But many
of these things are still only partially made use of, and are apt to
be regarded rather as ornamental excrescences, to be used by the few
who have a special bent that way, at an extra charge, than as an
integral part of education for all. All the interests and means of
training that they represent, and others as well, need to be brought
more into the daily routine; to some extent in place of the too
exclusively literary, or at least bookish, training, that has hitherto
been the staple of education, but more, perhaps, since it is not
possible to include in the regular curriculum _all_ that is of value,
as optional subjects and free-time occupations, though organised as
part of the school course. For it is not only the few who already know
their bent who need opportunity to be made for following it, but
rather those who will not discover their powers without practice, or
their interests without suggestion or encouragement. In this respect
the war has brought opportunities of no little value to the school,
not only in the absorbing interest in the war itself and the desire
for knowledge and readiness for effort that it awakens, but also in
the demands it has made for practical work of many kinds that boys and
girls can do, and the lessons of service that it has taught. Work on
the land and in the shops, for those whose school time is already too
short, is a curtailment, only to be made as a last resort, of the kind
of learning they will have no other opportunity to acquire; but it
gives to the public schoolboy the feeling of reality that most of his
school work lacks.
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