The United Nations Conference on Education in London is very
largely the outcome of the diligence and conviction of Mr. R. A. Butler during the years when he was Minister of Education. To the Conference countries like France and the United States have sent delegates of conspicuous distinction—men of the calibre in the one case of M. Leon Blum, M. Henri Bonnet (Ambassador in Washing- ton), M. Rene Cassin (Vice-President of the Council of State) and M. Joliot Curie, and in the other of Mr. Archibald Macleish (former Under-Secretary of State), Senator Murray, Representative Chester Monm, Mr. Harlow Chapley (Director of Harvard Observatory), Mr. George Stoddard (President-Designate of the University of Illinois) and Dr. A. Meiklejohn (former President of Amherst). All these have had to come from their own countries. All our own distinguished educational figures are on the spot. Which of the galaxy have we mobilised for this purpose? Miss Wilkinson is, of course, President of the Conference ex officio. With her are the Under- Secretary for Scotland, the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, the Minister of Education in Northern Ireland ; and also Dr. E. F. Armstrong, Miss Theodora Bosanquet, Miss N. Parkinson, Sir Frederick Mander and a number of Foreign Office and Ministry of Education officials. From Oxford no one ; from Cambridge no one ; from the Scottish Universities no one ; of great headmasters no one ; of leading scientists no one ; of leading humanists no one. Is this the valuation the new Government sets on education?
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