The importance of primary education is now well recognized. Rich and aristocratic folk know that they are now in the hands of the common people in a democratic country, and it is important to see that the common people shall be made fit to rule and shall have a real sense of fairness and reasonableness. Above all, if they are to be good citizens we must cultivate their common sense. I think that in the schemes and the administration of primary education by the Boards of England and Scotland it is in a good way; but there is one great curse upon it, and the enormous sums of money spent upon it are greatly wasted. The local authorities give to every teacher far too much to do, and they give him only half his proper wages. In a few years the government of our democratic country will be in the hands of the boys now at school. That they should be good citizens full of common sense is more important than any other thing. If they are without fondness for books, and if they can not reason, their votes will be at the command of fraudulent or foolish, or perhaps only selfish or self-deceiving speakers. Our empire was ruled by George the Third, and by God's grace we only lost America and piled up the national debt; but think of an empire ruled by millions of Georges! Teaching the young requires great wisdom and sympathy, and we trust it to people paid half wages, the "otherwise unemployed." In the secondary schools also we find this penny wise pound foolish policy, and it is particularly evil in the great technical schools. A city is proud of its magnificent college of science, first because of its architecture: secondly, because of its equipment in apparatus, perhaps in steam and gas engines and other expensive machinery. And the man in charge of the most important department of that college receives perhaps £250 a year. He ought to get at least £600. That is the market price of a fit man, and without a fit man the whole money and the time of students are being wasted; the thing is really a fraud, a whited sepulcher, and of course the principal is always a classical non-scientific man. Photographs of the building and its laboratories are very fine to look at in guide-books of the city, and the managers of the college get public thanks for their services. I know nearly all the technical and science colleges of Great Britain, and I hardly ever see any of their complacent managers, members of their governing bodies, without wishing that I had some of the powers of the familiars of the old Spanish Inquisition. What right have they to undertake duties which require a knowledge of natural science?
The latest proposal of our callous copiers of the Germans is to make attendance at evening classes compulsory up to the age of seventeen. At present working boys attend evening classes voluntarily, although in many cases they are too tired to learn much. Yet many of them do learn. These boys are almost martyrs. They sacrifice so many of their poor pleasures, and indeed duties, that they certainly deserve success in
