230 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
until last year the ex-elementary school child constituted 71 per cent. of 
the English secondary school population and one in eight of elementary 
school leavers made his or her way to the secondary school, every other 
one with a free place. Such figures speak for themselves. 
The story of secondary education hitherto, as we have seen, has been 
one of uninterrupted expansion, but we are at the end of a generation and 
there are indications that the national impulse behind the movement is 
faltering, or perhaps making ready to find another channel. The 
example of Wales, which even now has half as many more children in 
proportion in its secondary schools as there are in the English schools, 
stands as a warning to would-be prophets. Nevertheless, I doubt 
whether many more schools of the secondary type will be founded, and 
when the population ‘ bulge’ of the first two post-war years ceases to 
have effect, the tide of numbers may be expected definitely to ebb. What 
becomes, what has become, of these thousands of pupils, old and new? 
The parallel extension of State control over, and interference with, the 
lives and business of its citizens, the creation of new departments of 
State, the great increase in the Civil Service, both central and local, 
before the War accounted for many of them. They staff the teaching 
profession. About sixteen per cent. of them go to the universities and 
other institutions of higher education. Nearly two-fifths of them enter 
the minor professions, or become clerks or go into business. Less than 
fifteen per cent., rather more than a tenth of the whole, enter any kind of 
industry. But the Civil Services have ceased to multiply, the teaching 
profession is over-full, and the clerk is being replaced by machines of 
every sort. The schools have been remarkably faithful throughout to 
the conception of an education mainly literary, given through a balanced 
curriculum of subjects mainly traditional. They have turned their 
pupils almost exclusively in the direction of the academic, the professional, 
the ‘ black-coated ’ occupations. 
They are staffed from the academic group in the nation, and while it 
has ensured high intellectual standards, that fact has enabled them to 
tolerate the adaptation of their curriculum to the requirements of the 
universities, until recently, with no sense of discomfort. They are academi- 
cally controlled, not only in the advanced work which is the prelude to 
university study for the small fraction of abler pupils, but also through 
the certificate examinations which are the goal of the average. The 
irruption of the free place holder has made little difference. ‘The social 
ideals which underlie the schools’ practice are congenial, if anything too 
congenial, to the poor child and his parents, ambitious that he shall 
escape the drudgery which they have had to undergo. To them a 
secondary education stands for advancement in life and the promise has 
hitherto been realised. 
But, as I have already pointed out, the prospects of advancement along 
the customary lines are not so bright as they were. And another factor 
needs to be reckoned with. For five-and-twenty years we have been 
transferring picked boys and girls from the elementary schools to the 
atmosphere of the secondary school. No wonder industry complains 
that it is being robbed of its best recruits. The thoughtful employer 
