EDUCATION : A SURVEY OV RECENT EDUCATIONAL THEORY. 177 



It is evident that opinion has swung vehemently in the opposite 

 direction from that of the fifties, when the most learned and 

 possibly the wisest Englishman of his time spoke with contempt 

 of State interference with education. Now the question is not 

 whether it should or should not provide it, and even enforce it, 

 but whether there should be any exempted from its control. 

 Since the inferior efficiency of State management to private 

 enterprise is apparent in many departments of activity, it may 

 be hoped that when peace is restored the advantages which 

 result from freedom to experiment and to compete will not be 

 thrown away in the matter of education, and that the utmost 

 room for individual development will still be permitted. It 

 may well prove that enforced schooling for a longer period will 

 fail to diminish crime and poverty to the extent which some 

 foresee, and that the cry will be heard : What could I have done 

 more to my vineyard that I have not done in it ? Wherefore when 

 I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild 

 grapes ? The answer to that complaint will be found in another 

 text : A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt 

 tree bring forth good fruit ; that education, however skilfully 

 it may be developed, appears insufficient to grapple with heredity 

 and environment, and that the individual character is often, if 

 not always, inexplicable by the three, of which heredity can 

 never be thoroughly understood. There appears to be room 

 for further investigation of the degree to which notions and 

 cognizances can be conveyed by instruction and habituation, 

 since it is undeniable that this can be done within limits ; and 

 the selection of notions and cognizances for the equipment of the 

 individual can only be based on intelligent anticipation of his 

 future requirements. So long as society has grades there may be 

 and should be a staircase upwards, but there will be rarely or 

 never anything but falling downwards. The true course of 

 education in the future does not appear to lie in scrapping 

 institutions that have worked well in the past ; for it must be 

 remembered that if every great Englishman has not been educated 

 at Eton, Eton has produced an extraordinary number of great 

 Englishmen ; it does not appear to lie in equipping with the 

 same intellectual apparatus those who are likely to spend their 

 lives as mechanics, as tradesmen, and as researchers ; it does not 

 appear to lie even in those experiments recorded chiefly in 

 American works, which fascinate with their resourcefulness, but 

 perhaps are most successful when handled by their actual 



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