SECTION B THE SCHOOL 



(Hall 12, September 23, 10 a. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: DR. F. Louis SOLD AN, Superintendent of Public Schools, St. Louis. 

 SPEAKERS: DR. MICHAEL E. SADLER, University of Manchester. _ 



DR. WILLIAM H. MAXWELL, Superintendent of Public Schools, New 



York City. 

 SECRETARY: PROFESSOR A. S. LANGSDORF, Washington University. 



THE SCHOOL IN ITS RELATION TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 



AND TO NATIONAL LIFE 



BY MICHAEL ERNEST SADLER 



[Michael Ernest Sadler, Professor of the History and Administration of Educa- 

 tion, Victoria University of Manchester, b. Barnsley, Yorkshire, England, 

 1861. M.A. Oxford (Trinity College and Christ Church) ; Post-graduate, Uni- 

 versity of Jena, 1895 ; LL.D.; Columbia University. Officier de I'Instruction 

 Publique; Secretary of the Oxford University Extension Delegacy, 1885-95; 

 Student and Steward of Christ Church, Oxford, 1886-95; Director of Special 

 Inquiries and Reports to the Board of Education for England and Wales, 1895- 

 1904. Author of special reports on educational subjects; reports on secondary 

 and higher education.] 



WERE it possible for some eighteenth-century observer of men and 

 manners say, for Addison or Bishop Butler or Dr. Johnson -- to 

 return to life in order to study the educational principles and practice 

 of' the more democratic communities of the present day, he would 

 probably dwell on six things as being (apart from those changes in 

 courses of instruction which are due to the progress of physical and 

 historical science) the most conspicuous points of difference between 

 the old order as he knew it and that which now prevails. He would 

 note, first of all, that the public schools open up for the children of 

 the masses of the people a range of individual opportunity which 

 in extent and in stimulating variety goes beyond any precedent in 

 history. Secondly, he would observe, with surprise though not 

 necessarily with approval, that school discipline, especially on its 

 physical side, has lost its former severity of application. Thirdly, 

 he would stand amazed at the effective recognition which has been 

 given to the claims of women to intellectual self-development. 

 Fourthly, he would find, in all grades of education from the kinder- 

 garten to the university, the teacher's calling regarded with greatly 

 increased honor and consideration. Fifthly, he would be impressed 

 by the successful assertion by the secular state of the right to impress 

 an ideal of life upon the consciousness of the rising generation. And 



