Sir Michael Sadler, K. C. S. I., C. B

Abstract

THE death of Sir Michael Sadler removes from the world of education an elder statesman universally honoured for his achievement and almost as widely trusted for his wisdom. He was never, as too many of our educationists are apt to be, merely the brilliant amateur in the field, or the politician in disguise. Both these parts he could have played to perfection, if he had so chosen, for he had the gift of persuasive eloquence and great personal charm. At Oxford he became president of the Union in his second year, but made no mistake about his first classes in the Schools. Then in 1895 he settled down to the Oxford University Extension work, shaping in a very short time the main lines which it has since followed. He passed on almost at once to spend eight years as director of special inquiries and reports at the Board of Education, and used the opportunity to conduct a thorough study of what was being done outside Great Britain, particularly in Prussia and generally in Germany. It was a period in which he not only extended his own knowledge far and deep, but also produced a series of vitalizing documents which gave confidence and purpose to the educational movement which began in 1902. In that year it can be safely asserted that no Englishman knew more about education at all its stages in all the countries that mattered than Sadler, and certainly there was no one more capable of expressing what he knew. It was natural that his knowledge and powers should be freely used. On one hand he became for a brief period professor of the history and administration of education at Manchester, and then vice-chancellor of Leeds ; on the other, he found time to plan the secondary and higher education of Sheffield, Liverpool, Birkenhead, Huddersfield, Exeter, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Derbyshire and Hampshire. This series of signal public services culminated in his presidency of the Calcutta University Commission and his monumental report on Indian education. His long apprenticeship had borne abundant fruit, and all of it came to maturity. Later, he returned to his old University as master of University College, continuing to be until his retirement and after it a source of inspiration and life in the many causes to which he laid his hand: in the University and in the City, of which he became a freeman ; in the Oxford Preservation Society ; and in all movements for the encouragement and better understanding of modern art and promising artists.