162 tj. s. margoliouth^ d.litt., f.b.a., on the future of 



schools some would probably have been saved, ard ike others woidd 

 have been better without the three R's. His statistics show that 

 compulsory education has been followed by a very serious rise 

 in the percentage of insanity.* Crime decreased at a far greater 

 rate between 1855 and 1860 than at any period since 1870, when 

 compulsory education was introduced. It is, of course, possible 

 to hold that for these unsatisfactory results it is not the education, 

 but some method of conducting it, which is to blame ; and we 

 find this view stated with pathos in the Presidential Address to 

 a Mathematical Society, where perhaps we should not expect 

 impassioned rhetoric. When ove considers in its lergth ar d iyi its 

 breadth the im^portavce of this question of the education of a nation s 

 yourg, the broken lives, the defeated hopes, the national failures 

 which result from the frivolous inertia with which it is treated, it is 

 difficult to restrain within opeself a savage ragcf All this could 

 be avoided if the system recommended by the speaker were 

 followed. Emphatic condemnation of present educational methods 

 is to be found not only in the books of those who regard the 

 schoolmaster as partly fool, partly knave, J but in those of 

 actual schoolmasters, who probably take a more lenient view 

 of their profession.§ More often the train of reasoning 

 employed takes the following form. The State furnishes the 

 keys of knowledge, but in order to earn an adequate wage the 

 student must be trained as an artisan. Even when he is so 

 trained, there may be no vacancy for his services, so the State 

 must give him employment, else he may fall into poverty and 

 crime. Even when he is secured by employment from poverty, 

 he may get into mischief in his leisure, which indeed is likely 

 to increase ; hence the State should teach him how to employ 

 his leisure, and some speculators regard this as the most important 

 function of education. || I have not yet seen the suggestion in 

 modern literature that the State should ration out concert tickets 

 and the like, and enforce attendance- — Chough without some such 

 system the danger will remain that even if taught to spend his 



* P. 135, 



t A. N. Whitehead, The Organisation of Thought, p. 27. 



J See C. A. Mercier, The Principles of Ba'ional Education, pp. 54, 55, etc. 



§ N. C. Smith, Cambridge Essays on Education, p. 109 ; K. Richmond, 

 Education for Liberty, p. 28 ; J. H. Simpson, An Adventure in Education, 

 p. 73. 



11 M. W. Keatinge, Studies in Education, p. 200. J. Clarke, The School 

 and other Educators, p. 70. 



