L.— EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 239 



elementary education, the full effect of which it is too early to appreciate. 

 It is significant of the success they have achieved that those pioneers in 

 public education, the Scots, should recently have reconstructed their 

 administrative machine on the English model and so driven another nail 

 in the cofBn of the ad hoc education authority. And yet we must confess 

 that we are still very far from that adjustment of opportunity to ability 

 which is, I suppose, the fundamental aim of any democratic system of 

 public education. 



If I appear to be devoting most of my time to pointing out the defects 

 in our local education system, I should like to make it clear that my object 

 is to contribute my mite towards smoothing out the long road which has 

 yet to be travelled and in no way to belittle the efforts of a by no means 

 ignoble army of public servants. 



Apart from questions of size and population. Local Education 

 Authorities also vary greatly in their financial resources as tegards both 

 their own rateable value and the contributions which they receive from 

 the Exchequer towards their net expenditure. Neither the money they 

 raise themselves nor the grants they receive from Government are in any 

 arithmetical proportion to their respective areas or populations, and, 

 although the formula by which the grant is calculated was no doubt 

 intended to take account of local circumstances affecting expenditure, the 

 conditions which it was designed to meet in many cases no longer obtain. 

 The resultant anomalies are a fruitful cause of dissatisfaction in many 

 areas and of acute embarrassment in some ; in fact the whole question 

 of the financial relationship between the central government and the 

 local authority is one which calls for an immediate and comprehensive 

 review. 



Then again Authorities vary very much in character, some being purely 

 rural, many purely urban, while others contain a mixture of the two, or 

 are in process of transition from the former to the latter. A further and 

 ever-present difficulty so far as many of them are concerned is the fact 

 that while some of them are empowered to deal with all forms of education 

 in their area (Counties and County Boroughs, technically known as 

 Part II Authorities), others are only empowered to deal with elementary 

 education (Part III Authorities). Part III Authorities, and particularly 

 the smaller ones, are naturally jealous of their prerogatives and one cannot 

 but admire the courage with which many of them are facing the strain 

 on their resources, financial and otherwise, which the provision of ele- 

 mentary education on reorganised lines must entail. At the same time, 

 when it is realised that ' higher ' education usually starts at the age of 1 1 or 

 even earlier, while ' elementary ' education will shortly extend to 15 or even 

 16, and that most of the larger Part III Authorities have exercised the 

 right of establishing selective central schools, which in many cases approxi- 

 mate in standard and aim to the other forms of selective post-primary 

 institution provided by the Part II Authority in the same area, the possi- 

 bilities of confusion, overlapping and friction will need no emphasis. 



It is true that many of these difficulties can be and are in fact being 

 overcome by co-operation between the Authorities concerned, but it 

 should be pointed out that, while co-operation ranks high among the 



