ssure of a formal examination on
a uniform scheme of work.

Shall we blame the teachers as a body because too many of them are
machine-made creatures of routine? For my own part I honour the
teachers as a body, if only because here and there one of them has
dared, with splendid courage, to defy the despotism of custom, of
tradition, of officialdom, of the thousand deadening influences that
are brought to bear upon him, and to follow for himself the path of
inwardness and life. To blame the average teacher for being unable to
resist the pressure to which he is unceasingly exposed would be
almost as unfair as to blame a pebble on the seashore for being
unable to resist the grinding action of the waves, and would ill
become one who has special reason to remember how the Department, in
its misguided zeal for efficiency, strove for thirty years or more
to grind the teachers of England to one pattern in the mill of
"payment by results." It is to a certificated teacher that, as an
educationalist (if I may give myself so formidable a title), "I owe
my soul." And there are many other teachers to whom my debts, though
less weighty than this, are by no means light. Most of the failings
of the elementary teachers are wounds and strains which adverse Fate
has inflicted on them. Most of their virtues are their own.

Shall we blame the Training Colleges because, with an unhappy past
behind them, they have yet many things to unlearn?

Shall we blame the local Education Authorities because, with an
unknown future before them, they have yet many things to learn?

No, I repeat, we will blame none of these. We will lay the blame on
broader shoulders. We will blame our materialistic philosophy of
life, which we complacently regard--orthodox and heretics alike--as
"_The_ truth"; and we will blame our materialised civilisation, which
we complacently regard--cultured and uncultured alike--as
civilisation, pure and simple, whatever lies beyond its confines
being lightly dismissed as "barbarism." These are the forces against
which every teacher, every manager, every inspector, who strives for
emancipation and enlightenment, has to fight unceasingly. If the
fight is an unequal one; if there are many would-be reformers who
have shrunk from it; if there are others who retired from it early in
the day; if there are others, again, who have been crushed in
it;--we will blame the forces of darkness for these disasters; we
will not blame their vict