the world. Have
these educational methods a definite objective, or is their sole purpose
the production of scholars manufactured _en bloc_?

These are important questions that need careful answering. Upon the face
of it, there is no doubt that in this country, at least, educational
establishments have, up to the present, aimed only at turning out
scholars of certain intellectual types. The result of this process has
been shown in the preceding pages to be sufficiently disastrous in its
effects upon its victims. There are, in fact, few social evils which
cannot be traced, directly or indirectly, to its agency.

But as yet there has been no dominant motive-power, working invisibly
towards a definite end, behind the educational machinery of the country.

A general feeling has been fomented of late, however, that all
education, from the lowest step to the highest, ought to be co-ordinated
and organized into a single piece of State-directed machinery. The
danger of this can only be appreciated by an examination of the effects
already produced by such a system in other countries.

Germany offers in this connection the best possible example. The
interference of the State in educational matters has there been brought
to perfection. Absolute control is exercised by the Government in
everything appertaining to the instruction of youth all over Germany.
The Emperor has become so autocratic in the exercise of this control in
the kingdom of Prussia, that he talks openly about manufacturing this or
that kind of educational article exactly in the manner in which a
manufacturer would discuss putting some commodity upon the market.

There is not the slightest attempt on the part of the Prussian
Government to disguise the political uses to which their supreme
authority in educational matters is put. One of the first acts of the
Emperor William II., on succeeding to the throne, was to issue the most
plain-spoken instructions to the Government of Prussia in reference to
State interference with the schools for political purposes.

'For a long time,' it was declared in the royal decree,[A] 'I have been
occupied with the thought how to make the school useful for the purpose
of counteracting the spread of socialistic and communistic ideas.... The
history of modern times down to the present day must be introduced more
than hitherto into the curriculum, and the pupils must be shown that
the executive power of the State alone can protect fo