into that of the others, and the humblest pupil in the humblest infant-school would find himself, through his teacher, a part of a great moral and intellectual organization. At present, subjects of instruction now mark off teachers into castes: the recognition of a professional basis would reveal that when a primary schoolmistress teaches the alphabet, and a "senior classic" teaches Sophocles, they have both, if they rightly understand their work, the same aims, the difference between them consisting mainly in the age of their pupils, and the material which they use to attain a common educational end. None of our institutions would benefit more largely by recognising this fact than the great English Public School.

IV.

ORGANIZATION OF THE CURRICULUM OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN GREAT BRITAIN. 1

To the best of our recollection, it was Sir Lyon Playfair who first, after the Great Exhibition of 1851-2, proclaimed to the British public that they must set about the technical education of both masters and workmen in all our great industries. The movement which he set agoing has gradually reached large dimensions, and we may almost say that little is now wanted to establish the technical education of the country on a sound and permanent basis, beyond a more thorough organization of existing agencies. More recently we have seen conferences in London and elsewhere on the allied subject of "commercial" education, and it would almost seem that the young men who enter our business houses can neither read, write, speak, nor count, and are in absolute ignorance of geography in its commercial and industrial aspects. Looking to the names of the men who are agitating this question, we must assume that they know what they are talking about, and that there is substantial ground for their complaints.

It is not our intention here to take up the question of either Technical or Commercial Schools, but rather

1 Addressed to the Glasgow Branch of the Teachers' Guild.

to point out that with technical schools on one side and commercial schools on the other, the old secondary schools are doomed if they do not quickly reconsider their position and adapt themselves to the wants of the country. Technical schools are for a very special class of the community, it is true; but a very slight modification of their present organization would convert them into secondary schools based on science, as opposed to the existing secondary schools, which are based chiefly on language. The same remark applies to the projected commercial schools. The question thus naturally arises, ‘Are we prepared to conclude the long-standing debate on the Humanistic and Realistic in education by capitulating to the latter?' For ourselves, we think that such a result would be a national misfortune. At the same time, it has to be faced as a probability and accepted if necessary. But is it necessary? To technical schools as the secondary schools of the industrial classes we are already committed, and the specific function which they discharge justifies their further extension. But it is not necessary, in our opinion, further to deplete the Grammar and High Schools of Great Britain in the interests of the new demand for specific commercial instruction. There is no fault which has yet been found with the boy-products of existing schools that cannot be traced either to a faulty programme or to bad methods of teaching. Take, for example, arithmetic. We are told that young clerks know nothing about the application of arithmetic to commercial questions, are wholly ignorant of foreign currencies, and are incompetent to transmute one into the other. Now, there is no student of educational

method who will not say that this is due simply to bad teaching, and that the proper training of teachers is the true solution of this, and, indeed, of many other scholastic problems.

Humanism as the basis of education is now threatened on all sides, and it is because of this that on this occasion I would direct your attention anew to the aim and subjects of secondary education generally. My object is to suggest such a modification of the curriculum of schools as will leave the linguistic basis very much where it is in all essential respects, and to establish, not on utilitarian but on purely educational grounds, a working compromise between the humanistic and the realistic in the work of every school. The attack on the medieval curriculum of our secondary schools and universities has been very persistent during the past forty years, and the assailants, while compelled to leave Latin and Greek in the possession of all the strategic parts of the field, have yet scored not a few successes. The technical and commercial school movements are only the more visible results of a prolonged campaign which has shaken every old fortress to its centre. To save themselves from destruction, alien and hostile elements have been assigned a place within the older schools, though, it is true, a subordinate and humble place for the recognition of science in our secondary schools has not been cordial; along with modern languages, it cannot be said to be more than tolerated.

Notwithstanding the coldness with which the British mind receives all theoretical considerations, it must yet surely be admitted that unless we can find some standard

by which we can test our educational aims, it will be impossible to adjudicate justly on the claims of competing subjects for a place among educational instruments. That standard can only be the end which we propose to ourselves. Given that secondary education terminates in a boy's eighteenth year (and taking the country overhead, this is a reasonable assumption), we have to consider what we would have him to be, in respect of faculty and character generally, when he enters on the work of life.

sense.

To put before ourselves as our aim the merely technical requirements of this or that industry or occupation has a show of wisdom about it, but is in truth unwise, and will be found in its results unprofitable for our youth in an educational, and for the nation in a material, Since the revival of letters, the idea which the Attic Greeks introduced of educating a man not for this or that special function, but simply for manhood, has governed the education of civilised Europe. There have been many quarrels, which still indeed survive, as to the best way of doing this, but among the combatants the leading idea has always been unquestioned. Whether we ask Plato, Aristotle, Melanchthon, Sturm, Ascham, Montaigne, Milton, or Comenius, the answer has been in substance the same. And when that answer is properly understood, it amounts to this, that the aim of all education is ethical, that it has in view Wisdom and Virtue; and that mere knowledge, nay, even discipline of mind, are to be regarded as taking their true value from their power of contributing to the main purpose--the wise and capable conduct of life. What are called "practical" considerations, however,