452 



NATURE 



[January i. 1920 



ADULT EDUCATION. 



'P HE Final Report of the Adult Education Cuniniittee 

 ■1 of the Ministry of Reconstruction (Cd. 321, is.gd-), 

 appointed in July, 1917, as a Sub-Committee of the 

 Reconstruction Committee, over which the Prime 

 Minister presided, but afterwards, on the establish- 

 ment of the Ministry of Reconstruction, as a Commit- 

 tee of the Department, has been issued and presented 

 to the Prime Minister, in the absence of a Minister of 

 Reconstruction to succeed Sir Auckland Geddes. It 

 is a most informing and suggestive document, and 

 has been preceded by three interim reports dealing 

 respectively with industrial and social conditions in 

 relation to adult education, and suggesting drastic 

 reforms, both industrial and social ; education in the 

 Army ; and libraries and museums, in which it is 

 insisted that a much closer relationship and co-opera- 

 tion should be arranged with other branches of educa- 

 tional work, even to the extent of the transfer of their 

 administration to the local education authorities. 



The Committee was presided over by the Master of 

 Balliol, who has prefaced the Report by a most illu- 

 minating covering letter addressed to the Prime Minis- 

 ter. The Committee comprised scholars, employers, 

 trade unionists, and representatives of the Workers' 

 Educational Association, and included men and women 

 fullv conversant with the needs of working people and 

 others, and familiar with the w:ork of the various 

 educational organisations, both public and private. 

 Its terms of reference were: — "To consider the provi- 

 sion for, and possibilities of, adult education (other 

 than technical or vocational) in Great Britain, and to 

 make recommendations." The scope of the inquiry 

 necessarily covers a wide field, but it has been fully 

 considered in its various aspects, and comprises a 

 history and general review of adult education since 

 1800 ; standards and methods in adult education and 

 its weaknesses and possibilities ; the relation of the 

 State and local authorities and of the higher institu- 

 tions of learning to adult education ; the supply of 

 teachers ; the development of adult education in rural 

 areas ; the relation of technical to humane studies ; 

 the organisation and finance of adult education ; and 

 concludes with certain valuable recommendations for 

 its effective establishment. 



The Report covers 178 pages, and, as is the case 

 with the interim reports, is unanimous. It is followed 

 bv four important appendices, the first of which 

 reviews respectively and at great length the present 

 provision of the" means and facilities of adult educa- 

 tion ; the part played therein by the local authorities ; 

 the universities in respect of lecture extension courses, 

 and especially of tutorial classes ; voluntary agencies 

 such as the Workers' Educational .Association ; the 

 colleges for working people, including the London 

 Working Men's College and the Ruskin and Labour 

 Colleges at Oxford ; the educational work of resi- 

 dential settlements like Toynbee Hall and the Pass- 

 more Edwards Settlements, and of non-residential 

 such as Swarthmore, Leeds; the Gilchrist Trust, the 

 National Home Reading Union, the co-operative 

 movement, and other activities of literary and scientific 

 .societies ; war-time developments ; and, finally, adult 

 education abroad. The further appendices deal with 

 university education in London and in Wales, the 

 report of the Committee on the position of natural 

 science and that of modern languages in our educa- 

 tional system. The appendices, which are replete with 

 statistics and fertile in suggestion, cover 200 pages 

 of the Final Report. 



The Report lavs down as an absolute condition cf 

 future civilised progress that education, taken in its 

 true sense, is the basis and postulate of all urgent 



NO. 2618, VOL. 104] 



problems of reform, whether they refer to domestic 

 questions such as those of nationalisation, the claims 

 of Labour to better conditions of life, the position of 

 woman, the subject of a Second Chamber, and social 

 matters such as those of drink and prostitution, or to 

 political questions dealing with the Imperial position 

 in relation to the self-governing Dominions or to 

 India and Egypt, or to the international problems 

 involved in the redrawing of the map of Europe on 

 sound lines of nationality with due regard to the 

 claims of racial and religious minorities. 



These serious and urgent problems will not find a 

 speedy and w'ise solution until ws have an educated 

 and enlightened public. There is abundant evidence, 

 in the opinion of the Committee, of the demand of 

 the adult members of the public for the means of a 

 humane and liberal education, which shall include 

 literature, modern languages, local and general his- 

 tory, economics, art, and the natural sciences. There 

 is latent in the mass of the people a capacity, far 

 from being recognised as it should be, to rise to the 

 fundamental conceptions of great issues and to face 

 the difficulties incident to their realisation. 



The Committee has based its main conclusions on 

 the following propositions : — ^The main purpose of 

 education is to fit a man or woman for life as 

 a member of a, civilised community, and so the educa- 

 tion of the adult must proceed on the lines of suc- 

 cessive periods in his education : the family, the 

 school, the trade union or the profession, and the 

 locality, which are all successive stages, and reach 

 their "fullness in the life of the community; and 

 whilst each part of the process must be related to its 

 appropriate stage, the goal of all education must be 

 citizenship, viewed in relation to both rights and duties 

 on the part of the individual as a member of the 

 community. This is the rnison dytre of the need for 

 facilities for education and training 



Adult education must not be regarded as a luxury 

 for a few exceptional persons, or as a thing which 

 concerns a short span of early manhood, but as an 

 object of permanent national necessity, as an 'P- 

 separable aspect of citizenship, and be therefore uni- 

 versal and lifelong, spread systematically and uniformly 

 over the whole community in its own interest and as 

 a duty to its members. '.'Ml possible encouragement 

 should be given to voluntary organisation, so that 

 there may be freedom of experiment and that th.Mr 

 work mav find its appropriate place and opportunity 

 of development in the national educational system. 



The tutorial class methods of instruction are un- 

 reservedly praised in the Report, and. in order that 

 the higher institutions of learning shall be enabled to 

 take their full share in their development, the demand 

 is made that the State and the local authorities shall 

 place more abundant resources at their disposal, so 

 that their staffs of teachers mav be largely increased^ 

 In the present crisis of the nation's affairs is found 

 the chief and abiding reason for the speedy adoption 

 of the Committee's recommendations. 



AN OBSCURE DISEASE. ENCEPHALITIS 

 LETH.\RGICA.i 



ABOUT two years ago reports began to appear con- 

 cerning a " new " acute general disease associated 

 with a condition of apathy and drowsiness which 

 passed into lethargy. Other striking features _ were 

 progressive muscular \yeakness and paralysis _ of 

 various cranial nerves, leading especially to squint. 

 The prevailing abnormal conditions of life and living 



1 Reof^rt of an Inquiry into an OViwriire D^ssisc, Encephalitis Utkargica. 

 Local Government Bosrd Reports (New Series, No. iii), 1918. 



