SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L. 5038 
It would need a large house containing rooms for conferences, lectures, library and 
staff. On the selection of the latter, which might at first be small, success would 
depend. Though the institute would need the friendly but informal co-operation 
of many Government departments, including the Colonial Office, the Board of 
Education, the Scottish Education Department, the Foreign Office, the India Office 
and the Ministries of Agriculture and Health, it seems undesirable that it should be 
under the direct auspices of any British Government department. First, because 
no single Government department focuses all the activities with which the institute 
would necessarily be concerned, and secondly because discussions of policy in foreign 
countries would at times raise controversial issues from which Government departments 
should rightly stand aloof. It would be more appropriate that the work of the 
institute should be affiliated to a university, connection with which would attest 
scientific impartiality in the investigation and presentment of problems. To a 
university institution thus conducted, aid from the Government grant would be 
appropriate. Convenience of access, library facilities and the neighbourhood of 
sources of official information indicate London as the best seat for the Institute. As, 
however, the work of the institute would depend upon the friendly co-operation of 
local authorities in all parts of Britain and on the goodwill of British universities and 
schools, it might be found desirable to form an advisory council, upon which the 
chief bodies of experience could be represented. 
Dr. M. P. West. 
There is but one point which I would wish to add to what has been said already, 
and that is to emphasise the need of making the proposed institute as wide and 
international as possible in its character. 
The problems with which it will have to deal cannot be localised in their scope, 
nor confined even to so large a unit as the British Empire. In studying a problem 
of the schools in Bengal some of our help came from the Philippines, from Pekin, 
and from studies made in America whose authors had no thought of our problems in 
their mind. And the outcome of our work has been of assistance to teachers in 
Canada and in Iceland whom we never intended to benefit. There is no one problem 
in education which does not tend to spread its network in this same way, taking help 
and (with good fortune) giving help in unexpected spaces and corners of the map. 
If this institution becomes only a training ground of educators for the British 
Empire it will be useful. But if it becomes something more than this—a world 
clearing-house of educational ideals—it will be something of historical importance. 
There has never been a time of greater educational unsettlement, of more varied 
experiment. ‘he old ideals are crumbling away quicker than we can replace them. 
There has never been a time when co-operation and co-ordination of effort was 
more necessary. 
In Dr. Sandiford’s article in the Canadian Forum some three years ago (which 
was perhaps one of the first expressions of the present scheme) there was mention of 
the work of Columbia University in training overseas educators. And in the later 
discussion one point which has been made in favour of this proposal has been that 
education in the British Empire may (owing to the work of Columbia University in 
this direction) be over-influenced by American educational ideals—and that this 
would be unfortunate. 
It would be unfortunate if work of such magnitude and importance were allowed 
to be over-influenced by any one set of present-day educational theories. We cannot 
be so sure of the rightness of American methods and ideals as to allow them to 
predominate. Nor yet can we be so sure of owr own. Nor, in an era so fluid and unsure, 
can we either trust blindly, nor yet leave out, any system—American or English, or 
other. 
I would plead, therefore, that, in its connections, in its organisation and finance, 
the institute should be made as international as possible ; that, so far from attempting 
to ‘ do it on our own,’ we should invite—and go forth into the highways and seek—all 
possible outside aid. 
If this institute is going to make educational history—as I believe its destiny to 
be—that history must be made for the world as a whole, and by as much as can be 
mustered of the whole world. 
