August 22, 1907J 



NATURh 



437 



When I say wc hebitate to face the existing circum- i 

 itances I do not with to he niisundirrsiooi]. As a fact, 

 chanfjfts aro continually being discussed, and arc from 

 time to time introducrd Into our schools. But fiU'.h modifi- 

 cations of our existing methods are generally istjlaled and 

 delaihed, and have litll<; reference to the more compre- 

 hensive measures of reform which arc now needed to bring 

 our teaching into clowrr relation with the changed con- 

 ditions of existence con^'quent on the alterations that have 

 taken [jiace in our social life and surroundings. 



Four years ago, it will be remembered, a committee of 

 this section was appointed to consider and to report upon 

 the " Courses of Experimental, Observational, and Prac- 

 tical Studies most suitable for Klemcntary Sihools. " 

 That committee, of which I had the honour to be chair- i 

 man, presented a report to this section at the meeting 

 of the Association held last year at Vork. The general 

 conclusion at which they arrived was that " the intel- 

 lectual and moral training, and indeed to some extent 

 the physical training, of boys and girls between the ages 

 of seven and fourteen would be greatly improved if active 

 and constructive work on the part of the children were 

 largely substituted for ordinary class teaching, and if much 

 of the present instru' tion were made to arise incidentally 

 out of, and to be centred around, such work." It is too 

 early, perhaps, to expe' t that the suggestions made in that 

 report should have borne fruit, but I refer to it because 

 it illustrates the difference between the spasmodic reforms 

 which from time to time are adopted, under pressure from 

 bodies of well-meaning r'^presentatives of special interests, 

 and the well-considered changes recommended by a com- 

 mittee of men and women of educational experience who 

 have carefully tested the conclusions at which they have 

 arrived. 



There can be no doubt that, as regards our elementary 

 education, there is very general dissatisfaction with its 

 results, since it was first nationalised thirty-seven years 

 ago. Our merchants and manufacturers and employers of 

 labour, our teachers in secondary and technical schools all 

 join in the chorus of complaint. They tell us that the 

 children have gained very little us'rful knowledge and still 

 less power of applying it. There is enough in this general 

 expression of discontent to give us pause and to make u* 

 seek for a rational explanation of our comparative failure. 

 Tile inadequacy of the faults attained to the money and 

 effort that have been expended is in no way due to any 

 want of zeal or ability on the part of the teachers, or of 

 energy on the part of si hool boards or local authorities. 

 They have all discharged the duties which were imfjosed 

 upon them. It is due rather to the fact that the problem 

 has been imperfectly understood, that our controlling 

 authorities have had only a vague and indistinct idea of 

 the aim and end of the important work which they were 

 charged to administer. If we look back upon the history 

 of elementary education in this country since 1870, we 

 cannot fail to realise how much its progress has been 

 retard'-d by errors of administration due very largely to 

 the want of scientific method in its direction. It is 

 painful to reflect, for instance, on the waste of time and 

 effort, and on the false impressions produced as to the 

 real aim and end of education, owing to the system of 

 payment on results, whifh dominated for so many years 

 a large part of our educational system. We must re- 

 member that it is only within the last few decades that 

 education has been brought within reach of all cL^ss^s of 

 the population. Previously it was for the few ; for those- 

 who could pay high f'-es ; for those who were training for 

 professional life, wheth'-r for the Church, the Army, the 

 Navy. Law, or Mr-dicine, or for the highcrr duties of 

 citizen life. This had been the case for centuries, not 

 only in this country, but in nearly all parts of the civilised 

 world. If we read the history of education in ancient 

 Gritrc, or Rome, or m<'<iixva\ Europe, we shall v-e that 

 popular education, as now understood, was unknown. All 

 that was written about education applied to the few who 

 got it, and not to the great mass of the people engaged 

 in pursuits altogether apart from those in which the 

 privileged classes were employed. Trade and manual 

 work were despised, and were considered degrading and 

 unworthy of the dignity of a gentleman. I need scarcely 

 «ay that these social ideas are no longer held. TTie fabric 



of society is changed, ami we have to ask ourwives 

 whether the methods of education have been similarly 

 changed, whether they have been wis<;ly and carefully 

 adapted to Ihi; new order of things. What is it that hat 

 really happened? Is it not true that we have annexed 

 the mcthJods and subjects of teaching which had been 

 employed during many centuries in the training of the lew 

 and applied them to the education of the pcjple as a 

 whole — to those who arc engaged in the very 'allingi 

 which were more or less contemn'wi ? Surely it is so, 

 and the results are all too manifest. We have applied 

 the principles and methods of the secondary education of 

 the .Middle Ages to our new wants, to the training of the 

 people for other duties than those to which such education 

 was considered applicable, and it is only within the last 

 few years that we have begun to see the error of our 

 ways. In the rcfiort of your committee, to which 1 have 

 referred, it is (K^inled out that the problem of primary 

 education has been complicate) by the introduction of the 

 methods which for many years prevailed in secondary 

 schools, and at a meeting of the .National l'.ducalion 

 Association, held only a few weeks since, it was truly 

 said : " In this country secondary education preceded 

 primary by several centuries, and so the nation now finds 

 itself with the aristocratic cart attempting to draw the 

 democratic horse." 



Mt it not be supposed that in the days not so far 

 distant, yet stretching back into the remote past, the 

 people as a whole were uneducated. This was not so. 

 Hut we have to widen the meaning of education to in' hide 

 the special training which the p<:ople then received— an 

 education that was acquired without even the use of 

 books. It cannot for one moment be said that the 

 artisans, the mechanics, the farm hands, male and female, 

 were wholly uneducated in those far-off days. In one 

 sense possibly they were. Very few of them could read 

 or write. But from earliest childhc^od they had received 

 a kind of training the want of which their descendants 

 have sadly felt in the cloistered seclusion of the modern 

 elementary who'll. They were brought face to face with 

 Nature, They learned the practical lessons of exp<;rience ; 

 and as they grew up their trade apprenticeship was an 

 education which we have been trying vainly to reproduce. 

 They gained some knowledge of the arts and sciences, 

 as then understood, underlying their work. Their contact 

 with their surroundings made them thoughtful and re- 

 sourceful, for Nature is the most exacting and mercil';»« 

 of teachers. The difficulties they had to overcome <:om- 

 pelM them to think, and of all occupations none is tnore 

 difficult. Thev were constantly putting forth energy, 

 adapting means to ends, and engaging in practical re- 

 search. In the field, in the v/orkshop, and in their own 

 homes lx>ys and girls acquiied knowl»-dce by (>ersonal 

 experience. Their outlook was broad. They learned by 

 doing. It is true that nearly all thoir occupations were 

 manual, but Emerson has told us, " Manual training if 

 the study of the external world." 



Compare for a moment this training with that provided 

 in a public elementary school, and you cannot be sur- 

 prised to find that our artificial teaching has failed in 

 its results, that our young pey>ple have gained very little 

 practical knowledge, and that what they have gained th'-y 

 are unable to apply ; that they lack initiative and Uto 

 often the ability to use books for their own guidance, or 

 the desire to read for self-improvement. We seem to 

 have erred in neglecting to utilise pr.actical pursuits as 

 the basis of education, and in failing to build ij(K/n them 

 and to evolve from them the mental discipline and know- 

 ledge that would have proved valuable to the »tiild in any 

 subsequent occupation or as a basis for future attainments. 

 We fiave made the mistake of arresting, by means of an 

 artificial literary training, the spontaneous development 

 of activity, which begins in earliest infancy and con- 

 tinues to strengthen as the child is l>rought into ever 

 closer contact with his natural surroundings. We have 

 prc/vided an 'education for our V/vs which might have be*-n 

 suitable U/r clerks; and, what is worse, we have gone 

 some way, although we have happily cried a halt, »o 

 make our girls into " ladies," and we have run some risk 

 ■ of failing to produce women. 



If we are to correct the errors into which we have 



