ngular fact that a
theory of education to which the teacher would assent without
hesitation if it were submitted to his consciousness, counts for
nothing in the daily routine of his work. Failure to carry an
accepted principle into practice is sometimes due to the fact that
the principle has not really been accepted; that its inner meaning
has not been apprehended; that assent has been given to a formula
rather than a truth. The cause of the failure may indeed lie deeper
than this. It may be that the nominal adherents of the principle are
in secret revolt against the vital truth that is at the heart of it;
that they repudiate it in practice because they have already
repudiated it in the inner recesses of their thought. "This people
draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their
lips; but their heart is far from me." Tell the teacher that the
function of education is to foster growth; that therefore it is his
business to develop the latent faculties of his pupils; and that
therefore (since growth presupposes exercise) he must allow his
pupils to do as much as possible by and for themselves,--place these
propositions before him, and the chances are that he will say "Amen"
to them. But that lip assent will count for nothing. One's life is
governed by instinct rather than logic. To give a lip assent to the
logical inferences from an accepted principle is one thing. To give a
_real_ assent to the essential truth that underlies and animates the
principle is another. The way in which the teacher too often conducts
his school leads one to infer that the intuitive, instinctive side of
him--the side that is nearest to practice--has somehow or other held
intercourse with the inner meaning of that "truism" which he repeats
so glibly, and has rejected it as antagonistic to the traditional
assumptions on which he bases his life. Or perhaps this work of
subconscious criticism and rejection has been and is being done for
him, either by the spirit of the age to which he belongs or by the
genius of the land in which he lives.

Why is the teacher so ready to do everything (or nearly everything)
for the children whom he professes to educate? One obvious answer to
this question is that for a third of a century (1862-1895) the
"Education Department" did everything (or nearly everything) for him.
For a third of a century "My Lords" required their inspectors to
examine every child in every elementary school in England on a