so much for the bradford discourse. here is the gist of a discourse given to the reconstruction council in london a year later.

[pg 112]

'the object of this paper is to describe in practical working terms an organisation of schools which shall be based on a close association with the manifold needs and labours of the community life. at the outset i may say that the proposals will refer—even if not specifically so stated—to all types of schools, from the elementary to the public schools. it will be seen that the change needs a change in the ideals which have usually prevailed in schools of the past. in the community life the one urgent thing to be done to-day is to reorganise industry and the conditions of labour. this reorganisation may require quite organic or even anarchic changes—and for these changes the ideals of boys and girls must be changed, and to prepare for this change is the urgent work of the schools.

'before i come to the proposals for reconstruction of schools, i will state very briefly some facts in industry which are now meeting with acceptance:

'1. modern industrial life has come in with a tumultuous rush, in a haphazard, ungoverned way, through the activities of forceful, capable,[pg 113] and industrious leaders who have made use of the scientific discoveries of another type of men.

'2. the shrinkage of the world, and the growth of population which followed, has led to fierce competition; and this spirit of competition has ruled everywhere.

'3. in the ungoverned rush for production all sorts of methods are adopted which seem to be justified by their effectiveness. an example is the modern system of efficiency, at first sight captivating to the intellect and the desires, but yet a method which needs very careful study.

'4. now men are beginning to believe that the first product of industry must be for the worker; that the worker should grow physically, intellectually, spiritually by his work.

'i shall claim that the work in schools should be permeated by science and by the scientific method and outlook, and it will be found that science itself does not set all this store on efficiency. efficiency, i believe, is entirely contained within the first, or quantitative law of thermo-dynamics. but eutrophy based on the more elusive qualitative law is concerned with the quality which leads to the giving up of life[pg 114] to others. we must see to it that whatever the efficiency may be, the eutrophy of industry be high.

'the principle that the first product of industry must be the worker leads to great organic changes. it will lead to no less a thing than closing down certain productions, certain classes of occupations, certain industries or processes. it will lead to a modification in repetition work; and to adjustments in organisation. i hope to show the bearing of this on our educational methods, and how the ideals implied may bring some help in diagnosing labour unrest.

'it will be seen that most of the changes needed to-day depend upon international agreements; and a league of nations is essential, not, i think, to end wars, but to make the change from competition to co-operation possible.

'we are concerned to-day with the part education must take in this change of ideals of life. it is not too much to say that without the influence of a reconstructed education the way to change in the ideals of men will be hard to find. the change has to be made from competitive methods and ideals to co-operative methods; from the[pg 115] spirit of dominance to creativeness; and the present system of aristocraticism in schools must give way to democratisation.

'competition holds sway to-day in industrial life with disastrous results. every employer of labour feels this, and wrestles, and would be glad of a change, but he is held in the grip of a system. every one feels that competition destroys the creative, inventive life—and is the seat of unrest. and yet the spirit of competition holds sway, not in commerce only nor in diplomacy, but in the schools. our public schools are professedly schools for training a dominant class; the aims, the educational methods, the school subjects and their relative values, the books read, the life led—are all based on this spirit. the methods are largely competitive, possessive. with, as i believe, tragic results in industrial life this same system, with the ideals behind it, has been unwittingly impressed on the working class in the elementary schools....

'the change which i am advocating will demand a new organisation, and will call for a new type of school buildings, and new values of subjects. the new-comer science, and with it [pg 116]organised industry, which springs out of it, must take a prominent and inspiriting place in school, and in every part of school work. it is not sufficient to say that science should be taught in schools. the time has gone by for this. we claim that scientific thought should be the inspiring spirit in school life. science is essentially creative and co-operative, its outlook is onwards towards change, it means searching for the truth, it demands research and experiment, and does not rest on authority. under this new spirit all history, literature, art, and even languages should be rewritten.

'a new type of school buildings and requirements will arise. no longer buildings comprised only of class-rooms, but large and spacious workrooms. class-rooms are places where boys go to be taught. they are tool-sharpening rooms—necessary, but subsidiary. for research and co-operative creative work the larger halls are needed. spacious engineering and wood-working shops, well supplied with all kinds of machine tools, a smithy, a foundry, a carpenter's shop, a drawing office—all carried on for manufacturing[pg 117] purposes. plenty of work which will employ boys of all ages will be found to do.

'there will be a corresponding spacious literary and historical workshop with a really spacious library full of books: books on modern subjects, as well as reference books. the building should have wings in it for foreign books—modern as well as classic, history, economics, literary, scientific. as many as possible of the foreign languages should be represented here, that boys may grow up with knowledge and sympathy and respect for other nations, and thus aid in promoting wider and deeper ideals of life. another gallery for geography, and natural history, travels, ethnology.

'here is full scope for a large number of boys of all ages to be engaged in research. it is all of a co-operative character. they can study the various social and economic systems—from co-partnership to syndicalism; or the liberation of slaves; or the league of nations; or the liberation of italy.

'another block will be a science block with an engineering laboratory, machinery hall, physical, chemical, and biological laboratories—well [pg 118]supplied with apparatus and plant for applied science; plant, too, to lead to the investigations of the day; testing machine, ship tank, air tunnel; a miniature standardising laboratory; and with this a botanical garden and an experimental farm.

'another would be an art-room, music-room, theatre, a home of industry for studying industrial development and industrial life.

'this is not a utopian scheme, but one within possibility in town and country. to each large central high school should be associated groups of elementary schools, and there should be free highways between them, neither barred by examinations nor barred by expense....

'another change must also come. books on modern problems, strangely enough, are not yet read in schools. for example, the time is overdue for a change in the english books: burke's reflections and pitt's war speeches, or addison, to ruskin's unto this last and time and tide, or to bernard shaw, wells, galsworthy, and the modern poets. some would go so far as to give shakespeare a rest. it is astonishing how the newer books bearing on the large questions of the day, and bearing on the actual life of the[pg 119] boy, strike the imagination of boys—even quite young boys of the upper elementary school age. they stir up the faculties and appeal to a less used kind of imagination. it is surprising, too, what open and live views young boys will reach. and one thing the study of these books possesses, which i hope to dwell upon later, is that they bring the schools into close touch with the everyday life of their homes and of the community.

'creative education demands that schools should be brought into harmony with the community life, and should take part in the industrial and economic life. when boys and girls go home from school (even to the humblest home) the parents should find there is something their children have done at school which will help them in their work. this means that technical and vocational training should hold a prominent, and not a subsidiary, place in the schools. it is not difficult to see that this kind of work contains within it the spirit and genius of science. we claim that education should be turned in this direction, with confidence and inspiration. the divorce of industrial life from the life of the spirit is one of the tragedies of the age. it [pg 120]produces calamitous results. a man's work may be of an impossible kind, it may be sordid and destructive of life—and the cure proposed is that he should have shorter hours and more pay. this leads to bad diagnosis of the cause of the labour difficulty, and prevents necessary reforms in the industries....

'creativeness, the co-operative spirit and method, the vision, the experimental method of searching for the truth, form the unique gift science and industry have to give to the "new education." under the influence of this new outlook all other departments of knowledge must be restudied. under its influence the life of school will become active, the workers self-reliant, love abounding. it will make good craftsmen and make the school of use in the community—whether in the manufacturing life or in the investigation of economic conditions. incidentally it will give rise to a new body of men capable of going wholly or in part to teaching, and the school will be thus linked up with the life of the place.

'it may be well to state that with an education of this kind based fundamentally on science a[pg 121] capable boy will leave a secondary school with a good knowledge of science and of its application, with a research attitude towards history and modern problems, and with a good working knowledge of two, or three, or even four languages....

'the study of social questions is seriously needed. industries would then have a close connection with the boys and girls, and yet boys and girls would be free to follow the best of their own talents and inclinations—the industrial life would not be separated from the spiritual life; and we may hope that some part of this ideal would pass over into the workshops and factories; so that the labourer would learn to love his work better than his wage—for so indeed he would wish to do. and the faculties of the worker would grow. the method of the work would follow the method of the school, as it is doing more and more in our own land and in many a workshop. for the spirit is with these ideals; the practice difficult for any single firm to carry out. hence is the need for radical change in schools. firms are being driven to start trade schools of their own, when they would prefer the[pg 122] work to be done with all the wider scope of a school. and the same enlightened firms endeavour to "promote" their men.

'and here we come to what is probably the natural source of all labour "unrest"—the unstretched faculties of the worker. men there are in any great shops who have intellectual faculties of the highest order, and these faculties are not used, so the greatest possession a man has, and the greatest his country has—the "faculties" of its owners—is allowed to dissipate. and in the feeling of the mental want of equilibrium, in the slow frittering away of life, there arrives the turbulent spirit. the study of these questions is the problem for our coming international university. the industrial and economic problems involved can only be approached under international agreement. all that has been possible at present in the way of making industrial life pure and holy is by legislative restrictions, often enough rankling to the worker even when needed for his amelioration. such legislation (factory acts, insurance acts, wages, hours) does not remove the source of the disease; at best it only mitigates the worst results. more drastic changes[pg 123] may be needed in the nature of the work—to the ruling out certain manufacturing processes until new discoveries can be made.

'so with the work in the shops. men do not want wages, or shorter hours; these demands are only symptoms of a disease; short cuts to amelioration. they are doctoring. what men want is that their work may be such that they can love it, and want more of it. they do not want slaves' work in the shops and a "dose" of the spiritual life out of it. so we believe.

'parents, too, would let their children remain at school. as a class there is no one more unselfish and self-sacrificing and co-operative than the working-class parent. boys want to leave school because of the natural urge for making something and getting to business—as they see it at home. to remain at school without joining in some work is unthinkable when they see the life their parents lead.

'i may be permitted to insert one paragraph on the unfortunate opposition to this new position which is claimed for science in the schools. the opposition springs from the belief that vocational work is simply material, having no[pg 124] spiritual outlook. but the truth is all the other way. unfortunately the present studies of history, art, economy, literature, are biassed by "possessive" instincts and education, and we claim that science and its methods are seriously demanded for a new reading of these things. however, the opposition finds expression in high quarters. the workers' educational union, acting in sympathy with the labour view—that vocational studies are to be avoided—practically taboos technical studies. this is reasonable as things are to-day, when a man's work is too often for the profit of others, and for this reason the workers are not in love with their work, and when the day is over they have seen plenty of it; so the best of them go elsewhere for the springs of the spiritual life. but this is all disastrous to individuals and disastrous to progress. what the workers should do is to watch for the spirit in their daily work, for it is the work itself which will hold a man to god—nothing else will.'