unanimous, they could not give effect to their convictions, because--

They are forbidden to recommend or give preference to any particular
book. They may not order or prohibit the use of any book, however good
or bad they may know it to be, and they probably desire to avoid the
suspicion of favouring the authors of books that have the advantage of
national circulation.

However that may be, it is a lamentable situation that our
high-salaried Board of Education, composed of the best trained
intelligence of the country, should not be allowed to exercise its
discretion efficiently. The people, no doubt, cannot be agreed as to
the principles on which they desire to be educated, whether political,
official, or religious, and they deprecate official control in such
matters. Every one objecting to some principle, they consent in
requiring that the central authority should have no principle at all;
but this lack of principle should not be extended to paralyse action
in questions that demand expert knowledge and judgement, such as
this question of phonetic teaching--and it shows that the public by
grudging authority to their own officers may only fall under a worse
tyranny, which they will suffer just because it has no authority.]

In the preceding section Mr. Jones' dictionary was taken as authority
for the actual condition of Southern English pronunciation. It must
now be considered in its other aspect, namely as the authoritative
phonetic interpretation of our speech; my contention being that it is
a wrong and mischievous interpretation.

It is difficult to keep these two questions quite apart. The first,
which was dealt with in Section 5, was that Southern English