The Children: Some Educational Problems

by Alexander Darroch

But if in this matter we have delayed too long—if we have allowed our educational policy in the past to be guided by a one-sided and narrow individualism—if for too lengthened a period we have permitted our political action to be determined by the false ideal that, in the matter of providing for and furthering his education as a citizen and as an industrial worker, liberty for each individual consists in allowing him to choose for himself, regardless of whether or not that choice is for his own and the State's ultimate good, then it may be necessary in the immediate future to take steps to remove or remedy this defect in our present educational organisation. For it is necessary—essentially necessary—on various grounds that the education of the boys and girls of our working classes should not cease absolutely at the Elementary School stage,[11] but that, with certain definite and well-considered exceptions, all should continue for several years thereafter to fit themselves for industrial and social service. If this result can be effected by moral means, good and well; if not, legal compulsion must, sooner or later, be resorted to. For it is, as it has always been, a fundamental maxim of political action that the State should and must compel her members to utilise the means by which they may be raised to freedom.

The second line of argument which Mill follows in his advocacy of the State provision of education is that instruction is one of the cases in which the aid given does not foster and re-create the evil which it seeks to remedy. Education which is really such does not tend to enervate but to strengthen the individual. Its effect is favourable to the growth of independence. "It is a help towards doing without help."

On similar grounds, we may urge that it is the duty of the State to see that the means for the higher education of the youth of the country are adequate in quantity and efficient in quality. The better technical training of our workmen is necessary if we are to secure their economic self-sufficiency and fit them to become socially useful as members of a community. One aim therefore underlying any future organisation of education must be to secure the industrial efficiency of the worker and to ensure that the results of science shall be utilised in the furtherance of the arts and industries of life. This can only be effected by the better scientific training, by the more intensive and the more thorough education of those children of the nation who by natural ability and industry are fitted in after-life to guide and control the industries of the country.

Mr. Haldane,[12] during the past few years, in season and out of season, has called the attention of the public of Great Britain to the fact that in the organisation and equipment of their system of technical education Germany is much in advance of this country, and that the German people have thoroughly and practically realised that, if they are to compete successfully with other nations, then one of the aims of their educational system must be to teach the youth how to apply knowledge in the furtherance and advancement of the economic interests of life. With this end in view we have the establishment throughout the German States of numerous schools and colleges having as their chief aim the application of knowledge to the arts and industries. In our own country this branch—this very important branch—of education has been left, for the most part, to the care of private individuals, and although the State has done something in recent years to encourage and develop this side of education, yet much more requires to be done; and, above all, it is desirable that whatever is done in the future should be done in a regular, systematic, and organised manner and with definite aims in view.

But it is not merely in the higher reaches of German education that the industrial aim is kept in view. It pervades and permeates the whole system from the lowest to the highest stages. Even in the Primary School the requirements of practical life are not left out of sight. In school, said a former Prussian Director of Education, "children are to learn how to perform duties, they are to be habituated to work, to gain pleasure in work, and thus become efficient for future industrial pursuits. This has been the aim from the earliest times of Prussian education; and to this day it is plainly understood by all State and local administrative officers, as well as by all teachers and the majority of the parents, that the people's school has more to do than merely teach the vehicles of culture—reading, writing, and arithmetic"—that the chief aim is rather "the preparation of citizens who can and will cheerfully serve their God and their native country as well as themselves."

In the third place, the question of the provision of the means of higher education is not one between its provision on the one hand by means of the Government, and on the other by means of purely voluntary agencies. Higher education, e.g., in Scotland has rarely been provided and paid for at its full cost by the individual parent or by associations of individual parents, but has been maintained, in some cases in a high degree of efficiency, by endowments left for this purpose. These endowments are now in many cases insufficient to meet the demand made for education, and the stream of private benevolence in providing the means of education has either ceased to flow or flows in an irregular and uncertain fashion. Further, the incomes of even the moderately well-to-do of our middle classes are not sufficient to bear the whole cost of the more expensive education required to fit their sons and daughters for the after-service of the community. Hence, just as in Mill's time the question of the provision of elementary education lay between the State provision and the provision by means of charitable agencies, so to-day the problem of the provision of secondary and technical education is between its adequate provision and organisation by the State, and its inadequate, uncertain provision by means of the endowments of the past and by the charitable agencies of the present. Manifestly, in the light of modern conditions, with the economic competition between nation and nation becoming keener and keener, and knowing full well that the future belongs to the nation with the best equipped and the best trained army of industrial workers, we can no longer rest content with any haphazard method of providing the means of higher education: whatever the cost may be, we must realise that the time has come to put our educational house in order and to establish and organise our system of higher education so that it will subserve each and every interest of the State. This can only be effected in so far as the nation as a whole realises the need for the better education of the children, and takes steps to secure that this shall be provided, and that there shall be afforded to each the opportunity of fitting himself by education to put his talents to the best use both for his own individual good and the good of the community. Lastly, as Mill urges, the self-interest of the individual is neither sufficient to ensure that the education will be provided, nor in many cases is his judgment sufficient to ensure the goodness of the education provided by voluntary means.

But, in addition to the reasons urged by Mill for the State provision and control of the means of elementary education, and these reasons are, as we have seen, as urgent and as cogent to-day for the extension of the principle to the provision of the means of secondary and technical education, still further reasons may be advanced.

In the first place, there can be no co-ordination of the different stages of education until all the agencies of instruction in each area or district are placed under one central control. Until this is effected we must have at times overlapping of the agencies of instruction. In some cases there may also be waste of the means of education. In every case there will be a general want of balance between the various parts of the system.

In the second place, one object of any organisation of the means of education should be the selection of the best ability from amongst the children of our Elementary Schools and the further education of this ability at some one or other type of Intermediate or Secondary School. In order that this may be economically and efficiently effected, the instruction of the Elementary School should enable the pupil at a certain age to fit himself into the work of the High School, and our High Schools' system should be so differentiated in type as to furnish not one type of such education but several in accordance with the main classes of service required by the community of its adult members. Manifestly such a co-ordination of the means and such a grading of the agencies of education, if not impossible on the voluntary principle, is at least difficult of complete realisation.

Hence, on the ground that the higher education of the young is necessary for the securing of their after social efficiency, on the ground that it is necessary for the economic and social security of the community, on the ground that aid in higher education is a help towards doing without help and that its provision in many cases cannot be fully met by the voluntary contribution of the individual, we may urge the need for the State's undertaking its adequate and efficient provision.