Roughly, our popular education is still governed by the idea of equipping the young person with such a quantum of knowledge as he may be supposed to require in order to make a living and gain some sort of settled place in life. It has become more and more possible in recent times for boys and girls who show unusual aptitudes to proceed to the higher branches of learning; but in the main our thought of popular education has been coloured by a pernicious doctrine of “minimums.” We have asked how little education can be given consistently with the need of the individual and the society in which he lives; and the opposition which meets any endeavour to raise the “school leaving age” proves quite conclusively that we have not generally advanced beyond the stage of regarding that education as best which is soonest done with. For this the economic strain of life is partly accountable; it is desirable that the boys and girls should be wage-earning as speedily as possible; but even more responsible for this state of things is a general ignorance concerning the meaning and purpose of education. Indeed, few of those who are now parents have reason to recall with any profound interest or gratitude the days when they were receiving an alleged education. Something in the nature of a systematic campaign of education in the interests of education would seem to be necessary if the popular indifference is to be removed to any good purpose. It has indeed to be remembered that popular education is still in its infancy; and the prejudice it has to overcome is the result of the inevitable failures of its experimental stages. When it is recalled that elementary education in England was until 1870 in the hands of voluntary agencies, and that only since that date has education become universally accessible, it is perhaps remarkable that education should have made as much headway as it has made; and much of our criticism of current educational methods tends to overlook what is under the circumstances the real magnitude of the achievement in education. At the same time it is plain that our educational methods are in need of much sustained radical criticism if our purposes in education are to be saved from mis-carriage. II But most of all do we require to clear our minds concerning the goal we are seeking through education. It is true, as Professor Dewey has pointed out, that it is not possible to define an end for education; for in a profound sense, education has no end. A true education will be that which fits an individual to go on learning to the end of his life. The aim of education is more education. At the same time this education will not be for its own sake, or for the learning it helps the scholar to acquire. Here again Dr. Dewey helps us by reminding us that one aim of education is social efficiency. Plainly and beyond peradventure no education will serve a democracy which does not produce socially efficient persons.