Note 216 — Chapter XII

[Footnote 216: Five years ago the present author wrote in the September number, 1910, of Macmillan's School World:—"Educational reforms and plans must come from the schoolmen; they never spring of themselves from out of the people; and this is perhaps the most deplorable admission of all, that modern England has no great educationist or statesman capable of formulating a national system of schools which shall develop the intellectual material of the nation to its highest powers, and direct those powers into the best channels. For several decades school inspectors, etc., have visited continental countries to study their educational systems, and have returned home with innumerable fads—but no system. Everything of the fantastic has been copied, but no foundations have been laid; with the result that England's educational system to-day resembles a piece of patchwork containing a rich variety of colours and a still greater variety of stuff-quality. It were better for us to have done with educationists who preach about 'the rigid uniformity of system which is alien both to the English temperament and to the lines on which English public schools have developed.' The said public schools have hopelessly failed to meet the necessity of a national system of education, or to form the nucleus from which such a system could or can develop itself. That the Falls of Niagara, however, dissipate untold natural forces is just as true as that England wastes immeasurable intellectual force because her forces are allowed to dissipate through not being disciplined and bridled by a fitting educational mechanism. Therefore let England turn to the prosaic work of organising!"]