772 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



to-day, and to encourage growth from those points, instead of wasting time on 

 what may be regarded as dead tissue ? 



The following seem to be the chief growing points in English education at the 

 present time : — 



First, there is a new and striking keenness on the part of many intelligent 

 workmen to secure improvements in the public elementary schools, to have 

 smaller classes and more individual teaching in them and to have better staffing 

 in the higher standards, so that there may be less marking time during the last 

 years of the course. This same section of the artisan class further desires the 

 provision of a new type of secondary or higher grade school connected with the 

 elementary schools, and in sympathy with them, and providing a higher education 

 up to about fifteen years of age. They wish to see the technical and physical 

 education of the children who have just left the elementary day schools carried 

 forward systematically in evening classes, well graded through each district and 

 skilfully adjusted in point of curriculum and teaching to its economic and social 

 needs. For adult workers, again, they desire a further education, which is not 

 simply bread-winning and technical — e.xcellent as that is — but which has a touch 

 of imagination and humanity and civic idealism about it as well. I take it that 

 this is one great and continuous line of light across the educational situation. 

 It is a sign of the times that we ought to watch, one that we ought to welcome 

 and encourage. Whatever is done along this line will stimulate further improve- 

 ments along the line of secondary .schools attended by the children of parents in 

 somewhat easier circumstances. The middle class will quickly realise that it can- 

 not afford to be distanced by the artisan class. When it once realises this it will 

 seriously demand reform in the secondary day schools. And the latter, thus 

 reformed, will be a boon not only to the professional classes but also to the most 

 intelligent .sons and daughters of the artisan class. 



Then, further, no one, I think, can visit school after school without being 

 impressed by the keenness and freshness of interest in those class-rooms where 

 practical science work and manual work are being done. We are not here to 

 plead for science against the humanities, or for the humanities against science, 

 laut I think we may rejoice to see a new and kindling interest in our education 

 through the greater development of practical studies. 



And, thirdly, it is striking how many of the great employers of labour, during 

 the last two or three years, have shown a new and welcome interest in the problem of 

 how best to encourage further education among their workpeople and apprentices. 

 This interest is most striking in the case of the railway companies and the great 

 engineering firms, and it is spreading from those firms to many other industries. 



But if we are to help forward in the most etl'ective and economical manner 

 the educational movement which is thus already in existence iu England, we need 

 much more carefully planned and .systematically watched educational experiments 

 in order to see how to meet our social needs thriftily and efficiently. Such experi- 

 ments should be thought out beforehand, scientifically planned and supervised, 

 and continued for a sufficient period of years. Instances of failure should be as 

 frankly recorded as those of success. And the results should be regularly circu- 

 lated by authority, free of charge, among all recognised teachers and members of 

 local authorities. Possibly in order to avoid difficulties which arise when undue 

 publicity is given to the names of individual schools or teachers, it might be found 

 expedient to record the results of each experiment under a number instead of 

 under a name. 



The first experiment which I would commend as greatly needed is one for the 

 better classification of the children in public elementary schools with regard to 

 their difl'erent rates of mental growth and different intellectual aptitudes. Valu- 

 able work on this subject is being done by Mr. Lauth. In out present system of 

 elementary education do we not treat quite difii^rent types of children too much 

 alike? The sifting out of the defective children is the beginning of a process 

 which might well be carried much further. In the town of Mannheim the Super- 

 intendent of Schools has arranged a subsidiary department in the school, to which 

 children of slower growth may be temporarily transferred for separate treatment 



