: "Science in Public Affairs 



desirable to inculcate, than was the case at times 

 of corresponding opportunity in the other lands to 

 whose scientifically planted State systems our free- 

 growing English institutions form a picturesque 

 but rather costly contrast. 



With us, at the critical moments, neither side has 

 been strong enough to gain the power of enforcing 

 its own ideas through the educational organisation 

 of the State, though both sides have been in turn 

 pretty strongly of opinion that some effective 

 organisation of national training there ought to 

 be. It must be remembered that claims to a 

 complete control of our national education have 

 been advanced at different times by thinkers of 

 quite opposite opinions on the religions and 

 political questions of their day. Neither Anglican 

 nor Puritan, neither the National Society nor 

 Robert Owen, neither the supporters of denomi- 

 national schools nor the Birmingham League, were 

 strong enough to secure for their own educational 

 ideal the sole sanction of the State. The result 

 has been an untidy sort of compromise. We have 

 taken such action as our differences allowed. Some 

 illogical monopolies have been allowed to remain. 

 What has been done has no pretence to symmetry. 

 It makes any economical concentration of power 

 impossible. It divides many who ought to be 

 working together. It is so intricate that the 

 ordinary citizen cannot understand the relations 

 between one school and another, and the whole 

 system fails in consequence to make a clear appeal 

 to national pride. Moreover, there is such a 



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