PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 735 
veiled hints of the need of drastic reforms have emanated from the highest 
quarters, and one of the most hopeful signs of the situation is that such informa- 
tion as has been vouchsafed to us appears to indicate that those who are moving 
in the matter actually acknowledge that there is an educational as well as a 
sectarian and a political aspect of the question. Nevertheless, so far as I am 
personally concerned I still find my chief consolation in the quotation from 
Todhunter which I have already inflicted upon you. 
T am now going to take a bold step—namely, to express my own opinion on 
this matter of Primary Education. I consider that we are proceeding in the 
wrong order, in that we give greater prominence to the acquisition of knowledge 
than to the development of character. 
There is truth in Emerson’s dictum that ‘the best education is that which 
remains when everything learnt at school is forgotten.’ We appear to think that 
the learning of ‘the three R’s’ is education. We must remember that in impart- 
ing these we are only supplying the child with the means of education, and that 
even when he has acquired them the mere addition of further knowledge is 
again not education. If we impart the desire for knowledge and train the 
necessary mental appetite, the knowledge which will come by the bucketful in 
after life will be absorbed and utilised. 
It is, I know, easy to talk platitudes of this kind. We have, in justice to 
the teacher, to remember that character depends on home life, as well as on 
school life; but, nevertheless, if we could educate public opinion on this matter 
progress might be possible. We want to introduce the spirit of our much- 
abused public schools into all schools, namely, a sense of responsibility—and, as 
a necessary sequence, a sense of discipline—a standard of truthfulness and con- 
sideration. In this connection I have been greatly impressed by a report issued 
by the Warwickshire County Council on the effect of the establishment of the 
Prefect System in the Elementary Schools of that county, and I wish it was 
possible to place this Report in the hands of every teacher in the country. It 
is stated in the introduction that ‘the fundamental idea of the Prefect System 
is the formation and development of character and the utilising for this purpose 
of the efforts and activities of our pupils themselves.’ 
The pamphlet contains a description of the system as established, and the 
different methods adopted in the schools of the county in carrying it into effect. 
A summary of the Head Teachers’ Remarks, compiled by the Director of 
Education, is given as an Appendix, and I cannot resist the temptation to quote 
largely from his Report :— 
‘In the autumn of 1911 a Conference of Head Teachers was held on Prefect 
Systems in Elementary Schools. It was then decided that all the Head Teachers 
present should try the system for a year, each one on his or her own lines, and 
then report as to its working. 
“Nearly all have now made reports, one only having failed without good 
cause. Reports have come in from six large or middling boys’ schools, three 
large girls’ schools, two large mixed schools, eleven middling and small schools, 
mostly in villages, and one infants’ school—twenty-three in all, embracing 
schools of practically every type. 
‘The record, with one exception, is a story of success, in most cases of extra- 
ordinary success, s0 much so as to put the possibility and value of the system 
beyond a doubt. Whether in developing the prefect’s own character, or in 
creating a sense of school honour among the other children, or in smoothing the 
whole working of the school, the result is equally striking. And the more 
ambitious the scheme of a school, the more it approximates to the Public School 
tradition, the bigger the faith in boy and girl nature, the greater has been the 
success. The few evidences of comparative disappointment come from schools 
where the system has been tried haltingly and with distrust. Where there has 
been courageous faith in the children they have risen to it to a degree that must 
surprise even those who were readiest to believe in school self-government. Nor 
is the success confined to large schools or boys’ schools. Boys’ and girls’ and 
mixed schools, town schools and village schools, all have the same tale to tell. 
A supply teacher who has served in seven schools since the Conference has found 
