The way in which the teacher too often conducts his school leads one to infer that the intuitive, instinctive side of him--the side that is nearest to practice--has somehow or other held intercourse with the inner meaning of that "truism" which he repeats so glibly, and has rejected it as antagonistic to the traditional assumptions on which he bases his life.

Or perhaps this work of subconscious criticism and rejection has been and is being done for him, either by the spirit of the age to which he belongs or by the genius of the land in which he lives.
Why is the teacher so ready to do everything (or nearly everything) for the children whom he professes to educate?
One obvious answer to this question is that for a third of a century (1862-1895) the "Education Department" did everything (or nearly everything) for him.
For a third of a century "My Lords" required their inspectors to examine every child in every elementary school in England on a syllabus which was binding on all schools alike.

In doing this, they put a bit into the mouth of the teacher and drove him, at their pleasure, in this direction and that.

And what they did to him they compelled him to do to the child.
So far as the action of the "Education Department" was concerned, this policy was abandoned--in large measure, if not wholly--in 1895; but its consequences are with us still.

What conception of the meaning and purpose of education could have induced "My Lords" to adopt such a policy, and, having adopted it, to adhere to it for more than thirty years?
Had one asked "My Lords" at any time during those thirty years what they regarded as the true function of education, and had one suggested to them (as they had probably never turned their minds to the question) that the function of education was to foster the growth of the child, they might possibly have given an indolent assent to that proposition.