Education will perhaps be one of the most interesting fields of future scientific management. At present we know a few bits of a few sciences, and a handful of historical facts. We fill the picture out with theories and blunderingly try to make other people memorize these things. We call the process Education. We have invented a few devices for discovering what they forget, and call them Examinations. Recently we have invented a few tricks of exposing what they cannot do, and we call them Mental Tests. We wrap it all up in a tangle of loose philosophy, and we call it The Science of Education. We profess, it is true, some loftier pursuits. We are trying, we say, to teach our pupils to think. We try to mould their characters, and we try to produce good citizens.

But what does it all amount to in the end? The most successful way yet discovered of teaching people to think is for the teacher himself to think aloud, and hope that his pupils will catch the knack. How do we set about moulding the character of a child? By moral precept, good example, healthy sport, uplifting atmosphere, and an unprincipled application of punishment and reward. Our children are bored by precepts. They yawn in our presence and make fun of our precepts in our absence; they break out at the first opportunity and “sow their wild oats”, and then rediscover our old morality for themselves. The more adventurous invent a new one of their own, probably a finer thing than that we tried to teach. Our good examples produce two alternative effects. If the child happens to like us, he will imitate our actions, and morality becomes an empty mimicry. Perhaps, on the other hand, we have an unfortunate mannerism or some innocent resemblance to a forgotten terror, and the child dislikes us. The good example is taken as a pattern of the thing to be avoided. By counter-suggestion he takes the opposite course so far as in him lies. The sons of clergymen might provide us with material for a theory of moral education.