randparents
did."[8]

III A Word from Huxley and Spencer

These are typical of a host of similar criticisms of the schools which
leading educators, men working within the school system, are directing
against it. Out of the fullness of their experience they spread the
conviction that the school often fails to prepare for life, that it
frequently distorts more effectively than it builds. The thought is not
new. Thomas Huxley asked, years ago, whether education should not be
definitely related to life. He wrote,--"If there were no such things as
industrial pursuits, a system of education which does nothing for the
faculties of observation, which trains neither the eye nor the hand,
and is compatible with utter ignorance of the commonest natural truths,
might still be reasonably regarded as strangely imperfect. And when we
consider that the instruction and training which are lacking are exactly
those which are of most importance for the great mass of our population,
the fault becomes almost a crime, the more so in that there is no
practical difficulty in making good these defects."[9]

Approaching the matter from another side, Tyler puts a pertinent
question in his "Growth and Education,--" "In the grammar grade is
learning and mental discipline of chief importance to the girl, or is
care of the body and physical exercise absolutely essential at this
period? No one seems to know, and very few care. What would nature
say?"[10]

Herbert Spencer answers Tyler's question in spirited fashion. "While
many years are spent by a boy in gaining knowledge, of which the chief
value is that it constitutes 'the education of a gentleman;' and while
many years are spent by a girl in those decorative acquirements which
fit her for evening parties; not an hour is spent by either of them in
preparation for that gravest of all responsibilities--the management of
a family."[11] "For shoe-making or house-building, for the management of
a ship or a locomotive-engine, a long apprenticeship is needful. It is,
then, that the unfolding of a human being in body and mind, may we
superintend and regulate it with no preparation whatever?"[12]

One fact is self-evident,--the existence of a body of criticism and
hostility is prima facia evidence of weakness on the part of the
institution criticised, particularly when the criticism comes strong and
sharp from school-men themselves. The extent and severity of school
criticism certainly bespeaks the c