CETERA DESUNT [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,--I read
with interest the letter in your issue of August 11th, from " New Unionist " expressing " The Younger Point of View " in connexion with our educational system.
As- a nation we are proud of our educational institutions. We speak with pride of our Public Schools, whilst the names of our Universities are household words in all parts of the world. Yet an almost negligible percentage of the people in this country are able to take advantage of these institutions. The question is one of opportunity. The ability to take advantage of a higher education is not the monopoly of any one class, yet one class alone, the moneyed class, is given the opportunity. Lack of money damps out the fires of many a latent genius. As a school teacher, I have seen the effect of this money barrier on education. Brilliant boys, at the age of fourteen, have been sent to work, work which needed practically no application of intelligence, simply because their parents could not afford to give them further education, but needed an augmentation of the family income. I have known several instances where boys have won scholarships in the face of keen competition and have not been able to take them owing to the expenses involved in clothing and feeding until the age of sixteen, or eighteen. Several of my colleagues in the elementary school teaching profession are thus employed because, owing to lack of money, they have not been able to benefit by a University education. I know several who are teaching all day and studying for external degrees during the evenings. Surely there is something wrong with such conditions ?
Over half a century ago, when viewing the poverty of the masses, Disraeli said, " In the midst of plethoric plenty, the people perish." Surely this statement is equally applicable to our present educational position. We have fine Public Schools and Universities, not to mention the hundreds of good secondary schools. We have brilliant young people amongst the working classes who desire to benefit by these higher educational institutions. But money debars them. Thus " the village Hampden " takes to the road his fathers trod and sinks into a life of unintelligent drudgery.
Let us not forget the great faults in our present educational system by arguing over the petty ones. Public school reform sinks into nothingness when compared with these needcd reforms of a much wider nature. Our educational system is good as far as it goes, but " the remainder is wanting." Let the remainder be supplied by enabling everybody who shows promise, and who wishes, to partake, not only of the present " free " elementary education, but also of " free " secondary and university education. This, of course, would necessitate the payment of grants to poor children who, by continuing their education, are deprived of becoming family breadwinners at the age of fourteen. The money spent on this " free further education " would be as nothing when compared with the millions wasted and the millions still being wasted on wars and rumours of war. I think that most people would agree that the money spent in this way would be spent to the ultimate benefit of the nation.—I am, Sir, &c., [Our correspondent does not indicate where the money is to be found with which to carry out his admirable suggestions. —En. Spectator.]
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