766 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



in the prohibition of those forms of premature wage-earning which are fatal to 

 the gaining of industrial efficiency in later years. Thus, at point after point 

 purely educational questions are implicated with economic and social problems, and 

 we are forced to the conclusion that educational reform involves the intrepid 

 handling of evils which lie outside the class room and affect the home life and 

 economic welfare of parents and children alike. 



Taken together, these developments in English opinion with regard to educa- 

 tional matters are significant and encouraging. They mean that the nation is 

 beginning to look at the whole question from a new point of view and with a 

 fresh attitude of mind. We have realised that our old standards of educational 

 provision are quite inadequate to meet the new and more exacting requirements 

 of the present time. To argue that England needs educational reform is no 

 longer necessary : every responsible person admits it. Towards accomplishing 

 that reform a fair beginning has already been made, But the real questions now 

 before us are — What forms of education will best serve our special national needs ? 

 How much of our old tradition and educational machinery can we safely carry 

 over into the new system ? What will it cost us to put our national education into 

 first-rate order ? And by what system of taxation will the indispensable minimum 

 of expenditure best be met ? Fortunately it so happens that educational thought 

 all over the world has taken a turn which predisposes English people to look 

 with greater favour than heretofore on plans for systematic national training. 

 The besetting weakness of the movement for the extension of popular education, 

 from the beginnings of the French Revolution to quite recent days, has been its 

 disregard of the educational value of practical handwork, its proneness to attach 

 undue importance to bookish studies, and its inability to get out of the rut of the 

 old scholastic tradition. The latter had really filmed at recruiting the literary 

 professions, and had paid little attention to the needs of the industrial and com- 

 mercial callings. It was, therefore, full of misleading precedents for a new educa- 

 tional movement which aimed at training the whole nation, including the diverse 

 categories of its citizens, for the various tasks of modern life. Englishmen felt this 

 objection very strongly. They did not believe that a purely bookish kind of school- 

 ing would furnish the required training of character and of practical aptitudes. 

 Hence England stood out as, in the main, a stubborn opponent of the rather 

 shallow popular theory of education. But the new phase of educational thought 

 is full of criticism of the old bookish view of school work. The result is that 

 England has never before been so nearly in full sympathy with the main current 

 of modern thought on education as she is to-day. The characteristically English 

 standpoint has always been that, in planning a course of education for anyone, you 

 must keep the actual needs of his or her future life-work steadily in view; that 

 education is not a question by itself, but one aspect of the whole social problem ; 

 and that, therefore, before deciding what kinds of education ought to be given in 

 the schools of the nation, you must have a clear conception of the social structure 

 which you wish to see built up by the individuals whom you propose to train. 

 This is the view which has been taken by all the profounder English writers on 

 education, such as Robert Owen, Oarlyle, and Ruskin. But what may be called 

 the old democratic theorists were apt to shirk this practical side of the matter. 

 They acted on the belief that if you only started schools for all, and taught the 

 rudiments of a literary education to everybody, the rest of the problem would look 

 after itself. But the new turn in educational thought has changed the position. 

 All the current educational theories lay stress upon the social aspects of education ; 

 upon the importance of making the schools prepare the children for citizenship, 

 and for individual efficiency in this or that type of future calling ; and upon the 

 need of dovetailing educational discipline into the practical tasks of life. This is 

 congenial to the English point of view. It predisposes English people to pay a 

 quite unwonted measure of attention to educational theories. And thus caught 

 at last in the web of thought on this difficult problem. Englishmen are being 

 made to realise what foolish philistines they have been all these years in despising 

 the service which careful educational organisation can render to national health, 

 industry, and commerce. Nor does the process of salutary enlightenment end 



