The Everlasting Crisis
IN the free society there is always a crisis in education. The Communists or the theocrats may know, with a shining, inner certainty, just 'why' and 'how' to educate. But we are more modest and more sceptical. All the same not all sceptics are unprincipled. And modesty need not feed on ignorance. These two books, in Particular that edited by ProfesSor Judges, will do much to dispel IR iorance and to illuminate principles. Many will be surprised to learn from Professor Judges how little we spend, as a nation, on education of all kinds. Counting in the universities and the independent schools, it amounts to no more than three per cent. of the national income. Furthermore, despite the `redistributive' role of , the Treasury, it appears that the groups earning £10 a week or less foot their own bill for education (and much else besides) by PaYment of indirect taxes. No one denies the value of what the State does for education. It is of great importance in that it keeps Politics and prejudice out of our schools. Yet many have felt that °I) balance more could have been done. Professor Judges will find much support for his view: `Taking into account all the cruel Shortages of recent times in men and materials, the nation's treat- ment of state education and those who have served it in the last 1,° years has been somewhat ungenerous.' Education has long been a very junior Cinderella. Ministers of Education are of Unequal quality: and not all of them know what they want. Even when they do, there is no guarantee that they will triumph in Cabinet. Such difficulties are always there and must be reckoned th. But the really disturbing features lie elsewhere. There are Some dangerous trends for which, in a free society, the State cannot take all the blame. For example, the greatest single enemy Of liberal education is the universal trend towards greater and ea , tiler specialisation. Again there is the absurd conflict between tiberal and vocational education. Most important of all, how are 'the many' to be educated, the citizens of Mr. Priestley's ADmass?
Wh
-at principles—not platitudes—are we to invoke here? The Secondary modern school plus commercial television hardly amounts to a liberal education.
If there is an answer to these problems, it can only come from the teachers. They cannot impart a liberal education if they have !lever had one themselves. Far too many teachers are hastily
allied and remain disgruntled about status and prospects. Far top few pass through the universities where alone, as Dr. Jacks itsts, the teachers can be educated as well as trained. He might have added that if the universities, through overcrowding or over- 4Pecialisation, drop their standards, all will be lost indeed.
JULIUS GOULD
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