There has been much discussion concerning the relative importance of
the development of community spirit in the schools and the
introduction of the direct teaching of citizenship. The methods are
not mutually exclusive; their operations are distinct. The school
which does not develop community spirit, which does not fit into its
place in the work of training the complete man, is obviously
imperfect. The same cannot be said of the school which does not
provide direct instruction in citizenship; for teaching may be given
in so many indirect ways. Some consideration of what has happened in
this connection both in England and America will perhaps be most
helpful, although the intangible nature of the results would render
dangerous any attempt to make definite pronouncements on their success
or failure.
Largely as the result of the realisation of the immediate relationship
between national education and national productivity there are
abundant signs that the English educational system is about to be
developed. The ordinary argument has been well put:
A new national spirit has been aroused in our people by the war; if
we are to recover and improve our position at the end of the war,
that national spirit must be maintained; for unless every man and
woman comes to know and feel that industry, agriculture, commerce,
shipping, and credit, are national concerns, and that education is
a potent means for the promotion of these objects among others, we
shall fail in the great effort of national recuperation.
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