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HOW AN ENGLISHMAN SEES SWEDISH EDUCATION 79
These are the obvious criticisms which an Englishman
like myself must bring forward. There are others which are
not so obvious, but which might be raised. I may be
mistaken, for instance, but it seems to me that the contact between
boys and masters is not so close or so intimate as in England.
One reason for this, of course, is that our Public Schools
are boarding, yours are day, schools; our masters are of
necessity more »in loco parentis» than yours. But still — I think
the cause of education is served just as much by an interest
on the part of the masters in their pupils out 0/as in school
hours. I feel, somehow, that the Swedish schoolmaster is
often too much the University ’don’, interested more in his
subject than his pupil. Our danger in England is lest the »boy
amongst boys» role which our masters adopt so often should
lead them to neglect the claims of instruction; yours, I suggest,
is lest lack of intimacy with the pupil should nullify the
conscientiousness with which your masters explore their
subjects.
These criticisms can be traced back to two root causes,
which are connected in their turn. One of them is a Teutonic
belief in the importance and the efficacy of the State; the
other is a mistaken psychology which conceives of mental
as wholly distinct from physical developmeut. This needs
elaborating. The Swedish educational system has been
modelled on the German, and exhibits many of the defects as
well as the excellencies of that system. It is too thorough. It
dictates to the minds of the Swedish youth the direction of
its thoughts, and seeks a collective rather than an individual
end. It encourages systematic thinking, but prevents it from
being original. It assumes a power over the individual to
which it really has no right. This is what I mean by the
Teutonic belief in the importance and efficacy of the State.
Then, both in the class room and in the gymnastic hall, it
assumes that mental and physical development are both
important, but quite distinct, unconnected. This is a mistaken
psychology, which is also Teutonic in origin. Just as the exalta-
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