EDUCATION 



2801 



EDUCATION 



showing any interest in things in- 

 tellectual. On the other hand, it is 

 generally admitted that nowhere 

 has the training of character been 

 more successfully carried on than 

 in these schools. This was well 

 recognized even before the Great 

 War. The avowed aim of the 

 English public schoolmaster is to 

 turn out gentlemen, and the instru- 

 ment hitherto used in the process 

 has not been so much knowledge as 

 games. An excessive use was per- 

 haps made of this instrument, but 

 the schoolmaster succeeded in ac- 

 complishing his aim. It is thought, 

 however, that the schoolmaster 

 could combine the excellences of 

 his method of character training 

 with a much greater amount of 

 actual instruction in more or less 

 useful subjects. The introduc- 

 tion of this term useful raises a 

 problem. 



Education and Utility 



Universities and secondary 

 schools have been long dominated 

 by the concept of what is called 

 a liberal education, by which is 

 meant an education suitable for a 

 free man : an education that will 

 make him as nearly as possible a 

 perfect human being as, SV/R, apart 

 from any consideration of work or 

 vocation. Thus one of the essential 

 qualities of a liberal education is 

 freedom from any taint of the use- 

 ful in the ordinary meaning of that 

 term. The pupil shall develop fully 

 and freely all his qualities as a 

 human being, irrespective of any 

 use to which these qualities may be 

 put. Some have gone the length of 

 advocating the cult of the useless 

 as something in itself desirable, but 

 the more usual attitude is that the 

 truly educated man is one who has 

 been trained in subjects that are 

 not required in earning a living, 

 and that are not to be put to any 

 use leading to material advantage. 



Along with this more or less 

 avowed cult of the useless, there 

 grew up a theory that did some- 

 thing to salve the conscience of 

 practical English people. It was 

 admitted that, as artisans and 

 other humble folk had to be speci- 

 fically prepared for the particular 

 line of work that was to be their 

 portion, so it was desirable that 

 even those who would be called 

 upon to sit in the seats of the 

 mighty should get some sort of 

 training that would have the 

 direct result of fitting them to dis- 

 charge their duties efficiently. 

 Princes have quite a specific train- 

 ing, and certain other high digni- 

 taries have an equally satisfactory 

 preparation for their lif e work. The 

 lure of the liberal arts was, how- 

 ever, very strong, and the fortunate 

 free men of the world were willing 



that the education of their children 

 should be marked off from that of 

 the unfree and artisan class. 



A justification of this purely 

 general and unspecific training was 

 found in the theory that the subject 

 studied did not in itself matter; 

 that the training acquired in the 

 process of mastering it did. The 

 mind could be trained apart alto- 

 gether from the nature of the 

 material upon which it was exer- 

 cised. The student of classics and 

 mathematics learned not only to be 

 a mathematician and a classical 

 scholar, but to be a well-trained 

 man in general. His mind was 

 trained as mind, and was ready to 

 be applied to any subject. 



This is the much debated doc- 

 trine of formal training, accord- 

 ing to which a man who has been 

 trained in any subject can carry 

 over the results of that training to 

 any other subject ; so that, for ex- 

 ample, a man who has been trained 

 in physics and mathematics may 

 at once turn his training to account 

 in governing a district in India. 



Culture and Vocation 

 The cultural ideal stands at the 

 one extreme, the vocational at the 

 other. Those who believe in specific 

 education hold that pupils should 

 be prepared definitely for the parti- 

 cular line of life they are to follow. 

 Naturally certain difficulties arise 

 at once. To begin with, it is im- 

 possible to tell at an early age what 

 the vocation of a particular pupil 

 is to be. In olden times, when a 

 man was practically born into a 

 particular vocation, all went well. 

 But in these days of wide oppor- 

 tunity the pupil must be left un- 

 fettered as long as possible so that 

 his bent and capacities may be 

 discovered. Indeed, one of the 

 main problems of education in the 

 future will be this determination of 

 the possibilities of each individual 

 pupil. The educator will be called 

 upon, not merely to train for a 

 particular kind of work, but to dis- 

 cover what the kind of work ought 

 to be in each case. This will imply 

 division of labour, and there will be 

 cooperation between those who test 

 capacitv and those who develop it. 

 Everything is therefore in favour 

 of a gradual narrowing of the curri- 

 culum as the pupils advance in 

 school, determined by the develop- 

 ment of capacity and bent. 



Vocational education must not 

 be understood to apply only to the 

 preparation of artisans. On account 

 of confusion under this head the 

 Workers' Educational Association 

 is suspicious of vocational educa- 

 tion, for it fears that the employing 

 classes are anxious to get workmen 

 broken in to their life's occupation 

 as soon as possible, and thus to 



turn them into specially efficient 

 cogs in the industrial machine. 

 There are, however, other than 

 economic reasons for postponing 

 as long as possible the decision of 

 a pupil's ultimate vocation. A 

 large part of the preliminary 

 stage of education must be the 

 same for all. Reading, writing, 

 elementary arithmetic, and rudi- 

 mentary drawing are of this kind, 

 and have to be learned by all, irre- 

 spective of the use to which they 

 have afterwards to be put. Certain 

 other subjects are of value to all, no 

 matter what their social position 

 afterwards may be. Geography, 

 history, literature, music, art, and 

 general science belong to this 

 group. By the time these subjects 

 have been studied for some years 

 the teachers will be able to deter- 

 mine the ability and the bent of the 

 different pupils, and to advise them 

 with regard to their further studies. 



Every child is assumed to have a 

 right to claim from the state an 

 education suitable to his capacity, 

 and without reference to his social 

 rank. Has the state a correspond- 

 ing right to educate its citizens : is 

 the right to claim an education 

 paralleled by a right to impose 

 one ? The remark comes down to 

 us from classical times that states- 

 manship is " architectonic to 

 education," in simpler language, 

 that the educator has to take his 

 orders from the statesman, because 

 the statesman uses the human 

 material prepared by the educator. 

 In actual practice this principle ia 

 now generally recognized. No 

 doubt in the past the influence of 

 the state in education was largely 

 negative ; certain sections of the 

 community were denied the privi- 

 leges of education, and the segrega- 

 tion of ranks was so secured. 

 Education and Politics 



But in modern times the state 

 exercises the right of modifying 

 the education of its citizens to 

 suit its own ends. Germany is 

 the conspicuous example of this 

 attitude. In 1806, after Jena, 

 Prussia was deprived by Napoleon 

 of every chance of self-government 

 except in education. But the 

 Prussians under the leadership of 

 Fichte, von Humboldt, and others, 

 deliberately set about regenerating 

 their nation by means of education. 

 As a result, Bismarck was able to 

 say that it was the schoolmaster 

 who conquered at Sadowa and 

 afterwards at Gravelotte. Though 

 used for a bad purpose, German 

 education was no less powerful in 

 moulding national character and 

 opinion from 1871 to 1914. Japan 

 offers an equally striking, but more 

 pleasing, example of the power of 

 national education when deliber- 



