Spens (1938)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Analysis, Preface, Introduction
Chapter 1 Development of the secondary curriculum
Chapter 2 The present position
Chapter 3 Physical and mental development of 11-16 year olds
Chapter 4 The curriculum of the grammar school
Chapter 5 Scripture
Chapter 6 English, classics, mathematics, general science
Chapter 7 The School Certificate Examination
Chapter 8 Technical schools
Chapter 9 Administrative problems
Chapter 10 Welsh problems
Chapter 11 Conclusions and recommendations
Appendix I List of witnesses
Appendix II Liberal education (Young)
Appendix III Secondary curriculum (Kandel)
Appendix IV Faculty psychology (Burt)
Appendix V Transfer of training (Hamley)
Appendix VI Curricula in the Dominions (Clarke)
Index

London: HM Stationery Office

Appendix III Memorandum on the secondary school curriculum
by Professor IL Kandel MA Manchester, PhD Columbia, LittD Melbourne, Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York
[pages 415 - 428]

The most outstanding problem with which educators and statesmen are confronted today virtually throughout the whole world is that of the education of the adolescent. Just as one hundred years ago the leading countries of the world began to recognise the importance of providing universal compulsory elementary education, so today the chief concern is to organise satisfactory systems of post-primary education. While there is more or less general agreement about the function and content of the elementary school, which is determined in large part by the age and interests of the pupils, no such agreement can be found either on the form of organisation or on the content and purposes of education beyond the elementary level. Nor can the difficulties be eliminated or even minimised by the demand for a common primary school and for secondary education for all. The difficulties with which the educational world is confronted are due to a great variety of causes. Except the United States most countries in the nineteenth century developed dual systems of education - the elementary for the masses and the secondary for the group selected on the basis either of wealth or of intellectual ability. As the elementary school established itself and as national needs, especially on the industrial and commercial side, developed, the elementary branch of education itself expanded upwards and specialised vocational schools were provided, and both types paralleled and to some extent overlapped the traditional systems of secondary education. At the same time secondary education itself felt the impact of the changes which proceeded during the nineteenth century and after a period of unrest the curricula were expanded to include, in addition to the traditional classics and mathematics, modern languages and sciences but without disturbing the aims of general cultural education and preparation for higher institutions of learning.

A new period was ushered in during and after the [First World] War. Nations began to evaluate and to compare their educational systems and to estimate them in terms of their contribution to national welfare as a whole. It was recognised that elementary education alone provided inadequate opportunities for the development of the potentialities of the individual and insufficient preparation for living in the complex civilisation of the twentieth century. From another point of view it began to be recognised that the dual systems of educational organisation which had been inherited from the nineteenth century involved the sacrifice of large numbers of pupils of ability, of pupils capable of profiting from further education which the existing systems did not provide adequately. Out of this unrest, which, unlike the unrest of the last two decades of the nineteenth century, was not concerned primarily with matters of curriculum in the secondary school but with the organisation of education on a national basis, there resulted the movement for the unified educational systems: the Einheitsschule in Germany, the école unique in France, and secondary education for all in England. From these three countries the movement spread rapidly to others until it has today become worldwide.

Of the general programme implied in this movement two items appear to have gained acceptance already. The first is the general recognition of the need of a common foundation for all up to the threshold of adolescence, that is, up to the age of eleven or twelve. The second is the unification of the administration of all types of education under one authority; thus in Italy and France the Ministries of Public Instruction have become National Ministries of Education to administer and supervise both general and vocational education in their various branches, in the United States the Federal Bureau for Vocational Education has been made a division of the United States Office of Education; in Germany this unification has only recently been adopted in the Third Reich, while in England it had already been anticipated when the Board of Education was established in 1899.

The adoption of a common foundation for the large majority of children and the unification of administration of all types of education have only revealed the difficulties involved in the whole question of post-primary education. To demand secondary education for all in the interests of equalisation of educational opportunities is one thing; to devise methods by which the individual pupil may receive the kind of education from which he can best profit is another. Only two aspects of the problem are clear; first, under present economic conditions and the prospects of technological developments in the future adolescents will become increasingly unemployable, which means that society mast extend its educational guardianship over them; and, second, if the function of education is the preparation of citizens - intelligent to the world around them, conscious of their duties and responsible, equipped for the work which they are best fitted to undertake, and trained to the extent of their abilities and interests to enjoy the cultural and spiritual things of life - an extension of education becomes inevitable. Leaving on one side those who are not likely to profit at all from such an extension - and with educational programmes and teachers of vision the number is probably far smaller than is usually supposed - it is no more unreasonable to expect a gradual extension of education for all up to the age of eighteen than it was a hundred years ago when an extension to fourteen was regarded as impracticable and undesirable. Without attempting any prophecy as to the time when such an extension may take place, the fact at present and in most countries is that an immediate extension of compulsory education is necessary, if the world is to be saved from the dangers which menace it from allowing hordes of unemployed, unsupervised youth to enter adult life completely unequipped, untrained, and illiterate as citizens.

If this general thesis is sound, and an analysis of conditions in most countries would prove it to be sound, the problem with which educators and statesmen are confronted is not that of providing secondary education for all, but rather to discover varieties of types of education for the adolescent groups from which each individual is most capable of profiting. In other words the problem is one of the distribution and differentiation of facilities and opportunities for education. The problem is not simplified even in such a country as the United States, where the single or comprehensive high school, organised end-on with the elementary school, has attempted to meet the needs of all the adolescent population and to provide curricula and courses suited to the capacities of each individual pupil. Simplification of administration has in the United States not provided a solution. It is beginning at last to be admitted that the single school may cater to the average but it does justice neither to the bright nor to the dull pupils, and that the attempt to provide general cultural and vocational courses side by side in the same institution tends to militate against the success of both. A glance at the leading journal for secondary education, School Review, reveals an increase in the number of articles which have appeared advocating or describing methods of selection or grouping of pupils according to abilities and interests within the same school. More recently Dr John L Tildsley, Acting Head of the High School Division in the educational system of New York City, has urged in his Annual Report to the Superintendent of Schools the organisation within the existing high schools of 'honours' schools for gifted pupils and special provisions for those pupils who show no likelihood of success in academic subjects. (1) In the extensive discussions which have taken place in France during the past ten years on the organisation of the école unique nothing is more striking than the repeated suggestion that a permanent commission for selection and guidance (Commission Permanente de Sélection et Orientation) be established in the National Ministry of Education. Nor is the idea entirely novel; for although it was not at the time intended to meet the present situation, no more pertinent definition of the purpose of administration has ever been formulated than that of Sir Graham Balfour. 'The purpose of administration', wrote Sir Graham in his lecture on Educational Administration, 'is to enable the right pupils to receive the right education from the right teachers, at a cost within the means of the state, under conditions which will enable the pupils best to profit by their training.'

M de Monzie, formerly Minister of Education, in discussing the problem confronting France in the provision of post-primary education, only stated the same idea in different terms when he said that it involves free tuition (gratuité), selection (sélection), and distribution (rationalisation)', he might have added to this guidance (orientation) as the necessary corollary of selection and distribution. (2)

The discovery of the 'right education' for the 'right pupils' is today one of the most crucial tasks with which the administrator is confronted. It is difficult enough in the American high school which is open to all pupils on equal terms; it is far more difficult in those systems in which various types of education are offered not in the same but in different schools and in which fees are charged in some but not in others. The problem is as acute in Germany where fees are charged in most post-primary schools and the provision for free places is slight, as in France where fees in the secondary schools proper have been abolished; it is as serious in Italy where fees in the post-primary schools are nominal as in the United States where the high schools are free; and it is the subject of inquiry in the Scandinavian countries. To solve this problem of distribution would be a sufficiently difficult task even if it were limited merely to the discovery of technical devices for evaluating individual ability and promise; it becomes intensified when the complexities of social and traditional values must be taken into account.

Secondary education as it is generally conceived in the popular mind has come to be regarded as the education of the privileged few, as an education for status. It is looked upon as a preparation for what are called the 'white collar' or 'black coat' jobs and consequently as a method of release, from manual occupations. This popular attitude is manifested even in the American high school in which, although opportunities for academic, semi-academic and vocational training are provided, the academic courses seem to be preferred by the majority of parents and pupils, despite the fact that manual occupations enjoy a higher status than in less democratic countries. The abolition of fees in the secondary schools of France has resulted in an increased enrolment of more than 60,000 pupils in less than ten years. In Germany the reduction in the opportunities for employment in the wage-earning occupations in the years following the [First World] War resulted in overcrowding both in the secondary schools and in the universities. An analogous situation presents itself in the Scandinavian countries. That this condition has not been escaped in England is indicated by the fact that some 'central' schools have departed from their original aims and are preparing their pupils for the first secondary schools examination. The preferred place enjoyed by the traditional secondary school in social esteem and in the competition for employment renders the task of finding the right education for the right pupils more difficult than is realised by those, who pin their faith in the developments of scientific tests of ability. The difficulty is still further increased in those school systems in which some pupils are given 'free' or 'special' places as the result of a competitive examination, while others are admitted, and not always on the same standards, as fee payers. France, for example, only discovered another problem when she sought by abolishing fees in secondary schools to assert the right of the state to exclude the non-valeurs from the advantages of secondary education at public expense; the authorities concerned are at present struggling with the problem of devising suitable methods of selection. Only the totalitarian state at one extreme and those countries which have a sublime faith in the magic of 'scientific tests' at the other seem to be ready to embark on a policy of 'human engineering' which overrides human nature and certain social prepossessions and attitudes; the National Socialist authorities in Germany, by restricting admission to the universities, have inevitably deflected large numbers from the existing secondary schools without, however, having given thought to the need of providing new types of schools for the pupils so diverted; in the United States, on the other hand, it remains to be seen whether faith in the recently developed movement for cooperative testing and cumulative record cards as bases for guidance will be sufficiently strong to overcome the popular and democratic demand for equality of opportunity. In both cases it remains to be seen how successfully Plato's theory of social and educational organisation will be vindicated in the twentieth century.

And yet, although one may shrink from the extravagances suggested by the term 'human engineering', the provision of the right education for the right pupils does imply some sort of control over the destinies of the pupils. Up to the present, however, this control is in most systems of public education exercised by means of an examination, supplemented in some cases by a scrutiny of school records and teachers' reports, or by both. In other words, the educational and later career of a large majority of the pupils (the minority whose parents can afford to pay fees is not so much affected at this stage) is made dependent upon a single examination taken at the close of the period of primary education; the fate of all who are admitted to the secondary school is decided four years later. It is not necessary here to discuss the cases of late developers, the tard-arrivés, or the provisions made for them in some systems. The important question is whether the one examination is an adequate test when so much is at stake not only for individual pupils but for society as a whole. That there is some unrest on the subject is obvious; it is only necessary to refer to Professor CW Valentine's study of The Reliability of Examinations (London, 1932) which, although it deals only with the technical aspects of examinations, carries certain very definite social implications. Examinations, particularly as a method of selection, have for the last eight years been the subject of intensive investigations by special committees in England, Scotland, France and Germany. (3) For the present all that can be said is that while the selective examinations serve as a method for ranking pupils they are under suspicion on two grounds, first, that they are not reliable, and secondly, that on the whole they are not adequately valid indices of the aptitudes of pupils. A pupil who ranks high in arithmetic and English (and perhaps, general information) does not necessarily and invariably show promise of success in what are regarded as the basic secondary school subjects (foreign languages, mathematics, and sciences).

Such in general are some of the questions which arise at the outset in a consideration of the organisation and interrelation of schools which provide education for pupils beyond the age of 11 plus. They cannot be settled by the adoption of such a slogan as 'secondary education for all'. On the other hand, considerable progress can be made by bringing the traditional secondary schools within the general purview of the problem of the education of the adolescent. From the social and national points of view it would also be advantageous to include within the general scheme those post-primary schools which are at present administered under the Elementary Code. This was in fact the scheme recommended in the Report on The Education of the Adolescent (see Chapter 11). Only in this way can the problem of the education of the adolescent or of post-primary education be viewed as a whole, if by this is meant such a selection and distribution of education as will enable each pupil to receive that education for which he is best fitted. Should a scheme of this kind be adopted, it must inevitably bring in its train the problem of devising more satisfactory methods of distributing pupils into the different types of school than those which are immediately available. For those countries which have only recently undertaken the task of breaking down the traditional dual systems of education and developing a unified, articulated system in their place as much as in the United States with its single high school catering in the same institution to the highly differentiated needs and capacities of all adolescents this is the crucial problem to be solved in the immediate future. Since the problem is new, it must be solved by new methods, less open to criticism than the hazard of a single examination.

The selection or preferably the distribution of pupils, since the majority of the adolescent or post-primary group is being considered, is intimately connected with the next problem, the organisation of curricula and courses suitable for the differentiated abilities and capacities of the pupils. This problem may be considered from a variety of points of view - the nature of individual differences, the duration of the courses to be taken, the probable destination of the pupils, and the culture in which they live. But over and above all these is the fact common to the members of all groups that they are to be citizens. Accordingly the first principle laid down as a result of the conference in 1916 between the Council for Humanistic Studies and the Joint Board of Scientific Studies, although intended at the time for secondary schools only, will apply equally to all phases of post-primary education in the early stages. The principle was stated as follows:

The first object in education is the training of human beings in mind and character, as citizens of a free country, and any technical training of boys and girls for a particular profession, occupation or work must be consistent with this principle.

The same principle, although applied to a more or less specialised type of school, is emphasised in Board of Education Educational Pamphlet, No. 83 (1930), issued by the Board of Education, London, in the statement that:

The training given in the junior technical schools ought to be, and in actual practice is a truly cultural education.

Obviously for the age group under consideration, boys and girls between the ages of 11 plus and 15 or 16, vocational training or preparation for a particular occupation is undesirable and under present conditions of juvenile employment probably unwise. The character of vocational training, its organisation and duration, whether it should be given wholly in schools or wholly in the trades concerned or under a scheme of partnership of both is, therefore, not a question which need be considered here. The courses provided in post-primary schools should, then, be general and liberal in character, aiming to give the individual an understanding and appreciation of himself and his world and laying the foundations for the life of a citizen through physical, moral, aesthetic, and intellectual training. Of the numerous definitions of educational aims none is more applicable to all times and conditions than that of Vittorino da Feltre:

Not every one is called upon to be a lawyer, a physician, a philosopher, to live in the public eye, nor has every one outstanding gifts of natural capacity, but all of us are created for the life of social duty, all are responsible for the personal influence which goes forth from us.

The general aim of all post-primary schools should be the same, but beyond this the work of each type of school should be determined by the differences in the 'gifts of natural capacity' among the pupils. Up to a certain point the basic subjects which go to make up a general education should be the same for all types, but to grant this is not to admit that either the content or the methods of instruction should be the same. Indeed, the primary object of distributing pupils according to ability and probable length of schooling would otherwise be defeated. The adoption of a common core of subjects is desirable not merely in the interests of the common general aim of education but in order to make possible the transfer of late developers to the type of school best adapted to their abilities. It is for this reason, for example, that pupils who hold national scholarships in France may be transferred from the écoles primaires supèrieures to lycées or collèges or vice versa as their capacities are revealed.

The curricula of post-primary schools other than secondary have been so fully and so ably discussed in the Report on The Education of the Adolescent, and those for senior schools are being developed with such insight into the needs of the pupils concerned in the published courses which have come to my attention that it is unnecessary to deal with them here. It is pertinent, however, before dealing with the curricula of secondary schools to consider some of the principles underlying the new curricula of the senior and central schools. In the first place traditional preconceptions about the curricula appear to have been discarded. Secondly, they have been adapted more closely in accordance with the needs and abilities of the pupils and the local circumstances in which they live. Thirdly, the work of the schools concerned is not for the present dominated by the exigencies of external examinations, a fact which makes possible greater flexibility and elasticity than would otherwise be possible. This was equally true of the central schools in the early years of their development and until, for reasons which were not primarily determined by educational considerations, they undertook in some cases to depart from their original purpose and to prepare pupils for the first secondary school examination. It may in time be possible out of this experiment to develop methods of establishing standards without resorting to the practice of external examinations. The essential feature of the new curricula is that they represent an attempt to put into practice a new interpretation of a liberal education. It is, in fact, not an exaggeration to say that the most significant statement in the Report on The Education of the Adolescent (1926) is the new definition of a humane or liberal education.

A humane or liberal education, says the Report, is not one given through books alone, but one which brings children into contact with the larger interests of mankind. It should be the aim of schools of the last three types (i.e. selective central schools, non-selective central schools, and senior classes etc.) to provide such an education, by means of a curriculum containing large opportunities for practical work, and closely related to living interests. (4)

The aim of the 'modern' schools, stated so admirably, seems to be contrasted with the aim of the secondary schools proper, which is literary and scientific training. There appears to lurk in the two aims a distinction between 'living interests' and 'academic' training. History has played curious tricks with the curriculum of secondary schools. The humanistic curriculum, which became the foundation of secondary education during the Renaissance, was advocated because the curriculum of the medieval secondary school had become formal, sterile, and unrelated to life; the new curriculum of Latin and Greek was to serve as a preparation for the 'living interests' of mankind. Within a comparatively short time the new education had in turn become formal and lifeless, and by the beginning of the seventeenth century Bacon (and Bacon did not stand alone in his criticisms of contemporary education) could write:

These four causes concurring, the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching, did bring in an affectionate study of eloquence, and copia of speech, which then began to flourish. This grew speedily into an excess: for men began to hunt more after words than matter; and more after the choiceness of phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of Judgement. (Bacon, Advancement of Learning, Book I.)

He deplored the lack of teaching of 'histories, modern languages, books of policy and civil discourses, and other the like embellishments unto service of state', or, to use another of Bacon's phrases, studies of 'substance and profit', that is, an education related to 'living interests'. The same principle governed his advocacy of the sciences, for 'the true and legitimate goal of the sciences is none other than this, to endow human life with new discoveries and resources', 'to extend more widely the powers and greatness of man's estate, to secure the sovereignty of man over nature', 'for the finding out of the true nature of all things, whereby God might have the more glory in the workmanship of them, and men the more fruit of them.' Nearly three centuries were to elapse before modern languages and sciences, history and English were to find an assured and recognised place in the curricula of secondary schools.

In the meantime the classical studies themselves were saved from the sterile formalism into which they had fallen by the Neo-humanistic revival, which consisted in relating them more nearly to 'living interests'. This movement, which originated in the German universities and secondary schools, strongly influenced Thomas Arnold's reform in the teaching of Latin, Greek and ancient history, and again secured the pre-eminence of classical studies in the secondary schools. This claim to pre-eminence was further supported by the doctrine of formal discipline, with the result that, if the study of classics could not be justified on their own merits as humanities related to 'living interests', an argument could be made for them on the ground that they trained the mind. Hence, when modern languages, sciences and other modern subjects began to assert claims for inclusion in the secondary curriculum, both arguments were used, that they were 'living interests' and as good vehicles for mental training as the classics. But the new subjects for the sake of protective coloration soon adapted themselves to an organisation which had become traditional in the teaching of the classics, and sought to prove that they could be just as 'academic' as the established studies, and just as 'liberal' because they were not practical.

It was, however, rather on the theory of mental training that the retention of vast numbers of pupils who did not or could not complete courses definitely intended, among other purposes, as a preparation for admission to the universities was justified. That many profited from the corporate life which had been developed in the secondary schools in the second half of the nineteenth century cannot be denied; the present discussion is, however, limited to the curriculum. At the same time, in order to avoid the dangers of control by a government authority, the secondary schools had invited the universities to conduct external examinations as a measure of evaluating their work and setting up standards.

Accordingly when the system of secondary education began to be extended at the beginning of the present century and schools maintained at public expense were established certain very definite traditions had already been established - the pre-eminence of the classics, the academic organisation of the modern subjects in content and methods of instruction, and the theory of mental training. Thus the Board of Education in their Regulations for Secondary Schools stated that the instruction must be general, that is, 'must give a reasonable degree of exercise and development of the whole of the faculties'. While the aim continues to be the same, its definition in terms of a psychology now discarded has been dropped.

The development of the secondary school curriculum has been devoted in the main to securing a proper balance between subjects and the postponement of specialisation. This was all the more necessary since the public schools had brought with them a strong tradition of classical studies, while many of the new council schools grew out of the older organised science schools. In an effort to promote a proper balance the Board's Regulations have laid down the following general requirements for the first four years of the curriculum, that, for boys and girls between twelve and sixteen:

Except with the previous permission of the Board, adequate provision must be made for instruction in the English language and literature, at least one language other than English, geography, history, mathematics, science, drawing, singing, manual instruction in the case of boys, domestic subjects in the case of girls, physical exercises, and for organised games.

So long as the number of pupils in the secondary schools remained small and consequently highly selected, such a curriculum may have been adequately adapted to their needs and abilities. The last thirty years, however, have witnessed in England as elsewhere a remarkable increase in the number of pupils attending the secondary schools. A curriculum suited to a limited group of pupils is not necessarily adequate to meet the widened range of the abilities of a far larger group, drawn from a wider range of social and cultural backgrounds and selected on the basis of an examination which in itself is not necessarily a guarantee of ability to pursue a curriculum which is narrowly defined. Under such circumstances there inevitably but not deliberately results a tendency to adjust the pupils to the curriculum rather than the curriculum to the needs and abilities of the pupils. There is no intention of suggesting here that the needs and abilities of pupils can be the sole criterion for the development of courses of instruction. The American experiment of the past thirty years may be used as a warning on this point. The danger of providing a Procrustean bed in the form of a somewhat inelastic curriculum directs attention to the need of a more generous interpretation of another of the Board's requirements which furnishes a better guide to the organisation of courses than a statement of subjects. This requirement is that a secondary school must provide a progressive course of general education of a kind and amount suited for an age range at least from twelve to seventeen.

The problem may be considered from another point of view. In the absence of the type of control and supervision of the schools which is found in those systems of education which are strongly dominated by official regulations and prescriptions, England has resorted to the practice of external examinations by non-official examining boards. Despite the reduction in the number of examinations for which pupils may be presented, and despite the limitation in the number of examining boards concerned with secondary schools, the fact remains that the work of the schools must be affected by the requirements of the external examinations. It would be foolish to deny that some form of standardisation and some means of comparing the work of secondary schools of such a great variety as exists in England is necessary. The question must be seriously considered whether the present system of examinations is the best that can be devised and whether external examinations of any kind can be developed which do not result in restricting the work of the schools to be examined. Even if examination requirements were flexible as to the number of subjects to be permitted, the question would still remain whether they do not restrict the work of teachers both in the range of content within each subject and in the methods of instruction, whether they do not tend to produce an emphasis on those aspects of a curriculum which lend themselves to examination. It is not necessary to raise the whole question of the reliability and validity of marking, which may open up an entirely different method of attack upon examinations.

A further complication has been introduced into the English situation which is peculiar to England. Secondary education has by tradition come to be regarded essentially as preparatory to the universities or some other form of higher education. With the increased numbers attending the secondary schools it is no longer true that even a majority of the pupils will continue their studies even beyond the first four years of the secondary schools. As has already been proved in most European countries, there is considerable danger both to the individual and to: society in looking upon secondary education as preparatory to higher education; such a situation must inevitably lead to an over-production of intellectuals and the unrest consequent on their inability to find the niches in the economic world for which they regard themselves as fitted and prepared. This condition for the present has not yet been reached in England but there is no reason to suppose that it may not develop in time if secondary education and preparation for higher education come to be regarded as synonymous. The difficulty cannot be solved by the assumption that what is good for a liberal or general education is equally acceptable for admission to universities. In practice this assumption tends to be reversed and what the universities regard as essential for admission or matriculation comes to be the accepted definition of a sound liberal education.

This is in fact what has happened in England and the first school examination certificate is under certain conditions accepted as the equivalent of a matriculation examination, and in the public mind no distinction is made between them. It is this confusion of aims and purposes which has led to the unrest which has prevailed on the subject of examinations during the past fifteen years. The resolution passed in 1928 by headmasters and headmistresses is only one among many signs of this unrest. The resolution ran as follows:

That the imposition upon the secondary schools of a school certificate examination of the present type is having a very unfortunate influence upon the attainments, character, and opportunities of at least half of the pupils in those schools, who do not benefit by the course of education prescribed or the methods of teaching which it necessitates. (5)

An investigation of examination results reveals that of those who take the first examination, and probably not all pupils who leave school at sixteen do so, about two thirds are successful. The large majority of the pupils, probably 80 per cent, enter commercial and industrial life, or, in the case of girls, remain at home. This means that the pupils leave with a truncated course and a smattering of subjects selected as the basis for further study and adapted to the needs of a minority. The interests of a general education tend to be sacrificed to the interests of preparation for further study. This does not and ought not to mean that a four year course of secondary education should be the end of education for those who leave school; but it does mean that a general education should be so organised that it develops certain abiding interests in the pupils. The question must be faced whether tests in examinable knowledge and information in a narrow range of subjects can serve to develop such interests. With some pupils it may, but with the large majority life interests must be continuous with the environment and the world in which they live. Here lies the real distinction between what are called the 'academic' and 'living interests'. This, indeed, has been the secular quarrel between 'schools' and educational theorists. This was the burden of Montaigne's jibe at the schools of his day, 'The most great clerkes are not the most wisest men'.

What are some of these abiding interests which are continuous with the environment and the world in which we live? Obviously a command of English language, clarity of expression in speech and writing, and appreciation and understanding of literature should be the first essential requirement for all. The citizen of today must have an understanding of social, economic and political questions at home and abroad, and a knowledge of how these questions have emerged - an important aspect of contemporary education which has not yet received the attention that it deserves. (6) The study of history alone and certainly the study of sections of history, however desirable the development of the historical sense may be, cannot achieve these ends. For the general student history must be meaningless unless it is brought down to the present, nor is it of great significance for the present unless it is studied from as many points of view as possible and particularly as the development of living peoples. Intelligent reading even of the newspaper demands today a knowledge of geography, an excellent vehicle for the study of the world of man and nature. The same criterion can be applied to the sciences, as avenues to an understanding of the world around us and of the influence of scientific development on the economic and intellectual life of modern society. For the average pupil, that is, for the pupil who leaves school at about sixteen, a general introduction to the sciences, which might be called the intelligent man's guide to sciences, is likely to be of greater permanent value than the science of the specialist. The same arguments would apply to the study of mathematics; an appreciation of their place in the everyday world and in intellectual life may in the long run prove more valuable for the enrichment of interests than intensive training in skill in manipulating mathematical concepts which are not likely to be used again once a pupil has left school. Without depreciating the important changes which have already been made in the teaching of foreign languages, much still remains to be done in two directions, to develop ability to read foreign literatures with enjoyment and to inculcate in pupils the realisation that foreign languages and literatures are expressions of living people and institutions, whether in the present or in the past. In the case of modern languages opportunities for travel, the development of the wireless, and the interchange of foreign films give new meaning to the desirability of training in ability to speak one or more of them, but for the majority it still remains true that reading ability should receive the first emphasis.

Probably none of the suggestions made for reform is novel and as one examines modern textbooks one becomes impressed with the changes which have been proceeding in the attitude to the traditional subjects. But suggestive as new textbooks may be, they do not furnish evidence of widespread acceptance of new ideas. The exigencies of external examinations may still continue to be insurmountable obstacles to the main ends of a sound education, just as they have tended to restrict the development of new aspects of the curriculum which represents important interests of the individual. Music and the arts have long been regarded as extras and as extras they have been relegated to the fringe of the curriculum. If, however, they have a rightful place among the 'living interests' of today and as instruments for the enrichment of life, they deserve greater attention than has been given to them in the past. The inclusion of drawing and singing does not satisfy the demands which should be met. What place should be assigned to skill in music and the arts can only be determined by the amount of time available and by the abilities of the pupils. But much more can be done than is done at present for the development of understanding and appreciation of these important expressions of man's interests. It is not a question merely of training for leisure - all the subjects which have been mentioned should meet this aim - but of preparation to understand and enjoy the increasingly rich contribution of our modern environment. If no reference has been made to the importance of sound health and physical well-being, it is because no one concerned with education in England is likely to overlook it.

There may still remain pupils who even with a reform in the content and methods of instruction are unable to profit by it. The problem has already presented itself under the present requirements for the school certificate examination. It is a nice question whether such pupils should be transferred to other types of schools at the secondary level, or whether other methods of approach should be made in existing schools through more practical subjects. The question has already been answered by the adoption, for example, in the West Riding, of alternative courses, which, while they are not specifically vocational, seek to attain the ends of a general education by other means than books alone. Essentially this is a method of meeting Thring's challenge that 'there is no dull boy', and Sir Graham Balfour's definition of the function of educational administration.

The unrest with respect to examinations and the development of new experiments and their recognition by some examining boards point in the direction of greater flexibility in the organisation of the curriculum; such flexibility, however, must be dominated by the ends of a humane or liberal education. But whatever subjects may be added, they must be justified on the basis that they are, as Sir Percy Nunn has so well stated in a classic definition of general culture, differentiated modes of intellectual activity thought of, not statically, but dynamically, that is, intimately related to and significant for the environment for which they aim to prepare, on the one hand, and for the interests and abilities of the pupils on the other. Ultimately there is no particular merit in subjects qua subjects; to accept this is to perpetuate the so-called academic tradition. Subjects can have meaning only as they are treated as aspects of active and living human experience. Whether, if considered from this point of view, they can continue to be examinable in the traditional manner, is at least an open question. It is equally problematical whether external examinations constitute a better method of maintaining standards than sound professional preparation of teachers. That all teachers must be masters of the subjects which they teach is too obvious a requirement to be discussed, but it is not equally obvious that such mastery may itself lead to a certain myopia that prevents the teacher from seeing the relations of his special subject to the whole aim of education to which he along with other subject matter specialists should contribute. The intrinsic value of professional preparation can best be measured by the extent to which the prospective teacher realises, as Sir John Adams once pointed out, that his task is to educate the pupil rather than to teach a subject. It is only when adequate standards of certification of teachers are adopted, that a system of school certification based on the pupils' scholastic and general record and the teachers' estimates can be instituted, and the confusion of purposes between a school certificate and a matriculation examination can be avoided.

This important aspect of secondary education need not be discussed further here. It is, however, pertinent in this connection to refer to the efforts made in Germany under the republican regime, first, to reorganise the curriculum from the point of view of the contribution which each subject can make to the total preparation of pupils for the world around them, and, second, to substitute for the traditional examinations a new form based upon the pupils' records, the teachers' estimates of ability, and exercises which seek to discover not so much what the pupils can at a given moment remember of their studies but what they can do with the materials which they have studied. In other words, all subjects were according to this scheme to develop living interests and the ultimate test of an education was to be not one of memory but of capacity. Even though this scheme in its full implications remained largely on paper, it suggests desirable lines of development, for it means that education can no longer be regarded merely as the mastery of a number of subjects but as the use of aspects of human activities to train individuals as human beings in mind and character, as citizens of a free country, with an understanding and appreciation of the world in which they live.

Footnotes

(1) See Tildsley, John L, The Mounting Waste of the American Secondary School (Cambridge, Mass., 1936).

(2) By an arrêté of April 22 1937, and subsequent circulars classes d'orientation have been introduced in a number of French lycées and collèges by way of experiment to advise parents and pupils in the choice of suitable secondary school courses.

(3) Sir Michael Sadler is chairman of the English committee, whose investigation is being conducted by Sir Philip Hartog; the Committee has already published a number of volumes, including An Examination of Examinations (London, 1935). The German committee has recently published some of the results of its investigation in Schulerauslese, Kritik und Erfolge by Otto Bobertag (Berlin, 1934). The creation of the committees was the result of an international conference on examinations held at Eastbourne in 1931 under the auspices of the Carnegie Corporation and Carnegie Foundation of New York and of the International Institute, Teachers College, Columbia university. (See Conference on Examinations, New York, 1931; Conference on Examinations, New York, 1936; and Kandel, IL, Examinations and Their Substitutes in the United States, New York, 1937.)

(4) Report on The Education of the Adolescent (1926), Chapters 3 and 11.

(5) That this resolution has not been ineffective is indicated by the announcement in June 1935, by the Northern Universities Joint Matriculation Board that it would in 1938 differentiate the first secondary school certificate from the matriculation certificate, a proposal which should result in differentiation of courses in the secondary schools.

(6) The Association for Education in Citizenship was established to stimulate national interest in the importance of instruction in these fields, all the more important today if the ideals of democracy are to be preserved.