THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION j^- 



co-existing nations (from which, indeed, it seems 

 clear that these people had very little worth read- 

 ing in their own tongue), but I find no reference 

 whatever to the bringing up of children. They 

 could not have been so absurd as to omit all 

 training for this gravest of responsibilities. Evi- 

 dently, then, this was the school course for one 

 of their monastic orders.'"^ The irony of this 

 passage is well deserved. No system of educa- 

 tion gives the slightest attention to training our 

 youth for the discharge of what will sometime 

 be their most important and sacred obligation. 

 If the training of parents is thus neglected, so 

 that it is common for them to have little idea of 

 what is in their own children, and to be unable 

 to adapt their teaching to the latter's needs, it is 

 not surprising that teachers are not better pre- 

 pared for their office. Few ever attempt what 

 is not expected of them. What Mr. Spencer says 

 about the young mother applies equally to the 

 teacher of young children : " But a few years 

 ago she was at school, where her memory was 

 crammed with words and names and dates, and 

 her reflective faculties scarcely in the slightest 

 degree exercised ; where not one idea was given 

 her respecting the methods of dealing with the 



1 Education, Herbert Spencer, p. 55. 



