The Relation Of The State To Education—Medical Examination And Inspection Of School Children

In considering the question of the relation of the State to education, we have adopted the position that it is the duty of the State to see to the adequate provision of the means of education, to their due distribution and to their proper organisation. At the same time we found that the obligation of the State in this respect did not necessarily involve that the whole cost of this provision should be borne at the public expense, and that no part of the burden should be placed on the shoulders of the individual parents. As regards the provision of elementary education, we indeed found that the whole burden might be legitimately laid upon the general taxpayer, upon the grounds either that the protective benefit of elementary education to the community was great, or that the hindrance opposed by the imposition of school fees to the fulfilment of a man's moral obligation to provide for the education of his children was so general that a case might be made out for freeing elementary education as a whole. But except from the position that the provision of education was a communal and not a personal obligation, we found no grounds for the contention that education throughout its various stages should be a charge upon the community as a whole.

But the provision of the means of education may involve much more than the mere provision of adequately equipped school buildings and of fully trained teachers, and we have now to inquire what other provision is necessary in order to secure the after social efficiency of the children of the nation, and what part of this provision rightly may be included within the scope of the duties of the State.

Is the medical inspection of children attending Public Elementary Schools one of these duties, and, if so, what action on the part of the State does this involve?

The importance of the thorough and systematic medical examination of children attending school as a necessary measure to secure their after physical and economic efficiency as well as for their intellectual development and welfare during the school period has been recognised by many Continental countries. To take but one or two illustrative examples, we may note that in Brussels every place of public instruction is visited at least once in every ten weeks by one of the sixteen doctors appointed for this purpose. The school doctor amongst other duties has to report on the state of the various classrooms, their heating, lighting and ventilation, and also upon the condition in which he has found the playgrounds, lavatories and cloakrooms attached to the school. Cases of illness involving temporary absence from school are reported to him as well as the cases involving prolonged absence from school.

Children are medically examined upon admission to school, and a record is made of their age, height, weight, chest measurement, etc. "Any natural or accidental infirmity is chronicled, state of eyes and teeth, dental operations performed at school, etc. This examination is repeated annually, so as to keep a record of each child's physical development." Great attention, moreover, is paid to the cleanliness of the children attending school, and the children are examined daily by the teacher upon their entrance to school.[16]

In most of the large towns of Germany a system of periodical medical examination and inspection of children attending school has also been established. E.g., in 1901 Berlin appointed ten doctors for this purpose, with the following amongst other duties:—

1. To examine children on their first admission as to their fitness to attend school.

2. To examine children with the co-operation of a specialist for the presence of defect in the particular sense organs (sight, hearing).

3. To examine children who are supposed to be defective and who may require special treatment.

4. To examine periodically the school buildings and arrangements and to report on any hygienic defects.[17]

In England, although there is no specific provision for the incurring of the expense of conducting the medical inspection of children attending the Public Elementary Schools, it is generally held that the expense may be legitimately included in the general powers assigned to educational authorities under the Act of 1870; and, especially since 1892, in several areas, a definite system of medical inspection has been established, and in many others there is a likelihood that some system of medical inspection will be organised in the immediate future. According to the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on the Medical Inspection and Feeding of School Children, published in November 1905, out of 328 local education authorities, 48 had established a more or less definitely organised system of medical examination, whilst in eighteen other districts teachers and sanitary officers had undertaken organised work for the amelioration of the physical condition of children attending Public Elementary Schools. As a rule, this inspection is limited "to the examination of the children and to the discovering of defects of eyesight, hearing, or physical development." When the existence of the defect is discovered, the parent is notified, but as a general rule the public authority does not include within its duties the treatment of the ailments and defects or the provision of remedial instruments when required.

Further, in no case has there been carried out a thorough anthropometric record, such as that in vogue in the schools of Brussels, of the condition of the physical nature of the child upon admission to school and his subsequent physical development.

In Scotland we find no general or adequate system of medical inspection carried out by the local school authorities. The Report of the Royal Commission on Physical Training (Scotland), issued in March 1903, declares, however, that such a system is urgently needed, mainly for remedial purposes. By this means defects in the organs of sight or hearing, in mental development, in physical weakness, or in state of nutrition, such as demand special treatment in connection with school work, might be detected, and by simple means removed or mitigated. But although in the Education (Scotland) Bill of 1905 provision was made for the institution of medical inspection at the public expense, yet through the failure of the Bill to pass nothing of a systematic nature has been done to organise the medical inspection of Elementary School children in any district in Scotland.

From this brief account of what either has been already done or is proposed to be done, it is apparent that there is a gradual awakening of the nation to the fact that the care of the physical nature of the child during the school period is of fundamental importance from the point of view of the future welfare and efficiency of the nation. In the endeavour to reach this aim it is necessary that the examination of the child should be undertaken in a systematic manner, and that means should be adopted for the remedy of any defects. In particular every child on admission to school should be examined in order to discover whether there is any defect present in the special organs of sense,[18] and periodical examinations should be made in order to discover whether the school work is tending to produce any injury to the various senses. For it is a well-known fact that often cases of seeming stupidity and seeming carelessness are not due either to the want of intelligence on the one hand or of inattention on the other, on the part of the child, but may be traced to slight defects of eyesight and of hearing. In order that they may discover these defects teachers ought to be trained in the observation of the main symptoms which imply defects, and should be practised in the art of applying the simpler and more obvious remedies for eye and ear defects. More difficult cases should be referred to the medical officer of the school. Again, it ought to be a matter of inquiry at the beginning of the school period as to whether the child possesses any physical defect which would make it difficult for him to undertake the full work of the school. In some cases it would be found that the child was altogether unable to undertake this work, and measures should be taken to remedy the defect before the child enters upon the school course. Lastly, it is now realised that more attention must be paid to the differences that exist between individual children, and that in the case of children with a low degree of intelligence it is much better both for themselves and for the school generally to institute special classes or special schools for their education.

But in order that this medical examination may be thoroughly and systematically carried out, special legislative authority must be given to education authorities to incur expense under this head, and regulations must be laid down by the central authority for the carrying out of this inspection so as to secure something like a uniform system of examination throughout the country. For this purpose there should be attached to each school area a medical officer, or officers, charged with the sole duty of attending to the hygienic conditions under which the school work is carried on, and of periodically examining the children attending the schools of his district.



That the duty of carrying out the medical examination of school children falls upon the State and should be met out of public funds may be justified on various grounds. In the first place, it is necessary as a measure of protection, in order to prevent the child's growing up imperfectly, and thus becoming in adult life a less efficient member of society. School work often accentuates certain troubles, and these if neglected tend gradually to render the individual more and more unfitted to undertake some special occupation in after-life. Any eye specialist could furnish evidence of numerous cases in which the eyes have been ruined through some slight defect becoming intensified through misuse.

In the second place, the examination for physical and mental defect cannot in a large number of cases be left to the self-interest and judgment of the individual parent, and unless undertaken by the public authority will not be undertaken at all.

In the third place, if it is left to merely voluntary agencies, it is imperfectly done, and in many cases recourse is had to the various voluntary agencies when the trouble has become acute, and in some cases impossible of remedy.

On these three grounds—of its necessity for the future public welfare, that the self-interest of the parent often proves but a feeble motive power, and that the voluntary agencies placed at the disposal of the poor are unable systematically to undertake this work—we may maintain that the duty may legitimately be laid upon the State.

But the further question as to how far it becomes the duty of the State to undertake the provision of remedial measures either in the way of supplying medical aid or in the provision in necessitous cases of remedial measures, as e.g. spectacles in the case of defective eyesight, is a question of much greater difficulty.

At present any positive help of this nature is the exception rather than the rule, and is undertaken by agencies worked on the voluntary principle, and the remedial measures adopted are limited to the treatment of certain minor ailments. E.g., in Liverpool, Birmingham, and other places, Queen's nurses regularly visit the schools, and undertake either in school or at the homes of the children simple curative treatment of minor surgical cases. But while it may be held that the duty of the State is limited to the medical examination of school children in order to discover the presence of physical and mental defects, and that this being done, any further responsibility, whether in the way either of providing or procuring remedies, falls upon the individual parent, yet we have sufficient evidence to show that, in many cases, either through the poverty or the apathy and indifference of the parents, no steps are taken in the way of providing the necessary remedies, and as a consequence we have growing up in our midst children who in after-life will, through the lack of simple curative treatment undertaken at the proper time, become more or less socially inefficient.

Moreover, it is to be noted that in this matter the State has already recognised its public obligation to provide remedial aid in its provision for the education and lodging of the blind, the deaf and the dumb, and in the measures taken within recent years for the special education of the defective and the epileptic. The provision for these purposes may indeed be justified on the grounds that the expense of the education of children of the industrial classes so afflicted is beyond the powers of any one individual, or group of individuals, to supply, and that unless undertaken by the State it would not be efficiently made, with the consequence of throwing the maintenance hereafter of these particular classes upon the community: on the ground, therefore, of the future protective benefit to society, such expense may be legitimately laid upon the community as a whole. Further, in these cases, the danger of the weakening of the sense of parental responsibility is not an extreme danger to the Commonwealth, since the aid is definitely limited to a restricted number of cases, and since the moral obligation imposed upon the individual to provide for the education of his children could in many cases not be fulfilled without the by far greater portion of the expense being provided by means of public or voluntary aid.

In like manner, the expense of the special education of the morally defective in Industrial Schools and in other institutions may be justified on the ground of the present and future protective benefit to society. In these cases parental government has either altogether ceased or become too weak to act as an effective restraining force, and as a consequence the community for its own self-preservation has to undertake the control and education of the actual or incipient youthful criminal. In their Report the Royal Commissioners on Physical Training (Scotland) sadly declare that Industrial and similar institutions certainly give the boys and girls who come under their influence advantages in feeding and physical training which are not open to the children of independent and respectable though poor parents. The contrast between the condition of children as seen in the poorer day schools and children in Industrial institutions, whose parents have altogether failed to do their duty, is both marked and painful.[19]

And yet it might be urged that the protective benefit likely to be derived in the future by the provision of remedial means for the removal of the simpler defects in the case of the children of parents unable without great difficulty to supply these themselves is no less evident than in the more extreme cases. But here the only sound principle of guidance is to ask whether the remedial measures required are reasonably within the power of the parent to provide. If they are not, no community which exercises a wise forethought will suffer children to grow up gradually becoming more and more defective, more and more likely in after-life to be a burden upon its resources. But this question of the provision of remedial aid involves a much larger question, which we shall now discuss.
Appendix

As showing the need for the systematic examination of the special sense organs, I append a summary of the results arrived at and the conclusions reached by Dr. Wright Thomson after examination of the eyesight of children attending the Public Elementary Schools under the Glasgow School Board:—

"The teachers tested the visual acuteness of 52,493 children, and found 18,565, or 35 per cent., to be below what is regarded as the normal standard.

"I examined the 18,565 defectives by retinoscopy, and found that 11,209, or 21 per cent. of the whole, had ocular defects.

"The percentage with ocular defects was fairly constant in all the schools, but the percentage with defective vision was very variable—i.e., many children with normal eyes were found to see badly.

"The proportion of these cases was highest in the poor and closely-built districts and in old schools, and was lowest in the better class schools and in those near the outskirts of the city.

"The proportion of such cases in the country schools of Chryston and Cumbernauld was much lower than in any of the city schools; and in Industrial Schools, where the children are fed at school, the proportion was lower than among Board School children of a corresponding social class.

"Defective vision, apart from ocular defect, seems to be due, partly to want of training of the eyes for distant objects, and partly to exhaustion of the eyes, which is easily induced when work is carried on in bad light, or the nutrition of the children defective from bad feeding and unhealthy surroundings.

"Regarding training of the eyes for distant objects, much might be done in the infant department by the total abolition of sewing, which is definitely hurtful to such young eyes, and the substitution of competitive games involving the recognition of small objects at a distance of 20 feet or more.

"Teachers can determine the visual acuteness, but they cannot decide whether or not an ocular defect is present.

"Visual acuteness, especially among poor children, is variable at different times.

"Teachers should have access to sight-testing materials at all times, and should have the opportunity of referring suspected cases for medical opinion.

"An annual testing by the teachers, followed by medical inspection of the children found defective, would soon cause all existing defects to be corrected, and would lead to the detection of those which develop during school life."

An examination of 502 children attending the Church of Scotland Training College School, Glasgow, as regards defects in eyesight and hearing, was made by Drs. Rowan and Fullerton respectively, with the following results:—

"As regards eyesight—

"61.55 per cent. were passed as normal, while of those defective 7.57 were aware of the fact; some few of these had already received treatment, but 30.88 were quite unaware that there was anything wrong, these unfortunates being expected to do the same work as, and hold their own with, their more fortunate classmates.

"As regards hearing—
54.4 per cent. were found normal.
27.6 " " were defective.
18. " " were distinctly defective."

I append the very valuable suggestions and conclusions of Dr. Rowan, who conducted the examination on the eyesight of children:—

"After examining 502 children, which involved the examination of 1004 eyes, one is forced to certain conclusions. These children are taken at random, and in this way they may be considered as a fair sample of their age and class.

"I think one of the first things that force themselves on our notice is the difficulties under which many of those children labour, and of which they, their parents and teachers are quite unaware. The children are considered dull, careless, or lazy, as the case may be: they themselves, poor unfortunates, do not know how to complain, and seem just to struggle along as best they can, though this struggle, without adequate result, must discourage them, and in this indirect way, too, make their future prospects more hopeless.

"Some would be considerably benefited by treatment and operation, or both, while for some little can be done. Some of those who could be benefited are deprived of help by their parents' ignorance or prejudice.

"In the case of those for whom little or nothing can be done, and whose sight is very defective, it seems to me the question ought to be raised as to whether their present mode of education should not be replaced by some other, which would endeavour to develop their abilities in other ways than through their eyesight; in short, they should have special training with the view of fitting them for some form of employment for which they are more fitted than the ordinary occupations of everyday life. This raises a difficult question, and each case would have to be settled on its merits. The difficulty must be faced; otherwise the children will simply drift and become idle and useless, while, if educated, at any rate partly, on the system for the blind, they would become useful members of society.

"I think no one, after studying the result of this examination of what may be by some considered a small number of children, can doubt that a thorough medical examination of all school children should be made when they enter school, and this examination repeated at regular intervals.

"I hold this applies not only to the children of the poor, but to children in all ranks of life, as one constantly, and that, too, in private practice, meets with cases where children are considered dull and lazy, while the real fault lies with the parents, who have not taken the trouble to ascertain the physical fitness or unfitness of their children.

"I am glad to say it is now becoming more common for children to be taken to the family doctor, to a specialist, or to both, to be thoroughly overhauled before starting school-life; and in many cases with most satisfactory results, as their training can be modified or treatment ordered which prevents the development of those pathological conditions which, in many cases, would limit the choice of occupation, or, if these are already present, they can at least be modified or even overcome.

"I wish to emphasise the fact that those thorough medical examinations should be repeated in the case of all children at regular intervals, as in this way alone can a proper physical standard be maintained, and deviations from the normal detected promptly and in many cases cured before the sufferer is aware of their presence.

"How often in examining our adult patients do we find them much surprised when they are told and convinced by actual proof that all their life they have depended on one eye only! This fact, of course, they sometimes accidentally discover for themselves, and come with the statement that the eye has suddenly gone blind. In the majority of these cases the weaker eye is useless, and the possibility of making it of any use is, at their age, practically nil."

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Cf. Special Report on Educational Subjects, vol. ii.

[17] Cf. Report on Elementary Schools of Berlin and Charlottenburg, by G. Andrew, Esq.

[18] Cf. Appendix, pp. 62-65.

[19] Report Royal Commission on Physical Training (Scotland), vol. i. (Neill & Co,. Edinburgh).

The Relations of the State to Education - the Cost of Education

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.

[Pg 48]

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.

[Pg 51]

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).

Thw End of Education

The End of Education

We have seen that the process of education is the process of acquiring and organising experiences that will function in the determination of future conduct and ensure the more efficient performance of future action; or we may say that the process is one by which means are gradually established and fixed in the mind for the attainment of ends of value for the realisation of the varied and complex interests of life.

Now, this acquisition and organisation of experience is never entirely "left to the blind control of inherited impulse," nor is the child wholly left to gather and organise his experiences upon the incentive of any innate or acquired interest that may for the time engage his will. The various agencies of society—the home, the school, the shop and yard—are ever constantly seeking to establish such or such systems of ideas, and to prevent the formation of other systems. Hence it follows that education is not a mere natural process—not a process of acquiring experience in response to the demands of this or that natural need, but that it is a regulated process, controlled with the view of finally leading the child to acquire certain experiences, to organise certain systems of means for the attainment of such or such ends.

Moreover, at various periods in history, the end or ends of education, the kinds of experience thought necessary and valuable for the child to acquire have varied, and still vary, and must vary according to the nature of the civilisation into which the child is born and to which his education must somehow or other adjust him; i.e., there is no one type of experience, no one kind of education, which is equally suited to meet the needs of the child born in a modern industrial State and the child whose education must fit him hereafter to fulfil his duties as a member of a savage tribe.

Further, in determining the nature of the experiences useful to acquire, we must take into account not only the civilisation to which the child is to be adjusted, but we must also take note of the nature of the services which the given society requires of its adult members. These services vary in character, and there can be no one kind of education which equally fits the individual to perform efficiently any and every service. To postulate this would be to affirm that there is a kind of experience useful for the realisation indifferently of any and every purpose of adult life, and to affirm that a system of knowledge acquired and organised for the attainment of certain definite ends can be used for the furtherance of ends different in character and having no intrinsic connection with each other. Further, to assert that there is one type of education equally suited to train and to develop the reason-activity of the individual in every direction is to neglect the fact that individuals differ in innate capacity. These differences are due in part to differences in the extent and character of the receptive powers of individuals, and are to be traced, probably, to differences in the size and constitution of the sensory areas of the brain, and are due also in part to inborn differences in the capacity for acquiring and utilising experiences. As a consequence of these differences one individual will acquire and organise certain kinds of experience more readily than others.

But not only have the ends sought to be realised through the educational agencies of society varied in the past—not only do we find that the ideals at present vary in character according to the stage of civilisation which the particular country has reached—we also find that the agencies of society determining the character and end of education also vary. For in the discussion of the ends sought to be attained by means of education, we must remember that these are not determined by the teacher, but by "the adult portion of the Community organised in the forms of the Family, the State, the Church, and various miscellaneous associations"[6] desirous of promoting the welfare of the community. At one time the Church largely determined the character and ends of education, but the tendency at the present time is for the State to control more and more the education of the rising generation. In some countries the entire control of all forms of education, primary, secondary, and technical, has come under the guidance of the State, and in our own country elementary education is now largely under the control of the State authorities, and the other forms of education tend increasingly to come under this control. Not only is this so, but the period during which the State exercises its control over the education of the child is gradually being lengthened.

Many causes are at work tending to produce these results in the first place, it is being clearly realised that there can be no thorough-going co-ordination of the various grades of instruction until all the agencies of education in each area are placed under one authority acting under the guidance of some central body responsible for the organisation and direction of the education of the district as a whole. Further, there can be no satisfactory settlement of the problem as to what particular function each distinct type of Higher School shall perform until the whole means of education are under one determining authority.

In the second place, the higher education of the children of the nation is too important a matter to be left entirely to the care of the private individual, and its cost is too great in many cases to be wholly borne by each individual parent. But this provision, organisation, and control of the means of higher education by the State does not necessarily imply that it should be free—that the whole burden should be laid on the shoulders of the general taxpayer. Yet unless means are provided by which the poor but clever boy can realise himself, then there is so much loss to the community.

In the third place, the organisation of all forms of education and the more extended provision of higher and especially of technical training is necessary, if for no other reason than as a means of economic protection and economic security.

Lastly, the better organisation of our educational agencies is necessary as a means of securing a democracy capable of understanding the meaning of moral and civic freedom and of using this rightly.

But while the concrete nature of the ends to which our educational efforts are directed may vary in accordance with the needs of a changing and progressive civilisation, nevertheless the general nature of the ends sought to be attained by the education of the children of a nation is permanent and unchangeable. That is, we have to recognise a universal as well as a particular element in our educational ideals. Now, the universal aim of all education is, or rather should be, to correlate the child with the civilisation of his time; to lead him to acquire those experiences which will in after-life enable him to perform ably and rightly his duties as a worker, as a citizen, and as a member of an ethical and spiritual community organised for the securing of the well-being of the individual. And the higher the civilisation, the more difficult, the more complex, and the more lengthened must be this process of acquiring experiences necessary to fit the individual to his environment. Hence, whatever the particular nature of the environment may be, the aim of education must be the fitting of the individual to his natural and social environments. Hence also any organisation of the means of education must have as its threefold object the securing of the physical efficiency, of the economic efficiency, and the ethical efficiency of the rising generation. In short, as Mr. Bagley[7] puts it, the securing of the social efficiency of the individual must be the ultimate aim of all education. To be socially efficient implies that as the result of the process of education certain experiences, and the power of applying them, have been acquired by each individual, so that by this means he is enabled to perform some particular social service for the community of a directly or indirectly economic nature. For if, as the result of the educative process, we establish systems of means for the realisation of ends which have no social value, then so far we have failed to make the individual socially efficient. "The youth we would train has little time to spare; he owes but the first fifteen or sixteen years of his life to his tutor, the remainder is due to action. Let us employ this short time in necessary instruction. Away with your crabbed, logical subtleties; they are abuses, things by which our lives can never be made better."[8] In these words Montaigne writes against the false ideal that the mere accumulation of knowledge apart from any purpose it may serve in enabling us better to understand either the world of nature or of history should be the aim of education, and throughout all education we must ever keep in mind that knowledge acquired must be capable of being used and applied for the realisation of some social purpose, otherwise it is so much useless lumber, to the individual a burden, soon dropped, to society valueless, since it can maintain and further no real interest of the community.

But to be socially efficient implies not merely that the individual should be fitted to perform some service economically useful to the community, it further implies that as the result of the process of education there should have been acquired certain capacities of action which restrain him from unduly interfering with the freedom of others. He must acquire certain experiences which restrain him from hindering the full and free development of others; he must be trained to use his freedom rightly, to acquire those capacities for action which fit him to take his place in the moral cosmos of his time and generation. Further, as Mr. Bagley also points out, to be socially efficient implies in addition that the individual should contribute something further to the advancement of the civilisation into which he is born, and thus pass on to his successors an increasing heritage.

The threefold aim of all education, then, is to secure the physical, the economic, and the ethical efficiency of the future members of the community; and our educational agencies must throughout keep this threefold aspect in view.

To secure the physical efficiency of the child is necessary, in the first place, because a strong, healthy, vigorous body is a good in itself, apart from the fact that without sound health the other ends of life cannot, or can be only imperfectly realised. It is an erroneous point of view to maintain that many men have done good intellectual work in spite of physical ill-health, and even in cases where there was present some physical defect. The real thing to keep in mind is that these individuals do not represent the average, and that for the normal individual weak health or the presence of physical defect lessens his intellectual and moral vigour. We can, in the light of modern psychology, no longer regard mind and body as separate entities having a development independent of each other, but must regard them as conditioning and conditioned by each other.

In the second place, the care of the physical health of the child is important, because any impairment or defect in the sense organs—the avenues of experience—implies a corresponding defect or want in mental growth, and as a consequence tends to render the individual economically and socially less efficient in after-life.



In the third place, and this truth is being gradually put into practice in the education of the weak-minded and of the physically defective, sound physical health is one of the conditions of right moral activity. This truth Rousseau emphasised when he declared: "that the weaker the body, the more it commands; the stronger it is, the better it obeys. All the sensual passions find lodgment in effeminate bodies, and the less they are satisfied the more irritable they become. The body must needs be vigorous to obey the soul: a good servant ought to be robust."

We shall inquire further into this question when we come to treat of the physical education of the child, but what we wish to point out is that one aim of all our educational efforts must be to secure the physical efficiency of the rising generation, on the grounds that sound physical health is a good in itself; is a means to the securing of the economic efficiency of the individual and of society; and is a condition of securing the ethical efficiency of the individual.

In the second place, the securing of the economic efficiency of the individual must be one of the aims of our educational efforts. This does not imply that our educational curriculum should be based on purely utilitarian lines, and that all subjects whose utilitarian value is not immediately apparent should be banished from the schoolroom. But it does imply that whether in the education of the professional man or of the industrial worker all instruction either directly or indirectly must have as its final result the efficiency of the individual as a worker. An education which fits the individual to use his leisure rightly may have as much effect in increasing the productive powers of the individual as that which looks more narrowly to his technical training. Further, we must remember that the larger number by far of the children of the modern State must in after-life become industrial workers, and that any system of education which neglects this fact, which makes no provision for the technical training of the children of the working classes, and has no adequate system of selecting and training those who by innate capacity are fitted to become the leaders in industry, is a system not in harmony with the characteristics of modern life, and that unless this economic efficiency is secured, then the opportunity for the development of the other ends of life cannot be secured.

Lastly, the securing of the ethical efficiency of the future members of the State must be one of our ultimate aims. The ethical aim of education may be said to be the supreme end, in the sense that it is the essential condition for the security, the stability, and the progress of society; and also from the fact that the ethical spirit of doing the work for the sake of the work should permeate all education.

In concluding this chapter what needs to be emphasised is that while the process of education remains ever the same, ever consists in acquiring and organising experience, in and through the working of reason incited to activity by the need of satisfying some natural or acquired interest, in order that future action may be rendered more efficient, and whilst the general nature of the ends to be attained may be said to be permanent and unchangeable, yet the particular and concrete ends at which we should aim in the education of our children is a practical question which every nation has, from time to time, to ask and answer afresh in the light of her national ideals and in view of her national aspirations. Nay, further, it is a question which with every necessary change in her internal organisation, and with every fundamental alteration in her relation to her external neighbours, has to be asked and answered anew by each and every State desirous of retaining her place amongst the nations of the world and of securing the welfare and happiness of her individual members. It is mainly because we as a nation have not realised this truth that our educational organisation has, neither in the explicitness and clearness of its aims, nor in the distinction, gradation, and co-ordination of its means, attained the same thoroughness and self-consistency as that possessed by the educational systems of some of our Continental neighbours.
FOOTNOTES:

[6] Cf. Professor Findlay, Journal of Education (Sept. 1899), also "Principles of Class Teaching," p. 2.

[7] Cf. The Educative Process, chap. iii., esp. pp. 59, 60 (Macmillan).

[8] Montaigne, The Education of Children, L. E. Rector, Ph.D. (International Education Series), Appleton, New York.