has
received but scant attention from politicians. Educational questions, in
this country, are rarely treated on their own merits and apart from
considerations of a party, political, or denominational character, and
hence the problems which have received attention in the past and evoke
discussion at the present are concerned with the nature of the
constitution, and limits of the power of the bodies to whom should be
entrusted the local control of the educational agencies of the country,
rather than with the problems as to the aims which we should seek to
realise through our educational organisation, and of the methods by
which these aims may be best realised. Hence, as a nation, we have
rarely considered for its own sake and as a whole the problem of the
education of the children. And until we have done so--until we have made
clear to ourselves the kind of future citizen which as a State we desire
to rear up--our educational agencies must manifest a like
indefiniteness, a like inconsistency, and a like want of connection as
do our educational aims and ideals.

Again, closely connected with this first-named defect in our educational
organisation, and in fact following from it as a logical consequence, is
our fatal method of developing this or that part of our educational
system and of leaving the other parts to develop, if at all, without any
central guidance or control, until at length we realise that the
neglected parts also require attention, and must somehow or other be
refitted into the whole. _E.g._, since 1870 there has been a great
advance in the extent and intent of elementary education in both England
and Scotland, but this progress has been of a one-sided nature, and
there has been no corresponding advance either in the perfecting of the
educational system as a whole, or in the co-ordination of the various
grades of education. In Scotland, since the passing into law of the
Education Bill of 1872, the means of elementary education have been
widely extended and the methods of teaching have been greatly improved,
but there has been no corresponding advance in the provision of the
means of higher education, and as a consequence, at the present day, we
find many districts without adequate provision for carrying on the
education of the youth of the country beyond the Primary School stage.
Secondary education has been provided in some centres by means of
endowments; in others through the extension of the term "elemen