SCIENCE IN NATIONAL 

 EDUCATION 



MICHAEL E. SADLER 



Professor of the History and Administration of Education, Victoria 

 University of Manchester. 



" Whether it is not a great point to know what we would be 

 at ? And whether whole states, as well as private persons, do 

 not often fluctuate for want of this knowledge ? " BERKELEY, 

 The Querist, 1737. 



I 



THE English attitude towards State education 

 has for generations been one of hesitancy 

 hesitancy hampered by an inheritance of half- 

 measures. This hesitancy has been due to many 

 causes, but to one in particular, namely, an inner 

 conflict between social ideals which happen to 

 have been associated with different shades of re- 

 ligious belief. That such a conflict should affect 

 educational questions was inevitable, seeing that 

 education (what is done in schools being but part 

 of the process) signifies training for social efficiency ; 

 and in judging what does, and what does not, 

 make for social efficiency, we necessarily appeal, 

 however vaguely so far as words are concerned, 

 to a social ideal. Social efficiency, which is the 



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