RELATION TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 99 



IV 



By way of practical comment upon some of the points submitted 

 for your consideration in this paper I will venture to conclude with 

 a brief reference to the present educational situation in England. 

 At no earlier time in her history has England been so deeply stirred on 

 the subject of national education as she is to-day. No one can yet 

 foresee the final outcome of the movement w r hich is now in progress; 

 but it is already clear that in future the organized work of the school 

 will play a much more important part in English life than, in spite 

 of the immense advances which have been made since the passing of 

 Mr. Forster's Act in 1870, has yet been the case. There is a wide- 

 spread conviction that greater efficiency in the intellectual side of 

 school training is vitally important to the civic well-being of the 

 nation as well as to its industrial and commercial interests. The 

 history of popular education in England has been at bottom (class 

 selfishness and ecclesiastical prejudice apart) the history of a conflict 

 between two ideals, the ideal of the education of the people mainly 

 through a public school system, and the ideal of education mainly 

 through the influences of an established social environment and 

 through the faithful discharge of appointed duties in life; or in other 

 words, the ideal of education mainly through free scholastic oppor- 

 tunity and the ideal of education mainly through social discipline. 

 Each ideal had its share of truth. But the one side believed that the 

 school could do more than schools alone can ever do. The other side 

 greatly underrated the service which efficient schools can render to 

 a nation, and at the same time failed to see how far the actual social 

 environment was from furnishing the kind of training which their 

 argument presupposed. But the new trend of educational thought is 

 bringing these two ideals into union. The conception of the school 

 organized in close relationship to an improved social environment 

 combines the thoughts for which each side contended. Those who 

 really care for educational progress in England are thus, in respect of 

 essentials, less divided than they have ever been before. There has 

 never been so good a chance of their uniting their forces in order to 

 overcome the widespread indifference which still exists, and to thrust 

 aside the actual opposition to popular education which still lingers 

 here and there, but is no longer a serious obstacle to reform. The 

 fact that, to a degree unprecedented in England, the value of an 

 efficient school system is now so widely appreciated among us is due 

 in no small measure to our study of the educational methods and 

 organization of Germany, Switzerland, and America. In this connec- 

 tion I would ask to be allowed to pay a tribute of gratitude to the 

 labors of Commissioner Harris and of his colleagues in the Bureau of 

 Education at Washington. While it is generally understood that each 



