Page:Education as the Training of Personality.djvu/15

 But this movement of co-operation between our educational theory and practice is at present only in its initial stage. We still find schoolmasters who distrust all systematic educational theory, and who question the value of any training of teachers by exponents of such theory. And what is even more significant, we find a widespread failure on the part of the general public to realise that there is any science of education in existence. Most men who have gained a position in other walks of life are prepared to speak in public on educational topics and to prescribe the practice to be followed in our schools, being, as it seems, unconscious of the fact that the nature of education has at any rate been seriously considered by some of the greatest thinkers of mankind, and that, while much is still uncertain, there are some facts and principles which have been definitely ascertained. Among these amateur speakers and writers I do not include men who give us the results of their experience of the practical effect produced by education upon our boys and girls. Large employers of labour, for instance, have often valuable criticism to offer. I refer only to men who regard vague platitudes or airy speculation as a sufficient substitute for knowledge of the subject.

The prevalent distrust of educational theory is, however, not due solely to ignorance or stupidity. It is the result in part of the failure of many writers on education to appreciate the special problems which confront the teachers in our English schools. Take, for example, a man like Herbert Spencer, whose writings have done much to widen our educational horizon. We feel that, in