NA TURE 



89 



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1919. 



THE WASTE OF YOUTH. 



Problems of National Education. By Twelve 

 Scottish Educationists. With Prefatory Note 

 by the Right Hon. Robert Munro. Edited 

 by John Chirke. Pp. xxvi + 368. (London: 

 Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1919.) Price 125. 

 net. 



THE extension of the school age from fourteen 

 to fifteen, \vith,|,,}:ompulsory education in 

 continuation classes to eighteen years of age, 

 which is the main provision of recent educational 

 legislation, adds four additional years of schooling 

 at the most critical and formative period of life. 

 It is to be hoped rather than expected that better 

 use may be made in the future than has been 

 made in this country of the school period in the 

 past. One opens this book on " Problerns of 

 .National Education," a collection of twelve essays 

 by Scottish educationists, expecting somf' assur- 

 ance at least that the stale old stock-in-trade of the 

 schoolmaster derived from the Middle .'\ges had, 

 in public education at least, been finally dis- 

 credited. Then Latin was the universal written 

 language, and it has been handed on as a ready- 

 made means of disciplining youth to distasteful 

 tasks, after all intelligible reason has ceased and 

 tne manifold activities of a rapidlv expanding and 

 luxuriant .scientific civilisation have made it un- 

 suitable. But, alas ! in education the vicious 

 circle be.sets one at every turn. It is idle to 

 expect the child to be put an fait with the modern 

 world, of which already he probably knows far 

 more in certain ways than his teachers, until the 

 l-'t!er have caught up with it and the subjects of 

 their training in the ancient universities and the 

 training institutions been fundamentally recast. 

 But in this book every and any aspect of educa- 

 tion is discussed exhaustively rather than this 

 central problem. 



The work of Ijuilding up more and more 

 elaborate superstructures on such false foun- 

 dations meanwhile goes merrily on. Physical 

 training, ethical, moral, religious, assthetic, and 

 civic education, anything rather than the intel- 

 lectual foundations, are all explored in these 

 centrifugal essays by experts in the vain hope of 

 disguising the rottenness of the core. For, excel- 

 lent and informative as are many of these 

 discussions on the outriders and secondary con- 

 sequences of national education, on the main 

 theme, which is engaging the attention of the 

 taught, if not the teachers, this volume is singu- 

 larly vacuous. 



Thus we read: "The new movement regards 

 the purpose of education as primarily social 

 efficiency and social progress rather than in- 

 dividual development and personal success," 

 followed by the inevitable reference to Plato and 

 Aristotle, which with unconscious and monotonous 

 irony reiterates the fatal retrospective habit of 

 NO. 2605, VOL. 104] 



mind. The future, if it learns from the past, will 

 see to it that this type is put in charge of museums 

 and cemeteries rather than of the growing child. 

 The main primary, as it was the original, pur- 

 pose of the school is still to provide the child with 

 a suitable intellectual equipment with which 10 

 face the world of the twentieth century. That is 

 the weak spot, and it does not solve the problem 

 to pretend that intellectual efficiency is Prussian 

 and therefore to be shunned, or that preparation 

 for the world of to-day is vocational and there- 

 fore no proper part of school work. 



Principal Laurie contributes the most valuable 

 and satisfying exposition of the position in his 

 essay on "Technical F^ducation." His state- 

 ment — "To deal with the promotion of scientific 

 research, I draw no distinction between pure and 

 applied science, as no distinction can be drawn in 

 practice. The first essential is the pursuit of 

 science for its own sake as a pure branch of know- 

 ledge " (p. 249) — may be generalised. With 

 regard to intellectual training, no distinction can 

 be drawn between cultural and vocational training. 

 The first essential is that the intellect must be 

 trained for its own sake. The culture of a work- 

 man is the vocation of a scholar, and vice versa, 

 though the scholar might not be sufficiently cul- 

 tured to admit it. The educationist surely should 

 use every means most calculated to develop the 

 growing intelligence of a child and not scorn the 

 new because they are, or may be, vocational. 



Another remark from this essayist needs no 

 comment : — " The love of knowledge for the sake 

 of knowledge, which inspired the Greek civilisa- 

 tion, is not understood by the very men who have 

 received a classical education. They do not see 

 that the man of science is carrying on the tradition 

 of Greek culture to-day." 



As an example of how completely cut of touch a 

 teacher may be with the psychology of modern 

 youth, a passage from the essay on " Moral and 

 Religious Elements in the School " may be quoted 

 (p. i4<S) : — " There seems to be no good reason 

 why the narratives of the miracles in the Old 

 Testament should be excluded. The wonderful 

 and the miraculous are a source of great delight 

 to voung children and may be turned to good 

 moral purpose. Provided that at some stage in 

 the pupils' .school career they are exhibited in their 

 proper light, there is no reason to debar children 

 from reading and enjoying these narratives." 

 Possibly this may throw some light on the com- 

 plaint (p. no): "Little or no respect or con- 

 sideration for older people is exacted from the 

 young. It is not easy to detect in them the spirit 

 of reverence either for institutions or individuals. " 

 Classical education, according to Prof. Burnet, 

 is about to achieve fresh laurels in the new era. 

 " Humanity " its exponents call it — " that is to 

 say, the literature, institutions, and thought of 

 : antiquity," thereby subtly suggesting that modern 

 i man is not humane, or humane by descent rather 

 I than by ascent, in conformitv with the ancient, 

 I exploded Biblical myth, .so harking ever back- 

 i wards to the past rather than reaching out 



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