32( 



NA rURE 



[January 13, 1910 



at a continuation class between fourteen and sixteen is 

 the only, or indeed the best, way of securing the kind of 

 further education most fitted to their needs. 



Many of the statements now current as to the uni- 

 versality of compulsory attendance at continuation schools 

 in different parts of Germany seem to me unintentionally 

 misleading. After persistent efforts, and with the help o'f 

 some of the best informed of German educators, I have 

 failed to obtain any comprehensive statistical statement 

 showing the number of boys . and girls between fourteen 

 and seventeen years of age in different parts of the 

 German Empire who are actually attending continuation 

 schools. Where I have been able to test such figures as 

 are published, I have been drawn to the conclusion that 

 the enforcement of compulsion, even in those parts of 

 Germany where compulsion is statutory, is less general 

 than the wording of the statutes would 'lead us to e.xpect. 

 The whole subject calls for closer investigation. There 

 is some reason to think that, even in the progressive parts 

 of Germany (and there are large regions in which educa- 

 tion is the reverse of progressive), the problem of securing 

 contmued education for the majority of girls, and also 

 for those boys who are not intending to enter a skilled 

 trade, is still far from having been effectively solved. 

 We m England have indeed much to learn from Germany 

 and from some of the cantons of .Switzerland but it is 

 right to remember that, for historical reasons ' which are 

 far from discreditable to us, we have approached the 

 problem from the point of view of the individual rather 

 than from the point of view of the State. I can find no 

 country m which the voluntary attendance at evenina 

 classes is so large in proportion to the adult population 

 as It IS m England and Wales. I would venture to ur«e 

 that our task is so to use the collective power of the Stale 

 as to stimulate, but not to supersede, the energy and fore- 

 tfiought of the individual. Bureaucratic collectivism in 

 education seems to me as false an ideal as, at the opposite 

 e.xtreme, is chaotic and plunging individualism. We need 

 a synthesis between the individual energy of the pupil the 

 responsibility of the parent, the responsibility of' the 

 employer, and the watchful supervision, the financial aid 

 and the uplifting public purpose of the local authority 

 and of the State. Nor, in this matter of continued educa- 

 tion, should we allow ourselves to attach too much import- 

 ance to academic standards of attainment or of theoretical 

 knowledge. Much of the best education in the world is 

 remote from the class-room. 



In England, the difficulties which we find in the way 

 of bringing the elementary schools into closer and more 

 fruitful relation to a stimulating kind of further and largely 

 technical education are partly psychological, partly 

 administrative, partly economic. ' » ■ f . 



A great number of English employers and foremen are 

 lacking in insight into the true m'eaning and value of 

 education and also often fail to discharge their moral 

 responsibilities for the further education of the young 

 people in their employment or under their care. Nothing 

 rtv ?>r '"tt"'",-'; '" '^"'"paring a German industrial 

 city with an English as the keener interest on the part 

 ot the niass of_ German employers in educational ques- 

 tions, and especially in the educational aspect of the daily 

 duties of the workshop. We in England are apt to forget 

 that education is really an aspect of life, and that every 

 skilled adult may find one of his keenest pleasures in 

 imparting a right attitude of mind and a sense of skill 

 and finish to the young people growi-.g up under his care. 

 These things are partly traditional in a nation, and the 

 unbroken traditon of skilled workmanship which has 

 survived from the Middle Ages to the present day in 

 many of the older German cities is one cause of the 

 German attitude of mind towards industrial and technical 

 training With us the industrial revolution, which intro- 

 duced the factory system (great as that achievement was 

 tioni many points of view), snapped an ancient tradition 

 (which already was half dead) and purposely re-started 

 industry in new places where the old tradition had never 

 grown. The first step towards the diffusion of a deeper 

 insight, into the value of education is the extension of a 

 liberal, non-pedantic, non-examination-ridden, secondary 

 education accessible, not only to the employing class but 

 to those who will rise to h" foremen and' thus hold re- 



XO. 2098, VOL. 82] 



sponsible, though subordinate, posts in industry and com- 

 merce. When a man has himself had at school an educa- 

 tion which has affected his whole life, he, is more ready 

 to understand the importance of securing a similarly suit- 

 able education for other people. 



It is idle to deny that a comprehensive system of con- 

 tinued education during adolescence (the kind of system 

 which the country really needs and without which much 

 of its present expenditure runs wastefully into the sand) 

 will be a very costly thing to provide and maintain. On 

 the Consultative Committee we tried to form an honest 

 estimate of the cost. We came to the conclusion that , a 

 system of compulsory attendance at continuation schools 

 of all young persons between fourteen and seventeen years 

 of age would, if universally applied in a satisfactory 

 manner, involve for maintenance alone an additional annual 

 expenditure of two and a half million pounds. For my 

 own part, I believe that if the work in continuation schools 

 were made (as it should be made) thoroughly practical, 

 the cost would be considerably greater. 



Every month given to the further study of the subject 

 which we are met to discuss impresses upon us more 

 deeply the range and social complexity of the issues which 

 necessarily arise, in this country and elsewhere, whenever 

 the problem of continuation schools is seriously approached. 

 The better adaptation of technical schools, day and even- 

 ing, to the public elementary-school system involves some- 

 thing far beyond skilful administration on the part of the 

 local authorities, and is on a quite different plane of 

 difficulty from that of previous proposals for the raising 

 of the school age. It would be misleading to discuss the 

 subject with our attention confined to narrow technicalities 

 or administrative details, necessary as those are to the 

 right solution of our difficulties. On the whole, as it 

 seems to me, we have just reason for encouragement as 

 to the future. There are many signs that the nation is 

 approaching the problem in the right attitude of mind 

 and with willingness fairly to consider temperately stated 

 arguments for reform. The growth of this right attitude 

 of mind is much more important than hurried legislation, 

 which, indeed, if precipitately forced on to the Statute 

 Book, would retard rather than hasten our advance. 

 English opinion ripens slo\yly, but I believe that ultimately 

 it will regard as a social necessity the continued education 

 of young people during adolescence under conditions which 

 will protect them from overwork of body and mind. In 

 the meantime, the Scottish experiment is full of signifi- 

 cance for us. The foundations of an effective continuation- 

 school system must be laid through a change in the con- 

 ditions of attendance and study in the elementary schools. 

 Our primary need is a raising of the normal age for 

 exehiption from day-school attendance to the limit adopted 

 in Scotland since 1901. Further, is not the time ripe for 

 imposing on every local authority the statutory duty of 

 making suitable provision of continuation classes for the 

 further education of young persons resident in their dis- 

 trict from the time they leave the day school up to their 

 seventeenth birthday, and of keeping a register of all such 

 young persons with a record of their occupations? In 

 order that this duty may be rightly discharged, it appears 

 to me indispensable that the Parliamentary grant in aid 

 of continuation schools should be materially enlarged. 

 Without such aid the poorer districts in town and country 

 will not be able to support the e.xpense of providing in- 

 struction sufficiently practical or teachers adequate to the 

 task of imparting it. In this particular grade of education 

 the schools must necessarily compete with industry and 

 with commerce for the services of those who are really 

 competent to teach what the pupils will most require to 

 learn. 



With the growth of public confidence in their fair- 

 mindedness and educational insight, the local authorities 

 will acquire that moral authority which will alone enable 

 them to exercise the power, almost certain in the end to 

 be entrusted to them by statute, of prescribing the limit 

 of hours of work which no young person under the age 

 of seventeen may exceed in any day or week in employ- 

 ment and systematic education combined ; but in order to 

 secure in an effective way physical, technical, and civic 

 training for all young people during the years immediately 

 following the close of the day-school course, two other 



