RELATION TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 101 



prehensive measures of this kind adopted, there is reason to believe 

 that in one or two generations all the ground which has been lost 

 would be recovered. 1 What, in short, is wanted is a resolve to attack 

 this slum problem under scientific guidance, on a well-considered plan, 

 with the help of great resources, and with the thoroughness, energy, 

 and persistence which are displayed in great works of modern en- 

 gineering. And in such a plan the labors of the school-teachers and 

 the educational influence of a new type of elementary school would 

 play an important part. 



Our third great educational need is a better system of secondary 

 day-schools. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the social and 

 economic value of the service which will be rendered to the nation 

 by such schools when they are made more generally accessible and 

 more intellectually efficient. The cost will be great; it will be 

 necessary to raise the salaries of the teachers, which are now too 

 often on a quite inadequate scale, if we are to draw in sufficient 

 numbers into the service of the schools men possessing the attain- 

 ments, the skill, and the personal influence which are necessary for 

 the efficient discharge of the duties of a secondary schoolmaster. It 

 would seem desirable that the course should begin at latest at twelve 

 years of age and extend till fifteen at earliest. Pupils of exceptional 

 capacity should be drafted into these schools from the public element- 

 ary schools at not later than twelve years of age, with scholarships 

 covering the cost of the fees, and, when necessary, maintenance allow- 

 ance should be granted in addition. The curricula of the schools 

 should be of different types, but it is probable that the study of 

 English, Latin, and mathematics would, in a considerable proportion 

 of them, form the backbone of the course of studies. Their aim 

 would be to give a thorough and searching intellectual discipline, to 

 develop through the corporate life of the school a healthy sense of 

 comradeship and of public duty, and also to turn the thought of 

 the pupils toward intelligent reflection on social problems, and to 

 arouse in their minds a desire to throw themselves with vigor, when 

 the time should come, into tasks of public usefulness and of social 

 amelioration. In all this reorganization of our English schools I trust 

 that we shall refrain from going to extremes in pressing sudden 

 changes of aim and practice. Our best hope for educational progress 

 lies not through contention but through conciliation and mutual 

 agreement. Richard Baxter's words may be cited as applicable to 

 the present educational situation in England: "Greater light and 

 stronger judgment are usually with the reconcilers than with either 

 of the contending parties." 



1 See report of Committee on Physical Deterioration. London, Eyre & 

 Spottiswoode, 1904. 



