Page:Tyranny of Shams (1916).djvu/247

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
SHAMS OF THE SCHOOL
231

purposes for which they were intended, or are badly administered, or are used in giving gratuitous or cheap education to the children of comfortable parents who secure favour or influence. A consolidation of all the endowments which had not in their origin an express sectarian purpose would provide a fund to which the State and municipal authorities need add little. The scheme would bring some order into our chaos of schools and colleges, and, while the more snobbish establishments would continue to preserve their pupils from the society of the children of tradesfolk, and would waste valuable resources on uncultivable minds, the youth of the nation generally, of both sexes, would be developed to the full extent of its capacity. These things have a monetary value. A distinguished historical writer told me that, on sending his son to Sandhurst, he proposed that they should study together the campaigns of Napoleon. The youth presently informed him that the traditions of Sandhurst did not allow them to do serious work outside the general routine. A few years later we heard the details of our South African War.

It will be a part of this increased efficiency to rid our secondary and higher schools of clerical domination. It is futile to say that the clergyman must represent morals and religion in the school. His record as a moralist during fifteen hundred years does not recommend his services. Even to-day public schools which retain the tradition of clerical masters are deplorable from the moral point of