Britons at Bristol

Meeting at Bristol last week, pedagogs in Section L of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (see p., 36) delivered themselves of their newest thoughts about the British educational system, among them these:

Part-Time v. Full-Time. Said Lord Eustace Percy, president of the section, president of the British Board of Education (1924-29), stanch supporter of the League of Nations:

"At present our attitude toward higher education is vitiated by three unhealthy influences. The first is the superstitious reverence for full-time schooling which we owe to an hereditary governing class. . . . The second unhealthy influence is a corollary of this superstition: the assumption that all education must take the form of a continuous school and university life, that if a boy leaves school he abandons definitely all hope of pursuing any connected course of education. . .

"The third unhealthy influence, to which we are particularly exposed at the present moment, is the unnatural connection between the ideal of popular education and the idea of statutory compulsion.

"In my view, therefore, our first aim in higher education should be to develop part-time education in technical schools and continuation classes for all children over the age of 14. The adequate development of part-time technical education is of first, importance because, if American experience is any guide, many pupils in the full-time schools will in the future have to combine their mental training with a considerable amount of practice in the machine shop, and this they will only be able to do if they have at their disposal technical colleges equipped to receive them for a certain number of hours a week along with pupils attending part-time classes."

Commercial Schools. Principal William Henderson Pringle of the City of Birmingham Commercial College thought that British commercial education could best be served by establishing half a dozen schools in strategic English towns. Paid for by the government, the colleges could specialize in teaching business methods of those industries which were prominent in the different areas.

Spare the Child. W. E. Blatz of Toronto thought that "very few parents knew how to bring up children. . . . The rule of 'Spare the Rod & Spoil the Child' is the most diabolical ever introduced into child training. The reverse should be the case. Parents should be seen and not heard." Governesses, he observed, "were the worst things on earth."

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