of being developed in our own country unless we are warned by the experiences of our "kin across the sea."

The three features of English education that probably most impress an American observer are its commercial character, the bitterness of the struggle in regard to the teaching of religion, and the social distinctions that still lay a heavy hand on the schools. Of these three it is the commercial spirit dominating English education that first attracts attention. The most obvious illustration of this is the demand everywhere made for technical and commercial education. In Parliament, thru the press, from the platform, everywhere, the cry is heard that the alarming inroads on English manufactures and commerce that have been made by Germany can be resisted only by an education that will enable England to compete on terms of equality with those who have received a technical training. Even before "Made in Germany" called attention to the growing superiority of Germany in manufactures and in commerce, there had been a consciousness of the failure of English education to provide that technical instruction by means of which Germany had made such rapid industrial strides. The means provided for carrying out the Technical Instruction Act of 1889 was almost an accident, but it placed under the control of the county councils large funds which were used in the main to supplement this need. As a result, great technical schools everywhere sprang up with splendid equipment, large resources, and able direction. But their work was chiefly confined to evening classes attended by apprentices and others who after a day of work endeavored to supplement a defective education by evening instruction. One large technical school visited somewhat recently had thirty-five hundred names on its register, but only two hundred of these were day pupils. Thirty-two hundred of the number were engaged in some wage-earning pursuit during the day, and then, with exhausted energy, they attempted to prepare to overtake in the industrial race those whose technical education is based on a general education and who give to it full vigor of mind and of body.

The complaint is everywhere made that Germans are found

in the great banking houses, in commercial establishments, in business houses, because of their knowledge of modern languages, in which the English, with the exception of the upper classes, are so lamentably deficient. Yet to overcome this defect the English boy is taught, in an evening school, not the German language but German correspondence. He eagerly seeks the "northwest passage to the intellectual world," that will enable him to outstrip the German boy who makes haste slowly. The German boy at eighteen or nineteen leaves the gymnasium, the realgymnasium, or the oberrealschule where he has already learned the elements of the English or of the French language or of both; he spends two years in England perfecting his English, one year in France, and one year in Spain or in Italy, and he is then deemed ready to go into business where his linguistic attainments, based on a solid educational foundation, fit him for success.

Often, it is true, the English schools are not so much to blame for the present condition' as are the great manufacturing and commercial establishments that refuse admission to boys after they are fourteen or sixteen years of age, and thus at the outset handicap the schools. But how futile are nearly all of the present efforts to give an adequate technical education was well shown in the remarks of Lord Reay at the Oxford Conference in 1893, in which he pointed out the fact that England had then nothing to compare with the Swiss Polytechnicum at Zürich or with the requirement of the study of English language made by the city of Hamburg. The most unfortunate aspect of the situation is that the majority of the English people do not apparently realize the shortsightedness of the present policy. They utterly fail to grasp the difference between a curriculum and a list of optional studies, and have only approval for the words of the headmaster of a great school when he says, "Let the business man tell us what he wants and we will arrange to meet his views." England will never gain the end she seeks-successful competition with Germany-by pressing downwards the age of specialization, by substituting evening continuation schools for regular systematic education, by placing mechanical subjects like shorthand and type

writing on the same educational plane with the classics and mathematics, by failing to discriminate between those subjects that train the mind and those that are of immediate practical utility, by neglecting to apply the maxim, “In order to make education great we must make our educators great," by a willingness to place the arrangement of studies in the hands of business men rather than in those of competent educational advisers. She will only gain that end when she comes to love education for its own sake and not simply because it affords a means of livelihood, when she learns the absolute truth of the Biblical phrase that he that saveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life shall find it.

But the commercial aspects of education are shown in other ways quite as subversive of the true interests of real education. The spirit of competition that has ruled English industries rules its education. The forms of this educational competition most obvious are the individual competition for prizes and for scholarships, and the collective competition of schools for the grants bestowed by different authorities. It is difficult for Americans, who are comparatively free from the bane of prize-earning, to understand the firm hold that the system has in England. The educational interests seem largely materialistic, for outside an extremely limited circle there is apparently little interest in education per se. This leads to the attempt to arouse a factitious interest by the bestowal of prizes in all educational institutions from the kindergarten thru the professional school. That person must indeed be willing to admit the inferiority of his own social position who is not invited to distribute the prizes at some annual school festival. The effects of this system of prize-giving are pernicious enough as regards the recipients themselves, but its effects on the educational system are even more disastrous. Attention is diverted from the legitimate objects of education to specious and showy accompaniments, and what should be an end in itself becomes only the means of obtaining some tangible reward. No one has spoken more truly than the late Professor Jebb when he said on this subject: "One of the greatest evils in our education, one of the most serious dangers

to it, arises from the premature narrowing of the curriculum, with a view to producing a prize-pupil in some one subject."

But even more pernicious than the prize system that has so deadening an effect on English education is the system of scholarships. This question is bound up intimately with the still larger question of free secondary education. England does not yet believe in free secondary education. The Church does not believe in it, because such education must ultimately be controlled by secular rather than by ecclesiastical influences. The vested interests of England do not believe in it, because the burden of taxation for its maintenance would fall on them. The aristocracy does not believe in it, because its establishment would mean the triumph of democracy. The classes that would be the recipients of such education do not believe in it, because they do not see that material benefits would accrue to them from it. Employers do not believe in it, because it would deprive them of much cheap labor. Even teachers often do not believe in it, because they fear that its adoption would mean an increase of expenditure and thereby the lowering of their own salaries. Doubtless boys and girls, should they formulate their own opinions, would disapprove of it, because it would mean a prolongation of distasteful work for no purpose apparent to them. No rate is so unpopular as the school rate, and probably there is more than a local application of the remark recently made, "There is not much enthusiasm for education in H, but there is great enthusiasm for getting education at half price." The establishment of free secondary education would mean the increase of a rate already felt to be vexatious. The Schoolmaster's year book. for 1905 undoubtedly is correct in saying, “That the public generally has any enthusiasm for free education as an abstract principle is, in our opinion, unproven."

It is at this point that the system of free scholarships comes in and provides a compromise. In its origin it was intended to give a means of education to those otherwise unable to secure it. Later it became in effect a pis aller to provide against free secondary education. These scholarships are

worth from £20 to £80 per year and provide practically not only tuition fees, but also maintenance during the time for which they are held. The result is that the scholarship often becomes really a bribe to parents to keep their children in school, as it provides maintenance, and the time thus spent in school is often more valuable in a pecuniary way than it would be if spent in a legitimate wage-earning pursuit. For mercenary reasons a parent accepts and even rejoices in the scholarship when he would resist free education that would give tuition but not maintenance. The scholarship is a bribe offered by a school to a bright pupil to enter the school or to follow a certain line of work that he would not choose of his own accord. Thus the schools are pitted against each other in a competition that is ruinous to true education and that engenders unfortunate rivalries among the schools as well as among the pupils. The system becomes a two-edged sword, injuring both school and scholar. It injures the schools because it diverts from proper educational channels funds that should be used in promoting the efficiency of the school. The temptation is strong for a school that desires to add to its numbers to do so, not by increasing its material equipment, not by enlarging and strengthening its staff, not by improving its curriculum, not by making itself a leader of educational thought, but by securing an added number of scholarships that are in reality a dead weight rather than a benefit. The effect on schools competing for the scholarships offered by other schools is equally ruinous. The temptation is almost irresistible to resort to premature specialization and by a hothouse process force a young boy into studies beyond his natural abilities. The curriculum is arranged not with reference to the prosecution of those studies that will best suit his mental development, but with the sole thought of securing the scholarship prize. This premium placed on proficiency in special studies cannot fail to lower the educational morale of the entire school. The scholarship competition is bad for the school, because thru it the school is placed in a false position when it offers a pecuniary reward for intellectual attainment, because the system prevents the construction and adoption of