New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-09-06
Another By-product of War

Our radical friends have been very fond
of asserting that war is wholly destructive
in its effects, that it sets back the clock
and hats the march of liberal thought.
Mr.. Bertrand Russell in one of his later
and excited moods proved to his own salts
faction that the war would soon exterml-
nate our entire existing civilization. Per-
haps it will. But while waiting for the
debacle it is interesting to note the items
On the other side of the balance, items
which Mr.. Russell and his pacitist fol-
lowers seem quite unable TO note or count
Details are now at hand, for instance, of
the new education bill lately introduced IN
the British House Of Commons. 1t repre-
sents the ideas of Mr.. Fisher, the new
Minister of Education, and being the work
Of a coalition Cabinet is assured of am eX-
cellent chance of passing. THE Children's
Charter" is the London Illness phrase
for the bill, which it halls as "a turning
point in English history" and as working
"little less than a revolution both in edu
cation and in industry.
That is strong language. Yet it GER
tainly does not go beyond the facts or
beyond the eloquent speech of Mr.. Fisher
in introducing the bill Said he in re-
viewing the causes which led up to the
proposal:
The third feature in the movement of
things is the increased feeling of social
solidarity which has been created by the
war. When you get CONSUMPTION, when
YOU get a state of affairs under which the
poor are asked to pour out their blood and
TO be mulcted in the high cost of living
for larger international policy, then every
just mind begins to realize that the boun-
diaries Of citizenship are not determined by
wealth, and that the same logic which
IN leads US TO desire an extension OF the
franchise points also TO an extension of
" education. There is a growing sense not
only in England but through Europe, and
may say especially in France, that the
industrial workers of the country are en-
titled to be considered primarily as citi-
zens and as fit subjects for any form of
education by which they are capable OF
profting.
| notice also that new way of thinking
about education has sprung up among many
of the more neglected members Of our in
dustrial army. They do not want educa-
tion in order that they may become better
technical workmen and earn higher wages;
they do not want il in order that they may
rise out of their own class. They want it
because they know that in the treasures
of the mind they can find an aid to good
citizenship, a source Of pure enjoyment
and refuge from the necessary hardshps
of life spent in the midst of the changing
machinery Of our hdeous cities of toll.
ask whether there is a single struggling
young student in this country 10 whom
library Of good books has not made an
elemental democratic appeal.
Among the more striking features of
the bill which would become the common
protection and aid Of every child of Eng
land and Wales are nursery schools up TO
the age of five, the fixing of the whole-time
school age at the period between six and
fourteen, the total abolition of all child
labor under the age of twelve, severe
restrictions on wage earning between
twelve and fourteen and the compulsory
provision of continuation schools up to the
age of eighteen.
The scope of the bill must be judged by
the existing standards Of education and
of child industry in England. Criticism
of the bill and a look beyond its obvious
limitations are easy. The point we stress
is the welcoming attitude of the nation
toward the unprecedented advance which
the bill proposes and the clear relation Of
that advance to the effects Of the war.
Social solidarity" is Mr.. Fishers phrase.
Or, from another point of view, as the