prehension of men, and of other nations, which are the essence of
statesmanship.
[Footnote 1: This has been clearly seen and admirably stated by the
present President of the Board of Education.]
[Footnote 2: Take for instance this little fragment of Alcman:
Greek: _Ou m heti, parthenikai meligaryest imerophonoi,
Gyia pherein dynatai. Bale de Bale kerylos eien,
Hos t hepi kymatos hanthos ham alkyonessi potetai
Neleges hetor hechon haliporphyros eiaros hornis._
What can be more exquisite than the epithets in the first line, or
more fresh and delicate and tender in imaginative quality than the
three last? A modern poet of equal genius would treat the topic with
equal force and grace, but the charm, the untranslatable charm of
antique simplicity, would be absent.]
I
THE AIM OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM
By J. L. PATON
High Master of Manchester Grammar School
The last century, with all its brilliant achievement in scientific
discovery and increase of production, was spiritually a failure. The
sadness of that spiritual failure crushed the heart of Clough, turned
Carlyle from a thinker into a scold, and Matthew Arnold from a poet
into a writer of prose.
The secret of failure was that the great forces which move mankind
were out of touch with each other, and furnished no mutual support.
Art had no vital relation with industry; work was dissociated from
joy; political economy was at issue with humanity; science was at
daggers drawn with religion; action did not correspond to thought,
being to seeming; and finally the individual was conceived as having
claims and interests at variance with the claims and interests of the
society of which he formed a part, in fact as standing out against it,
in an opposition so sharply marked that one of the greatest thinkers
could write a book with the title "Man _versus_ the State." As a
result, nation was divided against nation, labour against capital,
town against country, sex against sex, the hearts of the children
were set against the fathers, the Church fought against the State,
and, worst of all, Church fought against Church.
The discords of the great society were reflect inevitably in the
sphere of education. The elementary schools of the nation were divided
into two conflicting groups, and both were separated by an estranging
gulf from the grammar schools and high schools as the grammar schools
in turn were shut off from the public school
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