EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE

society which he envisages after the present war. He looks at it from the standpoint of what can reasonably be accomplished on a short-term policy in some five to ten years, and what should be the ultimate aim. In order to get the appropriate setting he sketches very broadly the historical background and calls attention to the salient good and bad features of the present position.

No one who knows Dr. Spencer will question his wide and varied knowledge of education, his shrewd judgment and his powers of incisively and, if need be, caustically, summing up a situation: they will sympathize with his hatred of shams and of obstructionism in all its forms: they will applaud his eager desire to give to every boy and girl, young person and adult, the best education suited to their individual need. Only the best that education can offer is good enough for the brave new world that is to be.

Great as these qualities are they need to be supplemented if a task of this magnitude is to be accomplished satisfactorily. It is not always understood in this country that, in writing on the larger aspects of education, practical experience and administrative capacity need to be supplemented by a philosophical equipment and an historical sensibility. Dr. Spencer glories in being above everything a plain Englishman who in education matters follows his own judgment. Such a thing as a philosophy of education he is content to leave to "the French or the Germans ".

* Education for the People. By Dr. F. H. SPENCER. (7s. 6d. net. Routledge.)

One principle satisfies every need. "It is this: every human being is entitled to as much of the great heritage of learning as he or she can absorb. He is also entitled to develop his own powers, spiritual, mental, moral, physical, aesthetic, to the full extent of their of their possibilities " (pp. 105-6).

Any one looking for just and oftentimes pungent criticism of a good deal that exists to-day will find it in this book. School buildings, much so-called reorganization, and the extent of reorganization in the country come in for welldeserved indictment. It is only fair, however, to ask how many professional educationists as recently as fifteen years ago really understood, or had the courage to admit, what reorganization must entail in terms of sites, buildings, insight and cost. For Dr. Spencer to imagine that goodwill imaginative planning, suitably trained teachers, educational

and determination in themselves would have solved the problem is to reveal a strange ignorance of the facts. A great forward movement in education is as impossible without long and earnest preparation as is the successful conduct of a modern war. The educationist who fails to learn the true lessons of history or doubts the imperative necessity of theory may unwittingly do a good deal of harm. Those who look for guidance on the future will find this book disappointing. One gets the impression that Dr. Spencer feels in his bones the need for some quickening and humanizing influence in education, but he is not sure what it is. He is accordingly left to accept too complacently a good deal that calls for reform, or he feels he must make the best of the mediocre, knowing it to be mediocre. He has nothing to contribute, for example, to the problem of the training of teachers; he is left with a divided mind on the subject of the school-leaving age; he fancies he knows a simple solution to the problem of the size of classes; he

feels at a loss when dealing with questions like religious education, and so on. Administration and administrators are his bête noire.

It is perhaps permissible to point out that the right philosophy of life will do more for education administrators than either long experience of, or hastily acquired practice in, teaching, and certainly more than snippets of ill-digested theory. Dr. Spencer is far too shrewd a man not to know this. Indeed, he is one of the few who have written on education who has the knowledge and the ability to assess the relative spheres of usefulness of inspectors and administrators and the vastly different training they need. It is the more unfortunate that in spreading his net too widely he has hardly succeeded in producing the kind of book that those who have admired and respected his work and ability naturally expect.

OXFORD PAMPHLETS ON WORLD AFFAIRS

By Professor F. A. CAVENAGH, King's College, London

HE Oxford University Press continues its national

has been dropped since 1875) as have become a selfgoverning member of the British Commonwealth. Further, as Mr. Spry explains (No. 47),3 there was no certainty that the Dominion was bound to enter the war on our side. On the contrary, "if the war had come earlier, in 1937 or 1938, the conjunction of forces supporting a united Candian policy of intervention might well have been less favourable and the unity less complete ". People here are too apt to take Dominion help for granted. As things have turned out, fortunately, the war with its threat to Canada brought about such unity that Canada became the first of Britain's allies, declaring war on Germany only a week after the British Government. Since then, apart from the immense aid that Canada has given directly to the common cause, she has the responsible task of acting as the bridge between the old world and the new '; her 11 millions, so interconnected and yet so distinct, can interpret our ideals to the 120 millions in the United States, and indirectly perhaps to South America. About that great continent much useful information is given by Mr. Humphreys (No. 43).* At the moment we are necessarily

on World Affairs. It has been particularly well advised in extending popular knowledge of the U.S.A. and of the Americas generally. As a historical record one is glad to have the reprint of President Roosevelt's four speeches1 (29 December 1940, 6 January, 20 January, and 15 March 1941). No doubt the time will come when his speeches, with Mr. Churchill's, will rank amongst the classics of British oratory; and in the meantime they may well be studied in schools.

Then there is the admirable set of pamphlets (Cr to C8) issued in Canada. One can gain from them a clear idea of the relations between the U.S.A. and Canada, both now and in the past. The fact that several pamphlets are now outof-date merely adds to their historical interest. Thus the very title of Stephen Leacock's tract marks the progress that events have forced in October 1939 he could take the line that we in Canada would be quite thankful for any help in arms or loans that the U.S.A. cared to give; but if they did not care, well, it's all right, Mr. Roosevelt. Or again, Mr. Sandwell wrote in November of that year (No. C2), "no present or conceivable future enemy of Canada is in the least likely to desire to attack the United States". Events too have dragged into the light aspects of our relations with America that have hitherto been tactfully kept quiet about-notably the Monroe Doctrine. Ever since that was laid down in 1823 it has had in itself no force apart from British sea power: it has been to our interest to allow the United States to develop, since that development has been internal. From the start the United States have been isolationist, for most of their inhabitants went there to escape from one European domination or another; they have not sought external aggrandisement or wished for anything but to be left alone. Canada however has developed on totally different lines: her prosperity depended on export, and her defence has always been bound up with Great Britain. Nor has that meant political subservience or sentimental attachment: Canada might as easily have joined the U.S.A. (though the idea of annexation 1 America Faces the War. No. 1 Mr. Roosevelt Speaks: Four Speeches by President Roosevelt. (6d. net. University Press.)

Oxford Pamphlets on World Affairs.

Oxford

* No. C.1: All Right, Mr. Roosevelt (Canada and the United States). By STEPHEN LEACOCK. No. C.2: Canada and United States Neutrality. By B. K. SANDWELL. No. C.3: The Ukrainian Canadians and the War. By W. KIRKCONNELL. No. C.4 What the British Empire means to Western Civilization. By A. SIEGFRIED. Translated from the French by G. M. WRONG. NO. C.5: Canada and the Second World War. By C. P. STACEY. No. C.6: War for Power and Power for Peace. By L. M. GELBER. No. C.7: North America and the War: a Canadian View. By R. G. TROTTER. No. C.8: Trends in Canadian Nationhood. By C. MARTIN. (6d. net each. Toronto: Oxford University Press.)

In No. 465, Mr. Duncan Wilson critically examines Hitler's New Order '. Although most people in this country at least are prepared to take it for what it is, another piece of Hitler's bluff, it is just as well to have a careful investigation of its claims. These turn out to be just what one would expect-the exploitation and enslavement of Europe for the sake of the Herrenvolk, the race of Nazi supermen. Its effects have been vividly imagined in such works of fiction as If Hitler Comes and Swastika Night. Like so much of the Nazi propaganda, the New Order is a clever ruse; and it was well timed. After all, Europe longs for peace and security; and that is what Hitler offers. Yet the fact that Hitler has again changed his tune, and now figures as the saviour of civilization from Bolshevism, suggests that the New Order trick may not have worked as well as he expected. What is important is that we should have a New Order of our own to offer; apparently one tangible bait consists of stores of food to give to a starving Europe.

One people that would certainly fare badly in Hitler's brave new world is the Jewish. I am glad that Mr. Parkes has followed up his earlier pamphlet (31) with this admirable examination of the Jewish question (45). As he well says, the treatment of the Jews in any community is an excellent guide to the moral health of that community ". Actual persecution is a mark of the Fascist beast (e.g. B.U.F. riots in the East End); but short of violence antisemite sentiment is a danger signal. To those who do not share this sentiment it is incomprehensible: it seems as indecent as any other sort of bad manners. Yet it flourishes, and is probably on the increase. One comes across educated and otherwise reasonable men who will not read a book by a Jew, however high his reputation. The historical explanations given by Mr. Parkes, valid as they are, do not account for all types of antisemitism; there is room for a thorough psychological investigation (if one has not already been

3 No. 47: Canada. By G. SPRY. (3d. net.

Clarendon Press.)

Oxford:

VOL. XIII

No. 3
MARCH 1941
THE INDIAN PUBLIC SCHOOL. IV. The Training
of the Emotions. By F. G. Pearce, B.A.
BASIC EDUCATION. By J. C. Powell-Price, M.A.
THE LABOUR UNIT SCHEME. By K. L. Shrimali,
M.A., B.T.

HOME-WORK. By L. B. Harolikar, M.A., B.T.
THE METRICAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH VERSE.
By Henry Martin, M.A., O.B.E.
THE ADJUSTMENT OF THE SCHOOL TO THE
CHILD. BY L. P. Bharadwaj, B.A.
THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION. By
J. B. Freeman, M.A., L.T., Ph.D., D.D.
CORRESPONDENCE BOOK REVIEWS

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

BOMBAY BRANCH

made). Would that explain why Napoleon figured as the liberator of Jews, while Hitler, who seems to imitate him in so many ways, hates them with what is plainly a pathological hatred? Be that as it may, this pamphlet is most enlightening; and the most important lesson to be drawn from it is the danger of attributing to Jewish influence evils such as the decline in business or professional standards, and in the level of popular entertainment, when these evils are symptoms of the time, and the Jewish influence is only accidental. This kind of propaganda, as Mr. Parkes says, " is merely inviting disaster, by misleading people as to the real nature of the problem which confronts them. The use of antisemitism by Fascist propagandists comes almost entirely within this category ".

Mr. Shepherd discusses various feature of the aeroplane in war (No. 44); it must be very difficult to avoid both technical language and military secrets. What strikes a layman after reading this pamphlet is our complete dependence for the whole of our future on engineering skill: however brave and skilful the pilot, he must have greater speed, range, bomb-load, and ceiling than his enemy. looks as though, so far, we have this superiority.

It

The two latest pamphlets are of extreme interest. Prof. Clark contributes a lucid account of Holland, its geography, modern history, and part in the war; whilst Miss Barbara Ward writes a masterly analysis of Italian Foreign Policy." In the course of this short essay she answers such questions as "Why did the Italians wait nine months before declaring war? Why did they enter the war against their old allies on the side of an hereditary enemy? Why, above all, now that they are in the war, has their record been one disastrous series of defeats ? " The story is one of unprincipled and cynical chicanery, in which no country appears to advantage; but, if one reason must be given for Italy's becoming a member of the Axis, it is that she was driven into it by our insensate foreign policy. It is all as unpleasant and as fantastic as the account of Russian foreign policy which Miss Ward wrote in No. 34, and which will now require revision. How many of this series will have to be rewritten before the end?

7 No. 44 The Military Aeroplane. By E. COLSTON SHEPHERD. (3d. net. Oxford: Clarendon Press.) No. 49 Holland and the War. By G. N. CLARK. (3d. net. Oxford: Clarendon Press.)

ΤΗ

THE TEACHING OF ECONOMICS

By N. B. DEARLE

HESE books are interesting from the educational standpoint, for they range from treatment suited to elementary education to studies of technical or specialized character.

Economics is not an easy subject for the elementary school, yet a simple teaching of its principles is very desirable, not least for the average school-leaver who will get thereby a better idea of that business world which he (or she) is about to enter. For this purpose, Mr. Odell1 provides a brief description of the boy's (or girl's) choice of work; of the organization of production, transport, and commerce; of how what is produced is shared between different incomes; and of how these incomes are spent or saved. His book is well fitted to achieve its object, being short, simple, and direct, with well-chosen illustrations.

The reissue of Miss Ley's Men, Money and Markets2 is welcome for its interesting and suggestive outline-combining the principles of economics with their practical application. Thus it is informing both to the general 1 The Business of Earning and Spending an Informal Introduction to Elementary Economics for Pupils of School-Leaving Age. By H. J. ODELL. (2s. 3d. University Tutorial Press.)

2 Men, Money, and Markets. By M. D. R. LEYS. Reissue with New Chapter on The State at War". (6s. net. Longmans.)

reader and to students in secondary or continuation schools. Of special interest is the new chapter on the " State at War" which discusses the major problems of war-time economics -limited man-power and equipment, finance and revenue, and the need, in order to prevent inflation, to reduce civilian consumption in face of growing civilian incomes. This, like the rest of the book, is both brief and informing.

Mr. Crowther's excellent Outline of Money3 is broadly based. It takes in all aspects of money, as purchasing power, credit, or savings; and it covers also the subjects of banking, international trade, foreign exchanges, and the trade cycle. General principles are combined with their application and with treatments of special problems of modern life, for example, breakdown of international monetary equilibrium and the means of restoring it. The book is clear and comprehensive, and is brought down to the outbreak of the present war. It is primarily intended for general readers, but has considerable educational value, among others to students and teachers in commercial institutes, and its wide knowledge makes it helpful to professional economists.

Mr. Cushman's Training Procedure is more definitely technical. It deals with in-service training', that is training given inside a business during working hours, especially to skilled workers and 'minor executives'. Stress is laid on the importance of instructor training '. The scheme is well worked out from preliminary planning, through organization, operation, and application, to the 'holding and maintenance stage', to ensure permanent good results. The author regards his in-service training' as co-operating with education in general, particularly in what lies outside the proper scope of the schools. Similarly, while stressing possible difficulties and disadvantages, he points out the help which extension classes and leisure time' education can give in his own scheme.

Migration to and from Britain3 raises important problems of population, unemployment, and productive efficiency, since, while we hope to provide for the unemployed, other countries desire the strong and the skilled whom we can least spare. Mr. Walshaw's short but excellent treatment, analysing our migration country by country and taking account of quality as well as quantity, deals chiefly with the population problem, though not ignoring the others. Here the change since 1930 to a net inward movement, with immigrants exceeding emigrants, is important in view of our falling birth rates. There is also an interesting discussion of assisted migration'. The book is interesting in itself and should be helpful to teachers and students of social economics.

3 An Outline of Money. By G. CROWTHER. (1os. net. Nelson.) 4 Training Procedure: a Discussion of the Problems encountered in Planning, Organizing, Operating, and Maintaining Efficient Training Programs in Industrial, Business, and Public Service Organizations. By F. CUSHMAN. (12s. net. New York: Wiley; London: Chapman & Hall.)

5 Migration to and from the British Isles: Problems and Policies. By R. S. WALSHAW. (5s. net. Cape.)

THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND THE TEACHER

FRO

By T. RAYMONT

ROM the point of view proper to this journal, the labours of the psychologist are significant to the extent to which they throw light on educational problems. To no psychologist of this generation is education more deeply indebted than to Dr. Cyril Burt, whose new work The Factors of the Mind has recently been published.1 After his earlier work on mental tests, there appeared in 1925 The Young Delinquent, a book which has become famous because of its wide appeal, combining as it does scientific thoroughness with a broad humanity. There followed his equally substantial volumes on The Subnormal Mind and 1 The Factors of the Mind: an Introduction to Factor-Analysis in Psychology. By Prof. C. BURT. (21s. net. University of London Press.)

The Backward Child, both of them, as is well known, of outstanding value, both from the pedagogic and from the purely psychological point of view. The subject of his new book is factor-analysis, which, as he genially remarks, has been regarded as a peculiar and somewhat isolated branch of psychology-at best a field for specialists, at worst the dubious hobby of an esoteric school, but in any case beyond the ken of the ordinary scientific reader ". It will be inferred that, when Dr. Burt tries to help the 'general' reader by having certain sections printed in small type, he really means the scientific reader who seeks an explanation of the sharp differences-one might almost say the clamorous quarrels-between the leading factorists. For such a reader, as well as for the research-worker desiring to apply factorial methods, the book is meant. As a controversialist Dr. Burt appears in the light of a healer of differences, but he performs this function, not by amiably evading the point of an opposed doctrine, but by stressing an aspect which he believes it to have missed. He holds throughout that the primary object of factorial methods is neither causal interpretation, nor statistical prediction, but exact and systematic description. In this connexion he has a word in season for the educational or vocational psychologist who offers confident predictions based upon some such factor as g or general intelligence. His book should be a godsend to younger workers in the same field. As for the general reader, he who runs may not read.

Basing himself to a considerable extent upon Dr. Burt's earlier books, but speaking none the less in his own right as an acknowledged authority on child psychology, Dr. C. W. Valentine has published a little book2 addressed directly to students of the psychology of children, and especially of dificult children, and to parents and teachers trying to get some light from psychology upon their problems. After giving a much-needed warning against the charlatanism which poses as psychology, he proceeds to suggest answers to certain pointed questions. Are there, as some writers seem to think, no problem children, but only problem parents? Is it true that the future development of a child is fixed in the first few years of his life? Is repressive discipline always wrong? Is corporal punishment necessarily degrading? And so on. The reviewer, who lives in a reception area, and has made acquaintance with difficult children and with almost incredible problems of discipline, believes that the author was well advised when he decided not to delay publication until the end of the war. The book is needed now, and it gains greatly from the fact that the author has learnt his business not only in the study and the laboratory, but also in the home.

3

An unusual kind of book remains to be noticed, bearing on the subject of the supernormal mind, and written by Dr. Rosamund Harding. Notwithstanding its title, An Anatomy of Inspiration, it is not a theological treatise. The author's aim is to assist investigation into the psychology of the creative mind, and her method is that of the historical approach. The inspiration of which she writes is "the flash of intuition" which suddenly comes to the poet, the novelist, the musician, the artist, or the man of science, -sometimes with far-reaching results. In this slender volume she has collected and classified a large amount of material drawn from letters, biographies, and eye-witness accounts, but she puts forward this material only as the result of a preliminary effort. The reader who is also a teacher will note her remark that, although inspiration in its higher degree is manifested only in the few, yet it can and does happen to quite ordinary folk. He must be an unlucky or an unobservant person who is unable to corroborate this statement. Dr. Harding has produced a very interesting book, well deserving the commendatory note written by Prof. Bartlett.

2 The Difficult Child and the Problem of Discipline. C. W. VALENTINE. (4s. net. Methuen.)

By Prof.

3 An Anatomy of Inspiration. By Dr. ROSAMUND E. M. HARDING.

(4s. 6d. Cambridge: Heffer.)

School of Oriental and African Studies

(UNIVERSITY OF LONDON) Temporary Address:

Broadway Court, 8 Broadway, London, S.W. I (Abbey 1897). The School is a University Institution giving instruction for University degrees in the Faculty of Arts. During the present emergency it is providing elementary and other courses for those whose duties, military or civil, may require a knowledge of an Asiatic or African language and for those who may seek admission to Services which will take them to Asia or to Africa.

A certain number of free places for full or part-time instruction will be granted for next session to boys and girls who are between the ages of 16 and 18 at the beginning of the session on October 9th, and who wish to begin the study of Arabic, Chinese, Hausa, Hindustani (Urdu and Hindi), Japanese, Malay, Persian, Sanskrit, Swahili, Turkish.

Part-time courses will be available for those at school and full-time courses for those who have left school. Applicants, who must have attained matriculation or school certificate standard, should apply through the head of their school.

For further particulars and for details of vacation courses and of University degrees in Oriental languages, apply to the Registrar.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND THE
TEACHER.

By the Rev. A. R. Wallace, Headmaster of
Sherborne School.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

By the Rev. A. O. Standen, Vicar of Maidstone. TO EVERY CHILD A CHANCE IN LIFE

Presidential Address delivered by Emrys Prosser at the Annual Meeting of the Federation of Welsh Class Teachers' Associations. SCHOOLS AND SOCIETY

By W. O. Lester Smith, Director of Education,
Manchester

NURSERY SCHOOLS

By Miss Skillicorn, Principal of Homerton
College, Cambridge

RESEARCH AND SCHOOL WORK. V.-
SPELLING

By Dr. C. M. Fleming, University of London
Institute of Education.

(Continued on page 360)