246 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



value make the industrial windmills spin or flag. They are not even 

 warned of the significance of such words as inflation or deflation, and the 

 wage earners are the helpless prey at every turn towards prosperity of the 

 savings-snatching financier. Any plausible monetary charlatan can secure 

 their ignorant votes. They know no better. They cannot help them- 

 selves. Yet the subject of property and money — together they make one 

 subject because money is only the fluid form of property — is scarcely 

 touched upon in any stage in the education of any class in our community. 

 They know nothing about it ; they are as innocent as young lambs and 

 born like them for shearing. 



And now here you will see I have a very special panel. This I have 

 called Personal Sociology. Our growing citizen has reached an age of 

 self-consciousness and self-determination. He is on the verge of 

 adolescence. Moral training does not fall within the scope of the in- 

 formative content of teaching. Already the primary habits of truthful- 

 ness, frankness, general honesty, communal feeling, helpfulness and 

 generosity will or will not have been fostered and established in the 

 youngster's mind by the example of those about him. A mean atmosphere 

 makes mean people, a too competitive atmosphere makes greedy, self- 

 glorifying people, a cruel atmosphere makes fierce people, but this issue 

 of moral tone does not concern us now here.' But it does concern us that 

 by adolescence the time has arrived for general ideas about one's personal 

 relationship to the universe to be faced. The primary propositions 

 of the chief religious and philosophical interpretations of the world should 

 be put as plainly and impartially as possible before our young people. 

 They will be asking those perennial questions of adolescence — whence 

 and why and whither. They will have to face, almost at once, the heated 

 and exciting propagandas of theological and sceptical partisans — -pro's 

 and anti's. As far as possible we ought to provide a ring of clear know- 

 ledge for these inevitable fights. And also, as the more practical aspect 

 of the question. What am I to do with my life .? I think we ought to link 

 with our general study of social structure a study of social types which 

 will direct attention to the choice of a metier. In what spirit will you face 

 the world and what sort of job do you feel like ? This subject of Personal 

 Sociology as it is projected here is the school equivalent of a confirmation 

 class. It says to everyone : ' There are the conditions under which you 

 face your world.' The response to these questions, the determination 

 of the will, is however not within our present scope. That is a matter for 

 the religious teacher, for intimate friends and for the inner impulses of 

 the individual. But our children must have the facts. 



Finally, you will see that I have apportioned some time, roughly two- 

 tenths of our I, coo hours, in this grade to the acquisition of specialised 

 knowledge. Individuality is becoming conscious of itself and specialisa- 

 tion is beginning. 



Thus I budget, so to speak, for our 2,400 hours of informative teaching. 

 We have brought our young people to the upper form, the upper standard. 

 Most of them are now going into employment or special training and so 

 taking on a role in the coUective life. But there remain some very essential 

 things which cannot be brought into school teaching, not through any 

 want of time, but because of the immaturity of the growing mind. If 



