PAPERS PRESENTED AT GENERAL SESSIONS 63 



our own. It has a certain tendency to get out of touch 

 with the world and, in the case of the older public schools, 

 tends to foster a class consciousness which we are striv- 

 ing to avoid. In its best form the system is also rather 

 expensive, and hitherto the policy of the local govern- 

 ments has been to enlarge and give financial assistance to 

 private institutions already in existence and to build and 

 equip new ones of their own only when no others were 

 near at hand. In proportion to the aid received from 

 public funds the semi-private schools have lowered their 

 fees so that we have ''public schools" ranging from the 

 free Public High .School as we know it to the distinctly 

 private schools of the older foundations. I have men- 

 tioned the rather unfortunate practice of sending chil- 

 dren away from home at a comparatively early age, a 

 practice necessitated at first by the fewness of the avail- 

 able schools and continued now largely because it has be- 

 come the respectable thing to do. Its gradual decrease 

 is a noteworthy feature of post-war England. 



The American system has been conceived on a larger 

 scale and does reach a correspondingly greater propor- 

 tion of the population. I wish to point out, however, that 

 in our satisfaction at having created a system of second- 

 ary education free to all, we are inclined to be blind to 

 its most glaring imperfections. 



ice the English public school receives its pupils a 

 year earlier and keeps them a year longer than our high 

 school, we cannot expect to cover a similar field in as 

 thorough a manner. If we are to make the most effective 

 use of these four years, however, we must, I feel, give 

 serious thought to a somewhat radical rearrangement of 

 our present methods. If we once realize that mental dis- 

 cipline is of more fundamental importance than mere 

 memorizing of facts, and that training of the mind rather 

 than attempted acquiring of possibly useful information 

 should be the primary aim of education, the difficulty is 

 half solved. 



In the light of this I should suggest that four years 

 might well be devoted to the following : 



1. Latin or Greek. The mental discipline of study in 

 a foreign language is unsurpassed, and no foreign Ian- 



