100 THE SCHOOL 



nation must develop its educational system on its own lines and with 

 due regard to its own history and special needs, there is a hearty 

 admiration for the great educational work which has been done else- 

 where and a desire to attain, though perhaps in different ways, to 

 a corresponding excellence. 



What is most needed among us, in order to overcome inertia, is a 

 strong movement of national feeling and a motive to make our schools 

 less sectional in temper and more definitely part of the national life. 

 The problem will be how to combine such a strong national feeling 

 with the preservation of fruitful variety of educational traditions. 



In respect of the elementary schools there is every sign that our 

 progress will be in the direction of greater differentiation of type. 

 The great increase of well-being in England among the artisan popu- 

 lation has virtually produced a new class. For this class a superior 

 type of elementary school is necessary, and is, in fact, already being 

 provided. The English artisans are steadily pressing for elementary 

 schools of a high order, with smaller classes, highly-trained teachers, 

 well-equipped buildings, and spacious playgrounds, and supplemented 

 by further courses of continuative instruction. Their requirements 

 are in the way of being met, though very much still remains to be 

 done. It is perhaps in this grade of English education that the ex- 

 ample of America has been most potent, though the influence of 

 our class distinctions is too strong for the parallel to be complete. 



But the economic changes which have raised the artisan class to 

 so high a point of well-being have also had the effect of stratifying 

 the population and of concentrating in the slums masses of people 

 who are poor, ill-nourished, ignorant, badly housed, and only to a 

 small extent benefited by our present methods of training. In re- 

 spect of this part of the social problem, ameliorative action on a com- 

 prehensive scale is urgently required. Palliatives and patchwork 

 are inadequate to the urgency of the need. If the conditions in 

 which* these slum populations live were drastically reformed, and if 

 the state, acting in cooperation with local authorities, took charge, 

 in labor colonies, of the lives of those adults who showed them- 

 selves incapable of independent existence up to the standard of 

 decency which it might impose, the welfare of the children of the 

 slum districts could be effectively provided for; their enfeebled con- 

 stitutions might be reestablished through suitable and regular feed- 

 ing; their self-respect might be established through the enforcement 

 of cleanliness; and they might be given a course of school training 

 based to some extent on that which has been successful in our in- 

 dustrial schools. In elementary schools of this differentiated type 

 very careful attention would be given to physical training, and man- 

 ual instruction, inculcating a respect for the dignity of thorough work, 

 would form an important feature of the curriculum. Were com- 



