ducation are clinging
to old weapons long after these have ceased to be effective, simply
because at one time in history only these weapons were available in
the struggle for knowledge.

CHAPTER XI

GENERAL PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION

Establishment of Compulsory Education in England--The Religious
Controversy--Huxley Advocates the Bible without Theology--His
Compromise on the "Cowper-Temple" Clause--Influence of the New
Criticism--Science and Art Instruction--Training of
Teachers--University Education--The Baltimore Address--Technical
Education--So-called "Applied Science"--National Systems of
Education as "Capacity-Catchers."

In the last chapter, the special relation of Huxley to scientific
education was described, and, naturally enough, it is in special
connection with scientific education that his influence is best known.
But he was keenly interested in all the larger problems of general,
university, and technical education, and he played a great part in
shaping the lines upon which these problems have been solved in
England.

In the years immediately before 1870, all England was wrestling with
the great problem of elementary education, in the arrangements for
which it was far behind not only the leading European countries but
even its sister-kingdom, Scotland. In 1870 there came into operation
an Act of Parliament for the regulation of elementary education under
the supervision of locally elected school boards. Hitherto elementary
education had been controlled by the Established Church, and by other
denominational religious bodies, and the quality and quantity of the
instruction provided, for financial and various other reasons, had
been extremely unsatisfactory. But a long and furious battle had raged
around the religious question; elementary education was now to be
national, compulsory, and universal; where religious bodies maintained
schools that complied with certain fixed standards of efficiency,
attendance of children at these was to be regarded as satisfactory,
and in addition to the ordinary subjects, such theological and
religious teaching as the supporting bodies chose might be added. But
in the schools for all and sundry, under the control of boards
representing the whole population, and deriving that part of their
income represented by the subscriptions of the religious bodies in the
denominational schools from public rates, levied on the whole
population, w