|
|
Page:XIV
height of the Industrial Revolution in England , towards the latter part of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century , only one child in four or five went to school . In the late nineteenth century , elementary education was made compulsory in England . Secondary education in England was private until the end of that century . Fees were high and the secondary schools were exclusive , aristocratic and classical . The twentieth century saw major changes . In 1902 , comprehensive systems of elementary and secondary education were introduced in England and the two W orId Wars led to the opening of the schools to all . The school system which had been set up hundreds of years earlier for teaching the few was gradually expanded to cope with mass education . We have continued the system to our day , a system that was not designed to serve for the education of the masses . 'We have continued it , largely because there has not been , up to now , a practical alternative . Everything has changed since the eighteenth century manufacture , communications , medicine , technology , transportation , labour relations , the armed forces and virtually everything else except the methods of the school system . By and large , this has remained what it has always been . The isolated experiments and the newly acquired insights into teaching and learning have refined the school system but have not modified it in substance . We are now at a conjunction of several developments : the democratization of education , the ever-expanding range of information and ideas and the advent of new technologies . The challenge of our time is to provide education for the masses and , at the same time , have regard to each individual and develop his intellectual and creative potential . At first sight these two objectives might seem irreconcilable , but let us search for means to throw a bridge between the two . This will be the basic theme of this essay , in the hope that it will contribute to raising the standard of education . Democratization of education not only means a right of education for all but also an education that is qualitatively of a high order . Israel and indeed the West would not be able to hold their own in the community of nations either economically , culturally or militarily , unless they had highly educated citizens .
|
מקס רואו
|