THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION—THE COST OF EDUCATION
But while we may hold that it is the duty of the State to see that the means for the education of the children of the nation is both adequate in extent and efficient in quality, and so organised that it affords opportunities for each to secure the education which is needed to equip him for his after-work in life, it by no means follows as a logical consequence that the whole cost of this provision should be borne by the community in its corporate capacity and that the individual parent should, if he so chooses, be relieved from any direct payment for the education of his children. To assert this would be implicitly to affirm that the education of a man's children is no part of his duty—that it is an obligation which does not fall upon him as an individual, but only as a member of a community, and that so long as he pays willingly the proportion of the cost of education assigned to him by taxes and rates, he has fulfilled his obligation. Education, on such a view, becomes a matter of national concern in which as a private individual the parent has no direct interest. This position carried out to its logical conclusion would imply that the child and his future belong wholly to the State, and it would also involve the establishment of a communal system of education such as is set forth in the Republic of Plato. Further, such a position logically leads to the contention that the other necessities of life requisite for securing the social efficiency of the future members of the State should also be [Pg 47]provided by the State in its corporate capacity acting as the guardian of the young, and from this we are but a short way from the position that it belongs to the community to superintend the propagation of the species, and to regulate the marriages of its individual members. This is State socialism in its most extreme form, and is contrary to the spirit of a true liberalism, a true democracy, and a true Christianity.
The opposing position—the position of liberalism untainted by socialism—is that it is the duty of the State to see that as far as possible the social inequalities which arise through the individualistic organisation of society are removed or remedied, and that equality of opportunity is secured to each to make the best of his own individual life. In the educational sphere this implies that any obstacles in the way of a man's educating his children should be removed, if and in so far as these obstacles are irremovable by any private effort of his own, and that the opportunity of obtaining the best possible education should be open to the children of the poor if they are fitted by nature to profit by such an education. It further implies that the means of higher education, provided at the public expense, should not be wasted on the children of any class if by nature they are unfitted to benefit by the means placed at their disposal; i.e., a national system of education must be democratic in the sense that the means of higher education shall be open to all, rich and poor, in order that each individual may be enabled to fit himself for the particular service for which by nature he is best suited. It must see, further, that any obstacles which prevent the full use of these means by particular individuals are, as far as may be possible, removed. A national system of education, on the other hand, must be aristocratic in the sense that it is selective of the best ability. Lastly, it must be restrictive, in order that the means of higher education may be utilised to the best advantage, and not misused on those who are unfitted to benefit therefrom.
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Closely connected with the position that it is the duty of the State to see not merely to the adequate and efficient provision of the means of education, but also that the whole cost of the provision should be borne by the State, is the contention that because the State imposes a legal obligation upon the individual parent to provide a certain measure of education for his children, it is also a logical conclusion from this step that education should be free. "The object of public education is the protection of society, and society must pay for its protection, whether it takes the form of a policeman or a pedagogue."[13]
But the provision of the means of elementary education, and the imposing of a legal obligation upon each individual parent to utilise the means provided, is not merely or solely for the protection of society. Education confers not only a social benefit upon the community, but a particular benefit upon the individual. Its provision falls not within the merely negative benefits conferred by the State by its protection of the majority against the ignorance and wickedness of the minority, but it belongs to the positive benefits conferred by Government upon its individual members. The State in part undertakes the provision of the means of education, as Mill pointed out, in order to protect the majority against the evil consequences likely to result from the ignorance and want of education of the minority. As this provision confers a common benefit on all, so far, but only in so far, as education is protective, can its cost be laid upon the shoulders of the general taxpayer.
But the provision by the State of the means of education is not merely undertaken for the protection of any given society against the ignorance and the lawlessness of its own individual members, it is also undertaken in order to secure the increased efficiency of the nation as an economic and military unit in antagonism, more or less, with similar units. At the present day this is one main motive at work in the demand made for the better[Pg 49] and more intensive training of the industrial classes. To secure the industrial and military efficiency of the nation is explicitly set forth as the main aim of the German organisation of the means of education. We may deplore this tendency of our times. We may condemn the rise of the intensely national spirit of the modern world, and regret that the ideal of universal peace and universal harmony between the nations of the earth seems to fade for ever and for ever as we move. But we have to look the facts in the face, and to realise that the educational system of a nation must endeavour to secure the industrial and military efficiency of its future members as a means of security and protection against other competing nations and as one of the essential conditions for the self-preservation of the particular State in that war of nation against nation which Hobbes so eloquently describes: "For the nature of war, consists not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary."[14]
In so far, then, as the provision of education by the State is undertaken with this end in view, it may be maintained that part, at least, of the cost of its provision should be borne by the general taxpayer in return for the greater national and economic security which he enjoys through the greater efficiency of the nation as an economic and military unit.
But the spread and the higher efficiency of education confers in addition both a local and an individual benefit. It confers a local benefit, in so far as by its means advantages accrue to any particular district. It confers an individual benefit, in so far as through the means of education placed at his disposal the individual is enabled to attain to a higher degree of social efficiency than would otherwise have been possible.
Further, if we look at this question not from the point of view of benefit received, but from that of the obligation imposed, we reach a similar result. It is an obligation[Pg 50] upon the State to see that the means of education and their due co-ordination and organisation are of such a nature both in extent and in quality as to furnish a complete system of means for the training up of the youth of the country to perform efficiently all the services required by such a complex community as the modern State. This duty devolves upon the State chiefly for the reason set forth by Adam Smith in his discussion of the functions of government. It is the duty of the sovereign, he declares, to erect and maintain certain "public institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual to erect and maintain, because the profit could never repay the expense to the individual, or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society."[15]
It becomes further an obligation placed upon the local authority to aid the central authority of the State in the establishment and distribution of the means of education. The local authority by its more intimate knowledge of local circumstances is the most competent to judge of the nature of the education suited to serve its own particular needs, and is best qualified to undertake the distribution of the means.
But the obligation to take advantage of the means for the future benefit of his children is a moral obligation placed upon the shoulders of the individual parent. It becomes a legal obligation only when, and in so far as, the moral obligation is not realised by a certain number of the community. Certainly one reason for the making of the education of a man's children a legal obligation is the protection of society against the ignorance and wickedness of the minority, but the other and principal aim is to endeavour to secure that what at first was imposed as a merely external or legal obligation may pass into a moral and inherent obligation, so that the individual from being governed by outward restraint may in time be governed by an inward and self-imposed ideal.
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It is no doubt difficult in any particular case to determine exactly what precise part of the cost should be allocated to each of the three benefiting parties, but in any national organisation of the means of education this threefold distribution of cost should somehow or other be undertaken.
From this it follows, that while it may legitimately be laid down that upon the State must fall the obligation of securing the adequate provision and the due distribution of the means of education, yet the further duty of the State in this respect is limited to the removing of obstacles which stand in the way of the fulfilment of the parent's obligation to educate his children, and to the securing to each child equality of opportunity to obtain an education in kind and quality which will serve to fit him hereafter to perform his special duty to society.
Although since 1891 elementary education has been practically free in this country and the whole cost of its provision is now undertaken at the public expense, yet except from the socialistic position that the provision of education is a communal and not a personal and moral obligation, this public provision of the funds for elementary education can be upheld from the individualistic point of view only on two grounds. In the first place, it might be maintained that the protective benefit derived from the imparting of the elements of education is so great to all that its cost may legitimately be laid upon the community in its corporate capacity. It is on this ground of education being beneficial to the whole society that Adam Smith declares that the expense of the institutions for education may, without injustice, be defrayed by the general contributions of the whole society. But at the same time Adam Smith recognises that education provides an immediate and personal benefit, and that the expense might with equal propriety be laid upon the shoulders of those benefited.
In the second place, it may be maintained that the imposition of school fees created such a hindrance in a[Pg 52] large number of cases to the fulfilment of the moral obligation that it was expedient on the part of the State to remove this obstacle by freeing education as a whole. In support of this, it might be further urged that the difficulty of discriminating between the marginal cases in which the imposition of school fees really proved a hindrance and those in which it did not is great, and that the partial relief of payment of school fees laid the stigma of pauperism upon many who from unpreventable causes were unable to meet the direct cost of the education of their children.
But, except on the grounds that either the protective benefit to society is so great and so important, or that the charging of any part of the cost directly to the parent imposes a hindrance in a large number of cases, there is no justification for the contention that because the State compels the individual to educate his children, therefore the State should fully provide the means.
If this be so, then the further contention that the means of education from the elementary to the university stage should be provided at the public expense, and that no part of the cost should be laid directly upon the individual parent's shoulders, must also be judged to be erroneous.
The first duty of the State, in the matter of the provision of higher education, is limited to seeing that the provision of the means of higher education is adequate to the demand made for it; further, it may endeavour to encourage and to stimulate this demand in various ways. The means being provided, the second duty of the State is to endeavour to secure that any hindrance which might reasonably prevent the use of these means by those fitted to benefit therefrom should be removed. But the only justification for the interference of the State is that the compulsion exacted in the matter of taxes or otherwise is of small moment compared with the capacity for freedom and intellectual development set free in the individuals benefited. In other words, the cost involved by the[Pg 53] removal of the hindrance must be reckoned as small compared with the ultimate good to the community as manifested in the higher development—in the higher welfare of its individual members.
But the practical realisation of the ideal need not involve that education should be free from the lowest to the topmost rung of the so-called educational ladder. It is indeed questionable whether the ladder simile has not been a potent instrument in giving a wrong direction to our ideals of the essential nature of what an educational organisation should aim at. Education should indeed provide a system of advancing means, but the system of means may lead to many and various aims instead of one. However that may be, what we wish to insist upon is that the State's duty in this matter can be fulfilled not by freeing education as a whole, but by establishing a system of bursaries or allowances, enabling each individual who otherwise would be hindered from using the means to take advantage of the higher education provided.
In the awarding of aid of this nature, the two tests of ability to profit from the education and of need of material means must both be employed. If the former test only is applied, then the result is that in many cases the advantage is secured by those best able to pay for higher education. If the objection be made that the granting of aid on mere need shown is to place the stigma of pauperism upon the recipient, then the only answer is that in so thinking the individual misconceives the real nature of the aid, fails to understand that it is help towards doing without help—aid to enable the individual to reach a higher and fuller development of his powers, both for his own future welfare and for the betterment of society.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] National Education and National Life, ibid. p. 101.
[14] Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 1. chap. xiii.
[15] Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, ed. J. Shield Nicholson (Nelsons).