which its problems must ultimately be decided. Manifestly the settlement of the matters in debate, when it comes, will be permanent and satisfactory just in proportion as it recognises and observes the essential facts and causes involved.

The Education question, as it appears to the casual observer, at the present moment seems to be-What is to be the future of the public administration of Education in Scotland? In particular we seem to be concerned with the relative amount of power to be entrusted to the State and the locality, the central authority and the local authorities. Mixed up with this there are the relations of the various stages of Education, chiefly of primary and secondary, the socalled correlation and co-ordination of our system; while the training of teachers and cognate matters, though things somewhat apart from reorganisation pure and simple, have also received more or less notice. The assumption is that the present state of matters, the present relations of governing bodies, are unsatisfactory, and that legislation must be invoked to remove the disabilities under which we labour.

It has been on some such supposition that recent discussion has been based. In this connection several valuable contributions have, during the past year or two, been made through the public press, by conferences, pamphlets, etc., towards the solution of the question. Many suggestions, too, have been offered as to the form that legislation should take, and most of the important bodies interested have expressed their views more or less fully on the situation.

This is all as it should be, testifying as it does to the general interest of the nation and the store set upon reform. Nothing but good can come of intelligent discussion. Legislation, to be beneficial, must have regard to all the issues and embrace all that may be urged from all points of view. Legislative change had better not come at all than be partial and one-sided.

But perhaps the necessity of legislation is too readily assumed. There is to be sure authority of the very highest for the assumption. But, even so, it would be better if we could first answer distinctly to ourselves the question why legislation is required at all. so, shall we understand what

Only if we can do

direction it ought

to take? I propose devoting the present chapter to the elucidation of this point. At the same time I do not commit myself to the view that the Education question is, or ever can be, one simply of particular legislative enactments.

The conviction has forced itself on most of those who have devoted attention to educational affairs in Scotland that the present educational machinery is defective. Wherein is it defective? Have we not had a great Education Act in beneficent operation for thirty years? Has not its influence been extended and increased by supplementary Acts until the whole field has been covered with a perfect network of them? Add to this that there are zealous local bodies, a ubiquitous Government to control and direct, and what more is there to desire?

Such ques

we have to

tions cannot be answered off-hand review the facts in some detail if we are fairly to face the situation.

The subject of our inquiry is in reality the present position of educational affairs in Scotland and how it has arisen; but manifestly a full discussion of such a wide topic would require a large volume to itself. The volume

would form a long and important chapter in the history of Scotch Education, all the more valuable if legislation so alter the aspect of our schools and other educational agencies that the present phase cannot be recalled. That is, however, aside from our present aim. All that can be attempted here is a brief outline of our system in its main features, a bird's-eye view, so to speak, which will put us au courant with the trend of the development of our Scotch system, indicate very generally how it has come to be what it is, and enable us to appreciate proposed changes, being first convinced of their necessity.

The facts of the situation as it stands could be seen most clearly by grouping, under separate and distinct heads, the various educational institutions and forms of government, and describing each separately. The method is hardly practicable, even for existing agencies, for the reason that wholly distinct classes of them can not be formed. There is a good deal of admixture and some degree of overlapping. Different authorities and different institutions cannot be cut off by a definite boundary from one another.

In dealing with one you must treat others also. A system almost implies a dovetailing of parts if it is to be secure. For example, the junction of primary and secondary at once shows how impossible it is to deal with either as if it were wholly cut off from the other by a clear line of demarcation. All that can with safety be said is that there are prevailing types of educational activity, and educational authorities whose jurisdiction is predominantly in a certain sphere, but this does not amount to the exclusion of mixed types and common spheres of action.

Still more difficult does a definite division become if we seek to include under it anything of the past, and attempt to show the relation of the present system to its growth. Opinions will differ as to the best method of arranging and presenting what is confessedly a complex state of matters, and the position will arrange itself, to some extent, in accordance with the relative importance attached to one or other phase of it.

The situation, as it presents itself to my mind, seems to embrace and bring into prominence three things in particular: first, the educational