L.— EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 243 



trouble is that the present type of member often prefers the ' dustbin ' 

 debate to any other kind because its subject is a matter with which he is 

 familiar ; it is common experience that memoranda embodying recom- 

 mendations of high poUcy are much easier to get through committees 

 than those which deal with comparatively trivial issues. 



It may be a pessimistic opinion, but my own view is that local govern- 

 ment will have in future to counteract the deterioration in its amateur 

 element by a corresponding improvement in the professional element ; 

 that is, it will have to look to recruiting better officials in the future than 

 it has recruited in the past. This is not simply a matter of higher salaries, 

 it is more a question of placing the training and status of the local govern- 

 ment officer on a basis at least equal to that of the central civil servant. 

 I am not shutting my eyes to the fact that there has been a steady improve- 

 ment in the conditions of service for local government officers during the 

 last twenty-five years and, as a natural consequence, in the type of officer 

 who is now coming forward. In the education service, for instance, the 

 Associations of Local Authorities have recently approved proposals affecting 

 the status, emoluments and recruitment of entrants to the higher ranks of 

 the service. Other people thinking along other lines have played with 

 the idea of the City or County Manager. There may be possibilities in 

 this idea provided that areas do not exceed the limits to which I have 

 already referred, and provided that the traditional idea that the chief 

 officer of an Authority should be a lawyer can be finally laid to rest. 

 The legal mind has many virtues and administration would become 

 chaotic without its restraining influence, but it is by temperament and 

 training a restraining influence and is consequently unfitted to take 

 quick decisions or give prompt effect to them when taken. 



But if there is any validity in my contention that the salvation of 

 democracy as exemplified in our local government is to be sought in an 

 imj3 roved type of official, I must in conclusion try to give some answer to 

 the question, ' Who is the happy warrior ? ' The Association of Directors 

 and Secretaries for Education, of which body I am proud to be a member, 

 answered this question more adequately than I can hope to do so a few 

 years ago when they gave evidence to a Royal Commission on Local 

 Government, and I can only refer those interested to a document which 

 is almost lyrical in its fervour. Speaking in more mundane terms, I would 

 say that the educational administrator should have had a university training 

 and some experience as a teacher in one branch or other of the education 

 service. It is essential that he should possess the qualities of a sound 

 administrator, that he should know how to initiate, when to delegate, 

 when and where to advance, how to endure setbacks — above all, how 

 to handle men. If he can retain a genuine enthusiasm for the science 

 of education, it will not be so necessary for him to have a profound 

 knowledge of educational theory. 



Finally, he must beware of the hardening effects of custom and 

 precedent. The needs of society are changing rapidly and it is the func- 

 tion of all educators to study these needs and to consider how best they 

 can be met. At its highest this demands from him a philosophy of life in 

 which he is compelled to study continually the philosophical basis of 



