612 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



But it is permissible to inquire what fresh light has been shed by the 

 experience of forty years upon the established system of elementary education 

 in England. 



Perhaps the two dangers most evident at the present time are the tendency 

 of the Board of Education towards bureaucratic control over all the schools 

 coming under its jurisdiction, and the habit of imposing upon the local educa- 

 tion authorities, whether by Act of Parliament or by ordinance of the Board of 

 Education, a number of new duties without ensuring any corresponding increase 

 of the public funds which are placed at their service. 



It is idle, and it would probably be foolish, to resist the concentration of 

 educational authority in the Board of Education. There are signs that the 

 Board will before long exercise a direct influence even upon the great public 

 schools. But who or what the Board of Education is remains somewhat of a 

 mystery. It is too apt to mean a subordinate individual acting in the name, 

 but without the knowledge, of his superiors. 



The Board may have stereotyped elementary education overmuch ; it may 

 have laid down too rigid rules or have administered its own rules with too 

 much rigidity; it may have set an excessive store by results which could be 

 easily tested by examination, forgetting that the best and most lasting results 

 of the teacher's influence are just such as cannot be easily weighed in the 

 examiner's balances. But there can be no doubt that the control of the Board 

 has exercised a wholesome influence upon the less satisfactory schools. It 

 assures at least a minimum of efficiency. But the maximum of efficiency lies 

 beyond the power of the Board. It depends upon the close, intimate, sympa- 

 thetic, personal relation of the teacher to his or her pupils. 



Nor again is there any doubt of the advantage arising from the gradual 

 pressure of one and the same education authority, not only upon all schools 

 of the same type, but upon schools of different types in the educational field. 

 It is well that elementary schools should within certain limits exhibit some- 

 thing like uniformity of system; it is well, too, that the ladder by which 

 students rise or may hope to rise from the lowest to the highest rungs of 

 educational competency should be so set up as to make the process of climbing 

 them no more difficult than it must needs be. But freedom, spontaneity, 

 individualism, has been the rule in all departments of English life. No power 

 can be more chilling in its effect upon intellectual enthusiasm than the dead 

 hand of a code. Individualism with all its faults is better suited than the 

 rigidity of the French or the formality of the German educational system to 

 the hereditary genius of the English people. It is necessary, therefore, that 

 the control of the Board of Education, while it is definite, should be as elastic 

 as possible. 



Again, the State has laid upon the local education authority the duty of 

 supplying the necessary accommodation in elementary schools, except so far 

 as it is supplied in non-provided or denominational schools through the agency 

 of voluntary subscriptions. But it has scarcely taken account of the difficulties 

 lying in the way of an education authority which can issue no precept of 

 its own. Every Education Committee in England to-day is harassed by the 

 obligation of persuading a body so hard-hearted as a City Council, which is 

 naturally inclined to look upon economy with more favour than upon education. 

 The antagonism between the schools and the rates remains constant. Happy 

 indeed is the Education Committee in a city where the Council rises above the 

 temptation of regarding education as an extravagance or a luxury. 



The provision of free meals for hungry children is an admirable reform. 

 For if children under the law must go to school, they cannot go with any 

 advantage if they are hungry. But free meals cost money; and the money spent 

 upon the meals may easily be deducted from the total sum which is spent or 

 ought to be spent upon education. 



Not less admirable a reform is the physical inspection of children in elemen- 

 tary schools. Educational as well as medical science has learnt that hygiene 

 is a powerful factor in the success of schools. But it is necessary to pay for a 

 doctor's time and a doctor's skill ; and if the physical welfare of the children is 

 improved by medical attention, it is possible that their mental welfare may be 

 impaired for lack of money. 



It must be added that, in proportion as Education Committees undertake 



