authority, in the contrast of urban and rural conditions, or in the educational outlook, must all continue operative; their importance is permanent and quite independent of any current phase which they may underlie. In our age it is inevitable that one should be led to regard the educational system as a growth and development: and, indeed, without such an attitude no historical institution can be fully understood. In keeping with this the purpose has been, in the first two chapters, to obtain a point of view from which to regard the development. From this standpoint in the past the sequence through the present to the future is by gradual and natural transition. The general trend is most likely thus to be caught; but only the briefest and broadest outline of the actual course of the movement has been sketched. For the facts I have made constant use of the available official sources-in particular the Census returns for 1901, the Reports of the Committee of Council on Education in Scotland, and the Reports of various Royal Commissions. Errors there may be, I fear, both in fact and in inference: I shall be indebted to any one who will take the trouble to point them out for correction. I have endeavoured to state fairly the conclusions to which the facts seemed to point, though in more than one case they have proved contrary to personal sympathies and predilections. In A word of explanation is necessary regarding the seventh chapter, which has turned out quite different from my original design. deference to what is known to be a widelyfelt want, a somewhat detailed plan has been sketched of the new local education authority. This has been done in order to present something definite and concrete, and to show how the principles advocated are capable of being applied in detail; but I am far from maintaining that this is the sole, if even the best, method of applying them. It has at least the merit of being a definite scheme, which carries us beyond the generalities of "large areas,' "large powers," "correlation," and so forth, terms which are very far from precise, but which all agree to because any required meaning can be read into them. Apart from this, the principles must stand or fall through their inherent truth. What, however, most concerns the nation is the educational work waiting to be done; the topics dealt with in the last chapter are those of paramount importance. Much may be effected through improved grading, through extension of the Continuation School, through the realisation of the possibilities of the Secondary School, hitherto so severely handicapped. The practical problems involved here will tax our energies to the utmost during the coming years. Undoubtedly the future of the nation-physical, material and moral-is with the Schoolmaster. I could wish my book were more worthy of its great theme. The palliation of its shortcomings, in so far as not due to more radical causes, must be the pressure of two heavy sessions of University work together with multifarious other educational activities and demands on time and thought. It is perhaps better to make even a small and imperfect contribution than none at all. If my efforts either tend to the fuller comprehension of the |