Abstract
THE papers read at the North of England Education Conference, at Nottingham, on January 2, 3, and 4, give evidence of a growing realisation of the principal weaknesses of English public education. One of the most remarkable and significant developments in national education, and one to which considerable prominence was given in papers read by the Rev. W. Temple, headmaster of Repton School, and Mr. P. E. Matheson, New College, Oxford, respectively, is the valuable work of university level being done by the Workers' Educational Association. Mr. Temple stated that there are now more than 100 university tutorial classes in different parts of the country, with nearly 3000 students, which have been organised and provided by this association. These classes are limited to thirty students, who undertake to attend throughout a three-years' course. The class meets once a week for twenty-four weeks during the winter session. Each student writes an essay once a fortnight. The essays are pronounced by distinguished scholars to be equal in value to the work done in Oxford by men who take a first class in the honours history school. Mr. Temple concludes from the experience of the association, that “not only is a vast amount of intellectual capacity going to waste in England at this moment for lack of opportunity,” but “that men who have only had an elementary education and no secondary can none the less do work of a university type at the proper age. Of course, they have not the knowledge … but apparently their intellectual capacity has gone on growing.”
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
WILSON, J. Developments of National Education . Nature 90, 526 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/090526a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/090526a0