THE INFLUENCE OF EDUCATION 479 



The point just made refers particularly to the external 

 and administrative side of education and its influence. It is 

 quite true that provision on this side is far from covering the 

 whole ground of the discovery, selection and release of individ- 

 ual capacities. Within the schools, in spite of the opportunity 

 they furnish, it is still possible for lock-step, mass instruction 

 to persist. But there has nevertheless been a constant 

 multiphcation both of types of schools and a multiphcation 

 of courses, which render possible a closer approximation 

 of education to individual needs and powers. What is more 

 important is the fact that in the more progressive schools, 

 there is much greater attention than there was even a 

 generation ago to individuals as such, even when they are all 

 together in the same school class. A definite effort is made to 

 provide not merely a varied program of studies so that each 

 pupil shall have scope for any special abilities he may 

 possess, but to diversify material and methods even in the 

 same study, so as to supply occasion for individual attack 

 and response. While relatively this tendency is still backward, 

 there is much evidence that its fermentation will gradually 

 leaven the whole lump of mass education. In administration, 

 the former quasi-military regimentation is quite generally 

 giving way to a more liberal policy in such matters as 

 discipline and promotions. 



The second point under this heading is closely connected 

 with that just made. In the better schools, personal initi- 

 ative is prized and encouraged as it never used to be. Of course 

 the main tradition of the school has been that of passivity. 

 Minds were treated as blank pieces of paper on which informa- 

 tion was to be stamped. Or they were empty reservoirs 

 into which knowledge was to be poured by means of conduit 

 pipes from text books and the teachers' words. Recitations 

 and examinations were calculated merely to test and record 

 the amount that had been poured in and not leaked out. 

 Or, to vary the metaphor, the mind was like a gramophone 

 plate where memory retained what was impressed, and the 

 recitation and examination periods were times when the plate 

 was set in motion to give out what it had taken in. Not even 

 the most optimistic would hold that this tradition has died 

 out in our schools; its baleful consequences in suppression 



