Article February 11, 1922 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Caroline F. E. Spurgeon, Gerald B. Hurst, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Albert P. Mathews, Robert Fairbairn, Emma Sarepta Yule

[From "The Refashioning of English Education, a Lesson of the Great War," by Caroline F. E. Spurgeon in The Atlantic Monthly]

To quote the remarkable letter to the Prime Minister by the Master of Balliol, which serves as an introduction to the report of the Committee on Adult Education of which he was chairman: "We stand at the bar of history for judgment, and we shall be judged by the use we make of this unique opportunity. It is unique in many ways, most of all in the fact that the public not only has its conscience aroused and its heart stirred, but also has its mind open and receptive of new ideas to an unprecedented degree." This quickened conscience, stirring of heart, and liberation of mind are to be found in some degree among all the peoples, and one practical result of that is the dawning realization that the most pressing need of every nations is not battleships or guns, but education—enlightened and humane....

The chief factor in the present divorce between education and reality is the theory, long accepted, that "the process of education is the performing of compulsory hard labor, a 'grind' or 'stiffening process,' 'a gritting of the teeth' on hard substances, with the primary object not of acquiring a particular form of skill or knowledge but of giving the mind a general training and strengthening." If this theory were abandoned the whole educational problem would be made easier, and it would be possible to secure for the child a living interest and a sense of his purpose in his work. This purpose would be realized more and more fully as it came to be understood that education is not the same thing as information or discipline, or even the dealing with human knowledge divided up into so-called "subjects." True education, the "drawing out" and training of already existing faculties, is really guidance in acquiring experience.

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