72 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

being removed or even modified. In spite of the outcry
for educational change in the press, by men of business,
by educational authorities, and by scientific associations,
the appointments made to head masterships of public
schools during the last year have without exception
been given to classical scholars.
The present system of public school education is actively
 pernicious from a national and from a business
point of view. One has only to look at the governments
of recent years in order to form an opinion as to the unsatisfactory
 nature of modern education as a training for
the rulers of the country. The “wait and see” attitude,
“ the talk and do nothing unless forced to” principle,
and the total inability to take a strong and definite line
of action, or to apply business methods in any sphere
whatever, is a direct result of the exclusively classical
education of the public schools of this country. And
yet, after such an example, we are perpetuating this mode
of education by confirming the system in the new appointments
 above referred to.
Classical education produced statesmen in the last
century who were worthy of the name. Those days are
long past, however: the world has moved forward, competition
 both national and international, has become exceptionally
 severe, industries have developed, scientific
progress has been extraordinarily rapid, and relations
between capital and labour have become acute.
A statesman needs to view problems from an entirely
different and much wider platform than was necessary half
a century ago: classical education is not suitable for the
development of the qualities necessary to make efficient
statesmen to-day.
What is true in the case of rulers of the nation is equally
true of leaders in nearly every other sphere : men of high
character indeed are produced by the present system, but
this is not sufficient. A new method must replace the