516 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



boys, that games are the dominant interest, and athletic heroes more admired 

 than boys of intellectual promise : and I desire to insist that this is a perfectly 

 right thing provided only that the elders, whether parents or teachers, do not 

 themselves adopt the boy's standard, and so fix it in the boy's mind, but while 

 sympathising with the boyish interests yet constantly lead the mind forward 

 to a truer perspective. 



I have already said that we give too exclusive a place to books in school 

 education. Many boys, not at all really stupid, are failures at school because 

 they are bad at books. If manual work is given a larger place, it can be so 

 arranged that the great moral difficulty about school work is removed — namely, 

 its individualistic and competitive character. Co-operation cannot be carried far 

 in book work. If a boy does the work of another, as I used when at Rugby to 

 write all the Latin proses for the boys in the Army class in my house, he may 

 benefit himself, but the others lose. Learning from books must be done by each 

 for himself. But manual work can be done in teams, so that a large co-opera- 

 tive element comes in, which is of great value as a training for citizenship. 



It is possible to do something of this sort with regard to book work. At 

 Eepton a challenge-shield is at this time being presented, to be held by the 

 house whose members together gain most marks according to a scheme which 

 allots so many marks to a form prize, so many to a school prize, and so forth. 

 This, in so far as it is successful in its aim, will bring the communal and 

 co-operative spirit into the school work. 



Before we leave this question of social life in the school or college and its 

 influence as an instrument of spiritual education, let me point out what the 

 adoption of this view involves. It requires in the first place that the school 

 should have some individuality v/hich ought to be expressed in its buildings 

 and institutions. Improvement is already being made in this respect, but it is a 

 monstrous crime that our big towns should be studded with vast barrack- 

 like buildings which have no individuality whatever, and are merely, as it were, 

 blocks of class-rooms and laboratories. It is much better to have a definitely 

 ugly building than a building with no sort of feature. The school must be 

 recognised as having a real life of its own in which its members must find their 

 place; for instance, the monstrous regulation which allows a child to leave school 

 on a certain day because his or her individual birthday is come, is full of the 

 evil suggestion that the school exists for the child but has m claim upon it. 

 Then, again, real playing-fields are needed in the neighbourhood of each school — 

 not just an asphalt yard for the children to run about in, but grounds where 

 organised games as part of the normal life of the school are possible. This is 

 needed for physical growth, but it is also vitally needed for the production of 

 that social spirit in the school which is the best of all trainings in good 

 citizenship. The teachers in our elementary schools h.ave in many cases done 

 wonders in developing such a social spirit even under present conditions, but 

 their good work is grievously hampered. I confess that unless such a social 

 life can be developed I take comparatively little interest in the actual subjects 

 of study ; for I agree strongly with Plato that the primary aim of education 

 is to fashion the inclinations and mould the growing will; and if this is not 

 done, if there is either no real will developed at all, or a self-seeking anti- 

 social will, I would rather that there should be no intellectual training. If a 

 man is going to be a knave, for Heaven's sake let him also remain a fool. 



In discussing tije general atmosphere in which teaching is given, and tlie 

 effect which by its constant though often unnoticed influence it produces upon 

 the character, something must be said about the suggestion implied and offered 

 by our present educational system, and the changes which are needed to remedy 

 its evils. In the first place it is clear that the system rests on the belief that 

 for most people all that is really required is a beggarly minimum. This is 

 most of all apparent in that curious regulation which permits clever children 

 who might profit by continued education to leave school earlier than others, 

 while those who are more slow-witted and less likely to profit by prolonged 

 education are kept at school for the full time. ClearW this regulation rests on 

 and suggests the belief that there is a definable minimum to which all citizen.'^ 

 should attain, but beyond which there is no vital necessity that they t-hould 

 pass. The point selected is unfortunate in the last degree, and that in t\v*i 



