L._EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 235 
than 1,000 in full-time technical college courses and day technical classes, 
and another 1,000 in full-time art courses, junior and senior, while there 
are about 6,500 in junior technical schools. Finally, bring into the com- 
parison the 63,500 adolescents of the same age in the secondary schools 
and the remnant of 16,500 who are in the elementary schools. Even 
when allowance is made for the fact that practically all the elementary 
school remnant, and rather more than 7,000 of the secondary pupils aged 
fifteen to sixteen, will eventually find their way into industry, the volume 
of full-time pre-employment education of any kind for industry appears 
painfully small. 
The administrator or the teacher can do very little to make good the 
deficiency. As Mr. Ramsbotham said the other day, ‘the course of 
education is primarily governed by its social surroundings, by the thoughts 
and actions, the needs and aspirations of adult society, and not by the 
desires or ideals of educationists.’ The regional co-ordination of schools, 
even the association of industrialists with their work, will not of them- 
selves create a demand. What is lacking is a conviction on the part of 
adult society that this form of instruction is a necessary element of our 
national well being. ‘The nation must will to have it so, and as yet there 
are few signs, apart from the vociferation of interested parties, that the 
nation is not quite content to have it otherwise. 
In our development of technical education on a part-time basis for those 
already in employment we differ from continental countries, where in 
the main technical instruction is conceived to be a full time pre-employ- 
ment training. We differ from them also in another important respect. 
While we recognise that there must be grades of employees, workmen, 
charge hands, foremen, departmental managers and so on, neither the 
educationist nor the typical industrialist agrees that you can conclusively 
predict beforehand the grade in which the recruit will ultimately come to 
rest. There are too many examples of men in high position who owe 
their success to their character, their temperament, and their capacity, 
rather than to any specialised training they have picked up on the way, for 
us easily to accept the theory of the stratification of labour which lies behind 
the graded schools of the Continent. It has been said that the process 
of horizontal stratification into classes which will leave the individual 
little opportunity for advancement has begun in this country, and that 
the division of the nation’s youth into those who are and those who 
are not to receive a secondary education is a new social phenomenon 
whose consequences will be very far-reaching. But there are, and for a 
long time to come there probably will be, many ways of obtaining a 
secondary education without passing through the gate of the annual schools 
examination. 
It is repugnant to our national thought and practice that an insuperable 
line should be drawn through Society at any age. So it comes about 
that at every stage in our educational system we busy ourselves on behalf 
of those who have not followed the orthodox routes, that they may have 
an opportunity of making up what they have lost. We even play with 
the idea that loss may be converted into gain, the competitors turning up 
at the starting post for the next stage of the race with certain advantages 
