THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION 133 



make the education of our children our own 

 education."^ 



The serious practical difficulty in the way of 

 such teaching cannot be disregarded. Political 

 managers usually care nothing for methods of 

 education which put no money into their pockets 

 and win no votes for their party. Penny-wise and 

 pound-foolish taxpayers refuse the appropriations 

 which are necessary to make possible the best 

 methods in education. ' But no reform is easy. It 

 is misconstrued, maligned, opposed with all arts, 

 until it wins, and then its opposers profess always 

 to have been its advocates. Progress will halt in 

 every direction when difficulty is sufficient ground 

 for despair. There is an inherent difficulty, how- 

 ever, as well as a political one. It lies in the 

 fact that it seems scarcely possible in the public 

 schools to recognize the individuality of the pupils. 

 It will be said, and truly, that our systems of 

 education are directed not toward distinguishing 

 but toward common characteristics ; and properly 

 so, since that in which all are alike is more and 

 greater than that in which they differ. There is 

 indeed in this fact a difficulty which is real, and 

 neither fictitious nor trifling. It does not appear 

 how the thronged public schools could be so con- 



^ Dr. Stanley Hall, North American Review, February, 1885. 



