AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION
THE Spens Report on Secondary Education has been received with general approval. Indeed, there could hardly be any other immediate reaction to a document which, the fruit of five years' work, is at once a history of the secondary school system, a treatise on education and educational method, and a long-term programme of educational reform. If its recommendations are accepted, a revolution will be made in the system of popular educa- tion in this country ; and, as its authors emphasise, the future of democracy may depend on the results of that revolution, The great merit of the Report is that it brings the whole system of secondary education, that is, Of State-aided instruction for children between ii and i6 or over, under a single plan, in which it attempts to give the various types of instruction offered their proper place and importance. Criticism of so far-reaching a scheme is inevitable and necessary. On another page of this week's Spectator appears a comment on the Report which, coming from the headmaster of a great secondary school, is of particular value. But on a subject of such importance to a democracy, where education must take the place of mere authority, it is the duty not only of the schoolmaster, but also of every parent and every citizen to make up his own mind for himself.
In a valuable introduction the Report gives a formula which describes the purpose of its recommendations. The primary purpose of secondary education, it is stated, is to provide for the needs of the adolescent. The formula is at once .too wide and too narrow. In a day school, at least, education should not, and cannot, provide for all the needs, or even the most important needs, of the adolescent. The road home from school is in many senses a greater teacher than the school itself ; and by far the greatest influences on the child's character and personality will come from his life outside school, and especially his family. So far as the school tries to exercise that influence itself it is likely to diminish the efficiency with which it performs its proper function, which is, above ail, that of imparting knowledge. It is likely also to restrict that liberty of development which is the great merit of secondary school education. On the other hand, the formula is too narrow, because a system of popular education must provide not only for the needs of the child, but for the needs of the nation. The Report, indeed, implicitly recognises this by an attempt to provide a stream of properly equipped, recruits for industry and commerce which is not wholly dictated by the needs of the adolescent himself.
This attempt has led the Spens Committee to recom- mend the most important- of its administrative reforms. Complete " parity," in status, staff, equipment, prestige, should be established between the grammar schools and the technical high schools, which it is proposed to develop, so that the only reasons for choosing to send a child to one or the other should be his capacity and suitability. For the first two years, that is, from r t to 13, the instruction given at both schools will be more or less the same, and lay the basis for a " liberal " education ; at the age of 13 there will be opportunities for transfer frcm one school to the other. It is intended that instruc- tion in the technical schools shall be of such a kind that it will provide both a general education and a proper training for industry. These recommendations are all excellent ; if carried out they will repair the greatest deficiency in the existing system—the lack of a proper training-ground for recruits for industry—and it is impossible to quarrel with the Committee's belief that industrial training can be a medium for a liberal education.
In the case of the grammar schools the Committee's recommendations seem less satisfactory, perhaps because, in their zeal for establishing parity, its members are willing, even anxious, to sacrifice what has been hitherto one of the grammar school's most important functions. As the Report emphasises, almost with regret, the great prestige of the grammar schools has been won by the opportunities they have offered of educating the children of the poor and the middle class for the universities, the learned professions and the civil service. They have, indeed, been the medium by which the children of the poor have been enabled to compete with less inequality with the children of the rich. The whole tenor of the Report indicates that this function is to become of subsidiary importance. If that is so, social inequality will be increased, and the nation itself will suffer serious loss ; especially because, with the childlessness of the rich, the nation must increasingly look to the children of the working class for its civil servants, doctors, teachers, lawyers and clergy.
The Committee, however, emphasises that only a minority of grammar school pupils enter the universities, and that the instruction offered should be adapted chiefly to the needs of the majority who will complete their formal education at 16. It is to be hoped, indeed it is inevitable, that in the future a larger proportion will proceed to the universities ; and the Committee's fear of an over-production of " intellectuals " may be better guarded against by improved planning of entries into grammar schools and technical schools than by alteration of curricula in grammar schools in a way that may make it more difficult for its pupils to compete with the products of more expensive establishments. There is no doubt that curricula, and especially the system of examination, need to be Iltered. But, even in the interests of the majority who will complete their education at i6, it is doubtful whether the Committee's recommendations should be approved as a whole. The principle they adopt is that the amount of " information " should be reduced, and the content of the curricula and examinations narrowed, in favour of developing the general intelligence of the pupil. The distinction is superficially attractive, but may be dangerously false ; for to many it has seemed that the benefit of alterations which have been demanded is that they will enable the pupil to master with less strain and exhaustion a greater body of knowledge, It; is knowledge more than anything else that the children of a democracy need, and experience of what exact knowledge is. To draw a distinction between " information " and " comprehen- sion," and base an educational reform on that distinction, may be to turn children out of the schools knowing even less than they do now, and for that very reason less well equipped for increasing their knowledge themselves.
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