468 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



involved? But what is to be dreaded is that the necessity for reform in our 

 educational methods may be lost sight of in some sterile dispute as to science 

 versus the humanities, compulsory Greek versus Bolshevism, or some equally 

 meaningless formula. To debate the claims of one subject against another at the 

 present time is beside the mark ; an education based on chemistry would be as 

 incomplete and disastrous in its results as one based on the Greek syntax. 

 Specialists may be used by the state, and the state should appreciate their worth 

 and know how to employ them for its greater ends. It is not by making all men 

 specialists, however, that we shall achieve wisdom ; professors may be as stupid 

 as members of Parliament so soon as they are taken out of the corner of 

 knowledge over which their practical experience extends. It is because of the 

 existence of this idea of an antagonism between science and, say, the classics 

 that I have ventured to set down what seem to me to be the first principles of 

 every education. 



It is now universally recognised that the education of the community is the 

 duty of the state. All stages of education are controlled to a greater or lesser 

 degree by the state. This control has developed of late years with the in- 

 creased amount of public funds allotted to education, and there is no doubt that 

 the responsibility of the state will become rapidly greater with the growing recog- 

 nition of the supreme importance of education for the welfare of the nation. 



Objects of Education 



It is therefore in its relation to the state — and by that I mean the common will 

 and resultant action of the whole community (which in a democracy should be 

 synonymous with the state)— that I propose to deal with the objects and methods 

 of education. Each individual must be fitted by his education to play his part in 

 the community in adding to the common weal, i.e. to be a healthy, good, and 

 useful member of the community. Let us see what is implied in these qualities. 

 I propose to say nothing in reference to health, since all are agreed as 

 to the significance of the word " health," and as to the chief means by which 

 it may be ensured. Fresh air, good food, good housing, bodily discipline, 

 all these are contained implicitly in every scheme for the improvement of the 

 younger members of the race. It will be useful, however, to inquire into the real 

 significance of the qualities which we speak of as "good" and "useful." It is 

 evident that " good " cannot have an identical significance in different races. A 

 "good" Japanese or a "good" Brahmin will have different ideals of conduct and 

 will behave otherwise than a "good" Englishman. Underlying these differences 

 there is a common meaning : wherever he may be, a " good " citizen is one who 

 works in harmony with other members of the community, who observes the rule of 

 the tribe and is able to subordinate, both in desire and action, his individual welfare 

 to that of the body of which he is a member. This implies that the individual 

 during his plastic years of growth has been constrained to act in certain ways, and 

 has thus received from his environment habits, bodily and mental, which have 

 moulded his behaviour and even his emotions to the advantage of the community. 

 The making of a good citizen has always been regarded by every nation as the 

 first and most significant part of education. The establishment and observation 

 of a social rule has been of such prime importance in maintaining the integrity of 

 a race and in enabling it to resist aggression from without, that the office has 

 been in many cases entrusted to a special class of the community — a priesthood. 

 Under the authority of the priesthood the tribal law has been imposed on the 

 community by the appointment of dire penalties for its slightest infringement, and 



