HOW THE UNITED STATES FACED ITS EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM. Dundee confers a fresh honour upon me to-night* in this splendid audience and in the privilege of opening this course of lectures. The solid foundation on which Lord Armitstead has established the course enhances the honour. So do the educational efforts that preceded its establishment, and so does the renown of this great Scotch city for which it is conducted. When this duty was proposed to me I was told that the thoughts of the community were turned towards a broadening of university work to meet the wants of the broader age in which we live; and that therefore this opening address might properly discuss the demands for a more practical training that form one phase of your ever-widening educational problem. But the whole question of education under this Government is at this moment in the political melting pot. It is, therefore, a question from which any discreet representative of another Government flees, as from the plague. I was next advised that something about educational affairs in my own country would be a topic of special local interest, and this perhaps one may venture upon without offence. Yet even here it would be easy to be misunderstood. The conditions with us are not the same. In fact, several of them are so unlike British conditions as to make it probable that what seems to suit the one country might be found quite unsuitable for the other. Far be it from me therefore to dream of holding up our experience for imitation or even for instruction! Still, intelligent people, intent on any perplexing subject, are always interested and sometimes helped in noting how other people have had to deal with somewhat similar subjects. And so, without further preface or apology, I respond to the authoritative intimations I have received, by inviting your attention to the way in which the United States has faced its educational problem. *The Freedom of the City had been conferred in the morning. 163724 |