Abstract
IN addresses given in Leeds last February Mr. F. W. Sanderson, headmaster of Oundle School, very boldly faces the root of the evil in existing educational systems as it is felt in the school, and advocates radical reconstruction upon new lines. His view is thatschools shouldbe altruisticin theiraimsand methods and be based on service and co-operation rather than on competition.They exist solely to aid and enrich thelifeof thepeople. Traditional methods based uponpublic-school models accentuate the anti-social spirit of competition and damp down co-operation, whereas the schools of the country ought to be thesourcefromwhichthetransfiguring and transforming spirit of the age is breathed through the thoughts of men. A school is a microcosm, and its subject-matter is to be found, not in books, but in the world around it, of which it itself should be an idealised model upon a small scale. It should con cern itself with the tragedies of undeveloped talent, the slow decay of the faculties of masses of men caused by their employment in industry, and the sullen mental stupor that, after the violent revolutionary period of youth, brings peace on an animal level. For the schools are concerned with similar problems. The elevation of the submerged, the bringing back into the stream of school-life of the weak, and the raising of the general average are even more important there than the provision of the fullest opportunity for talent and ability. So is it in the national life. We are presented with a vision of spacious hallsand galleries, workshops, laboratories, gardens and fields, art-rooms, libraries, and museums for children to learn in instead of in stuffy class-rooms, by doing, making, inquiring, and co-operating rather than by the preparation for interminable examinations, which suitbetter those of the possessive and dominating order, of whom the world is growing so tired.
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SODDY, F. Education in the New Era. Nature 105, 561 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/105561a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/105561a0