithout any regard for the general interest of the taxpayer, isradically an unsound form of decentralisation. 2. The establishment of such a form of control fails, and mustnecessarily fail, in the local authorities securing the maximum offreedom and the minimum of interference from the executive officers ofthe central legislative authority. So long as the separate interests ofthe community are entrusted to different local authorities, so long mustthere remain to the central authority and to its executive officers thepower of regulating and harmonising the various and often contendinginterests so as to secure that the general interest of the individualdoes not suffer, and the more keenly each particular body furthers theparticular interest entrusted to its care the greater is the necessityfor this central control and interference, and that the central controlshould be effective. 3. The separation of the so-called educational interests from the otherinterests of the community is not for the good of education itself. Thereal educational interests which have to be determined by the adultportion of the community are the exact nature of the services which anation such as ours requires of its future members. This determined, themethod of their attainment is best entrusted to the educational expert. The first-named end will be better realised by a body composed of men ofdiverse interests than by one which is made up of men with one intensebut often narrow interest. 4. The larger the powers entrusted to any body and the more freedompossessed by it in devising and working out its schemes, the betterchance there is of attracting the best men in the community to undertakethe work. 5. It is questionable whether the interests of the teacher would not bebetter furthered by a local authority entrusted with the care of theinterests of the community as a whole than by a body having charge ofeducation alone. Men entrusted with the larger interests of thecommunity are usually more ready to take wider views than the man who isnarrowed down to one interest. As a rule, they know the value of goodwork done, and are ready and willing to pay for it wherever they findit. 6. Lastly, we may urge the test of practical experience. In England, and especially in London, since the control of education has passed intothe hands of the County Councils a great advance has been made both inthe furthering and in the co-ordination of the means of education. Whether ultimately the control of education be vested in District SchoolBoards or in the County and Burgh Councils, one reform is urgentlyneeded in Scotland, and this is the extension of the area of educationalcontrol, under a strong local authority, and with the entire control ofelementary, secondary, and technical education. In the second place, whatever the area of control chosen it should be ofsuch a nature as to admit within its bounds of schools of differentgrades and of different types, so that children may pass not only fromthe Elementary School to the Secondary, but may pass to the particulartype of Secondary or Higher School which is best fitted to prepare themfor their future life's work. In many cases, in Scotland, we cannot makethe same clear distinction between the various types of school as theydo in Germany, but must remain content with the division of a schoolinto departments; yet in our large towns and in our most populouscentres of industry we must establish schools of different types andwith differing particular ends in view. The third principle of organisation follows from the second. We must seethat our educational system is so organised as to provide an efficientand sufficient supply of all the services which the community requiresof its individual members. In particular, our Higher School system mustbe designed not merely for the supply of the so-called learnedprofessions, but must also make due and adequate provision for thetraining of those who in after-life are destined for the higherindustrial and commercial posts. In particular, we must see that thereis due provision of Trade and Technical Schools, where our futureartisans may become acquainted with the theoretical principlesunderlying their particular art. Fourthly, we must endeavour to make our Elementary School system thebasis and point of departure of all further and higher education. Thiswould not involve that every child should be educated at a Primary andState-aided School, but it does mean and would involve that thePreparatory departments of our present Secondary Schools should modeltheir curriculum on the lines laid down in our Elementary Schools. Fifthly, in the organisation of the means of education, our system, aswe have already pointed out, must be democratic in the sense that themeans of higher education shall be open to all, rich and poor, in orderthat each may be enabled to find and thereafter to fit himself for thatparticular employment for which by nature he is best suited. It mustfurther be aristocratic in the sense that it is selective of the bestability; and finally, it must be restrictive in order that the means ofhigher education may be utilised to the best advantage, and not misusedon those who are unfitted to benefit therefrom. Unity of control; adequacy of area; schools of various types, sufficientin number, and suited to meet the need for the supply of the variousservices required by the State; a common basis in elementary education;means of higher education open to all who can profit thereby; selectionof the best; restriction of those unable to benefit from highereducation--these are the principles which must in the future guide theState organisation of the means of education. FOOTNOTE: [23] For a fuller discussion of this question, see _Scotch EducationReform_, by Dr. Douglas and Professor Jones (Maclehose). CHAPTER IX THE AIM OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION "A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happystate in this world. He that has these two has little more to wish for, and he that wants either of them will be but little the better foranything else. "[24] In these words Locke sets forth for all time whatshould be aimed at in the physical education of the child, and in thelight of modern physiological psychology the position must be emphasisedanew that one of the essential conditions of sound intellectual andmoral vigour is sound physical health, and that body and mind are notthings apart, but that the health of the one ever conditions and isconditioned by the health of the other. Moreover, at the present time, it is all the more necessary to insistupon the need for the systematic care of the physical culture of thechild, since in many cases the conditions under which the children ofthe poor live in our great towns are most prejudicial to the full andfree development of the organs of the body. The narrow, overbuiltstreets in the poorer parts of our towns, the overcrowding of the peoplein tenements, the unhygienic conditions under which the vast majority ofour very poor live and sleep, are all active forces in preventing thefull and free development of the physical powers of the child. Thus thepurely educational problem of how best to promote the physical healthand development of the child by the systematic exercises of the schoolis involved in the much larger and more important social problem of howto better the conditions under which the very poor live. The agencies ofthe school can do little permanently to improve the physique of thechildren until, concurrently with the school, society endeavours toimprove the social conditions under which the poorest of the populationof our great cities herd together. For a similar reason much of theendeavour of the school to found and establish in the child's mindinterests of social worth is counteracted by the evil influence of itshome and social environment. If the physical, economic, and ethicalefficiency of the children of the slums is ever to be secured, if we areever to attain a permanent result, then concurrently with the creationof new and higher social interests must go hand in hand changes in thesocial environment of the child. Mere betterment of the physicalconditions under which our slum population live is of no avail unless atthe same time we have a corresponding change in the slum mind by therise and prevalence of a higher ideal of the physical and materialconditions under which their lives ought to be spent. For experience has shown in many cases that the mere betterment of thematerial conditions under which the poor live without any correspondingchange of ideals soon results in the re-creation of the miserableconditions which formerly prevailed. On the other hand, the mereinstilling of new ideals into the minds of the rising generation willeffect little, if during the greater part of the school period andaltogether afterwards we leave the child to overcome the evil influencesof his environment as best he may. The ideals of the school are tooweak, too feebly established, to prevail against the ever present andever potent influences of the environment unless side by side with therise of the new ideals we at the same time endeavour to lessen, if wecannot altogether remove, the obstacles which prevent their realisationand prevalence. This problem of how to raise by education and by meansof the other social agencies at work the children of the slums to ahigher ideal of life and conduct and to secure their future socialefficiency is the most urgent problem of our day and generation. Mereschool reforms in physical and intellectual education will effect littleunless the other aspects of the problem are attacked at the same time. Further, our school system, which requires that the child shouldrestrain his instinctive tendencies to action, and for certain hourseach day assume a more or less passive and cramped attitude, is alsoprejudicial to the development and free play of the organs of the bodywhich have entrusted to them the discharge of certain functionalactivities. Hence the evil effects of the school itself must be removed or remediedby some means having as their aim the increased functional activity ofthe respiratory and circulatory systems of the body. And therefore theaim of any system of physical exercises should be not merely increase ofbone and development of muscle but also the sustaining and improving ofthe bodily health of the child by "expanding the lungs, quickening thecirculation, and shaking the viscera. " This, as we shall see later, isnot the only aim of physical education. It may further aid in mentalgrowth and development, and be instrumental in the production of certainmental and moral qualities of value both to the individual and to thecommunity. Another cause operating in the school to prevent the full and freedevelopment of the body is the method of much of the teaching whichprevails. A quite unnecessary strain is often put upon the nervoussystem of the child, and as a consequence a lassitude of body resultswhich physical exercise not only does not tend to remove but actuallytends to increase. Methods of teaching which fail to arouse any inherentinterest in the attainment of an end of felt value to the child requirefor the evoking and maintaining of his active attention the operation ofsome powerful indirect interest, and if persisted in, such methods soonresult in the overworking and exhaustion of some one particular systemof nervous centres, and in the depletion through non-nutrition of othercentres. As a consequence, the child is unable to take any part inphysical exercises or in school games with profit to himself. He iscontent to loaf and do as little as he can. The evil is furtherintensified if there is also present under or improper nutrition of thechild. Thus along with our schemes for the physical education of the child wemust endeavour to improve the methods of our teachers, to make themunderstand that experiences acquired through the arousing of the directinterest of the child are acquired at the least physiological cost, andto make them realise under what conditions this direct interest can bearoused and maintained. No one indeed wishes to make everything in theschool pleasant to the child, or to reduce self-effort to a minimum. Buteffort and interest are not opposed terms. The effort which is evoked inthe realisation of an interest or end of felt value is the only kind ofeffort which possesses any educational value. The effort which is calledforth in the finding and establishing of a system of means towards anend which the child fails to see, and which, as a consequence, rouses nodirect interest in its attainment, is an effort which should for ever bebanished from the schoolroom. Such, _e. G. _, is the effort evoked in themere cramming of empty lists of words or dates or facts. Little mentalgood results from such a process, and the physiological cost is oftengreat. Let us now consider the conditions necessary for sound physical health, and inquire how far the school agencies can aid in the providing ofthese conditions: they are mainly four in number. In the first place, inorder to secure the full growth and development of the bodily powers, there is needed a sufficiency of food. But mere sufficiency is notenough, the food must be varied in quality in order to meet the variousneeds of the body, and must be prepared in such a way as to be readilyassimilated and rendered fit for the nutrition of both body and mind. Manifestly the home ought to be the chief agent in providing for thisneed. But, as we have seen in considering the problem of the feeding ofschool children, the home in many cases is unable adequately to providefor it, and, for a time at least, some method of public provision ofgood and wholesome food for the children of the poor may be renderednecessary. But much of the physical evil results from impropernutrition; and here the school agencies may do a great deal in thefuture by furthering the teaching of domestic science to the girls ofthe working classes. Such teaching, however, if it is to be effective, must be real and must take into account the actual conditions underwhich their future lives are to be spent. At the present time much ofthe teaching is valueless, through its neglect of the actual income andresources of the working man's home. The second condition necessary for bodily growth and development is asufficiency of pure air. This is necessary, since the oxygen of the airis not only the active agent in the maintenance of life, but is alsorequisite for the combustion of the foodstuffs conveyed into the body. Much has been done within recent years in our schools to providewell-ventilated classrooms and to instruct teachers how to keep the airof the school pure. Here again the problem is to a large extent a socialone, involving the better housing of our great town population. A third condition necessary for the physical development of the child issleep sufficient in quantity and good in quality. The weak, punychildren in arms to be seen in our crowded slums owe their condition, inmany cases, to the want of sound sleep, to the fact that they never areallowed to rest, as much as to the under and improper feeding to whichthey are subjected. As we shall see in the next chapter, much might bedone by the establishment of Free Kindergarten Schools in ourovercrowded districts to alleviate the lot and to better the educationof the very young children of the poor. But in addition to the three conditions already named, which may beclassed together as the nutritive factors in bodily growth, there is afourth condition essential for all development, whether bodily ormental--viz. , exercise. For "development is produced by exercise offunction, use of faculty.... If we wish to develop the hand, we mustexercise the hand. If we wish to develop the body, we must exercise thebody. If we wish to develop the mind, we must exercise the mind. If wewish to develop the whole human being, we must exercise the whole humanbeing. "[25] But any form of exercise will not do. The exercise which is given mustbe given at the right time, must be in harmony with the nature of theorgan exercised, and must be proportioned to the strength of the organ, if true development is to be attained. In order to understand this in so far as it bears upon the aims which weshould set before us in the physical education of the child, it isnecessary that we should understand what modern physiological psychologyhas to teach us of the nature of the nervous system. If the reader will look back to an earlier chapter, [26] he will findthat education was defined as the process by which experiences areacquired and organised in order that they may render the performance offuture action more efficient, or alternatively it is the process bywhich systems of means are formed, organised, and established for theattainment of various ends of felt value. The establishment of thesesystems of means is only possible because in the human infant thenervous system is relatively unformed at birth, is relatively plastic, and so is capable of being organised in such and such a definite manner. On the other hand, in many animals the nervous system of each isdefinitely formed at birth; it is so organised that experience doeslittle to add to or aid in its further development. Now, while thenervous system of the child at birth is not so definitely organised asthat of many animals, yet on the other hand it is not wholly plastic, wholly unformed, so that, as many psychologists and educationalists oncebelieved, it can be moulded into any shape we please. Rather, we have to conceive of the nervous system of the human infant asmade up of a series of systems at different degrees of development andwith varying degrees of organisation. [27] Some centres, as _e. G. _ thosewhich have to do with the regulation of certain reflex and automaticactions, start at once into full functional activity; others, as _e. G. _those which have to do with purely intellectual functions, arerelatively unformed and unorganised at birth, and become organised asthe result of conscious effort, as the result of an educational process, as the result of acquiring, organising, and establishing experiences forthe attainment of ends of acquired value. Between the systems at the lowest level and those at the highest we havecentres of varying degrees of organisation at birth. Moreover, thesecentres of the middle level reach their full maturity at differentrates. The centres, _e. G. _, which have to do with the co-ordination ofhand and eye and with the attainment of control over the limbs of thebody reach their full functional activity before, _e. G. _, the centreshaving control of the lips and speech. The centres, again, which have todo with the co-ordination of the sensory material derived through theparticular senses are still longer in reaching their full functionalactivity, while the higher intellectual centres may not reach theirhighest power until well on in life. Hence, since education is theprocess of acquiring experiences that shall modify future activity, itcan do little positively to aid the development of the lowest centres;it can do more to modify the development of the middle centres; whilethe highest centres of all are in great part organised as the result ofdirect individual experience. As regards the systems of the lowest level, what we have then to aim atis to allow them free room for growth, and to correct as far as possiblefaults due either to the imperfections of nature or to the unnaturalconditions under which the child lives. So long as these systems areprovided with nutrition and allowed freedom in performing theirfunctions, we are unaware of their existence. We, _e. G. _, only becomeaware that we possess a circulatory system or a respiratory or adigestive system when the functional activity of these organs isimpeded. The opinion, therefore, that physical exercise has for itschief aim the sustaining and improving of the bodily health is no doubttrue and correct, but it is not the only aim. On this view we areconsidering only the lowest system of centres, and devising means bywhich we may maintain and improve their functional activity. Moreover, it is necessary to endeavour to secure the free development of thesecentres and their unimpeded functional activity, because otherwise thedevelopment of the higher centres is hindered, and the whole nervoussystem rendered unstable and insecure. But a wise system of physical education must take into account the factthat a carefully selected and organised system of exercises can do muchfor the development of the centres of the middle level which have to dowith the proper co-ordination of various bodily movements. These areonly partly organised at birth, and education--the acquiring andorganising of experiences--is necessary for their due organisation andtheir adaptation as systems of means for the attainment of definiteends. It is for this reason that the beginning of the formal educationof the child at too early an age is physiologically and psychologicallyerroneous. In doing this we are neglecting the lower centres at the timewhen by nature they are reaching their full functional activity, andexercising the higher which are at an unripe stage of development. Moreover, lower centres not exercised during the period when they areattaining their full development never attain the same functionaldevelopment if exercised later. Hence the difficulty of acquiring amanual dexterity later in life. Again, it is on this theory of lower andhigher centres maturing at different rates and attaining their fullfunctional activity at different times that we now base our education ofthe mentally defective. We must organise the lower centres; we musteducate the mentally defective child to get control over these alreadypartially organised centres, before we begin to educate the higher andless organised centres. Moreover, it is only in so far as we can securethis end that we can stably build up and organise the higher centres ofthe nervous system. Hence also such qualities as alertness in receivingorders and promptness and accuracy in carrying them out are, at first, best learned through the organising and training of the centres of themiddle level. What we really endeavour to do here is to organise andestablish systems of means for the attainment of definite ends, whichthrough their systematic organisation can be brought into action whenrequired promptly and quickly, and once aroused work themselves out witha minimum of effort and with a low degree of attention, so that theirperformance involves the least possible physiological cost. From this the reader will understand that the aim of physical educationis the aim of all education, viz. , to acquire and organise experiencesthat will render future action more efficient. Moreover, the early training of the centres of the middle level isimportant for the after technical training of our workmen. The boy orgirl who has never been educated in early life to co-ordinate and carryout bodily movements promptly and accurately is not likely to succeed inafter-life in any employment which requires the ready and exactco-ordination of many movements for the attainment of a definite end. The proper physical education of the child is therefore necessary forthe securing of the after economic efficiency of the individual, and itcan also by the development of certain mental and moral qualities bemade instrumental in the development of the ethically efficient person. We must now briefly note two other educational agencies which may beemployed in the securing of the physical and mental efficiency of thechild--play and games. Psychologically, games stand midway between playand work. In play we have an inherited system of means evoked intoactivity and carried out to an end for the pure pleasure derived fromthe activity itself. Such systems at first are imperfectly organised, but through the experience derived the systems become more and betteradapted for the attainment of the ends which they are intended torealise. In games, on the other hand, the activity is undertaken for anend only partially connected with the means by which it is attained, whilst in work the means may have no intrinsic connection with the enddesired. Hence the effort of a disagreeable nature which work oftenevokes. In animals fully equipped at birth by means of instinct for theperformance of actions the play-activity is altogether absent. Theirlives are wholly business-like. On the other hand, in the higheranimals, whose young have a period of infancy, play is nature'sinstrument of education. By means of it the systems of the middle levelwhich form the larger part of the brain equipment of the higher animalsare gradually organised and fitted for the attainment of the ends whichin mature life they are intended to realise. Play is their education--isthe means by which nature works in order that experiences may beacquired and organised that shall render future action more efficient. Without this power, "the higher animals could not reach their fulldevelopment; the stimulus necessary for the growth of their bodies andminds would be lacking. "[28] Play also is nature's instrument in the education of the young child. The first and most important part of his education is obtained by thismeans, and, on the basis thus laid, must all after-education be built. Hence the importance in early life of allowing full freedom for themanifestation of this activity. Hence also the very great importance ofsecuring that the children of the poor should be provided with the meansof realising the playful activities of their nature and of beingstimulated and encouraged to play. Hence one aim of the KindergartenSchool is to utilise the play-activity of the child in the developmentof his body and mind. [29] The third agency which we may employ in developing the physical powersof the child is that of games. Games, however, are not merely useful asmeans for the attainment of the physical development of the boy or girl;they also may be made instrumental in the creation and fostering ofcertain mental and moral qualities of the greatest after-value to thecommunity. No one acquainted with the important part which games performin the life of the Public School boy can doubt their great educationalvalue. By means of them the boy acquires experiences which in after-lifetend to make more efficient certain classes of actions essential for anycorporate or communal life. In the playing-fields he learns what it isto be a member of a corporate body whose good and not the attainment ofhis own private ends must be the first consideration. Through the mediumof the games of the school he may get to know the meaning ofself-sacrifice, of working with his fellows for a common end or purpose, and of sinking his own individuality for the sake of his side. Inaddition he learns the habits of ready obedience to superior knowledgeand ability; to submit to discipline; and to undergo fatigue for thecommon good. If found worthy, he may learn how to command as well as toobey, to think out means for the attainment of ends, and to know andfeel that the good name of the school rests upon his shoulders. Theseand other qualities similar in character may be created and establishedby means of the games of the school. And just as the utilising of theplay-instinct is nature's method of education in the fitting of theyoung animal and the young child to adapt itself in the future to itsphysical environment, so we may lay down that the games of the schoolmay be largely utilised as society's method of fitting the individual tohis after social environment, and in training him to understand the truemeaning and the real purport of corporate life. On account, however, of the vast size of many of our Public ElementarySchools and for other reasons, such as the limited playgroundaccommodation in many cases and the want of playing-fields, organisedgames play but a small part in the physical and moral education of thechildren attending such schools. But even here much more might be donethan is done at present by the teachers in the playground to encouragethe simpler playground games, and "to replace the disorganised rough andtumble exercises which characterise the activities of so many of ourpoorer population by some form of organised activity. "[30] The aimlessparading of our streets by the sons and daughters of the working andlower middle classes in their leisure time, the rough horseplay of theyouth of the lowest classes, are due in large measure to the fact thatduring the school period they have not been habituated to take part withtheir fellows in any form of organised activity, have never realisedwhat a corporate life means, and as a consequence are devoid of anysocial interests. One other question must be briefly considered, viz. , How far should wein the physical education of the youth keep in view the end of securingthe military efficiency of the nation? As Adam Smith pointed out, thedefence of any society against the violence and invasion of otherindependent societies is the first duty of the sovereign. "Anindustrious, and upon that account a wealthy nation is of all nationsthe most likely to be attacked, and unless the State takes some measuresfor the public defence, the natural habits of the people render themaltogether incapable of defending themselves. "[31] He further assertsthat "even though the martial spirit of the people were of no usetowards the defence of the society, yet to prevent that sort of mentalmutilation, deformity, and wretchedness which cowardice necessarilyinvolves in it, from spreading themselves through the great body of thepeople, it would still deserve the most serious attention ofGovernment. "[32] On these three grounds, then, that the defence of the country is thefirst duty of every Government and therefore the first duty of everycitizen, that a nation engaged in commerce tends to render itself unfitto defend itself unless means are devised to keep alive the patrioticspirit, and that the keeping alive of the patriotic spirit is useful forthe cultivation of certain necessary social qualities, we may maintainthat the military efficiency of the youth should be included amongst theaims of any national system of physical education. If the emphasis whichis laid upon the securing of the after military efficiency of the youthof the nation occupies too prominent a place in the schemes of physicaleducation of some Continental countries, we on the other hand havealmost wholly neglected this aspect of the question. Every encouragementtherefore should be given to the formation of cadet and rifle corps inthe Secondary Schools of the country and in the Evening ContinuationSchools attended by the sons of the working classes. The time whensystematic instruction in military exercises and in the use of armsshall form part of every youth's education has not yet arrived, but thenecessity for some such step looms already on the horizon. FOOTNOTES: [24] Locke's _Thoughts on Education_. [25] Bowen's Froebel (Great Educator Series), p. 48. [26] Cf. Chap. Ii. [27] Cf. MacDougall's _Physiological Psychology_ (Dent); _also_ SirJames Crichton Browne's article on "Education and the Nervous System, "in Cassell's _Book of Health_. [28] _Principles of Heredity_, ibid. P. 242. [29] Cf. Next chapter. [30] _Suggestions for the Consideration of Teachers_ (English Board ofEducation), chapter on Physical Education. [31] Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, p. 292. [32] _Ibid. _ p. 329. CHAPTER X THE AIM OF THE INFANT SCHOOL It is needless to point out that the method of educating the infant mindis the method of all education--viz. , the regulation of the process bywhich experiences are acquired and organised so as to render theperformance of future action more efficient. This, as we shall seelater, is the fundamental truth at the foundation of the Kindergartenmethod of Froebel, and it must guide and control our conduct not onlyduring the earlier stages but throughout the whole process of education. Moreover, since the early acquisitions of the child are the bases uponwhich all further knowledge and practice are founded, we must realisehow important these first experiences are for the whole futuredevelopment of the child. Further, we have seen that all education--allacquiring and organising of experience in early life--must be motived bythe felt desire to satisfy some instinctive need of the child's nature, and that it is these instinctive needs which determine the nature andscope of his early activities. Later, indeed, acquired interests may be grafted upon the innate andinstinctive needs, but at the beginning and during his first years thechild's whole life is determined by the primitive desires of humannature. Now, the first instinctive need which requires the aid of education isthe need felt by the child to acquire some measure of control over hisbodily movements and over the things in his immediate physicalenvironment. Hence the first stage in education is the regulation of theprocess by which the child acquires and organises those experienceswhich shall give him this control. Nature herself indeed provides themeans for the attainment of this end, but education can do much to aidin the attainment and to shorten the period of incomplete attainment. Bymeans of the assistance given, the control exercised and the directionafforded, we enable the child to organise the lower centres of thenervous system which have to do with the control of the larger bodilymovements, and thus establish organised systems of means for theattainment of certain definite ends. The second stage supervenes when the need is felt by the child for somemeasure of control over his social environment. For the young child soonrealises that it is only in so far as he can exert some influence overthe persons intimately connected with his welfare that he can make hiswants known and find means for the satisfaction of his desires. Hencearises the need for some method of communication with his fellows, andfrom this springs the desire for some system of signs and for a languageto enable him to make his wants known. Chiefly by means of the educativeprocess of imitating the experiences of others, he gradually acquires alanguage and finds himself at home in his social world. During this period the centres called into activity, developed, andorganised are mainly those connected with the lip and speech centres, and a certain stage of organisation having been attained, theopportunity is now afforded for the fuller functional development of thehigher centres entrusted with the duty of receiving, discriminating, andco-ordinating the data of the special organs of sense. The period during which the child is gradually acquiring control overhis immediate physical and social environments may roughly be said toextend to the end of his third year. From that time onwards the worlds of nature and of society for their ownsake become objects of curiosity to the child. Every new object presentshim with a variety of fresh sensations. He feels, tastes, and biteseverything that comes within his reach, and so acquires a world of newexperiences. Hence for "the first six years of his life a child hasquite enough to do in learning its place in the universe and the natureof its surroundings, and to compel it during any part of that period togive its attention to mere words and symbols is to stint it of the bestpart of its education for that which is only of secondary importance, and to weaken the foundations of its whole mental fabric. "[33] If, then, during this period the child is left wholly to gather hisexperiences as he may, he no doubt acquires by his own self-activity aworld of new ideas, but the result of this unregulated process will bethat the knowledge gained will be largely unsystematised, and much ofthe experience acquired may be of a nature which may give a falsedirection to his whole after-development. Hence arise three needs. Inthe first place, we must endeavour to see that new experiences arepresented to the child in some systematic manner, in order that theknowledge may be so organised that it may serve as means to theattainment of ends, and so render future activity more accurate and moreefficient. In the second place, we must endeavour to prevent theacquisition of experiences which if allowed to be organised would givean immoral direction to conduct; and in the third place, we mustendeavour to establish early in the mind of the child organised systemsof means which may hereafter result in the prevalence of activitiessocially useful to the community. Now, these three aims are or should be the aims of the KindergartenSchool, and we shall now inquire into the ends which the KindergartenSchool sets before it, and for this purpose we shall state thefundamental principles which Froebel himself laid down as the guidingprinciples of this stage of education. On its intellectual side the Kindergarten as conceived by Froebel hasfour distinct aims in view. The first aim is by means of comparing andcontrasting a series of objects presented in some regular and systematicmanner to lead the child to note the likenesses and differences betweenthe things, and so through and by means of his own self-activity tobuild up coherent and connected systems of ideas. By this method theteacher builds up in the mind of the young child systems of ideasregarding the colours, forms, and other sense qualities of the morecommon objects of his environment. The second aim is by means of someform of concrete construction to give expression to the knowledge sogained, to make this knowledge more accurate and definite, and thus by adialectical return to make the experiences of the child definite andaccurate, so as to render future action more efficient, and thus pavethe way for further progress. The third aim is to utilise theplay-activity of the child in the acquisition of new experiences and intheir outward concrete expression. The fourth is to engage the child inthe production of something socially useful, something which engages hisgenuine work-activity. In short, what Froebel clearly realised was thatthe mere taking in of new experiences by the child mind in any order wasnot sufficient. Experiences to be useful for efficient action must beassimilated--must be organised into a system--and in order that this maybe possible the experiences must be presented in such a manner as willrender them capable of being organised. Moreover, this mere taking in ofnew experiences is not enough. There must be a giving out or expressionof the knowledge acquired, for it is only in so far as we can turn touse new experiences that we can be sure that they are really ours. Now, since the forms of expression natural to the young child are those whichevoke his practical constructive efforts, all outward expression in itsearlier stages must assume a concrete form. The aim of the so-called"Gifts" in Froebel's scheme is to build up an organised system ofsense-knowledge; the aim of the "Occupations" of the Kindergarten is todevelop the power of concrete expression of the child. The "Gifts" andthe "Occupations" are correlative methods, --the one concerned with thetaking in, the other with the outward expression of the sameexperience, --and throughout either aspect of the process thereason-activity of the child must be evoked both in the acquisition andin the expression of the new experience. Physiologically, this twofoldprocess implies that during the Kindergarten period the sensory areas ofthe brain are being exercised and organised and that the associativeactivity evoked is concerned with the co-ordination of the impressionsderived through these areas. Psychologically, it implies that duringthis period we are mainly concerned with the formation of perceptualsystems of knowledge composed of data derived through the special sensesand through the active movements of the hands and limbs. Such a process, moreover, is a necessary preliminary for the full after-development ofthe higher association centres of the brain and for the formation by themind of conceptual systems of knowledge. For if we attempt prematurely to exercise the higher centres before thelower have reached a certain measure of development, if we attempt toform conceptual systems of knowledge, such as all language and numbersystems are, without first laying a sound perceptual basis, then we maydo much to hinder future mental growth, if we do not even inflict apositive injury to the child. For the education of the senses neglected, "all after-education partakes of a drowsiness, a haziness, and aninsufficiency which it is impossible to cure. "[34] On its moral and social side the aims of the Kindergarten School are noless important. If left to follow the naive instinctive needs of hisnature and to gather experiences where and how he may, the child islikely to make acquisitions which later may issue in wrong conduct. Hence one aim of the Kindergarten is to present experiences which mayeventually issue in right conduct, and to prevent the acquisition ofexperiences of an immoral kind. Hence also its insistence upon the needof carefully selecting the environment of the young child, so that asfar as possible its early experiences--its first acquisitions--shall beof a healthy nature. Moreover, by means of the organised activities ofthe school, and by utilising the play-instinct of the child, it seeks toform and establish certain habits of future social worth to thecommunity and to the individual. For, by means of the games andoccupations of the Kindergarten School, the child may first of all learnwhat it means to co-operate with his fellows for a common end orpurpose; may learn to submit to authority which he dimly andimperfectly, it may be, perceives to be reasonable; may be trained tohabits of accuracy, of order, and of obedience. Above all, theKindergarten system may rouse and foster in the mind of the child thatsense of a corporate life and of a common social spirit the prevalenceof which in after-life is the only secure foundation of society. In England the extreme importance of the education of the infant mindhas been, in recent years, clearly acknowledged. The new regulations ofthe Board of Education no longer allow children under five years of ageto be included as "an integral part of a three-R grant-earningElementary School. " A special curriculum has been set forth for theireducation. They are to have opportunities provided "for the freedevelopment of their bodies and minds and for the formation of habits ofobedience and attention. "[35] What are known as "KindergartenOccupations are not merely pleasant pastimes for children: if soregarded, they are not intelligently used by the teacher. Their purposeis to stimulate intelligent individual effort, to furnish training ofthe senses of sight and touch, to promote accurate co-ordination of handmovements with sense impressions, and, not least important, to implant ahabit of obedience. " "Formal teaching, even by means of Kindergarten Occupations, isundesirable for children under five. At this stage it is sufficient togive the child opportunity to use his senses freely. To attempt formalteaching will almost inevitably mean, with some of the children, eitherrestraint or over-stimulation, with constant danger to mental growth andhealth. "[36] From these extracts from the _Suggestions for the Consideration ofTeachers_ of the Head of the English Board of Education, it will beevident that the spirit of the "Kindergarten" now largely enters intothe curriculum of the infant classes. In the future we may hope to seeit carried further and that no formal teaching of the child will beundertaken during the first six years of his life. Further, we may hopeto see in the future the infant departments of our schools morethoroughly organised than they are at present on the Kindergartenprinciple, and the curriculum of the Infant School so devised that itshall fit into and pave the way for the curriculum of the ElementarySchool. For at the earlier stage much may be done by the methods of theKindergarten to lay the basis for the teaching of the arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic which it is the main business of the PrimarySchool to lead the child to acquire. _E. G. _, at the earlier stage, bythe breaking up and reconstructing of concrete groups of things, thechild can be initiated into the meaning of a number system. By means ofpictures and of concrete forms he can be made gradually acquainted withalphabetic forms, and this teaching lays the basis for the futureacquisition of the abstract symbols of printed and written words. But while much has been done in England to recognise the importance ofthe early education of the child for the after moral and social goodboth of the individual and of the community, and to place theinstruction of the infant classes in the Public Elementary Schools upona rational basis, little attention has been paid in Scotland to thissubject. As a rule, children in that country do not enter school beforethe age of five, and there is no separate provision made for theteaching of children under that age; in fact, all scholars under sevenyears of age are classified together and form the Junior Division of theschool. Such a state of matters reflects but little credit on the educationalleaders of Scotland, and indicates an imperfect conception of the realnature of the educative process. For if education is the process ofacquiring and organising experiences in order to render future actionmore efficient, it is surely the height of folly to allow the youngchild to gather his early experiences as he may. Moreover, in the caseof the children of the slums, to allow them during their early years togather into their brain without any correcting agency "all the sightsand scenes of a slum is sheer social madness. " "The child must beremoved, or partially removed, from such an atmosphere, since it hasreached the imitative stage, and is nearing the selective stage of life. For the moment he imitates anything; presently he will imitate whatpleases him, what gives him momentary pleasure. Before the unmoralselective stage is reached, the stage which inevitably precedes themoral and immoral selective stage, it is essential that children shouldreceive definite and deliberate guidance, that the imitative facultyshould be controlled. "[37] In the case of the children of the poorerdistricts this can be done only through the agency of the Infant School. Much may be done by making the instruction of the school attractive, tocounteract the evil influences of the home and social environment, andto lead the child to acquire and organise experiences which will issuein moral and not in immoral conduct. Hence what we need in the poorer districts of our large towns is FreeKindergarten Schools from which all formal teaching of the three R's isabolished, where for several hours in each day the child may be trainedto use his senses in the accurate discrimination and accuratesystematisation of sense knowledge; where he may have his constructiveactivities evoked by the expression in concrete form of what he has beenled to perceive through the medium of the senses; where he may betrained to habits of order, of cleanliness, of submission to authority;and where for a time, at least, he may be accustomed to live in a purerand healthier atmosphere than he can find at home or in the street, andwhere for a brief space he may have that feeling of home which he cannotfind at home. [38] The establishment in the poorer districts of our great towns of schoolswhose education follows the method of the Kindergarten if accompanied bysome system of feeding the child would do much to secure the aftersocial efficiency of the rising generation, and would by its reaction onthe home-life tend gradually to raise the ideals of the very poor. FOOTNOTES: [33] _The Nervous System and Education_, by Sir James Crichton Browne, _ibid. _ p. 345. [34] _The Nervous System and Education_, by Sir James Crichton Browne, _ibid. _ p. 345. [35] Cf. On this subject the chapter on "School Nurseries" in _NationalEducation and National Life_, ibid. [36] _Suggestions for the Consideration of Teachers_, chap. Iii. (issuedby the English Board of Education). [37] Montmorency's _National Education and National Life_, ibid. P. 143. The chapter on "School Nurseries" should be read by everyone, andespecially by every Scotsman interested in the education of youngchildren. [38] Cf. Charles Lamb's Essay on _Popular Fallacies_. CHAPTER XI THE AIM OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL During the past thirty years no part of our educational system hasreceived so much attention as the Elementary Schools of the country. Ifwe compare the condition of things which prevails at the present timewith that which existed previous to 1870, there can be no doubt that agreat advance has been made both in the better provision of the means ofeducation and in the efficiency of the instruction given. Previous to1870 a large number of the children of the poor received noeducation. [39] Of those attending school many left with but a scantyknowledge. Now practically every child[40] receives a training in theprimary arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic; and with the gradualextension of the period during which the child must attend school, ithas become possible to ensure that a larger and larger number ofchildren leaving our Elementary Schools have received an education whichmay be of value for the after-fulfilment of the simpler practical endsof life. Again, previous to 1870 the school buildings were in many casesunfit for their purpose; now the Elementary Schools of the country bothin their building arrangements and equipment are as a rule much superiorto the voluntary and endowed schools providing secondary education. Previous to 1870 anyone was thought good enough to undertake the work ofteaching; since that time more and more attention has been paid to thequalifications of the teacher and to securing that he shall haveattained a certain standard of education, and have received a certainmeasure of training before engaging upon the work of the instruction ofthe young. We, _e. G. _, no longer entrust the instruction of the youngerchildren in the school to the older, as was the custom under themonitorial system of Bell and Lancaster, and with the abolition of thepupil-teacher the last remnant of a system introduced at the beginningof the nineteenth century, as the only remedy to meet the direeducational necessities of the time, will have been removed. But in spite of the great advances which have been made, there is adeep-seated feeling now beginning to find expression, that somehow orother the Elementary School has not realised all the expectations thatwere once thought likely to result from the universal education of thechildren of the nation, and that in particular the Primary School hasfailed to foster and to establish the moral and social qualitiesnecessary for the welfare of a State whose government is founded on therepresentative principle. This, it seems to me, is largely due to the wrong conception of the aimswhich the Primary School is intended to realise--a conception whichprevailed for many years after the introduction of compulsory elementaryeducation. For some time now, and especially during the past few years, a counter-reaction has set in against the narrowness of the aims of thepreceding period, and like all reactions it tends to go to the oppositeextreme, and so to broaden the aims of the Primary School as to be indanger of failing to realise efficiently any one of the ends which itsets before it. The state of things immediately preceding 1870 not unnaturally gave riseto the idea that the acquisition of the arts of reading, writing, andarithmetic was the one indispensable object to be attained in theelementary education of the child. This conviction was strengthened bythe system of Government grants introduced into both English and Scotchschools, payments to school managers being largely based upon thesuccesses obtained in passes in the three elementary subjects. Certain results naturally followed. In the first place, no provision wasmade for the special education of the infant classes. Since theafter-success of the child was measured by his attainments in the threeR's, the sooner the infant mind was introduced to these subjects thebetter the after-result might be expected to be. Thus the grant-earningcapacity of the child became the teacher's chief consideration. In thesecond place, the energies of the teacher were directed to secure acertain mechanical accuracy in the use of the three elementary artsrather than their intelligent apprehension. As a consequence, thesesubjects came in time to be thought of as subjects worthy of attainmentfor their own sake and their acquisition as an end in itself. Hence itwas forgotten that the acquisition and organisation of these systems ofelementary knowledge are only valuable because they are theindispensable means of all intercourse, of all commerce, and of allculture. Hence also their use as instruments for the after-realisationof many purposes in life tended to be neglected, or at least to fallinto the background. Individual teachers, no doubt, in many casesrealised the partial error in this conception of the aims of the PrimarySchool, but the demands of Government inspectors and of schoolauthorities, with their rule-of-thumb methods of testing the success ofthe teacher's work by the percentage of passes gained, tended often tomake the teacher, in spite of his better judgment, look upon the childmainly as a three-R grant-earning subject and to consider the chief aimof primary education to be the securing of a certain mechanicalproficiency in the use of the three elementary arts. Under such a method of examination it was certainly necessary for theteacher to pay some attention to the individuality of the child. If hisefforts were to be at all successful it was incumbent upon him todiscover as early as possible the range of the child's previousknowledge in the three grant-earning subjects and to find out in whichof the three the power of acquisition of the child was naturally weak ornaturally strong. Where the number of children in a class was large, little individual attention could, of course, be paid to the child, andin such cases the acquisition of the subject was aided by the mechanicaldrilling of sections of the class and by recourse to all manner ofdevices for ensuring the accurate acquisition of the essential subjects. As a result of this partial and one-sided conception little attentionwas paid to the use to which these subjects may be put in therealisation of the practical ends of life. Arithmetic, _e. G. _, seemed tothe child to be made up of a number of kinds of arithmetic, each processhaving its own rules and methods of procedure; but it never entered intohis mind, and but seldom into that of his teacher, that the variousarithmetical processes are at bottom but diverse forms of the onefundamental process of adding to or subtracting from a group. Proportionwas one kind of arithmetic, simple interest another, but that theseprocesses symbolised real group-forming processes, or that they had todo with any of the realities of life, was apprehended, if at all, in themost imperfect and hazy manner. In a similar manner, the overcoming of the mechanical difficulties oflanguage construction occupied the major portion of the attention of thechild during the school period, and the function of language inconveying a knowledge of things and persons and events received but asmall share of his attention. Meanings of words were indeed tabulatedand learnt by heart, and as a rule the child on examination-day couldmake a fair show in deluding the inspector that the passage read wasintelligently apprehended. In very much the same way, the overcoming ofthe mechanical difficulties of writing and the drilling of the child toform his letters in a uniform style received the chief share of theschool-time devoted to the subject. The interest and attention of the child having been thus mainly occupiedin the overcoming of the mechanical difficulties involved in thelearning of the three grant-earning subjects, and little attentionhaving been paid to the use of these arts, it followed that upon theconclusion of the school period the child left the school without anyreal interests having been established as the result of the educativeprocess. Moreover, except in so far as by their teaching we may establish habitsof order and of accuracy, the three elementary subjects in themselvespossess no moral or social intent; hence unless we can make the childrealise their value as instruments for the attainment of ends of socialworth they in themselves fail to play any important part in the buildingup of character. Let me put this in another way. We have defined education as the processof acquiring and systematising experiences that will render futureaction more efficient, or alternatively it is the process by which weorganise and establish in the mind systems of ideas for the attainmentof ends. But if we make the acquisition of these elementary arts ends inthemselves, then it follows that the more efficient action we seek torealise is the more efficient manipulation of a number system or alanguage system. If, however, we realise that these arts are but meansto the realisation of other ends, then we shall understand that it isthe character of the latter which mainly determines the resultingcharacter of the education given. Partly to this erroneous conception of the real function of theelementary arts, and partly to another cause which we shall mentionlater, may be attributed the poor results which our Elementary Schoolsystem has attained in the establishment of interests of moral andsocial worth. If, moreover, we realise how large a proportion of thechildren left and still do leave school at an early age, before suchinterests can be permanently established, and in some cases withanything but an adequate knowledge of the elementary arts necessary forall further progress, we may rather be astonished that so much has beendone than so little. But in the reaction against the narrowness and formalism of our earlyaims in elementary education, there is a tendency--a strong tendency--atthe present time to go to the opposite extreme, and to make theelementary instrumental arts the vehicles for the fostering of realinterests at too early a stage. This manifests itself on the one hand inthe desire to make all instruction interesting to the child, and on theother to introduce the child prematurely to a knowledge of the realconditions of life, before he can have any intelligent understanding ofthese conditions. From the barrenness and formalism of the earlierperiod, we now have the demand made that the school should throughouttake into account the real and practical necessities of life. The former tendency--the tendency to make everything interesting to thechild by lessening or minimising the mechanical difficulties and byendeavouring in every way to incite the child to become interested inthe content of the lesson--is best exemplified by the character of theschool books which we now place in the hands of our children. The lattertendency--the tendency to the premature use of the elementary arts--isexemplified by the craving to make our teaching of arithmetic practicaland real from the very beginning. In the former case, instead of endeavouring to make the process oflanguage construction interesting in itself, we divert the child'sattention from the acquiring and organising of the system of languageforms to the premature acquirement of the content of language. Whatresults is obvious: the main interest being in the content, theinterest in the mechanical construction of the form suffers, and as aconsequence the child never attains a full mastery over the instrumentalart. In the latter case we attempt to do two things at the same time in ourteaching of arithmetic. In every concrete application of arithmeticthere are two interests involved: in the first place, there is thenumber interest--the interest in the analysing and recombining of agroup, undertaken for the sake of the reconstruction itself; in thesecond place, there is the business or real interest, which the numberinterest indeed subserves, but the two interests are in no caseidentical. If we attempt to teach the two together, we as a rule teachboth badly. The pupil will have but a hazy idea of the businessrelation, and will run the risk of imperfectly organising the purenumber system. Hence all kinds of impossible problems may be given tothe child without raising any suspicion of error in his mind, and suchcases furnish certain evidence that the business relation does notreally concern him, but that his whole attention is engaged with thepurely constructive aspect of number. Another example of the same errorof confounding two separate things is the "blind mixture we make ofarithmetic and measuring. " Because arithmetic is involved in allmeasuring we assume that when the child can add together feet andinches, therefore he has a complete knowledge of these spatialmagnitudes. But manifestly, if spatial magnitude is to be taughtintelligently, it must at first be taught independently of the numberrelation, which is a general system instrumental in the realisation ofmany concrete interests. From these considerations, certain general results follow. On the onehand, the earlier conception of the aim of the Primary School as beingmainly concerned with the acquirement and organisation of the threeelementary arts as ends in themselves must be condemned. Language andnumber systems are means to the realisation of certain concrete ends ofafter-life, and the school during the later stages of education mustendeavour to lead the child to perceive how these systems may beutilised in the furtherance of these real concrete interests. On theother hand, the attempt to combine prematurely these two aims willresult in the imperfect attainment of both. During the earlier stages ofeducation the main interest must be in the construction for its own sakeof the language system or the number system, and while the real interestmay be introduced it must always be kept subsidiary to the maininterest--must first of all be taught for its own sake, and theinstrumental art only used for its furtherance in so far as theacquirement of the former is not obstructed. _E. G. _, the placing ofgeography and history Readers in the hands of the child while he isstill struggling with the difficulties of language construction can onlyresult in the history and geography being imperfectly understood and theorganisation of the language system being delayed and hindered. Once the elementary and subsidiary systems have been fairly wellorganised and established, their function as means for the furtheranceof real interests should occupy a larger share of the child's attentionand of the time of the school. These real interests, however, must inevery case and at every stage be taught at first for their own sake, andthereafter their relation to the instrumental art explained and applied. Gradually, as they become better organised and more firmly established, the elementary arts occupy a smaller and smaller share of attention, until finally they function automatically, and the whole attention canbe directed to the furtherance of the real interests to which theelementary arts are the indispensable means. Hence we note three stages in the elementary education of the child--thestage preceding the formal instruction in the elementary arts; the stagein which the formal instruction should predominate and receive thegreater share of the child's attention; the stage in which theelementary systems having been in great measure organised andestablished, they may be utilised as means to the furtherance of thereal interests. The first stage corresponds to the Infant orKindergarten age: here the main object is to build up in the mind of thechild systems of ideas about the things of his environment; to extend, by conversation and by reading to the child, the vocabulary of his ownlanguage; to give him practice in the combining and recombining ofconcrete groups of things, and to introduce him to a knowledge of thevarious language forms in a concrete shape. In the second stage, and here the work of the Primary School begins, themain emphasis at the beginning must be laid on the acquirement andestablishment of the language and number systems for their own sake. Ifright methods are followed, the child can be interested in theseprocesses of construction without the need of calling into use at everypoint some real interest. In the concluding stage the use of theseinstruments as means to the realisation of the simpler practical ends oflife should receive more attention. One reason, then, for the poor moral and social results effected in thepast by our Elementary School system has been the undue emphasis placedupon the acquisition of the merely formal arts to the neglect of thereal interests to which the former are but the means. Another cause, however, has been operative in producing this negative result. In theElementary Schools, in the past, little attention has been paid to theindividuality of the child, and little heed given to the differencesbetween children as regards their different rates of intellectual growthand their differing aptitudes for various branches of study. Under asystem of classification which compelled each individual, whetherintellectually well or moderately or poorly equipped, to advance at anequal rate, attention to the individual with any other aim than to raisethe weak to the standard of the average child in acquiring the three R'swas impossible. Again, our huge city schools, partly on account of theirvast size, partly on the ground that they are unable to organise schoolgames, partly on account of their lack of any common school interests, do not and cannot foster any sense of a corporate life, any feeling of acommon social spirit. Where our English Public School system is strong, our Elementary and sometimes even our Day Secondary School systems areweak. If the home fails to foster these qualities, and the school doesnot or cannot fill the gap, then as a rule we turn out our boys andgirls poorly equipped to fulfil their duties in after-life as members ofa corporate community and as citizens of a State. Mere teaching ofhistory or of civics in our schools will do little to attain this end, unless by some method or other we can foster by means of the school-lifethe real civic spirit. It is, of course, easy to point out the nature ofthe disease; it is more difficult to prescribe a remedy. But much mightbe done to strengthen and increase the moral influence of the school bya better system of classification, which took into account thedifferences in intellectual capacity and in natural aptitude, and whichas a consequence, in the education of the child, paid more attention toeach child's individuality. This would involve much smaller classes thanexist at present, and would further involve that the children should beunder the care of one teacher for a longer time than is now the rule. Atthe present time, in many cases, the teacher is employed in teaching thesame subjects, at the same stage, year after year, to a yearly freshbatch of sixty or seventy children. Consequently he learns to look uponhis pupils as mere subjects to whom must be imparted the requiredmeasure of instruction. Of the children in themselves, of theirhome-life, of their interests outside school, he knows nothing, and as arule cares less. If in addition to this we ceased erecting barracks for the instructionof children and erected schools for their education, we should make evena further advance in this direction. If it is impossible for otherreasons to lessen the size of our city Elementary Schools, then theremedy lies in the division of the schools into departments in which theHead should be entrusted with the supervision of the education of thechildren during several years. In this way it would be possible for theteacher to get to know each child individually, to direct his educationin accordance with his aptitudes, and to exert an influence over him. Thus, by giving more attention to the organised games of the school andby the creation of school interests, much might be done to remedy thedefects of the school on the side of moral and social education. Atbest, however, when the home fails, the Elementary School can do little, and we must put our trust in the ethical agencies of society to assistand promote the efforts of the school in the furthering of a rightsocial spirit and in the creation of a common corporate feeling. FOOTNOTES: [39] _E. G. _, in 1861 it was calculated that only 6 per cent. Of thechildren of the poor in England were receiving a satisfactory elementaryeducation. Cf. Balfour Graham's _Educational System of Great Britain andIreland_, p. 14. [40] _E. G. _, in 1872 in Scotland school places were provided for only8. 3 per cent. Of the population. In 1905 places were provided for 21. 22of the population. Cf. _Report on Scotch Education_, 1905, p. 6. CHAPTER XII THE AIM OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL We have seen that on its intellectual side the Primary School has twomain functions to perform in the education of the child. In the firstplace, the school must endeavour to secure that the elementary arts ofreading, writing, and arithmetic are well organised and well establishedin the mind of the child. The more effectively the language and numbersystems are organised and established the more efficiently will theyfunction in the performance of future action. Moreover, it is only whenthey have become so organised as to function automatically that theyreach their highest efficiency as instruments for the further extensionof knowledge or of practice. In the second place, the Primary School must train the pupil to the useof these systems as instruments for the realisation of other andconcrete ends or interests. _E. G. _, the number system may be used in thefurtherance of the measuring interest, the weighing interest, and so on. The two dangers we have to avoid are on the one hand the barrenformalism of treating the acquisition of these arts as ends inthemselves, and on the other of supposing that the real interests can beintelligently understood merely through the instrumentality of theelementary arts and that they do not require independent treatment ofthemselves. If the child is destined to go no farther than the Elementary Schoolstage, then at least the concluding year of the school should be mainlydevoted to training him to the use of the primary instrumental arts inthe establishment of systems of knowledge necessary for the realisationof the simpler practical ends of life. If, however, the child is selected for a course of higher education, theeducative process becomes different in nature. In the first-named casewe are content to give the child practice in the application of analready established system to concrete problems. In the second case weendeavour, using the elementary systems as means, to establish othersystems of knowledge as means to the attainment of still further ends. We may, _e. G. _, on the basis of the vernacular language build up aforeign language system as a means either to commercial intercourse orto literary culture. In short, the aim of the Secondary School is, usingthe elementary systems as the basal means, to organise and establishother systems of means for the attainment of the more complex interestsof after-life, practical and theoretical. The object of establishing asystem of knowledge is not to pass examinations, --this is theschoolmaster's error, --but to render future action more efficient, tofurther in after-life some complex interest of a practical ortheoretical nature. To the few, indeed, the establishment andsystematisation of knowledge may be an end in itself. To the many, thesystematisation and establishment is and ought to be undertaken as ameans to the more efficient furtherance of some practical end. Further, the only justification for the seeking of knowledge for its own sake isthat thereby it may be better understood, better established and bettersystematised, and so become better fitted to make practice moreefficient. Hence the question as regards secondary education resolves itself intothe question as to the nature of the systems of knowledge which weshould endeavour to establish systematically in the mind of the child, and before we can answer this question we must know the length of timewhich the child can afford to spend at the Higher School and hispossible vocation in after-life. For if education is the process bywhich the child is led to acquire and organise experiences so as torender future action more efficient, we must know something of thenature of this action, something of the nature of the future socialservices for which his education is to train him, and the school periodmust be of sufficient length to enable the required systems to beestablished permanently and thoroughly. Neglect of these two obvious considerations has led in the past and evenin the present leads to two errors in our organisation of the means ofsecondary education. In the first place, until quite recently, we havebeen too much inclined to the opinion that secondary education was allof one type, and even where this error has been recognised, as inGermany, the tendency still exists to emphasise unduly the particulartype of education which has as its main ingredients the ancientclassical languages. We spend years in the attempt to reconstruct andestablish in the mind of the youth a knowledge of these languagesystems, and in a large number of cases we fail to attain adequatelyeven this end. We build up laboriously systems of means which inafter-life function _directly_ in the attainment of no end, and as aconsequence, in many cases, the dissolution of the system is as rapid asits acquisition was slow. At the time of the Renascence and when firstintroduced into the curriculum of the Secondary School, these languages, and especially Latin, did then possess a high functional value, sincethey were the indispensable means to the furtherance of knowledge and tosocial intercourse. To-day they possess little functional value, andtheir claim for admission into the school curriculum is chiefly basedupon their so-called training and disciplinary values. Let us consider this for a moment: in the reconstruction of, say, theLatin language, the pupil is being trained in the reconstruction andre-establishment of a language system whose methods and rules ofconstruction are much more complex and intricate than those of anyliving language, and whose forms are so designed as to bring outexactly varied shades of meaning. Hence, in its acquisition the pupilreceives practice in the exact discrimination of the meaning of words, and in their accurate placing and reconstruction within thesentence--the unit of expression--in order to bring out the exactinterpretation of the thought or statement of fact intended by thewriter. Further, we may train the pupil during the school period to self-applythe language system in the further interpretation of relatively unknownpassages. In short, we can train him in the processes of languageconstruction and of language application. Moreover, in considering thisquestion, we must take into account that during the school period themain interest must necessarily be directed to the acquisition andestablishment of the system itself, that little attention can bedirected towards the content for its own sake, and that theestablishment of the system so that it shall function automatically inthe interpretation of the content is a stage which is attained incomparatively few cases, and then only after many years of study. If we then take into account, and we must take into account, the factthat the chief value of the ancient languages as Secondary Schoolsubjects lies in their use as training and disciplinaryinstruments--that in after-life they function directly in the attainmentof no practical end, and only indirectly in so far as the habitsacquired of the exact weighing of the meaning of words and of theaccurate placing of words are carried over for the attainment ofpractical ends in which these qualities of exact interpretation andexact expression of language are the chief requisites--we shallunderstand that while they may be of value in securing the efficientafter-performance of certain social services, they play but a small partin the furthering of any service which requires an exact knowledge ofthe qualities of things and an accurate knowledge of the laws governingthe operations of nature. In the second place, neglect of the fact that the aim of education is toestablish systems of means for the efficient after-performance ofactions has led us to neglect the fact that in the acquisition andestablishment of systems of knowledge we require to limit the scope ofour aims and to carry on the process of education during a periodsufficiently extended to admit of the stable establishment of thesystems. If, _e. G. _, we attempt to establish too many systems, then as aresult we often stably establish none, with the further result thatafter the school period has passed the knowledge gained soon disappears. If, again, we attempt in too limited a time to establish an elaborateand complex system of knowledge, as _e. G. _ that of the Latin language, then we never reach the stage when it can be self-applied intelligentlyin the furtherance of any end. Hence, if a boy leaves the ElementarySchool and enters upon a High School course with the intention ofleaving at the age of fifteen or sixteen and entering upon someemployment, the systems of knowledge which can be established during theschool period must be different from those of the boy whose education isintended to be extended until twenty-one. If, then, a national system ofeducation is to make adequate provision for the efficientafter-performance of the various social services which the nationrequires at the hands of its adult members; if, in short, it is to beorganic to the life of the State as a whole, then there must be not onetype of higher education but several; for it is to her Higher Schoolsthat a nation must principally look for the preparation of citizens whoin after-life will discharge the more important services of thecommunity. This truth has already been realised in other countries, notably Germany. We are only beginning to realise it, and to takemeasures to carry it into practice. Moreover, in a national system of education we shall need not one systemof advancing means but several; not merely an educational ladder thatmay carry the boy to the University, but also educational steps by whichthe individual may mount to the Technical or the Commercial or the ArtCollege. Hence our aims in the higher education of the youth, and as aconsequence the nature of the systems of knowledge which we shouldendeavour to organise and to establish in their minds, will vary inaccordance with the nature of the service which in adult life the boy islikely to perform. Now, these services may be divided into four mainclasses. In the first place, every nation requires an army of efficientindustrial workers. Partly, in some cases, owing to the decline of theapprenticeship system, partly owing to the fact that where apprenticesare still employed no systematic measures are taken to instruct theyouth in the principles underlying his particular art, it is becomingincreasingly necessary that the school should supply and supplement theknowledge required for the efficient after-performance of the industrialand technical arts. Hence one kind of Higher School urgently required isthe Trade or Technical School. In a large number of cases this needcould be supplied by Evening Continuation Schools. At present, however, our Evening Schools are too predominantly commercial and literary, anddo not make adequate provision for the trade and technical needs of thecommunity. Further, we must endeavour to secure that the boy or girlenters the Evening Continuation School as soon after he leaves theElementary School as possible. For in many cases at the present time theboy after leaving the Primary School loafs at night about the streets, and in a short time through disuse forgets much of what he learned atschool, and often in addition acquires habits which tend to unfit himfor any future strenuous effort. When, therefore, he feels the need formore knowledge in order to advance in his trade, the Evening School hastoo frequently to begin by doing over again the work of the ElementarySchool before it can enter upon the work of establishing the highersystem of knowledge. In the second place, a nation such as ours requires a trained body ofservants for the efficient carrying on of her commerce. Preparation forthe simpler forms of service could be furnished by the commercialclasses of the Evening Continuation Schools. For preparation for thehigher services, we require a type of school which beginning after theElementary School stage has been completed, carries on the boy'seducation until the fifteenth or sixteenth year, whose chief aim shouldbe to lay a sound basis in the acquisition and organisation of one ortwo modern languages and in the acquirement of the arts instrumental forthe carrying on of commercial transactions. Further means of advance inthese studies should be provided by the day or evening CommercialCollege. In the third place, every modern nation requires a trained body ofscientific workers for the after carrying on of her industrial andtechnical arts. Hence we need a type of school which by making thephysical sciences their chief object of study prepare the way for thefuture training of the student in the application of scientificknowledge to the furtherance of the industrial and technical arts. Lastly, we require a type of secondary education which shall prepare theboy for the efficient discharge of the duties which the State requiresat the hands of her physicians, her theologians, her jurists. Thus, since all education is the acquisition of experiences that willrender future action more efficient, the nature of the secondaryeducation given must depend on the nature of the services to which thesystems of knowledge are the means. A classical education may be a goodpreparation for the after-discharge of the duties of the theologian orthe jurist; it certainly will not do much for the efficient discharge ofthe duties of the mechanical engineer and the practical chemist. But one error must be avoided. Whilst the various types of SecondarySchool must fashion their curricula according to the nature of theservices for which they prepare, we must not forget that the school hasother duties to perform than the mere preparation for the socialservices by which a man hereafter earns his living. It must in everycase endeavour to organise and establish those systems of meansnecessary for the after-discharge of the civic duties of life andinstrumental for the right use of leisure. Practically we need three types of Higher School--one in which modernlanguages form the basal subjects of the curriculum; one in which thephysical sciences are the main systems organised and established; one inwhich the classical languages form the main staple of education. CHAPTER XIII THE AIM OF THE UNIVERSITY "All public institutions of learning are called into existence by socialneeds, and first of all by technical practical necessities. Theoreticalinterests may lead to the founding of private associations such as theGreek philosophers' schools; public schools owe their origin to thesocial need for professional training. Thus during the Middle Ages thefirst schools were called into being by the need of professionaltraining for ecclesiastics, the first learned profession, and a callingwhose importance seemed to demand such training. Essentially the samenecessity called into being the Universities of the Parisian type, withtheir artistic and theological faculties. The two other types ofprofessional schools, the law school and the medical school, which werefirst developed in Italy, then united with the former. The Universitiestherefore originated as a union of 'technical' schools forecclesiastics, jurists, and physicians, to which division the faculty ofArts was related as a general preparatory school, until during thenineteenth century it also assumed something of the character of aprofessional institution for the training of teachers for the SecondarySchool. "[41] Thus the early aim of the University was, as it still continues to be, to provide the training for the after-supply of those services which theState requires at the hands of her theologians, her jurists, and herphysicians. In Germany, and to some extent even in our own country, theArts faculty of the University is ceasing to perform the function of aGeneral Preparatory School to the professional schools, and is becomingan independent school, having for its aim the preparation of teachersfor the Intermediate and Secondary Schools of the country. In Scotland, indeed, it serves at the present time as a Preparatory School mainly tothe theological faculty. As the Secondary Schools of the country becomemore efficient, better differentiated, and better organised, the need ofa Preparatory School within our Universities will gradually become less, and the University will be able to devote more of her energies to thetraining of students preparing for some one or other of the above-namedprofessions. With this change the philosophical studies of the Artsfaculty will become increasingly important, and the method of teachingthe linguistic and scientific studies receive a larger share ofattention than they do at present. But the other and perhaps the more important function of the Universityis to carry on and to extend the work of scientific and literaryresearch for its own sake. This is the dominant note of the German andAmerican Universities of to-day. The emphasis is laid not so much upontheir function as schools for the supply of certain professionalservices, but upon them as great national laboratories for the extensionof knowledge and the betterment of practice. In Great Britain, andespecially in Scotland, this conception of the function of theUniversity has not received the same prominence as, _e. G. _, in Germany, where the intimate union of scientific investigation and professionalinstruction gives the German Universities their peculiar character. Indeed, in the latter country the tendency at the present time is ratherto over-emphasise the function of the Universities in furtheringscientific and literary research to the neglect of the other and no lessimportant aim. Two dangers must be avoided. In the first place, wheneverthe chief emphasis is laid upon the Universities as mainly schools forprofessional training, the teaching tends to become narrow and dogmatic. The teacher ceasing to be an investigator, gradually loses touch withthe spirit of the age, and as a consequence he fails adequately toperform the duty of efficiently training his students for their afterlife-work. In the second place, when the emphasis is laid strongly uponthe function of the University as an institution for the carrying on ofscientific and literary research there is the danger of again lapsinginto the old fallacy that knowledge for knowledge' sake is an end initself, that the object of education is to acquire and organise systemsof means which function in the attainment of no practical end, and thatthe acquisition of knowledge is valuable for the culture of theindividual mind apart from any social purpose which the knowledgesubserves. The University must therefore ever keep in view the two aims, ofadvancing knowledge not for its own sake but in order that future actionmay be rendered more efficient, and of adequately training forprofessional services. But to the older professions for which the University prepares therehave been added during the past century other vocations or professionswhich need and demand an education no less important and no lessthorough than the education for the well established recognisedprofessions. The need for the higher training of the future leaders ofindustry and the future captains of commerce has been provided by theorganisation and establishment of technological schools and colleges. The establishment and organisation of the "Technical University" hasbeen more thorough in Germany than in this country. There we findestablished newer institutions, of which the Charlottenburg College isthe best known and most important, for the higher education of thoseintended in after-life to perform the more important industrial servicesof the community. These institutions both in their organisation andinstruction are constantly approximating in type to the olderUniversities. The recently established Universities in the North of England attempt, with what success it is too early yet to declare, to combine both aimsof training for the older and newer professions. In Scotland the latterwork is largely undertaken by the Technical Colleges, and in theseinstitutions the increasing need is for the extension and development ofthe Day-school course. One other question of some importance remains for brief consideration. In our own country, but more especially in Germany, there is a tendencyat the present time to effect a complete separation between the work ofthe University and the work of the Technical College. This separation has arisen partly through the operation of externalhistorical conditions, but it has also arisen partly through thetendency in certain academic circles to look down upon technicalknowledge and ability as something inferior. The exclusiveness and thetorpor of the older Universities in many cases has been a further causetending to the creation of the Technical College separated from theUniversity. Such a separation, however, is good neither for the University nor forthe Technical College. The former in carrying out the aim of scientificresearch and of the extension of knowledge requires ever the vivifyingtouch of actual concrete experience, and this it can only obtain bykeeping in close contact with those whose chief function is theapplication of scientific knowledge to practice. The latter in carryingout its more practical aims requires, if it is to be saved from thenarrowness of mere specialisation and from degenerating into empiricalmethods, the constant co-operation of those whose outlook is notnarrowed down to the immediate practical end, but takes in the subjectas a whole, and whose chief function is the better systematisation ofknowledge. Hence, while the aim of the University is different from that of theTechnical College, they are so intimately correlated that neither canreach its fullest development without the aid and co-operation of theother. The Technical Colleges should be the professional schoolsattached to the scientific side of the Universities. Moreover, thisdivision and separation is economically wasteful, since the generaltraining in science which must precede the practical training has to becarried on both in the University and in the Technical College. In Scotland this separation has not advanced to such a stage as is thecase in Germany. In any further reorganisation of university and highereducation it is earnestly to be hoped that the Day Technical Collegewill find its rightful place as an integral part of the University, andthat the latter may realise that her function is to further and extendthe bounds of knowledge in order that practice in every sphere of lifemay be rendered more efficient. FOOTNOTE: [41] Cf. Prof. Paulsen, _The German Universities_, p. 111 (Eng. Trans. ). CHAPTER XIV CONCLUSION--THE PRESENT PROBLEMS IN EDUCATION The first necessity of the present for teachers and for all concernedwith the upbringing of children is to realise the true meaning ofeducation--that it is the process by which we lead the child to acquireand organise experiences that will render future action more efficient;that by our educational agencies we seek to establish systems ofknowledge that shall hereafter function in the efficient performance ofservices of social value; and that the only method which really educatesand can educate is the method which evokes the constructive activity ofreason in the establishment of the various systems of means. Educationdoes not aim at culture nor at knowledge for its own sake, but atfitting the individual for social service. Our school system tends everto forget this truth. It is in constant danger of losing sight of thisultimate aim of education by keeping its attention too narrowly fixed onsome nearer and proximate aim. It tends often to lay too much stress onmere examinations and examination results. It forgets that the only truetest of knowledge gained lies in the pupil's ability to use itintelligently in the furtherance of some purpose--and of some socialpurpose, and that the ultimate test of a system of education is the kindof social individual it turns out. If our educational system turns outboys and girls who in after-life become efficient workers, efficientcitizens, and men and women who have learned how to use their leisurerightly, then it has fulfilled its function. If, on the other hand, itfails in a large number of cases to attain these three ends or any oneof them, however it may satisfy the other tests applied, it has notperformed its function, is not a system which is "organic" to thewelfare of the State. The second necessity is to realise the true place of the school as theformal agent in the education of the child. Mankind by a long andlaborious process has discovered and established many systems ofknowledge. He has created language and invented arts for the realisationof the many purposes of life. It is the business of the school to impartthis knowledge to the child--to put him in possession at least of somepart of this heritage which has come down to him, and to do so in such amanner that while acquiring the experience he shall also be trained inthe method of finding and establishing systems of means for himself andby himself. If, however, we lay the emphasis on the mere imparting ofthe garnered experiences of the ages, the danger to be feared is lestour teaching degenerate into mere dogmatism or mere cram. If, on theother hand, we lay too much emphasis on the ability to self-find andself-establish systems, we are in danger of losing sight of the socialpurpose of all knowledge--of forgetting that the only justification forestablishing a system of knowledge is that it may efficiently functionin the attainment of some purpose of life. Of the more important of the practical problems of our own day andgeneration the first and most important is to realise that oureducational system as it exists at present is not fitted to produce andmaintain an efficient and sufficient supply of all the social serviceswhich the modern State requires of its adult members, and that we mustconsider this question of education as a whole and in all its parts, andquite clear of mere party interests. Above all, we must get over thefatal habit of reforming one part of the system and leaving the otherparts alone. The whole problem of education from the Primary School tothe University requires consideration and organisation. We reform nowour Universities, then after a period our Secondary School system, andso we proceed, advancing here, retrograding there, but of education asan organically connected whole we have no thought. But apart from the want of organisation as a whole our educationalsystem in its parts is at present defective. We require to reconsiderthe question of how best to educate the children of the very poor. Atpresent we fail in a large number of cases to train up the children ofthis class to be socially efficient. Economically and morally we fail toreach any high standard. No doubt the home and social environment is allagainst the school influence; but by a more rational system of earlyeducation, by taking more care of the physical development of the child, and, if need be, for a time, making public provision for the feeding ofthe children of the very poor, we might do much to remove this defect. Above all, we must endeavour to stem the yearly flow of boys and girlsat the conclusion of the Primary School period into mere casual andunskilled employments, and must endeavour by some means or other tocontinue the education of the child for some years further. Again, we require to make better provision for the technical training ofour workmen. By a system of Evening Continuation Schools having as theiraim the instruction of the youth in the arts underlying or subsidiary tohis particular calling, we might do much to amend this defect. Moreover, the Evening Continuation Schools might play a much more important partthan they now do in the securing of the future moral and civicefficiency of the individual and of the nation. Lastly, and this need is clearly felt by all acquainted with thesubject, we require the development and extension of our TechnicalColleges, in order that we may adequately train those whose duty inafter-life will be the application of advanced scientific knowledge inthe furtherance of the arts and industries of life. _Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, _Edinburgh_