Science in Public Affairs 



object of education, implies not only physical 

 well-being and technical aptitude, but a moral 

 purpose and a readiness to forego, if need be, 

 personal ease in defending or establishing a certain 

 way of life. During the last fifty years, however, 

 a great intellectual movement, by its influence upon 

 customary habits of thought and by its practical 

 applications, has gradually wrought a signal change 

 in social ideals. The purpose of this paper is 

 to discuss some of the chief bearings of this in- 

 tellectual movement upon the problem of national 

 education in England. 



Within the United Kingdom there are virtually 

 four systems of national education. Each has its own 

 history, its own problems and its own needs. The 

 psychological background, which in matters of edu- 

 cation is of determinative importance, is in great 

 measure different for each. No single Minister of 

 Education superintends the whole, though the ad- 

 ministrative ties which connect a great part of the 

 Welsh system with the English are at present closer 

 than those linking English and Welsh education to 

 Irish or Scotch. All four systems are, it is true, 

 affected by the fiscal considerations which determine 

 the Budget common to the whole of the United 

 Kingdom. All four, though in different degrees, 

 are influenced by the balance of political forces in 

 the Imperial Parliament. All four are sensitive 

 to the intellectual and economic influences which 

 shape the course of imperial policy, and to the 

 great changes wrought in the mental and spiritual 

 outlook of men by the advance of knowledge with 



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