701- president's address SECTION J. 



# 



great moA''ements of to-day have Tjecome possible because the multi- 

 tude has been educated — the aggregate knowledge-power of the 

 nations has been multiplied a million fold. Literature, science, in- 

 dustry, social development, politics, religion, all owe their vitality, 

 their dynamic restlessness, to the wide diffusion of intellectual power 

 that has follow^ed upon popular education. 



ITS BEARING ON SOCIETY. 

 This great extension of educational opportunities must stand 

 intimately associated Avith the organisation of society, and conse- 

 quently in late years the sociological aspect of educational problems 

 has gained marked prominence. A wide view of the movements .'that 

 are taking place in the structure of society shows a striving after 

 greater homogeneity. The old clearly-marked subdivisions are yield- 

 ing, and there is a tendency to fusion of ranks that in older times 

 were kept apart. The maxim that enjoins contentment with the 

 sphere of life that follows the accidents of birth no longer holds 

 sway. A common education is smoothing out the unevenness due to 

 inherited disadvantages. It is becoming more and more possible 

 for the child of more than average natural capacity to rise to the 

 level where that capacity finds its best expression, and, as a con- 

 sequence, the lines of separation between class and class are becoming 

 blurred; and the change is welcome. It makes for stability. 



EXTENSION NEEDED. 

 It still remains to carry this unifying and consolidating influence 

 of education further by perfecting the methods of primaiy instruction 

 and by extending to wider areas of the community the opportunities 

 for higher instruction. The most enthusiastic admirer of modern pro- 

 gress must feel that there still remains much perfecting of the 

 methods of elementaiy education in its bearing on social well-being, 

 when he sees in times of turmoil that men's minds are subject to the 

 tyranny of a happily-turned phrase and their opinions modified by 

 the mere influence of an epigram. It is suggested to him that there 

 may be much learning with little thinking, and that society demands 

 from the schools that their finished products shall think more even 

 though they may learn less. The structure of modern society calls 

 loudly also for something more than the higher education of the few. 

 Along wutli the development of industrial means of production has. 

 ccme the minute subdivision of labour that requires from the few the 

 ability to direct, and from the many tlie power to do some small 

 thing. But as a compensating consideration, along with the evolution 

 of civic organisation, the individual with the very limited field of 

 wage-earning labour finds himself charged with civic responsibilities 

 that demand the highest intelligence, and endowed with a leisure that 

 offers scope for the pleasures of cultivated tastes. While then 

 educational agencies must concern themselves with the qualifications 

 that make for the earning of bread, they must also take account of 

 the fact that the bread-W'inner has high obligations that lie outside 

 the narrow limits of his daily toil. Whereas in ancient Greece the 

 State itself was the end of education, in medieval times the Church, 

 at a later period the individual, educational aims and ideals must now 



