L.— EDUCATION. 207 



matics and science is prima facie the same article as the boy who has been 

 successful in English, general elementary science, drawing, handicraft and 

 shorthand, or the girl who has offered English, botany, music, drawing and 

 needlework. I am not representing either course as better than the 

 other ; one may be right for A and the other for B. I hold no brief to 

 argue that the high-brow is better than the low-brow, or the blue stocking 

 than the flesh-coloured stocking. All that I maintain is that they are 

 palpably not the same, that it is illogical therefore to call them the same, 

 and that nothing but confusion will result from calling them the same. 

 It may be democratic and in accordance with the spirit of the age to 

 hold that we are all the same as one another, and ought therefore to be 

 labelled with the same labels ; but no man who has taught a class for one 

 term can really hold that nature gives any warrant to such nonsense. 

 Surely the logical course is to award two kinds of certificate, one which 

 shall fulfil the academic conditions and maintain unlowered the existing 

 system which causes no difficulty to the boy or girl of average academic 

 ability, and the other which shall be a proof that the boy or girl has taken 

 at school that course of education which in the particular case was the 

 most fitted. 



I would therefore have in any secondary school these two types 

 definitely recognised to be different, not superior or inferior, the one to 

 the other, but different. It would be recognised at the school-certificate 

 stage by the one type sitting for the school certificate awarded as it now 

 is, and the other for a general certificate which shall show that they have 

 made good use of a good and sensible type of education. If they stay 

 at school the one type will continue to go on to the higher certificate, 

 again organised as it now is, and the other to a second certificate, which 

 shall again test the subjects of a quite unspecialised education, designed 

 to meet the individual need in each case. There will then be a good deal 

 of variety inside secondary education, and when the central schools 

 become more numerous and more organised, and the modern schools 

 come into existence in increasing quantity, there will be a good deal of 

 variety outside the old secondary schools as well. And when you consider 

 the variety which must exist among that more than half-million boys and 

 girls with whom we shall have to deal, I think you will agree with me 

 that the more variety there is the better. 



Even so my discussion of the problem of the right curriculum for the 

 higher forms of the secondary school is not complete. In saying that the 

 standard should remain unimpaired, and not be tampered with, I have 

 in mind the work of the best boys and girls. But many more than the 

 best go on to the universities, and it is right that they should do so ; I 

 am not convinced that any of these should attempt specialised study 

 before they enter the classes of the university. On the one hand the 

 colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, through their open scholarship examina- 

 tions, enforce on the schools the attempt to reach a very high standard 

 along narrow lines ; some universities, by allowing their intermediate 

 examinations to be taken through the higher certificate, confuse the 

 courses proper to themselves and to the schools ; some universities admit 

 their students too early ; the higher-certificate courses themselves often 

 involve specialisation built on a very slender foundation of general 



