Produced by R. Cedron, Andrew Sly and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net WHAT IS AND WHAT MIGHT BE A STUDY OF EDUCATION IN GENERAL AND ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN PARTICULAR BY EDMOND HOLMES AUTHOR OF "THE CREED OF CHRIST," "THE CREED OF BUDDHA," "THE SILENCE OF LOVE," "THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE," ETC. LONDON CONSTABLE & COMPANY 1912 First published, May 1911. Second impression, July 1911. Third impression, September 1911. Fourth impression, November 1911. Fifth impression, January 1912. Sixth impression, October 1912. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. All | |other inconstancies in spelling or punctuation are as in the original.| +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ PREFACE My aim, in writing this book, is to show that the _externalism_ of the West, the prevalent tendency to pay undue regard to outward and visible "results" and to neglect what is inward and vital, is the source of most of the defects that vitiate Education in this country, and therefore that the only remedy for those defects is the drastic one of changing our standard of reality and our conception of the meaning and value of life. My reason for making a special study of that branch of education which is known as "Elementary," is that I happen to have a more intimate knowledge of it than of any other branch, the inside of an elementary school being so familiar to me that I can in some degree bring the eye of experience to bear upon the problems that confront its teachers. I do not for a moment imagine that the elementary school teacher is more deeply tainted than his fellows with the virus of "Occidentalism." Nor do I think that the defects of his schools are graver than those of other educational institutions. In my judgment they are less grave because, though perhaps more glaring, they have not had time to become so deeply rooted, and are therefore, one may surmise, less difficult to eradicate. Also there is at least a breath of healthy discontent stirring in the field of elementary education, a breath which sometimes blows the mist away and gives us sudden gleams of sunshine, whereas over the higher levels of the educational world there hangs the heavy stupor of profound self-satisfaction.[1] I am not exaggerating when I say that at this moment there are elementary schools in England in which the life of the children is emancipative and educative to an extent which is unsurpassed, and perhaps unequalled, in any other type or grade of school.