w to use their leisure
rightly, then it has fulfilled its function. If, on the other hand, it
fails in a large number of cases to attain these three ends or any one
of them, however it may satisfy the other tests applied, it has not
performed its function, is not a system which is "organic" to the
welfare of the State.

The second necessity is to realise the true place of the school as the
formal agent in the education of the child. Mankind by a long and
laborious process has discovered and established many systems of
knowledge. He has created language and invented arts for the realisation
of the many purposes of life. It is the business of the school to impart
this knowledge to the child--to put him in possession at least of some
part of this heritage which has come down to him, and to do so in such a
manner that while acquiring the experience he shall also be trained in
the method of finding and establishing systems of means for himself and
by himself. If, however, we lay the emphasis on the mere imparting of
the garnered experiences of the ages, the danger to be feared is lest
our teaching degenerate into mere dogmatism or mere cram. If, on the
other hand, we lay too much emphasis on the ability to self-find and
self-establish systems, we are in danger of losing sight of the social
purpose of all knowledge--of forgetting that the only justification for
establishing a system of knowledge is that it may efficiently function
in the attainment of some purpose of life.

Of the more important of the practical problems of our own day and
generation the first and most important is to realise that our
educational system as it exists at present is not fitted to produce and
maintain an efficient and sufficient supply of all the social services
which the modern State requires of its adult members, and that we must
consider this question of education as a whole and in all its parts, and
quite clear of mere party interests. Above all, we must get over the
fatal habit of reforming one part of the system and leaving the other
parts alone. The whole problem of education from the Primary School to
the University requires consideration and organisation. We reform now
our Universities, then after a period our Secondary School system, and
so we proceed, advancing here, retrograding there, but of education as
an organically connected whole we have no thought.

But apart from the want of organisation as a whole our educational
system in