THE AIMS OF EDUCATION
Sta,—My Spectator reaches me at very irregular intervals, and having just read witn great interest Kenneth Lindsay's article in the issue for July 3oth, I do not know whether anyone has yet drawn attention to the point I would like to raise. Mr. Lindsay refers in his fourth para- graph to " many changes . . . above all, in rediscovering the form master." As a good Scat, Mr. Lindsay will not need to be reminded of the old Scots system, which may be unknown to most of your readers. At my own school, the Edinburgh Academy, this system prevailed down to about 189o, and not the least distinguished of surviving Academicals, Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, will vouch for us excellence.
The school curriculum covered seven years, from 9 or to to 16 or t7, and for the first six of those years the class had the same master. That is to say, 3o or 40 boys aged about to assembled each October as the first class under, say, Mr. Snooks ; at the beginning of the second session the same boys under the same master became the second class ; for the third session they were the third class, and so on up to the end of the sixth session. For the seventh session these boys were taken by the Rector, who thus confined his teaching activities to a succession of seventh classes.
With the passing of the years the expansion of the curriculum demanded specialist masters, and thi., system was doomed, but its advantages were enormous. Undoubtedly the greatest was the hold over his boys which the class-master was able to obtain. The influence felt by the pupils of men like Carmichael and Clyde (to name only two) and the affection they inspired have been put on record by many grateful Academicals. These men were indeed " youth leaders."
The aim of education in those days was to teach boys to live. The present aim is to enable them to pass examinations. What a difference! James Carmichael would turn in his grave could he see what is going on today.
The system I have just described produced men of character, men who had been taught to go on learning till they died. Does the present system do this? Should we not gain immeasurably by reverting to the
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