THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION 117 



undergo the process outside their homes. In each 

 case, the skilled observer notes constantly recurring 

 gaps in the experience and impressions of the child ; 

 he perceives utterly different powers at work the 

 stupefying yet disturbing crowd-influence of the city, the 

 peace-making and soul-enlarging nature-influence of the 

 countryside. Each of these inherent attitudes of mind 

 requires attention, explanation, amplification ; each 

 demands the introduction of some compensating but 

 entirely opposite principle into the system of education. 

 We must try to make some estimate of the specific 

 influences at work on the children of each district and 

 of each social grade before we can think ourselves in 

 a position to lay down the law as to the right methods 

 of training and education to be followed out in regard 

 to them. It is this crying need for differentiation and 

 for specialization which is the chief obstacle to any really 

 satisfactory scheme of centralized national education. 



The great error which misled the framers of the 

 Act of 1 870 was one which has misled many generations 

 of statesmen the belief in and desire for uniformity 

 and a limitation of outlook to their own personal ex- 

 perience. Instead of recognizing the segregation of 

 characteristics in different sections of the nation, instead 

 of realizing and providing for the development of the 

 specialized qualities, aptitudes and occupations dis- 

 tributed, often geographically, in our midst, they 

 endeavoured to establish one uniform system of train- 

 ing throughout the country, founded on a literary basis, 

 and directed chiefly to further the advancement of the 

 type of mind with which they were best acquainted. 



