The Education Act and the Boy Scout

Character and Culture for All

Lord Crewe spoke recently of the changes which have come over the aims in education. These a few years ago were directed to making children “efficient,” as an improvement on the previous thesis of merely “giving them knowledge”; but this is no longer considered good enough.

Moral qualities are how being aimed at—in fact, character; but the steps for getting these are to a considerable extent nebulous and vague.

Mr. Clynes, during his recent visit to Cambridge, pointed out that “the blot of modern civilisation has been the failure to raise the manual worker from the level of drudge and to secure for him opportunities for culture and recreation.

“The remedy is partly a matter of wages, and of better understanding between employers and employed, and largely a matter of character-training for the man himself.”

“A liberal education for all” is now very much the cry. The new Education Act, it is hoped, will give an opening in that direction. But one cannot help feeling that, after all, character is the first and essential development, and our other Scout training aims in handicraft, health, and service, are not far behind it in value.

This high value is evidently assigned to character by many in the House of Lords during the passage of the Education Bill.

Only by a margin of eight votes did that Bill fail to include the Boy Scouts’ training in its provisions, as an example of practical character education.

Lord Sydenham moved an amendment to the effect that training in character and citizenship should for a definite part of the scheme “on the lines practised by the Boy Scouts,” etc.

The fact that several noble lords spoke in support and that so good a proportion of those present recorded their vote in our favour is a very gratifying indication that were are working on the right lines.

The Act is a great accomplishment in bringing education more up to the needs of the times, but it will need a further Act to bring it on terms with the future.