The farmer, who expressed contempt for our national system of education because a lad of school-leaving age in his employ did not know the dental formula of a yearling sheep, was merely giving expression to the thought in the minds of many.

For there are two schools of thought in matters educational. One regards education as the means to an end; the other regards it as an end in itself. To the former school of thought belong most teachers and education officials; to the latter most practical business men. The effect of this conflict between the practical and the ideal is the crowding of the curriculum in both elementary and secondary schools, so that boys and girls leave those institutions with a superficial smattering of knowledge, unrelated to the occupations they intend to follow and not making, in any large degree, for any ethical advance in society.

Fashions in methods of education are as frequent in their changes as are those in ladies’ attire. Pestalozzi, Froebel and Montessori have had their day. They still linger on, when they do not give place to Margaret McMillan and the Dalton Plan. It appears to be an established law that any new idea in education, although excellent in its results in the hands of its discoverer, comes to naught when practised by his disciples.

The Dalton Plan, however, which marks the latest phase in the development of educational theory, is a triumph for the practical school. Assuming the pupil to have a good grounding in the three R’s, it makes of him a pseudo-research-student, and allows him to draw up his own programme of study.