TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 709 
stamina to render valuable service to the nation. But hitherto there has been 
some tendency to give preferential treatment to the recruiting of the more literary 
professions. 
(11) Tbe English scholarship system has worked fairly well in a rough sort 
of way during a period of rapid social change and of resulting educational 
development. But in itself it is no suflicient substitute for a coherent system of 
higher education, intellectually efficient in all its grades and practically adjusted 
to the needs of a modern community. 
Reforms needed. 
(i) Our fundamental needs are the reform of the elementary schools, both 
in town and country, and the provision of new types of secondary school 
curriculum. The conditions under which the vast majority of English elementary 
school teachers are at present obliged to work prevent them from giving a 
sufficiently individualised training, moral and intellectual, to the children com- 
mitted to their care. The improvement of the elementary school will secure for 
the children the kind of early training which will best enable the more promising 
of them to take advantage of advanced courses of study. It will also tend to 
lessen the social cleavage which at present destroys the unity of English 
education in its elementary stage. But any effective improvement will be 
very costly, and necessarily slow in operation. The necessary counterpart of 
the reform of the elementary school will be the increased differentiation of the 
secondary schools and the better adaptation of their curricula to modern needs. 
Nearly all the secondary day schools in England need more generous financial 
assistance in order to attain a new measure of intellectual efficiency. 
(ii) The English scholarship system in its present form gives special advantage 
to urban districts. It fails adequately to meet the needs of promising children 
living in the country. These are often prevented by distance or expense from 
gaining access to a secondary school. In some cases more boarding scholarships 
are needed. Secondary ‘tops’ should be added to some centrally situated rural 
elementary schools. 
(iii) Much more should be done to provide higher secondary education of first- 
rate quality in day schools in many smaller towns. There is a danger of higher 
secondary education becoming (outside a few favoured centres) the privilege 
of the well-to-do. The new Regulations for Secondary Schools increase this 
danger. Government grants at a considerably higher rate are needed for higher 
secondary schools and in aid of higher secondary ‘ tops’ in other carefully selected 
secondary schools. 
(iv) There is need for a more generous provision of intermediate and ‘higher 
scholarships to enable pupils of special ability to complete the full course at a 
higher secondary school or to proceed to an institution of university rank or of 
advanced professional training. For girls especially more higher scholarships are 
required, tenable at a variety of institutions for academic or practical study. 
(v) The fixed value of the scholarships awarded by open competition at the 
Public Schools and Universities might well be reduced. Ample supplementary 
allowances should be given to those scholars who need them, after private inquiry 
into the circumstances of each case. 
(vi) Methods of selection which set a premium upon cramming and lead to 
the neglect of the candidate’s health and physique should be sternly dis- 
couraged. The best examinations now conducted for junior scholarships are con- 
fined, so far as written tests are concerned, to papers in English and arithmetic. 
The written examination should, where numbers are not too great, be supple- 
mented by a simple oral test. The examiners should also have access to the 
pupil’s school record. Stress should always be laid upon physical fitness. 
Each local scholarship system might thus become an incentive to the healthy 
up-bringing of children by making a fair standard of physical development a 
condition of eligibility, 
