the Workers' Educational Association

VI. THE PLACE OF LITERATURE IN EDUCATION

By NOWELL SMITH, M.A., Head Master of
Sherborne School; formerly Fellow of Magdalen
College, Oxford, Fellow and Tutor of New College,
Oxford, Assistant Master at Winchester College

VII. THE PLACE OF SCIENCE IN EDUCATION

By WILLIAM BATESON, F.R.S., Director of the
John Innes Horticultural Institution, Honorary
Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge; formerly
Professor of Biology in the University of Cambridge

VIII. ATHLETICS

By FREDERIC BLAGDEN MALIM, M.A., Master
of Haileybury College; formerly Assistant Master
at Marlborough College, Head Master of Sedbergh
School

IX. THE USE OF LEISURE

By JOHN HADEN BADLEY, M.A., Head Master of
Bedales School

X. PREPARATION FOR PRACTICAL LIFE

By Sir JOHN DAVID MCCLURE, LL.D., D.MUS.,
Head Master of Mill Hill School

XI. TEACHING AS A PROFESSION

By FRANK ROSCOE, Secretary of the Teachers
Registration Council

INTRODUCTION

In times of anxiety and discontent, when discontent has engendered the
belief that great and widespread economic and social changes are
needed, there is a risk that men or States may act hastily, rushing to
new schemes which seem promising chiefly because they are new,
catching at expedients that have a superficial air of practicality,
and forgetting the general theory upon which practical plans should be
based. At such moments there is special need for the restatement and
enforcement by argument of sound principles. To such principles so far
as they relate to education it is the aim of these essays to recall
the public mind. They cover so many branches of educational theory and
deal with them so fully and clearly, being the work of skilled and
vigorous thinkers, that it would be idle for me to enter in a short
introduction upon those topics which they have discussed with special
knowledge far greater than I possess. All I shall attempt is to
present a few scattered observations on the general problems of
education as they stand to-day.

The largest of those problems, viz., how to provide elementary
instruction for the whole population, is far less urgent now than it
was fifty years ago. The Act of 1870, followed by the Act which made
school-attendance compulsory, has done its work. What is wanted now
is Quality rather