Cambridge Essays on Education

han upon the direct study of civics. If the spirits of men and women are set in a right direction they will reach out for knowledge

a school will lead to the construction of institutions in connect

life is lengthened, there will be opportunity for the development of games on a self-governing basis. Elementary school children have a large measure of initiative; all they need is a real chance to exercise it. They would willi

rigades, boy scouts, girl guides, and Church lads' brigades, which are in their several ways doing much to develop citizenship. S

f a general election is an instance of success in this direction. The ideas which have arisen from the advocacy of the Montessori system have induced methods of greater freedom in connection with many aspects of elementary school life. The Caldecott Community, deali

esults through the process of taking delinquent children and allowing them self-government. But, hopeful as the prospects are, their ultimate effect will be best estimated when their pupils, restored in youth to the honourable service of the community, are taking their full share in life as ad

an educational method which shall achieve the highest success without having included within it the element of competition. If competition is a method obtaining outside the scho

to accept the fact that at present "the scholarship system is too firmly rooted in the manner, habits and character of this country to be dislodged, even if it were thrice condemned by theory[2]." Bu

by the inadequacy of the scholarship for the purposes to which it is to be applied, tend t

oduction of subjects at which all can work for the good of the class or the school. Manual work and local surveys are subjects of this nature and should be encouraged side by side with games of which the

ys had in addition the opportunity of adapting themselves to new needs. Their reform is always under discussion and perchance they are waiting even now for some Arnold or Thring to lead t

nd acquaintance with the life of the poor or who are indeed of that life themselves. In this way boys get to realise, as far as it is possible through sympathy, what it means to be out of work, what it means to be hungry for unattainable learning, what children have to suffer, and, in addition to the practical interest which many boys immediately develop, it cannot be doubted that many ideals for the c

ed, as will be the universities which were established at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The demand for the better training of teachers w

t of the public schools gradually permeates the whole system of our education even down to the elementary schools themselves. When these opportunities so lavishly provided for the development of student life in its self-governing aspects are realised and when above it all there stand great teachers in the lineage of those described by Cardinal Newman in his eulogy of Athens-"the very presence of Plato" to the student, "a stay for his mind to r

t the dividing and isolating-the anti-civic-forces of the periods of their institution. They represent historically the development of communities for common interes

solation, on the severance of kingdom from kingdom and barony from barony, on the distinction of blood and race, on the supremacy of material or brute force, on an allegiance determine

882, when Arnold Toynbee urged co-operators to undertake the education of the citizen. By this he meant: "the education of each member of the community as regards the relation in which he stands to other individual citizens and to the community as a whole." "We have abandoned," he said further, "and rightly abandoned the attempt to re

riginated by this Association has been based upon an ideal of citizenship, and not primarily upon a determination to acquire knowledge, although it was clearly seen that vague aspirations towards good citizenship without the harnessing of all available knowledge to its cause would be futile. After exception has been made for the body of young men and women who are determined to acquire technical education for the laudable purpose of advancing both their position in life and their utility to society, it is clear that no educational appeal to working men and women will have the least effect if it is not directed towards the purpose of enriching their life, and through them the life of the co

itizenship based upon the vocation to which the boy or girl may be devoting himself or herself in working hours. The narrowness of the daily occupation, divorced as it is from the whol

possible for every student of capacity in the continuation school to pass into the university or technological college, it may be hoped that there need not fail to be opportunities for reaching the heights of ascertained knowledge in the Univer

look with understanding eyes at the things which are pure and beautiful. Tired men and women are made better citizens if they are taken, as they often are, to picture galleries and museums, to places of historic interest and of scenic beauty, and are helped to understand them by the power of a sym

aining in those associations have themselves proved a valuable contribution to citizenship, and have determined the democratic nature of all adult education. The right and freedom of the student to study wha

into the life of a nation must first be introduced into its schools." Among other things, it is necessary to develop in the schools an appreciation of all work that is necessary for human welfare. This is the crux of all effort towards citizenship through education. In the long run there can be no full citizenship unless there is fulness of intention to discover capacity and to develop it not for the individual but for the common good. This is primarily the task of an educational system. If a man is set to work for which he is not fitted, whether it be the work of a student or a mi

thout these cannot a city be inhabited ... they will maintain the sta

zen may be more in the healthiness of dominating purpose than in the possession and satis

work for which he is unfitted, it is even more difficult for the man to

does not stand alone. The family and the Chur

on to do their utmost to free the capacity of all for the accomplishment of th

diate practical considerations which bulk so largely and often so falsely in the minds of men, and which

e become realised on earth and the measure of its consecration, in spite of all devices of teach

1

Solomon,

2

mittee of the Board of Education on Sc

3

ort History of t

4

icus, xxxv

KS ON CI

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ens To Be. 1915. Con

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Tr. A.J. Pressland. 1915. Harrap. 2s. 0d. net. The

opedia of Education. 5 vols

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cross the Bridges. 191

ls in England and Elsewhere. 1908. Man

Education. 1908.

reat Society. 1914. M

al

Education

n League Papers, 6 York B

1

ric