o to the
child. The teacher who is the slave of another's will cannot carry
out his instructions except by making his pupils the slaves of
his own will. The teacher who has been deprived by his superiors
of freedom, initiative, and responsibility, cannot carry out his
instructions except by depriving his pupils of the same vital
qualities. The teacher who, in response to the deadly pressure of a
cast-iron system, has become a creature of habit and routine, cannot
carry out his instructions except by making his pupils as helpless
and as puppet-like as himself.

But it is not only because mechanical obedience is fatal, in the
long run, to mental and spiritual growth, that the regulation of
elementary or any other grade of education by a uniform syllabus is
to be deprecated. It is also because a uniform syllabus is, in the
nature of things, a bad syllabus, and because the degree of its
badness varies directly with the area of the sphere of educational
activity that comes under its control. It is easy for us of the
Twentieth Century to laugh at the syllabuses which the Department
issued, without misgiving, year after year, in the latter half of the
Nineteenth. We were all groping in the dark in those days; and our
whole attitude towards education was so fundamentally wrong that the
absurdities of the yearly syllabus were merely so much by-play in
the evolution of a drama which was a grotesque blend of tragedy and
farce. But let us of the enlightened Twentieth Century try our hands
at constructing a syllabus on which all the elementary schools of
England are to be prepared for a yearly examination, and see if
we can improve appreciably on the work of our predecessors. Some
improvement there would certainly be, but it would not amount to very
much. Were the "Board" to re-institute payment by results, and were
they, with this end in view, to entrust the drafting of schemes of
work in the various subjects to a committee of the wisest and most
experienced educationalists in England, the resultant syllabus would
be a dismal failure. For in framing their schemes these wise and
experienced educationalists would find themselves compelled to take
account of the lowest rather than of the highest level of actual
educational achievement. What is exceptional and experimental cannot
possibly find a place in a syllabus which is to bind all schools and
all teachers alike, and which must therefore be so framed that the
least capable teache