2] Suthers, _My Right to Work_, p. 119.

[813] J. Ramsay Macdonald, _Labour and the Empire_, p. 97.

[814] _New Age_, October 10, 1907, p. 369.

[815] Karl Marx, _A Discourse on Free Trade_, p. 42.

CHAPTER XXII

SOCIALISM AND EDUCATION

The attitude of Socialists towards education is a peculiar one. They
see in it apparently less an agency for distributing knowledge and
discovering ability than an instrument for the propagation of
Socialism and an institution for relieving parents of all cost and
responsibility for the maintenance and the bringing up of their
children. Hence most Socialists, in discussing education, consider it
rather from the point of view of those who are desirous of State
relief than from the point of view of those who wish for good
education.

Among the "Immediate Reforms" demanded by the Social-Democratic
Federation, the following embody its education programme: "Elementary
education to be free, secular, industrial, and compulsory for all
classes. The age of obligatory school attendance to be raised to
sixteen. Unification and systematisation of intermediate and higher
education, both general and technical, and all such education to be
free. Free maintenance for all attending State schools. Abolition of
school rates; the cost of education in all State schools to be borne
by the national Exchequer."[816] An influential Socialist writer
demands: "Education should be fee-less from top to bottom of the
ladder, the universities included."[817] In accordance with the
Socialist views regarding the relation of the sexes, which are
described in Chapter XXV. "Socialism and Woman, the Family and the
Home,"[818] most Socialists demand co-education and identical
education for both sexes. "Under Socialism boys and girls will receive
exactly the same training and exercise in the fundamentals of a
liberal education. Success in examinations of whatever character shall
bring equal reward and distinction. There will be no separation into
boys' classes and girls' classes. The instruction being the same, they
shall receive it at the same time."[819] "Education will be the same
for all and for both sexes. The sexes will be separated only in cases
in which functional differences make it absolutely necessary."[820]

Socialists see in the schools chiefly a means whereby to abolish
parental responsibilities and to secure "free State maintenance" for
all children. In claiming free State maintenance, Social