• The Public Schools Att a cked
Among the many and various attacks that have been made on the public schools, probably none from a responsible quarter has been more bitter than that made in a report by a sub-committee of the London County Council Education Committee. It asked the Council to say that it does not wish to be associated with Lord Fleming's committee on the subject, on the ground that they are " in the widest sense educationally undesirable," and that " they have serious anti-social characteristics, and their existence entails serious disadvantages to general educational standards." It com- plains that the public schools segregate the sons of the wealthy from the sons of the less fortunate. The criticism offered seems to imply not that the education is bad, but that it is bad to confine its advantages to a privileged few ; and it seems to follow that if, as is suggested, they tend to foster class-consciousness, that might be remedied not by shutting the public schools, but opening them to a wider circle. Profitable criticism will acknowledge many grave defects in the public school system, but to ignore the high standards of education, and the moral discipline achieved, is to abandon all attempts at fair appraisement.
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