160 D. S. MARGOLIOUTH, D.LITT., F.B.A., ON THE FUTURE OF 



in proportion to the population as in France^where education 

 was not difiused to a third of its extent in Prussia, and declared 

 that this demonstrated equally with the experience of every 

 other country the sedulous care which it is indispensable to take 

 before that great instrument of power is put into the hands of 

 the people,* Whereas, then, according to the representation of 

 Dickens, education makes people stupid and helpless, according 

 to Alison it is likely to render them actually criminal. Another 

 contemporary, the learned and mighty thinker Buckle, scornfully 

 pointed to State control of education as a symptom and a cause 

 of political incapacity in France.t The government of this 

 country has taken these risks, and since the time of these great 

 writers has been devoting more and more attention to organising 

 and enforcing education ; our expert Minister of Education 

 admitsj that his far-reaching scheme represents the continuation 

 and development of his predecessors' plans. Far-reaching as it 

 is, it has already been outstripped by the demand of the Labour 

 Party§ that every boy and girl and every adult should be with- 

 in reach of all the training of which he or she is capable without 

 class distinctions or privileges. This demand is perhaps best 

 interpreted by the propositions which are put forward in ex- 

 planation of the formula " Equality of Educational Opportunity " 

 by the Editor of the volume devoted by the American Academy 

 of Political and Social Science to Educational questions : — 



1. There should be an efficient school reasonably accessible to 

 every child who may profit by its ministry. 



2. The school system should be so organised and conducted 

 as to minister with equal diligence to the needs of pupils of each 

 of the several grades of natural ability. 



3. The programme of school studies and activities should be so 

 many-sided as to show equal deference to the tastes and interests 

 and needs — ^vocational and cultural — of all. 



4. The school system should be so organized as not to encourage 

 or permit the segregation of social classes, and should be so conducted 

 as not to exemplify an undemocratic control of student activities. 



5. The administration and control of our educational systems 

 should be vested jointly in central and local authorities, and the 

 highest intelligence and best judgment of expert and laymen should 

 be brought to bear on the formulation and execution of general 

 educational opinion. 



* History of Europe, ed. 1854, vi, 248. 



t History of Civilization, ed. 1878, ii, 125. 



% EducatioTwl Reform, by the Rt. Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, p. 50. 



§ See The Times, May 9, 1918. 



