STATE EDUCATION : A NECESSITY, 6y 



STATE EDUCxVTIOX: A iS^ECESSITY. 



By CHARLES S. BRYANT. 



IN the September number of " The Popular Science Monthly," 1880, 

 appeared an article, reprinted from the " Fortnightly Review," 

 entitled " State Education : a Help or a Hindrance ? " It was written 

 by the Honorable Auberon Herbert, an English writer of more than 

 ordinary ability. He opposes state education on principle ; and, as 

 much of his reasoning applies in this country as well as in England, 

 it is desirable that his fallacies should be exposed in the same journal 

 that has given them cuiTency here. The writer has neither limited 

 his remarks to the English system, nor confined himself to obnoxious 

 methods of applying courses of study to the education of the young 

 in England or elsewhere. Had he done either, a writer on this side the 

 Atlantic might have hesitated to question the propriety of his convic- 

 tions. But, embracing, as he seems to do, the w^hole field of organized 

 state educational effort, he has opened a theme as broad as the founda- 

 tions on which society rests. 



Some of his conclusions present points on which eminent educators, 

 both in England and in America, widely differ. A note at the bottom 

 of the first page of his article may have some modifying effect upon 

 his radical conclusions. This note is in the words following : " I 

 ought to say that I have changed my opinions as regards the action 

 of the state since 1870. I would not have made this change without 

 the assistance of Mr. Herbert Spencer's writings." ("Popular Science 

 Monthly," vol. xvii, p. 585.) Mr. Spencer, to whose writings our 

 author refers, has written many able things on education, with which 

 educators are well agreed ; but he is not understood in this country 

 to be wholly opposed to state education. And it may be suggested 

 that the disciple may differ with his teacher, or that the teacher may 

 himself be misunderstood in the application of his principles to par- 

 ticular conditions of the social status. The conditions of the state, 

 also, must be continually advancing beyond the demands of earlier 

 efforts, as society in its tastes and needs moves forward. State growth 

 has no limit, and hence no rule can be laid down for the government 

 of the future that does not embrace the possibility of new combina- 

 tions. The Spencer of to-day may predict, but the Spencer of to- 

 morrow may find the historic progress in conflict with his prediction. 

 Man's needs in his social and civil relations, in his artificial progress, 

 can not be determined with the precision of mathematical certainty, as 

 we determine the movements of the planets. 



The English Government, of which the writer of the article under 

 consideration is an integral element, is rapidly changing its position 

 on the question of state education. The question with his country 



