L.— EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 227 



will gain more than the mind. Even at 16 intellectual education, in any 

 but a quite elementary sense, is only about to begin. Nobody who has 

 seen the results of compulsory education to the age of 16 in the U.S.A. 

 will be under the delusion that it produces an educated nation. If they 

 compare these results with those obtained in France, where education is 

 compulsory only till the age of 13, 5 they will be still further disillusioned 

 about the intellectual advantages gained by raising the school age. If 

 such a change is preparatory to an education continued into the adult 

 years, well and good; if not, it will leave our problem still unsolved. 

 What is the solution ? 



It will not be found in secondary education about which this age is, I 

 think, over-credulous. The hard fight for its development has caused us 

 to exaggerate what it can do. We must keep our faith in it, but temper 

 faith with scepticism. Secondary education is only one part of a great 

 picture ; we need to stand back a little and see the canvas as a whole. 

 I do not wish to minimise the importance of the secondary school. 

 Economic reasons suggest that the earlier years of life should be given to 

 education. That is the time when the parents are most capable of earning 

 money, and the children least capable of it. Further, it is the best age 

 for learning such subjects as foreign languages, for memorising facts and 

 for tolerating and even enjoying what to an adult is drudgery. But I 

 doubt if any candid person, who has been a teacher or a pupil in a secondary 

 school, feels that the returns correspond to the labour, time and money 

 spent. How should they ? You are teaching pupils in whom no in- 

 tellectual faculty except that of memory and possibly imagination is fully 

 developed, who have not, and cannot have, a full perception of the purposes 

 and value of education, and whose eyes — and their teacher's eyes — are 

 apt to be fixed not on its real business, but on School or Higher Certificates 

 or Matriculation or Scholarships. Some take their educational food with 

 a healthy appetite ; others attend conscientiously at meal-times ; others 

 are compelled to swallow. But forcible feeding is not education. In 

 every point except the economic one adult education has the advantage 

 over secondary education. It is given to students, who desire it, who have 

 the mental development to receive it, and who have the experience of life 

 necessary to value and interpret it ; whereas secondary education is given 

 to pupils whose faculties are not fully developed, and who have not seen 

 enough of life fully to comprehend what education is or what it can do for 

 them. Secondary education will always be necessary for the small class 

 who are capable of high achievement in mathematics, science, historical 

 or literary study. It is so firmly established in our national system that 

 its position is not likely to be weakened. But it would be well if we became 

 less confident that the best thing for any boy who can afford it is to stay 

 at school till 18, and if we realised that the education of the masses can 

 never be achieved through secondary education. Let anyone compare a 

 class in a secondary school or even in a university, where the whole time is 

 devoted to acquiring knowledge, with a Workers' Educational Associa- 



6 Children who obtain the Certificat d 'Etudes primaires elementaires can leave 

 a year earlier. 



