PURPOSE IN EDUCATION. 491 



control the education of their children, so that they may be 

 educated in accordance with the views of their ancestors. This 

 is both unscientific and immoral. Unscientific because it attempts 

 tiy mit a bar in the path of progress, and immoral because it is an 

 attempt to bolster up prejudice. Old views are not necessarily 

 wrong. What is wrong is the attitude of mind that makes the 

 demand. The demand is, in fact, that these views should be 

 taught, whether they are right or wrong — that they should be 

 taught not in accordance with truth, but in accordance with belief. 

 Even if the belief is founded on truth this type of educiatilon is 

 essentially wrong, for it develops an uncritical attitude of mind. 

 In science the most thoroughly-established laws are only working 

 hvpotheses, and the pupil is trained to treat them as such. It is 

 impossible for scientists to support a type of education which 

 treats any subject otherwise. If the belief is not founded on 

 truth, then a mental injury is done to the pupil from which he 

 may never recover. 



Objection has been taken to this attitude on the ground that, 

 if we are not to teach pupils anything of whose truth we are not 

 certain, then they will not be taught much. Such a statement 

 from those who desire to obtain control of education shows that 

 they are not competent to do so. It argues a presupposition that 

 education consists of the acquirement of facts only. It postulates 

 that education exists in order to train the memory, and is based 

 on the physchologically un.sound assumption that memory is 

 capable of being trained. The position is untenable on other 

 grounds. Even of facts of whose truth we are certain — unless 

 we ascribe to the term " certain " a meaning that only a few 

 philosophers hold — there is an enormous mass. Even if all facts 

 of whose truth we are uncertain — whatever extended meaning 

 the word may connote — are omitted from education, it would not 

 be bankrupt. Far from it. Education through investigation 

 would still demand far more time than we can possibly devote 

 to it. 



Although there has been a lamentable lack of appreciation 

 of the fact that there must be an ultimate aim in every properly 

 organized .system of education, the writer is not so foolish as to 

 suppose that the present content of education can be radically 

 altered in thejmmediate future, for the possibility of change does 

 not rest with educationists, but with the public. Schools exist 

 to supply a pul>lic demand, and. until the general public adopts 

 a different set of values with respect to the demands of life, 

 there is little prospect of change. This only shows, however, 

 that the public requires education as well as children, and they 

 are not likely to get it unless their leaders themselves acquiire 

 definite views with regard to the ultimate aim of education. 



t5 



