700 PR ACTUAL KDL'CATION. 



provide as careful and suitable a training for the industrial 

 status as is considered necessary for the professional status. In 

 fact, legislation for education in certain countries is already 

 tending to make it compulsory upon every individual to attain 

 some vocational education just as compulsion already exists to 

 prevent illiteracy among the mass of the people. It is being 

 recognised, gradually, that an educational system which ends 

 with the end of primary school classes has not justified its exis- 

 tence, and that it cannot be justified until the minimtim outfit 

 for the business-side of life is the birthright of every child from 

 the day it enters the ordinary school. Secondary education is 

 the process that gives this outfit ; secondary education that is in 

 close association with the office, the workshop, the farm, and with 

 domestic life. Higher elementary teaching in the ordinary or 

 primary school is nearly useless for this purpose ; that means 

 that all education from at most the thirteenth year onward to at 

 least the age of seventeen must be secondary in the sense just 

 given. It is most desirable that this practical or vocational edu- 

 cation of secondary type should be given in whole-time day- 

 schools in view of the nature of the contemplated curriculum 

 and on account of the pupils ; somehow the life of children from 

 fourteen to seventeen is an all-important period requiring the 

 most watchful care, for upon the mental and bcxlily growth dur- 

 ing these years depends the quality of the future life of the 

 nation. Parents, therefore, should realise the necessity of 

 keeping their children as long as possible at the kind of day 

 school shown to be necessary even if this involves severe sacri- 

 fice on their own part. Circumstances, however, may render 

 this impossible in some cases, and the makeshift of half-time or 

 continuation schools be rendered neces,sary ; but these must be 

 held in the day-time and not at night — i.e., not from 7 p.m. on- 

 wards — as at present. Night school work has been definitely 

 proved so to drain the physical energy of youth as seriously to 

 reduce the value of this national asset ; it produces myopia, brain- 

 fag, and even epilepsy in its victims ; in fact, for the great num- 

 ber, it defeats its own object. If. therefore, it is our duty to 

 consider future generations; if our imperialism is to take note 

 of time as well as space — it is our duty as a nation to provide 

 a minimum vocational education for the youth and to feed and 

 clothe them, when that may be necessary, while they are under- 

 going instruction. All this means two things, money and future 

 employment ; vocational education is, of course, technical educa- 

 tion, and technical education is. and always will be. expensive 

 when its cost is compared with the few pitiful pence usually 

 allocated to primary or ordinary education ; it will be money 

 well spent, and in any case other countries have attempted it and 

 are succeeding. As for the over-stocking of certain callings 

 with too many workers and the economic problems arising there- 

 from — these are matters for adjustment between the Boards 

 governing the schools, the employers' associations and trade 



