ing free thought and action both of teacher and scholar. For them,
as for an army, it is the "initiative" that counts. In industry, in
commerce, in political life, and also in intellectual and even in
religious life, there is a danger that the free development of the
individual may be checked and healthy growth prevented by
over-regulation. In education especially, "self-determination" within
reasonable limits is as necessary for the well-being of the individual
as it is in government for the well-being of nations. We may dread the
extended exercise of the powers of "directors of education" when they go
beyond administration and include the choice of subjects and of methods.
The best educational movement of our day--the Boy Scouts
Association--was initiated and is carried on without the intervention of
the State or of local authorities.

In conclusion two other points may be offered for consideration. In our
methods of education do we not find the idea more and more prevalent
that it is necessary for all, in order to be thorough, to devote their
time and energy to exact manipulation? It is true that you cannot make a
good chemist, or even apothecary, without giving days and weeks to exact
use of balances or to watching filter papers and the like but the mere
layman may learn in a short time with profit the meaning of a chemical
equation, and find a kind of diagrammatic knowledge sufficient to meet
all he requires. To discard what is irrelevant to the purpose is one of
the most difficult but most important things to be learned. Instead of
using "Euclid" as a means of teaching scholars to reason, they are
expected to use compasses carefully to make circles round--a matter of
no importance whatever for the matter in hand--but it diverts their
attention from the true object of study. There is a lesson for others in
the highly emphasised remark once addressed by a great advocate to his
junior who was taking an over-elaborate note, "Stop that scratching and
attend to the case." But intellectually the worst of all is the danger
that education will be directed to teaching and to learning mere
phrases. It saves thought and provides us with a kind of paper currency
conventionally accepted, though of no real value. In every subject we
study, in every department of life, in law, in politics, and in
religion, the domination of the phrase fetters thought and perverts
action. It is tempting to give examples, but we must forbear.

"Ti