578 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 670 



which we have made, it can not be denied 

 that in this country there still exists a 

 large amount of educational unrest, of dis- 

 satisfaction with the results of our efforts 

 during the last thirty years. This is 

 partly due to the fact that there is much 

 loose thinking and uninformed expression 

 of opinion on educational questions. No 

 one knows so little as not to believe that his 

 own opinion is worth as much as another's 

 on matters relating to the education of the 

 people. In this way statements, the value 

 of which has not been tested, pass current 

 as ascertained knowledge, and very often 

 ill-considered legislation follows. In this 

 country, too, the difficulty of breaking 

 away from ancient modes of thought is a 

 great drawback to educational progress. 

 Suggestions for moderate changes, which 

 have been most carefully considered, are 

 deferred and decried if they depart, to 

 any great extent, from established custom, 

 and the objection to change very often 

 rests on no historical foundation. Occa- 

 sionally, too, the change proposed is it- 

 self only a reversion to a previous prac- 

 tise, which was rudely broken by thought- 

 less and unscientific reformers. The op- 

 position which was so long raised to the 

 establishment of local universities was 

 largely due to want of knowledge on the 

 subject; and certainly the creation, some 

 seventy years ago, of a teaching university 

 in London was actually hindered through 

 a mere prejudice, which broader views as 

 to the real purposes of university teaching 

 and fuller information on the course of 

 univer^ty development would have re- 

 moved. 



There never was a time perhaps when 

 it was more necessary than now that edu- 

 cation should be regarded dispassionately, 

 apart from political bias, as a matter of 

 vital interest to the people as a whole. 

 Education nowadays is a question which 

 affects not only the life of a few privileged, 



selected persons, but of the entire body of 

 citizens. The progress that has been made 

 during the last few years in nationalizing 

 our education has been very rapid. It 

 may be that it has been too rapid, that 

 sufficient thought has not been given to the 

 altered social and industrial conditions 

 which have to be considered. We have 

 witnessed a strong desire and a successful 

 effort to multiply secondary and technical 

 schools and to open more widely the portals 

 of our universities. The object of the 

 desire is good in itself. As the people 

 grow in knowledge the demand for higher 

 education will increase; but the serious 

 question to be considered is whether the 

 kind of education which was supplied in 

 schools, founded centuries ago to meet re- 

 quirements very different from our own, 

 is equally well adapted to the conditions 

 which have arisen in a state of society hav- 

 ing other needs and new ideals. Very 

 rightly our students in training for the 

 profession of teachers are expected to 

 study the writings of Locke, Rousseau, 

 Milton, Montaigne and others; but many 

 are apt to ovei'look the fact that these 

 writers had in view a different kind of 

 education from that in which modern 

 teachers are engaged, and that their sug- 

 gestions, excellent as many of them are, 

 were mainly applicable to the instruction 

 to be given by a tutor to his private pupil, 

 and had little or no reference to the teach- 

 ing of the children of the people in schools 

 expressly organized for the education of 

 the many. Only recently have we come to 

 realize that a democratic system of educa- 

 tion, a system intended to provide an in- 

 tellectual and moral training for all citi- 

 zens of the state, and so organized that, 

 apart from any consideration of social 

 position or pecuniary means, it affords 

 facilities for the full development of capa- 

 city and skill wherever they may occur, 

 must be essentially different in its aims and 



