Science in Public Affairs 



those be in revolt against what is taught in the 

 school. It may indeed produce conformity for so 

 long a time as it is advantageous to conform ; it 

 may produce polite indifference or evasion ; but 

 impose a given body of opinion upon the adult 

 citizens of the next generation, this unless it has 

 behind it the whole spirit of the community it 

 cannot do. One of the chief results of the scientific 

 study of education is to show that, great as is the 

 power of the school, it cannot enforce an intel- 

 lectual or a spiritual monopoly. Our best hope, 

 as it seems to me, lies in deliberately giving up 

 any attempt to enforce ecclesiastical control over 

 any part of the general system of national educa- 

 tion, in keeping the State school system open for 

 the free passage of ideas, in offering variety of 

 spiritual as well as intellectual opportunity to all 

 who come, and in maintaining side by side with 

 the State system, but in friendly relations with it, 

 a comparatively few but perfectly equipped schools, 

 accessible to those who wish to attend them and 

 imbued throughout with the spirit and associations 

 of a definite religious faith. There seems no reason 

 to fear that in England a State system of education, 

 closely related to local conditions and free from 

 any vestiges of ecclesiastical control, would cultivate 

 a spirit hostile to religious influences or be un- 

 favourable to religious liberty. 



But it is not only in regard to the dissemination 

 of religious beliefs that the power of intellectual 

 control possessed by the day school has been 

 overstated by many writers. There is a tendency 



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