L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 1QI 
to govern as to eliminate freedom of thought and life, to make human beings 
efficient members of an all-embracing organisation, cogs in a machine, and 
to convince a large number of them that that is the best life for them ; and 
it is certain that the idea of such an organisation has for many persons a 
great attractiveness, and that they are prepared to believe that it is worth 
the price. It is easy, but it is not of much service, to argue that the cause 
of these phenomena in modern States is fear, generated by war and the 
expectation of war, leading men to transfer to times of peace a rigidity 
of organisation which is only necessary or even excusable in the presence 
_ of war itself ; that in all the three foreign countries which have been men- 
tioned military aims and preparations are intimately interwoven with the 
new political systems, and that if security can be achieved on a large 
scale without war, freedom will again lift her head. Or it may be urged 
that judgment on these new systems is premature, since none has lasted 
a generation, and the second generation has often been the end of violently 
imposed governments. We may also suspect that many of those who in 
our own country are disposed to uphold systems of this kind as an ideal, 
almost unconsciously think of themselves as the organisers, and not as the 
organised, and that the realisation of their notions might incidentally 
involve them in some unpleasant surprises. Yet it is none the less a fact 
that a large number of quite serious persons are definitely prepared to 
find their ideal in a state of society in which the freedom of the individual is 
to play a far smaller part than is consistent with any kind of democracy, 
and to fashion education so as to create and perpetuate such a state. 
Now if this view is accepted, if it is definitely decided that freedom is 
not worth keeping, the consequences in the field of education will obviously 
be accepted also—the strict control of all that is to be taught, and of the 
method of teaching it; the exercise of thorough-going espionage upon 
teachers and pupils, and the encouragement in both ranks of the giving 
of information against colleagues and companions; the supervision of 
every part of the individual life, so that there may be no loophole any- 
where for the intrusion of counter-influences, and no opportunity for 
the expression of free thought. There may be those who feel that such a 
State is what ought to be ; and I do not now propose to argue with them ; 
but what I have to say to-day is based upon the opposite assumption, 
that individual freedom, subject to such a minimum of restriction and 
Organisation as is necessary for life as a member of a community, is the 
indispensable condition of a good and even a tolerable human existence, 
and that just as the educational systems of coercive States, real or imaginary, 
are directed to the maintenance of the systems of government and life 
which have given rise to them, so the educational system of a democratic 
State, which is based on the principlé of freedom, should be directed 
towards the maintenance of that freedom, and the encouragement of its 
_Tesponsible use. I am convinced that my old masters, Plato and 
Aristotle, were right in thinking that it 7s the business of education to 
bring up young citizens in what they call the ‘ spirit of the polity ’ (+d 
Pog tig modtetxc), and that it makes all the difference, whether the polity 
is one in which thought as well as life is subject to strict prescription by 
authority, or one in which the actions of the State and the life of the 
