Real Education

Extract

What I have long wanted to say may have been said before by many people better qualified than I to say it, but it has not been said often enough. There are too many critics and potential pioneers ready to rush into print to condemn existing school systems and propose exciting new ones: there are too few who consider their attitude towards three fundamental questions.

First of these questions is, What are we educating boys for?-— or—Do we aim at turning out boys to live in the world as it is, or as we think it ought to be, or as we hope it will be?

The question is the more important because many parents will think it silly. They provide so little or so impoverished a home-life for their children that the only discipline boys now experience is what they are subjected to at school, and if parents’ ambition is that their children shall be fitted to share in the prevalent laxness of modern life, our present system of education with its irksome rides and obligations offers unsuitable training.

If parents wish their children to change the world they must realise their own obligations: they must cease to baulk the efforts of the schools by permitting indiscipline in their homes; they must co-operate with those upon whom they thrust the burden of bringing up their children, and I fear that few of them would come out well if reports were written on their conduct in this respect during the holidays.