PUBLIC INTEREST IN EDUCATION. 783 



English Board of Education during the last few j^ears form quite a 

 library in themselves. Numerous educational periodicals are pub- 

 lished by private firms to meet the demand for fresh knowledge. It 

 must be admitted, however, that the readers of this copious literature 

 consist mainly of teachers and others professionally engaged in educa- 

 tion, and that, after all, in comparison with the total output of books, 

 the educational portion is exceedingly small. Perhaps the daily news- 

 paper is a better test of public interest. Until lately the leading 

 journals of Australia contained only an occasional article on an 

 educational subject; now each of the Sydney morning newspapers 

 devotes a column once a week to schools, and judging by the present 

 trend the weekly column will before long become a daily one. We 

 rejoice at the promotion, actual and prospective, but here again, 

 applying the method of comparison, we find how small a foothold 

 education has gained on the journalistic ladder. Sport, or what is 

 called sport, fills, day after clay, without fail, not a column merely, 

 but whole pages of the newspaper, and not satisfied with that, invades 

 the poor weekly education column. If this test be a fair one, sport out- 

 weighs education in the public mind by, say, 50 to 1. We cannot 

 blame the newspapers, whose business it is to cater for the public 

 taste, not to correct it. To the credit of the editors, it is fair to say 

 that they are generally ready to print any reasonable quantity of 

 educational matter that may be communicated to them. AVhile the 

 sporting news hold the pi'ide of place in our daily newspapers, there 

 are many other topics that rank far above education in journalistic 

 value and inferentially in public interest. Even the rearing of pigs 

 and poultry receives more earnest attention than the rearing of 

 citizens. 



If the reading of the people affords some clue to their interests, so 

 also does their daily conversation. Though here the evidence is 

 difficult to estimate, it is not, I fear, reassuring. By the domestic 

 fireside, around the hotel table, at the street corner, in the tramcar, 

 how often is education the subject of discourse? And could we peep 

 into men's minds and follow the course of their thoughts from hour to 

 hour, how often should we find them concerned with education ? Those 

 of us who are actively engaged in educational work naturally become 

 so engrossed with our work that we are apt to over-estimate the place 

 it occupies in the interest of the general world. We receive an un- 

 pleasant shock when the conviction is forced upon us that, after all 

 that has been done for popular education, there is still a great mass 

 of indifference, which, like a heavy drag, checks the wheels of progress. 



The small attendance at churches is often quoted as proof that 

 the popular interest in religion is waning. Is it right to apply a 

 similar test to the school, and judge the people's interest in education 

 by the frequency of their visits to the school? Perhaps not, for, it 

 may be said, parents send their children to school to be taught, but 

 need not go themselves. Yet it would be a good thing if parents did 

 visit the school. One of the records kept in the Public Schools of New 

 South Wales is the Visitors' Book, and on my annual visit of inspection 

 I turn with much interest to this record. In most cases I find that for 

 year after year not a single parent has visited the school. After 

 making eveiy allowance for the parents' preoccupation in their 



