on of elementary education lay
between the State provision and the provision by means of charitable
agencies, so to-day the problem of the provision of secondary and
technical education is between its adequate provision and organisation
by the State, and its inadequate, uncertain provision by means of the
endowments of the past and by the charitable agencies of the present.
Manifestly, in the light of modern conditions, with the economic
competition between nation and nation becoming keener and keener, and
knowing full well that the future belongs to the nation with the best
equipped and the best trained army of industrial workers, we can no
longer rest content with any haphazard method of providing the means of
higher education: whatever the cost may be, we must realise that the
time has come to put our educational house in order and to establish and
organise our system of higher education so that it will subserve each
and every interest of the State. This can only be effected in so far as
the nation as a whole realises the need for the better education of the
children, and takes steps to secure that this shall be provided, and
that there shall be afforded to each the opportunity of fitting himself
by education to put his talents to the best use both for his own
individual good and the good of the community. Lastly, as Mill urges,
the self-interest of the individual is neither sufficient to ensure that
the education will be provided, nor in many cases is his judgment
sufficient to ensure the goodness of the education provided by voluntary
means.

But, in addition to the reasons urged by Mill for the State provision
and control of the means of elementary education, and these reasons are,
as we have seen, as urgent and as cogent to-day for the extension of the
principle to the provision of the means of secondary and technical
education, still further reasons may be advanced.

In the first place, there can be no co-ordination of the different
stages of education until all the agencies of instruction in each area
or district are placed under one central control. Until this is effected
we must have at times overlapping of the agencies of instruction. In
some cases there may also be waste of the means of education. In every
case there will be a general want of balance between the various parts
of the system.

In the second place, one object of any organisation of the means of
education should be the selection of the best