Fifty years ago the standard of British
workmanship was the acknowledged mark of excellence in the industrial
world, while it has been pointed out in an earlier chapter that the
English standards, of character displayed in conduct, described in one
aspect by the word "gentleman," and in another by the expression
"fair-play," form the best part of the nation's inheritance. It is the
business of any British education worth thinking of to stamp these
hall-marks of character upon all her people.
Nothing reveals in a more amazing light the extent to which in this
country the true meaning of our being a nation has been forgotten than
the use that has been made in recent years of the term "national
education." The leaders of both parties have discussed the subject as
though any system of schools maintained at the public expense formed a
system of national education. But the diffusion of instruction is not
education, and the fact that it is carried on at the public expense does
not make it national. Education is training the child for his life to
come, and his life's value consists in the work which he will do.
National education means bringing up every boy and girl to do his or her
part of the nation's work. A child who is going to do nothing will be of
no use to his country, and a bringing up that leaves him prepared to do
nothing is not an education but a perversion.
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