y possible
department of practical activity, such as business administration,
journalism, banking and finance, foreign trade, political science,
psycho-analysis, mining, sanitary engineering, veterinary surgery, as
well as law, medicine, agriculture, and civil and mechanical
engineering. I am curious to inquire at this time if education such as
this does, as a matter of fact, educate, and how far it my be relied
upon as a corrective for present defects in society; or rather, first of
all, whether education of this, or of any sort, may be looked on as a
sufficient saving force, and whether general education, instead of being
extended should not be curtailed, or rather safeguarded and restricted.

I have already tried to indicate, in my lecture on the Social Organism,
certain doubts that are now arising as to the prophylactic and
regenerative powers of education, whether this is based on the old
foundation of the Trivium and Quadrivium under the supreme dominion of
Theology, or on the new foundation of utilitarianism and applied science
under the dominion of scientific pedagogy. While the active-minded
portion of society believed ardently in progressive evolution, in the
sufficiency of the intellect, the inerrancy of the scientific method,
and the transmission by inheritance of acquired characteristics, this
supreme confidence in free, secular, compulsory education as the
cure-all of the profuse and pervasive ills of society was not only
natural but inevitable. I submit that experience has measurably modified
the situation, and that we are bound therefore to reconsider our earlier
persuasions in the light of somewhat revealing events.

We may admit that the system of modern education works measurably well
so far as intellectual training is concerned; _training_ as
distinguished from development. It works measurably well also in
preparing youth for participation in the life of applied science and for
making money in business and finance. Conscientious hard labour has been
given, and is being given, to making it more effective along these
lines, and almost every year some new scheme is brought forward
enthusiastically, tried out painstakingly, and then cast aside
ignominiously for some new and even more ingenious device. The amount of
education is enormous; the total of money spent on new foundations,
courses, buildings, equipment--on everything but the pay of the
teachers--is princely; the devotion of the teachers, themse