EDUCATION WEEK. A NYBODY who has read the reports of the
multi- tudinous meetings and lectures which were delivered in " Education Week," ending last Satur- day, must have been struck by the astonishingly English spectacle presented by the system—or rather, lack of system—of education as at present estab- lished in this country. In Sir Michael Sadler's witty phrase, " English education has advanced in open order." Indeed it has. And in that open order it is easy to detect two separate bodies—to the right, the public schools, plus Oxford and Cambridge ; and to the left, the elementary and secondary schools, plus the new universities. Appropriately enough, the first of these bodies was represented by the meeting of head- masters in the secluded atmosphere of Cheltenham; while the second, represented by the Conference of Educational Associations and the Association of Assistant Masters, sat in London.
But although it is easy to differentiate between these two types of educational institutions, when we try to draw an exact distinction between them we find our- selves at a loss. At first sight it might seem that the London Conference, with its lectures on eugenics and intelligence tests, represented the progressive element in education, while the " sound, fortifying dassica curriculum " was entrenched in Cheltenham. Indeed, ome people might imagine that head-masters would be about equally afraid of their pupils hearing of eugenics or of being subjected to intelligence tests, but if we examine a little more closely we shall see that there are distinct signs of progress, even in that solid institution the English Public School.
There is the experiment of the new school at Bembridge, where it is said that the sons of Members of Parliament are taught so much about foreign affairs that one of the masters expressed the somewhat extravagant hope of baying, in the next generation, an educated House of Commons, while such comparatively old-established institutions as Gresham's, Oundle and Newbury would all surprise and perhaps pain Dr. Arnold if he might ee them. Soon, too, public schools will receive a new recruit in Stowe College, where, in the ancestral home of the Whigs, will perhaps be founded a new school of scientific Whiggery. But it was in University College, London, that the future of the other larger and more democratic branch of English education was discussed. Here the great problem was of centralization or devolution. The. question whether or not we are going to establish a great comprehensive State system of education with the teachers as Civil Servants on the lines of the French organization will have to be faced sooner or later.. It is most important that acute minds like Sir Michael Sadler's should be explaining the nature of the problem not only. to the teaching profession, but to the country as a whole, so that when the deeision has to be made there will be some slight chance of bringing an informed public opinion to bear upon it.
It is especially important for us, whose educational system is still in the making, to study the examples of foreign countries and their different systems. An extraordinarily interesting paper was read by M. Veillet- Lavallee on the proposed imposition of four years' compulsory Latin in French secondary schools. Here we had a perfect example of both the advantages and dangers of a centralized system. Its obvious advantages of a uniformly high standard and easy manipulation are, it would seem, sometimes more than balanced by the danger of some such measure as the present one being introduced not for educational reasons at all, but as a piece of political policy, for M. Veillet-Lavallee more than hinted that this was an anti-democratic measure, part and parcel of the policy of the present reactionary Chamber. He ended his paper with a vigorous assault on the idea that the Classics were necessary to culture. We quote the Morning Post report : " What prevented many people from understanding that culture could be imparted on modern lines was because most of the cultured men of the present day were educated under the classical system. They were the prisoners of their own culture, and could not conceive any other than that which they had received." Those words, if they are taken in their widest sense, might not be bad candidates for a place among the select maxims which schoolmasters, at any rate in theory, love to write in letters of gold over their classroom doors.
Previous page
