BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031758752 
 
Cornell University Library 
 arW38185 
 
 The school and other educators 
 
 II 
 
 3 1924 031 758 752 
 
 olin.anx 
 
THE SCHOOL 
 AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
THE SCHOOL 
 
 AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN CLARKE 
 
 AUTHOR OP "BISHOP GILBERT BURNET AS EDUCATIONIST" 
 JOINT-AUTHOR (WITH SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIB, P.R.S.) OF " PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN 
 THE TIME OF NERO " 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 FOURTH AVENUE & 30th STREET, NEW YORK 
 BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 
 
 I918 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
TO THE MEMORY 
 
 MY WIFE 
 
 r. r. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This book was written during August and Sep- 
 tember, 1 916, but circumstances have delayed its 
 publication. Strictly speaking, it is neither a text- 
 book nor a popular treatise. Yet it may, I trust, 
 appeal both to students and to the increasing 
 number of laymen, including Members of Parlia- 
 ment, who are awakening to a fuller realisation of 
 the national issues that underlie the instruction 
 and training of the young. Critics, whose opinion 
 is entitled to respect, have thought that it deserves 
 to see the light, and, with some hesitation, I 
 have acquiesced in their judgment. Education 
 ranges over a wide field, only a fraction of which 
 is covered here, and that not very completely. 
 The work is to be judged rather by what it in- 
 cludes than by what it omits. Its main theme is 
 the compulsory minimum, as it is, and as it ought 
 to be. The latter opens up the question of adoles- 
 cent training and of preparation for parenthood, 
 probably the most vital of all current issues. 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 One's indebtedness to books accumulates so 
 greatly in the course of years that it ultimately 
 becomes difificult to distinguish what is drawn 
 directly or indirectly from them, and what, if any- 
 thing, is one's own. No attempt has, therefore, 
 been made to specify sources or to compile a 
 bibliography of authorities. 
 
 JOHN CLARKE. 
 
 Chanonry, 
 
 Christmas, 191 7. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 
 Preface 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. Introductory — "Education" 
 
 I 
 
 II. 
 
 The Individual and the "Average" . 
 
 . 14 
 
 III. 
 
 Nature and Nurture .... 
 
 . 28 
 
 IV. 
 
 "Ends" 
 
 40 
 
 V. 
 
 Co-ordination of "Ends" 
 
 • 54 
 
 VI. 
 
 Educational Agents and Agencies 
 
 • 74 
 
 VII. 
 
 Cause in the Light of Effect 
 
 lOI 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Curriculum 
 
 . 109 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Curriculum {continued) . 
 
 . 127 
 
 X. 
 
 The Place of the Classics . 
 
 . 162 
 
 XL 
 
 Moral and Religious Elements . 
 
 • 179 
 
 XII. 
 
 Defects and Remedies . 
 
 • 199 
 
 
 Index 
 
 225 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY—" EDUCATION ". 
 
 What is meant by " education " ? What exactly 
 does the term cover ? What ideas lie behind it, or 
 are called up by it ? A definite answer must be 
 given to these and the like questions, for on the 
 answer and its character progress depends : that is 
 the first step — one that costs. A leader in the 
 Times Educational Supplement of the current month 
 (August, 19 1 6) says, " Now we have this in com- 
 mon with Lord Haldane that we believe education 
 to be the great saviour of society. But Lord Hal- 
 dane means one thing by education, and we mean 
 another." Discussion becomes a game of hide- 
 and-seek if either disputant is free to attach to the 
 terms his own esoteric interpretation. Parliament 
 as represented by Lord Haldane, and the press as 
 reflected in The Times, are but two of a multitude 
 who claim the right of private judgment in regard 
 to the meaning of " education ". The experts are 
 only a degree better, and if they have set the 
 
2 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 example in the green leaf, what can be expected 
 in the dry leaf of the amateurs ? 
 
 As every one knows, much of the current educa- 
 tional discussion is futile, if not absoluteTy fatuous. 
 We evermore come out by the same door where in 
 we went. And yet it is not to be denied that con- 
 tribution is daily made to our knowledge of educa- 
 tion, that discussion has served to bring to light 
 elements of which account has to be taken in the 
 final reckoning. For all the relevant material must 
 be procured as a prime condition of rational, 
 methodical study. Discussion has not therefore 
 been wholly valueless. But comparatively futile 
 and unproductive it must be and remain while 
 by education I mean " one thing " and you mean 
 " another ". For how are we to discover with 
 which of us "salvation" lies? 
 
 Why do we mean so many different 'things by 
 " education " ? The answer, if it can be discovered, 
 will throw light on the main problem. Some of the 
 reasons are not far to seek. Education impinges 
 upon many domains and interests ; from different 
 standpoints it presents widely different aspects ; 
 its extent and character vary according to the out- 
 look. Its main activities are coincident with the 
 early stages of life, and so education comes to be 
 thought of as almost an integral portion of human 
 endowment and human destiny ; which in turn are 
 
INTRODUCTORY—" EDUCATION " 3 
 
 as multifarious as the millions of mankind that have 
 been and are upon earth. Of persons having a 
 special concern in education, the parent takes pre- 
 cedence. A very insistent and complex educational 
 problem is presented to every parent. To him 
 education means household arrangements, food, 
 clothing, choice of school, course of studies, discip- 
 line, and above all, expense. The parent, if he 
 thinks at all, is bound to have very decided views 
 on at least certain of the factors of education, and 
 no one is better entitled to his opinion — for what 
 it is worth. The ordinary citizen, again, whether 
 parent or not, is assessed for the education of his 
 neighbour's children, and thus comes to have a stake 
 indirectly, if not directly. He has probably more 
 leisure than the parent to devote to the aspects of 
 the subject which more immediately concern him- 
 self. So the politician in his turn feels that as the 
 state pays considerable sums for public education, 
 he, as a representative of the state, ought to have 
 some say in the matter. He is able to make his 
 voice heard and he does not scruple to do so, even 
 though his zeal may at times outrun his knowledge 
 and discretion. Then, of course, the teacher as 
 expert has his own point of view, and may further 
 claim to be able to focus and combine all points of 
 view. He is certainly in the most favourable posi- 
 tion for seeing the subject in all its bearings. 
 
4 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 Finally, every one has at some period or other been 
 a child, a scholar, a subject of education, every son 
 and daughter of the nation has been educated — 
 more or less ; he has certain associations attached 
 to the term " education," and probably views re-^ 
 garding its suitability and its success in his own case. 
 Time would fail to enumerate all the agents, 
 agencies, and interests involved in education — state, 
 church, press, the professions in all their branches, 
 parents, citizens, of all ranks and grades. It is in- 
 evitable, that to such a multiplicity of observers 
 education should present different sides, and prob- 
 able, that to few if any will its full compass reveal 
 itself 
 
 But this is not all. The thing itself has in pro- 
 cess of time altered. It is not quite the same this 
 year as it was last year. It is very different this 
 century from what it was last century or in the pre- 
 ceding centuries. Its processes have been multi- 
 plied, its subject matter has expanded, its agents 
 have been transformed. The old bottle can no 
 longer contain the new wine ; the compass of a 
 single term cannot embrace the manifold, compli- 
 cated ideas now inherent in the subject, or rather 
 circle of subjects, for which it stands. The ambi- 
 guity of " education " is a witness to the extent, the 
 complexity, and the importance of the subject and 
 all that it implies. It signifies and includes and 
 
INTRODUCTORY—" EDUCATION '* 5 
 
 " means " not one but a host of things, some of 
 them widely separated from one another, items as 
 little related as, in other connections, a railway 
 director and an automatic signal, an auction ring 
 and the absorption of nitrogen by the plants that 
 fatten farm stock. The answer to the " why " 
 above thus appears to be twofold. First, to differ- 
 ent persons, in great variety, " education " calls up 
 different ideas and associations. Second, the sub- 
 ject has so expanded that in order to be applicable 
 to its successive stages, the term denoting it must 
 be elastic, and grow constantly fuller of content. 
 
 But to any helpful outcome from discussion there 
 must be mutual comprehension and some degree of 
 uniformity in the use of terms. Until we cease to 
 mean " one thing " and " another " by the same 
 word, and until all mean one and the same thing, 
 as nearly as may be, we are merely beating the air, 
 darkening counsel, speaking to one another not 
 only an unknown but a misleading language. The 
 fallacy of " undistributed middle " must be elimin- 
 ated, which vitiates discussion and bars progress. 
 That other subjects and other terms have suffered 
 in a similar way does not much help us. " Nature" 
 is a notable instance, " state " another, " science " 
 itself another. Rather do these and a host of others 
 enforce the same lesson and point the same moral. 
 
 The gain will be enormous all round if anything 
 
6 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 can be done to relieve the very much over-worked 
 " education ". Short of a complete remedy two pal- 
 liatives suggest themselves by which its superfluity 
 of content may be in part removed and distributed 
 over other terms. In the first place, a number of 
 words are available, each applicable to a particular 
 phase or department of the whole subject. " In- 
 struction," "training," "schooling" are examples, 
 together with "paedagogy," "didactics," and other 
 unhappy, if serviceable, terms. Add "administra- 
 tion," "management," "finance," "statistics" — "of 
 education " in each case. A considerable range 
 of adjectival epithet, like "primary," "manual," 
 "technical," "public," may also be drawn upon. 
 Some of them are not picturesque, they may even 
 be clumsy, but they serve their purpose, and the 
 end justifies the means. We must make shift to 
 attain to clarity of ideas, and to this end precise 
 and unambiguous terms are a chief aid. The 
 second expedient arises out of the first. "Educa- 
 tion " being relieved of some of its excess of content, 
 may itself be reduced within narrower limits and 
 receive more precise definition. After we have ex- 
 hausted our resources in these directions, something 
 may still be lacking, but not nearly so much. 
 Where the word is employed without regard to 
 such qualifications, its scope may still have to be 
 determined from the context. But the word should 
 
INTRODUCTORY-^" EDUCATION " 7 
 
 mean as nearly as possible one thing and one only. 
 With this caveat regarding the term, we turn to 
 the thing itself, that is to say, the processes for 
 which the term stands. 
 
 Whether regarded from the standpoint of ety- 
 mology, or interpreted in light of its essential 
 character, education is a vital process, primarily 
 subjective but largely mediated in its earlier stages 
 by objective agency, through which every soul 
 passes, and which is carried to longer or shorter 
 distance according to circumstances and opportuni- 
 ties. It is based upon a large number of factors, 
 each of which varies within wide limits. Of the 
 objective no less than of the subjective elements 
 does this hold good, with the qualification, however, 
 that the former admit far more readily of variation 
 and control. - Legitimate differences of opinion 
 may exist regarding all or most of the items in- 
 volved : recall of a few of the chief will render this 
 more evident. 
 
 The subject of education, i.e. the person who 
 comes under its operation, and for whose sake it 
 exists is, so far as education-is concerned, a datum. 
 Eugenics may some day devise means of improving 
 the stock, the raw material of education, and for 
 that when it arrives the educator will be unspeak- 
 ably thankful. But even so, the educator as such 
 is not a eugenist. He accepts the child as he finds 
 
8 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 him. He can do nothing to alter the original 
 organism, which everywhere conditions and limits 
 his own efforts. None the less a very direct 
 problem confronts him in his first attempt to deal 
 with it. He has to ascertain the exact character 
 of the particular organism with which he is called 
 upon to deal. If he cannot change it, he can at 
 least save himself from error by procuring accurate 
 knowledge of the facts regarding it. We shall 
 hardly reach a solution of the practical problem by 
 the combination of ignorance and prejudice re- 
 vealed in " Is not this the carpenter's son ". 
 Rousseau's somewhat vainglorious boast contains 
 a large measure of truth : Nature breaks the 
 mould in which the individual is formed. No two 
 are replicas. Brothers and sisters brought up 
 under apparently identical conditions, even twins, 
 grow up into different, often contrasted characters. 
 While the type remains fairly constant, and 
 while there is persistent reversion to type, the 
 single life presents endless variations. No varia- 
 tion is negligible. It may contain just the critical 
 element of the budding life. 
 
 The two poles within which the educator's 
 activities move, by which they are guided, are, on 
 the one hand, similarity in the general scheme and 
 type of life, and, on the other, infinite variety of 
 individual characteristic. The latter though pri- 
 
INTRODUCTORY— " EDUCATION " 9 
 
 marily matter of degree, may in cumulo constitute 
 almost a difference in kind. The varieties come 
 to light in mere physical form or strength ; they 
 may exist in what we call mind — intellectual power, 
 such as imagination or memory ; they may lurk in 
 the subtle. elements of temperament, a complex of 
 volitional and emotional traits with close affinities 
 to both intellect and character. Thus the earliest 
 chapter in the science of education deals with 
 foundations, psychological and ethical ; such 
 subjects are basal to education. Physiology may 
 be an even earlier chapter, and serves equally 
 well for illustration. 
 
 The educator's attitude towards the primary 
 data of his efforts must be one of acquiescence. 
 Congenital endowment is for him an ultimate fact. 
 The water can never rise above its source. But 
 withal he may discover where the fountainhead is 
 situated, over what soil, by what declivities the 
 stream has flowed, what obstructions it has en- 
 countered on its course : this is where observa- 
 tion of the subject to be educated first comes in ; 
 once admitted it goes with the teacher all the way. 
 In order to affect and influence, we must compre- 
 hend. " I will watch my pupil a long time before 
 speaking' the first word." Child Study has become 
 such a vogue that it no longer requires commenda- 
 tion. It rests on a secure theoretical basis. No 
 
10 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 child, however commonplace, can be taken for 
 granted. He is, in greater or less degree, in more 
 or fewer characteristics, different from all his pre- 
 decessors and contemporaries. Individual study 
 must be bestowed on him in order to complete 
 acquaintance. No formula will fully account for 
 him. 
 
 If we turn from the " subject " of education, the 
 child, to the subject-matter of instruction, the 
 material of the curriculum, we find an entirely dif- 
 ferent state of affairs. No curriculum is a datum, 
 to be merely observed with accuracy and implicitly 
 accepted as an original law, or product, of nature. 
 The body of human knowledge varies from age to 
 age and is being constantly modified and added to. 
 So, at different periods of life, and to different 
 types of mind, different kinds and forms of know- 
 ledge make strongest appeal. Further, the de- 
 mands of mature life, toward which education points 
 and leads, vary with rank, occupation, community, 
 and nation. The curriculum which is to fulfil all 
 the requirements of time of life, natural taste and 
 capacity, employment, and country must partake 
 largely of the character of a variable, and must at 
 each turn, at each period, be subject of debate and 
 adjustment : it must alter not merely from genera- 
 tion to generation, but from year to year, and from 
 pupil to pupil. To so many changing conditions 
 
INTRODUCTORY—" EDUCATION " 1 1 
 
 is the " knowledge of most worth " relative. In its 
 secular forms at any rate, its scope and contents 
 must be determined by utility, in the fullest sense 
 of that much-abused word. 
 
 The chief official or agent in education is the 
 teacher. He too is frequently taken for granted. 
 As a matter of fact, he comes, in point of import- 
 ance, next to the pupil. If the latter conditions 
 the ultimate possibilities, the teacher is above all 
 other factors instrumental in enabling the pupil 
 to reach, or responsible for suffering him to fall 
 short of, the height of his possibilities. The edu- 
 cator is a variable in the problem, but in a different 
 way from that illustrated by the curriculum. With 
 note of the fact we must pass on, for of his endow- 
 ments and qualifications, natural or acquired, this is 
 not the place to treat at length. He is at any 
 rate one more element of which education in its 
 full conception must take count. 
 
 So long as a course of education for the indi- 
 vidual was a matter of private choice, the state 
 hardly entered into the reckoning at all. If a 
 parent was indifferent to the claims of learning, the 
 state did not interfere ; he was answerable to him- 
 self for it, it was his own affair. Probably the 
 children would not think of calling him to account 
 later in life ; if they did, let him render it. Why 
 should the state interpose ? The poor man had no 
 
12 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 need of education ! Even Rousseau thought, or at 
 any rate said, so. Let him accept the position into 
 which he had been born, and be thankful ! Reform 
 Bills, Industrial Age, Rights of Man have altered 
 that for us. The state has assumed the function 
 of Over-parent with all that it implies. Hence a 
 huge machinery of public education with numerous 
 officials, endless regulations, munificent exchequer 
 grants. So largely has state action come to bulk 
 in administration and in discussion that it threatens 
 to obscure the more essential matters. We are all 
 tempted to think of education as " public education," 
 and to interpret it in terms derived from the con- 
 ception. Administration and statistics, even finance 
 itself, are, however, mere machinery, perhaps in- 
 dispensable, but in themselves valueless. At best 
 they are mint and anise and cummin. Perfection 
 of machinery is wholly compatible with essential 
 failure .of effort and purpose : the shadow may be 
 mistaken for the substance. But the main point 
 here is that still another department falls to be in- 
 cluded within the scope of " education " as popularly 
 understood ; in reality the state means " one thing" 
 and the school means " another " and very different. 
 Further elaboration is unnecessary though the 
 theme is not half exhausted ; the inference must 
 be now apparent. " Education " is an exceedingly 
 wide and complex term. As ordinarily employed, 
 
INTRODUCTORY—" EDUCATION " 1 3 
 
 it means not one thing but many,' it embraces an 
 immense variety of spheres and agencies, stands for 
 a whole circle of subjects, represents a whole realm 
 of interests. Its scope has become so comprehen- 
 sive, its signification so loose and ambiguous that it 
 distorts and obscures rather than reveals and ex- 
 plains. After all, it is a convenient word, and we 
 must resign ourselves to its survival and frequent 
 use. But the educator is entitled to make terms as 
 to its employment. If discussion is to be effective 
 or fruitful of result, we shall require our ideas re- 
 garding it to be clarified ; its content when not 
 plain from the connection must be defined. It may 
 signify a soul-process, a civic institution, a science, 
 a profession, or a state colossus. In which of all 
 these significations is it being used ? At the cost 
 even of clumsiness and verbiage we must on each 
 occasion make plain what we do mean. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE "AVERAGE".' 
 
 Education — using the term in its application to 
 the influences, mostly subjective, affecting soul, 
 mind, heart, character, body, life, or whatever other 
 elements enter into the lot of humanity — is at root 
 an individual affair. The fact may be inferred 
 from what has been said of the data of education : 
 its implications are numerous and important. The 
 secret of individuality is not written in distinct or 
 legible characters. It is fully known only to the 
 individual himself, if even to him. By others it 
 may be deciphered at best in part, and it is only to 
 sympathetic insight that even the part reveals itself. 
 The main aim and problem of education is to de- 
 velop, or, more accurately, to regulate the develop- 
 ment of inherent capacity. The capacity is for a 
 long period latent or semi-latent, dormant or semi- 
 dormant. Superficial indications give a clue, but 
 often so faint and unreliable as to be positively 
 misleading. Maturity is not reached before the 
 age of twenty or upwards. The more stable and 
 
 14 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE "AVERAGE" ij 
 
 permanent traits do not begin to appear before 14 
 or 15. Childhood may be so transformed by ado- 
 lescence as to become unrecognisable as a con- 
 tinuous integral portion of the same life. Apart 
 from exceptional cases, the adolescent period of life 
 liberates forces and produces effects that are a priori 
 incalculable. What is to be done meantime? 
 What attitude is the educator to adopt in pre- 
 adolescent days ? Is he to " wait and see " merely ? 
 or what? The answer is a series of probables. 
 Experience does something, if by no means every- 
 thing, to show the relation of earlier to later develop- 
 ment. Inference from other and parallel cases is to 
 a certain extent legitimate. By these and similar 
 means the individual problem may be reduced 
 within narrower limits, A forecast may be made 
 of the type of mind and character with which we 
 are dealing. For example, the thorns of childhood 
 very exceptionally produce the grapes of youth : 
 however gladly they may be welcomed if they do 
 appear, it would be foolish to anticipate them. 
 Meantime we must not be idle : the soil must not 
 lie fallow, to be invaded by briars and thistles. Such 
 promise of fruit as is found must be fostered and 
 shielded. In this early tendance the family a.nd the 
 primary school can do much to prepare the way for 
 what is to follow. The lines of adolescence may 
 in part be laid down yi?^ the child, but only in part. 
 
i6 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 Train up a child in the way he should go, and the 
 fruit of the training will be gathered in youth. The 
 fruit will not yet be mature or ripe ; individual deal- 
 ing will still be necessary in youth, even increasingly 
 so for years after boyhood and girlhood. Biology 
 has here added its teaching to that of common ex- 
 perience, supplying an inductive basis for what was 
 previously not more than empirical knowledge. All 
 creatures of the same species closely resemble one 
 another during the early stages of life. Develop- 
 ment means, for the individual, differentiation from 
 his fellows, with increasing specialisation of function. 
 If it be true of the lower creation, possessed as they 
 are of mere rudiments of character, the truth be- 
 comes of the last importance in mankind, whose 
 function it is fully to actualise his individuality. The 
 chief end of human life may, in a broad and general 
 sense, be defined as the realisation of the utmost of 
 which the man is capable. Man, as child, starts 
 his career in dependence upon others, they have to 
 do for him what he would do for himself, were 
 he wise enough and strong enough. The function 
 of education is to assist in self-development, self- 
 realisation, to supplement, in large measure by way 
 of anticipation, the effort of the child, in the end 
 to harmonise and become one with his voluntary 
 activities, earlier and later. The individual life 
 must be viewed and treated as one unbroken whole. 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE "AVERAGE" 17 
 
 During its earlier portion it is dependent on others, 
 gradually it rises to self-consciousness, independent 
 volition and activity, eventually attaining to full 
 moral responsibility. Education covers the de- 
 pendent, more or less unconscious, or at least unre- 
 flective period, broadly, the period of immaturity. 
 When it attains its perfection, it passes by imper- 
 ceptible transition into the period of full and com- 
 plete independence, dovetailing into it without hitch 
 or flaw, so that life as a whole from cradle to grave 
 becomes an unbroken unity. How seldom, it may 
 be said, does education succeed-! How seldom, we 
 may add, does life itself succeed ! What concerns 
 us here is that unquestionably the first step to 
 success is clear comprehension of the purpose of 
 our effort. 
 
 The future of the man is implicit in the child, as 
 the promise of the tree in the seed. But the seed 
 tells us little of the tree except its species or variety. 
 Is this babe a genius or a dolt ? who can say ? Is 
 not education then, the preparation of an unknown 
 soul for an unknown future, a sheer impossibility ? 
 So defined it is. But there is a second best. 
 Human life is itself a grand hypothesis. Education 
 proceeds with caution. It observes, watches, pro- 
 tects, fosters, before it ventures to enjoin, command, 
 or even instruct. The first education is " passive, 
 
 following," not "active, prescriptive". Besides, 
 
 2 
 
1 8 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 humanity does possess constant features. The as- 
 similation of food and drink, the vital processes that 
 integrate and disintegrate, the organs of locomotion 
 and of sense — these and the like may be postulated, 
 so that they require attention in all. There are 
 right ways and wrong ways of going about every 
 smallest action, the right way has to be learned, the 
 wrong to be guarded against. Again, the manners 
 and customs of childhood to some extent begin and 
 end there. Later on they will give place to other 
 forms, analogous it may be, but not identical. They 
 are a foundation for the future edifice. So it comes 
 about that the passivity of early education is not 
 inactivity. As organic unity pervades the whole, the 
 educative process* must see that throughout it keep 
 in rapport and correspondence to it. The individual 
 is the same organism morning and evening, by 
 night and by day, through all his studies, all his 
 play, all his rest, from childhood through adoles- 
 cence to maturity and decay, from youth to old age 
 and dissolution. The truth, not a new one, is 
 often forgotten : it must never for a moment be 
 lost sight of by the educator, to whom it is both 
 fundamental and of perennial import. 
 
 Education as a soul-process has need of many 
 agents and forces. The earliest educator is the 
 mother, or father, or haply nurse. Before school 
 has been reached, the home has set its mark upon 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE " AVERAGE " 19 
 
 the pupil. Similarly, after school has been left 
 behind, the moulding of character, the acquisition 
 of knowledge and of skill still go on without inter- 
 ruption though under different auspices. So im- 
 pressive is the fact, so potent the effects of this 
 post-school training, that it has created a belief that 
 education really begins when one leaves tutors and 
 governors and becomes free to follow one's own 
 bent. Schools are only an obstruction to the real 
 business of life and the true education, a necessary, 
 or possibly an unnecessary, evil ! This is a plaus- 
 ible half-truth, which has become a fruitful source 
 of confusion, no error being so deadly or so in- 
 veterate as that which contains an admixture of 
 truth. If education is to be regarded as co-exten- 
 sive with life, beginning in the nursery, extending 
 through the school to the occupation, and beyond 
 into the years of sober colouring, then the word 
 ceases to have any definite meaning at all. The 
 savage, "iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd," who catches 
 the wild goat by the hair, is equally "educated" 
 with "the heir of all the ages". Circumstance, 
 opportunity, and necessity have done their work, 
 everything else is the accident of age and place, the 
 first or the twentieth century, Europe or Cathay. 
 
 The simplest way out of the difficulty, the way 
 most in keeping with history and with the use of 
 language, seems to be the restriction of the term 
 
20 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 " education " to a definite portion of the whole wide 
 field over which it tends to straggle. Let it be 
 confined to processes into which consciousness and 
 purpose enter. The savage has had experience of 
 many educative influences, accidental to all seeming, 
 many of them of little permanent significance or 
 worth. But his mind remains "untutored," be- 
 cause he has failed to retain and co-ordinate his 
 experiences either as an individual or from genera- 
 tion to generation. He has been unable to ac- 
 cumulate records for the guidance of his successors 
 similarly placed to himself ; he has not kept open 
 the path of progress ; he has in short not " evolved," 
 but remained very much at the animal stage, and 
 stopped short of rationality. The Divine faculty 
 of reason has remained in abeyance. Instead of 
 going forward he has, like the lower creation, merely 
 gone round. Let us place on one side these 
 teachings of circumstance or accident, and call 
 them informal education. Their value may be 
 little or great, may run the gamut from zero up- 
 wards to lofty heights, but they do not constitute 
 education as the school and the teacher have to re- 
 gard it. The latter set to work with conscious pur- 
 pose ; they aim at producing results by the use of 
 means. Design is everywhere present, effort works 
 result, effect follows cause. The school is the great 
 type of formal education. Whatever the ultimate 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE " AVERAGE " 21 
 
 bearing of the one upon the other, formal and in- 
 formal education, as they are separate in aim and 
 in method, so must be carefully distinguished in 
 thought and expression. 
 
 It need not be denied, in fact it is rather to 
 be emphasised, that the relation of informal to 
 formal education is close and intimate. This must 
 be so since they are to be integrated in the same 
 organic unity of life. The error of attempting 
 to separate the momenta of their influence is 
 equalled only by that of regarding the things them- 
 selves as in essence one and the same. They are 
 at once separate in being and related in operation. 
 The forms are not identical, nor yet are their effects 
 opposed. The informal education of the home 
 leads up to and co-operates, if it does co-operate, 
 with the formal education of the school. The 
 formal education of the school derives much of its 
 significance from its relation to the subsequent in- 
 formal education of profession or society at large. 
 The teacher provides the instruments of the worker ; 
 he supplies weapons and armoury, the offensive and 
 the defensive equipment of life. The so-called 
 real and true education of life would be impossible 
 without the preparation of the school, and with- 
 out such prophylactic it may prove anything but 
 an unmixed blessing. Post-scholastic life affords 
 unique opportunity ; the teacher's reward lies in the 
 
22 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 wise reaction of those whom the school has forti- 
 fied and instructed and enabled not only to stand 
 alone but to convert difficulties and temptations 
 into occasions of material and moral triumph. 
 Formal education prepares for and is completed by 
 the informal education of the world. But to sup- 
 pose that " life" will do the part of the school as 
 well as its own part is to shut one's eyes to the 
 facts of the case no less than to those of experience, 
 and to tempt fate. 
 
 An inference from the individual character of 
 education bears upon current discussion in another 
 direction. No such thing exists as an ideal or 
 absolute education. What is the best education 
 for a given pupil, A, is, so stated, an insoluble 
 problem. Still more insoluble is it if asked regard- 
 ing a class of pupils, A, B, C, D, etc. A is a 
 complex of variables, each of which must be ascer- 
 tained by diligent and, it may be, prolonged obser- 
 vation and search before so much as the first step 
 can safely be taken. Not only must the physical and 
 mental constitution of the pupil be carefully studied, 
 but his antecedents, hereditary and experiential, 
 must be ascertained. What are A's parents in 
 character, occupation, position ? what has the home 
 influence been ? what, if anything, does he know, 
 what tendencies, mental or moral, does he exhibit, 
 what habits has he acquired ? how long is he 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE "AVERAGE" 23 
 
 likely to remain under formal educational influ- 
 ences ? and lastly, not earlier, for what occupation 
 is he designed ? The education of a mechanic will 
 obviously differ much in character and perforce in 
 length from that of a doctor or lawyer. A city 
 merchant or financier can scarcely expect his son 
 to be served by the education suitable for a country 
 gentleman, the struggling member of a learned 
 profession by that designed for men of rank, leisure, 
 and inherited wealth. Hinc illcz lacrimee. The 
 schoolmaster gets the blame ; instead, search the 
 ignorance or the ambition of the parent. So we 
 reach the conclusion already indicated : no single 
 ideal education exists, education must follow the 
 child, and each child is different from every other, 
 and pursues a different path through life. His life 
 is his own and not that of another, so must his 
 education be. The amputation of A's leg will not 
 cure B's rheumatism. The truth is only the more 
 confirmed as its area is extended from individual 
 to class and to school. 
 
 Inferences derived from schools designed for 
 various types of life and occupation receive added 
 force from considerations relating to class teaching. 
 The necessity of grouping is forced on us, if, for 
 no other reason, by the practical impossibility of 
 universal private tutoring. The class is based 
 upon a compromise in which the individual must 
 
24 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 make sacrifices. If education has to deal with a 
 series of variable and hypothetical factors in the 
 individual, the complication and uncertainty are 
 enormously increased by the exigencies of class 
 organisation. When A, B, C, D, and so on up to 
 Z and beyond have to be dealt with simultaneously, 
 the situation viewed from a strictly theoretical 
 standpoint becomes one of the utmost perplexity. 
 No less in' actual practice is it often so. But this is 
 not the whole truth ; there is another side to the 
 question. As has already appeared, the young of 
 whatever species present features of similarity, in 
 nearly all cases much greater and more numerous 
 than the characteristics of maturity would lead one 
 to infer. Before the specific complexion is ap- 
 parent, education may, as we have seen, safely 
 presume on certain things. It deals so with the 
 individual, it can hardly avoid it ; and it is justified 
 in so dealing with the class. The latter will no doubt 
 present greater and more numerous diversities, but 
 in the end they will be found to fall into categories 
 and to be matter chiefly of degree. On the edu- 
 cator's part greater vigilance, closer observation, 
 more abundant resource will be called for, a 
 greater variety of methods will be demanded. As 
 for the' rest, the basis of class instruction is simi- 
 larity. No theory will, however, suffice to solve 
 the problem of class management. After all has 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE " AVERAGE " 25 
 
 been learnt that there is to know, insight, sympathy, 
 tact and skill, which all come from practice, will 
 alone enable the teacher to make the best of his 
 class ; even then the limits of theoretical perfection 
 will seldom, if ever, be nearly reached. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest danger lies in the direction 
 of what is called the " average " pupil. The as- 
 sumption is not unnatural that a mean between 
 highest and lowest may be adopted, the observance 
 of which will prevent very serious error in either 
 direction, and will enable the teacher to make effec- 
 tive appeal to all. If the idea do not grow into an 
 obsession, it may prove useful up to a certain point. 
 But, on the other hand, it should be clearly under- 
 stood that " average " is a mere abstraction, a 
 working hypothesis with nothing actual and tan- 
 gible to correspond. It is much like the concept, 
 for example, bird. The actual bird is the ideal 
 bird plus a large number of accidents — colour, 
 shape, size, note, habits, etc. — robin, rook, lark, 
 swan. Even in the much simpler case of a series 
 of consecutive numbers, the average as often as 
 not does not correspond exactly to any individual 
 number : the average of i, 2, 3, 4 is 2 '5. Much 
 more is it so if the numbers are chosen at wider 
 intervals. In human beings the variations are, of 
 course, infinitely more numerous and subtle. Two 
 "average" memories may differ in many important 
 
26 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 respects. Add observation, judgment, will, and 
 all the other endowments of the human soul, and 
 where are we to look for our average ? Between 
 the individual and the aggregate of individuals — 
 either a complicated problem in itself — the teacher 
 must steer his course, avoiding, if he can, the many 
 shoals that beset it. The Scylla of individuality 
 lurks on the right, the Charybdis of the " average" 
 threatens on the left. The one and the many are 
 the poles by which he alternately sets his compass. 
 His actual course is the resultant of many tackings. 
 Treatment must be so generalised as to weld and 
 unite ; it must make common appeal, confer simul- 
 taneous benefit by single effort. On the other 
 hand, it must so individualise as to separate and 
 isolate, must affect each, remove special difficulties, 
 recognise meritorious effort, stimulate latent enter- 
 prise, and impress the conviction that the class 
 teacher is my teacher. The similarities and the 
 dissimilarities are at once the teacher's despair and 
 his inspiration. They tend to vary inversely ac- 
 cording to pupil's age. The mass movements and 
 exercises of the infant room evolve through many 
 stages, and finally resolve themselves into the inde- 
 pendent efforts of the researcher, who pursues a 
 solitary and hitherto untrodden path. 
 
 Class teaching is not, however, to be regarded as 
 an unmixed evil, a measure to which the educator 
 
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE "AVERAGE" 27 
 
 is driven, but of which he would never make volun- 
 tary choice. On the contrary, it possesses many in- 
 herent merits, and were the theme relevant here, 
 much might be said of the positive advantages of 
 class grouping. The pupil who is to live in a 
 society must learn to bear in his youth the yoke 
 of society. If he must undergo some sacrifice in 
 respect to instruction, he more than recoups himself 
 by gain in other directions. On the whole, class 
 grouping has far weightier reasons for than against 
 it. But the topic belongs elsewhere, nor does its 
 consideration much affect the other aspect which is 
 the present issue. The basal problem of education 
 is the individual, of which even the individual in 
 relation to society is but a phase. The individual 
 body is to be tended, the individual mind to be 
 instructed, the individual soul to be saved. It can- 
 not be done by proxy. If the individual is lost 
 nothing else matters. If he is saved, everything 
 else follows. No organisation, no scheme, no 
 system which ignores, not to say exploits, the 
 individual can educationally be sound. Education 
 en masse is an impossibility : mass formation is a 
 mere expedient of method. The truth is funda- 
 mental, pregnant with vital and far-reaching con- 
 sequences. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 NATURE AND NURTURE. 
 
 The antithesis of nature and nurture is three or 
 
 four centuries old, but has obtained fresh vogue 
 
 and new meaning in our time. The raw material 
 
 of life comes without apparent choice of the liver, 
 
 " like Water willy-nilly flowing" : it is the boon of 
 
 nature, or the burden if we care so to regard it. 
 
 Educationally the gift is, as we have seen, fraught 
 
 with possibilities. Within the child's inheritance 
 
 from nature lie in embryo the seeds of the future. 
 
 Their development is the work of nurture ; nurture 
 
 it is that brings them to perfection. They need 
 
 tendance, which in the case of man is supplied first 
 
 by the parent or his substitute, later by the self, 
 
 in degrees and relations already indicated. In 
 
 order to the final outcome nature and nurture are 
 
 alike essential. One is helpless without the other. 
 
 Nature, in mankind, does little unaided. The 
 
 child left to himself brings not so much his parents 
 
 to shame as himself to extinction. The tribe or 
 
 stock left to itself, i.e. making no effort to improve 
 
 28 
 
NATURE AND NURTURE 29 
 
 upon " nature," remains degraded and unpro- 
 gressive. Man is possessed of the unique power 
 of getting behind nature, so to speak, of taking 
 her in hand and making her follow in prescribed 
 paths. His reason enables him to use the raw 
 material of nature for ends which nature permits, 
 but of herself does not accomplish. Reason is im- 
 plicit in human " nature ". It matters comparatively 
 little whether " nature" be restricted to the original 
 endowment which man shares with the lower crea- 
 tion, rationality his distinctive prerogative being 
 ruled out, or be so extended as to include the 
 reasoning faculty. But it does matter greatly 
 that the term be used without inconsistency or 
 ambiguity. 
 
 The animal requires special and peculiar nurture 
 according to its species and capacities. The nur- 
 ture of the bird is conducted by the parent, for the 
 most part through instinct, and includes feeding, 
 capture of food, escape from foes, change of haunt, 
 partial or complete, up to migration. Human 
 reason may improve upon the instinctive' processes 
 by adding — in the case of the bird — accomplish- 
 ments like talking, the imitative reproduction of 
 the human voice, mating to improve the breed, 
 domestication. As with birds, so with cats, dogs, 
 and animals of all kinds. Nurture, backed by the 
 devices of human reason, has done much even for 
 
30 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 the beasts that perish. But it is not self-nurture. 
 It is not self-direction. It is a force introduced 
 into the creature's life from above. It is directed 
 toward human, not animal, ends. Throughout the 
 motto is, Sic vos, non vobis. 
 
 Man does the same to and for himself. In 
 addition to much else, he is endowed with the 
 marvellous faculty of recording and preserving his 
 experience from generation to generation. When 
 once he avails himself of this power, and begins to 
 apply to each fresh situation the results of his ex- 
 perience, which in effect also means to apply his 
 experience for the benefit of his offspring, then he 
 has entered on the upward path. Each generation 
 is enabled to profit by all the past generations, 
 and becomes heir to their achievements whether 
 in material or in method. The successive genera- 
 tions advance en ichelon. Father and child do not 
 start alike from " scratch ". If the child does not 
 begin exactly where the father left off, he is at 
 any rate always potentially in advance : he attains 
 a higher altitude by mounting his father's shoulders. 
 Evolution accepts literally the boast of the Homeric 
 warrior, Trarepoiv fiey d/ieiv oves ev-^oficff' eTvaL. Pro- 
 gress is dependent upon nurture. Nurture is 
 handmaiden to evolution. 
 
 The chief factor in the child's nurture is educa- 
 tion. Some might be prepared to regard them as 
 
NATURE AND NURTURE 31 
 
 identical, the same series of processes viewed merely 
 from different points. But nurture seems to possess 
 a wider range, and to embrace many features in 
 which little of the conscious aim distinctive of edu- 
 cation is to be traced. In particular, as applicable 
 to the animal world, it suggests a whole circle of 
 conditions and modes of activity quite outside the 
 scope of education, education being a conscious 
 process designed to effect definite purposes more or . 
 less clearly foreseen. In humanity, our chief con- 
 cern, the element of consciousness becomes increas- 
 ingly prominent, and in the end dominant ; and 
 thus in human nurture education is the most im- 
 portant factor. It is not merely the condition of, 
 but the lever to, progress, individual, national, 
 racial. 
 
 The question whether nature or nurture counts 
 for more is one which forces itself upon the educator, 
 however he may desire to avoid it. It appears 
 under a great variety of forms. We may ask, for 
 example, Is, or is not, nature able unaided to look 
 after its owfl interests and secure its own aims ? 
 Is, or is not, nurture that which really matters, that 
 which writes on the tabula rasa of nature in inefface- 
 able characters ? Or, is either factor dependent on 
 the other ? Are saint and sinner the product of 
 nature or of nurture ? Is it congenital endowment 
 on the efforts of parents and teachers that are 
 
32 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 responsible, chiefly or wholly, for human life as it 
 is and is to be ? 
 
 Locke; in the opening section of the Thoughts, 
 asserts that " Men's Happiness or Misery is most 
 part of their own making. ... I think I may say, 
 that of all the Men we meet with, nine Parts often 
 are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by 
 their Education." The sentiment is repeated at 
 subsequent points, not perhaps as the outcome of 
 reasoned proof, but rather as a self-evident proposi- 
 tion, an axiom which no one would be disposed to 
 call in question. Nowadays it may sound somewhat 
 dogmatic. Ruskin, for example, adopting an op- 
 posite view, roundly declares that " The greatness or 
 smallness of a man is, in the most conclusive sense, 
 determined for him at his birth, as strictly as it is 
 determined for a fruit whether it is to be a currant or 
 an apricot " (Modern Painters, iii. 44). The state- 
 ments seem at first blush flatly contradictory. 
 Which is right? Can either be accepted as ex- 
 pressing the whole truth ? or is it possible to recon- 
 cile them or to discover any common ground ? 
 
 The facts of mental endowment negative Locke's 
 assumption, if it is to be taken literally to mean 
 that education can overcome essential defect of 
 talent. Nurture cannot convert the natural dunce 
 into the genius. The genius is born, not made. 
 But, on the other hand, both dunce and genius are 
 
NATURE AND NURTURE 33 
 
 exceptional, not typical examples : the differences 
 between man and man are seldom, if ever, com- 
 parable to those between currant and apricot ; 
 the analogy is misleading. Where individual dif- 
 ferences are so great that their degree seems to 
 pass into kind, the kinds are still closely related 
 and possessed of many common features, at most, 
 wheat and darnel, or apple and crab. Nor must it 
 be forgotten that mute, inglorious Miltons are not 
 wholly a fiction of the poetic mind. In every age 
 the discerning eye has discovered the rough dia- 
 mond of society, the man of possibilities that have 
 never had opportunity of development. The poten- 
 tial greatness of nature has through defect of nurture 
 remained unrealised. The cases are not infrequent 
 where in absence of nurture nature has not achieved 
 success ; happily they are a diminishing number. 
 As Ruskin himself goes on to say, " Education, 
 favourable circumstances, resolution, and industry 
 can do much ; in a certain sense they can do every- 
 thing ; that is to say, they determine whether the 
 poor apricot shall fall in the form of a green bead, 
 blighted by the east wind, and be trodden under 
 foot, or whether it shall expand into tender pride 
 and sweet brightness of golden velvet ". The dif- 
 ference here is correctly stated as one of degree. 
 Nurture is in its own sphere omnipotent ; it makes 
 all the difference between knowledge and ignorance, 
 
 3 
 
34 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 virtue and vice, nobility and ignobility. True, it 
 must have a basis on which to erect its edifice. It 
 cannot transform a beast into a man, nor even in 
 man, black into yellow, or brown into white. It 
 cannot make something out of nothing. Though 
 it reduce the nine-tenths, yet the remaining tenth is 
 refractory. Ruskin's conclusion runs : " But apricot 
 out of currant, great man out of small, did never 
 yet art or effort make ; and, in a general way, men 
 have their excellence nearly fixed for them when 
 they are born ; a little cramped and frost-bitten on 
 one side, a little sunburnt and fortune-spotted on 
 the other, they reach, between good and evil 
 chances, such size and taste as generally belong to 
 men of their calibre, and, the small in their service- 
 able bunches, the great in their golden isolation, 
 have, these no cause for regret, nor those for dis- 
 dain ". 
 
 Ruskin and Locke fairly represent the opposed 
 points of view. According to the former, nature 
 does " nearly " everything — and the qualification 
 contains much virtue — to the latter, nurture is 
 all-important, " nearly " nine-tenths of the result fs 
 due to it. Without essential error the contrast may 
 be pointed thus : nature : nurture ."9:1 (Ruskin) ; 
 :: I : 9 (Locke). The ultimate solution belongs not 
 to the science of education, but to that of biology. 
 The educationist is not uninterested in the answer, 
 
NATURE AND NURTURE 35 
 
 and might perhaps even claim to contribute to the 
 solution of the question, but in his practical measures 
 he starts only where the biologist ends. He has 
 to accept nature as a datum, subject, of course, to 
 the accurate observation of its actual character. 
 To the educator nurture is everything, it is his 
 sphere ; he has to make the best of his material, be 
 it small or great, rich or poor. His contributions 
 to the biologist's problem are merely incidental. 
 From his experience he can, for example, confirm 
 the opinion that " in a certain sense " nurture can 
 do everything. He finds that differences in scene, 
 companions, society, and method of instruction, dif- 
 ferentiate natures to all appearance similar, in such 
 a way as to determine in large measure success and 
 failure in life. He sees effect follow cause with 
 unfailing uniformity ; he finds that education is "in 
 a certain sense " the most potent agent in the life of 
 individual, community, and race. Education has 
 been the direct means of progress, the chief instru- 
 ment of civilisation, the cure for national ills, the 
 source of material prosperity and of moral elevation. 
 At the same time, he is never suffered to forget 
 that brick cannot be made without clay. His own 
 function is indeed to make the best out of given 
 material, and it is abundantly evident that without 
 the material he could produce no result at all, good 
 or bad. The Greeks, with their unrivalled insight, 
 
36 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 early discovered that for effective education three 
 requirements must be fulfilled : there must be a 
 noble nature, persistent training in right action, and 
 careful instruction. The absence or defect of any- 
 one of them rendered impossible the highest result. 
 The Greek conception is merely nature and nurture 
 under another guise, nurture being subdivided into 
 training and instruction. But it scarcely touches 
 the question of their relative importance. It postu- 
 lates nature and nurture. 
 
 In the present state of knowledge quantitative 
 methods cannot be applied to the mind with any 
 degree of certainty. It is not to be expected that 
 they can ever directly be so applied. The most 
 that can be hoped for is an inferential result from 
 various external data which lend themselves to 
 numerical tests and statements. For all practical 
 purposes, therefore, opinion based upon subjective 
 experience must enter largely into the consideration 
 of all mental problems. Observation embracing 
 large numbers and wide variations will also help. 
 So far as these aids enable conclusions to be formu- 
 lated, the educationist's judgment would be disposed 
 to emphasise nurture rather than nature. One 
 reason for this has already been stated. Nature is 
 unalterable — by him ; he postulates it, it lies out- 
 with his sphere. The reason is not convincing, 
 but it is forced upon him. The other consideration 
 
NATURE AND NURTURE 37 
 
 is of a different character ; it can be brought to the 
 best of experience, and to it, therefore, he attaches 
 great importance : nature is not as a rule to blame 
 for the failures of life. She is generous enough to 
 afford a chance to all. She leaves a wide margin 
 for effort, and it is because the effort is partial, one- 
 sided, mistaken, or otherwise defective, that the 
 final result is so often unsatisfactory. Nature sup- 
 plies possibilities of great things ; only small things 
 are attained, because education is imperfect. The 
 unemployed margin of native endowment is so great 
 that until it has been more fully utilised, we are not 
 entitled to throw the blame on nature. A time 
 might conceivably come when education will be so 
 perfect that the whole field of human endowment 
 will be carefully tilled up to its furthest limits, and 
 the possibilities will have been exhausted. It is 
 still in the dim and distant future. Only when it 
 comes, shall we be in a position to shift the blame 
 and universally to attribute human failure to defec- 
 tive natural endowment. 
 
 As matters stand, the varieties of endowment are, 
 of course, too glaring to be overlooked by the most 
 superficial of educators. Clever and stupid, strong 
 and weak, bright and dull, good and bad, are the 
 constant categories into which pupils fall, with end- 
 less varieties of degree in each. But insight, skill, 
 and sympathy have so frequently converted the one 
 
38 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 class into the other that the wise teacher begins to 
 doubt whether, after all, it may not be his own 
 standards that are at fault. The dunce at syntax 
 may be the expert of the workshop, the foot boy of 
 the class may be the most sympathetic, helpful, 
 and popular out of class, the dullard of school may 
 be the leader in games. The school classifies its 
 pupils on a comparatively narrow range of accom- 
 plishments. For her part, nature on the whole is 
 remarkably even-handed. She is far more impartial 
 in her distribution of gifts than we with our partial 
 standards generally appreciate. The classification 
 of the school is rarely the classification of life ; and 
 neither of them is complete or final. True, ten 
 talents may be given in one case and only one in 
 another, but the talents, unlike those of the Parable, 
 may not all be of equal value. The one may even 
 outweigh the ten. If put to interest, it may earn 
 a higher percentage, at worst, it will receive its due 
 return. It takes all kinds to make a world, the 
 proverb says. Until we have caught more of the 
 secret of nature, and done a great deal more to 
 employ wisely her bounty, we are not entitled to 
 malign her or to brand her as niggardly. Nurture 
 has at present unexplored possibilities, which it is 
 the first duty of the educator to discover and to 
 turn to account. When he has done so, he will 
 be in a better position to say what improvement of 
 
NATURE AND NURTURE 39 
 
 the raw material is for his purposes necessary. A 
 genius is his ideal, but a world of geniuses would be 
 an impossible world ; impossible, because hewers 
 of wood and drawers of water are no less essential 
 than poets and painters ; impossible, because genius 
 would then be commonplace and so would cease to 
 be genius. " Serviceable bunches " rarely " golden 
 isolation," will be the type of educational result. 
 As to the species, currant or apricot, we need not 
 much mind. It must be good of its kind, the best 
 that it is capable of becoming. It is our business 
 to see that it be so. 
 
 Meantime the educationist will welcome the aid 
 of the eugenist. To the latter he will look to 
 ascertain what are the causes of congenital defect, 
 especially in abnormal degrees, whether nature or 
 humanity is responsible for it, and to what extent 
 and by what means it is remediable. When we 
 have reached the limits in that direction, we shall 
 still have all the practical problems of nurture to 
 answer : it is these that will to all seeming continue 
 to make the main difference. The case against 
 nature has still to be proved ; nurture, as it stands, 
 can hardly offer an effective defence of itself But 
 its condemnation is not necessarily final and abso- 
 lute. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " ENDS." 
 
 The child is the centre of the problem of educa- 
 tion, its alpha and omega. He is the one and only- 
 indispensable factor. For him the teacher exists ; 
 to satisfy his wants the curriculum is devised and 
 ordered. The school is built for his accommodation 
 and well-being. Local authorities are created in 
 his interest, a machinery of government is con- 
 structed to serve him. They are but the trappings, he 
 is the figure to be fashioned, adorned, and perfected, 
 Machinery of administration may be little short of 
 an encumbrance, schools are mere conveniences, 
 the curriculum is variable, even the teacher is not 
 essential. It is only when we set ourselves thus 
 at the proper view-point that the perspective be- 
 comes accurate, and the various members of the 
 whole fabric fall into their places of relative import- 
 ance. Each child is a new and separate problem. 
 His inherent capacity has first to be discovered 
 and then to be developed. Each several item in 
 
 his complete course of education has to be viewed 
 
 40 
 
"ENDS" 41 
 
 in relation to its bearing upon that purpose. The 
 teacher is successful according to his insight (or 
 foresight) and skill, the curriculum is suitable in 
 proportion to its power of appeal, the remainder of 
 the machinery is matter of comparative indifference ; 
 if it could all be cleared away, so much the better. 
 That is to say, if education could be carried on 
 without government regulations, without school 
 boards and education committees, without examiners 
 and other external officials, no material sacrifice 
 need be involved. The processes of education 
 might still go on uninterruptedly and not less, but 
 actually more, successfully. These extraneous 
 agencies forget their function and overstep their 
 bounds, if they seek to intrude into the teacher's 
 domain. On the other hand, if they can secure for 
 the teacher a free hand and an easy mind, they may 
 become most useful adjuncts and supports : the 
 teacher's first requirement is liberty. 
 
 The discussion of education — that vital process 
 through which all must pass — begins, continues, and 
 ends with the child, the child in childhood, boyhood, 
 adolescence, youth, the child as he is and is to be, 
 which often also includes as he has been. The 
 school, i.e. as an institution, not merely an edifice, 
 is the teacher's organised agency, in which he co- 
 ordinates effort between himself and his colleagues, 
 is enabled to deal with large numbers, and can 
 
42 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 manipulate his material with greatest effect. The 
 child in being and in becoming determines the 
 action of school and teacher. The child's capacity- 
 is to be ascertained in order that it may receive 
 nurture and fostering care, with a view to subse- 
 quent service in mature life. Education is a pre- 
 paration for life, or in Spencier's apt phrase, for 
 complete living. The congenital endowment of 
 the child and his destination in life are the two 
 poles between which education moves, the terminus 
 a quo and the terminus ad quem. 
 
 On every separate item throughout the whole 
 range of education differences of opinion exist, hav- 
 ing their outcome in differences of procedure. If 
 they are carefully examined it will probably be 
 found that they arise more from diversities in ends 
 than in means. The end must be known before 
 the way, as Jean Paul has taught us. Even with- 
 out acceptance of this as a universal truth, it is plain 
 that the end will go far to determine the means. 
 More important still, only when general agreement 
 has been reached as to ends, can we hope to be at 
 one in the adoption of measures best calculated to 
 secure them. Some would rule out of the science 
 of education the doctrine of ends altogether, leaving 
 it to the moralist to decide what life means and how 
 its varied ends are to be harmonised and unified. 
 Even so, the moralists cannot agree. The educa- 
 
"ENDS" 43 
 
 tlonist is still confronted by conflicting theories and 
 forced to make choice among them. He can hardly 
 be blamed if he decides, as he often does, to go a 
 step further and to claim the right of independent 
 judgment. The ends of adult life are not wholly 
 those of childhood and youth. The ultimate ends 
 are not always the provisional ones. Education 
 must have the right to say what may be done as 
 well as what should be done, what is possible at 
 each stage as well as what ought to be aimed at as 
 the summum bonum. Some theory of life, no less 
 than a knowledge of the possibilities of youth, must 
 underlie the measures and aims of the school. 
 " What knowledge is of most worth " depends upon 
 the purposes which the knowledge is to fulfil. 
 What teacher is of most worth is a still earlier and 
 more important question, which at any rate every 
 teacher must answer for himself. 
 
 The very difficult and obscure problem of ends 
 is essentially a question relating to the individual, 
 and gives fresh point to the truth that education is 
 always and all through an individual affair. But, 
 of course, some general statement also is possible, 
 for common lines of action and common require- 
 ments are not ruled out. Education being a pre- 
 paration for life, what is life, what are its great 
 objects and purposes.? That is the crux. One 
 end of life, perhaps the first in order of time and 
 
44 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 certainly the most obvious and concrete, is physical 
 perfection. Each child must become a "good 
 animal," if he is to make anything out of life at all, 
 either in perfection of attributes, or by way of ser- 
 vice or enjoyment. A second end of life is liveli- 
 hood. Man must eat in order to live, he must 
 labour in order to eat. That our ancestors may 
 have laboured or stolen or appropriated sufficient 
 to maintain life in us, their posterity, does not 
 exempt us from doing our share in our own day 
 and place. Happily they are but a few whom the 
 possession of inherited goods relieves of the neces- 
 sity, or to whom it proves a snare. A third end 
 of life is the inheritance of Science and Art ac- 
 cumulated by previous generations — literature, 
 music and other fine arts, knowledge (for its own 
 sake), institutions. A fourth end is character : it 
 integrates in large measure the preceding and em- 
 phasises the subjective elements of life, what a man 
 is and how he behaves ; not merely how strong, or 
 competent, or rich, or wise he is, but how virtuous, 
 how good. These ends are for the most part 
 secular and temporal. Another end must be 
 added, the religious, which takes man beyond the 
 human, the seen and temporal; to the invisible and 
 abiding, so raising him to a higher denomination of 
 being. Life must be viewed sub specie ceternitatis ; 
 man thinks he was not made to die completely and 
 
"ENDS" 45 
 
 everlastingly. Such has been the persistent and 
 prevalent belief of mankind. Even those who re- 
 ject the conclusion or adopt an agnostic attitude 
 are forced to consider the matter, and decide the 
 question of questions if only in a negative way. 
 Nor are they less earnest than their fellows in 
 their convictions regarding it. These five ends, 
 the physical, the material, the intellectual, the 
 moral, and the religious, may stand as a provisional 
 basis. They are only one of many ways of stating 
 it, possibly some other may be quite as good or 
 better. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that this order is one of 
 intrinsic value, or that all are of equal importance, 
 or that the ends are mutually exclusive, or that any 
 •individual life has equal capacity in all directions, 
 or equal necessity for seeking all ends. Life is not 
 capable of mathematical distribution into separate 
 and independent divisions, any more than nature 
 is. Individual ends are as varied in character as 
 are origihal powers of mind and body, and destina- 
 tion in life. Classification is a mere convention, 
 necessary for the purpose of mastery, but only a 
 source of error if the classes are regarded as water- 
 tight compartments. For example, a moment's 
 reflection shows that the end of physical efficiency 
 is inextricably bound up with occupation (the 
 material end) and has a no less intimate bearing 
 
46 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 upon morality. Morality in turn is deeply impli- 
 cated in religion. And so on through the whole 
 series. The analysis of life is at best but loose and 
 general ; it is not to be taken for more than it pro- 
 fesses to mean. Within its limits it is helpful 
 enough. For this as for other reasons education 
 can never hope to become an exact science. Its 
 interest and importance are not thereby diminished, 
 though its difficulty is increased. Its subject matter 
 is man in the making. If the proper study of man- 
 kind is man, then education may claim to be the 
 first, the last, and the supreme of human sciences. 
 In considering the ends of life in their relation 
 one to another, we must guard not only against the 
 mistake of esteeming as certain that which is only 
 possible or, at most, probable, but no less against 
 the unwarrantable inference that the order of 
 ultimate value is likewise that of educational im- 
 portance. Education has to wait upon develop- 
 ment, the ultimate goal may not be the proximate 
 one. The educator has qften to tack, to reef his 
 canvas, to sail into the wind ; the only course open 
 to him, if he is to avoid the rocks and the shallows, 
 may be one that for the time being seems to lead 
 in quite a different direction. For example, though 
 morality be one of the ends of life, it by no means 
 follows that the actual work of the primary school 
 should ostensibly be occupied by it before all else. 
 
"ENDS" 47 
 
 Its direct lessons involve a range of conception 
 quite beyond the child of 12, an indirect procedure 
 or preparation of the ground may be all that is at 
 the moment possible. And so is it all round. The 
 teacher has to discover the best possible synthesis 
 for the time being, and that he must adopt as his 
 working hypothesis. Theory alone will not decide 
 the correct procedure. He has to frame his plan 
 from year to year, or even day to day, in view not 
 so much of ultimate values as of present possibili- 
 ties, including requirements of development, and 
 opportunity of influence over individual and class. 
 Even theoretically it is no easy matter to arrange 
 a scheme of approximate relative value among the 
 ends of life. Life is, among other things, a pro- 
 gress, it is always in movement. Values are con- 
 stantly shifting. What holds of one relation in 
 life does not hold of a different one. What holds 
 of one period of life does not hold of a later or 
 earlier one. What is lower now may hereafter be- 
 come higher, and conversely. A scale of absolute 
 values for all men for all time is impossible ; for 
 the individual here and now it is extremely diffi- 
 cult. Other things being equal, permanent ends 
 are higher than temporary, wide than narrow, uni- 
 versal than partial or sectional. Leaving out reli- 
 gion for the present, one need have little hesitation 
 in assigning the highest position to the moral end. 
 
48 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 Theory and practice alike teach this. Morality 
 is stable and permanent, especially as compared 
 with forms of knowledge or skill, which are varied 
 and changeable. Virtue is no less indispensable 
 to "an accomplish 'd and valuable Man" in "the 
 Eastern parts of Asia " than in the Western parts 
 of Europe. The moral end is common to all 
 mankind, universal in the individual, as in time 
 and place. A class of elementary fjupils contains 
 representatives of many employments — masons, 
 joiners, engineers, bakers, printers, together with 
 clerks and possibly teachers, ministers, or doctors. 
 But all alike attend the school of virtue, whose 
 precepts have to be learned and obeyed. At the 
 end of the day, when operative and professional 
 functions cease, the moral man is still left. At no 
 period in no individual can morality accept any- 
 thing below the highest place. The truth hardly 
 requires elaboration, the purse is trash, the good 
 name of infinite worth ; the whole world is dearly 
 bought at the cost of a man's soul. 
 
 Of other ends, the intellectual must obviously 
 be held to take precedence of the material or the 
 physical. The latter are external, temporary, and 
 fugitive. But what the mind has apprehended and 
 treasured up becomes a part of the being, a source 
 of subjective power, a permanent endowment. In- 
 tellectual and moral attainments have so much in 
 
" ENDS " 49 
 
 common that they alike become an integral part of 
 us ; they are ourselves, we are they, to be expressed 
 in terms of them. Knowledge and character are 
 not separable like possessions, or to the extent of 
 even physical strength or beauty. They are essen- 
 tial while the others are mere accidents. 
 
 The bearing of knowledge upon morals is very 
 direct and intimate. But the two are not to be 
 regarded as by any means identical. Intellectual 
 power is necessary for greatness even in crime, as 
 the criminal records abundantly show. Without 
 keen observation, retentive memory, fertile imagina- 
 tion, coolness, and decision of judgment, crime and 
 sin add to their guilt the repulsiveness of vulgarity 
 and frequent failure. Saintliness of heart is, on its 
 side, compatible with a lack of perception and a sim- 
 plicity of judgment that border on defective intellect. 
 Short of these extremes we constantly allow our 
 moral nature to be warped by committing acts 
 which in absence of temptation or passion the mind 
 would have forbidden, and intelligence would have 
 shown to be wrong ; the light that is in us may be- 
 come darkness. Heart and head are in the majority 
 of mankind in unstable equipoise. The logical end, 
 to use Mrs. Bryant's term, is not coincident with 
 the ethical. The latter is, as already said, the 
 more essential ; though knowledge vanish away, 
 love abides. 
 
 4 
 
So THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 The physical and occupational ends represent the 
 instruments of life rather than its permanent aims. 
 They are, in their time and place, of essential im- 
 port, but only confusion and serious error result 
 from misapprehension of what their time and 
 place are. When, on one hand, are found de- 
 preciation and contempt of physical interests, and, 
 on the other, devotion to them is raised to a 
 positive cult, the inference is quite a safe one that 
 truth lies somewhere between : in general, truth 
 lies " in the middle ". The body as the envelope 
 and instrument of life is a precious endowment. 
 Its wonderful mechanism, its adaptability, its ca- 
 pacity for enjoyment, its power of resistance, its 
 long-suffering, render it an agent and instrument 
 of service which it would be folly, if nothing worse, 
 to neglect, much more to maltreat. We may have 
 it constantly at command, provided always we do not 
 suffer it to command us. Without it we are help- 
 less, and, for practical purposes, useless. In default 
 of attention, it becomes exacting, and claims the 
 chief share. And yet it is of us, not we of it. The 
 body is the servant of the mind, and should be 
 strong for service. Weakness in it, on the one 
 hand, or mastery by it, on the other, is alike fatal 
 to its rightful position and function. Within these 
 limits its cultivation should be confined. Our vital 
 energy has to be brought to its full capacity and 
 
"ENDS" 51 
 
 to be husbanded to its last ounce. The modes 
 most conducive to this determine physical train- 
 ing. The end is both legitimate and increasingly- 
 necessary ; individual and state alike require it. 
 
 Occupation is likewise primarily a means of life. 
 It is a consequence of our physical wants. If 
 nature were sufficiently bountiful, food in all its 
 varieties would always be at hand, clothing would 
 be either provided ready-made or mayhap not in- 
 dispensable, the climate would be exactly adjusted 
 to all the needs of the human body in sleep and in 
 waking, houses, if required, would be adapted to 
 the particular desires of each, and would no doubt 
 be self- ventilating. No farmers, milkmen, fishermen, 
 bakers, cooks, cotton-spinners, woollen -weavers, 
 masons, coal-miners, etc., would be called for. All 
 should equal be in respect both to needs and to 
 possessions. What a happy world 1 what an in- 
 tolerably dull world ! It would not suit men as at 
 present constituted. 
 
 The Creator had other and doubtless wiser 
 designs in imposing the necessity of labour, the 
 curse which man may convert into blessing. An 
 important end in education is preparation for that 
 sphere of labour which is to be the means of sup- 
 porting life and securing some degree of comfort. 
 A means of livelihood has to be sought which will 
 provide food, clothing, housing, together with such 
 
52 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 margin for recreation and enjoyment as shall at 
 least maintain the health and continued efficiency 
 of the body. No society can be considered satis- 
 factory that does not afford opportunity to all its 
 members to receive an adequate share of the 
 necessaries of life in return for their contribution of 
 service, be the labour with hand or brain. The re- 
 spective shares may require some adjustment, and 
 the division of the surplus will furnish additional 
 matter of debate ; but they are not strictly educa- 
 tional questions. Material needs are an end- 
 when all is said, a subordinate end — of education. 
 The mistake comes of regarding them as the end, 
 or as chief end. 
 
 Education, then, seeks first to impress an abiding 
 moral stamp, to develop character in individual 
 duty and in social relation ; second, to inform and 
 discipline the mind so as to render it susceptible 
 and responsive to knowledge and beauty in all 
 their forms, and competent to apply knowledge to 
 new requirements and situations ; third, to impart 
 such strength, elasticity, endurance, and skill to the 
 body as to make it a fit and obedient agent of 
 the mind ; fourth, to equip for the world's work by 
 preparation for earning a competency or something 
 better, endeavouring therewith to secure both oc- 
 cupational and civic efficiency. In each direction 
 it aims at the highest. It is not content to do well ; 
 
"ENDS" 53 
 
 it must do the best ; the character must attain 
 fullest perfection, the mind must expand to fullest 
 capacity for knowledge and power of thought, the 
 body must reach the furthest limit of its powers, 
 professional or industrial skill must be developed 
 to its utmost. Even when all has been done, the 
 product may still appear an unprofitable servant. 
 At the same time the caution ne quid nimis must 
 not be forgotten. The attempt to achieve too 
 much is foredoomed to failure. 
 
 The religious side of education is not at present 
 in question : it forms a topic by itself 
 
 The next question is the co-ordination of the 
 different ends, their educational sequence and ad- 
 justment, so far as it can be discovered and attained. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CO-ORDINATION OF "ENDS". 
 
 The teacher is not a free agent even in his own 
 sphere. Rid him of all external interference, and 
 he yet ofttimes remains in grave doubt as to the 
 best course to pursue. The ends of life are to a 
 large extent out of sight of his pupils ; they do not 
 understand, much less appreciate, the claims of 
 situations and duties still remote from them. How 
 then is the teacher to make preparation for the 
 future ? How is he to make effective appeal ? 
 How can the existing opportunities be reconciled 
 with the coming necessities ? 
 
 If the successive stages of development were 
 wholly cut off from one another, were there un- 
 qualified divorce of later from earlier life, the 
 educator might well be driven to despair. But as 
 it is, a line of continuity runs through the whole 
 course of expanding life. The earlier is not lost, 
 it does not perish but is transformed into the later ; 
 youth is the parent of age, organic unity pervades 
 the life. While the teacher tacks and humours 
 
 54 
 
CO-OKDINATION OF "ENDS" 55 
 
 the breeze, he never loses sight of his port. He 
 is well assured by many infallible proofs that his 
 efforts rightly directed in the present will not be 
 lost in the future, though possibly part of his 
 passengers may have to be put ashore in some 
 harbour of refuge. 
 
 In arranging his scheme of operations, he must 
 utilise the ends of youth in such a way as to lead 
 up to, and merge into, the ends of mature life. 
 The interests of youth are the lever to raise the 
 child to the plane of manhood. The opinion is 
 very prevalent that the young are generally mis- 
 understood by their elders, that their life is made a 
 burden, that nothing has really yet been learned by 
 parents and teachers, that the schoolmaster should 
 begin by going to school again, and allow a little 
 child to lead him, the reverse of the current method 
 is right. Rousseau said so, and it has been par- 
 roted down to the present day. 
 
 Now whatever truth there may have been in 
 this sweeping assertion in the eighteenth century, 
 Rousseau's own gospel of childhood effectually put 
 an end to it for all time. Since Pestalozzi and 
 Froebel have expanded and clarified the doctrine 
 of infancy,* and later workers have rendered it 
 more precise and scientific, it may safely be said 
 that the teacher — that is, the teacher who is 
 abreast of the knowledge of the subject — is nowa- 
 
56 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 days fairly well acquainted with the main features 
 of childhood, the main purposes of the school, 
 and the chief methods of attaining the objects at 
 which he aims. The highways being familiar, 
 recent effort has concerned itself with more fully 
 exploring the byways. The endowments and char- 
 acteristics of the normal child are pretty fully 
 understood. But a good many children are in one 
 or more respect not quite normal. The small type 
 of the duodecimos is now being deciphered, and the 
 researches are being carried into all manner of 
 obscure corners, but with a distinct recognition of 
 the abnormality where it exists. Partial observers 
 are apt to generalise from an insufficient range of 
 examples, not seldom, from pathological types, it 
 may be from themselves : confident conclusions 
 based on limited numbers are a fruitful source of 
 error. That there are geniuses as well as dunces, 
 freaks and cranks, is only another proof of the 
 variety of individuality, and the essential import- 
 ance of study of the individual. The educator is 
 at the outset of his treatment of the child every- 
 where faced by uncertainties, and has to build upon 
 probabilities. But he need not make his case 
 worse than it really is, by accepting as normal what 
 is abnormal, and varies from the generality by 
 excess or. defect. In other words, despite the 
 enormous and incalculable fluctuations of human 
 
CO-ORDINATION OF "ENDS" 57 
 
 nature, which preclude the application of precise 
 rules, there is a solid residuum of facts derived 
 from wide inductions, upon which may be built 
 approximate theories both of ends and of means. 
 It closely concerns the teacher to be put in posses- 
 sion of some such clue to guide him through the 
 labyrinth of child life in its endless varieties. The 
 relation of this knowledge to the ends of school 
 and of life is what meantime concerns us. Be it 
 borne in mind at the same time that school and 
 education are not convertible terms ; in the present 
 connection we deal with formal education as re- 
 flected in conscious design and effort. 
 
 In the course of development body takes preced- 
 ence of mind in point of time. The body must 
 receive attention while it demands it, and responds 
 to it. The opportunities of development once 
 omitted do not return. Neglect entails atrophy or 
 arrest of development. Whatever care the school 
 is to bestow upon the child's physical interests 
 must begin early. In case of conflict, the claims 
 of mind, though intrinsically superior, may have to 
 be postponed. A hungry child cannot be instructed. 
 Theory testifies to its hopelessness, experience to 
 its futility, humanity to its heartlessness. Educa- 
 tion has to follow the child, taking the tide when it 
 serves. In so doing it is never asked to make any 
 real sacrifice. By bestowing attention on the body 
 
58 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 while it is weak and susceptible, we proceed in the 
 only way open to us, but at the same time we are 
 laying the most secure basis for future operations. 
 The body neglected, the mind suffers both immedi- 
 ately and subsequently. A feeble child must be- 
 come a feeble man, if the same course of neglect is 
 continued. The supposed interests of mind and 
 soul will be no justification of the wreck of body : 
 looked at broadly, education will simply be a failure. 
 The physical end is a mean between neglect and 
 excess." The body is instrumental and must be 
 cultivated with a view to vigour of mind and to 
 healthy moral outlook and reaction. Athleticism 
 is a debased ideal, and yet a certain degree of 
 athletic exercise is very beneficial both as a means 
 to something higher, and as a source of interest. 
 The essence of it is " playing the game," " being a 
 sportsman," which as an educational expedient may 
 be translated purity of body and mind, contempt of 
 physical indulgence combined with courage, pluck, 
 endurance, generosity, honour in word and deed. 
 It has for a century been one of the most character- 
 istic features and cherished boasts of English school 
 life, an element which we can as little afford to dis- 
 pense with as to exalt into the one and only end. 
 
 Knowledge as an end in education scarcely needs 
 to be emphasised. It has from all time been not 
 so much an as i^e end of all paedagogic excellence. 
 
CO-ORDINATION OF "ENDS" 59 
 
 Its scope and aim have during the past century been 
 much extended, and it has been co-brdinated with 
 other not less essential aims. Knowledge no longer 
 connotes any one domain of intellectual activity. 
 It is not merely learning, it also embraces activity : 
 it is both reception and reaction. In particular, the 
 ends of knowledge are held to have been very in- 
 adequately secured if tradition is implicitly followed, 
 and pupils are taught merely to reproduce what 
 others have discovered. Reproduction is quite 
 necessary as a basis, but only as the first step in 
 a process that is to continue indefinitely in other 
 directions and to further objects. Power of thought, 
 ability to apply knowledge to new situations, 
 capacity to extend knowledge — these positive ac- 
 complishments are the real ends of knowledge. 
 Routine and repetition enter perforce so largely into 
 the teacher's work that he has constantly to remind 
 "himself that education has not attained its purpose 
 when the pupil has mastered the contents of the 
 text-book. The knowledge acquired from books 
 and teachers is only the seed, the mind is the seed- 
 plot : the harvest is the independent contribution 
 in fresh knowledge or in service which each pupil 
 may and should eventually make to the general 
 stock. Of course, it is given only to the few to 
 advance the bounds of knowledge, the many are 
 not of a character to inspire the teacher with any 
 
6o THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 excessive hopes. But even so, the mere process of 
 learning ought to be one of assimilation not of 
 verbal reproduction. The repetition of a formula 
 or of a poetical piece may be made a real exercise 
 of the critical as well as of the reproductive faculty 
 if the pupil is enabled independently to follow the 
 steps of the discoverer, or to re-think the thoughts 
 of the poet. Learning itself may become a thought 
 process, though it lead to no additional knowledge, 
 and consist merely in rediscovery by successive 
 generations of what was first discovered centuries 
 ago. The knowledge end as thus conceived opens 
 up for the teacher an absolutely illimitable field. 
 Learning may begin as mere absorption of ma.i 
 terial : it will presently assume the form of redis- 
 covery, and in the later stages it will lead up to 
 independent power of thought and original research 
 and discovery. 
 
 While knowledge has a certain content, it has 
 also a certain form. If the full value of knowledge 
 is to be obtained, the latter must not be overlooked, 
 A poem or a statue may convey knowledge of an 
 occurrence, express a series of ideas, or represent a 
 person whom we have never seen. But it does 
 not make its chief appeal so. The form, including 
 the rhythm, of poetry attracts the mind and imparts 
 a peculiar satisfaction quite independent of the in- 
 formation it conveys. The statue is a work of art. 
 
CO-ORDINATION OF "ENDS" 6i 
 
 with grace and harmony of form, proportion, poise, 
 and by its beauty arouses an emotion of a dis- 
 tinctive kind. So it. is with plants, trees, flowers, 
 birds, and beasts, the aspects of inanimate nature, 
 the phenomena of the atmosphere, the movements 
 of the heavens, and all other things of beauty. 
 Knowledge is refined, sublimated, energised by this 
 quality inherent in it, but demanding distinct and 
 separate recognition. Education ought from the 
 outset to develop the capacity to perceive fitness, 
 grace, harmony, beauty, in all the forms of know- 
 ledge whether concrete or abstract. The percep- 
 tion is not confined to the realm of cognition though 
 it seems more closely connected with it than with 
 any other department of human life. The same 
 principle has a very obvious application in the 
 sphere of physical development, a less obvious 
 but hardly less real one in the sphere of morals. 
 This, the aesthetic end, however catalogued, is one 
 that we cannot afford to exclude. It may be classed 
 as cognitive, but it impinges upon both physical 
 and moral as well. 
 
 The moral end is the end of life, but in early 
 education, as indicated above, is for the most part 
 only implicit. The child is first animal, then 
 rational, then spiritual. While it would be absurd 
 to postpone the whole subject of morals till the age 
 of 1 5 or 1 6, as Rousseau proposed, the teacher must 
 
62 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 to a large extent pursue a waiting policy. Care of 
 the body and instruction and exercise of the mind, 
 besides being ends in themselves, are the founda- 
 tions of moral discipline. A habit of body may 
 ipso facto be a moral habit. But there is this great 
 difference, that the former is merely external, 
 learned under direction or possibly compulsion. It 
 can become moral only when it is voluntarily ac- 
 cepted and adopted as a law of life. Legitimate 
 differences of opinion may exist as to the exact 
 period, if ever, when direct moral instruction may 
 effectively be begun. Previous generations be- 
 lieved that the earlier the child could be instructed 
 in moral truth, whether he comprehended it or not, 
 the better would it be for his ultimate well-being 
 and salvation. Our generation is disposed perhaps 
 to gravitate toward the opposite extreme. The edu- 
 cationist may possibly take refuge in a via media. 
 He sees that morality like knowledge presents a 
 concrete aspect, which the child can to some ex- 
 tent comprehend and appreciate. He trains up the 
 child in habits of cleanliness, obedience, truthful- 
 ness, kindness, and so on, assured that they will 
 afford a safe moral investment, that the outlay is 
 far more than realised in the event of their voluntary 
 continuance in after life. He sees also that if he 
 does not anticipate by occupying the ground, tares 
 will spring up to choke the subsequent moral growth. 
 
CO-ORDINATION OF "ENDS" 63 
 
 It is as easy — almost, but not quite- — to plant good 
 seed as to allow bad seed to plant itself. The re- 
 sponsibility is at any rate shifted from the educator 
 to the educated, if appropriate provisional measures 
 are taken against such time as the child becomes an 
 independent moral agent. When that time comes, 
 he is able to decide for himself without a handicap of 
 evil habits to drag him down and enforce the choice 
 of the worst. To what extent definite instruction 
 in moral questions should supplement the formation 
 of habits must remain a moot point. Undoubtedly 
 harm has often been done by premature attempts 
 to inculcate the form, a mere husk, of morality before 
 the mind was sufficiently mature to appreciate the 
 instruction. Moral dyspepsia is a fatal malady. 
 But between that and the indulgent laissez faire of 
 " naturalism," strict neutrality towards the child's 
 moral conflict, there are many degrees. We are 
 at the moment not so much concerned with that as 
 with the scheme of early educational ends. For 
 the latter purpose the ethical end must, to begin 
 with, wait upon ends that come earlier in the course 
 of development. Here as before education must 
 follow the child. 
 
 At a subsequent period the relations to one 
 another, of ends, may be completely altered. For 
 example, during the later teens preparation for the 
 discharge of social and civic duty and for parenthood 
 
64 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 becomes prominent. This is, of course, an integral 
 portion of morality, and as such falls within the 
 scope of the ethical end. But it can only be 
 mentioned here ; its detailed treatment involves a 
 consideration of the curriculum. 
 
 The next end, the material, is of all the most 
 debatable. On the one sid& are those who think 
 of life as a living, nothing more. Through their 
 misfortune rather than their fault it may be that 
 the pressure of straitened circumstances limits their 
 outlook. Livelihood fills their horizon ; without 
 it existence cannot be supported. It is so hard to 
 gain that life's purpose seems fulfilled by its attain- 
 ment. On the other side are those who regard 
 education as culture, acquisition of knowledge, re- 
 finement, ethical perfection. Even though affluence 
 may not remove the necessity of obtaining a living, 
 possessions are viewed in the light of a mere ad- 
 junct to life, while a man's real life, to which his 
 education leads, does not consist in the abundance 
 of the things he possesses. The school is rent by 
 the conflict and clamour of rival claims, whose 
 extreme forms are, livelihood is supreme, livelihood 
 is negligible. The extremists cannot both have it 
 their own way, but compromise is not out of the 
 question. Better comprehension may lead the way 
 to reconciliation : for mutual misunderstanding is 
 the most fruitful of all sources of feud. 
 
CO-ORDINATION OF "ENDS" 6$ 
 
 To begin with, since education prepares for life, 
 it certainly cannot ignore the means of living. But 
 the very words show that livelihood is not the 
 be-all and the end-all. A vocation is " means of 
 living," not object and aim of living, not " complete 
 living ". It is an important, even essential, incident, 
 not more. Be it freely granted that preparation 
 for livelihood is a necessary end of education ; 
 other ends are not therefore ruled out or rendered 
 subordinate. The matter is largely one of time. 
 Provided there is sufficient time, together with 
 economical distribution of time and effort, the 
 material end of preparation for life in an economic 
 state is in no way incompatible with higher and 
 more permanent ends. Livelihood resembles 
 morality to this extent that neither of them is very 
 comprehensible by the child. He. may understand 
 in a general sort of way that he will some day have 
 to work for his living, just as he knows he is ex- 
 pected to be "a good boy ". But it has no abiding 
 effect on his mind, and no very direct influence on 
 his course of study. He is going to be a clerk 
 perhaps. Can he at the age of lo begin to learn 
 book-keeping or shorthand ? or he will be a mason, 
 a printer, an engineer, an apothecary, or a soldier. 
 How ts he to prepare for any of these occupations ? 
 If he is a real boy, he will have changed his imagin- 
 ary occupation half a dozen times before he reaches 
 
 5 
 
66 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 his teens. At the outset he will be, or occasionally 
 will no^ be, what his father is. Then a showy oc- 
 cupation, the lamplighter's or the bus- or engine- 
 driver's, will attract his fancy and so on. The pos- 
 sibility of the many will not have given place to the 
 definite selection of the one before the end of the 
 elementary school is upon him, and he is thrust by 
 stern necessity into the first chance opening that 
 offers, even a so-called blind-alley. How is the 
 teacher to keep pace with all the vagaries of the 
 boy's fancy, the unenlightened ambitions of parents, 
 the constant changes of circumstances and oppor- 
 tunities, and the uncertainties of the future, presented 
 by a single class, not to say the hundreds of pupils 
 in a whole school ? The occupational end of school- 
 ing as represented by a specific employment is in 
 the elementary stages a sheer practical impossibility. 
 The teacher is not, however, wholly powerless, 
 and the school at its widest can withal do a good 
 deal, for the most part incidentally and indirectly, to 
 prepare even for earning a livelihood. Schools of 
 different grades and types contain pupils destined 
 for different spheres in the economic world. An 
 English "public school " has a very different c/ten^e/e 
 from that of an East End elementary school. Oc- 
 cupation falls broadly into professional and industrial, 
 whose demands are to some extent a means of dif- 
 ferentiation of pupils from an early period of life. 
 
CO-ORDINATION OF "ENDS" 67 
 
 No doubt they possess common factors, and trans- 
 ference from one category into the other is desirable 
 and not uncommon. Still on the whole the broad 
 distinction between the two spheres of labour affords 
 some assistance to the teacher. In this connection 
 he learns the amount of time likely to be available 
 for the whole education of either class. In one 
 school pupils will leave at 14 or earlier, in another 
 at 15 or 16, in another at 18 or 19. The procedure 
 will vary accordingly. 
 
 Then, the pupil's taste and capacity are an im- 
 portant element. Before the age of 1 2 few pupils 
 have any definite bent. If exception be made of 
 those with pronounced artistic talent — a very small 
 proportion — the child of 10 may be a possible lawyer 
 or a possible blacksmith. Assiduous preparation 
 for livelihood in either sphere would effectually delay 
 and injure, if not completely prevent, preparation 
 for the other, which may in the end prove the one 
 for which the pupil is best adapted. As with the 
 moral, so with the economic life, the educator must 
 wait upon development ; it is only the advent of 
 adolescence that as a rule reveals special powers 
 and special tastes which will give definite guidance 
 as to the specific occupation. Preparation for earn- 
 ing a livelihood cannot become a direct object of 
 the school before the age of 1 2- 1 4. It may be con- 
 siderably later before the final choice can be made. 
 
68 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 Other things being equal, the later, the better ; 
 first, because it is more likely to be the right choice, 
 and second, because the foundation for it in gen- 
 eral education will have been more broadly and 
 securely laid. 
 
 Premature choice of occupation is bad not only 
 negatively but also positively. Early specialisation 
 means the exclusion of instruction of more suitable 
 character and greater intrinsic value. Narrow 
 technical instruction has its time and place, but 
 they come later. " Too early " and " too late " are 
 ominous terms, as we have long since learned, not 
 unlike " too much " and " too little ". School has. 
 choice among a large number of alternative forms 
 of material and of method : the good may be a 
 deadly foe to the better. The teacher's problem is 
 to secure the best. Knowledge that will be of 
 general application is to be chosen in preference to 
 that which is only of partial or sectional application. 
 The requirements of the prospective manual worker 
 rather than of joiner or engineer, of the prospective 
 brain worker rather than of lawyer, schoolmaster, 
 or doctor, must determine in the first instance what 
 knowledge is of most worth. 
 
 The relation of leisure hours to work hours in 
 actual life is an aspect of the question that too often 
 escapes observation. The worker as an economic 
 agent is subject to many restrictions ; in his leisure 
 
CO-ORDINATION OF "ENDS" 69 
 
 periods he is a free agent, able to dispose of him- 
 self and his energies as he will. The school, let us 
 suppose, has utterly neglected the end of livelihood, 
 and has made no special preparation for the eco- 
 nomic sphere which the pupil is to occupy. The 
 worker will soon find that knowledge bearing on 
 his work is a condition of retaining his employment, 
 not to say of obtaining promotion in it. The force 
 of circunistances will compel him to equip himself, 
 by study of books or attendance on classes, with 
 the necessary knowledge, the nature and bearing 
 of which he only now realises. Be it mechanics, 
 or dyeing, or plumbing, or shorthand, he masters 
 it to an adequate extent simply because he must. 
 Indeed, there are numerous trades in which no such 
 knowledge at all is necessary, only manual skill has 
 to be acquired, nothing more. To an increasing, 
 almost an alarming, extent, the brains are in the 
 machine, the workman needs only hands. Clothes 
 and boots and furniture and all the rest are no 
 longer the product of the man but of the machine. 
 The machine having the brains, the worker tends 
 to become a machine. 
 
 But what of the hours of leisure, now happily 
 being gradually extended to an appreciable por- 
 tion of the day ? In them we have the real man, 
 freed from the external constraint of economic law. 
 He is his own master with time on his hands to 
 
70 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 employ as he will. If education has provided him 
 with resources for filling in these hours, all may 
 be well. But if no such provision has been made, 
 he is assailed by temptation on every side. The 
 house is " empty," and offers an invitation to the 
 evil spirits. The result is all too familiar. He 
 falls a victim to one or other of the besetting temp- 
 tations of his age and nation. Now, surely educa- 
 tion has a call and a responsibility here ; and no 
 less a precious opportunity. The man is more than 
 the workman. To turn out an expert workman, 
 were the school able to do so, as it is not, would 
 be but a mean end compared with laying the foun- 
 dations of a stable character. To live is the trade 
 I wish to teach my pupil, says Rousseau. Para- 
 doxical as it may seem, the business of the school 
 lies far more in prepai^ation for leisure than in pre- 
 paration for work. A main function of the ele- 
 mentary school is to cultivate in pupils the germs 
 of interests, which may become pursuits and hobbies 
 after school life, counteracting monotony and ennui, 
 and filling in leisure in a rational and profitable way. 
 The range must be wide and varied so as to suit all 
 capacities and to appeal to all tastes. Nature study, 
 branching out into botany, zoology, and its other 
 departments ; drawing, music, and the varied forms 
 of artistic accomplishments ; manual occupations in 
 all their variety, not forgetting allotments ; literature, 
 
CO-ORDINATION OF "ENDS" 71 
 
 native and foreign, including composition ; bene- 
 volent and other social agencies — these are some of 
 the directions in which interest may be stimulated. 
 Here, of course, belong physical interests, already 
 assiduously cultivated by many, but requiring to be 
 supplemented, and to be co-ordinated with more 
 serious pursuits. An interest or a hobby will re- 
 deem and enrich life. Such pursuits illustrate the 
 ethical influence of studies as well, while the appar- 
 ent opposition to narrow vocational instruction need 
 not become a bugbear. There is no real incom- 
 patibility. Leisure occupation is not "fooling". 
 Many of its pursuits possess high economic value. 
 The matter is one of order and methods more than 
 of actual difference of studies. Industrial efficiency 
 would, in any case, be dearly bought at the cost of 
 moral defect, much more of degradation. Prepara- 
 tion for livelihood must yield precedence to pre- 
 paration for leisure, because the latter involves the 
 right use of moral freedom. As a matter of fact, 
 this will in the long run conduce to economic effi- 
 ciency. The man who has been raised in the moral 
 scale to the plane of at least self-respect, by being 
 put in possession of rational means of enjoyment, is 
 thereby made a more reliable workman, and will in 
 all probability render himself a more competent one 
 than his fellow who, as he divests himself of his 
 working jacket, doffs therewith moral responsibility. 
 
72 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 Thus in early education the material end sinks, 
 if not into comparative unimportance, at any rate 
 into the second place. It has to wait upon higher 
 aims and upon the course of development. Its 
 success when it does come into prominence in the 
 secondary or technical school, will be in great 
 measure conditioned by the degree to which earlier 
 measures have been taken to secure the fundamental 
 ends without which life is a failure and upon which 
 livelihood itself so largely depends. 
 
 The co-ordination of the four great ends does not 
 proceed on any strict mathematical principle. In 
 general, the order is physical, intellectual, occupa- 
 tional, with a substratum of ethical underlying the 
 whole. Physical fitness ought to be a postulate of 
 the school as such, strictly technical should be rele- 
 gated to special departments or curricula if not to 
 separate, schools. The main end of the school is 
 the residuum of intellectual and moral, the former 
 more overt and definite, the latter more implicit and 
 less visible. Intellectual development is the type 
 of the teacher's activities. It is based on, concur- 
 rent with, and may include, physical development : 
 it leads up to, and merges into, preparation for 
 livelihood. Moral influence pervades the relations 
 of the school throughout, and permeates the atmos- 
 phere, embracing pupils, teacher, and studies. But 
 it is largely informal, acts by example and sugges- 
 
CO-ORDINATION OF "ENDS*' 73 
 
 tion, and forms but a small part of the regular cur- 
 riculum. Its chief expression is in discipline with 
 all that the term covers. Tested by results the 
 greatest teachers have been those who have Exer- 
 cised most permanent moral influence. But 
 scholarly attainments and skill in imparting in- 
 struction also contribute toward that end ; nor 
 are they in themselves negligible. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES. 
 
 Attention has already been directed to the distinc- 
 tion between formal and informal education. The 
 implications of the latter must now be more fully 
 considered. When we speak of a person as having 
 been "educated" at such and such a school, uni- 
 versity or other institution, we adopt language 
 which is very liable to misinterpretation. The 
 identification of education with schooling is so wide- 
 spread that we assume, almost, unconsciously, that 
 the two spheres are co-extensive. But, as was 
 seen at the outset, if we conceive of education as 
 the result of definite scholastic effort and "nothing 
 more, we mistake the part for the whole, and may 
 thereby fall into grievous error and confusion. 
 We must, therefore, distinguish direct educational 
 efforts from indirect or incidental ones, and not 
 only so, but endeavour to specify and arrange the 
 latter with a view to controlling and utilising them. 
 The earliest of extra-scholastic influences is, of 
 course, the family. It covers for the most part the 
 child's life before he enters school at all. It does 
 
 74 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES n 
 
 not cease during school days, and it often extends 
 itself into post-school days. Next in order of time 
 come associates of various kinds — companions, con- 
 temporaries, seniors — often organised for common 
 purposes such as games, scouting, mutual enjoy- 
 ment, or improvement. Then, society at large 
 produces its effect by moulding each rising genera- 
 tion through example and control, in part inform- 
 ally and casually, in part by institutions — courts of 
 justice, town and county councils, and other ad- 
 ministrative and executive bodies. The Church 
 deserves separate notice : in any community pro- 
 fessing religion it must count for much. These 
 four, family, comrades, society (including occupa- 
 tion), church, are the most definite of the informal 
 agencies, and each demands some separate con- 
 sideration. 
 
 I. The child has had a history before the 
 teacher gets an opportunity of influencing him. He 
 comes to school as a product of the home. The 
 early influences are impressed upon plastic material, 
 and it is little wonder if the impress is a very per- 
 manent one. The family stands at the entrance of 
 the child's life, and quite apart from any function 
 that could be called educational, renders physical 
 services without which the child's existence would 
 be cut short at the outset. Of this the statistics of 
 infant mortality afford the most convincing proof. 
 
^^ THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 The initial stages of human life are a blend of 
 physical and psychical, the former preponderating ; 
 it is extremely difficult to determine exactly where 
 one ends and the other begins. Every item, of 
 whichever kind, is important. Phenomena which 
 to the superficial observer may appear indifferent 
 are often of the greatest significance. What the 
 wisest parents and educationists have observed 
 and insisted upon, the general experience of man- 
 kind has confirmed. Many of the impressions that 
 have in after life proved most powerful have been 
 derived from mother or nurse at a period when 
 conscious life had hardly begun. The delicate 
 organism has little stability, little power of resistance. 
 It is almost too susceptible, and yields almost too 
 easily to influence from without. What it most re- 
 quires is protection. Thus it carries to the grave 
 marks impressed in the opening years before edu- 
 cation, as generally understood, has been thought 
 of at all, and these both physical and mental. The 
 parent, in the fijst instance the mother, whether 
 conscious of it or not, is the earliest teacher. Five 
 or six years of family care — ^or neglect — have 
 already set their stamp upon the child, and made 
 him what he is when he enters school. Nursery 
 schools are the solution now offered of some of these 
 early problems. Their existence but slightly affects 
 the general argument. 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES 77 
 
 Doubtless the child is hereditarily predisposed to 
 reproduce the family characteristics. He inherits 
 in some subtle and mysterious combination proper- 
 ties possessed by the parent, though their exact 
 amounts or proportions may not be capable of fore- 
 cast. He resembles his parents more or less in 
 feature, as he comes to do likewise in attitude of 
 body and mind and in outlook on the world. In 
 this particular connection, it does not greatly matter 
 whether it is by nature or by nurture that the child 
 tends to reproduce parent and family, and is the 
 direct outcome of the home. Hereditary predis- 
 position counts for something, but in all probability 
 the suggestions that come from intimate and con- 
 stant personal contact and guidance, and the rela- 
 tions of dependence in which the child stands to 
 his parents, count for far more. That is to say, 
 the child resembles the home rather because he has 
 been brought up in it than because he has been 
 born of it and into it. Improve the upbringing and 
 you do much for the child educationally, and ulti- 
 mately for the nation and the race. If the stock can 
 be simultaneously improved by means of eugenic 
 measures in other directions, it will be all gain. 
 But, as already said, that is the business of the 
 biologist or the social reformer, not of the educa- 
 tionist as such. 
 
 The exigencies of town life in crowded areas have 
 
78 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 of late years somewhat obscured the part played by 
 the family in education. The appeal made by the 
 child has been so urgent that theory has had to give 
 way to immediate measures of relief. Poverty and 
 vice cannot be .allowed to deprive the child of its 
 birthright, and so, failing the family, the State or 
 private benevolence steps in to aid him. But, 
 however necessary such action may be in the 
 child's interest, it cannot do all that the family can 
 do. These are certain of the duties of the family 
 which cannot be delegated. In the long run the 
 child is bound to suffer for the neglect of the parents. 
 Parental responsibility may, if we so determine, be 
 set down as a bogey. The State as over-parent 
 may relieve the parent of irksome duties, and may 
 agree to conduct the child through life from public 
 nursery to public funeral. But ideal citizens will 
 not thereby be produced. Nature has imposed 
 duties of a delicate and essential character upon the 
 family throughout all ranks of creation. In animal 
 and man alike neglect by the family entails a legacy 
 of defect upon the offspring. The fact is written 
 broadly on history since the time of the Romans 
 and beyond." Efforts to aid the child in matters 
 properly belonging to the family are not more than 
 second best, and must be regarded as strictly 
 provisional in character. They are justifiable as a 
 temporary expedient until the family can be restored 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES 79 
 
 to its rightful position. Beyond that, they are 
 bound to result in twofold harm. First, the parents 
 are led to think that their responsibility is at an 
 end when the child has been produced. But more 
 serious, the child himself suffers incalculable loss : 
 the damage is irreparable, for development is in- 
 exorable in its demands, and lost opportunities are 
 never fully recoverable. To some this may sound 
 a truism, to others a paradox. To the educationist 
 it is a vital and permanent principle. Education 
 requires the effort of both home and school, their 
 constant interaction and co-operation. The duty of 
 the State, however and by whomsoever performed, 
 is to see that real homes are within the reach of 
 the humblest of its children. It is a postulate 
 of successful education. If the State is to aid 
 the child it should be through the home, not in 
 substitute for the home. The extent to which aid 
 may safely be given and the manner in which it 
 should be administered, are subject to many con- 
 siderations, and are to be determined according to 
 circumstances. But the fundamental principle is, 
 no home, no education, Le. without a proper home 
 education in the fullest sense is impossible. 
 
 The case of the boarding school is illustration 
 rather than exception. In it the pupil is apparently 
 detached from the home and brought under the 
 management and control of strangers. But whether 
 
8o THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 as preparatory or as public, the school does not aim 
 at superseding, but at reproducing, home life. The 
 house master stands in loco parentis, "so does his 
 wife, and the analogy is applicable in varying de- 
 grees to the matron and the various other officials 
 set over the boy. In this grade of society, the 
 natural parents are too often absent through occu- 
 pation, too much engrossed with affairs, or too 
 unfavourably situated for the healthy rearing of 
 offspring — in the centre of a large city, in India or 
 other foreign country^ Far from neglecting the 
 parental duty, they seek to discharge it more 
 effectively ; and of set purpose they delegate part 
 of their duties to experts who are more favourably 
 situated, and better able to perform them. But 
 full parental responsibility is accepted, and the only 
 question is as to the best method of discharging it. 
 That is a very different matter from the case of the 
 slum-dweller, where the state makes a show of per- 
 forming a few of the elementary duties of the 
 parent, in respect to food, clothing, cleanliness, and 
 still allows the child to reside in the family, to be 
 exposed to its neglect or its vice, and to be satu- 
 rated with its practices and its ideals. 
 
 The prevalent class of school in England and 
 Scotland respectively is, among other things, char- 
 acteristic of somewhat opposed conceptions of the 
 function of the family. In the latter, partly of 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES 8i 
 
 choice and partly of necessity, the day school has 
 been the national type. Apart from the greater 
 economy, the Scotch parent esteems the family 
 influence of such potency that he is jealous of 
 sharing it with another. Even when he could 
 quite well afford it, he does not elect to send his 
 son to a boarding school. Of course, there comes 
 a time when the boy must leave home. But by 
 then he is able to stand alone. He has got great 
 part of his moral outfit, and whether he goes to 
 learned profession or to business, he is able to 
 resist the shock of strange surroundings and new 
 companions. The time of leaving home is that 
 which makes all the difference : too early and too 
 late are, as before, the ominous extremes. Scotch 
 education has this feature at least in common with 
 that of Ancient Rome, it is domestic. This it is that 
 does so much to produce, or at any rate develop, such 
 love of home and the homeland, such strong local 
 patriotism, " clannishness," and other distinctive 
 traits of Scotch character. From kin we expand 
 to kind, and the Scot is not the less successful 
 abroad because his affections are rooted in his 
 own country, in his parish, in his home. 
 
 Many English parents, on the other hand, con- 
 sider it desirable that the home should from an 
 early period be supplemented by a more indepen- 
 dent form of life. Life must eventually be led in 
 
 6 
 
82 The 'SCHOOL and other educators 
 
 publici The sooner the child can look after him- 
 self arid become independent of mother and father, 
 the sooner will he become strong, reliable, and self- 
 contained. The system of public school life de- 
 mands an apprenticeship in the preparatory school, 
 and hence it comes that from the age of 7 or 
 8 the boy's life and interests are mainly in his 
 school, at" home he is hardly more than a visitor 
 during holidays. Where a parent is soldier, sailor, 
 politician or the like, as we have seen, there may 
 really not be much choice. The school in such a 
 case does excellently well — with exceptions of 
 course — what the home could do but partially and 
 indifferently. That -is to say, the school adds to 
 its own proper function of schooling many of the 
 accepted duties of the home, especially in regard to 
 physical care and moral and religious oversight 
 and training. But the home never divests itself of 
 full and final, not to say financial, responsibility, it 
 merely delegates for their more efficient perform- 
 ance certain of the duties which it feels it is itself 
 not in the best position to discharge. It does so, 
 consciously and even of set purpose ; and it co-oper- 
 ates throughout with the school. The latter finds 
 its most powerful lever in the sentiments and active 
 efforts of the home. 
 
 However different, therefore, in conception and 
 in fact the two national systems may be, they rest 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES 83 
 
 alike on an acknowledgment of the great part the 
 family must play in education regarded as one 
 whole and undivided process. 
 
 2. We pass on to consider the influence of 
 companions. A man is known by his friends, 
 that is, he can be judged from the company he 
 haunts, the society he frequents. The child in 
 like manner is moulded and fashioned by the 
 circle with which he is surrounded, the comrades 
 with whom he is thrown. 'The circumstances of 
 pupils present so great varieties in various grades 
 of society that we must think of the different 
 classes as falling into many separate categories 
 according to social and economic environment. 
 Of the majority, whose special interests concern 
 us most nearly, it is unfortunately true that little 
 or no discrimination of company is possible. 
 They herd promiscuously together in streets and 
 squares or in such semi-public retreats as the 
 authorities may provide or permit. They devise 
 their own occupation and entertainment without 
 hindrance or oversight. In cases where family 
 nurture is careful and vigilant, some kind of super- 
 vision is attempted. Children may be warned 
 against, or actually prevented from, forming unde- 
 sirable companionships. But with housing as it is 
 in cities, and parents' occupations as they are, it is 
 almost impossible either to obtain satisfactory con- 
 
84 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 ditions, for children's outside play, or to exercise 
 effective oversight of the choice of companions. 
 If the demands of livelihood preclude so frequently 
 leisure for the cultivation of family life, much less 
 is the parent able to exercise supervision outside 
 the home, in the street, round the corner, or at a 
 later stage, in the fields and woods. Hence it is 
 that play centres have been called into existence. 
 They have already made a large contribution to 
 juvenile well-being. 
 
 As soon, then, as the child attains to power of 
 independent locomotion, not long after the age of 
 3, he is usually at liberty to seek his own as- 
 sociates. Almost of necessity he is thrown upon 
 the society of his nearest neighbours. It has even 
 been suggested that he becomes a member of the 
 secret service and is employed by his mother to 
 collect the gossip of the tenement! The pre- 
 scholastic influence, if chiefly, is by no means 
 exclusively, that of the family. Early friends and 
 comrades have had a share in it. Only for a short 
 period has the family the field to itself. By the 
 time of his entry upon school life the child has 
 acquired certain things not directly derived from 
 the home ; though for them too in the ultimate 
 issue the family, or the conditions which permit 
 the family to be what it is, may have to accept 
 responsibility. 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES 85 
 
 If any doubt be entertained of the educational 
 significance of intercourse with early companions, 
 the child's use of language offers itself as a ready 
 proof. The infant scarcely out of arms is provided 
 with a vocabulary richly furnished with terms of 
 abuse, profanity, and filthy communication. There 
 is no more pathetic sight in the whole range of 
 juvenile neglect than that of a company of what 
 ought to be " innocents " bandying with one another 
 the terms of the gutter. The children are far more 
 sinned against than sinning, but they are none the 
 less being weighted with a load of habit which in later 
 days they will find it difficult even with their best 
 efforts to throw off". The fault here is not wholly, 
 if at all, that of the individual family. Straitened 
 circumstances may prevent adequate supervision, 
 and the habit of language, together with many 
 other undesirable ones, may have been caught from 
 associates, probably senior, with whom the children 
 have almost perforce been thrown in play. No 
 habit is more inveterate than that of language, be 
 it in accent or in vocabulary. If the stream is 
 poisoned at the very fountainhead, what hope of 
 purity in its later course? The terms that were at 
 first mere sound, become in due time instinct with 
 meaning, and may actually induce the realities that 
 lie behind them. And as it is with language, so is 
 it with other early habits, each of which lays a foun- 
 
86 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 dation and imparts a bias not easily removed. In 
 this respect early associates count for much. 
 
 During school life the same process continues, 
 but the child has then greater hope of redemption. 
 The relations in school allow of more voluntary as- 
 sociation among pupils, and sets of pupils, and may 
 even encourage it in helpful directions. Organisa- 
 tion comes more into evidence and along with it 
 some degree of supervision. Games and recreations 
 afford unlimited opportunities for selection of as- 
 sociates and for mutual influence. In the give-and- 
 take of play, children learn freely from one another. 
 At the same time, the systematic conduct of physical 
 exercises and drill does much to redeem this period 
 from the haphazard and fortuitous risks of early life. 
 For example, children come to understand that pro- 
 fanity is not part of the game : the habit suffers at 
 any rate temporary eclipse, for later on it often re- 
 appears in full vigour. They learn the principles 
 of fairplay, honour, mutual assistance, endurance, 
 in great part through the influence of comrades who 
 are the spectators and critics of their performances. 
 Then again, school life gives rise to those affections 
 and admirations which provide intimacies and 
 friendships that last through the whole of life. The 
 period of hero-worship comes a little later, and adds 
 a fresh element, becoming a power to mould con- 
 duct and ideal. It has its roots in the elementary 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES 87 
 
 period, but is not in full force till subsequently. 
 The bare enumeration of the various items is suf- 
 ficient to show to what an extent the man is moulded 
 by the companions of his childhood, boyhood, and 
 youth. A school friendship or an attachment aris- 
 ing out of admiration for a schoolboy leader in 
 sport or study may become the most powerful and 
 enduring of all the elements of youthful experience, 
 superseding that of home, parents, and family them- 
 selves. It is unnecessary, and it would probably be 
 fruitless, to attempt to estimate the exact degree in 
 which the final outcome is the result of family and 
 of friends respectively. The main point is that 
 comrades do count and count for much. Into the 
 formation of that inscrutable thing a human char- 
 acter there enters as a distinct though subtle in- 
 gredient the companionship of those with whom 
 the child consorts, at first in pre-school days, then 
 during the whole course of his school life. It re- 
 mains too after formal schooling is over, when the 
 man becomes a free agent at liberty to choose his 
 own society and worship his own heroes. 
 
 3. Society at large sets its stamp upon each new 
 member. It does so in a great variety of ways. 
 The family and the school are themselves, of course, 
 great social institutions, specially designed to ad- 
 vance the interests of the young. But outside of 
 these, and extending into regions untouched by 
 
88 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 them, are the informal, unorganised and impalpable 
 forces emanating from our fellows, our times, and our 
 place and occupation, which, silent and unnoticed as 
 they may be at the time, yet leave indelible marks. 
 We are so constituted as to gravitate toward pre- 
 valent standards. Born into an organised and 
 ordered society we cannot escape its hold. Things 
 may have been different when civilisation was less 
 advanced, and when the individual counted for 
 more. But we have, for better for worse, left all 
 that behind. No one is now so powerful or so in- 
 dependent that he can remain indifferent to the 
 customs and opinions of his fellows. Fashion rests 
 upon a universal tendency in human nature, and it 
 becomes increasingly potent as society gets con- 
 firmed in its ways, and the weight of tradition be- 
 comes greater. In morals as in dress we do not 
 care to differ greatly from the prevailing mode. 
 We are affected by our fellows in a vast number of 
 ways, and natiirally the younger and newer members 
 of society are affected most powerfully . It may be 
 due to inherent human weakness, or it may be the 
 result of moral sympathy and susceptibility ; the 
 child takes his cue from those around him in family 
 and school, and the youth tends to reproduce the 
 traits of society, of the world at large, as he finds it 
 on his entry. We take on a kind of protective 
 moral colouring, avoiding the extremes of overmuch 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES 89 
 
 righteousness and overmuch wickedness. Con- 
 formity is the line of least resistance, the exceptions 
 are either cranks, or, if the occasion is of sufficient 
 importance, martyrs. 
 
 The ways in which society affects its members 
 differ for the individual, and it would be impossible 
 to specify them with any completeness. Each one 
 is in a very real sense his brother's keeper. Con- 
 sciously and unconsciously we affect, and are affected 
 by, one another in countless ways, overt and occult, 
 in every relation and transaction of life. The child 
 exhibits his organic unity with the man in being the 
 reflection of those around him, in adopting the ob- 
 servances, the opinions, and the standards of society 
 at large, as he understands or conceives of them. 
 He does, and is bound to do, what others do, what is 
 customary. It is a matter of degree. The degree 
 of influence will be roughly in proportion to his re- 
 lation _ to the particular member of society with 
 whom he is in contact. From parent and teacher 
 the circle extends in ever- widening compass to 
 relative, benefactor, acquaintance, stranger. 
 
 If associations of confidence and helpfulness have 
 been established, the influence is correspondingly 
 increased. Comprehension and appreciation of act 
 and motive also aid. But beyond this, casual un- 
 comprehended conduct of mere strangers, incidents, 
 ceremonies, public order, transaction of business. 
 
90 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 society in its endless formal and informal agencies, 
 civil, military, naval, official, and so forth — all 
 tend to affect the child and to shape him to the 
 conditions in which his life will have to be passed. 
 This is equivalent to saying that suggestion plays 
 an important part in every life and especially in 
 every young life. Its operation is at once extremely 
 subtle and extremely powerful. The particular 
 ways in which the psychical chord will respond to 
 stimuli can never be forecast. A word, a look, a 
 sign or gesture, all undesigned, may leave an abid- 
 ing impress upon the character, occasionally even 
 change the current of the life. Our intellectual and 
 emotional affinities extend beyond knowledge or 
 control. Antecedently at any rate they baffie an- 
 ticipation, and so have to be ascertained by ex- 
 perience. Wide differences exist among individuals 
 and among nations in the degrees of susceptibility. 
 Stability is greater in some, less in others. The 
 risk of undue compliance is naturally greater in 
 early life, before the character has gained the power 
 of resistance that comes from settled habits and a 
 reasoned scheme of knowledge and of life. Society 
 in relation to the child is scarcely more than the 
 family and comrades writ large. To the more in- 
 timate relations of the latter the less intimate but 
 far wider and more varied social relations and in- 
 fluences are the sequel and supplement, The moral 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES 91 
 
 sympathy which at first is attracted toward imitative 
 reproduction, comes in process of time to find its 
 outlet, not in the narrow sphere of the home or 
 school, but in the ampler circle of more public life. 
 Thus the child, as he grows up and moves more 
 freely among his fellows and his seniors, is exposed 
 to a multitude of appeals, acting by way of sugges- 
 tion, that tend to call forth a response, sometimes in 
 admiration and compliance, sometimes in loathing 
 and rejection. What the grand outcome may be 
 it' is impossible certainly to predict, difficult so much 
 as to conjecture. Suggestion may act even by con- 
 trariety, we do the evil that we would not. Hence 
 the care with which children have to be guarded from 
 temptation until the sentiments havejaeen so fortified 
 and the judgment so enlightened that at any rate 
 thegrosser forms of suggestion will create revulsion 
 and serve to strengthen not weaken the moral fibre. 
 Some of the most noticeable effects in youthful 
 conduct are due to literature and drama, which 
 satisfy the curiosity, fire the imagination, and set 
 forth attractive models of conduct. The step from 
 admiration to imitation is a short and easy one. 
 The ideal may be exalted or it may be debased, 
 noble or ignoble. In some breast it finds an echo, 
 and it is reproduced in deeds of heroism or of crime. 
 This element deserves distinct notice ; it may per- 
 haps be most appropriately placed among the social 
 
92 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 agencies. The taste for pure literature is cultivated 
 in the home and is made a special object in the 
 school. But society comes in athwart such effort, 
 and attacks the boy (or girl) from a different angle 
 where his defences may be very weak. Current 
 literature — the newspaper, the periodical, the illus- 
 trated, the cheap novel — the theatre, the music hall, 
 and the picture house are modes in which the 
 activities and tastes of society reveal themselves, 
 and become a part of the milieu of the child. Even 
 if they did not exert such a fascination as they often 
 do, the safety of youth could not be guaranteed. 
 The soil has been untilled, and the baser passions are 
 too easily aroused. Therefore were matters other- 
 wise than they are, and the child were entirely cut 
 off from dramatic exhibitions, literature would still 
 be one of the most powerful and constant of influ- 
 ences. In the selection of his reading the pupil is 
 practically a free agent. After all has been done 
 for him that school or parent can do, he is still ex- 
 posed to risks against which he alone can protect 
 himself. The debasement of the novel and of a 
 section of the press is one of the most serious signs 
 of national declension ; for presumably the sensa- 
 tion, the falsehood, and the filth must find readers. 
 It cannot be enlarged on here, but some remedy 
 must be found for it, if the heart of youth is to be 
 kept clean and pure. 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES 93 
 
 The methods by which the child may be protected 
 and guided through the maze of social influences 
 belong to another department of the subject. The 
 present aim is to make plain the reality, and the 
 importance in the child's life, of this influence of 
 society, which generally fails of adequate recogni- 
 tion. The man is made what he is, in part through 
 the unseen leaven of society. Without any com- 
 plete organisation and without definite purpose 
 society yet suggests, encourages, approves, enforces 
 conformity to its views and standards.. The child 
 becomes the reflection and product of his age and 
 nation no less than of the practices and traditions 
 of his home, the example of his companions, or the 
 instruction of his teachers.' 
 
 Organised forms of society such as occupation, 
 political association, benevolent institution, are in 
 themselves of great importance both as direct 
 agencies and as social engines, but they belong to 
 the mature period of life. They affect the man 
 rather than the child, and lie beyond our scope. 
 
 4. Of the Church it is difficult to speak without 
 entering upon debatable ground. To take things 
 as they are, the majority of mankind in this and 
 other nations profess religion of some sort. The 
 outward and visible machinery is a Church system 
 and ordinances. As for the rest, the place of wor- 
 ship may be cathedral, church, chapel, temple, 
 
94 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 synagogue, or mosque. If young people are to 
 attend church — as they do — they are bound to be 
 affected in a peculiar way by its services. They 
 have opportunity of learning certain things, but 
 they are appealed to in other ways than that 
 of intellectual interest. In many sections of the 
 Christian Church the children are specially catered 
 for, and the fullest advantage is taken of occasions 
 of instruction and of moral guidance. The emotions 
 are touched through vocal praise ; by exhortation 
 and appropriate forms of devotion appeal is made 
 to mind and heart alike. The Sunday school 
 chooses as its special object to instruct and to in- 
 terest, and so to influence ; its aim is professedly 
 educational, as its name implies. Then, in its 
 pastoral and social work, visitation, ministration 
 to the poor, sick and aged, the Church works upon 
 the home and the family life in numberless ways, 
 which are bound to filter down to the children. At 
 a later period, the Guild, Institute, Association, or 
 Society, affords an additional agency of a more 
 systematic and purposed nature. 
 
 The position of the Church in education has in 
 England turned largely upon the management and 
 support of Church schools. This, being a question 
 of educational administration, is irrelevant to our 
 present consideration, and, if allowed a place, would 
 merely obscure the issues. It may be as right as 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES 95 
 
 possible, or it may be as wrong as possible, for the 
 Church to concern itself with the financial and ad- 
 ministrative control of schools : no opinion need be 
 expressed one way or other. The Church agencies 
 relevant to religious influence on the life of the 
 young are Church services, pastoral ministry in its 
 widest scope, and the Sunday school with the allied 
 activities springing out of it. No one will seek to 
 deny that in these the Church wields an influence 
 calculated to produce the most profound effect on 
 mind and heart, on character and life. For genera- 
 tions, with untold numbers, it has done so. The 
 young are unconsciously moulded into the type ; 
 they become moral, refined, pious ; almost unknown 
 to themselves or to others the whole lump is 
 leavened. Such result is far from universal, but in 
 many of the exceptions the fault does not lie prim- 
 arily with the Church. Large numbers of parents 
 never enter a church, and know of it only in con- 
 nection with birth, marriage, and death, and then 
 for decency's sake. The children get no chance of 
 religious influence unless through mission schools. 
 The Church's lack of power to attract, of which such 
 frequent complaint is heard, may be due to internal 
 or to external causes. In our capacity as Church 
 members, we may be interested to trace it to its 
 source, and, if possible, to provide a remedy for it. 
 But as educationists we are concerned with different 
 
96 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 matters. In particular we desire to ascertain what 
 factors of educative influence the Church as a 
 spiritual agency does, or may, be expected to con- 
 tribute, a problem of no great difficulty, since 
 Church agencies and their objects are so open and 
 above board. 
 
 In the first place, the Church imparts both di- 
 rectly and indirectly religious instruction, it conveys 
 to the child knowledge of objective facts and leading 
 principles of religion, and familiarises him with its 
 incomparable text-book, the Bible. In the second, 
 it is a great moral instructor, inculcating from the 
 very outset the most essential of all moral lessons, 
 the eternal difference of good and evil, the impass- 
 able gulf between right and wrong. By empha- 
 sising ethical quality, it prepares the way for 
 obedience to the moral law. By rooting the moral 
 law in the Divine Will it provides the one and only 
 inviolable and irresistible moral sanction. Upon 
 life it helps to bestow a new sanctity, to impart to 
 ordinary affairs a new significance, to consecrate 
 service in every sphere. Life is supplied with its 
 interpretation, moral aspiration with its incentive, 
 oiily when viewed " under the aspect of eternity ". 
 The Church aids the child in his efforts in these 
 directions, though it may not be able to lay claim 
 to the whole of the credit. The rudiments are 
 imbibed at the mother's breast, or instilled on the 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES 97 
 
 father's knee. Religious observances, if happily 
 they are maintained in the family, predispose to- 
 ward, prepare for, and co-operate with, the Church. 
 Destitute of religion, the family has lost its most 
 sacred bond and its most potent influence : deprived 
 of religious rites in the home, the children have 
 much less chance of benefiting from the services of 
 the Church. But even were the family all it ought 
 to be, and is not, the Church would still have a 
 function hardly less important. Just as the school 
 represents the collective social agency in instruction 
 and related concerns, so the Church stands for social 
 religion, and is necessary as an extension and ad- 
 dition to private devotion. It adds the helpfulness 
 of numbers, the mutual benefit derived by all from 
 each and by each from all, the fervour of sympathy, 
 the sense of confidence and power which numbers 
 and union alone can give. An organisation and 
 services are an integral portion, and a visible proof, 
 of the life of the Church ; they are no less a prime 
 essential to its continued vitality. If religion is a 
 postulate of life and so of education, it must be held 
 to imply religious institutions. The school presup- 
 poses the necessity of religion, and may therefore 
 presuppose assistance from its established agencies 
 in moulding the life of the child. The Church for 
 its own sake, if not for that of the child, must not 
 merely be living ; it must be vigorously healthy, 
 
 7 
 
98 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 active, progressive, militant, if it aspire to be finally 
 triumphant. 
 
 Thus, the Church according to its opportunities 
 in its services and ceremonies, in its direct activities 
 and in its indirect bearing upon the home, takes 
 rank with family, and school, and society, as a 
 powerful agept in the child's early years. Without 
 it he would be something different from what he 
 is, -and the schools would be something different, 
 whether better or worse is hardly at the moment 
 the question. The point is that in our country as 
 at present constituted, and in most other countries, 
 the Church may and does contribute an educative 
 element of very appreciable importance, greater or 
 less in volume according to the prevalence or im- 
 potence of the Church in the place and home to 
 which the child belongs. 
 
 We may now sum up the results of our discussion 
 on this part of the subject. To consider the schoql 
 as the sole agent in education, leaving out of view 
 the other influences that go to mould the child and 
 make him what he eventually becomes, is to fall 
 into one of the most profound of all educational 
 errors. In general terms, the school supplies formal 
 instruction, training, direct help, and guidance. 
 But the informal agencies are the forces that go 
 farthest toward determining the final outcome of the 
 whole series. Education as a life process cannot 
 
EDUCATIONAL AGENTS AND AGENCIES 99 
 
 be understood unless we look beyond the school, 
 and include in our view the relation in which the 
 school stands to the other portions of the child's 
 experience and their mutual bearings. In the play 
 of the composite forces upon early life each element 
 is not susceptible of definite separate resolution and 
 analysis. The light that shines upon the child is 
 a union of parti-coloured rays from many sources. 
 What elements outside the scho'bl deserve to rank 
 as of first-rate importance is fair matter of opinion 
 and debate. No doubt they vary to some extent 
 in different cases. But we cannot be wrong in re- 
 garding family, companions, society at large, church, 
 as four worthy of ranking in the very highest place. 
 The first and the last are definitely organised, the 
 others are more casual in their incidence. Account 
 must throughout be taken of modifications and ex- 
 ceptions as well of circumstances as of individuals. 
 From one or other of the agencies the child may 
 be withdrawn, at least for a time, though he will in 
 some respects suffer for it. If the family is large 
 it may supply the place of comrades. If children 
 are strictly supervised and provided with resources 
 indoors, suggestion from without will be less power- 
 ful. Where life is rural, society will count for less. 
 And so on we may except and qualify. None of 
 the agencies is in the last issue actually a necessity 
 of existence except the family. Without it or a 
 
 7* 
 
100 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 substitute for it school could do nothing, for there 
 would be no children to be educated. When we 
 think of what the world would be without friends, 
 without society, without an outlook above and be- 
 yond, we may form some conception of what these 
 impalpable influences, the informal agencies in 
 education, really mean in every life, old and young. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CAUSE IN THE LIGHT OF EFFECT. 
 
 Education may be viewed either from the a priori 
 or the a /^^/^rz'on standpoint. In most discussions 
 the former is assumed as almost a matter of course. 
 The child is the centre of the problem, and we 
 think of his education as a development of capacities 
 and possibilities. What will this child become ? 
 what can be made of him ? are the questions that 
 naturally face the parent and the teacher. At each 
 stage the past is regarded merely as a basis and 
 new starting point : it is the future that interests 
 us. We may not hope to mend the past, but the 
 future offers fresh opportunity. If we have erred 
 hitherto, we shall not err in time to come, in so far 
 as there may be a time to come. With the educator 
 above all men hope is eternally springing, however 
 rarely it blossoms. 
 
 But it is equally open to ask concerning ourselves 
 or others, when days of youth and susceptibility 
 are over, How have I become what I am ? How 
 has he, how have they, become what they are ? 
 
102 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 Biography, autobiography, subjective experience, 
 knowledge of character, experience of the world, 
 will all supply material that may prove of value to 
 the educator. Instead of, or in addition to, trying 
 to produce contemplated effects by the use of 
 specific means, he may begin at the other end, and 
 inquire how specific effects have been produced, 
 what means have been effective in bringing about 
 definite and observed results, good or bad. Here 
 is a man of great learning, influence, piety, force of 
 character : what is the secret of it ? There is a 
 despicable wretch, a sot, a thief, a criminal : did 
 this man sin, or his parents — or his teachers ? If — 
 and the hypothesis is a large one-:-any definite 
 reply could be given to questions of this kind, it 
 would be of infinite value both positively as a guide 
 and negatively as a warning or deterrent. If virtue 
 has been taught in any particular case, why not by 
 the same means in all cases ? If vice has been the 
 outcome of defective training, then the defects may 
 surely be made good, and the disastrous conse- 
 quence avoided in others. 
 
 But here again experience warns us not to ex- 
 pect too much. The method would be admirable, 
 were it wholly practicable and reliable, but the 
 nature of the circumstances renders it difficult 
 and uncertain of application. To begin with, in 
 cases where self is made the starting point, subjec- 
 
CAUSE IN THE LIGHT OF EFFECT 103 
 
 tive inquiry and inference are notoriously fallacious. 
 No man can judge quite fairly of himself. He may 
 be perfectly honest and sincere, he may try hard 
 to detach himself, but when the observer becomes 
 at the same time the observed, the dice are loaded 
 against him. He cannot form an impartial estimate 
 either of his powers or of his character. He may 
 as readily attach to himself too low as too high a 
 value, but none the less surely is he mistaken. 
 His mind may possess some peculiarity of endow- 
 ment, his moral nature some idiosyncrasy. He 
 generalises from his own case and gets a distorted 
 view both of himself and of his fellows. Should he 
 unfortunately lack a sense of humour and take 
 himself too seriously, the macrocosm may be the 
 enlarged microcosm : the last state will, for educa- 
 tional purposes, be worse than the first. No one 
 is an abridgment of all that is good or bad, wise 
 or foolish, strong or weak, scarcely of all that is 
 pleasant in man. Apart from the risk of morbid- 
 ity, introspection affords only partial and limited 
 knowledge. 
 
 Self-examination with a view to the discovery of 
 the relation of cause and effect is subject to other 
 limitations less peculiar to itself. In the complex 
 that goes to make up the resultant known as educa- 
 tion, or the educated man, introspection will fail to 
 relate each particular item to its specific origin. 
 
104 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 For example, a man of 50 finds himself, as he 
 thinks, keenly observant. He observes the winds 
 and regards the clouds, he marks with unabated 
 interest the seasonal life of plant and bird and 
 animal, he has an eye for the landscape with its 
 constantly shifting lights and shades, and so on. 
 Not only so, but he notes features, gait, habits, and 
 even attire of his fellows. The tones of conversa- 
 tion, the nuances of phrasing, the covert humour, 
 the passion held in rein cannot escape his alert 
 faculty. And so through the whole range, at 
 every pore he absorbs with greedy interest new 
 itnpressions from the world and from his fellows. 
 He may ask himself, without any desire of self- 
 laudation, am I more observant than other men, 
 my contemporaries. If I am, how has it come 
 about ? Was it a gift of nature, which training, 
 circumstances and good health have kept alive ? 
 Did my parents or teachers stimulate and foster it ? 
 Is it native or acquired, and if acquired, how ? 
 May others be guided to cultivate a quality so 
 valuable as a means of knowledge and power, so 
 conducive to healthy enjoyment of the world and 
 its inhabitants ? There are here many possibilities 
 of mistake, alike in the premises and in the lines 
 of argument and conclusions. The two chief are 
 a wrong estimate of the character of the data, and 
 a reference of the data to the wrong causes, in 
 
CAUSE IN THE LIGHT OF EFFECT 105 
 
 particular the selection of a single cause where 
 many causes are involved. 
 
 An obvious method of checking subjective ob- 
 servation is to obtain parallel facts relating to others 
 than ourselves. Or discarding self altogether, we 
 may endeavour to read the character and attain- 
 ments of others in the light of their educational 
 history. Here is a man who is so scrupulously 
 conscientious that he is unhappy for a week if by a 
 lapsus calami he has informed you it was on the 
 fourth of the month that he passed through London 
 when in reality it was on the fifth. Here is another 
 who cannot be sure whether the order is Nehemiah, 
 Ezra or Nehemiah, Esther, though he is certain he 
 onCe knew. In more serious matters we are quick 
 to detect gaps in our neighbour's knowledge, and 
 we may be generous enough even at 50 to admire 
 his accomplishments and powers though we cannot 
 rival them. The question arises as in our own 
 case, is the feature of mind, be it gift or blemish, 
 due to congenital endowment or is it the result, 
 directly or indirectly, of training and education ? 
 
 So far, it can scarcely be claimed that this method 
 has made much progress, or given results that can 
 be' relied on for the practical purposes of education. 
 The same quality appears to be attributed by dif- 
 ferent observers to quite different sources ; what 
 is exceptional has been regarded as normal, and 
 
io6 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 conversely ; an individual is made the measure 
 of all his fellows. If the method, however, is to 
 prove as fruitful as it seems capable of becoming, 
 a good deal must be done before it can rank 
 as scientific. In general, the basis of observation 
 should be objective. Subjective experience will 
 be useful in a critical and interpretative capacity, 
 but in itself is far too narrow and otherwise too 
 deceptive. The range of observation of others 
 must be very wide and varied. It is only when 
 effect is found following cause with some degree 
 of uniformity in scores or hundreds of cases, where 
 differences in conditions issue in corresponding 
 differences in results, where the method of con- 
 comitant variations, or some equally reliable canon 
 can be applied, that we shall be justified in attach- 
 ing consequent to antecedent in causal sequence. 
 Even the risk of misinterpretation is always pre- 
 sent and to be guarded against. We may fail to 
 enter into the mind of our brother : — 
 
 What's done we partly may compute, 
 But know not what's resisted. 
 
 Under regulated and standardised conditions how- 
 ever, the procedure may usefully be employed 
 to supplement and check the more ordinary 
 measures of the educator. 
 
 As already hinted, the a posteriori method (nay 
 
CAUSE IN THE LIGHT OF EFFECT 107 
 
 be used at any and every stage of life. The 
 teacher is constantly appealing to it when he ad- 
 mits new pupils to his class or school. The future 
 has to build upon the past, and the latter must 
 therefore be discovered to the extent necessary for 
 grading in class at any rate. But, of course, at 
 this stage the traits of mind have not become so 
 stereotyped as to form permanent features. They 
 require to be known often merely that they may be 
 altered or removed. The main task of the observer 
 of results lies elsewhere, namely in endeavouring to 
 trace the relation of the later periods of life to the 
 earlier. By the fruits of educational effort we may 
 in part judge of tne value of the methods by which 
 they have been obtained, and may be guided to the 
 adoption of appropriate forms, whether the old ones, 
 or modifications to render them more suitable for 
 our purpose. Ordinarily by the use of what we 
 regard as the right means we endeavour to effect 
 our more or less clearly conceived ends. The ad- 
 dition of the retrospect and review of our efforts in 
 the light of their results will be a further security 
 that means and end have been brought into strict- 
 est accord. The methods are correlative to one 
 another, either forming a check upon the other. 
 We must see the end from the beginning, and we 
 must read the end actually attained in light of the 
 
io8 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 beginning and of the \yay by which we have come. 
 But in order to apply the a posteriori method, the 
 teacher must look far beyond school and school life ; 
 he must become, in Gibbon's term, " the philo- 
 sopher ". 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE CURRICULUM. 
 
 No topic in the whole range of education has given 
 rise to more serious differences of opinion or to more 
 constant debate than the curriculum ; nor do we 
 seem any nearer a decision than at the start. The 
 reasons for this are in part well-grounded, in part 
 mistaken. For example, different kinds of know- 
 ledge are inherently of greater or less value accord- 
 ing to the bearing they have upon human life. It 
 is more important to understand the action of the 
 heart and the lungs than to have a delicate ap- 
 preciation of the shades of colour that are becoming 
 to one's complexion. Many things must be known 
 in order to maintain existence and relations with 
 our fellows, while many other things are of com- 
 parative unimportance for the purpose. The reefs 
 and currents of the South Seas are interesting 
 enough in themselves, but their value as informa- 
 tion is far inferior, for a Briton, to the time table of 
 local trains and buses, or the routes to and from 
 
 business. There is solid ground for preferring one 
 
 109 
 
1 10 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 kind of knowledge to another from this direct bear- 
 ing that it has upon our immediate concerns and 
 interests. Knowledge, again, changes its value 
 from age to age, eventually it may "vanish away " 
 altogether. Some acquaintance with the habits of 
 cycles, motors and aeroplanes is nowadays very 
 essential ; it could have had no place as recently 
 as a century ago. Here we have very sufficient 
 reasons why the curriculum as representing know- 
 ledge has been, and is likely to remain, a subject 
 of debate, and worth debating, first, in its varying 
 degrees, second, in its changes, of value. 
 
 But, on the other hand, the assumption is often 
 tacitly made that knowledge or information is the 
 be-all and the end-all of education, that the func- 
 tion of the school is merely to convey knowledge, 
 and that its success is to be tested by the number 
 of useful facts that it imparts to its pupils, useful, 
 in this connection, implying that the facts bear 
 directly upon occupation and livelihood. Spencer's 
 well-known analysis of the curriculum in the first 
 chapter of his Education proceeds largely on this 
 assumption, and is indeed based on a scheme of 
 the activities of life which assigns the first place 
 to direct preservatitrn of the sentient life, and the 
 second to livelihood. 
 
 However little disposed we may be to accept 
 Spencer's order of value we must be grateful for 
 
THE CURRICULUM iii 
 
 the light he has thrown on the whole subject, and 
 we must adopt something resembling his method 
 of inquiry, if we are to reach any reasoned conclu- 
 sions at all. That is to say, criteria of knowledge 
 values must be discovered before any curriculum 
 whatever can be laid down. Unless some agree- 
 ment be reached as to the purposes to be served 
 by the material of instruction, the whole selection 
 must remain matter of arbitrary or individual 
 opinion. In the lower creation hardly any ana- 
 logous difficulty arises. The parent is guided by 
 what is termed instinct, which seldom errs. The 
 range of knowledge to be acquired, if knowledge it 
 can be called, is very limited, and the natural en- 
 dowment of the young animal enables it to re- 
 spond in the required ways without what in man 
 would be termed volition, and apparently without 
 serious difficulty or, so far a's can be judged, much 
 effort. Its curriculum is one of doing rather than 
 of knowing and is confined to obvious practical 
 ends. Its observation is well developed, but it has 
 no subjective needs as man has, e.g. in memory, 
 imagination, and other powers, to which know- 
 ledge might be made to minister. An apostle of 
 Naturalism like Spencer finds the need of any 
 selection of a curriculum even for the child an 
 " awkward-looking question," as well he might. If 
 Nature is the best guide to parent and child alike, 
 
1 12 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 why should she not have made provision of the 
 suitable material of study without leaving it to the 
 arbitrary and blundering choice of man ? We have 
 presumably got too far away from Nature's simple 
 and direct ways. As Spencer puts it, the human 
 organism has become too complex to be self-directed 
 in the immature. To us it is no more than a 
 further illustration- of the truth that man has to do 
 for himself by means of reason what the animal 
 gets done for it by a power without it, or at least 
 beyond its distinct consciousness. 
 
 The curriculum is a human product. Its neces- 
 sity arises first from the helplessness of the child, 
 and second from the achievements of his kind. 
 The child is born ignorant but is heir to a rich 
 heritage of knowledge. How, can he be put into 
 possession of the heritage, or of so much of it as 
 he is able to occupy ? and what portions of it are 
 of immediate and urgent importance, what of only 
 subordinate and secondary importance ? These are 
 the chief questions to be answered. 
 
 The ends of life discussed in a previous chapter 
 constitute the first criterion. They show the uses 
 to which knowledge is eventually to be, applied, 
 the ultimate and permanent order of importance. 
 They go so far to establish at once a presumption 
 of knowledge values. Knowledge is the means or 
 method or way which is determined by the end to 
 
THE CURRICULUM 113 
 
 which it leads. Illustration is abundant at every 
 turn. To know what is true and right and good is 
 of more abiding value than to know the anatomy 
 and the physiology of the human body. To be 
 acquainted with literature and art is preferable 
 to knowledge of book-keeping or commercial arith- 
 metic. Seldom perhaps has an absolute choice to 
 be made between such contrasted pairs, but on 
 many occasions the scale of values consciously and 
 unconsciously affects our estimate and our practice. 
 We are always more ready to be satisfied with the 
 tangible and the apparent, and to chance the rest, 
 to " take the Cash and let the Credit go ". But the 
 teacher can never afford to forget that in the last 
 resort the true scale of values counts, or that know- 
 ledge bearing on moral and spiritual interests is of 
 higher denomination and more permanent worth 
 than any other kind. The difference in material of 
 knowledge is primarily one of ends quite as much 
 as of means, perhaps more. So long as there are 
 divided views on matters of such high moment as 
 the chief end of man, so long is it inevitable that 
 the curriculists shall form rival camps. 
 
 But a complete statement of this side of the ques- 
 tion goes further than that. It must not be assumed, 
 as almost universally seems to be done, that the order 
 of ultimate value is also that of educational sequence. 
 
 The essential and permanent things of life are late 
 
 8 
 
1 14 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 in coming. The body takes precedence of the 
 spirit in growth, development, and decay. Educa- 
 tion has to observe and wait upon function. High 
 moral truth is quite beyond the child's grasp, infor- 
 mation bearing directly upon occupation is for the 
 most part in the same category. The educator 
 must proceed, not as he would, but as he may, i.e. 
 as the possibilities of developing life allow. Edu- 
 cation follows the child, and never more so than 
 in the selection of material which must be at once 
 intelligible, interesting, and at the same time 
 possess some bearing upon life at its best and 
 fullest. Even in the unlikely event of complete 
 unanimity as to the ends of life and their relative 
 order, much of the curriculum would be still to 
 seek ; for the order of intrinsic value would be 
 impossible of application to the child. This prin- 
 ciple, regulative as it must be of all attempts to 
 instruct, is one that seldom finds full and explicit 
 acceptance. But its implications are numerous 
 and important. It at once precludes in the early 
 period specialisation of studies, vocational training, 
 and direct moral instruction, all excellent in them- 
 selves, but possible only at the right time, which is 
 later. The succession of development is the base 
 line along which the educator works. An old head 
 cannot be put on young shoulders. Knowledge of 
 infinite value must yet wait its turn : meantime the 
 
THE CURRICULUM 115 
 
 foundation is being laid on which it can be securely 
 built. 
 
 Further, it must be remembered that very little 
 of the child's early knowledge, that is, up to the age 
 of 10 or 12, is gained in the exact form in which it 
 will afterwards be retained. No doubt 7 times 7 
 will remain 49, and the formula, whensoever really 
 mastered, will be of service all through life ; but 
 the facts in this category are comparatively few. 
 Poetry is an excellent vehicle for early instruction. 
 But poetry quite suitable for children will in course 
 of time cease to appeal, and its place will be taken 
 by a different range of poetic interest. The other 
 studies of early days — nature knowledge, geo- 
 graphy, history — will at a later period all present 
 their contents under new aspects, so that the mere 
 form and amount of knowledge acquired by the 
 child in the very early days of his education shrink 
 into comparatively narrow limits. 
 
 This is all more or less negative ; the order of 
 permanent values, even if agreed on, cannot be ap- 
 plied to the child ; studies of whatever subject must 
 wait upon development, early knowledge forms are 
 rarely permanent. It does not, of course, follow 
 that the child should therefore remain idle. So 
 much in all has to be learned, and there is so much 
 that may be learned, even in the earliest days, 
 that no fragment of time or energy can be lost 
 
1 16 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 without involving a penalty more or less severe. 
 Before attempting, however, to reach any positive 
 conclusions, we must glance at one or two other 
 considerations that afifect the whole question of 
 the curriculum. 
 
 School is so constantly thought of as a place of 
 learning that it may be difficult to conceive of any 
 other occupation than lessons during school hours 
 and school days. The conception was natural and 
 almost necessary while the school was a partial and 
 limited agency in society, serving only a fraction of 
 the population and having little direct bearing on the 
 very youthful period. The pupil might enjoy some 
 early advantages in the family or elsewhere, but he 
 did not enter the school until he was able to learn, 
 while study, with its concomitants, was the sole 
 purpose of his schooling. Many, indeed a large 
 majority, never entered it at all. The extension of 
 elementary education and its projection into the 
 child's earlier days have altered the situation and 
 have imparted a new and wider meaning to educa- 
 tion even as schooling. Fuller psychological know- 
 ledge, e.g. of the child's activity, his desire to re-act, 
 and to express himself, the phenomena of spontane- 
 ous action in play and so on, has further extended 
 our ideas, besides throwing additional light on 
 phases of education already in part familiar to us. 
 One great outcome has been the fuller recognition 
 
THE CURRICULUM 117 
 
 of the fact that doing as well as learning is an in- 
 tegral portion of the educational process. In the 
 last resort, each is his own educator, self-instruction 
 is the only real instruction. The truth, dimly per- 
 ceived many ages ago, has now at length emerged 
 into the full light, and taken rank among those of 
 vital moment. The pupil must be active, not merely 
 passive, if he is to benefit by instruction. He must 
 respond as well as receive. Provide him with 
 suitable media and environment and he will go far 
 toward educating hirnself He is benefited only by 
 what he assimilates. 'In whatever form the truth is 
 stated — for there is a score of forms — it is now 
 axiomatic, and has a direct bearing upon the choice 
 of material from the outset and all through. 
 
 " Doing " assumes other forms than that of 
 learning; It is involved in all acts of mental assi- 
 milation, but goes much beyond. Physical exercise, 
 whether spontaneous in play or regulated under 
 supervision and direction, is one form of "doing". 
 Manual work is another, whose possibilities have 
 only of late been adequately explored. Such 
 branches of nature study as investigation of sur- 
 roundings in country rambles and excursions, topo- 
 graphical exploration, and collection of objects of 
 interest, may rank as still another form. There is 
 no hard and fast line between the physical and the 
 mental. While the activity of doing constitutes the 
 
1 18 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 incentive and the enjoyment, the resulting know- 
 ledge may be both extensive and accurate ; it is 
 almost certain to be abiding. 
 
 The principle of " doing," that is, of utilising the 
 innate desire toward activity, is not opposed, but 
 instrumental and complementary, to that of learning 
 in the narrower sense of the term. The muscular 
 co-operation helps largely to procure permanent 
 lodgment of the knowledge, by associating with it 
 a kind of emotional satisfaction ; at the same time 
 it greatly enlarges the range of experience and 
 therewith of knowledge. It adds interest, secures 
 the foundations, and lays up store of first-hand im- 
 pressions which are invaluable both in themselves 
 and as interpretative agents in knowledge gained 
 from other than direct sources. 
 
 Another question which thecurriculist can scarcely 
 avoid is the vexed one of " formal training ". Ac- 
 cording to the theory that underlies it, material of 
 study is to be estimated chiefly, if not exclusively, 
 not by the amount of knowledge, however valuable, 
 it conveys, but by the mental habits it engenders 
 and the mental character it produces. Mathematics, 
 for example — though the mathematicians are by no 
 means conspicuous in advocacy of the doctrine — is 
 of value as a rigid training in logic, in the observ- 
 ance of strict rule, in the use of given material, 
 in the prevention of unjustifiable assumptions, sur- 
 
THE CURRICULUM 119 
 
 Feptitious liberties, and unwarrantable conclusions. 
 Such a habit of mind once acquired is alleged to 
 be transferred to other subjects, and to be an abid- 
 ing possession, a valuable acquisition for life. The 
 facts of mathematics 'may or may not be of value. 
 It is in this connection an accident, more or less, 
 that they are applicable, for the service of human 
 life, in many fields of industry and speculation. 
 The educational merit of the study lies in the 
 mental discipline. Hence not merely in respect to 
 mathematics but to the curriculum as a whole, the 
 material of study must be selected on this as an 
 outstanding, if not the main or sole, principle. 
 
 The opponents of the doctrine in various degrees 
 deny its validity. They allege that a mathematical 
 habit of mind is applicable only to mathematics, 
 and is hot transferable. The logical habit of 
 mathematics will not keep one right in history or 
 botany, which have their own requirements, to be 
 learned only by a study of the subjects themselves. 
 
 Spencer has glanced at the question but is con- 
 tent to dismiss it as solved a priori by Nature : "it 
 would be utterly contrary to the beautiful economy 
 of Nature, if one kind of culture were needed for 
 the gaining of information and another kind were 
 needed as a mental gymnastic ". Others are less 
 certain that the direct knowledge value and the 
 disciplinary value are identical. " Nature " has 
 
120 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 already failed us in the selection of the curriculum 
 and must be regarded with a degree of suspicion. 
 At any rate she has not carried conviction to the 
 majority of educationists,* not to say of laymen. 
 The belief is widespread and persistent that form 
 "and content are not necessarily one and the same. 
 In this view, the scale of values in knowledge as 
 information is not the same as the scale of values 
 as mental training. Just as objects of art are not 
 to be estimated by the mere weight of precious 
 metal or of marble or of pigment and canvas they 
 contain, so the form of the knowledge imparts a 
 value which is not to be estimated merely by the 
 amount of useful information it embodies. We 
 cannot get so mijch as a basis of comparison be- 
 tween the two, there is no common factor. How, 
 for example, can we judge of the comparative values 
 of a sonnet of Wordsworth and the rule for com- 
 puting the cubic contents of a cask of butter or a 
 barrel of beer ? In Quick's parallel^ it is Para- 
 dise Lost to a Cookery Book. 
 
 One or two facts bearing on the general question 
 seem to be beyond dispute. First, it is plain that 
 all kinds of knowledge and every variety of know- 
 ledge mugt have some form. Concrete matter and 
 language are the two sources of all knowledge, and 
 neither is wholly impalpable. Conversely, all form 
 contains some material of knowledge, that is, all 
 
THE CURRICULUM 121 
 
 words, to say nothing of the more concrete forms, 
 convey a meaning of some kind or other. Thus 
 both form and content are necessarily involved in 
 all knowledge ; they are alike indispensable, what- 
 ever their relative importance may be. If in the 
 material of education one is emphasised to the ex- 
 tent of ignoring the other, the risk of error is im- 
 minent. To do so is equivalent to saying either 
 that it matters little what you learn provided it is a 
 mental gymnastic, difficult or positively distasteful : 
 grammatical freaks and the scandals of mythology 
 are equally valuable with scientific truths and Chris- 
 tian ethic : or, that it matters little how you learn, 
 so long as you get plenty of useful facts, general 
 knowledge however indiscriminate is equally valu- 
 able with ordered logical procedure, e.g. formal lin- 
 guistic study, or with orderly scientific procedure. 
 Both extremes must be wrong, for the reasons 
 already stated. Truth lies between. The what of 
 the curriculum matters, the how also matters. 
 
 Experience, in the form of observation and oc- 
 casional experiment, points in the same direction, 
 though its evidence is not very extensive and from 
 the nature of the case can never quite amount to 
 proof. Prevalent studies are accompanied by dis- 
 tinctive habits of mind in the student. The clas- 
 sical student approaches new material in a certain 
 way and brings to bear on it certain methods and 
 
122 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 habits of thought, which materially differ from those 
 of others who have not studied classics, but have 
 studied some other branch or branches of know- 
 ledge. Habits of order, accuracy, thoroughness, 
 necessary to success in one study, are so engrained 
 that they become a permanent possession and are 
 inevitably carried over to any new study or problem 
 by which the student is faced. Of course, it is open 
 to the opponent to say that the particular habit of 
 mind was not produced by this or that study, but 
 was part of the original mental constitution, exist- 
 ing previously and drawing the student toward 
 classics or mathematics or other study in affinity 
 with it, which he has actually taken up. The habit 
 of mind did not arise from the study, but was ante- 
 cedent, and gave rise, to the study. As has been 
 already seen in another connection, educational 
 effects can with great difficulty be traced back to 
 their respective causes : in the present instance the 
 phenomenon may be a mere concomitant, rather 
 than a positive effect, of the chosen study ; how, in- 
 deed, can we tell which is antecedent and which 
 consequent ? 
 
 The physical analogy may serve to illustrate the 
 position. I wish to become, say, a rower, but there 
 is no river by, nor boat, nor companions. I have 
 indoor gymnastic appliances, and these I diligently 
 employ to strengthen my arms, legs, and back. I 
 
THE CURRICULUM 123 
 
 regularly take long walks, I run or trot when I can, 
 and I live abstemiously, so getting my body into 
 good condition for taking up rowing with success 
 when circumstances may render it possible. I am 
 not really learning any of the actual movements, or 
 acquiring any of the skill of rowing. But I have 
 got a preparation which is not without value, or 
 bearing on it, indeed is of high value and may 
 prove to have been actually better than if through 
 premature and excessive practice in a boat I had 
 over-taxed my strength or become stale. Bodily 
 gymnastic, the argument would run, keeps the body 
 in form, imparts strength and endurance, and renders 
 it fit to take up any specific exercise or pastime 
 which circumstances and position may afterwards 
 suggest or permit. So in the mental sphere, the 
 propaedeutic of the school rouses every capacity, ex- 
 ercises every power, trains every function, not in the 
 same forms as other subjects or the business of later 
 life will demand, but in the forms which circum- 
 stances allow, which are appropriate and stimulating 
 in themselves, and will be the very best preparation 
 for the specialised form of later effort. 
 
 The analogy need not be pressed, and it must 
 be regarded as illustration and not as proof. It 
 serves to show how such effects as are claimed 
 might be produced, but it does not prove that they 
 actually are produced. To return to the sphere of 
 
124 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 school and its employments, it is quite certain that 
 such exercise as the mind may be thought to require 
 can all be had in manifold variety, without resort 
 to trivialities of doubtful intrinsic value or of no 
 professed value at all. Useful knowledge, without 
 limiting the use to material ends, is now so abund- 
 ant that it is criminal waste to go outside of it for 
 mental gymnastic. The exercise will be the more 
 grateful and stimulating and fruitful when it results 
 in acquisition of solid worth. Exercise for the sake 
 of exercise is as superfluous as it is erroneous, or, 
 in extreme forms, fatal. In other words, by judi- 
 cious selection of material the apparent antithesis 
 of form and content disappears, their claims are 
 reconciled, what is best for one is compatible with 
 due regard for the other. If different minds at any 
 stage reveal different tastes and inclinations, yet all 
 may receive satisfaction in appropriate ways. The 
 pursuits and attainments of the world at large in- 
 clude contributions from just as many varieties of 
 adults as there are special types of mental endow- 
 ment. Forms and idiosyncrasies of knowledge are 
 as manifold as are youthful requirements. When 
 all has been said, it may be that it is the instructor 
 and not the instruction that makes the difference. 
 Any subject in competent hands may perhaps yield 
 all the essential fruits of discipline. 
 
 An ideal curriculum requires unlimited time. It 
 
THE CURRICULUM 125 
 
 » 
 
 extends up to the end of the educable period, at 
 least 20 or 2 1 . As a matter of fact, the great 
 majority of pupils pass beyond the influence of 
 formal education at a much earlier date. The 
 question to be answered by the educator is oftenest, 
 not what should a complete curriculum consist of, 
 but what is best, or what is practicable, within the 
 limited years of schooling. Both the order and the 
 elements, with their proportions, are dependent to a 
 considerable extent upon the amount of time avail- 
 able. The curriculum may readily fall short of the 
 ideal when, as so frequently happens, the days of 
 schooling are either shortened or, more rarely, 
 lengthened beyond what was at the outset antici- 
 pated. 
 
 Perhaps the most general and important inference 
 from what has preceded is that the curriculum is 
 after all in the last resort an individual matter, just 
 as all education is. The particular character of 
 mind, its endowments and its defects, the sphere of 
 life for which preparation is being made, the length 
 of time available — these vary within wide limits, 
 and a course of study based upon them must vary 
 concurrently, if it is to fulfil its purpose with any 
 approach to completeness. The class and the 
 school involve compromise and corresponding sac- 
 rifice. Our more detailed examination of subjects 
 
1 26 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 of study and stages of development will show to 
 what extent risk or damage is involved in conces- 
 sions of the kind, and will bring us nearer such 
 solution of the main problem as is a priori and 
 theoretically possible. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CURRICULUM {continued). 
 
 The whole realm of knowledge may be regarded 
 as forming two great kingdoms. One is the king- 
 dom of Nature, the other that of Man. In this 
 connection we need not concern ourselves with 
 the knotty questions that these terms have raised, 
 for example, whether Man is not a part of Nature, 
 or whether Nature is not more things than one. 
 For our purpose, the familiar distinction between 
 them will serve. Nature is the world of things, 
 inanimate, but including forces constantly active, 
 and sentient creatures, while Man is the rational 
 agent, lord as well as beneficiary of Nature. Nature 
 is concrete, actual, real ; its contents are things. 
 Man is in his physical aspect concrete too, but, as 
 contrasted with Nature, stands for ideas, thoughts, 
 purposes, discoveries, attainments, fortunes, for 
 the most part abstract. " Real " and " human " 
 are convenient terms to indicate the two spheres 
 and to suggest the contrast between them. Of 
 
 human products the most characteristic, as an 
 
 127 
 
128 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 educational agent, is language, and so the distinc- 
 tion between Nature and Man, real and human, 
 becomes the difference between things and words. 
 If we add to these, or incorporate in them, the 
 principle of " doing " already referred to, we have 
 a rough classification of the three main ingre- 
 dients with which the curriculum has to deal. It 
 includes doing and learning : learning embraces 
 the real and the human in manifold forms and 
 degrees. 
 
 At the same time it is not to be supposed that 
 the two elements of knowledge are to be found 
 existing in definite separation one from the other. 
 They interpenetrate and overlap, and the analysis 
 of their relation is merely for purposes of clearness. 
 The world of reality has no divisions corresponding 
 to our hard and fast artificial terms. Its material 
 is so abundant that en masse it overpowers us. 
 We divide and subdivide in order to conquer, in 
 other words, to master. To take a single example, 
 botany is fenced off as a separate and apparently 
 independent department of knowledge. But in 
 reality it is so closely related to other departments 
 that on the boundary the line of separation has to 
 be drawn almost arbitrarily. Its nearest affinities 
 are with geology and meteorology, but it has a 
 subtle chemistry of its own, and it involves biology 
 to such an extent that it may be regarded as 
 
THE CURRICULUM 129 
 
 simply a subdivision of it. So is It all round with 
 this and with other subjects. 
 
 If the departments of " real " knowledge are 
 more or less arbitrary divisions, which overlap and 
 run into one another, it is almost equally true that 
 real and human are themselves implicated and 
 blended at many points. It is impossible to under- 
 stand man unless we understand his physical setting, 
 the conditions of his life, the realities that surround 
 him, the favourable and the unfavourable accidents 
 promoting or opposing his well-being. To com- 
 prehend and appreciate the drama of human life 
 we need to familiarise ourselves with its scenery 
 and staging no less than with the characters and 
 their sentiments. The principle is of wide applica- 
 tion and meets us at every turn and diiring every 
 age. An illustration of it is afforded by the well- 
 known case of geography and history. Educators of 
 whatever school are unanimous as to the intimate 
 relations and mutual bearings of these subjects. 
 Without history, geography is incomplete, even 
 meaningless ; without geography, history is unin- 
 telligible. More and more clearly is their inter- 
 dependence recognised, their correlation is a sine qua 
 non of the curriculum in every stage of their study. 
 The subjects are excellent types. Geography is 
 realistic, so comprehensive, at least in its modern 
 acceptation, as to include most other real subjects 
 
 9 
 
I30 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 from oceanography up to astronomy. History is 
 humanistic in the highest degree, and it too becomes 
 wide enough to include language, fine arts, politics, 
 and the other distinctively human sciences. Geo- 
 graphy and history are thus dependent either upon 
 the other for their interpretation. It is true that 
 they are by no means devoid of intrinsic interest 
 separately. The study of even one is beneficial. 
 But only a fraction of its value is derived from either 
 in isolation. So it is through the whole range 
 of studies from the earliest and most elementary 
 up to the latest and most advanced. Man and 
 his fortunes can be understood only when his soil 
 and climate, his helps and hindrances, his natural 
 allies and foes are understood. He is the reflec- 
 tion of the earth from which he was taken and to 
 which his mortal frame will return. "Real" and 
 " human " are analytical conveniences and aids, 
 though in actual operation either postulates, and 
 is in close union with, the other. 
 
 The order of development is, first, the natural, 
 then the spiritual. This is not matter of theory, 
 but of observed fact. The foundation of knowledge 
 is in things seen, heard, handled, tasted. The 
 channels of learning are the senses which are the 
 first cognitive machinery at the child's command. 
 It has long been an educational commonplace, but 
 is not the less true on account of its antiquity. The 
 
THE CURRICULUM 131 
 
 senses are extraordinarily active in early life, and 
 whatever may be the educator's views regarding 
 the value, early or late, of Latin Hexameters and 
 Greek Iambics, the child will base his knowledge 
 on the visible and the tangible. Language has as 
 yet no meaning. Words and their use come after 
 the sense experience. The word is the label at- 
 tached to the thing and derives its significance 
 from the thing itself previously perceived. If the 
 word comes before the thing, or some similar thing 
 or things, by which it can be interpreted, it is so 
 much " articulated breath," unintelligible, uninterest- 
 ing, at best useless, at worst distasteful and mis- 
 leading. To substitute the word ybr the thing, the 
 counter for the precious metal, is the unpardonable 
 sin of early education. 
 
 At a later stage the case stands otherwise, so 
 much so indeed that quite different procedure is 
 called for. But be it observed that early and late 
 are relative terms, they cannot be determined by 
 mere age : the later stage is reached by passing 
 through the earlier and in no other way. The child 
 must first get actual personal experience of real con- 
 crete things. Language comes after, though in 
 such close succession that the process of learning 
 their names, motions, actions, and relations will 
 seem almost simultaneous. When a stock of these 
 
 elementary conceptions has been acquired — but not 
 
 9*- 
 
132 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 sooner — advance may be made to things beyond 
 the realm of sense. The test of maturity for ad- 
 ,vance is ability to interpret, by means of first-hand 
 knowledge of things and related language, terms 
 and conceptions lying beyond the range of actual 
 observation. Language, the human element, must 
 be based upon and, therefore, in general, subse- 
 quent to, concrete experience, the " real " element. 
 While the " real " is the basis and comes first in 
 order of time, no presumption is thereby established 
 as to its ultimate value and scope. It is but a 
 small portion of the cosmos that comes under per- 
 sonal observation. But few of the sensible things 
 in the world enter into the experience of any one 
 man, not to say child. After a certain stage rigid 
 adherence to the principle of sense experience 
 would be pedantic, and would in practice prove 
 merely a drag. Language is not only a justifiable 
 but a necessary instrument of progress. After 
 the first six or seven years of life the child with his 
 background of sense experience can, through the 
 medium of language, extend his range by rapid 
 strides and with perfect certainty. With the ex- 
 tension of vocabulary the increase of reliable in- 
 formation keeps pace. At first the order is thing 
 word, later it is word thing. But in both alike the 
 process is a conjoint one in which the two elements 
 are in exact equipoise. Words are necessary in 
 
THE CURRICULUM 133 
 
 order easily to sum up and recall experience. Ex- 
 perience is necessary in order to vivify and inter- 
 pret words. The choice is not between things and 
 words. The correct forrnula is things through 
 words, or words as summaries and symbols of 
 things. 
 
 The supposed, but mistaken, opposition of Nature 
 and Man, things and words, appears throughout the 
 curriculum at every stage. Relations of mutual 
 helpfulness between them have been turned into 
 enmity. Alliance has been replaced by feud. At 
 bottom it is nearly all the result of misunderstand- 
 ing. The most recent form of it, classics versus 
 science, is but a phase of the dreary wrangle. 
 Under these circumstances the improvement of the 
 curriculum makes but tardy and uncertain advance. 
 
 Any attempt to lay down a definite curriculum 
 applicable to the whole course of formal education 
 is foredoomed to failure for reasons that have for 
 the most part appeared. But suggestions bearing 
 on it are not, therefore, altogether profitless. Cer- 
 tain general principles may be found for guidance, 
 though their application to the individual case will 
 leave abundant scope for skill and resource on the 
 part of parents and teachers. 
 
 I. First, the child has to master what may be 
 called the instruments of learning before he can 
 go on to employ them. While hands and eyes and 
 
134 TH-E SCHOOL AND OTHER. EDUCATORS 
 
 ears may all be ranked as instruments, the more 
 formal and artificial ones are those having reference 
 to the use of language. Oral language is at first 
 learned imitatively, and its use is encouraged by 
 the ends it is found by the child to serve. By 
 means of it he can obtain his desires and secure his 
 greater comfort and enjoyment ; and so facility in 
 its comprehension and use is rapidly acquired. 
 But independent acquisition of knowledge from the 
 treasure houses of the past is barred by the medium 
 of symbols which embody it. The key is in lan- 
 guage as written, not spoken. Reading is the first 
 formal step in education. When it has been ac- 
 quired, the child has a new world opened up to him, 
 far more extensive and varied than that of his own 
 environment, and less limited by the restrictions 
 which check his physical movements and infringe 
 his liberty. The new world may be less real and 
 concrete, but is hardly the less enjoyable for that. 
 Imagination comes to his aid to supplement and 
 even to supplant sense, and his educational life 
 takes a distinct step forward. Reading is profitable 
 in many directions, but in the present connection is 
 perhaps chiefly to be esteemed for the extension it 
 brings to the field of knowledge. Not only are 
 sensible things now within the child's compass, 
 tilings seen and heard, but also things heard of, a 
 wide range not to be directly perceived, but to be 
 
THE CURRICULUM 135 
 
 cognised only through imaginative reconstruction, 
 the interpretation being supplied by means of pre- 
 vious sense experience. Writing implies ability to 
 read, but it adds a new element, to wit, the power 
 of reproduction required of the child. He must be 
 able to manipulate the materials for writing, and the 
 necessary skill is not acquired without effort and 
 practice, if it ever is adequately acquired. The two 
 forms, print and script, may cause a little confusion : 
 their difference is a mere convention. The educa- 
 tional significance, however, lies in other directions. 
 It consists partly in the introduction of the element 
 of " doing," and partly in the ability to record one's 
 own impressions : both are modes of expression. 
 Reading aloud is no doubt a form of expression 
 also. In it the child may find great opportunity 
 both for reproducing the sounds accurately, dis- 
 tinctly, and gracefully, and for putting his own 
 heart into the piece so as in his own way to drama- 
 tise it. But in Writing he goes a step further. He 
 may, in the first instance, skilfully and gracefully 
 imitate a copy, or produce a fine example of pen- 
 manship. But in Composition he has opportunity 
 also of recording his own experiences, impressions, 
 or reflections in a great variety of forms which will 
 at once afford satisfaction and materially promote 
 intellectual development. To the teacher, Writing 
 is of no less value than to the pupil, for it enables 
 
136 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 him to test more preciselythe extent and accuracy 
 of the child's knowledge, while it also supplies a 
 clue to his character and abilities. These two 
 primary R's are essential to further progress, which 
 they facilitate in endless ways. 
 
 The child cannot go very far in life before en- 
 countering ideas of number, two and five with their 
 multiples being the earliest. As a formal study 
 Arithmetic seems to occupy a different position 
 from the other two R's. As an independent study 
 it is, of course, of the greatest importance and value, 
 but that belongs to another circle of educational 
 experience. Probably half the world go to their 
 graves without having mastered the multiplication 
 tables, and nothing is easier than to make a fetish 
 of the subject. No corresponding benefit may 
 accrue, material or moral, immediate or ultimate. 
 Up to the age of 7 or 8 formal Arithmetic need 
 not greatly vex the teacher. The elementary 
 conceptions can be mastered, at any rate explained, 
 as they occur : the rest can wait. Plenty of op- 
 portunity will be found for practising addition, one 
 of the most useful of all accomplishments. If it can 
 be so mastered as practically to become intuitive, it 
 will, cover a multitude of paedagogic sins of omission, 
 at any rate of an arithmetical character. 
 
 Prior, subsequent to, and concurrent with, the 
 above will come Sense Training in all its varieties. 
 
THE CURRICULUM 137 
 
 Its place is now so well understood that the mere 
 niention of its forms will suffice. Nature Study, in 
 the fullest sense of the term, is the unrivalled means 
 of securing it. It " follows the child," whose senses 
 are keen, active, and responsive. Drawing, with 
 other forms of manual exercise, is the correlate 
 giving opportunity for new modes of expression. 
 Samples of Nature brought into the classroom, 
 " Objects," are a second best though frequently all 
 that can be had. Sense material and language in 
 the form' of the mother tongue are, of course, also 
 correlates, acting and reacting upon one another in 
 endless ways. They afford a solid foundation for 
 subsequent studies, and provide exercise for those 
 functions now most active — Sense, Imagination, 
 Memory. The whole period is one of acquisition : 
 " We are of the ruminating kind," and are mean- 
 time procuring the material for subsequent reflec- 
 tion, criticism, and judgment. But in lusty spring, 
 man not only learns : he likewise 
 
 Takes in all beauty with an easy span. 
 Nature has another aspect than the cognitive, 
 running through all her wealth of phenomena. We 
 must first know her, but only in order to go on 
 to admire and to love her. The fitness, the sym- 
 metry, the grace of form and colour, in short the 
 beauty, of all we see and hear must be an object 
 of our regard no less than the mere size or shape 
 
1 38 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 or possible uses. The child must early be taught 
 to recognise the aesthetic values and to form stan- 
 dards of them. His Literature as Poetry will 
 supplement and enforce the lessons derived from 
 Nature. Drawing will afford further opportunity, 
 allowing him to represent his impressions under 
 the most attractive forms. Music and Dramatics 
 will also be in place if suitable means can be found 
 for promoting them. 
 
 The extensions of Reading and Writing, the 
 humanistic elements of the early curriculum, will 
 be found in History and Geography. The Reading 
 Book will contain a good deal of material of this 
 kind, even though it be not specially an Historical 
 or Geographical Reader. The early form of History 
 is biography, voyage, adventure, patriotic story. 
 It is the concrete, the personal that makes appeal. 
 History and Romance are full of such incidents 
 through all the past centuries. The background is 
 everywhere geographical ; even Robinson Crusoe's 
 island presents problems of topography. The 
 records of discovery, the scenes, animals, products, 
 of other lands, with experiences of travellers who 
 have visited them, furnish inexhaustible material 
 for Geography and its congeners. On the topo- 
 graphical side children may learn much for them- 
 selves if maps are put within their reach. They 
 delight in questioning and trying to puzzle one 
 
THE CURRICULUM 139 
 
 another with facts and names they have searched 
 out. Every well-ordered nursery ought to have a 
 map — England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland, in 
 succession, starting with the Motherland, which- 
 ever it is — and every junior elementary classroom 
 ought to have several duplicates, supplied in a 
 similar order, round which groups of children might 
 . gather from time to time when they cannot go out- 
 side. They will in this way pick up by themselves 
 a wonderful amount of knowledge regarding natural 
 features, counties, towns, etc., of their own and other 
 lands. Give them the opportunity and curiosity 
 will do the rest. This will be in addition to the 
 systematic study of Geography and History, when- 
 soever it may come. 
 
 In all this the moral element will never be far off, 
 but we need not complicate the question of the cur- 
 riculum by, considerations derived from it. 
 
 As already noted, children in the early stages are 
 not differentiated from one another to any great 
 extent. They may all be subjected to much the 
 same treatment without any great risk. Their dif- 
 ferences are of degree rather than of kind. Alter- 
 native curricula are neither necessary nor expedient. 
 All have to start in the same way, the common 
 basis of knowledge has to be mastered by all, in- 
 dividual characteristics have not revealed them- 
 selves, individual distinctions all lie in the unknown 
 
140 THE School and other educators 
 
 future. Later on, the position will be materially 
 different, and fresh expedients will be required to 
 meet its demands. 
 
 By affording to the opening powers of the child 
 appropriate scope and stimulus we are doing our 
 best to associate satisfaction and gratification with 
 the early stages of education, to arouse interesj:, and 
 to ensure voluntary pursuit of studies at times when 
 no constraint is applied. We are making provision 
 for those leisure periods of youth and more mature 
 days which we have seen to be fraught with such 
 momentous risks and possibilities. Interest is a 
 word that calls up a great variety of sentiment, but 
 no adequate discussion of the doctrine of interest 
 could be undertaken merely as an incident in a 
 different connection. So much may, however, be 
 said of its bearing on the curriculum. Interest is 
 in itself hardly a recommendation, and is certainly 
 not a condemnation, of this particular subject of 
 study or of that. It is part of the teacher's stock 
 of implements, the mode and extent of whose use 
 depends upon circumstances of which he alone can 
 judge. It may be good or it may be the reverse. 
 Stimulus of whatever kind is an ingredient in the 
 work of the classroom which the teacher cannot 
 afford to ignore. If the presentation of material 
 which appeals to the child at the moment, whet his 
 curiosity and excite him to mental effort, then, other 
 
THE CURRICULUM 141 
 
 things being equal, the result is pure gain. The 
 employment of interest is justified by the ends it 
 has served. But the object of attention must in 
 itself be a worthy one. A mouse in the corner of 
 the room or a bird at the window or the gyrations 
 of a wasp will create interest of a kind, keen interest 
 but of a distracting and unworthy kind : it leads to 
 nothing. Many seem to regard interest as exclu- 
 sively of this empirical ephemeral nature, and so 
 condemn it outright. If in recent times they have 
 been less ready to formulate their opinion, they still 
 believe that interest is inherently bad, self-denial 
 being " the hard and valuable part " of studies. If 
 work is agreeable, it would appear to be injurious 
 to the mental fibre : in order to be bracing it should 
 be unattractive, or positively distasteful ; others re- 
 gard it as the one thing needful, irrespective of its 
 quality or outcome. Our theory on the subject will 
 obviously affect materially the choice of the elements 
 of the curriculum. Before we can proceed further 
 some attitude must be adopted toward the doctrine. 
 Let it be conceded that no education worthy the 
 name can be obtained without effort, study, self- 
 repression, " laborious days ". The very marrow 
 of education is discipline of mind as of body, so that, 
 on the word of command from the will, it tackles 
 without question the most forbidding and unpro- 
 mising tasks. Interest as a test of suitability would 
 
142 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 at many points prove itself an insurmountable bar- 
 rier to progress. Besides, the best kind of interest 
 is effect rather than cause. The pupil does not 
 study because he is previously interested, but be- 
 comes interested because he has studied in the right 
 fashion and to some purpose. Interest is concomi- 
 tant of effort, inherent in successful accomplishment 
 and in the sense of power that attends extension 
 of knowledge. 
 
 But the child is not the mature self-directed 
 student, nor can he be treated in identical fashion. 
 He is weak, short-sighted, unenlightened. His 
 food must be carefully selected, sometimes pepton- 
 ised, if crudity is to be prevented. It needs a con- 
 diment also to impart a relish. The more vigorous 
 appetite and the more trustworthy taste will by and 
 by be sufficient guide and stimulus ; but meantime 
 too great a strain must not be imposed upon the 
 assimilative powers. Interest is a crutch which 
 will enable the feeble limbs to support themselves 
 and make independent progress over " stiles " and 
 all similar obstacles. But if used too exclusively 
 or retained too long, it will merely enfeeble and 
 hinder. Intellectually the pupil is being prepared 
 for unaided locomotion. When he can walk and 
 run and leap, he will no longer desire to encumber 
 himself with adventitious helps. 
 
 Under whatever image interest be regarded, it is 
 
THE CURRICULUM 143 
 
 seen to be, in its empirical form, temporary and in- 
 strumental, an expedient to be used as sparingly as 
 possible, and later to be altogether dispensed with, 
 or at least transformed into stimulus of a different 
 character. But — the qualification is important — in 
 its time and degree it is an expedient of which it 
 would be folly for us to deprive ourselves. It 
 renders the first steps attractive, and not too costly. 
 From the interesting the transition may be made to 
 the indifferent and then to the distasteful or repug- 
 nant, if necessity so require. Granted that effort 
 is the one thing that in the long run counts, interest 
 induces the beginner to make the effort, and as- 
 sociates satisfaction with early exertions in the 
 pursuit of knowledge. It secures a vantage ground 
 for future effort, strengthens the wings for a more 
 extended flight. It is no recommendation of a 
 subject of the curriculum that it is repulsive ; it is 
 a recommendation and a sine qua non that it be 
 difficult, that is, of sufficient difficulty to call forth 
 the best effort of which the learner is at the moment 
 capable. It should be within his reach, but all his 
 strength should be fully tested in scaling the height 
 on which it is to be found. The interest resulting 
 from successful effort of this kind is both qualitatively 
 and quantitatively far superior to any superficial 
 interest which seeks to substitute excitement for 
 effort, to gain the palm without the dust. 
 
144 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 The bearing of interest on the choice of material 
 for the curriculum is throughout strictly psycho- 
 logical. The, subjects must keep pace with the 
 growth and expansioA of mental power, detailed 
 acquaintance with which is to be had only from 
 close observation of the pupil, backed by experience 
 of other pupils under similar circumstances. Neglect 
 to apply the principle results in twofold error. If 
 the subject is too easy, it fails, or ceases, to grip, 
 becomes stale, and is regarded with a measure of 
 contempt, especially by the better type of pupil. If, 
 on the other hand, it is too difficult, it paralyses and 
 discourages, such acquaintance with it as is gained 
 is verbal, the form of knowledge without the reality. 
 The premature study of the classics is probably the 
 best illustration of the latter fault. At the age 
 of 8 or even of lo the technicalities of Latin 
 grammar are beyond the powers of children. Such 
 knowledge of verbal forms as is acquired, is pure 
 rote work, and is gained at enormous and ruinous 
 cost. It is different with a language like French, 
 all the more as it is a living language and may 
 under proper tuition be acquired in something of 
 the same way as the mother tongue. Per contra, 
 the projection of the earlier real studies beyond their 
 appropriate period may easily degenerate into pot- 
 tering. " Soft paedagogy " is of evil omen. The 
 primrose path belongs to the early spring. The 
 
THE CURRICULUM 14S 
 
 way of educational progress is the steep and broken 
 road. Either extreme, of ease or difficulty, has the 
 additional demerit that it engrosses time and effort 
 which are demanded elsewhere. What is wasted 
 upon mistaken methods is withdrawn from produc- 
 tive fields, a loss both direct and indirect. 
 
 The curriculum of later boyhood and girlhood 
 from approximately 8-12 would include the Mother 
 Tongue, particularly cultivation of taste by appro- 
 priate Literature, Memorising of Poetry, and Com- 
 position, careful practice in Writing until mechanical 
 perfection has been acquired ; a certain amount of 
 Arithmetic, simple calculations, mental and written, 
 and a few tables — ^all learned thoroughly ; Geo- 
 graphy, History, within due limits and in suitable 
 forms ; if a second language is taken up, French ; 
 more specific study of one of the branches of Nature 
 Study, Botany by preference ; Manual Work, Draw- 
 ing of concrete forms, and for girls, the rudiments 
 of the Domestic Arts ; Music with Dancing and 
 Dramatic representation where practicable ; Physi- 
 cal Exercises. Regard should be had to the par- 
 ticular circumstances of schools and pupils in laying 
 down the actual course. The list looks a long one, 
 but it includes alternatives, and each subject would 
 not be taken up each day. The existing Code cur- 
 riculum is an excellent one, if inspectors and 
 teachers would not attempt to give it too wide an 
 
 10 
 
146 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 interpretation, and consequently to embrace too 
 much material in their time tables. The child profits 
 only by what he can digest ; too much of a subject 
 and too many subjects are equally fatal to the main 
 purpose. 
 
 From the age of 12-14 onward fresh con- 
 siderations come into play which go far to modify 
 the curriculum. Hitherto all pupils may be treated 
 pretty much alike. Henceforth this is not pos- 
 sible, and for two reasons. The approach of 
 adolescence reveals far more clearly the character 
 and degree of mental power. Pupils and sets of 
 pupils display marked differences of individuality. 
 Lines of interest begin to diverge and it becomes 
 impossible to deal with all pupils in one uniform 
 fashion. For one who may without violence or 
 distortion be laid in the Procrustean mould, there 
 are a dozen, a score, a hundred whom it will maim 
 and mutilate for life. The child must be " fol- 
 lowed " along a variety of diverging paths, each of 
 which leads toward its own proper and separate 
 destination. The sexes part company still more 
 completely, and the interests of girls become at 
 many points different from those of boys. But that 
 aspect of the curriculum must be passed over with 
 the mere mention of its existence. 
 
 In the second place, the sphere of occupation is 
 rapidly being approached. One set of pupils will 
 
THE CURRICULUM 147 
 
 become workmen, another and smaller, clerks, an- 
 other and still smaller, professional men. AJl have 
 been furnished with the instruments of learning, all 
 have in the general cultivation of sense and other 
 powers laid the common foundation of later specific 
 pursuits, and each may now with safety be allowed 
 to follow out the lines of prospective occupation, 
 and, in the most profitable way, to fill in the days 
 of school life, whose duration is by this time cap- 
 able of more definite calculation. The existing 
 secondary schools of Scotland, most of them historical 
 survivals, in one form or other, have an organised 
 curriculum which leads chiefly to the end constituted 
 by a professional life. School is succeeded by the 
 Arts curriculum of the University. In earlier times 
 school and university formed in combination the 
 liberal education of the merchant or banker or 
 shipper as well as of the doctor or teacher. Now- 
 adays the requirements of life are far more varied 
 and exacting. Each branch of occupation is being 
 more and more specialised, and the machinery of 
 education has not been brought up, if it ever can 
 be brought up, to the increased and multiplied 
 demands. Education while it begins with, and 
 follows, the child, ends in the world. Each section 
 of society is as much entitled as any other of equal 
 numerical strength to have its demands for an ap- 
 propriate course satisfied. The schools are plainly 
 
148 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 unable to meet all the demands in their entirety, 
 and the questions come to be, how far can they do 
 so, and what are the strongest claims upon them. 
 
 The post-primary stages of education thus bring 
 into prominence several important considerations 
 which earlier were only latent possibilities. They 
 cover the so-called intermediate and secondary 
 periods, and may be regarded as in general co- 
 extensive with adolescence. The primary cur- 
 riculum is comparatively a simple matter because it 
 is general in character and of common application 
 to all ; the secondary (including the intermediate) 
 raises a ho.st of questions, each difficult in itself and 
 rendered still more so by the conflicting demands 
 of various sections of the community. 
 
 The curriculum as a whole may be typified under 
 the image of a tree in its upward growth, beech or 
 sycamore by preference. The main stem repre- 
 sents the common basis of elementary subjects 
 rooted deep down in the very constitution of things. 
 At a certain height, or more strictly at certain 
 heights, the trunk divides into two or three great 
 forks, which are again sub-divided higher up until 
 the ramification is completed by twigs and leaves. 
 No hard-and-fast rule is observed. The exact 
 points of division, the exact size and shape of 
 the sub-divisions, cannot be definitely determined, 
 but the process is always performed on the same 
 
THE CURRICULUM 149 
 
 general plan and pattern. The indefinite becomes 
 definite, the general, specific or individual. Workers 
 who began together in the primary stages separate 
 as they proceed, and end in totally different quarters 
 of the sphere of attainment. Springing in company 
 from the ground they eventually find themselves on 
 branches of the tree of knowledge so remote one 
 from another that they lose sight of, and unhappily 
 oftentimes regard for, and sympathy with, one 
 another. Only from the very summit can such a 
 comprehensive view be obtained that the unity and 
 harmony of the whole expanse of the tree may be 
 perceived and appreciated. 
 
 From the nature of t-hings much must depend 
 upon capacity and destination in the choice of the 
 particular limb of the tree to be scaled by any par- 
 ticular secondary pupil. Dropping the image, we, 
 i.e. parent and teacher, have to decide at, or soon 
 after, the age of 1 2, what specific course the pupil 
 should follow. It may be assumed that capacity 
 and destination will not be opposed but rather co- 
 operating factors, eventually aiding in a decision. 
 The tastes of the young will naturally and inevit- 
 ably lead them into paths already laid down by 
 those of similar tastes who have preceded them. 
 The requirements of life, too, continue pretty uni- 
 form though the number of ways of meeting them 
 is constantly increasing. The disturbing element 
 
I so THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 is rather, as before, that of time. A pupil fitted by 
 capacity and taste for a higher professional sphere 
 is by stress of circumstances diverted into a lower, 
 is obliged to leave school in order to earn a living. 
 More rarely, in Scotland at any rate,' domestic, 
 affluence enables the pupil to aim at a career for 
 which he is unfitted ; he remains at School or Uni- 
 versity when he might be more usefully occupied 
 elsewhere. 
 
 In ancient and in modern times alike, practical 
 necessity has divided pupils at the age of 12 or 14 
 into two great classes, the hand-workers and the 
 head-workers ; perhaps a more accurate division 
 would be into those obliged to fend for themselves 
 and those not so obliged. For purposes of curri- 
 culum the classes must be considered separately ; 
 and first as to the former. The radical mistake has 
 all along lain in the assumption that education and 
 schooling are identical, and that actual manual oc- 
 cupation is inconsistent with concurrent instruction 
 and training. Technical classes and continuation 
 schools have, of course, in part disproved the sup- 
 position. But they have as yet done but a very 
 little to solve the problem. Edinburgh with good 
 reason congratulates itself on being able to retain 
 70 per cent of its pupils after compulsory school 
 days. It is doubtful whether another city in the 
 Empire can show the same record. This is almost 
 
THE CURRICULUM 151 
 
 the exception which proves the rule to be the 
 reverse, and even in Edinburgh the margin of waste 
 is still considerable. Once on a time the theory 
 was that the worker should remain a hewer of wood 
 all his lifetime and be satisfied. Rousseau, demo- 
 crat and iconoclast as he was, airily asserts that the 
 poor man does not need education ; his precious 
 pupil must be rich. Even had the workers not 
 themselves effectually disproved it, the theory is re- 
 pugnant to every sentiment both of education and 
 of humanity. The poor man is the one who just 
 does need education, first to alleviate his lot by 
 blessings not to be purchased by silver and gold, 
 and second to enable him to improve his lot if he 
 has the inborn capacity to do so. The " hand " 
 must have opportunity to rise to foreman, manager, 
 employer, director, or whatever the scale happen to 
 be ; and education, including moral qualities, is the 
 avenue to promotion. But even though he remain 
 a "hand" all his life, his life must be rendered 
 humane and contented. Resources for the profit- 
 able occupation and enjoyment of leisure hours must 
 be provided, the duties of parenthood, of citizen- 
 ship and of religion must be learned, the man must 
 attain to self-respect, pride in his work, and the 
 sense of the importance of the service he renders to 
 a community in which all must be workers, none 
 drones, 
 
152 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 The combination of these two main groups of 
 requirements indicates the character of the post- 
 primary curriculum for this great class, numerically 
 by far the stronger. First, education now becomes 
 in part occupational. Knowledge useful in the 
 narrow sense has to be built up upon the foundation 
 broadly laid in earlier days. It will become more 
 and more specific as the vocation of the pupil be- 
 comes more and more specialised in one department, 
 until by the later teens it has to be continued in 
 technical departments of College or University, for 
 example Electrical Engineering, Weaving, Dyeing, 
 Printing, Confectionery, Accountancy, and the host 
 of congeners. No occupation from lamp-lighter to 
 Prime Minister but may be made a theme of study 
 and intellectual interest. Next comes Art in its 
 many forms — Literature the chief, because so varied, 
 so accessible, and so easily lending itself to technical 
 and other uses ; Music, Manual Work, Painting, 
 Statuary, Architecture, Photography, all leading 
 into hobbies often useful, always enjoyable and 
 recreative. A Foreign Language and a Natural 
 Science, especially if a good start has been made at 
 school, may also be included one or both. A third 
 group is the Physical — Exercises, Games, Athletics, 
 Drill. The particular form must be adapted to the 
 requirements of occupation. The farm servant does 
 not require a course of athletics, as a clerk does, but 
 
THE CURRICULUM 153 
 
 a swimming pond may in many ways be an excellent 
 thing for him, and so on. Still a fourth group, though 
 related to the second, is that embraced under the 
 general designation of Social Science, the duties 
 of citizenship, of the home, of the parent, from 
 Cookery and Sick Nursing up to Political Economy 
 and Jurisprudence, all, of course, in appropriate 
 homely and simple forms. How all this is to be 
 managed, i.e. the establishment and enforcement 
 of a suitable adolescent curriculum for workers of 
 all kinds, constitutes the most pressing of practical 
 problems in educational administration ; but man- 
 aged it must be, unless we are in effect to scrap 
 elementary education and to allow our adolescent 
 population to fall back into barbarism. Much of 
 the instruction must evidently be concurrent with 
 occupation. The main thing is that it be prolonged 
 up to the age of 1 8 ; the rest is matter of organisa- 
 tion. 
 
 The other class of pupils consists of those who 
 will pursue their studies at school, devoting their 
 whole time to them, and untroubled meantime by 
 thoughts of livelihood. They fall roughly into two 
 groups, those who will leave school at 15 or 16 
 and those who will remain till 18 or over. The 
 school sifts out just as occupation sifts out ; the 
 numbers gradually dwindle ; of the hundreds of 
 thousands who pass through the elementary school 
 
1 54 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 only a few tens of thousands remain through the 
 intermediate, and by the end of the secondary 
 they have been reduced to a few thousands. This 
 of Scotland, for in England and larger countries the 
 denominations would be much higher. 
 
 Round this period which reaches up into, and is 
 reproduced more or less in, the Universities,, a 
 perfect hurricane of debate has raged from time 
 immemorial ; nor does it show much sign of abate- 
 ment. The difficulty arises as usual from the ex- 
 tremists and exclusionists. 
 
 One or two principles seem fairly clear. For 
 example, the abilities and tastes of pupils have a 
 selective effect. No pupil can take everything, 
 nor does he wish to do so. Time was when one 
 small head could carry all there was to know, the 
 range of knowledge was within the compass of a 
 single capacious intellect. Four centuries of pro- 
 gress have altered all that, and in accumulation 
 of knowledge the pace is more rapid every year. 
 The curriculum can never again be rigid and un- 
 alterable, simply because in the advance of know- 
 ledge, and in the changing requirements of life, 
 what was once best ceases to be best, even what 
 was good, ceases to be good. What was " good 
 enough for our fathers " is not necessarily good 
 enough for us, it is rather, more- than less likely 
 tp be unsuitable, 
 
THE CURRICULUM 155 
 
 The higher curriculum is a variable, and calls 
 for re-adjustment from generation to generation. 
 Since all cannot any longer be compassed by any 
 one brain, selection must be made of the know- 
 ledge of most worth. What shall be the grounds 
 of selection ? 
 
 If the claims already made on behalf of real and 
 human subjects are valid, these elements must con- 
 tinue to have each a place here. Adequate ac- 
 quaintance with either is impossible in the primary 
 stage. The Mother Tongue in its wealth and 
 variety of material is by general consent an item 
 common to all curricula. The same may be said 
 of the elementary portions of Mathematics. Physi- 
 cal claims are at this stage satisfied in large measure 
 by games and athletics, but the supplement of more 
 formal exercises is desirable. On the other hand, 
 Manual Work may be reduced to a minimum ; not 
 that it is unimportant, but that some degree of 
 facility has already been acquired, the natural 
 interest in it is less, there is more opportunity of 
 independent practice of manual dexterity out of 
 class and in games, and finally it is the subject 
 that can best be spared. These remarks apply to 
 Drawing especially after the age of 15. In itself, 
 the subject is invaluable, but it should have been 
 acquired in sufficient measure already, at any rate 
 by pupils who do not mean to specialise in it, 
 
1 56 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 Selection of special branches or departments of 
 study must follow the lines of natural endowment. 
 The fullest and truest development is along the 
 path of taste and hence of interest. This, as 
 already seen, will coincide in general with the re- 
 quirements of prospective occupation. While in- 
 dividual taste varies infinitely, experience shows 
 that there are a comparatively small number of 
 types to which individuals pretty closely conform, 
 and that no great harm is done though special 
 account cannot be taken of all the minute idio- 
 syncrasies of individuals. The three groups. 
 Classical, Mathematical, Scientific, are fairly well 
 marked, and seem adequately to provide for most 
 requirements. It is not beyond the ability of a 
 large, and well-organised school to arrange curri- 
 cula appropriate for these severally, though in parts 
 overlapping or parallel. Where more is attempted, 
 it is in obedience to some special demand, for 
 example, commercial training, or preparation for 
 army entrance, and it is to be regarded as technical, 
 and almost extra-scholastic. ' 
 
 Each typical curriculum should satisfy the two 
 requirements of extent and intensity. For the 
 former, provision is made in the suggestions offered 
 above. That is to say, a curriculum is no longer 
 adequate that restricts pupils to a single department 
 of intellectual activity and interest. The existing 
 or traditional course of study has dealt chiefly in 
 
THE CURRICULUM 157 
 
 humanistic materials. There was a good reason 
 for that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
 when it was introduced and put in complete pos- 
 session. But other material has now been amassed 
 and other literature has now been produced, so 
 that from a comparative point of view the older 
 disciplines, Latin and Greek, must fall in value 
 and must abate their claims. The demand for 
 reform of the rigid academic and professional 
 studies of the secondary school derives its main 
 force not so much from any inherent defects in the 
 Humanities as. from the extravagant and often ab- 
 surd pretensions of their adherents. The principle 
 of extent requires that they be supplemented by 
 some acquaintance with a Science, physical or 
 natural. Modern Literature, Geography and His- 
 tory, and, of course, a modicum at least of Mathe- 
 matics. 
 
 Similarly where capacity and taste lead the pupil 
 to make a Science or Sciences the staple of the cur- 
 riculum, the human element must have adequate 
 representation not only in the subjects just named 
 as supplementary to Classics, but in linguistic study, 
 modern or ancient, or both. The same is true of 
 the mathematician and the curriculum of which 
 Mathematics is the staple. 
 
 Having provided for extent we must secure in- 
 tensity of study also ; it is a condition of not less, 
 but, if anything, of more, importance. Mere variety 
 
I S8 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 may easily degenerate into scrappiness. Mental 
 dissipation, not concentration, may be the outcome. 
 Desultory study is in the young very unprofitable 
 and unsafe. If a choice had to be made between 
 multa and multum we should unhesitatingly choose 
 the latter. But the alternatives are not mutually 
 exclusive : et multa et multum should be the 
 formula of the complete curriculum. An old 
 maxim puts it, something of everything and every- 
 thing of something. Development in its fullest 
 sense lies along the line of intensity. It is the 
 chosen study that from its affinitifes with our 
 powers arouses interest and calls forth effort and 
 enthusiasm. Heaven aids us, we have as ally a 
 volens Minerva, we are on the path to attainment 
 and power. The old curriculum in its higher 
 stages committed its most grievous error by forc- 
 ing all along one narrow way. The road to intel- 
 lectual salvation is the broad one, it has many 
 different tracks and on it there is room for all. A 
 pupil is not necessarily a dolt because he finds 
 Latin Grammar a penance, nor for the matter of 
 that is he of necessity a genius because he prefers 
 an ancient to a modern dialect, a foreign language 
 to his own. But he will in either case attain the 
 best of which he is capable by intense study of the 
 particular field toward which he is most strongly 
 attracted, and in which he finds himself most at 
 home. Even then he will require the guidance of 
 
THE CURRICULUM 159 
 
 experience for his aid, lest his choice be a super- 
 ficial one. In specialisation is the way not only to 
 power, but to progress. Discovery is possible 
 only after advance has been made in one particular 
 direction up to the limits of existing knowledge. 
 
 Nor can there be much doubt that it is in this 
 way that the problem of formal training finds its 
 natural solution. " The beautiful economy of 
 Nature " is not wholly a myth. In seeking to be- 
 come master of a chosen field of study, the mind 
 receives the most beneficial cultivation and discip- 
 line. The pursuit even of a subject so rich in prac- 
 tical applications as Mathematics, or Physics, or 
 Chemistry, is a valuable mental discipline, not, as 
 Spencer would lead us to infer, because the infor- 
 mation to be gained is useful and will possibly save 
 our lives, or put money in our pockets, but because 
 the whole mental interest is engrossed in a study 
 that appeals to us through features in harmony with 
 our own mental powers and affinities. The material 
 application is the very last thing thought of, if it 
 ever comes into consideration at all. A problem 
 in Mathematics is an intellectual challenge, the 
 most acute pleasure is derived from taking it up 
 and successfully replying to it : so is it with the 
 Sciences, physical and natural, and so too with the 
 Classics. The mind is ipso facto being disciplined 
 when it is being trained to exert itself, to overcome 
 obstacles, to apply device, to mass its forces, to 
 
i6o THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 employ its full resources, and at the critical, points. 
 The most suitable material is that in which the pro- 
 cesses enlist whole-hearted devotion, in which the 
 discipline is, consistently with safety, the most sus- 
 tained and severe of which the mind is at any 
 particular stage capable. It need not be denied that 
 different habits of mind will be promoted by deal- 
 ing- predominantly with material of particular kinds. 
 But at least the germs of the habits were already 
 present by original intellectual endowment. The 
 due extension of studies beyond the chosen one, 
 as already provided for, will serve to restore the 
 balance, and will effectually prevent injurious effects' 
 likely to be produced by lopsided development. 
 
 Intensity of study spells specialisation, and one 
 of the questions for the secondary school is to de- 
 termine when specialised study may begin, and how 
 far it may be carried. Its final stages lie in the 
 University, when the student becomes researcher 
 and (discoverer, but even in the school he must be 
 allowed so far to follow his bent. Complications 
 of many kinds arise in regard to individual pupils, 
 and in view of prospective occupation and teach- 
 ing power available in the particular school. In 
 general, extent of studies should be the prevail- 
 ing principle up to the age of 1 4 or 15. Definite 
 specialisation may be represented in the alternative 
 courses by entry upon Greek, Higher Mathematics 
 (Conies, Trigonometry, etc.), and Physics (or 
 
THE CURRICULUM i6i 
 
 Chemistry) respectively. The profitable study 
 of these cannot begin much before 15, or, to 
 adopt the converse form of statement, no material 
 loss will be sustained by the beginning of these 
 studies being delayed till, or a little beyond, that 
 age. Increasingly thereafter will this core of in- 
 struction consisting of the staple subject be supple- 
 mented by allied and by unrelated branches of study. 
 Each of the three great specialised disciplines will 
 have a group of subjects as centre, round which will 
 be gathered the extended set of subjects which at 
 once illustrate and expand it. The specialisation 
 will itself be broad and liberal, and it will have ex- 
 tension into the wide domains of knowledge, where 
 it may come into sympathetic co-operation with 
 other groups of specialised workers. The " edu- 
 cated " man, after the University, as well as the 
 school, has done its work, will be one who can enter 
 into the life of his nation and time in all its fulness, 
 and can himself contribute to its advance in some 
 one particular direction. He will be able to read 
 The Times through from cover to cover with in- 
 telligent interest and appreciation ; if occasion de- 
 mand, or opportunity serve, he will be able also 
 to contribute as expert and master to at least one 
 of its columns. Nothing human will be common 
 or unclean ; not the least of the resulting personal 
 
 gains will be the saving grace of humility. 
 
 II 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PLACE OF THE CLASSICS. 
 
 After what has been said of the curriculum in 
 
 general, a short statement must sufifice regarding 
 
 the position of the Classics. 
 
 We are in the habit of regarding Latin and Greek 
 
 as forming an inseparable unity, standing or falling 
 
 together : common usage and discussion approve 
 
 the assumption. This is, however, very far from 
 
 being the case. The Greeks and the Romans were 
 
 distinct and independent nations. They flourished 
 
 in periods separated by centuries, their national 
 
 characteristics, their aspirations and ideals differed 
 
 widely, their contributions to culture and civilisation 
 
 have been so different as to form a marked contrast. 
 
 If the study of Greek or Latin means, among other 
 
 things, entrance into the ideas, the achievements, 
 
 the life and work of the peoples who spoke these 
 
 tongues, then either language presents a distinct 
 
 problem, and fulfils a separate function. Roman 
 
 civilisation stands in intimate, and indeed organic, 
 
 relation to modern civilisation ; one is parent, the 
 
 162 
 
THE PLACE OF THE CLASSICS 163 
 
 other offspring. Europe of to-day is the lineal 
 descendant of Rome and its system of laws and 
 government. The Romance dialects are daughters 
 of the mother tongue of Rome. With Greece the 
 case is different. The literature, philosophy, and 
 arts of Greece no doubt profoundly affected Rome, 
 and have thus percolated through to us. The 
 achievements of Greece have besides come to us 
 in part direct, and it may be that they possess an 
 independent value which we can ill afford to sacri- 
 fice even to-day. But they are not bound up with 
 our own origins and national institutions, as the 
 Roman factor is. The modern world stands related 
 so differently to the two types of culture that this 
 in itself would be sufficient cause for considering 
 the claims of either language independently of the 
 other. But there is a further reason. Supposing 
 the languages to be equally valuable for purposes 
 of education, it is still possible that the time avail- 
 able may admit of the study of one but not of both. 
 Apart from their qualitative aspect, the mere amount 
 constitutes a difficulty which may prove fatal to one 
 or other of the claimants. One may be practicable, 
 two impracticable. 
 
 Turning to the intrinsic merits of the studies we 
 are confronted with the existing and traditional 
 position of the Classics. They were introduced for 
 far different reasons from those by which their 
 
i64 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 supremacy has been sought to be maintained. The 
 historical sequence leads back to the Renascence 
 curriculum as embodied in Sturm's Academy and 
 the schools of the Jesuits. In the sixteenth century, 
 education had no choice of material, for the alterna- 
 tives were the Classics or nothing. Latin was the 
 language of church services, of intercourse among 
 all who pretended to any education whatever, of 
 diplomacy ; in other words, it was a practical neces- 
 sity, a utility of civilised life. All knowledge was 
 enshrined in it or in Greek. The latter had special 
 claims as the medium of the inspired truths of the 
 New Testament. Modern Languages were in 
 their infancy, they possessed little literature and 
 were still under the shadow of the older tongues, 
 they had not attained any prestige of their, own. 
 Neither had the day of experimental Science yet 
 come. Men relied upon the discoveries of their 
 great ancestors, such as they were, instead of trying 
 to imitate and emulate them by making fresh dis- 
 coveries for themselves. When Science did at 
 length raise its head. Bacon and Newton still wrote 
 in Latin. These and the like were the practical 
 reasons for the adoption of Latin and Greek. To- 
 gether the languages enshrined knowledge which 
 represented the best in literature, history, art, 
 philosophy, religion and science which the world 
 had yet produced. 
 
THE PLACE OF THE CLASSICS 165 
 
 Plainly most of these reasons have now disap- 
 peared. Each modern nation has a language and 
 extensive and varied literature of its own. Science 
 has become a great kingdom, a world almost, with 
 a rich literature of its own. A great civilisation, 
 with endless types and modifications, has been de- 
 veloped, which concerns us more nearly than do the 
 ancient types, if for no other reason, because we 
 have ourselves to find our place and play our part 
 in it. It is not that Rome and Greece have lost 
 their value for mankind, but that they have in con- 
 siderable measure been absorbed and superseded ; 
 they have become only one (or two) of many claim- 
 ants. By lapse of time and growth of rivals, they 
 gradually decline in importance. The Mother 
 Tongue is probably a more serious competitor of 
 the language and literature of the Classics, than 
 either Modern Foreign Languages or " Science," 
 as is commonly supposed. 
 
 It is perfectly legitimate to defend the position 
 of the Classics upon different grounds from the 
 historical ones connected with their introduction. 
 As a matter of fact, the chief tine of defence adopted 
 in recent times has been that the mental discipline 
 which they impart is unique and invaluable. They 
 furnish an unrivalled instrument of " formal train- 
 ing ". A great deal of laboured effort has been 
 bestowed upon this argument, but it is for the 
 
i66 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 most part very unconvincing. The Classics are no 
 doubt difficult, arid the mastery of them involves 
 attention and effort and resolution, admirable 
 mental habits, fostering a spirit of courage and 
 perseverance, which will be a precious asset all 
 through life. But they have no monopoly of such 
 merits. Not only so, but benefits of this kind do 
 not lie at the threshold of the studies. They come 
 late, and it is the comparatively few who by taste 
 and ability are able to derive them at all. In those 
 whose mental constitution and interests incline them 
 elsewhither, the studies fail to arouse enthusiasm, 
 on the contrary, they provoke distaste and possibly 
 opposition and rebellion. The best mental discipline 
 lies, as has already been seen, in the sphere of con- 
 genial effort. The radical mistake of the classical 
 curriculum has been the assumption that all minds 
 are alike in constitution and tastes, and all through 
 may with advantage be treated alike, or the still more 
 fatal one, that a study is profitable because it is dis- 
 tasteful. Observation shows that it is a minority 
 that ever obtain full value from a classical course. 
 They are not necessarily superior to their fellows. 
 They are different, that is all we are entitled to say. 
 Many others have proved that in their own domain 
 they were at least equal to their classical brethren. 
 If hard mental discipline is to be the sheet anchor 
 of the Classics, why should not Sanskrit or Arabic 
 
THE PLACE OF THE CLASSICS 167 
 
 or Chinese be equally valuable ? They might be 
 made to fulfil all the necessary conditions — difficulty, 
 structural difference from English, remoteness, in- 
 comprehensibility, distastefulness, and other repel- 
 lent features. Let us experiment upon them, or, 
 nearer home, upon Russian and Spanish. 
 
 The truth is that the Classics must stand on other 
 grounds than merely those of mental discipline, if 
 they are to stand at all. No unprejudiced observer 
 can refuse to concede to them, one or both, intrinsic 
 merits of a high order, on which positive claims of 
 great weight may be founded. 
 
 Rome, as already noted, is the great fountain- 
 head of modern civilisation. Full comprehension 
 of the genius of the Roman people can be had only 
 through their language and literature. If we are to 
 understand ourselves, we must be able to trace our 
 history through the course of its evolution back to 
 its sources. Ancient and modern are so intertwined 
 as to be inseparable. We are but a branch, the 
 root is in Roman soil. Our laws, our judicature, 
 our political and military system, our colonial ex- 
 pansion, in other words, the chief elements in our 
 development as a people and nation, all derive 
 more or less directly and more or less fully, more 
 rather than less, from Rome. The same applies in 
 considerable measure to our language, though, of 
 course, not to at all the same extent as to those 
 
i68 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 of the Latin nations. While our grammar is 
 native, half our vocabulary or more is classical 
 It is because of this filial relation that the language, 
 the monuments, the institutions of Rome are pre- 
 cious to us, and must remain so as long as we are 
 a nation. For the student of Modern Languages 
 Latin is the clue both to vocabulary and philology ; 
 its bearings are so obvious that they hardly re- 
 quire more than passing mention. And besides 
 all this, our own literature has a classical back- 
 ground, especially in its earlier periods. A writer 
 like Milton is hardly intelligible without some know- 
 ledge of the Classics, and he is only one of many. 
 The classical spirit has indeed so gripped not a few 
 of the greatest minds that their whole outlook is 
 coloured and their works permeated by it. This is 
 true in the domains of imagin&,tive literature no 
 less than in the more special fields of History, 
 Law, Philosophy, and Art. 
 
 In view of this, it may be somewhat of a shock 
 to find that we may have the benefits without the 
 actual study of the languages, for example, that 
 the clear and bold eloquence of Chapman can make 
 us breathe the pure serene of Homer. But Keats 
 is probably an exceptional case, and besides, the 
 Homeric student would deny that the poet had got 
 quite all he supposed he had. The value of trans- 
 lations forms a topic by itself. With the example 
 
THE tLACE OF THE CLASSICS 169 
 
 of the Scriptures before us we cannot claim too 
 much for acquaintance with the original languages 
 as an indispensable key to the knowledge con- 
 tained in them. But the Bible is a very excep- 
 tional translation. 
 
 Apart from historical reasons applicable chiefly 
 to Rome, the classical nations have made con- 
 tributions to human progress which, so far as 
 we can see, are of enduring value and perennial 
 interest. The contribution of Greece in the sphere 
 of art is quite unique, and the modern world is still 
 far behind the example set by her. Esthetic 
 values have for a variety of reasons been greatly 
 iornored in our institutions and schemes of reform. 
 
 o 
 
 Education has been no less a sinner than others, 
 and art may fairly be called the neglected element 
 — the Cinderella, despite all the claims of " Science " 
 to that title. Greece first taught the world what 
 art as a handmaid of life can do in conferring 
 grace and beauty, and adding refined enjoyment, 
 even if we cannot agree that it makes vice less 
 hideous by stripping it of its grossness. Philo- 
 sophy has still to seek its sanctions in Greece, 
 though unhappily a knowledge of the language has 
 ceased to be a sine qua non even in the Universities 
 for philosophical students. Theology, the queen ? 
 of sciences, has not yet ceased to insist on it, and 
 is the chief remaining hostage of the language. 
 
i';o THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 Physical training has nowhere in ancient or modern 
 times attained such perfection. Greece alone has 
 shown what the human body is capable of by way 
 of aesthetic development. The Greek spirit is a 
 spirit of progress, enterprise, freedom, perpetual 
 youth. Need it be added that not a few of the 
 masterpieces of the world's literature are in Greek ? 
 The contributions of Greece are for all time. At 
 any rate we have not yet been able to supersede 
 them. Rome has also great works in literature, 
 but probably not more than two or three that could 
 take rank with those of Greece. It is in the fields 
 of action -and moral conduct that Rome has made 
 her permanent contributions. To the former, some 
 reference has already been made. Roman educa- 
 tion was an education of circumstance, of learning 
 by doing. The first moral lessons were learned at 
 the mother's knee ; the method reveals the domestic 
 influences, the part which the family is fitted to 
 play in moral and religious training. The spirit 
 of self-sacrifice was a part of the social inheritance, 
 first inculcated in the family. The qualities of 
 seriousness, gravity, dignity, obedience, courage, 
 fearlessness, endurance, breathe from every page 
 of Roman history. The political platform is in 
 miniature the prototype of our own. Respect for 
 the gods, for law, and for constituted authority, was 
 united to a spirit of independence and a passion for 
 
THE PLACE OF THE CLASSICS 17 1 
 
 liberty that proved the ruin of tyrants, and was at 
 least in part responsible for the overthrow of the 
 great Julius himself. The Stoicism of decadent 
 Rome is one of the noblest fruits of human philo- 
 sophy. Nor must the relation of Rome to the 
 birth and spread of the Christian religion be wholly 
 left out of the count. 
 
 The study of the languages rightly conducted 
 undoubtedly does much to render the peoples, ex- 
 amples and ideals, for ourselves. The qualities of 
 those who spoke them are, as it were, reproduced 
 in those who learn them. Herein consists a part 
 of the service of classical study. The example of 
 a great people throughout the vicissitudes of its 
 fortunes in peace and in war, the absorption of 
 the qualities and spirit of the Roman at his best, 
 may afford some explanation of the influence that 
 classical studies have unquestionably exercised over 
 the minds of many, of our great statesmen. An 
 element in the training is the severe mental exer- 
 tion, with the drill in word forms and in varieties 
 of thought expression. The only question is 
 whether the method is exclusive : no other subject 
 has had anything like the same chance. Nor 
 must it be forgotten that there are some defects in 
 Roman no less than in Greek morals. The moral- 
 ity of the Classics is as a whole very mixed. Much 
 of the literature is not virginibus puerisgue,' and 
 
i;2 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 even seniors would gladly pass portions of it by 
 with averted eyes. Pagan morality could never 
 form a code for a Christian nation ; in Latin and 
 Greek the selection for youthful perusal must be 
 made with especial care. In estimating the pros 
 and cons, the point cannot be lost sight of 
 
 The Classics are thus an integral part of the racial 
 inheritance as it has come down to us. To the 
 greatest minds they have in the past made appeal 
 of very special character. They still form part of 
 the stock in trade of the statesman, the diplomatist, 
 the historian, the philosopher, the artist, the theo- 
 logian. But perhaps for that very reason, they 
 may be regarded as the peculiar field of the few 
 rather than the staple of the many. How much the 
 few are better or worse than their co-workers in 
 other spheres, we need not seek to determine. 
 There is surely abundant scope and material for 
 all tastes. Humanism, unless it is a spurious 
 counterfeit, does not undervalue studies in widely 
 different fields ; and, in like manner, realism finds 
 itself at every point in contact with, and dependence 
 upon, fellow-workers in the other domain. Sym- 
 pathy and mutual co-operation are not merely pos- 
 sible, they are the only reliable proof of intelligent 
 comprehension of the function and service of the 
 chosen study. 
 
 The question of methods still remains. Allowing 
 
THE PLACE OF THE CLASSICS 173 
 
 that language is a worthy subject of study, what 
 are the special objects to be kept in view ? for the 
 Classics have raised a storm of opposition on account 
 of the manner no less than of the matter of their 
 teaching. The main objective in the study of a 
 language is the mastery and use of the language 
 itself. Grammar is means not end in linguistic 
 study, therefore to be reduced to a minimum and 
 kept strictly subsidiary to the main purpose. The 
 language again is the stepping stone to the litera- 
 ture, and that, to the cultural material contained or 
 embodied in it. In a modern spoken language, the 
 objectives may include, or specially consist of, 
 facility in conversation or correspondence, very 
 rarely original composition. 
 
 The end dictates the method. The first and 
 main object of classical teaching is to procure 
 facility in comprehension first of the language and 
 then of the literature. If that object cannot be at- 
 tained, the study should not be begun at all, it is 
 sheer waste, or worse. In educational attainment 
 of whatever kind, gain must be estimated in rela- 
 tion to cost. We are indeed constantly seeking 
 to equate effort and result in every field. Know- 
 ledge may be bought too dearly ; which only means 
 that a larger and more valuable access of knowledge 
 might have been had by the same amount of effort 
 bestowed in some other direction. The cost of the 
 
174 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 Classics has been extravagantly high, and is so. 
 The study cannot profitably begin before the age 
 of 12 or 13. The fact is deducible alike from 
 psychological and from practical considerations. 
 Easy reading, with grammar as supplement, should 
 be the chief method ; or a few of the rudiments of 
 grammar, declension and conjugation, closely fol- 
 lowed by easy reading, if that way of putting it 
 be preferred. Within a year moderate facility in 
 translation may be acquired, if a fair proportion of 
 time, say, four to five hours per week, be devoted 
 to the subject. Meantime grammatical knowledge 
 will be extended almost unconsciously in close con- 
 nection with reading ; and some practice in simple 
 oral composition based on the day's lesson from 
 time to time will not be amiss. Half the contents 
 of the ordinary Latin grammar are quite useless ex- 
 cept for the specialist. Composition stands on the 
 same footing : in any case, it usually bulks far too 
 largely in the initial stages. It is an exercise 
 admittedly of the very highest disciplinary value, 
 at the proper time and for the few who are to 
 specialise in classics, or to make them the staple in 
 their course of study. But no one ever wishes to 
 express his thoughts, in Latin. Public orations, 
 epitaphs, and mottoes are all very well in their way, 
 but irrelevant to the position of Latin in the cur- 
 riculum. Any argument based on comparative 
 
THE PLACE OF THE CLASSICS i75 
 
 studies in grammar apply only to the philologist or 
 linguist. 
 
 Coming in at the intermediate stage of educa- 
 tion, following French, which is assumed to be 
 started about 9 to 10, Latin seems to have claims 
 to a place as an essential of the curriculum of any 
 liberal education. The cost is not too high, 
 or can at any rate by rational method be so re- 
 duced as to be well repaid by the gain. The 
 nearness of Rome to ourselves, the greatness of her 
 contributions to our national origins, system, and 
 institutions, the interpretative service of Latin in 
 respect to our own vocabulary, grammar, and litera- 
 ture, its appeal through structural form, through the 
 political and moral ideals pervading the literature 
 and the national life, its relation to modern Rom- 
 ance dialects — seem in cumulo to constitute ade- 
 quate, if not imperative, grounds for the retention of 
 Latin in all the alternative forms of liberal culture. 
 It cannot any longer claim a supreme, much less an 
 exclusive, position. The value of any department 
 of knowledge lies chiefly in its content, its bearing 
 upon life, as we know it, in some one of its aspects. 
 The form is not negligible, partly on account of the 
 aesthetic element involved, and partly on account of 
 the appeal it makes to minds of a certain type. But 
 neither Latin nor any other subject can maintain it- 
 self merely on the ground of its formal value. The 
 
176 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 formal value can never be definitely assessed, and 
 even though it could, it would be but a part of 
 the whole requirement of a subject of study. A 
 " human " subject should of all others render 
 some service to humanity : accidence and syntax 
 ad nauseam, and prose after the manner of Livy, 
 and verse — save the mark — all fail to carry convic- 
 tion. But Roman civilisation, l^atin literature, 
 and the Roman spirit and character as reflected 
 in the language and literature, are of the bedrock 
 of the world's foundations. 
 
 If Latin is a necessity, Greek is a luxury. It may 
 be that Greece stands to Rome as poetry does to 
 prose. But after all, life is mostly prosaic, however 
 loath we may be to have to confess it. The Greek 
 scholar will probably esteem this accomplishment 
 the most precious of his whole store, and yet be 
 forced to admit that for the majority of the world 
 as exemplified in the school community, it is an 
 impossibility. Time will not allow it, and there 
 may be other difficulties. There is no antecedent 
 reason why of the two Latin should be preferred to 
 Greek ; as a language the latter is more flexible, 
 more expressive, more musical, in every way 
 superior. It is the substance of what Latin and the 
 people who spoke it have to teach that turns th? 
 scale. Rome is nearer' to us, is more to us. Both 
 languages are too much, and a choice is forced upon 
 
THE PLACE OF THE CLASSICS 177 
 
 us. All that a pupil not specially classical could 
 do in the brief space available for Greek would not 
 bring him to the objective of linguistic study, the 
 literature and the life of the people. It would be 
 time and effort wasted. That is the curse of " com- 
 pulsory Greek ". Besides being a farce, it is a con- 
 stant irritant ; it has contributed not a little to the 
 general revolt against the Classics. 
 
 At or soon after the age of 15 specialisation will 
 allow a certain proportion of- pupils to follow the 
 lines of a classical curriculum. The day, it is to be 
 hoped, is far off when the humanistic curriculum 
 will fail to have its fair quota of students, but that 
 day very near when those fitted for, and desirous 
 of, other courses will have full liberty of choice. 
 Latin with Greek added will in the former case 
 become a specialised study, where all the minutiae 
 of grammar, antiquities, and the rest of the collateral 
 material, can receive due attention. The classical 
 pupils will after 1 5 be in a separate compartment, 
 their staple subject being, of course, duly comple- 
 mented by additional studies. Latin may not have 
 been so fully mastered by other pupils studying it 
 that it can be dropped even by them. But it will 
 fall into a subsidiary position, like French for those 
 not specialising in modern languages, and be con- 
 tinued in the form of reading, without any serious in- 
 roads on their time. B ut after 1 5 , if not earlier, Latin, 
 
 12 
 
1 78 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER ETDUCATORS 
 
 as a supplement say to Science or to Mathematics, 
 will be on a different footing in the school from the 
 specialised Latin which is pursued along with Greek. 
 From historical and other reasons, Classics are so 
 abundantly provided with endowments in school 
 and University that on this ground alone they will 
 still be the most attractive choice to the pupil of 
 ability and ambition, but of not unlimited means. 
 
 The general conclusions may be summed up 
 thus : (a) The claims of Latin and of Greek must 
 be estimated separately, (d) The Classics can no 
 longer be regarded as the exclusive, or as always 
 the best, curriculum, (c) They properly belong to 
 the secondary stage, i.e. subsequent to the age of 
 1 2. (d) Latin may be held to be an essential of a 
 liberal education, and should form a part of the 
 intermediate curriculum, at least with pupils who 
 are to complete a full secondary course, {e) The 
 main value of the studies is their content, though 
 their form is not wholly negligible. (/) The 
 specialised study of the Classics is for the few, to be 
 definitely entered on, about the age of 1 5, with the 
 beginnings of Greek. (^) Methods of teaching the 
 classics require revision and reform with a view to 
 the adoption of those that are most economical of 
 tiriie. (k) The chief danger to the Classics is from 
 within, notably " compulsory Greek ". 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS. 
 
 The chief end of life is character. Whence does 
 the child derive it, what elements and influences go 
 to build it up ? what bearing has religion upon it ? 
 If answers could be found to these questions, it 
 would be a comparatively easy task to determine 
 the function and duty of the school in this relation. 
 Character is in general a habit of being, which in- 
 cludes both action and thought. It is most com- 
 monly regarded from the external side, because 
 conduct as embodied in visible action is the readiest 
 test. But eveii as a man may smile and smile and 
 be a villain, so the inner springs of action, motive, 
 and purpose, must be scrutinised and approved be- 
 fore the conduct can unreservedly be pronounced 
 good. The moraliser of childhood does not go to 
 work on a tabula rasa any more than does the 
 instructor. The raw material is the original tem- 
 perament, a combination of many subtle qualities, 
 emotional and intellectual, with will as ultimate 
 arbiter. Moral training is more complicated and 
 
 difficult than intellectual training, both because it 
 
 179 12 * 
 
i8o THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 involves more agents and more numerous and com- 
 plicated conditions, and because its course is de- 
 termined by a variety of influences beyond effective 
 controlj by the ^chooL at any rate. 
 
 The object of moral training must manifestly be 
 twofold. It must aim first at regulating the conduct, 
 and second at basing it upon right motive. This is 
 the order of time in the development of the child. 
 In later life, motive receives chief emphasis, because 
 it is more fully realised that the fountainhead of 
 conduct must be purified, if the stream of life-derived 
 from it is to be pure. But in early life, the child 
 is not a free responsible agent. His moral action 
 is the result of external causes. The oxygen is 
 being gradually insinuated into his system as stimu- 
 lant to his moral life, Once the fire has been fairly 
 kindled, it will burn vigorously without the aid of 
 bellows. 
 
 To attempt in the first instance to train in 
 morality by means of direct instruction is to essay 
 the impossible. The child is capable of conduct, 
 or at any rate of behaviour, long before he is cap- 
 able of understanding the grounds of it. The train- 
 ing must again " follow " the child, in other words,, 
 it must discern and take advantage of his moral 
 capacities as they exist. The extent and character 
 of the moral possibilities cannot be inferred a priori; 
 only by sympathetic observation and insight are 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS i8i 
 
 they to be ascertained. The " child study," which 
 has ex hypothesi been bestowed for the general pur- 
 poses of the school, may have already supplied most 
 of the data necessary, though it can never be as- 
 sumed that intellectual and moral qualities stand 
 directly related to one another. Endeavours to 
 hurry on or to anticipate the course of natural de- 
 velopment, however well meant, are foredoomed 
 to failure. Ghastly failures they have often proved. 
 Moral precocity is even more fatal than intellectual 
 precocity, because the consequences are so much 
 more irreparable. Its most innocuous form is the 
 prig, followed by the hypocrite and other unlovely 
 varieties. 
 
 As in learning, so in morals, the concrete pre- 
 cedes the abstract. The child can be aided, guided, 
 in the last resort, compelled, into certain definite 
 lines of action and forms of behaviour long before 
 he can understand what the significance of the 
 action is, or can distinguish right from wrong. 
 To begin with, it is nearly as easy for the child — 
 perhaps not quite — to do the right thing as the 
 wrong thing. The material of temperament is 
 plastic and susceptible, readily moulded, by mother 
 or nurse, into any required shape. From the very 
 start of life the infant is amassing the capital of the 
 moral life. Habits of body, of speech, of embry- 
 onic thought are being formed. A bias is being 
 
1 82 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 imparted, and whether we will or no, we are as 
 parents doing much to shape the life destinies of 
 our children. Example and suggestion are the 
 two chief influences at work. Within each bud- 
 ding organism is that innate impulse towards re- 
 sponse called by Froebel self-activity. It drives 
 the child forward. If he is to live, he must act, 
 behave in some way, find outlet for this force with- 
 in.' The particular modes of its expression are 
 dictated by the environment. The line of least 
 resistance is that in which the way is pointed out 
 by the action of another. A casual act may con- 
 tain a suggestion for the child, though it was not 
 meant to be reproduced. It is a considerable time 
 before he understands the meaning of relations and 
 corresponding duties, to do, not as I do, but as is 
 becoming in you, or, as I bid you. At first he re- 
 produces without discrimination good, bad, and 
 indifferent, to the extent of his opportunities and 
 powers. 
 
 The process continues with more or less of self- 
 consciousness all through boyhood and girlhood. 
 It is impossible to fix any exact date at which the 
 child ceases to be a reflection of others and himself 
 becomes an independent moral agent. During 
 early years, as he gathers material for the moral 
 life, he is being fashioned externally into one or 
 other of its types. But his conduct is no more than 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS 1^3 
 
 the shell or husk of morality ; he is, and can be, 
 only superficially moral. He cannot be held a 
 fully responsible moral agent until the will is sufifi- 
 ciently strong to take independent control, and 
 sufficiently enlightened to decide wisely, with full 
 knowledge of the issues involved. From the age 
 of 14 onward conduct is to a considerable extent 
 reinforced in this way by motive, but it is long 
 subsequent that a man becomes in the eye of the 
 law fully responsible. Whether at 21 or at 41 
 he has attained truly to moral freedom is another 
 matter. 
 
 Such being very briefly the course of develop- 
 ment, the influences at work and the place of the 
 school will more readily appear. Morally the 
 child up to the age of 12 or 14 is in large 
 measure the creature of environment. He takes 
 on a protective moral colouring, which assimilates 
 him to his family, his school, his comrades, his vil- 
 lage or city community. His character, so far 
 as the term may fittingly be applied, is a resultant 
 of many forces. The strongest influence is in 
 part determined by length of time and persistency 
 of action, in part by intimacy of relation, by affec- 
 tion, or by admiration. A respected teacher, or a 
 loved companion, or a hero of the football field, 
 may be the influence that counts for most. But 
 the steady persistent home influence is on the whole 
 
1 84 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 the most likely to prevail. The particular mode of 
 reaction and the moral outcome cannot be forecast 
 with any certainty, and experience is all in favour 
 of avoiding chances and risks. Time seems as a 
 rule the most potent, because the most constant 
 and impalpable, agent. But that is not universally 
 true, or a full account of the matter. 
 
 Religion consecrates morality and supplies the 
 most powerful of its sanctions. Duty becomes a 
 more sacred thing when it is identified with obedi- 
 ence to the Divine Will, transgression a more 
 heinous thing when viewed in the light of resist- 
 ance to Omnipotent Love. Morality and religion 
 are insepariably blended in the Christian creed and 
 in most others, but they are to some extent separ- 
 able in thought, nor does their union imply any 
 very definite inference, regarding the character of 
 either. In our nation Christianity holds the field, 
 and it would be futile to consider the claims of any 
 other religion. Christianity without morals is un- 
 thinkable, but the converse can hardly be asserted ^ 
 with any confidence. Individuals are to be found 
 — what proportion of the community they may be 
 in all it is difficult to say — who have adopted in 
 most essentials the Christian ethic, but are unable 
 to accept the full claim of the Christian faith. The 
 pertinent question, in a nation so much divided 
 by petty sectarianism as our own, is whether effec- 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS 185 
 
 tive moral instruction so far as school is concerned 
 can be given without any appeal at all to religious 
 dogmata or sanctions. If the teacher could be re- 
 lieved of what is so frequently a bone of contention, 
 it would be something gained. But, of course, the 
 teacher's gain must not be suffered to become the 
 pupil's loss. 
 
 The religious instinct is so deeply imbedded in 
 human nature that it must be regarded as occupy- 
 ing a position similar to that of desire for knowledge, 
 perception of beauty, or recognition of right and 
 wrong. Paganism even more than revealed re- 
 ligion approves Voltaire's gibe : if there is no God, 
 we must make one. Mankind is so constituted 
 as to desire to adore and to worship, and at bot- 
 tom the choice is not so much between religion and 
 atheism, as between worthy and unworthy objects 
 of reverence. The child is nowhere more plainly 
 seen to be father of the man than in the sphere 
 of religion. Every sentiment that necessitates re- 
 ligion is emphasised in childhood. Dependence, 
 gratitude; strength, confidence; helplessness, pro- 
 tection ; ignorance, knowledge ; imperfection, as- 
 piration — these and similar sentiments, which lead 
 man to rely upon the comforts and assurances of 
 religion, all find more acute expression at a period 
 of life when weakness and dependence are more 
 accentuated, and the need of faith is greater. The 
 
1 86 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 parent in the first instance represents the Divine 
 love and pity and help. He interprets religion to 
 the child, who is thus enabled to make a gradual 
 transition from the lower to the higher plane. If 
 humanity were perfect in strength, knowledge, and 
 purity, much of the necessity of religion would dis- 
 appear. Pride is a characteristic foe of religion be- 
 cause it relies upon its own self-sufficiency ; humility 
 a characteristic virtue, the " garment " of the saint. 
 So far as religious education is concerned, the two 
 chief points are, first, that the religious instinct is 
 one of the original endowments of the child, de- 
 manding cultivation and satisfaction : second, that 
 the parent is the natural instructor in religion both 
 because he most nearly and completely reveals the 
 Divine to the child, and because by his own sub- 
 mission and obedience to Divine law he prepares 
 the way for the independent religious and moral life 
 of later days. Moreover he is the only possible 
 exponent of religion and of duty to the child at the 
 period when foundations of faith and of obedience 
 are being laid. The most precious portion of the. 
 child's birthright is the religious inheritance. If the 
 family fail of its part in conferring it, the immediate 
 loss is great, its reparation even partially by other 
 agencies at later periods difficult and problematical. 
 The home, natural or artificial, is the seedplot of 
 religion as of virtue, 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS 187 
 
 Looking broadly at the child's morals and re- 
 ligion as one individual whole, we can now trace 
 their relation to the educational agencies referred to 
 in a previous chapter. While the family is the 
 first and chief of them, it does not stand alone. It 
 requires supplement, and this is afforded chiefly by 
 school and Church. Comrades and society at large 
 would appear to be influential in special departments 
 of morals, and to have, as a rule, less direct in- 
 fluence on religion. But in all the cases qualifica- 
 tions and exceptions must be admitted. 
 
 The impossibility of an education deserving the 
 name apart from the family or some Counterpart of 
 it must be regarded as an axiom. The losses due 
 to defective home life may in the intellectual, and 
 even in the physical, sphere, be in part repaired ; 
 but in the moral they are to a great extent irremedi- 
 able. Experience shows it so plainly and so fully 
 that it might appear almost unnecessary to further 
 insist upon it. So self-evident is the fact, that the 
 wonder is that many yet look to the school as the 
 moral regenerator of society. The school can do 
 something, under favourable circumstances, a good 
 deal, but opposed by the home very little that is 
 effective, in the way of moral redemption. The 
 outfit of morals comes from the home ; by the home, 
 the work of the school is day by day confirmed or 
 undone, as the case may be ; the child returns to the 
 
1 88 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 home and its atmosphere in a majority of cases after 
 school days are over. Where there is difference in 
 moral standards and practices in school and home, 
 the latter from its constant, intimate, and old-stand- 
 . ing relations, as well as from hereditary predisposi- 
 tion, will in nine cases out of ten carry the day. In 
 order to be of any practical benefit the school must 
 build upon the home, and the two must throughout 
 be in close and harmonious co-operation. Since 
 the school cannot unaided ensure success as moral 
 educator, it is folly to expect it, especially with a 
 generation of experience of the elementary school 
 behind us. Congratulate ourselves as we may upon 
 our system of public education, we are overwork- 
 ing it to a ruinous extent, if we lay upon it a burden 
 which it has plainly declared itself unable to bear. 
 Recognition of conditions of successful moral train- 
 ing is the first step to reform of methods. Mean- 
 time we are on an inclined plane, with the pace 
 ever accelerating as we descend. Physical care 
 is good in its way as a supplement to the home. 
 Ignorant and overburdened parents may be helped, 
 provided the home at the same time does what it 
 can. Even in the physical sphere, however, if too 
 much is done, it is as bad as if nothing were done, 
 because the child-derives no ultimate and permanent 
 benefit. In the moral and religious spheres no pro- 
 gress worthy the name can be made independently 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS 189 
 
 of the home. Let it therefore be clearly under- 
 stood that whatever help the home receives in the 
 discharge of functions properly belonging to- it, 
 whether in the physical or the moral sphere, is of a 
 strictly provisional character until a new generation 
 is reared competent to discharge the duties of life, 
 and chief among them of parenthood. A system 
 of doles indefinitely extended in area and time is 
 the most direct means of indefinitely postponing the 
 only satisfactory solution possible, of these urgent 
 questions of training. The interests of the child 
 are supreme ; they cannot be secured apart from 
 the efficiency of the family. 
 
 The preliminary training in religion and morals 
 having been provided by the family, the school as 
 such has still an important function to discharge. 
 It is a social institution as well as a place of learn- 
 ing. It is competent to render services in forms 
 and spheres beyond the range of the home. The 
 home does not do everything. School is a distinct 
 step forward in the child's moral experience and 
 development. He has come half-way to the world. 
 New relations are formed, new duties imposed, new 
 powers called forth. School stands for progress, 
 superior knowledge, extended comradeship. The 
 intimate relations of home are modified when re- 
 produced on a more public platform and in a more 
 numerous assembly. Here each counts for one and 
 
190 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 no more. The atmosphere is cooler and more 
 bracing than in the family. Moral strength and 
 independence is fostered, for temptations abound, 
 and negative no less than positive virtue is called 
 forth. The teacher is a person of authority, of 
 culture and of power, if he is what he claims to be. 
 He has at command resources and expedients which 
 the home does not possess. School regards life 
 from a new angle and has a new scale of values. 
 However carefully the home has done its work, its 
 efforts must be supplemented before the child is 
 fitted to enter the great world. After the hothouse 
 air of the seedplot bedding-out is a healthy process 
 necessary to strength and independent life. It will 
 prepare for the full blast, exposure to which will 
 follow in no long time. 
 
 In three chief directions does the school perform 
 its function as a moralising agent. Their scope and 
 character can be only briefly indicated. First, the 
 instruction of the school greatly extends the moral 
 horizon in every direction. Each subject of the 
 curriculum, it may be, has a special ethical character 
 and effect. But apart from that, problems of con- 
 duct are revealed and illustrated in scores of different 
 ways in the ordinary round of literary and historical 
 studies. 
 
 Second, the discipline and daily routine, i.e. 
 school-life in the most general sense, serve to 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS 191 
 
 establish moral law, and associate it in an unmistak- 
 able way with compliance to its demands. Discipline 
 is unworthy the name unless it is a moral agency. 
 A semblance of it there may be, despotism, the 
 subjection of weak to strong ; but if that is all, 
 authority and permanence are lacking, and the 
 moral purpose is lost. Discipline, in its perfection, 
 represents the chief moral instrument which the 
 school has at command. As an ethical institution 
 the school reveals itself in this sphere above all, 
 ruling with firmness and justice, teaching the nature 
 and binding character of moral law, aiding the in- 
 dividual in his special difficulties, and establishing 
 through punishment a sanction that cannot be gain- 
 said. It is in connection specially with this branch 
 of his duties, discipline, but not excluding the more 
 scholastic elements, that the teacher's own char- 
 acter is of such far-reaching importance. Like the 
 parent he stands forth as the embodiment of the 
 moral law, only at a more advanced stage in life ; 
 he personifies it in concrete form which the pupil 
 can understand, his example, his principles, his 
 habits, his outlook on life, all produce lasting effect, 
 second only to those of the parent, actually superior 
 to them, in the special spheres peculiar to the 
 school. 
 
 Third, the intercourse of companions is a factor 
 of distinct and separate significance. Even were 
 
192 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 there no lessons, no study, no teacher, no discipline, 
 the school would still be a great moral agency 
 through the influence of the pupils upon one an- 
 other. Sometimes indeed it seems to be so exclus- 
 ively regarded in this light that its chief value, 
 especially in its more advanced forms of College 
 and University life is thought to lie in being a place 
 where pupils are introduced to one another. Short 
 of this extreme view, we may justly assign a high 
 value to the camaraderie, association for common 
 purposes, subordination to common ends, of which 
 school gives such ample opportunity. School 
 friendships provide some of the most enduring of 
 life's ties and influences. The school becomes 
 through the relation of pupil to pupil in work, 
 games, and voluntary association, with all therein 
 implied, a great socialising institution. The indi- 
 vidual is brought into contact with his fellows, forms 
 with them a society, learns the duties, and enjoys 
 the privileges, of the society, and comes to know 
 the meaning and feel the force of the social sanction. 
 He is being fitted for his place in the larger com- 
 munity of the state. 
 
 The pursuit of studies has itself a social side : com- 
 bined efforts in group work are an illustration speci- 
 ally designed for the purpose of showing mutual de- 
 pendence and the necessity of mutual aid. All kinds 
 of occupational instruction teach the same lesson. 
 
MORAL -AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS 193 
 
 Vocation which is being prepared for is designed, 
 among other things, to furnish a contribution to the 
 well-being of the society. The infinite division of 
 labour demanded increasingly by the arts and crafts 
 brings home to the dullest the character and need 
 of team work. If we are a part of all we have been, 
 we are no less a part of all we do, for our com- 
 munity and for one another. 
 
 These three factors of influence, studies, teachers, 
 school-fellows, are interrelated in the general in- 
 tellectual and corporate life of the school, which 
 ought for this as for other purposes to be character- 
 ised by harmony and unity. Their ramifications 
 and the methods of their operation give occasion 
 for manifold devices, and in cumulo count for the 
 second greatest influence in the moral life of the 
 child as pupil. 
 
 The general course of moral training is toward 
 freedom. The school should as the pupil advances, 
 provide increasing opportunity for independent ac- 
 tion. As the rules of the nursery are superseded by 
 those of the class-room, so the restrictions of the 
 junior school are gradually relaxed, and in the senior 
 school in part removed. From 14 onward the 
 pupil should to an increasing extent be left free to 
 choose for himself — of course within limits of safety 
 — strength of purpose and occasion of choice be- 
 ing duly considered. By 17 or 1 8 he ought to have 
 
 13 
 
194 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 attained such firmness of will and stability of 
 principle, as well as acquaintance with moral issues, 
 that he is ready for the assumption of full responsi- 
 bility. The transition from the restraint of authority 
 to complete freedom should be so gradual that its 
 final stage is reached imperceptibly, a consummation 
 comparatively seldom attained. 
 
 Religious instruction as such can scarcely be con- 
 sidered the business of the school. The school 
 like other institutions in a Christian country, or 
 for the matter of that in a country professing any 
 religious creed, must be based on, and permeated 
 by, the principles of its religion. It should have 
 religious observances appropriate to itself, and it 
 should appeal when necessary or expedient, as in 
 the case of moral sanctions, . to the teaching and 
 authority of religion. But it does not seem to be 
 any part of its substantive duty, hardly even com- 
 patible with the numerous other duties laid upon it, 
 to provide positive religious instruction. So far as 
 dogma is concerned the matter does not admit of 
 doubt. To impose upon the teacher religious tests 
 — for that is what it amounts to — and to exploit 
 the school in the interests of sect, is to deprive the 
 teacher of the liberty requisite for his efficiency, 
 and to divert instruction into wrong channels. As 
 a mere matter of method, it is open to grave doubt 
 whether dogma should have any place at all during 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS 19S 
 
 the stage of the child's development which corre- 
 sponds to the elementary school. With Bible 
 teaching, "simple" or otherwise, it is a different 
 matter. The Bible is a many-sided book, and can- 
 not be ruled out simply because it is the storehouse 
 of religious foundations and truths. It is one of the 
 greatest of literary works, in fact a whole literature, 
 a compendium of geography, the history of ancient 
 peoples and of civilisation. 1 1 is the greatest of moral 
 text-books, saturated with the ethical spirit, every- 
 where bringing into the foreground the issues of 
 conduct and the eternal difference and antagonism 
 of right and wrong. It forms the background, 
 that is, a chief part of the background, not only of 
 English, but of universal, literature since the Chris- 
 tian era. It is the world's greatest classic, more 
 particularly in the domains of morals and religion. 
 What has been said of the relation of Latin to the 
 modern world applies by analogy to the Bible, only 
 with increased force. In it is contained the record 
 of the world's religious origins and development. 
 As the Romans are our political, so the Hebrews 
 are our religious ancestors ; in order to understand 
 ourselves we must search the Scriptures. In pro- 
 portion as moral issues are deeper and more vital 
 than material ones, so is acquaintance with the 
 Bible a more essential educational requirement 
 than knowledge of the literature of Greece and 
 
 13 ' 
 
196 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 Rome. There is, besides, the added benefit : the 
 Authorised Version is so to speak an independent 
 creation, an original literary work of surpassing 
 grandeur ; the ancient literature has become our 
 own and its meaning has not to- be sought in out- 
 landish dialects and through the intricacies of a 
 complicated syntax. He may run who reads. For 
 those reasons the Bible has positive claims which 
 of themselves are irresistible. The school cannot 
 in its own interests afford to jettison it. As for the 
 rest, its claims need impose no intolerable burden 
 upon the teacher. The only requirements are that 
 it be taught intelligently and reverently, surely not 
 too much to require in handling any great work of 
 art. The material is no doubt varied. Method 
 must be employed in order to adapt it to the needs 
 of pupils of different ages and capacities. But 
 that is a requirement common to all forms of 
 instruction. 
 
 While Bible teaching is permissible and even 
 necessary, it is to be understood that the' school 
 must not be relied upon as the exclusive means of 
 such instruction, and that the teaching must not 
 become an instrument of dogma or denomination. 
 The school accepts and welcomes the Bible for its 
 own sake, not in the interests of sectarianism. 
 Religious instruction in the particularistic sense be- 
 longs to the family and the Church. Religion is the 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS 197 
 
 great bond of the home, ensuring unity, harmony, 
 and consecration. Only through it are family dis- 
 cipline and morals effectively maintained. The true 
 Sabbath school is in the home. If parents are mem- 
 bers of a Christian Church, they should be competent 
 to impart to their children at least the rudiments of 
 religious instruction and training, to be supplemented 
 by confirmation classes and other means in due time. 
 If parents are outside the pale of Church life, the 
 redemption of the children may become in the first 
 instance, the work of the Mission school. To 
 full religious education, the three agencies, school, 
 home, and Church, must be in co-operation. The 
 school, our irrtmediate concern, is the least of the 
 three. Its Bible instruction supplies, almost as an 
 incident, the material of religious knowledge. This 
 foundation other agents help to secure, adding to 
 it from the Bible itself, and building on it such 
 superstructure of creed and dogma as affords the 
 fullest expression for the beliefs and "worship of the 
 particular coterie or denomination. But in our 
 days both creed and dogma begin to lose some- 
 thing of their importance if not also of their credit. 
 Educationists may well weep — it would make 
 angels weep — when they contemplate the condition 
 of the so-called religious question in the schools 
 in certain quarters of the land. The " charity " 
 which suffers long and is kind is very far to seek. 
 
198 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 A spirit of jealous antagonism that will suffer no- 
 thing, but displays a fanatical jealousy which is a 
 colourable imitation of hatred, has replaced what 
 was once thought the unmistakable evidence of the 
 faith. The special bitterness is reserved for those 
 that are within. " Religion," " education," " school " 
 have become watchwords of political rancour and 
 social exclusiveness. Unless the sobering experi- 
 ences of war serve to reveal the true proportions of 
 things and to engender a spirit of sweet reasonable- 
 ness and mutual forbearance and aid, there can be 
 only one end. Religion will be banished from the 
 school, and with it the Bible which has been made 
 its stalking-horse. A purely secular system of edu- 
 cation is the rock towards which we are fast drifting. 
 Well may the " enemy " rejoice. By sectarian strife 
 the Bible will eventually be strangled. Surely no 
 serious man can contemplate with equanimity such 
 an issue. Secularism as an educational system is 
 lop-sided and defective. If the foundations be de- 
 stroyed, what is to become of morals ? If the 
 idealism of religion is eliminated, life has lost half 
 its meaning and purpose. Scotland at any rate 
 is happily free from immediate risk. Its example 
 should not be lost upon its neighbours. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DEFECTS AND REMEDIES. 
 
 The results of our discussion have now to be 
 focussed. Can it be definitely said that our national 
 education is defective? If so, in what respects? 
 and can any remedy be devised ? Complete treat- 
 ment of these comprehensive issues would require 
 not merely a chapter, but a volume or a series of 
 volumes. Within our limits only a few suggestions 
 are possible. 
 
 Bearing in mind the individual character of 
 education, we must beware of regarding the educa- 
 tion of a nation as a single undivided system. 
 Some degree of classification is possible ; common 
 characteristics and requirements permit of group- 
 ing, but many categories are distinguishable. For 
 practical purposes they must be reduced to a 
 minimum. We may perhaps without essential 
 error regard the most fundamental division as two- 
 fold, the many and the few. The few are those 
 who pass right through all the stages of formal 
 
 education up to College and University. The many 
 
 199 
 
200 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 end at 14 if they wish, but may go a good deal 
 further if they choose. A certain fraction of the 
 many eventually join the few, and there is no in- 
 surmountable wall of partition between the two 
 categories. The divisions in fact cross and re- 
 cross, and are capable of sub-division into number- 
 less sections and sub-sections. The training of the 
 few who are to be the leaders of the nation is quite 
 as important as of the many who constitute the 
 rank and file. But it is a question by itself and in- 
 volves the place and functions of the Universities, 
 which lie outwith the scope of these chapters, and it 
 is, therefore, advisedly excluded from further con- 
 sideration here. The present object is to say some- 
 thing of the great mass of pupils who pass through 
 the elementary schools, and who have since 1 870 
 constituted the burden of the public teacher. When 
 it is borne in mind that the elementary schools of 
 Great Britain contain something like 7,000,000 
 pupils, the magnitude of the issues for national well- 
 being may be imagined. 
 
 The main source of error and resulting defect in 
 the national system seems to lie in the assumption, 
 already seen to be so unwarranted, that education is 
 the exclusive work of the school. The other edu- 
 cational agents are allowed to remain in large 
 measure idle, or to become positively antagonistic. 
 Family and society fail of their contribution, and 
 
t)EF£;cTS AND REMEDIES 201 
 
 the school is left to face the task unaided. Though 
 teachers were angels or apostles, as they are often 
 martyrs, complete success would, humanly speaking, 
 be impossible. Some families, be it gratefully ac- 
 knowledged, do their duty. Some members, if not 
 sections, of the community are conscious of their re- 
 sponsibility for example and influence. But the 
 strength of the family, or of the social, chain is de- 
 pendent on the weakest link. Each tainted home is 
 a plague spot. A bad set, though small, may corrupt 
 the morals of a whole village. The school being a 
 common meeting ground for good and bad, the 
 majority in it may suffer from the minority. And 
 in this particular connection the minority is often 
 not an inconsiderable one. 
 
 The failure of the other educative agencies handi- 
 caps the pupils before, during, and after, school life. 
 Without seeking to estimate the relative degrees of 
 failure at the different stages, we may follow the 
 order of time. Before and during school life the 
 family is the chief offender. After school life society 
 has an equal share of the blame. 
 
 Parental responsibility is a well-worn theme ; it 
 has already been more than once referred to. Some 
 call it a bogey or a myth. It is among " the ills we 
 have ". The educator, especially as teacher, must 
 adopt some attitude toward it. State-rearing of 
 children is not a question of practical politics. Its 
 
202 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 magnitude alone renders it impossible. Nor is it 
 necessary. The majority of the homes of children 
 of the common schools are solicitous of the welfare 
 of their inmates ; many of them are as wellqualified 
 to promote it as could be looked for under existing 
 industrial conditions in this country. But even in 
 well-principled families there is a good deal of 
 ignorance of the needs of cljildren and of the duties 
 of the home. There remains a considerable fraction 
 of negligent and inefficient homes which does not 
 tend to diminish in number or to improve in char- 
 acter. In them little or no attempt is made to bear 
 any active share in the work of educating. In the 
 case of the responsible families, enlightenment, 
 guidance, and aid are called for. In the other, 
 the submerged or degenerate, ameliorative mea- 
 sures of an imperative character are necessary. The 
 standard in both requires to be indefinitely raised. 
 The good are not good enough. The bad are 
 hopeless, and call for reconstruction from the very 
 foundation. The part to be played by the home 
 lies in the sphere of physical care, moral training, 
 and " godly upbringing ". Home prepares the way 
 for school, co-operates with it in discipline, and 
 gives such encouragement as it can, to studies, by 
 providing facilities, manifesting interest, and bestow- 
 ing encouragement. 
 
 Much has of late been done in connection with 
 
DEFECTS AND REMEDIES 263 
 
 medical inspection and relative activities to repair 
 from without the defects of the home. This is right 
 enough so far, good in its way, but it is a mere 
 temporary palliative, not a radical and permanent 
 cure. The danger is by no means imaginary that 
 the endeavour to stamp out the plague end in spread- 
 ing and confirming it. Not merely preventive mea- 
 sures are called for in the child's interest, but posi- 
 tive efforts to ensure the preparation of prospective 
 parents for their duties. The means by which the 
 family shall be restored to its position as an edu- 
 cational agency, perhaps the greatest of all, is 
 probably the most difficult and at the same time 
 the most vital of current or prospective problems. 
 Parental co-operation in education is a sine qua 
 non, without which the nation has no right to 
 expect success. The school postulates it. To 
 blame the school for faults of which it is itself the 
 victim, is not the route to progress. The parent's 
 equipment, i.e. instruction with a view to the 
 sphere and duties of parenthood, is so intimately 
 bound up with the education of the continuation 
 period subsequent to 14 that for the moment con- 
 sideration of its specific character had better be 
 deferred. 
 
 If the first stage of development is in the home, 
 the second stage is that contemporaneous with school 
 life. Has education as schooling, it may next be 
 
204 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 asked, any defects, apart from the continued home 
 neglect of the period ? The characteristic failing of 
 the school lies rather on the opposite side of the 
 scale to the home. It errs by excess, forces and 
 over-stimulates, pins its faith to organisation and 
 machinery. But education, it must be borne in 
 mind, is a process of development, not quite spon- 
 taneous, it is true, but regulated and directed by the 
 wisdom of experience, still, essentially, develop- 
 ment. Development is from within, it must be 
 waited upon, by hurrying we anticipate, i.e. prevent, 
 it. Festina lente must be the motto. The teacher 
 is tempted to forget it. His error may be due to 
 excess of zeal, but none the less is it to be depre- 
 cated. An over-crowded curriculum defeats itself, 
 for only what is assimilated promotes development 
 and power of thought. 
 
 Inspection, in like manner, coming in to test 
 the teacher's, work easily defeats itself. It, too, is 
 prone to err by excess. Examination with a view 
 to results is, with the majority of pupils, up to the 
 end of the primary period, a paedagogical blunder 
 no less than an anachronism. Inspection ought to 
 be almost passive, simple observation of the school, 
 its methods, atmosphere, curriculum, and so forth. 
 The growing plant is not to be pulled up that 
 the roots may be examined. Time was when 
 the teacher had to be watched. He might be an 
 
DEFECTS AND REMEDIES 205 
 
 impostor. Now he is an approved agent. The 
 examining body is also the body that has certified 
 the fitness of the teacher. The teacher's training 
 has been lengthy, careful, and thorough. By all 
 means catch him, and if necessary stop him, before 
 he gets into the school. When he reaches it, do 
 not harry him, do not interfere ; trust him, give 
 him a very free hand, not so much in his own as 
 in his pupils' interests. Statistics of attendances, 
 visits, passes, et hoc genus omne, possess little or no 
 intrinsic" value. They have a value of a kind but 
 only as subsidiary. When they are either over- 
 estimated or misinterpreted, their cha/acter may be 
 fixed by the well-known dictum regarding statistics ! 
 They are doubly and trebly mendacious. Or- 
 ganisation has become such a necessity in large 
 modern schools that its dangers are often unper- 
 ceived. The individual counts for too little, yet it 
 is the individual, and he alone, who is being edu- 
 cated. Personal contact of teacher and pupil be- 
 comes difficult. A school of 600-800 is as large as 
 any one head can hope to exercise personal influ- 
 ence through. Even so, the most skilled and ex- 
 perienced member of the staff is usually withdrawn 
 from active stated teaching. The complaint is 
 widespread that his time is filled not even with the 
 work of supervision but with clerical duties of 
 little scholastic value. Worst of all, in this parti- 
 
2o6 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 cular connection, teaching tends to become special- 
 ised, with a teacher attached to each successive 
 year or grade of school life rather than to each set 
 or class of pupils. A child may have half a dozen 
 teachers in as many years, and the result is, so far 
 as personal influence goes, the reverse of beneficial. 
 Their different methods and standards confuse 
 him. He Is not mature enough to select his 
 material and fit it into a scheme of knowledge 
 of his own already established. His moral code 
 is still fluid. Principles cannot readily be co- 
 ordinated ; as exemplified in different teachers, 
 they may seem to him contradictory and mutually 
 de'structive. 
 
 The moral influence of the school in former 
 days was possibly due not so much to superi- 
 ority of character in the teacher as to advantage 
 of situation in his continuous and prolonged influ- 
 ence. The school was small, the teacher pervaded 
 it, each day, each hour, year after year. He left 
 his personal impress and the school was the out- 
 come and expression of his personality. The moral 
 result was distinct and often pronounced. The pupil 
 was at the same time left more to himself in his 
 studies, he had frequently to grapple with his own 
 difficulties, he mastered his problems for himself, 
 if he did master them ; he actually assimilated his 
 knowledge and so ensured his intellectual no less 
 
DEFECTS AND REMEDIES 207 
 
 than moral development. The school of to-day 
 has lost in some measure these elements of self- 
 help. It may have gained, no doubt has gained, 
 in other directions. The teacher's specialised 
 knowledge, his technical skill, command of method, 
 resource, and device have all made great ad- 
 vance. But while this is as it should be, it would 
 be well if in other respects something of the old 
 order could be restored. Children may be over- 
 taught, and have so little opportunity or necessity 
 of learning for themselves that they merely ac- 
 quire and reproduce and do not develop. A little 
 wholesome neglect is occasionally a most valuable 
 specific. Possibly one of the chief advantages of 
 manual work is, not simply that the hands are used, 
 but that the pupil is, for the time being, left more 
 to himself, more independent, with comparative 
 freedom of initiative and action. Excessive tasks, 
 excessive hours, excessive aid are to the full as bad 
 as their opposites. It is to the best pupils that 
 they are most injurious. MrjSev ayav. 
 
 The defect of education after 14 is all too easily 
 stated : there is little if anything but defect. In 
 1870 it was supposed, perhaps not unnaturally, 
 that the schooling of all children up to 12 would 
 provide such an equality of opportunity, and such 
 a start in life, that the rest might be left to volun- 
 tary choice and effort. Later the limit was raised 
 
208 THE. SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 to 14, but with hardly appreciably better result. 
 Only now are our eyes being opened to the fact 
 that no adequate training either mental or moral 
 can be had within this period. Psychology has 
 taught us the meaning and the range of " infancy ". 
 It has shown that the period of greatest formative 
 value is the adolescent, in its most restricted form, 
 the years 14-18. The early influences are lost in 
 great measure unless followed up and confirmed. 
 Compulsory schooling till 14 becomes a doubtful 
 benefit, if it merely put an engine of destruction 
 in the hands of the adolescent. His earlier years 
 would have been employed more profitably in some 
 other sphere than that of school. Adolescence 
 projects into the future also, for, safely passed, it 
 gives moderate assurance of stability in the more 
 independent life which follows. 
 
 The great problem is, what is to be the next 
 step in securing the adequate " following up " of 
 tlie work of the elementary or primary stage. 
 Something is at present done, but so little in com- 
 parison with what ^requires to be done that it can 
 be regarded as at best a beginning. At 12 or 
 thereby pupils, who have all hitherto come by much 
 the same road, begin to enter divergent paths. 
 With the minority who proceed to secondary and 
 higher education we have at present nothing to do ; 
 they are ruled out, otherwise provided for, and 
 
DEFECTS AND REMEDIES 2og 
 
 comparatively safe. Of the majority, a consider- 
 able number enter Continuation Schools either 
 immediately or later. Many of these attend in a 
 very desultory way, while, of the others, many 
 have no time or energy for study after the severe 
 toil of their occupation. Many, again, are so 
 overjoyed at their release from compulsion that they 
 never again in their lives enter an educational insti- 
 tution as such. From causes of this kind it results 
 that national education, as it is, becomes of ques- 
 tionable utility. The state does not receive an 
 adequate return for its expenditure. But the point 
 is that this is due not to failure of the school, but 
 to failure to follow it up to its logical conclusion. 
 The school is not allowed to occupy its whole 
 sphere or completely to fulfil its function. It is 
 stopped half-way. 
 
 Too little in all is done : or, if more is not to be 
 done, then too much has been done. The ques- 
 tion is enormously complicated by economic con- 
 siderations, and by varieties of circumstances in 
 pupils. The one thing plain is that formal educa- 
 tion must in some shape be extended up to the age 
 of 1 8 in all cases. How is the crux. Mr. Fisher's 
 Bill is one answer or part answer. 
 
 The proposal to raise the compulsory age to 1 5 
 
 might do something, but would still leave the main 
 
 issue untouched. Parents and employers would 
 
 14 
 
210 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 probably offer opposition to it. The aid of the 
 child toward the family exchequer would be lost, 
 and the supply of cheap labour would be dried up. 
 The objection, less serious if the limit is fixed at 
 14, is not insurmountable. But there is another, 
 which is educational and more grave in character. 
 Large numbers of children might, indeed would, 
 lose ratlier than gain by the change. Probably 
 half the children who reach the age of 1 2 are con- 
 genitally hand workers. They are not bookish, 
 studies are not their line of successful effort. Their 
 development would be best promoted by engag- 
 ing in some suitable, not too exacting and not too 
 prolonged, daily industrial occupation. It seems 
 doubtful at what particular age manual capacity 
 begins to be impaired through disuse, e.g. whether 
 a child will be an equally good spinner or weave'r 
 or joiner if he start at 10, 12, 14, or 16. The 
 school can itself provide scope for the use of the 
 hands in a variety of ways, but there must come 
 a time when the pupil will be better employed in the 
 actual occupation, be it joinery, masonry, engineer- 
 ing, printing, grocer ing, or clerking. If the age 
 could be exactly determined, it would serve to indi- 
 cate the desirable age for the completion of com- 
 pulsory exclusive schooling. It is certainly not 
 earlier than 1 2 and probably hot later than 15, but 
 either seems preferable to 14. 
 
DEFECTS AND REMEDIES 211 
 
 But it is not to be supposed that occupation is to 
 have it all, or chiefly, its own way. The instruc- 
 tion of the " leaver " who has .become worker must 
 concurrently be " continued," i.e. continuously pur- 
 sued, up to at least 18. That is the minimum. 
 It will differ specifically, if not generically, in boys 
 and girls. It may be taken to fall into four divi- 
 sions : (a) Knowledge bearing upon the occu- 
 pation, i.e. vocational or technical instruction, (d) 
 General interests and hobbies — literature, aesthetics, 
 including music, scientific studies, including field 
 work in the open, manual employments and ac- 
 complishments, (c) Physical care in its infinite 
 varieties, (d) Preparation for social duties including 
 parenthood. The order of importance is difficult of 
 determination, but after all does not greatly matter 
 where all are essential. Each is more or less closely 
 related to the others. A subject like history is not 
 only literature but also a branch of social study. 
 Literature is, of course, one form of aesthetic pro- 
 duct, though it fulfils so many other functions that 
 it may be classed separately. Physiology in the 
 form of hygiene will be no less useful for social duties 
 than for physical interests, and so is it through- 
 out the whole range of the studies. The conditions 
 of instruction must be such as to give study a fair 
 chance. Up to the age of 16 it should have 
 the ^rst claim upon the day's energy. After that, 
 
212 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 industry may assert a rather stronger claim than 
 before : but it must never trench so largely upon 
 time and strength as to render concurrent education 
 laborious and wearisome. If proper measures are 
 taken up to i8, the pupil, though by no means 
 " educated " in anything like the full sense, ought 
 after that to be able to secure his own interests 
 without compulsion from the state. 
 
 On the fourth division of adolescent studies, that 
 relating to social duties, something requires to be 
 said in order to link up with it the parental defects 
 referred to at the beginning of the chapter. We 
 need go no further than the evidence of medical 
 inspection for proof of the statement made above 
 that many parents are lamentably deficient in the 
 discharge of the elementary parental duties. The 
 ameliorative measures that are being taken by the 
 state in the interests of children of such homes give 
 no guarantee or prospect of permanent reform. 
 They must therefore be regarded as strictly pro- 
 visional. A new generation of parents bringing 
 forth the fruits of righteousness in the hygienic and 
 moral spheres has to be reared up. Education is 
 faced with no more serious task. To begin with, 
 it is obvious that preparation for parenthood must 
 be had, if at all, in the later adolescent period ; 
 until that time it is premature and unintelligible, to 
 say nothing of its further consequences. Courses 
 
DEFECTS AND REMEDIES 213 
 
 of instruction of this nature must be designed for 
 young men and young women separately. For the 
 latter the instruction would consist of what is known 
 as mothercraft with some expansion and supple- 
 ment. A start will already have been made in this 
 direction. From the age of 12 onwards lessons 
 in elementary physiology and the laws of health 
 will, or should, have formed a part of the continua- 
 tion studies, and in the case of girls the domestic 
 sciences will have received a considerable share 
 of attention during the whole period from 12 or 
 earlier up to 17 or 18. Physical care including 
 cleanliness, fresh air, and suitable exercises, out- 
 side games by preference, will have done some- 
 thing to promote health and to secure stamina 
 for the rearing of children. The nation may be 
 said to have at last realised that its chief asset is its 
 manhood and womanhood. How to procure and 
 maintain the supply is the most vital of all questions 
 concerning the national well-being. " Man power " 
 has become a watchword. The educationist is not 
 bound to accept existing social conditions in large 
 cities, though it may be no part of his business to 
 reform them. He postulates the conditions neces- 
 sary for the success of his own work. If he tries 
 to create them, it is as social reformer he does so, 
 not as educator. 
 
 Assuming that the necessary reform of exist- 
 
214 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 ing conditions is possible, education is entitled to 
 prescribe the requirements of parenthood as they 
 affect its sphere and purpose. For all nupturients, 
 male and female, a first requirement is a certificate 
 of physical efficiency. The state must have no 
 scruples. It shall not recognise as marriageable, 
 persons suffering from inveterate disease. Medicine 
 must determine the details, the particular forms and 
 degrees of disease that fall within the category, 
 special regard being had to its transmissibility to 
 offspring either hereditarily or by contagion. The 
 second requirement, on the part of each intending 
 parent, is a modicum of knowledge of the duties 
 necessarily falling to the family. Theoretical know- 
 ledge will not be required to any great extent, but 
 the tests of practical skill in matters bearing on 
 family life and the care of children, especially on 
 the part of girls, ought to be so adequate as to give 
 assurance of proficiency. Mothercraft is not to be 
 learned when the infant is squalling in the cradle, 
 or has been handed over to some caretaker or 
 creche, while a mothers' meeting is being held. 
 It must be mastered before the baby comes, it will 
 be a valuable accomplishment for a young woman 
 to possess, though there never be any baby at all. 
 Like all other knowledge of the kind it will require 
 to be largely supplemented from practical experi- 
 ence of- the actual work of nursing, feeding, and 
 
DEFECTS AND REMEDIES 215 
 
 tending the child in health and in sickness. Every 
 father, and especially every mother, should thus 
 know something not only of the child's physical 
 wants and how to supply them, but also of the 
 course of development of his mind and how to pro- 
 mote it. A few simple lessons embracing some of 
 the chief results of child study, without any of its 
 technicalities, would enable the mother to become 
 a valuable ally of the teacher, and not only so, but 
 to find a new interest and a fresh inspiration in the 
 discharge of the duties of the household and home, 
 which, if wearing, yet have their full reward. The 
 main object is, of course, the interests of neither 
 parent nor teacher, but those of the child, which 
 can in no other- way during the early years of life 
 be adequately secured. 
 
 The strictly moral side of the parent's duties is 
 more difficult to test and to provide. The effort 
 and the self-respect called forth by the fulfilment of 
 the other duties referred to will no doubt re-act 
 beneficially in the sphere of morals. As for the rest, 
 reliance must be placed upon the growth of public 
 opinion, upon the activities of the Church, and upon 
 voluntary agencies acting upon the home. People 
 may by Act of Parliament be made to some extent 
 cleanly, to a less extent intelligent, but morality has 
 never shown itself responsive to such instruments. 
 
 The state may with safety, and should without 
 
2i6 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 delay, establish a prenuptial certificate, to-be ob- 
 tained before any steps could be taken for a legal 
 marriage. 1 1 should likewise insist on the discharge 
 of their duties by parents in the two respects indi- 
 cated, and should visit their neglect with the logical 
 penalty, exclusion from a voice in the management 
 of the state, in other words, disfranchisement. The 
 time is past when the healthy stock can be allowed 
 to be contaminated, or the purposes of education 
 defeated, before its formal stages are reached. The 
 school is well able to do its part, but the state must 
 provide the opportunity. Nor need there be any 
 apprehension of the diminution of the number of 
 marriages through the establishment of an ante- 
 nuptial standard of competence in body and mind. 
 The terrors of such an examination need not greatly 
 appal. Young people who are anxious to get 
 married may be trusted to do their part to fulfil the 
 not too onerous conditions, in themselves a whole- 
 some reminder of the seriousness of the engage- 
 ments into which they are entering. The percentage 
 of failures will be negligible : that there should be 
 some failures, may be a result highly desirable. 
 Disfranchisement for parental neglect may sound 
 serious : it is a very minimum of penalty and may 
 in fact require added stringency of a more positive 
 character. The question of differentiation of taxa- 
 tion in favour of marriage needs to be dealt with in 
 
DEFECTS AND REMEDIES 217 ' 
 
 a much more clear-sighted and courageous fashion 
 than has yet been attempted. But the endowment 
 of parenthood is not strictly an educational issue. 
 
 Of the other requirements of adolescent education, 
 the political and the aesthetic must receive due 
 emphasis. They too are portions of the social or 
 civic side of training, and for the former at any rate 
 some provision is already being made. But of the 
 artistic element there is comparatively little recogni- 
 tion or cultivation. Art is not unfrequently looked 
 upon askance, as at best a harmless fad, at worst a 
 dangerous passion and excess. Nothing could be 
 more short-sighted or mistaken. As the revelation 
 of beauty and therewith of new vistas of truth, art 
 brightens, sweetens, purifies life in every sphere. 
 Contentment with gratuitous ugliness is little re- 
 moved from vice. Whatever the ultimate relation 
 of beauty and goodness, people may to all intents 
 and purposes become more moral and more happy 
 by paying more adequate regard to the claims of 
 beauty in each of its characteristic forms. Cleanli- 
 ness, the first necessity of health and of self-respect, 
 may be said to rise and develop naturally into 
 aesthetic perception. Art is but a higher denomina- 
 tion of this primitive virtue, though that does not 
 exhaust its content. The debasement of art and 
 its prostitution to vile purposes is hardly more than 
 a proof of its power. To it is especially applicable 
 
2i8 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 the proverb that the corruption of the best is the 
 worst. 
 
 Even to the ordinary worker in factory, workshop, 
 or office, endless sources of artistic enjoyment are 
 open. They fall into the two great categories of 
 natural and artificial. The child's Nature Study 
 will at an early period have opened his eyes to the 
 beauty of things as well as to their parts, properties, 
 modes of growth and uses. The studies of the 
 school, whether "real" or "human," will have 
 maintained the continuity of interest, certain of them 
 will have definitely promoted it. But now at length 
 in his adolescent stage does the youth love to rumin- 
 ate and to dream ; 
 
 and by such dreaming high 
 Is nearest unto heaven. 
 
 He awakens to the meaning and power of beauty. 
 Plant, animal, land, sea, earth, heaven, landscape, 
 river, valley, mountain, cloud, sky, from year's end 
 to year's end runs the ceaseless procession : the 
 endless panorama, which he (or she) has only to 
 open his eyes and his ears to receive and to enjoy. 
 Of products of man's art, i.e. the artificial side. 
 Drawing and Music are the chief scholastic repre- 
 sentatives. Both are capable of indefinite expansion 
 as boyhood and girlhood ripen into youth. What 
 was before mechanical, becomes instinct with life 
 and feeling. Literature, especially poetry, is a still 
 
DEFECTS AND REMEDIES 219 
 
 more general example of artistic product. It serves, 
 of course, many uses besides. To the very youthful 
 mind subject matter bulks'large, in certain forms of 
 literature it is so predominant that other aspects are 
 obscured. But the adolescent mind has greater pos- 
 sibilities. It can, and should, be awakened to the 
 emotional side of literature, and brought to perceive 
 differences of quality. It should be taught to form 
 sesthetic estimates, and to have a keen appreciation 
 of the distinction between, say, a guide book and 
 Wordsworth's " Sonnet Written on Westminster 
 Bridge " or Coleridge's " Hymn before Sunrise in the 
 Vale of Chamouni ". Painting, statuary, architecture 
 are becoming more accessible in large cities, and are, 
 of course, among the most typical forms of " Art " 
 as popularly understood. Dancing and dramatic 
 representation are other forms suitable for educa- 
 tional purposes. The aim in adolescent training 
 must be, through the development of the innate 
 artistic endowment, to cultivate a sensitive respon- 
 siveness to the appeal of beauty in every sphere, 
 natural and artificial, to form, colour, sound, move- 
 ment. The human body is the greatest of all the 
 masterpieces of beauty, in form and movement, 
 express and admirable. Man is the paragon of 
 animals, the culmination of, it may be, ideal beauty. 
 " A beautiful soul in a beautiful body " embodies the 
 Greek conception of education. The attainment 
 
220 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 fell far short of the ideal. To us beauty of soul 
 connotes purity ; unless the perception of beauty 
 extend into the moral sphere, it has fallen short of 
 its possibilities. Body, mind, and spirit are alike 
 embraced within its ambit. The cathartic of the 
 soul is religion ; when art has been thus purified, 
 and has enlisted in the service of pure religion, it 
 has attained to its highest triumphs. Throughout 
 our whole system of education the esthetic factor 
 calls loudly for restoration to its rightful place. It 
 is especially needful for those whose opportunities 
 of enjoyment are in other respects curtailed. 
 
 The Church, too, as was indicated in the preced- 
 ing chapter, has a great duty and a great oppor- 
 tunity during the adolescence of its youth, but its 
 procedure lies outside the -limits of the school. 
 
 The sum of the matter is this : {a) In pre-school - 
 days the child suffers irreparably from the ineffici- 
 ency of the home, (d) During school days he suffers 
 from the same cause, and, in addition, from the low 
 standard of public morals, especially from profanity 
 and drunkenness. School has its own defects and 
 limitations, (c) Post-school, i.e. adolescent, edu- 
 cation requires re-organisation from the foundation, 
 (flf) The reform of adolescent education must in- 
 clude in particular (i) physical care, (2) preparation 
 for social duties, and above all, for parenthood, 
 (3) artistic culture, (e) School must be linked up 
 
DEFECTS AND REMEDIES 221 
 
 with home, Church, and social life in order that 
 formal and informal influences may be brought into 
 harmonious co-operation. 
 
 A whole world of difference exists between this 
 minimum of culture and training which must be 
 provided for all, and the specialised and higher 
 courses of study which can be reached only by the 
 few. From what precedes it may be gathered that 
 education as a social agent has two great functions 
 to perform. In the first place, it provides for the 
 select few who are able to go all the distance that it 
 can take them. In this connection it serves at each 
 stage as a means of sifting and selection. The 
 millions of pupils of the elementary school are re- 
 duced to tens, or at most hundreds, of thousands at 
 the intermediate stage. These are still further re- 
 duced at each subsequent stage until in the post- 
 graduate departments ofacademicf study they dwindle 
 to a few scores or possibly hundreds of individual 
 students. The whole system resembles a pyramid, 
 broad-based and gradually contracted at each higher 
 stage, until it reaches its apex in the University and 
 post-graduate schools. The principle of selection 
 may be thought " natural," but it does not compre- 
 hend all human nature. It is in fact rather narrow ; 
 call it brain power, capacity, "parts," or what you 
 will, it takes little account of qualities which often 
 stand the test of life quite as successfully as those 
 
222 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 which Secondary School or University exalts to the 
 first place. The title to further education even at 
 best is based on a narrow foundation of power of a 
 special kind. Educational institutions cater for the 
 "thinking department" of the nation's life, and 
 therewith do a great deal to develop capacity in the 
 individual along certain valuable, if somewhat re- 
 stricted, lines. In the past the basis of selection has 
 to some extent been scarcely intellectual at all, but 
 merely social. At any rate, it has been produced by 
 social conditions, for only the moderately well-off 
 have been able to afford it. But increasingly it be- 
 comes one of merit The promising pupil, whatever 
 his parents' fortune or rank in life, is a national 
 asset, which cannot with impunity be neglected. 
 If he has riot sufficient private means, they must be 
 provided. This is everywhere being done, and the 
 educational ladder is being made long enough and 
 strong enough to bear the number and weight of all 
 climbers worthy of setting foot on its rounds. 
 
 But the second function of education is equally, 
 if not more, important. For one thing, it concerns 
 the majority of the nation ; and in a democracy 
 heads count. For another thing, it has been much 
 more neglected than the other. The strong are 
 better able to help themselves. The weak have 
 been left to their own devices, and in the troubled 
 waters of industrial city life have been destined as 
 
DEFECTS AND REMEDIES 223 
 
 frequently to sink as to swim. It is this second 
 function that has formed the chief theme of our 
 discussion throughout. Education is essential for 
 the redemption, even in the economic and civic 
 sense, of the millions of workers that comprise the 
 bulk of the nation. The socialising influences of 
 the school must be extended into spheres which 
 hitherto it has not regarded as specially its own. 
 Through formal and informal effort it must enter 
 into the life of those who are never to become 
 scholars, never to shed lustre on school or teacher, 
 never to contribute to the advance of knowledge. 
 Its task is to provide the best not only for the 
 chosen few but for the undistinguished many, the 
 toilers and the chief, sufferers in the world. While 
 it sifts out at each stage those who are competent to 
 pursue the narrow path of scholarship in one or other 
 branch of knowledge, it must at the same time seek 
 to embrace all capacity down to the meanest, and 
 furnish it with the material which it is capable of 
 turning to profitable account. It must brighten and 
 sweeten and purify, in short, humanise, the life of the 
 humblest. It is able to do so, if only it is allowed a 
 fair chance. But the school and the teacher unaided 
 cannot do all the work. The task is too great. It 
 needs the assistance of the Church, of medicine, of 
 social science, of society, of the community. No- 
 thing short of whole-hearted co-operation among 
 
224 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 all agencies can afford hope of success. Educa- 
 tion " means " more to us than any former age 
 dreamt of. The first step to success in it is a clear 
 perception of its problems. In the past the strong 
 have been moderately well cared for, the weak 
 have been in great part neglected. The strong are 
 the few, the turn of the many has now come. While 
 we recognise that the increase of the few and the 
 improvement of their quality are more necessary 
 than ever, the other is the bigger and more serious 
 problem. Not until we have successfully tackled it, 
 and transfused the life of the workers of the nation 
 with the beneficent influences of knowledge, beauty, 
 reverence, and piety, can we dream of resting 
 satisfied — not 
 
 Till we have built Jerusalem 
 
 In England's green and pleasant land. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abnormal, 56. 
 
 Activity (of child), 116, 182. 
 
 Adolescen-ce, -t, 15, 208, 211 flf., 
 
 218, 219. 
 Esthetic, 61, 211,217, 218, 220. 
 Age (school), 207 ff. 
 Ambiguity, c. \. passim, 19, 29. 
 A posteriori method, c. vii., 
 
 lOI ff. 
 Arabic, 166. 
 Arithmetic, 126. 
 Athleticism, 58. 
 Authorised Version, 196. 
 "Average," c. ii., 14 ff. 
 
 Bacon, 164. 
 
 Bible, 96, 169, 195 ff. 
 
 Biology, 16, 34, 128. 
 
 Blind alley, 66. 
 
 Boarding (school), see School. 
 
 Botany, 128, 145. 
 
 Bottles (old and new), 4. 
 
 Briton, 109. 
 
 Bryant, Mrs., 49. 
 
 Cathay, 19. 
 
 Certificate (ante-nuptial), 214 ff. 
 
 Character, see Morality. 
 
 Child, passim. 
 
 Child study, 9, 181, 215. 
 
 Christianity, 184. 
 
 Church, see Religion. 
 
 Class teaching, 23-7. 
 
 225 
 
 Classics, 122, 133, 157, 158, 
 
 c. vii., 162 ff. 
 Code, 145. 
 Coleridge, 219. 
 Companions, 83-7, 191 ff. 
 Composition, 135. 
 Concept, 25. 
 "Constants," 18, 57. 
 Cost (in relation to gain), 173. 
 Crusoe, Robinson, 138. 
 Curriculum, 10, 40, cc. viii., ix., 
 
 109 ff. 
 Custom, 88, 89. 
 
 Dancing, 219. 
 Dependence (of child), 1 7. 
 Development, 14-16, 18, 20, 30, 
 
 40,46,47,57,-72,79, IIS, 126, 
 
 130, 180, 181, 183. 
 Discipline, 73, 191, 192, 197. 
 Disfranchisement (for parental 
 
 neglect), 216. 
 "Doing," 117, 118. 
 Drama, dramatics, 91, 92, 138, 
 
 145, 219- 
 Drawing, 137, 145, 155, 218. 
 
 Edinburgh, 150, 151. 
 
 Education — changes, 4 ; con- 
 scious, 20, 31 ; departments, 
 6 ; development, a vital pro- 
 cess, 7, 14, 18, 41 ; domestic, 
 81 ; elementary, 116; follows 
 
 15 
 
226 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 the child, 23, 55, 57, 63, 67, 
 114, IIS. 146, 147, 180; 
 formal and informal, 20-32 ; 
 ideal, 22, 23 ; machinery, 12 ; 
 meanings, c. i., i ff., 20 ; means 
 of progress, 35 ; organic, 18, 
 31, 54, 83, 89 ; passive, 17, 
 18 ; preparation for life, 43, 
 65 ; prescriptive, 17 ; public, 
 188; science, 42, 46; techni- 
 cal, 68, 71, 73. 
 
 Educative influences, 19, 20. 
 
 Educators (other than school), 
 c. vi., 74 ff. 
 
 " Ends," cc. iv., v., 40 ff. 
 
 England, English, 58, 66, 80, 81, 
 94, 154, 234. 
 
 Esther, 105. 
 
 Eugenics, 7, 39, ^^. 
 
 Europe, 19. 
 
 Evolution, see Development. 
 
 Ezra,. 105. 
 
 Family, see Parent. 
 
 Fashion, see Custom. 
 
 Fisher, Mr., 309. 
 
 " Following up," 208. 
 
 Form (of knowledge), 60, 61, 
 
 124. 
 Formal and informal (education), 
 
 20, 57, c. vi., 74 ff., 125, 159, 
 
 316, 331, 323. 
 
 Formal training, Ii8ff., 159, 165. 
 French, 144. 
 Friendship, .86, 87. 
 Froebel, 55, 117, 182. 
 
 Games, 86. 
 
 Generalisation, 56, 103, 106. 
 Geography, 129, 138, 139, 157. 
 Gibbon, 108. 
 Greek, see Classics. 
 Greeks, 35, 36, 219. 
 
 Habit, 23, 63, 85, 122, 181. 
 
 Haldane, Lord, i. 
 
 Hebrews, 195. 
 
 Hereditary, see Nature. 
 
 History, 129, 138, 139, 157. 
 
 Home, see Parent. 
 
 Homeric maxim, 30. 
 
 " Human," humanities, 127 ff., 
 
 218. 
 Humility, 161, 186. 
 Humour, 103, 104. 
 
 India, 80. 
 
 Individuality, 26, 27, 43, 125, 199. 
 Infancy (doctrine of), 55, 208. 
 Inspection (ordinary and medi- 
 cal), 303, 204, 212. 
 Instinct, 1 11, 11 3. 
 Interest, 140 ff. 
 Ihtrospection, 103, 105. 
 
 Jesuits, 164. 
 
 Knowledge, 43, 49, 58, 59, 68, 
 no, 115. 
 
 Language and literature, 91, 93, 
 
 131, 133, 145, IS5, 157. 
 Latin, see Classics. 
 Leisure, 68, 70, 140, 151. 
 Life and its purposes, 17, 21, 22, 
 
 43ffi 
 
 Livelihood, se^ Occupation. 
 Local authority, 40. 
 Locke, 32, 34, 48. 
 London, 105. 
 
 Maps, 138, 139. 
 
 Mathematics, 118, 123, 155, 157, 
 
 159, 160. 
 Methods (quantitative), 36 ; (in 
 
 Classics), 172 ff. 
 Milton, 33, 168. 
 
INDEX 
 
 227 
 
 Morality and moral training, 42, 
 44, 46-9, 52, 61-4, 71-3, 88, 
 96, H4, 139. 171, 172, c. xi., 
 179 fF., 199, 200, 221. 
 
 Mothercraft, 213, 214. 
 
 Motive, i8o, 183. 
 
 Music, 138, 145, 218. 
 
 Nature, 22, c. iif, 28 flf., 63, 77, 
 78, III, 119, 127 ff., 133, 137, 
 159, 171, 172. 
 
 Nature Study, 115, 117, 128, 137, 
 145, 218. 
 
 Nehemiah, 105. 
 
 Newton, 164. 
 
 Nupturients, 214. 
 
 Nurture, c. iii., 28 fF., 42, 77, 83. 
 
 Observation, 8, 26, 36, 104, 
 
 105. 
 Occupation, 45, 51, 52, 64, 65, 
 
 69, 152, 193- 
 
 Parent and parenthood, 3, 18, 
 22, 64, 74-83, 87, 94, 186, 201 
 ff., 209, 212, 216, 217. 
 
 Parliament, i, 215. 
 
 Physical interests, 44, 45, 50, 57, 
 58, 86, 122, 123, 211, 213. 
 
 Play centre, 84. 
 
 Poetry, 115, 145. 
 
 Politician, 3. 
 
 Press, I, 92. 
 
 Quick, R. H., 120. 
 
 Reading, 134. 
 
 "Real," 127 ff., 218. 
 
 Reason, 20, 29, 112. 
 
 Religion, 44, 47, 53, 93-8, 184 
 
 ff., 198. 
 Reproduction, 59. 
 Research, 26, 56, 60, 159, 160. 
 
 Richter, J. P., 42. 
 
 Rome, 78, 80. 
 
 Rousseau, J. J., 8, 9, 12, 55, 61, 
 
 70, 151. 
 Rs (three), 134-6. 
 Ruskin, 32-4. 
 Russian, 167. 
 
 Sanctions (moral), 184, 185, 
 
 191, 192, 194. 
 Sanskrit, 166. 
 Schools and schooling, 19, 20, 41, 
 
 66, 67, 74, 79-82, 94, 95-8, 
 
 116, 125, 188 ff., 193, 197, 
 
 200, 209. 
 Science, c. viii., 1568". 
 Scotland, 80, 81, 147, 154, 198. 
 Sense training, 136. 
 Society and social influences, 87- 
 
 93, 97, 189, 192, 200,207, 211 
 
 ff., 217, 220, 223. 
 Spanish, 167. 
 Specialisation, 161, 177. 
 Spencer, Herlsert, 42, 11 0-2, 119. 
 South Seas, 109. 
 State, II, 40, 41, 79, 215. 
 Statistics, 205. 
 Stoicism, 171. 
 Sturm, John, 164. 
 Suggestion, 90, 91, 182. 
 Summum bonum, 43. 
 
 Teacher, 3, 11, 21, 26, 40, 41, 
 
 43, 54, 55, 66, loi. 
 Temperament, 179, 181. 
 Testament, New, 164. 
 Times {The), i, 161. 
 
 University, 147, 150, 161, 192, 
 
 199, 200, 221. 
 Utility, no, 124. 
 
 15 
 
228 THE SCHOOL AND OTHER EDUCATORS 
 
 Values (of knowledge), 111-4, 
 
 119. 
 " Variables," 22, 40, 48. 
 Varieties (of children, etc.), 8, 9, 
 
 25, 35, 56, 83. 
 
 Vocabulary (of children), 85. 
 Voltaire, 185. ' 
 
 Wordsworth, 219. 
 Writing, 135. 
 
 PKINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, ABERDEEN