Part 1 (2/2)
The pity is that so nored or imperfectly appreciated May not this be partly the fault of the lines which our education has followed? Perhaps some kinds of study would have fared better if their defenders had dwelt more upon the pleasure they afford and less upon their supposed utility The charaued that the best way to acquire a good English style is to know the ancient languages, a proposition discredited by many exara people and suggested the dictu as he hates it” Better had it been, abandoning the notion that every one should learn Greek, to dwell upon the boundless pleasure whichin ems of ancient wisdom which are e, and the finest passages of ancient poetry There are plenty of things--indeed there are far s--in modern literature as noble and as beautiful as the best of the ancients can give us But they are not the sarance of the springtime of the world [2] Or take another sort of instance Take the pleasures which nature spreads before us with a generous hand, hills and fields and woods and rocks, flowers and the songs of birds, the ever-shi+fting aspects of clouds and of landscapes under light and shado persons in most countries--for there is in this respect a difference between different peoples--notice these things Everybody sees them few observe theely because attention has not been properly called to theht to look at natural objects closely and see the variety there is in them Persons in who been taken to see, good pictures and told what constitutes allery, usually interested in the subjects They like to see a sportsht, or aa sick child, because these incidents appeal to the but the subject; they do not appreciate: iht and shade or indeed anything except exact ieso exceptional as a lofty rock, like Ailsa Craig or the Needles off the Isle of Wight, or an eclipse of the moon, or perhaps a blood-red sunset; but he does not notice and consequently draws no pleasure froeneral, whether noble; or quietly beautiful The capacity for taking pleasure, in all these things may not be absent There is reason: to think that most children possess it, because when they are sho to observe they usually respond, quickly perceiving, for instance, the differences between one flower and another, quickly, even when quite young, learning the distinctive characters and na each when they walk along the lanes, as indeed every intelligent child enjoys the exercise of its observing powers The disproportionate growth of our urban population, a thing regrettable in other respects also, has no doubtpeople a fa into the country and the happy lengthening of summer holidays render it easier than formerly to provide opportunities for Nature Study, which, properly conducted, is a recreation and not a lesson There is no source of enjoyh life or which fits one better for other enjoyments, such as those of art and of travel
Of the value of the habit of alert observation for other purposes I say nothing, wishi+ng here to insist only upon what it land boys and girls show less e than those of most European countries, or even than those of the three sland in which the Celtic elee has, ever since the days of Matthew Arnold, been brought against the English upper and middle classes He declared that they care less for the ”things of the mind” and show less respect to eminence in science, literature and art, than is the case elsewhere, as for instance in France, Germany, or Italy (to which one may add the United States); and he thus explained the scanty interest taken by these classes in educational progress
Should this latter charge be well founded, the fact it notes would tend to perpetuate the former evil, for the indifference of parents reacts upon the school and upon the pupils The love of knowledge is so natural and awakens so early in the norlish than a French or Scottish children, we ely due to faulty and unsti, and may trust that they will diminish when these lish public generally shoant of interest in and faint appreciation of the value of education, the stern discipline of ill do so to remove this indifference
The comparative poverty and reduction of luxurious habits; which this ill bring in its train, along with a sense of the need that has arisen for turning to the fullest account all the intellectual resources of the country so that it s e for the better, and lead parents to set more store upon the mental and less upon the athletic achievements of their sons
Be this as it may, no one to-day denies that much remains to be done to spread a sense of the value of science for those branches of industry to which (as especially to agriculture) it has been i of scientific theory as the foundation of technical and practical scientific work, and above all to equip with the largestthose on whoorous and flexible reat businesses, industrial and financial, are looking out for men of university distinction to be placed in responsible posts--a thing which did not happen fifty years ago--because the conditions of rown too intricate to be handled by any but the best trained brains The same need is at least equally true ofthrust, in growing volume, upon the State and its officials
If we feel this as respects the internal economic life of our country, is it not true also of the international life of the world? In the stress and cos to the nations that recognise the worth of Knowledge and Thought, and best understand how to apply the accue and wisdoe applied with that width of view and sympathetic comprehension of men, and of other nations, which are the essence of statesmanshi+p
[Footnote 1: This has been clearly seen and admirably stated by the present President of the Board of Education]
[Footnote 2: Take for instance this little fragaryest imerophonoi, Gyia pherein dynatai Bale de Bale kerylos eien, Hos t hepi kyes hetor hechon haliporphyros eiaros hornis_
What can be more exquisite than the epithets in the first line, or inative quality than the three last? A enius would treat the topic with equal force and grace, but the charm, the untranslatable charm of antique simplicity, would be absent]
I
THE AIM OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM
By J L PATON
High Master of Manchester Grammar School
The last century, with all its brilliant achievement in scientific discovery and increase of production, was spiritually a failure The sadness of that spiritual failure crushed the heart of Clough, turned Carlyle from a thinker into a scold, and Matthew Arnold from a poet into a writer of prose
The secret of failure was that the great forces which move mankind were out of touch with each other, and furnished no mutual support
Art had no vital relation with industry; as dissociated from joy; political econoers draith religion; action did not correspond to thought, being to see claims and interests at variance with the claims and interests of the society of which he forainst it, in an opposition so sharply reatest thinkers could write a book with the title ”Man _versus_ the State” As a result, nation was divided against nation, labour against capital, town against country, sex against sex, the hearts of the children were set against the fathers, the Church fought against the State, and, worst of all, Church fought against Church
The discords of the great society were reflect inevitably in the sphere of education The elementary schools of the nation were divided into two conflicting groups, and both were separated by an estranging gulf frorammar schools in turn were shut off from the public schools on the one hand, and froy on the other There was no cohesion, no concerted effort, noidea
This fact in itself is sufficient to account for the ineffectiveness, the despondencies, the insincerities and ceaseless unrest of Western civilisation in the nineteenth century The tree of hu of the nations when its great life-forces spend the war on each other
If the experience of the century which lies before us is to be different, it must be made so by means of education Education is the science which deals with the world as it is capable of becos as they are, and fors as they are The eyes of education are fixed always upon the future, and philosophy of whatever kind, directly adumbrates a Utopia, thinks on educational lines
The aih, itthe whole front, not on a small sector only Willia, used to say, that what bothered him alas the fra ”framed off” and isolated from life Just as William Morris wanted to turn all life into art, so with education It cannot be ”fraer aspects of political and social well-being; it takes all life for its province It is not an end in itself, any more than the individuals hoh the individual it acts upon theof human society
To cope with a task which can be stated in these tere postulates a new education The traditions which have doed to render account of theood in them must be conserved and assimilated, that which is effete must be scrapped and rejected