166 MY AMERICAN FRIENDS

after all, is a limited conception of education
and even disastrous if pressed too hard; a freedom
of which the best use is certainly not being made
at the moment, but of which a very different
tale may have to be told a generation hence.
If it be objected, as it reasonably might, that
American education has escaped from the bondage
of academical tradition only to fall into the worse
bondage of specialized efficiency, the reply would
be that the latter bondage is, of the two, the more
easy to escape from. And to judge from the
tone of the many educational conferences I have
attended; from the activities of the National
Education Association of America with its
200,000 members; from the literature it cir-
culates on every aspect of the subject; from the
changes I have seen in actual process in schools
and colleges—to judge from all this I should
have no hesitation in saying that the leading
minds in American education are bent on escaping
from the bondage of specialized efficiency and
in a fair way to do so, though somewhat confused,
it must be admitted, as to what the next step is
to be. There can be no doubt that American
education is now in a condition when a great
step forward is at least possible, and full of
promise in that sense. The fate of America
probably depends on the step being wisely taken*
Meanwhile those critics who have condemned
American education for its academically backward
condition would do well to remember that