that the immigrant to the United States is taught to reverence
the institutions of his new fatherland, and from generation to
generation the school labours to keep alive the memory of the
half-forgotten struggle of the new republic and the British monarchy. In
France each successive government has used the school to force on the
nation its interpretation of the national history and ideals. And the
victories of Prussian armies were cemented and confirmed by the official
exposition of the Prussian state and the cult of the Hohenzollern. To
the school is transferred the conflict between the doctrines of
authority and the revolution, of the secular state and of the Kingdom by
the Grace of God. Every nation rightly struggling to be free has seen in
the school the instrument for securing the allegiance of the young, and
the school has become the centre of political struggle. In Trieste and
in Poland, in Alsace and in Macedonia, we find kings and politicians
contending for the minds and souls of children, and it is in the school,
the college, and the university that has been prepared the conflict that
is now devastating Europe.

What has been done in the nineteenth century has really been only to
carry into effect the change which was long overdue and was implicit in
earlier years. The national culture and national authors have at length
forced their way into the schools, and the result has been that
institutions which originally in reality, and for so long in appearance,
were the vehicles for the expression of the common European
civilization, have been almost entirely won over to the cause of the
national expression.

This is indeed inevitable. Education, as we have seen, can only be
effective when it is the vehicle for strong beliefs, and is informed by
the conscious expression of an attitude towards the world. Now, in
modern days, the consciousness of a common European spirit has, in fact,
almost disappeared. In its place we find the intense consciousness of
the nation. Even religion has become national, and God has once again
become a tribal deity. The new consciousness of the common interests of
what is called Labour have no recognition in the approved teaching. If
the work of the school was not to be merely the dead instruction in
useless knowledge, if the work was to be directed towards informing the
minds of the pupils with ideals and beliefs, it was only in the
idealization of the national thought that this could b