ication for the interference of the State is that the
compulsion exacted in the matter of taxes or otherwise is of small
moment compared with the capacity for freedom and intellectual
development set free in the individuals benefited. In other words, the
cost involved by the removal of the hindrance must be reckoned as small
compared with the ultimate good to the community as manifested in the
higher development--in the higher welfare of its individual members.

But the practical realisation of the ideal need not involve that
education should be free from the lowest to the topmost rung of the
so-called educational ladder. It is indeed questionable whether the
ladder simile has not been a potent instrument in giving a wrong
direction to our ideals of the essential nature of what an educational
organisation should aim at. Education should indeed provide a system of
advancing means, but the system of means may lead to many and various
aims instead of one. However that may be, what we wish to insist upon is
that the State's duty in this matter can be fulfilled not by freeing
education as a whole, but by establishing a system of bursaries or
allowances, enabling each individual who otherwise would be hindered
from using the means to take advantage of the higher education provided.

In the awarding of aid of this nature, the two tests of ability to
profit from the education and of need of material means must both be
employed. If the former test only is applied, then the result is that in
many cases the advantage is secured by those best able to pay for higher
education. If the objection be made that the granting of aid on mere
need shown is to place the stigma of pauperism upon the recipient, then
the only answer is that in so thinking the individual misconceives the
real nature of the aid, fails to understand that it is help towards
doing without help--aid to enable the individual to reach a higher and
fuller development of his powers, both for his own future welfare and
for the betterment of society.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] _National Education and National Life_, ibid. p. 101.

[14] Hobbes, _Leviathan_, p. 1. chap. xiii.

[15] Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, ed. J. Shield Nicholson (Nelsons).

CHAPTER VI

THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO EDUCATION--MEDICAL EXAMINATION AND
INSPECTION OF SCHOOL CHILDREN

In considering the question of the relation of the State to education,
we have adopted the position that it is the