I 



1892 THE STATE AND INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION 243 



The following deals with State intervention in 

 intermediate education : — 



(For Sunday morning's leisure, or take it to church 

 and read it in your hat.) 



HODESLEA, EaSTBOUKNE, 



Oct. 1, 1892. 



My dear DoifNELLT — Best thanks for sending on my 

 letter. I do not suppose it will do much good, but, at 

 any rate, I thought I ought to try to prevent their 

 making a mess of medical education, 



I like what I have seen of Acland. He seemed to 

 have both intelligence and volition. 



As to intermediate education I have never favoured 

 the notion of State intervention in this direction. 



I think there are only two valid grounds for State 

 meddling with education : the one the danger to the 

 community which arises from dense ignorance ; the other, 

 the advantage to the community of giving capable men 

 the chance of utilising their capacity. 



The first furnishes the justification for compulsory 

 elementary education. If a child is taught reading, 

 writing, drawing, and handiwork of some kind ; the 

 elements of mathematics, physics, and history, and I 

 should add of political economy and geography ; books 

 will furnish him with everything he can possibly need to 

 make him a competent citizen in any rank of life. 



If with such a start, he has not the capacity to get all 

 he needs out of books, let him stop where he is. Blow 

 him up with intermediate education as much as you like, 

 you will only do the fellow a mischief and lift him into 

 a place for which he has no real qualification. People 

 never will recollect, that mere learning and mere clever- 

 ness are of next to no value in life, while energy and 

 intellectual grip, the things that are inborn and cannot 

 be taught, are everything. 



