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The Social Problems Series
EDITED BY
OLIPHANT SMEATON, M.A., F.S.A.
THE CHILDREN
The Social Problems Series
THE CHILDREN
SOME EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS
BY
ALEXANDER DARROCH, M.A.
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK 16 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. AND EDINBURGH 1907
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION—THE PRESENT UNREST IN EDUCATION 1
II. THE MEANING AND PROCESS OF EDUCATION 13
III. THE END OF EDUCATION 22
IV. THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION—THE PROVISION OF EDUCATION 31
V. THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION—THE COST OF EDUCATION 46
VI. THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION—THE MEDICAL EXAMINATION OF SCHOOL CHILDREN AND THE MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS 54
VII. THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION—THE FEEDING OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 66
VIII. THE ORGANISATION OF THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 77
IX. THE AIM OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION 85
X. THE AIM OF THE INFANT SCHOOL 98
XI. THE AIM OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL 107
XII. THE AIM OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 118
XIII. THE AIM OF THE UNIVERSITY 126
XIV. CONCLUSION—THE PRESENT PROBLEMS IN EDUCATION 131
THE CHILDREN
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION—THE PRESENT UNREST IN EDUCATION
The problems as to the end or ends at which our educational agencies should aim in the training and instruction of the children of the nation, and of the right methods of attaining these ends once they have been definitely and clearly recognised, are at the present day receiving greater and greater attention not only from professed educationalists, but also from statesmen and the public generally. For, in spite of all that has been done during the past thirty years to increase the facilities for education and to improve the means of instruction, there is a deep-seated and widely spread feeling that, somehow or other, matters educationally are not well with us, as a nation, and that in this particular line of social development other countries have pushed forward, whilst we have been content to lag behind in the educational rear.
The faults in our present educational structure are many, and in some cases obvious to all. In the first place, it is said, and with much truth, that there is no systematic coherence between the different parts of our educational machinery, and no thorough-going correlation between the various aims which the separate parts of the system are intended to realise. As Mr. De Montmorency has recently pointed out, we have always had a national group of educational facilities, more or less efficient, but we have never had, nor do we yet possess, a national system of education so differentiated in its aims and so correlated as to its parts as to form "an organic part of the life of the nation."[1] An educational system should subserve and foster the life of the whole: it should be so organised as to maintain a sufficient and efficient supply of all the services which a nation requires at the hands of its adult members. For it is only in so far as the educational system of any country fulfils this end that it can be "organic," and can be entitled to the claim of being called a national system.
This lack of coherence between the different parts of our educational system and the want of any systematic plan or unity running through the whole is due to many causes. As a nation, we are little inclined to system-making, and as a consequence the problem of education as a whole and in its total relation to the life and well-being of the State has received but scant attention from politicians. Educational questions, in this country, are rarely treated on their own merits and apart from considerations of a party, political, or denominational character, and hence the problems which have received attention in the past and evoke discussion at the present are concerned with the nature of the constitution, and limits of the power of the bodies to whom should be entrusted the local control of the educational agencies of the country, rather than with the problems as to the aims which we should seek to realise through our educational organisation, and of the methods by which these aims may be best realised. Hence, as a nation, we have rarely considered for its own sake and as a whole the problem of the education of the children. And until we have done so—until we have made clear to ourselves the kind of future citizen which as a State we desire to rear up—our educational agencies must manifest a like indefiniteness, a like inconsistency, and a like want of connection as do our educational aims and ideals.
Again, closely connected with this first-named defect in our educational organisation, and in fact following from it as a logical consequence, is our fatal method of developing this or that part of our educational system and of leaving the other parts to develop, if at all, without any central guidance or control, until at length we realise that the neglected parts also require attention, and must somehow or other be refitted into the whole. E.g., since 1870 there has been a great advance in the extent and intent of elementary education in both England and Scotland, but this progress has been of a one-sided nature, and there has been no corresponding advance either in the perfecting of the educational system as a whole, or in the co-ordination of the various grades of education. In Scotland, since the passing into law of the Education Bill of 1872, the means of elementary education have been widely extended and the methods of teaching have been greatly improved, but there has been no corresponding advance in the provision of the means of higher education, and as a consequence, at the present day, we find many districts without adequate provision for carrying on the education of the youth of the country beyond the Primary School stage. Secondary education has been provided in some centres by means of endowments; in others through the extension of the term "elementary" so as to include education of a more extended nature than was originally intended to be covered by that term. In England until 1902, very much the same conditions prevailed, but since then, mainly in order to remedy the state of things created by the judgment in the Cockerton Case, the control of primary, secondary, and technical education has been placed in the hands of the County and Borough Councils, who are empowered "to consider the educational needs of their area, and to take such steps as seem to them desirable, after consultation with the Board of Education, to supply or aid the supply of education other than elementary, and to promote the general co-ordination of all forms of education." Tinder the powers so granted much has been done throughout England during the past few years to extend and make efficient the means of higher education; to erect schools which shall provide training for the future services required by the community and the State of the more highly gifted of its members, and to co-ordinate the work of the various agencies entrusted with the care and education of the children of the nation.
Through the failure of the Education Bills of 1904 and 1905 to pass into law, Scotland still awaits the creation of local authorities charged with the control and direction of all grades of education, and in this respect her educational organisation is much more loosely compacted than the system which now exists in England.
Further, in Scotland, on account of the absence of one controlling authority, we often find in those districts in which the provision for higher education is ample, imperfect co-ordination between the aims and work, on the one hand, of the Primary School, and on the other, of schools providing higher education. From this cause also it follows that, unlike our German neighbours, we have made little progress in determining the different functions which each particular type of Higher School shall perform in the social organism, and have not assigned the particular services which the State requires of each particular type of Higher School. It is surely manifest that the service which the modern industrial State looks for from its members is not the same in kind and is much more complex in its nature than that which was required during the mediaeval period, and that if this service is to be efficiently supplied, then there is need for Higher Schools varied in type and having various aims.
This want of unity between the various parts of our educational system manifests itself again in the indefiniteness of aim of many of our Higher Schools, and in the lack of co-ordination between the Higher School on the one hand, and institutions providing university and advanced instruction on the other. Up till quite recently, the sole aim of our Secondary Schools was to provide students for the Universities and to supply the needs of the learned professions. But with the economic development of the country, and as a consequence of the keen international competition between nation and nation in the economic sphere, there has arisen a demand for a higher education different in kind from that provided by the older Universities, and a need for a type of Secondary School different in aim and curriculum from that which looks mainly to the provision of students intending to enter upon some one or other of the so-called well recognised learned professions. It is here, when compared and contrasted with the educational systems of some of our Continental neighbours, that we find the weakest point in our own system, and at the present time our most urgent need is for the extension and better equipment of the central institutions of the country which provide higher technical and commercial instruction.
This unsatisfactory condition of things is due in large measure, as we have already pointed out, to our innate dislike as a nation of all system-making, and to the distrust felt by many minds of any and every form of State control of education. Hence, partly from these causes, partly as a result of historical conditions, it has followed that various authorities have in this country the guidance and control of education, with the usual result of want of unity of aim, of lack of correlation of means, and in some cases of overlapping and waste of the means of higher education.
In the second place, while much has been done since the advent of compulsory elementary education to better the means of education and to increase the facilities for the higher instruction of the youth of the country, there is a widespread belief that all the hopes held out by the early advocates of universal compulsory education have not been realised, and that our Primary Schools in large measure have failed to turn out the type of citizen which a State such as ours requires for her after-service.
Universal education has not proved a panacea for all the social evils of the Commonwealth, and while it must be admitted that much good has resulted from the adoption of universal and compulsory education, yet at the same time certain evils have followed in its train.
Since the institution of universal education, it may be argued that the children of the nation have received a better training in the use of the more mechanical arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but the tendency has been to look upon the acquisition of these arts as ends in themselves, rather than as mere instruments for the further extension and development of knowledge and practice, and hence our Primary School system, to a large extent, has failed to cultivate the imagination of the child, and has also failed to train the reason and to develop initiative on the part of the pupil. There has been more instruction, it has been said, during the last thirty years, but less education; for the process of education consists in the building up within the child's mind of permanent and stable systems of ideas which shall hereafter function in the attainment and realisation of the various ends of life. Now, our school practice is still largely dominated by the old conception that mere memory knowledge is all-important, and as a consequence much of the so-called knowledge acquired during the school period is found valueless in after life to realise any definite purpose, for it is only in so far as the knowledge acquired has been systematised that it can afterwards be turned to use in the furtherance of the aims of adult life.
From this it follows that, since much of the knowledge acquired during the school period has no bearing on the real and practical needs of life, the Primary School in many cases fails to create any permanent or real interest in the works either of nature or of society.
But a much more serious charge is laid at times against our Primary School system. It is contended that during the past thirty years it has done little to raise the moral tone of the community, and it has done still less to develop that sense of civic and national responsibility without which the moral and social progress of a nation is impossible. Our huge city schools are manufactories rather than educational institutions—places where yearly a certain number of the youth of the country are turned out able to some extent to make use of the mechanical arts of reading and writing, and with a smattering of many branches of knowledge, but with little or no training for the moral and civic responsibilities of life. This is evident, it is urged, if we consider how little the school does to counteract and to supplant the evil influences of a bad home or social environment. What truth there may be in these charges and what must be done to remedy this state of matters will be discussed when we consider later the existing Elementary School system. Here it is sufficient to point out that one of the causes at work to-day tending to arouse a renewed interest in educational problems is the feeling now beginning to find expression that the kind of universal elementary education provided somehow or other fails, and has failed, to produce all that was in the beginning expected of it—that it has in the past been too much divorced from the real interests of life, and that it must be remodelled if it is to fit the individual to perform his duty to society.
A third fault often found with our existing school system is that in the case of the majority of the children the process of education stops at too early an age. The belief is slowly spreading that if we are to educate thoroughly the children of the nation so as to fit them to perform efficiently the after duties of life, something of a more systematic character than has as yet been done is required, in order to carry on and to extend the education of the child after the Elementary school stage has been passed. For it is evident that during the Primary School period all that can be expected in the case of the larger number of children is that the school should lay a sound basis in the knowledge of the elementary arts necessary for all social intercourse, and for the realisation of the simpler needs of life. A beginning may be made, during this period, in the formation and establishment of systems of knowledge which have for their aim the realisation of the more complex theoretical and practical interests of after life, but unless these are furthered and extended in the years in which the boy is passing from youth to manhood, then as a consequence much of what has been acquired during the early period fails to be of use either to the individual or to society.
Again, it is surely unwise to give no heed to the systematic education of the majority of the children during the years when they are most susceptible to moral and social influences, and to leave the moral and social education of the youth during the adolescent period to the unregulated and uncertain forces of society.
Lastly, in this connection it is economically wasteful for the nation to spend largely in laying the mere foundations of knowledge, and then to adopt the policy of non-interference, and to leave to the individual parent the right of determining whether the foundation so laid shall be further utilised or not.
A fourth criticism urged against our educational system is that in the past we have paid too little attention to the technical education of those destined in after life to become the leaders of industry and the captains of commerce. Our Higher School system has been too predominantly of one type—it has taken too narrow a view of the higher services required by the State of its members, and our educational system has not been so organised as to maintain and farther the economic efficiency of the State. For it may be contended that the economic efficiency of the individual and of the nation is fundamental in the sense that without this, the attainment of the other goods of life can not or can be only imperfectly realised, and it is obvious that according to the measure in which the economic welfare of the individual and of the State is secured, in like measure is secured the opportunity for the development and realisation of the other aims of the individual and of the nation.
Thus the present unrest as regards our educational affairs may be largely traced to the four causes enumerated. We have begun to realise that our educational system lacks definiteness of aim, and that its various parts are badly co-ordinated; that, in short, we do not as yet possess a national system of education which ministers to and subserves the life of the State as a whole. We are further beginning to perceive that the provision of the means of higher education is too important a matter to be left to the care of the private individual, and that education must be the concern of the whole body of the people. Hence it has been said that on the creation of a national system of education, fitted to meet the needs of the modern State, depends largely the future of Britain as a nation.
Again, all that was hoped for as the result of universal compulsory education has not been realised, and the feeling is growing that there is something defective in the aims of our Primary School system, and that it fails, and has failed, to develop in the individual the moral and social qualities required by a State such as ours, which is becoming increasingly democratic in character. Further, we are learning, partly through experience, partly from the example of other countries, that the period during which our children must be under the regulated control of the school and of society must be lengthened, if we are to realise the final aim of all education, which is to enable the individual on the intellectual side to apply the knowledge gained to the furtherance and extension of the various purposes of life, and on the moral side to enable him to use his freedom rightly.
Lastly, as a nation, we are beginning to discover that without the better technical training of our workmen, and especially of those to whom in after-life will be entrusted the control and direction of our industries and commerce, we are likely to fall behind the other advanced nations in the race for economic supremacy.
But, in addition to these negative forces at work, tending to produce dissatisfaction with our educational position, the opinion is growing stronger and clearer that the education, physical, intellectual, and moral, of the children of the nation is a matter of supreme importance for the future well-being and the future supremacy of the nation, and that it is the duty of the State to see that the opportunity is furnished to each individual to realise to the full all the potentialities of his nature which make for good, so that he may be enabled to render that service to the community for which by nature he is best fitted. Compulsory elementary education is but one stage in the process. We must, as a nation, at least see that no insuperable obstacles are placed in the path of those who have the requisite ability and desire to advance farther in the development of their powers. Moreover, if need be, we must, in the words of Rousseau, compel those who from various causes are unwilling to realise themselves, to attain their full freedom.
This demand for the better and fuller education of the children of the nation is motived partly by the growing conviction that the freedom, political, civil, and religious, which we as a nation enjoy, can only be maintained, furthered, and strengthened in so far as we have educated our children rightly to understand and rightly to use this freedom to which they are heirs. Democracy, as a form of government and as a power for good, is only possible when the mass of the people have been wisely and fully educated, so that they are enabled to take an intelligent and comprehensive interest in all that pertains to the good and future welfare of the State. A democracy of ill or partially educated people sooner or later becomes an ochlocracy,[2] ruled not by the best, but by those who can work upon the self-interest of the badly or one-sidedly educated. A true democracy is in fact ever aristocratic, in the original sense of that term. A false democracy ever tends to become ochlocratic, and the only safeguard against such a state of conditions arising in a country where representative government exists is the spread of higher education, and the inculcation of a right conception of the nature and functions of the State and of the duties of citizenship.
But further, the demand for increased facilities for higher and technical education is motived largely by the conviction that in the education of our children we must in the future more than we have done in the past take means to secure the fitness of the individual to perform efficiently some specific function in the economic organisation of society. And the demand proceeds, not from any desire to narrow down the aims of education, to place it on a purely utilitarian basis, but from the belief that the securing of the physical and economic efficiency of the individual is of fundamental and primary importance both for his own welfare and the well-being and progress of the State, and that in proportion as we secure the higher economic efficiency of a larger and larger number of the people we also secure the essential condition for the development and extension of those other goods of life which can be attained by the majority of a nation only after a certain measure of economic prosperity and economic security is assured.
The social evils of our own or of any time cannot, of course, be removed by any one remedy, but an education which endeavours to secure that each individual shall have the opportunity to develop himself and to fit himself for the after performance of the service for which by nature he is suited may do much to mitigate the evils incident upon the industrial organisation of society. If this end is to be realised, then three things at least are necessary. We must seek by some means or other to check the large number of our boys and girls who, after leaving the Primary School, drift year by year, either through the ignorance or the cupidity or the poverty of their parents, into the ranks of untrained labour, and who in the course of two or three years go to swell the ranks of the unskilled, casual workers, and become in many cases, in the course of time, the unemployed and the unemployable. In the second place, we must endeavour to secure the better technical training of the youth during their years of apprenticeship, and so tend to raise the general efficiency of the workers of the nation whatever the nature—manual or mental—of their employment. In the third place, we must endeavour, by means of our system of education, to increase the mobility of labour. In the modern State, where changes in the industrial organisation are frequent, the worker who can most easily adapt himself to changing circumstances is best assured of constant employment, and a great part of the social evils of our time may be traced to this want of mobility on the part of a large number of our workers.
The mobility of labour is of course always determined within certain limits, but much may and could be done by pursuing from the beginning a right method in educating the child to develop its power of self-adaptation to the needs of a changing environment.
If these results are to be attained, then we shall have, as a nation, to make clear to ourselves the real meaning and purpose of education; we shall have to make explicit the nature of the ends which we desire to secure as the result of our educational efforts, and we shall have to organise our educational agencies so that the ends desired shall be secured.
Let us now consider the question of the meaning, purpose, and ends of education.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] National Education and National Life, p. 1.
[2] Ochlos, a mob.
CHAPTER II
THE MEANING AND PROCESS OF EDUCATION
"Of all the animals with which the globe is peopled, there is none towards whom nature seems, at first sight, to have exercised more cruelty than towards man, in the numberless wants and necessities with which she has loaded him, and in the slender means which she affords to the relieving of these necessities. In other creatures these two particulars generally compensate each other. If we consider the lion as a voracious and carnivorous animal, we shall easily discover him to be very necessitous, but if we turn our eye to his make and temper, his agility, his courage, his arms, and his force, we shall find that his advantages hold proportion with his wants.... In man alone this unnatural conjunction of infirmity and of necessity may be observed in the greatest perfection. Not only the food which is required for his sustenance flies his search and approach, or at least requires his labour to be produced, but he must be possessed of clothes and lodging to defend him against the injuries of the weather: though to consider him only in himself, he is provided neither with arms, nor force, nor other natural abilities which are in any degree answerable to so many 'necessities.' 'Tis by society alone he is able to supply his defects and raise himself up to an equality with his fellow-creatures, and even acquires a superiority over them."[3] In these terms Hume draws the distinction between man and the animals, and if, for the term Society, we substitute the word Education, then we shall more truly describe the means by which man overcomes his natural infirmities and meets his necessities.
But we have to ask, Wherein does man differ from the animals? what power or faculty does he possess over and above those possessed by himself and the animals in common? and how does it happen that as his wants and needs increase and multiply the means to satisfy them also tend to increase? Now, the animal is guided wholly or mainly by instinct. In the case of many animals the whole conduct of their life from birth to death is governed by this means. In the case, indeed, of some of the higher animals, there is a limited power of modifying this government by instinct through the experience acquired during the lifetime of the individual. But man alone possesses the power or faculty of reason. And it is through the possession of this power that he alone of all creatures can be educated; it is the possession of this power which places him above the rest of creation, and it is in the possession of this power that the possibility of his greatness, and also of his baseness, lies. Now, an instinct may be defined as an inborn and inherited system of means for the attainment of a definite end of such a nature that once the appropriate external stimulus is applied the system tends to work itself out in an automatic manner until the end is attained, and independently of any control exercised by the individual. The working out of such an action may be accompanied by consciousness, but the power of memory would only be valuable in so far as the instinct was imperfect, and in so far as the better attainment of the end was fostered by direct individual experience. Thus the greater the range of instinct the less the scope of and the less the need for education—i.e., for acquiring experiences that will function in rendering more efficient future action; and conversely, the less the range of instinct the greater the need for education, for acquiring experiences that may function in the guidance and direction of future action.
Now, in man the range of instinct is small. In fact, it is questionable whether in the strict usage of the term he possesses any one perfect instinct. But to overcome this weakness of his nature he possesses the power or faculty of reason, and this consists in the ability to self-find, to self-adapt, and to self-establish systems of means for the attainment of definite ends. "Man's splendid power of learning through experience and of applying the contents of his memory to forecast and mould the future is his peculiar glory. It is this which distinguishes him from and raises him above all other animals. This it is that makes him man. This it is that has enabled him to conquer the whole world and to adapt himself to a million conditions of life."[4] This it is that also makes possible the education of the child, and raises the hope that by a truer and deeper conception of the process of education we shall be enabled to mould the character of the children to worthy ends.
But although man is pre-eminently the rational animal, yet reason only operates, and can only operate, in so far as it is called into activity by the need of satisfying some inborn or acquired desire. That is, man possesses not only reason, but also certain instinctive tendencies to action. In early life, the instincts of curiosity, of imitation, of emulation, and the various forms of the play instinct are ever inciting the child to action, and ever evoking his reason-activity to acquire new experiences which shall function in the more efficient performance of future action. At a later stage other instinctive tendencies make their appearance, as e.g. the parental instinct, and serve as motives for the further acquisition of new experiences—for the establishment of other systems of means for the attainment of desired ends. But as the child passes from infancy to youth and manhood, these instinctive tendencies, although ever present, alter their character, and acquired ends or interests become the motives of actions. But these acquired ends or interests are not something created out of nothing: they are grafted upon and arise out of the innate and inherited instinctive tendencies of man's nature. Thus, e.g., the instinct of mere self-preservation may pass into the desire to attain a certain standard of life, or to maintain a certain social status; the instinct of curiosity into the desire to find out and to systematise knowledge for its own sake. But for the realisation of these instinctive ends, whether in their crude or acquired forms, the finding and the establishment of systems of means in every case is necessary, and in order that they may be realised man must acquire the requisite capacities for action. In the case of the animal the instinct or impulse to action is inherited, but the capacity for action is also inborn or innate. Man possesses all the innate ends or interests which the animal possesses. Moreover, upon these innate ends or interests can be grafted ends or interests innumerable and varied in character, but in order that they may be satisfied he must through the evoking into activity of reason find and adapt means for their attainment. Thus the general nature of our conscious human life is that throughout we are striving to attain ends of a more or less explicit nature, and endeavouring to find out and to establish means for their attainment. Whether in the performance of some simple, practical act, or in trying to observe accurately what is presented to us through the senses, or in endeavouring to realise imaginatively something not directly presented to the senses, or in performing an abstract process of thought, the activity of reason in its formal aspect is ever one and the same. Hence in education we have not to do with the development of many powers or faculties but with the development or the evolution of the one power or faculty of reason, and the process of development in its general nature is always the same in kind—viz., the process of systematically building up knowledge which shall function in the future determination of conduct. What varies in each case, at each stage of development, is the nature of the material which goes to form this or that system, and the character of the identity or link of connection which binds part to part within any given system. A system of knowledge may be built up of perceptual elements, of ideas derived directly through the medium of the senses. Of such a character are the systems of knowledge possessed by the artist and the musician. Again, a system of knowledge may be composed wholly or mainly of images—of remembered ideas, so altered and so modified as to form and fit into a new whole. Lastly, the elements which go to form the component parts of the system may be of a conceptual character. Thus we may select the number aspect of things for consideration and treatment, and so build up and establish within the mind of the child a number system. But in each and every case the power at work is the activity of reason, and the end ever in view in the selection and in the formation of the system is the satisfaction of some end or interest desired either for its own sake or as a means to some further and remoter end.
Further, a system of knowledge may differ not only in the nature of the materials of which it is composed, but also in the mode of its formation; i.e., the nature of the identity which binds part to part within the system may vary in character. Now it is upon the nature of the systems which we ultimately form in the mind of the child and upon the method which we pursue in our process of system or knowledge making that the resultant character of our education depends.
A system of knowledge may be related as regards its parts by some qualitative or quantitative bond of identity. All sciences of mere classification are formed in this way, and the formation of such systems is in some cases a necessary preliminary to the evolution of the higher forms of system. But the important point to note is that all such systems are valuable only as a means to the further recognition, the further classification, of similar instances. An individual whose mind was wholly formed in this way might be compared to a well-arranged museum, where everything is classified and arranged on the basis of qualitative identity. But manifestly this mere arranging and classifying of knowledge has only a limited value. Such systems can never be used as means for the realisation of any practical need of life, can never by themselves lead us to intrinsically connected knowledge.
A second and higher form of system is established whenever the bond of connection between part and part is an identity of function or of law. All language systems are of this nature, and the more highly synthetic the language the more intrinsic the connection there is between the parts of the system. Further, it should be noted that systems of this character can be used for the attainment of other ends than those of mere recognition and classification. They, of course, can be used as instruments of intercourse, of culture, and of commerce. But they may further be utilised in education in the training of the pupil to self-apply a system of knowledge to the solution of relatively new problems, and it is for this reason mainly that the ancient languages possess their value as educational instruments.
Lastly, systems of knowledge may be formed in which the inter-relation of part to part within the system is that of identity of cause and effect. In the establishment of scientific knowledge the aim is to show the causal inter-relation of part to part within a systematic whole or unity. Hence also, as in the case of language systems, systems of this nature are capable of being used to train the pupil to self-apply knowledge in the solution of practical and theoretical problems, and in the realising of the practical ends of life. Once again it must be noted that in the establishment of the various systems of knowledge the one activity ever present is that of reason seeking ever to connect part to part in order that some end or interest may be attained. Moreover, we may misuse the power of reason, and employ it in the attainment of ends which are valueless in the sense that they further no real interest or end in life. This is done whenever knowledge is crammed, whenever the bond of connection between one part of knowledge and the other is extrinsic, and whenever facts are connected and remembered by bonds of a more or less accidental or factitious nature. And since such knowledge can further no direct interest or end in life, its acquisition must, as a rule, be motived by some strong indirect interest. As a consequence, whenever the indirect interest, whatever its nature may be,—the fear of punishment, or the passing of an examination,—ceases to operate, then the desire for further acquisition also ceases. Hence it follows that the establishment of any such system is of comparatively little value. It may pave the way at a later period for the formation of a system of intrinsically connected knowledge, but as a general rule such systems, because they cannot be used, tend soon to drop out of mind, and to be of no further consequence in the determination of conduct. But further, this misuse of reason, this inciting of the mind to memorise facts unrelated except by their mere accidental time or space relations, will if persisted in tend to render the individual dull, stupid, and unimaginative.
The systems of knowledge, then, of most value are those which establish intrinsic connections between part and part; for it is only by means of systems of this character that action can be determined and knowledge extended. In this sense we may agree with Herbert Spencer[5] that science or systematised knowledge is of chiefest value both for the guidance of conduct and for the discipline of mind. At the same time we must not fall into the Spencerian error of identifying science "with the study of surrounding phenomena," and in making the antithesis between science and linguistic studies one between dealing with real things on the one hand, and mere words on the other.
Further, since the establishment of a system of means is always through the self-finding and the self-forming of the system, this furnishes the key to the only sound method of education—viz., that the child must be trained in the self-discovering and the self-connecting of knowledge. This does not mean that the method should be heuristic in Rousseau's sense, that the child should be told nothing, but be left to rediscover all knowledge for himself. But it does mean that in the imparting of the garnered experience of the race the child must be trained in the methods by which the race has slowly and gradually built up a knowledge of the means necessary for the realisation of the many and complex ends of civilised life.
Before passing on to consider the ends at which we should aim in the education of the child, it may be well briefly to summarise the conclusions reached.
1. Man is distinguished from the rest of creation by the possession of reason: the animal life is mainly or wholly guided by instinct.
2. Man like the animals possesses instincts or instinctive tendencies, but for their realisation he must seek out and establish systems of means for their attainment. Bereft of these instinctive tendencies of his nature, man would have no incentive to acquire experiences for the more efficient guidance of his future conduct.
3. In the course of the development and extension of experience there gradually becomes grafted upon these innate instincts, interests or ends of an acquired nature, and one of the main functions of education is to create, foster, and establish on a permanent and stable basis, interests of ethical and social worth.
4. The power of reason is no occult power: it is simply the capacity for finding and establishing systems of means for the attainment of ends; or it may be defined as the power of acquiring experience and of self-applying this experience in the future guidance of conduct.
5. The evolution of intelligence in man is the evolution of this reason-activity to the attainment of new and more complex theoretical and practical ends or interests. At an early stage the systems of knowledge established are for the attainment of the relatively simple needs of life, and are composed of perceptual and imagined elements. At a later stage the systems formed may be of the most complex nature, and are composed of conceptual elements.
6. Man is the only being capable of education in the strict usage of the term. He alone must acquire the means for the realisation of the various desired ends of life.
7. The process of education is a process which, utilising as motives to acquirement the instinctive tendencies of the child's nature, seeks to establish systems of means for their realisation, and upon these innate or inborn instincts to graft acquired ends or interests which shall hereafter function in the attainment of ends of economic, ethical, and social worth.
8. The only truly educative method is the method which trains the pupil to find, establish, and apply systems of knowledge in the attainment of ends of felt value.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. III. part ii. sec. 2.
[4] Principles of Heredity, by G. Archdall Reid, p. 235.
[5] Cf. Herbert Spencer, Education, especially chap. i.
CHAPTER III
THE END OF EDUCATION
We have seen that the process of education is the process of acquiring and organising experiences that will function in the determination of future conduct and ensure the more efficient performance of future action; or we may say that the process is one by which means are gradually established and fixed in the mind for the attainment of ends of value for the realisation of the varied and complex interests of life.
Now, this acquisition and organisation of experience is never entirely "left to the blind control of inherited impulse," nor is the child wholly left to gather and organise his experiences upon the incentive of any innate or acquired interest that may for the time engage his will. The various agencies of society—the home, the school, the shop and yard—are ever constantly seeking to establish such or such systems of ideas, and to prevent the formation of other systems. Hence it follows that education is not a mere natural process—not a process of acquiring experience in response to the demands of this or that natural need, but that it is a regulated process, controlled with the view of finally leading the child to acquire certain experiences, to organise certain systems of means for the attainment of such or such ends.
Moreover, at various periods in history, the end or ends of education, the kinds of experience thought necessary and valuable for the child to acquire have varied, and still vary, and must vary according to the nature of the civilisation into which the child is born and to which his education must somehow or other adjust him; i.e., there is no one type of experience, no one kind of education, which is equally suited to meet the needs of the child born in a modern industrial State and the child whose education must fit him hereafter to fulfil his duties as a member of a savage tribe.
Further, in determining the nature of the experiences useful to acquire, we must take into account not only the civilisation to which the child is to be adjusted, but we must also take note of the nature of the services which the given society requires of its adult members. These services vary in character, and there can be no one kind of education which equally fits the individual to perform efficiently any and every service. To postulate this would be to affirm that there is a kind of experience useful for the realisation indifferently of any and every purpose of adult life, and to affirm that a system of knowledge acquired and organised for the attainment of certain definite ends can be used for the furtherance of ends different in character and having no intrinsic connection with each other. Further, to assert that there is one type of education equally suited to train and to develop the reason-activity of the individual in every direction is to neglect the fact that individuals differ in innate capacity. These differences are due in part to differences in the extent and character of the receptive powers of individuals, and are to be traced, probably, to differences in the size and constitution of the sensory areas of the brain, and are due also in part to inborn differences in the capacity for acquiring and utilising experiences. As a consequence of these differences one individual will acquire and organise certain kinds of experience more readily than others.
But not only have the ends sought to be realised through the educational agencies of society varied in the past—not only do we find that the ideals at present vary in character according to the stage of civilisation which the particular country has reached—we also find that the agencies of society determining the character and end of education also vary. For in the discussion of the ends sought to be attained by means of education, we must remember that these are not determined by the teacher, but by "the adult portion of the Community organised in the forms of the Family, the State, the Church, and various miscellaneous associations"[6] desirous of promoting the welfare of the community. At one time the Church largely determined the character and ends of education, but the tendency at the present time is for the State to control more and more the education of the rising generation. In some countries the entire control of all forms of education, primary, secondary, and technical, has come under the guidance of the State, and in our own country elementary education is now largely under the control of the State authorities, and the other forms of education tend increasingly to come under this control. Not only is this so, but the period during which the State exercises its control over the education of the child is gradually being lengthened.
Many causes are at work tending to produce these results in the first place, it is being clearly realised that there can be no thorough-going co-ordination of the various grades of instruction until all the agencies of education in each area are placed under one authority acting under the guidance of some central body responsible for the organisation and direction of the education of the district as a whole. Further, there can be no satisfactory settlement of the problem as to what particular function each distinct type of Higher School shall perform until the whole means of education are under one determining authority.
In the second place, the higher education of the children of the nation is too important a matter to be left entirely to the care of the private individual, and its cost is too great in many cases to be wholly borne by each individual parent. But this provision, organisation, and control of the means of higher education by the State does not necessarily imply that it should be free—that the whole burden should be laid on the shoulders of the general taxpayer. Yet unless means are provided by which the poor but clever boy can realise himself, then there is so much loss to the community.
In the third place, the organisation of all forms of education and the more extended provision of higher and especially of technical training is necessary, if for no other reason than as a means of economic protection and economic security.
Lastly, the better organisation of our educational agencies is necessary as a means of securing a democracy capable of understanding the meaning of moral and civic freedom and of using this rightly.
But while the concrete nature of the ends to which our educational efforts are directed may vary in accordance with the needs of a changing and progressive civilisation, nevertheless the general nature of the ends sought to be attained by the education of the children of a nation is permanent and unchangeable. That is, we have to recognise a universal as well as a particular element in our educational ideals. Now, the universal aim of all education is, or rather should be, to correlate the child with the civilisation of his time; to lead him to acquire those experiences which will in after-life enable him to perform ably and rightly his duties as a worker, as a citizen, and as a member of an ethical and spiritual community organised for the securing of the well-being of the individual. And the higher the civilisation, the more difficult, the more complex, and the more lengthened must be this process of acquiring experiences necessary to fit the individual to his environment. Hence, whatever the particular nature of the environment may be, the aim of education must be the fitting of the individual to his natural and social environments. Hence also any organisation of the means of education must have as its threefold object the securing of the physical efficiency, of the economic efficiency, and the ethical efficiency of the rising generation. In short, as Mr. Bagley[7] puts it, the securing of the social efficiency of the individual must be the ultimate aim of all education. To be socially efficient implies that as the result of the process of education certain experiences, and the power of applying them, have been acquired by each individual, so that by this means he is enabled to perform some particular social service for the community of a directly or indirectly economic nature. For if, as the result of the educative process, we establish systems of means for the realisation of ends which have no social value, then so far we have failed to make the individual socially efficient. "The youth we would train has little time to spare; he owes but the first fifteen or sixteen years of his life to his tutor, the remainder is due to action. Let us employ this short time in necessary instruction. Away with your crabbed, logical subtleties; they are abuses, things by which our lives can never be made better."[8] In these words Montaigne writes against the false ideal that the mere accumulation of knowledge apart from any purpose it may serve in enabling us better to understand either the world of nature or of history should be the aim of education, and throughout all education we must ever keep in mind that knowledge acquired must be capable of being used and applied for the realisation of some social purpose, otherwise it is so much useless lumber, to the individual a burden, soon dropped, to society valueless, since it can maintain and further no real interest of the community.
But to be socially efficient implies not merely that the individual should be fitted to perform some service economically useful to the community, it further implies that as the result of the process of education there should have been acquired certain capacities of action which restrain him from unduly interfering with the freedom of others. He must acquire certain experiences which restrain him from hindering the full and free development of others; he must be trained to use his freedom rightly, to acquire those capacities for action which fit him to take his place in the moral cosmos of his time and generation. Further, as Mr. Bagley also points out, to be socially efficient implies in addition that the individual should contribute something further to the advancement of the civilisation into which he is born, and thus pass on to his successors an increasing heritage.
The threefold aim of all education, then, is to secure the physical, the economic, and the ethical efficiency of the future members of the community; and our educational agencies must throughout keep this threefold aspect in view.
To secure the physical efficiency of the child is necessary, in the first place, because a strong, healthy, vigorous body is a good in itself, apart from the fact that without sound health the other ends of life cannot, or can be only imperfectly realised. It is an erroneous point of view to maintain that many men have done good intellectual work in spite of physical ill-health, and even in cases where there was present some physical defect. The real thing to keep in mind is that these individuals do not represent the average, and that for the normal individual weak health or the presence of physical defect lessens his intellectual and moral vigour. We can, in the light of modern psychology, no longer regard mind and body as separate entities having a development independent of each other, but must regard them as conditioning and conditioned by each other.
In the second place, the care of the physical health of the child is important, because any impairment or defect in the sense organs—the avenues of experience—implies a corresponding defect or want in mental growth, and as a consequence tends to render the individual economically and socially less efficient in after-life.
In the third place, and this truth is being gradually put into practice in the education of the weak-minded and of the physically defective, sound physical health is one of the conditions of right moral activity. This truth Rousseau emphasised when he declared: "that the weaker the body, the more it commands; the stronger it is, the better it obeys. All the sensual passions find lodgment in effeminate bodies, and the less they are satisfied the more irritable they become. The body must needs be vigorous to obey the soul: a good servant ought to be robust."
We shall inquire further into this question when we come to treat of the physical education of the child, but what we wish to point out is that one aim of all our educational efforts must be to secure the physical efficiency of the rising generation, on the grounds that sound physical health is a good in itself; is a means to the securing of the economic efficiency of the individual and of society; and is a condition of securing the ethical efficiency of the individual.
In the second place, the securing of the economic efficiency of the individual must be one of the aims of our educational efforts. This does not imply that our educational curriculum should be based on purely utilitarian lines, and that all subjects whose utilitarian value is not immediately apparent should be banished from the schoolroom. But it does imply that whether in the education of the professional man or of the industrial worker all instruction either directly or indirectly must have as its final result the efficiency of the individual as a worker. An education which fits the individual to use his leisure rightly may have as much effect in increasing the productive powers of the individual as that which looks more narrowly to his technical training. Further, we must remember that the larger number by far of the children of the modern State must in after-life become industrial workers, and that any system of education which neglects this fact, which makes no provision for the technical training of the children of the working classes, and has no adequate system of selecting and training those who by innate capacity are fitted to become the leaders in industry, is a system not in harmony with the characteristics of modern life, and that unless this economic efficiency is secured, then the opportunity for the development of the other ends of life cannot be secured.
Lastly, the securing of the ethical efficiency of the future members of the State must be one of our ultimate aims. The ethical aim of education may be said to be the supreme end, in the sense that it is the essential condition for the security, the stability, and the progress of society; and also from the fact that the ethical spirit of doing the work for the sake of the work should permeate all education.
In concluding this chapter what needs to be emphasised is that while the process of education remains ever the same, ever consists in acquiring and organising experience, in and through the working of reason incited to activity by the need of satisfying some natural or acquired interest, in order that future action may be rendered more efficient, and whilst the general nature of the ends to be attained may be said to be permanent and unchangeable, yet the particular and concrete ends at which we should aim in the education of our children is a practical question which every nation has, from time to time, to ask and answer afresh in the light of her national ideals and in view of her national aspirations. Nay, further, it is a question which with every necessary change in her internal organisation, and with every fundamental alteration in her relation to her external neighbours, has to be asked and answered anew by each and every State desirous of retaining her place amongst the nations of the world and of securing the welfare and happiness of her individual members. It is mainly because we as a nation have not realised this truth that our educational organisation has, neither in the explicitness and clearness of its aims, nor in the distinction, gradation, and co-ordination of its means, attained the same thoroughness and self-consistency as that possessed by the educational systems of some of our Continental neighbours.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Cf. Professor Findlay, Journal of Education (Sept. 1899), also "Principles of Class Teaching," p. 2.
[7] Cf. The Educative Process, chap. iii., esp. pp. 59, 60 (Macmillan).
[8] Montaigne, The Education of Children, L. E. Rector, Ph.D. (International Education Series), Appleton, New York.
CHAPTER IV
THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION—THE PROVISION OF EDUCATION
The end of education is, as we have seen, the securing of the future social efficiency of the rising generation, and the method in every case is through the evoking of the reason-activity of the individual to organise and establish in the minds of the young and immature, systems of ideas which will hereafter function as means in the attainment of ends of definite social worth.
The question now arises as to whether the provision and organisation of the agencies of education may be safely left to the care and self-interest of the individual parent, or whether on principle such provision is a duty which devolves upon the State.
The principle of the State provision of the means of elementary education has now practically been admitted, and whether wisely or unwisely, the larger part by far of the cost of this provision now falls upon the shoulders of the general and local taxpayer. E.g., in England in 1902 there were six hundred and thirty-three thousand fee-paying children in the Public Elementary Schools, and over five millions receiving their education free.[9] Further, by the Education Act (England) of 1902 and by the Education and Local Taxation Account (Scotland) Act of the same year the principle of the State aid for the provision of the means of secondary and technical education may be said also practically to have been recognised. By the former Act certain Imperial funds derived from the income on Probate and Licence duties were handed over to the Councils of counties and boroughs for expenditure on the provision of the means of education other than elementary, and at the same time these bodies were empowered, if they thought it necessary, to impose a limited rate for the same purpose. In Scotland at the same time a certain part of Scotland's share of the "whisky" money was set aside for the provision of secondary education in urban and rural districts, and Secondary Education Committees were appointed in the counties and principal boroughs charged with the allocation of the funds towards the aid and increase of the provision of higher education in their respective districts.
But while this has been done, the question as to whether and to what extent the State should undertake the provision of the means of higher education is still one on which there is no general agreement. If it is the duty of the State to see that the provision of the means of education, elementary, secondary, technical, and university, is adequate to the attainment of the end of securing the future social efficiency of all the members of the community, then it must be admitted that the means at present provided for this purpose are totally inadequate, and that the method followed in furnishing this provision is not of a kind to ensure that the funds granted are spent in the manner best calculated to extend the agencies and to increase the efficiency of the higher education of the children of the nation. This latter objection applies more especially in the case of Scotland. In that country certain nominated bodies who are responsible only to themselves and to the Scotch Education Department are entrusted with the expenditure of the monies received for the extension of the means of higher education, and since these bodies stand in no intimate connection with the representative bodies entrusted with the control of elementary education, no efficient co-ordination of the two grades of education is possible. Further, in some cases sectional interests rather than the educational interests of the district as a whole are the main motives at work in determining the distribution of the funds amongst the various bodies claiming to participate in its benefits. The uncertainty of the amount of income available for this purpose, and the limitation in England of the power of rating, might also be urged in objection to this peculiarly English method of providing the means for the higher education of the youth of the country.
Similar reasons to those urged prior to 1870 in favour of the State provision of elementary education may be urged in favour of the extension of the principle to higher education. These reasons are nowhere more clearly stated than in the writings of John Stuart Mill.
In discussing the functions of government, Mill lays down that education is one of those things which it is admissible on principle that a Government should provide for the people, and although in adducing the reasons for the State undertaking this duty he is concerned mainly with the provision of the means of elementary education, yet looking to the altered social conditions of our own time, and taking into account the difference in the economic relations which exist now between Great Britain and her Continental rivals, the arguments advanced by Mill are no less applicable now to the extension of the principle of State provision. Let us consider these arguments.
In the first place, Mill declares that there are "certain primary elements and means of knowledge that all human beings born into the community must acquire during childhood." If their parents have the power of obtaining for them this instruction and fail to do so, they commit a double breach of duty. The child grows up an imperfect being, socially inefficient, and members of the community are liable to suffer seriously from the consequences of this ignorance and want of education in their fellow-citizens.
In the second place, Mill urges that unlike that the giving of other forms of help, the provision of education is not one of the things in which the tender of help perpetuates the state of things which renders help necessary. Instruction strengthens and enlarges the active faculties; its effect is favourable to the growth of the spirit of independence—it is help towards doing without help.
In the third place, he declares that the question of the provision of elementary education is not one between its provision by the Government on the one hand, and its provision through voluntary agencies on the other. The full cost of the education of the children of the lower working classes in Great Britain as in other countries has never been wholly paid for out of the wages of the labourer, and hence the question lies between the State provision of education and its provision by certain charitable agencies. As a rule, when provided by the latter, it is both inefficient in quantity and poor in quality.
Lastly, Mill lays down that in the matter of education the intervention of Government is necessary, because neither the interest nor the judgment of the consumer is a sufficient security for the goodness of the commodity.
But at the same time he strenuously insists that there should be no monopoly of education by the State. It is not desirable, he declares, that a government should have complete control over the education of the people. To possess such a control and actually to exert it would be despotic. The State may, however, require that all its people shall have received a certain measure of education, but it may not prescribe from whom or where they may obtain it.
At the present day, and under the changed economic conditions which now prevail, it can no longer be asserted that the imparting of the mere elements of knowledge is adequate either to secure the future social efficiency of the children of the lower classes of society or that such a modicum of instruction as is provided by our Elementary Schools is sufficient to protect the community from the ignorance of its ill educated and badly trained members. The "hooliganism" of many of our large cities is due to our system of half educating, half training the children of the slums, of laying too much stress on the acquisition of certain mechanical arts in our Primary Schools and in conceiving them as ends in themselves. Further, our system of primary education fails on its moral side, and this in two ways. It seems unaware of the fact that all moral education is an endeavour to implant in the minds of the young desires that shall impel them hereafter to good rather than to evil, and that this end can only be attained in so far as the natural instinctive tendencies of the child's nature which make for good are cultivated and trained, and in so far as those other instinctive tendencies which make for social destruction are inhibited by having their character altered so as to be directed into channels which make for the social welfare. In the second place, we leave off the education of the children at too early an age. We hand over the children of the poorer classes during the most critical period of their lives to the influences of the streets and of the bad home, counteracted only by the efforts of the slum visitor or the missionary. After furnishing them with the mere instruments of knowledge, we entrust either to them or their parents the liberty of using, misusing, or non-using the instruments provided. Moreover, we do nothing of a systematic nature to instil into the youth of our poorer citizens the fact that they are members of a corporate community and future citizens of a State, and that hereafter they have duties towards that State the performance of which is the only rational ground of their possession of rights as against the State. E.g., in many of our slums we have the best examples of individualism run mad, of the conception that the individual is a law unto his private self, and that all government is something alien, something forced upon the individual from the outside and impinging upon his private will, instead of law being what it really is, an expression of the social conditions under which the welfare of the individual and of society may be attained.
Further, it must be maintained that our present policy in education is economically wasteful. To spend, as we do yearly, larger and larger sums of money on the elementary education of our children, and then, in a large number of cases, to fail to reach the ends of securing either the social efficiency of the individual or the protection of society against the ignorance of its members, is surely, to say the least, unwise. Again, if we really set before us this aim of the social efficiency of the future individual, we must do something to carry on the education of the children of the poorer classes after the Elementary School stage has been passed.
One of the strongest points in the German system of education, as compared and contrasted with our own, is the care which is taken of the higher education of the children of the working classes during the period when it is most important that some control should be exercised over the youth of the country, throughout the time when the boy is most open to temptation, and when the moral forces of society are potent for good and evil in shaping and forming his character. The great majority of the children in a modern State are and must be destined for industrial service; the great majority of the children of the working classes must, at or about the age of fourteen, leave the Primary School and enter upon the learning of some trade. But manifestly at this early stage the larger number are not fitted to guide and control their own lives; and if moral education aims, as it ought to aim, at fitting the individual for freedom, at fitting him to guide and direct his own life in the light of a self-accepted and a self-directed ideal, then some measure of control, of guidance, and of regulation is necessary in the years when the child is passing from youth to manhood. Now, it is this fact, this truth, which the Germans as a nation have realised. They declare that it is neither wise nor prudent nor for the ultimate benefit of the State to leave the vast majority of the youth without guidance, and sometimes even without proper moral control exercised over them during the great formative period of their lives. Nay, further, they believe that a State which neglects its duty here is not doing what it ought to do for the future moral good, for the future economic welfare, and for the future happiness of its individual members. Hence, in several of the German States, the State control over the child does not cease when at fourteen years of age he leaves the Elementary School, but is continued until the age of seventeen; and this is effected by the establishment of compulsory Evening Schools. In particular, by a law which came into force in Berlin on the 1st April 1905, every boy and girl in that city, with certain definitely specified exceptions, must attend at an Evening Continuation School for a minimum of not less than four hours and a maximum of not more than six hours per week. Moreover, this enactment has been rendered necessary not to level up the majority, but to level up the minority. This development is a development for which the voluntary Evening Continuation School prepared the way; and compulsory attendance has become possible on account of the willingness of the German youth to learn, and of his desire to make himself proficient in his particular trade or profession. Further, the school authorities, in this matter of compulsory attendance at an Evening Continuation School, have with them the hearty co-operation of the great body of employers; and the burden of seeing that the pupil attends regularly is not put upon the parent but upon the employer. By these means, and by other agencies of a voluntary character, every care is taken that the Berlin youth shall have the opportunity of finding that employment for which by nature he is best suited, and that thereafter he shall learn thoroughly the particular trade or calling he may enter upon.
Contrast what we do, or rather what we do not do, in this matter of providing higher education for the sons and daughters of the working classes. In our large towns the great majority of our boys and girls leave the Elementary School at or before the age of fourteen. In many cases the instruction given during this period soon passes away, and leaves little permanent result behind. Evening Continuation Schools are indeed provided, but only a small proportion of our youth takes advantage of this means of further instruction. The larger number of the children of the lower working classes drift, for a year or two, into various forms of unskilled employment, chosen in most cases because the immediate pecuniary reward is here greater than in the case of learning a trade; and after spending two or three years in employments which do nothing to educate them, some drift, by accident, into this or that particular trade, while the others remain behind to swell the number of the unskilled. During this period nothing of an organised nature is done to secure the physical efficiency of the youth of our working classes; nothing or almost nothing is done to secure his future industrial efficiency; and, as a consequence, year after year, as a nation, we go on fostering an army of loafers, increasing the ranks of the unskilled workers, and even in our skilled trades adding to the number of those who are mere process workers, at the expense of producing workers acquainted both theoretically and practically with every department of their particular calling. No wonder that the delegates of the brass-workers[10] of Birmingham, contrasting what they have seen in Berlin with what they daily see in their own trade at home and in their own city, bitterly declare that the Berlin youth has from infancy been under better care and training at home, at school, at the works, and in the Army; and consequently, as a man, he is more fitted to be entrusted with the liberty which the Birmingham youth has perhaps from childhood only abused.
Space does not permit me to go at fuller length into this question, but before leaving the particular problem let me put the issue plainly, because it is an issue which we as a nation must soon clearly realise, and must answer in either one or other of two ways. We may go on as at present, insisting that a certain amount of elementary education is compulsory for all, and leaving it a matter for the individual parent and the individual youth to take advantage of the means of higher education provided voluntarily, and as a rule without any great direct cost to them. In this way, trusting to the voluntary agencies at work in society, we may hope that either through enlightened self-interest, or through a higher conception of the duty of the individual to the State, or through a loftier moral ideal becoming prevalent and actual in society, an increasing number of parents will see that the means provided for the higher education of their children are duly taken advantage of, and that the majority of the youth will make it their aim to use these means to secure their physical and industrial efficiency. If we adopt this course, then it must be the duty of the school authorities of the various districts to see that Evening Schools of various types suited to the needs of the various classes of students are duly provided, and that no insurmountable obstacles are placed in the way of those desirous and anxious to take advantage of the means of higher education. Further, it must become the duty of the employers of the country to see that the youth are encouraged in every way to take advantage of instruction designed with the above-named end in view, and moreover the general public must do all in their power to co-operate with and to aid the endeavours of school authorities and employers of labour. In this way, as has been the case in Berlin, the voluntary system of Evening Continuation and Trade Schools may gradually and in time pave the way for the compulsory Evening School. Without doubt this were the better way, if it could be effected and that quickly.
But if in this matter we have delayed too long—if we have allowed our educational policy in the past to be guided by a one-sided and narrow individualism—if for too lengthened a period we have permitted our political action to be determined by the false ideal that, in the matter of providing for and furthering his education as a citizen and as an industrial worker, liberty for each individual consists in allowing him to choose for himself, regardless of whether or not that choice is for his own and the State's ultimate good, then it may be necessary in the immediate future to take steps to remove or remedy this defect in our present educational organisation. For it is necessary—essentially necessary—on various grounds that the education of the boys and girls of our working classes should not cease absolutely at the Elementary School stage,[11] but that, with certain definite and well-considered exceptions, all should continue for several years thereafter to fit themselves for industrial and social service. If this result can be effected by moral means, good and well; if not, legal compulsion must, sooner or later, be resorted to. For it is, as it has always been, a fundamental maxim of political action that the State should and must compel her members to utilise the means by which they may be raised to freedom.
The second line of argument which Mill follows in his advocacy of the State provision of education is that instruction is one of the cases in which the aid given does not foster and re-create the evil which it seeks to remedy. Education which is really such does not tend to enervate but to strengthen the individual. Its effect is favourable to the growth of independence. "It is a help towards doing without help."
On similar grounds, we may urge that it is the duty of the State to see that the means for the higher education of the youth of the country are adequate in quantity and efficient in quality. The better technical training of our workmen is necessary if we are to secure their economic self-sufficiency and fit them to become socially useful as members of a community. One aim therefore underlying any future organisation of education must be to secure the industrial efficiency of the worker and to ensure that the results of science shall be utilised in the furtherance of the arts and industries of life. This can only be effected by the better scientific training, by the more intensive and the more thorough education of those children of the nation who by natural ability and industry are fitted in after-life to guide and control the industries of the country.
Mr. Haldane,[12] during the past few years, in season and out of season, has called the attention of the public of Great Britain to the fact that in the organisation and equipment of their system of technical education Germany is much in advance of this country, and that the German people have thoroughly and practically realised that, if they are to compete successfully with other nations, then one of the aims of their educational system must be to teach the youth how to apply knowledge in the furtherance and advancement of the economic interests of life. With this end in view we have the establishment throughout the German States of numerous schools and colleges having as their chief aim the application of knowledge to the arts and industries. In our own country this branch—this very important branch—of education has been left, for the most part, to the care of private individuals, and although the State has done something in recent years to encourage and develop this side of education, yet much more requires to be done; and, above all, it is desirable that whatever is done in the future should be done in a regular, systematic, and organised manner and with definite aims in view.
But it is not merely in the higher reaches of German education that the industrial aim is kept in view. It pervades and permeates the whole system from the lowest to the highest stages. Even in the Primary School the requirements of practical life are not left out of sight. In school, said a former Prussian Director of Education, "children are to learn how to perform duties, they are to be habituated to work, to gain pleasure in work, and thus become efficient for future industrial pursuits. This has been the aim from the earliest times of Prussian education; and to this day it is plainly understood by all State and local administrative officers, as well as by all teachers and the majority of the parents, that the people's school has more to do than merely teach the vehicles of culture—reading, writing, and arithmetic"—that the chief aim is rather "the preparation of citizens who can and will cheerfully serve their God and their native country as well as themselves."
In the third place, the question of the provision of the means of higher education is not one between its provision on the one hand by means of the Government, and on the other by means of purely voluntary agencies. Higher education, e.g., in Scotland has rarely been provided and paid for at its full cost by the individual parent or by associations of individual parents, but has been maintained, in some cases in a high degree of efficiency, by endowments left for this purpose. These endowments are now in many cases insufficient to meet the demand made for education, and the stream of private benevolence in providing the means of education has either ceased to flow or flows in an irregular and uncertain fashion. Further, the incomes of even the moderately well-to-do of our middle classes are not sufficient to bear the whole cost of the more expensive education required to fit their sons and daughters for the after-service of the community. Hence, just as in Mill's time the question of the provision of elementary education lay between the State provision and the provision by means of charitable agencies, so to-day the problem of the provision of secondary and technical education is between its adequate provision and organisation by the State, and its inadequate, uncertain provision by means of the endowments of the past and by the charitable agencies of the present. Manifestly, in the light of modern conditions, with the economic competition between nation and nation becoming keener and keener, and knowing full well that the future belongs to the nation with the best equipped and the best trained army of industrial workers, we can no longer rest content with any haphazard method of providing the means of higher education: whatever the cost may be, we must realise that the time has come to put our educational house in order and to establish and organise our system of higher education so that it will subserve each and every interest of the State. This can only be effected in so far as the nation as a whole realises the need for the better education of the children, and takes steps to secure that this shall be provided, and that there shall be afforded to each the opportunity of fitting himself by education to put his talents to the best use both for his own individual good and the good of the community. Lastly, as Mill urges, the self-interest of the individual is neither sufficient to ensure that the education will be provided, nor in many cases is his judgment sufficient to ensure the goodness of the education provided by voluntary means.
But, in addition to the reasons urged by Mill for the State provision and control of the means of elementary education, and these reasons are, as we have seen, as urgent and as cogent to-day for the extension of the principle to the provision of the means of secondary and technical education, still further reasons may be advanced.
In the first place, there can be no co-ordination of the different stages of education until all the agencies of instruction in each area or district are placed under one central control. Until this is effected we must have at times overlapping of the agencies of instruction. In some cases there may also be waste of the means of education. In every case there will be a general want of balance between the various parts of the system.
In the second place, one object of any organisation of the means of education should be the selection of the best ability from amongst the children of our Elementary Schools and the further education of this ability at some one or other type of Intermediate or Secondary School. In order that this may be economically and efficiently effected, the instruction of the Elementary School should enable the pupil at a certain age to fit himself into the work of the High School, and our High Schools' system should be so differentiated in type as to furnish not one type of such education but several in accordance with the main classes of service required by the community of its adult members. Manifestly such a co-ordination of the means and such a grading of the agencies of education, if not impossible on the voluntary principle, is at least difficult of complete realisation. |
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