_Instruction_ versus _Education_.--Many persons contend that the aim of the school is not so much education as instruction. They consider that the main factor in education is not the school, but the family. But this is certain, that even in the school which thinks only of instructing its pupils, education in the wider sense is effected. In school life, in school friendships, in the sense of solidarity, in the friendly competition between schoolfellows, in the necessity to learn, are embodied powerful educative influences. It is, in fact, essential that the school should educate as well as instruct. The public elementary school of to-day makes therefore a very great mistake if it insists on intellectual rather than on moral education, and upon instruction rather than upon education. _Moral Instruction._--According to the views of educationalists, it is the aim of the public elementary school to educate children to be, (_a_) religious, (_b_) patriotic, (_c_) obedient, (_d_) humble, (_e_) subordinate citizens. The elementary school of to-day does in fact mainly subserve these ends. (_a_) Religious instruction and the inculcation of the fear of God are no proper part of the work of the public elementary school. Among all the factors of education, it is certainly not the public elementary school which should undertake this branch of instruction. (_b_) The public elementary school has to teach children to love their country; but this should on no account be done in such a way as to inspire hatred for other countries. (_c_) The old elementary schools taught obedience and subordination. But to-day, when the conditions are quite different from those of the Middle Ages, the public elementary school should do nothing of the kind, but should rather teach independent judgment, promptness of action, and soundness of decision. The public elementary school is a public institution like the (State) railway and the post office, and compulsory school attendance is a civic duty analogous to the duty of military service. But it is necessary to protest most energetically against the inference sometimes drawn from the analogy between the two last-named duties, that the elementary school should be the preparatory school to the barrack, and the barrack a sort of continuation school to the elementary school--against the doctrine that children should be disciplined to a blind obedience. We must carefully avoid overestimating the importance of discipline. The school must and does use compulsion. Discipline is an important means of elementary school education, and such education is unthinkable without discipline. But children are sufficiently disciplined by mere attendance at school for a certain time.