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to honorary service; and it was confidently predicted that the alteration would produce a change in the class of man who would seek access to the House. It may be permissible for the present writer, who dissented emphatically from the step, and recorded that dissent by his vote, to say that he is confident that he is not by any means alone amongst the dissentients of 1910 in feeling that his fears were unfounded. It is not so much that the payment of Members can be proved to have done any positive good. There are perhaps few in the House who owe their position there solely or even principally to the fact that they can reckon at least on the moderate salary. It might indeed safely be said that the proportion of such men amongst the Labour Party is not larger than in other parts of the House. 6 The wages'-as Mr Gladstone was accustomed opprobriously to designate a form of payment to which he was vigorously opposed -did not really alter in any substantial way the composition of the House, still less did it alter its traditions and procedure. If it has made the position of any members more easy, and enabled them to meet the exigencies of their duties with more facility, few will be found to grudge a change of which they were formerly suspicious.

We have thus endeavoured to trace the results of the revolutionary changes in the composition of Parliament, in the constituencies to which Parliament is responsible, and in the avowed aims now put forward by certain Members of the House-which threaten the very foundations of our economical and commercial position, and which only a few years ago would have been eagerly and indignantly repudiated by any party in the House. We have briefly reviewed some of the more important changes in procedure, which have very fundamentally altered its debates and changed its administrative methods. Both these distinct categories of change merit attention; but it is, of course, the composition of the House itself which is immeasurably the most important. A large proportion of the critics of the House are alarmed with good reason at the threatening of revolution. This fear renders them more susceptible to the defects in the House of Commons, which seems to them to be daily losing its power as an effective bulwark

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against revolutionary change. It were to be wished that these reasonable and widely-spread misgivings would stir in the minds of the constituencies a sense of their own responsibility for arriving at sound information and a sound judgment. The readiest means of obtaining this knowledge would be a careful study of good and adequate reports of the debates; but these, as we have stated, are not now provided as they used to be by the daily newspaper press. The position is indeed a dangerous one. The representative assembly of our country now includes many who openly avow revolutionary aims, and who profess no reverence for traditionary Parliamentary methods. We believe that in the firm maintenance of these traditionary methods lies the supreme hope of saving the Constitution. We believe further that by the blessing of providence, the vital continuity of Parliamentary life has been able to impress these traditions of which it has been the faithful custodian on the spirit of Parliament itself, quite apart from all the petty idiosyncrasies of parties or individuals. But that vital light must, at all costs, be cherished and its extinction guarded against. For that, all alike the authorities of the House, the House itself, each member of it, and above all, the country speaking through the constituencies-are responsible. It is idle to scoff at Parliament and to belittle it by the circulation of trifling gossip as to its procedure. The country will have the Parliament it deserves. Help that Parliament to maintain its inherited identity and those traditions of which we may all be proud. Take care that those whom you send to it are conscious of their responsibility, and fit to share in those aspirations. Those who do not share them are either unworthy to do so, or are ignorant of all that they involve. Those who are concerned in them cannot permit or condone any laxity that would impair their force. The vital core of them is still in full activity if allowed its proper scope. And never let us forget those encroaching dangers of economic disaster against which they are the surest bulwark.

Art. 12.-CLASS TEACHING IN SCHOOLS.

An Essay towards the Philosophy of Education. By Charlotte M. Mason. Kegan Paul, 1924.

It is interesting to note the different ways in which the problems of education are being faced, by the Elementary Schools on the one hand and the larger Secondary Schools on the other. Of all the problems confronting the educational authorities, none of which are simple or unimportant, the most complex seem to be those which deal with the intellectual training; and further, the complexity is chiefly caused by the necessity of children being taught in classes and not individually. In other words, it is well known among school teachers of all grades that the leading educational writers, such as Pestalozzi, Herbart, Milton, Froebel, Herbert Spencer, have made many excellent suggestions, based on their knowledge of young minds, for the teaching of individual children; but the problem that faces the modern educationalist is, and always will be so far as we can tell, a matter of class teaching. Hitherto it has been thought that failure is far more likely to occur in a class of, say, fifty than in one of twenty-five; at least, if the failure in the smaller classes is still very noticeable, it is not nearly so glaring and undeniable as when the numbers are doubled. Hence, it has come about that for the last twenty or thirty years experiments have been fairly frequent in Elementary Schools. The aim has not been changed, but the methods have been modified; while in the Secondary Schools such changes as have taken place have been less due to doubts concerning the educational principles that are followed, than to the desire for variation of the curriculum; the aim being throughout to evoke in a larger number of children a living interest in knowledge for its own sake.

My present purpose is to inquire if this object is being secured; or if, on the other hand, there is some warrant for the fairly prevalent opinion that a high percentage of failures in the intellectual department of school-work is inevitable; and that, as the teaching has become far more conscientious and careful during the last forty years, it would be foolish to suppose that

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satisfactory progress is not being made. The immediate subject of inquiry will be the stimulating of such a love of learning as will stand the test once stated by Dr Sadler, which can be applied to youths of seventeen and eighteen at the time of their leaving the Secondary Schools. It is as follows: Do they carry with them into the world any marked desire to go on learning the subjects which they have been taught at school? For if not, it must be admitted that the school training has been unsuccessful. Of course it is easy to misapply the test. To a superficial observer there has been an immense improvement in general industry during the last fifty years, and it has been crudely supposed that when that is the case the sum of knowledge in the rising generation must be greater than in the last; which gratifying result is ascribed not only to a change of social conditions which prohibits idleness, but also to far better methods of class teaching, and to a better human relation between master and boys. But if experienced teachers, or indeed any one with a first-hand knowledge of schoolboys, are asked the plain question whether a satisfactory majority of young men of eighteen can be said to have a thirst for knowledge for its own sake, the answers, it must be confessed, are disquieting. There is a general agreement that in some 60 per cent. of the boys of that age there is no discernible desire for learning, and that in the remainder such as exists has little reference to the subjects they have been taught, but is kept alive by knowledge picked up at haphazard in play-hours at school or in the holidays at home. This, it is admitted, is a somewhat dismal estimate, and the reports we hear up to date do not lend any encouragement to the hope that the intellectual vitality of our young people is more vigorous than it was a hundred years ago.

One grim symptom of this state of things should be noted. A considerable number of our Public schoolmasters, well aware of the improved standard of conscientiousness and skill in teaching which has been noticeable in the last half-century, and of the jejune character of the result, are inclined to fall back upon the theory that English boys are stubbornly averse from any intellectual effort and incapable of finding pleasure

in it. Hence it is believed that success in class teaching is not so much intellectual as moral. The aim of fostering and satisfying an eager thirst for knowledge has been abandoned in favour of the hope that tenacity of purpose, endurance of drudgery and dogged effort, are being secured; and, as was pithily put by one of them some twenty years ago, it matters not what subject boys work at provided that they hate it enough.

Meantime, the arduous task of bracing the wills of English boys to a prolonged effort of the mind for the securing of knowledge, which they can only hope in a kind of second-hand fashion will some day be profitable, has been lightened by various devices. Instead of ponderous lessons and long hours, indiscriminate severity, dingy class-rooms and unsympathetic teachers, our boys nowadays find that every effort is made to gild the pill. They feel the masters to be quite human, the books read are less remote from their experience than they used to be, and a galaxy of prizes is offered to those who are desirous of competing for them. The atmosphere is congenial, jokes are frequent, and the administration of the ferule is a thing of the past. Nevertheless, the intellectual results are, as has been stated, most disappointing. The character of the disease, however, requires some more careful diagnosis.

Foreign critics, inclined to disparage English education, have based their indictment upon young men's ignorance of history, science, and even literature. This and other causes have led to a widening of the curriculum, with the result that at twenty years old the average standard of knowledge among our young men is higher than it was; but that symptom is quite compatible with languid belief in learning. Especially noteworthy is the reluctance of young adults to pursue the subjects which they were taught in their schooldays, unless for professional reasons they are compelled to do

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Yet it was for the encouragement of this love that all the devices alluded to above have been brought into play. The question, in short, arises whether the cause of the disfavour with which boys still regard learning may not be due to some deeper reason than a wrongly constructed curriculum or want of skill in the teaching. We have, therefore, to inquire whether the trouble is

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