the social evils of
the Commonwealth, and while it must be admitted that much good has
resulted from the adoption of universal and compulsory education, yet at
the same time certain evils have followed in its train.

Since the institution of universal education, it may be argued that the
children of the nation have received a better training in the use of the
more mechanical arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but the
tendency has been to look upon the acquisition of these arts as _ends in
themselves_, rather than as mere instruments for the further extension
and development of knowledge and practice, and hence our Primary School
system, to a large extent, has failed to cultivate the imagination of
the child, and has also failed to train the reason and to develop
initiative on the part of the pupil. There has been more instruction, it
has been said, during the last thirty years, but less education; for the
process of education consists in the building up within the child's mind
of permanent and stable systems of ideas which shall hereafter function
in the attainment and realisation of the various ends of life. Now, our
school practice is still largely dominated by the old conception that
mere memory knowledge is all-important, and as a consequence much of the
so-called knowledge acquired during the school period is found valueless
in after life to realise any definite purpose, for it is only in so far
as the knowledge acquired has been systematised that it can afterwards
be turned to use in the furtherance of the aims of adult life.

From this it follows that, since much of the knowledge acquired during
the school period has no bearing on the real and practical needs of
life, the Primary School in many cases fails to create any permanent or
real interest in the works either of nature or of society.

But a much more serious charge is laid at times against our Primary
School system. It is contended that during the past thirty years it has
done little to raise the moral tone of the community, and it has done
still less to develop that sense of civic and national responsibility
without which the moral and social progress of a nation is impossible.
Our huge city schools are manufactories rather than educational
institutions--places where yearly a certain number of the youth of the
country are turned out able to some extent to make use of the mechanical
arts of reading and writing, and with a smattering of many branch