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Chapter VI
Education

"A city can be virtuous only when the citizens who have a share in the government are virtuous, and in our state all the citizens share in the government." — Aristotle (Politics. Bk. VII., 13).

Education, as organised by the state, can have but one object — the rearing of people who are fit to be decent and worthy citizens. A man may educate himself privately in vice, in jazzing, in motoring, or in crime; he is at liberty to do this at his own expense and in his own time; but if he is educated at the expense of his fellow-men, the intention of these fellow-men must be to train him into a desirable member of society. Only thus can the huge outlay be made worth while.
        Now a desirable citizen is above all a well conducted citizen. He may know French and fencing, and be able to beat all comers at billiards or biology, marbles or mathematics; but he is only a nuisance if he is not, in addition, well conducted — that is to say, reliable, sensible, understanding, and honest. It is more important that he should thoroughly grasp the first principles of sound conduct and thought, than that he should know the whole of counterpoint or conchology.
        When once he has mastered, the first principles of sound conduct and thought, he is prepared to do well at anything, ac-

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cording to his gifts; whereas the most exhaustive knowledge of counterpoint and conchology will, in the most favourable circumstances, only make him a good musician or a good classifier of shells.
        In short, happiness and harmony are more easily achieved by a people holding deep and sound views concerning Life and Humanity, than by people deeply versed in science, and top-heavy with information. Happiness has been achieved again and again upon earth by people possessing not a billionth part of the knowledge that has been accumulated by modern man. A sound instinct in regard to food, a correct understanding of one's self and one's fellows. and a decent appreciation of the limits of individual caprice in a social community, are, after all, more precious than a large accumulation of facts. And thus education, if it is to be valuable, should consist very much more in a training in manners, sound views, and means of intercourse, than in the acquisition of knowledge about facts. *
        All adults know how very few of the facts they learned at school are ever remembered in later life, and how only those elements of the scholastic curriculum are turned to practical account, or even remembered, which come into daily use throughout life.

        * Even John Locke, who, as a thinker was, in many respects, surprisingly superficial, exclaims with regard to education: "You will wonder, perhaps, that I put learning last, especially if I tell you I think it the least part." (Some Thoughts concerning Education). While Aristotle lays it down definitely: "That there is a sort of education in which parents should train their sons, not as being useful or necessary, but because it is liberal or noble." (Politics VIII., 5).

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        Thus, a boy of the working classes may remember a little elementary arithmetic and a little geography — apart from that, all he recalls is the trick of reading, because he practises it every day of the year.
        Now, since the masses of the people form the bulk of the nation, and are ultimately the determining factor in the nation's character and achievements, nothing could possibly be more important than working-class education. State education of the masses, therefore, offers the finest opportunity that the legislature could obtain, to express its concern about the nation's Welfare, and to secure that welfare by inculcating upon everyone, except the minority constituting the well-to-do, who cannot matter nearly as much, decent manners, sound views, and a proper, adequate means of intercourse.
        It is certainly one of the most ugly features of our elementary education in this country, that manners — which ought to be the first among the foremost objects of all education — are entirely omitted from the curriculum. As if, forsooth, it were better for master Tommy and his sister Jane, to know of the existence of the trade winds, than to know how to behave when an adult addresses them! In this way the legislature imposes quite an unnecessary burden of discomfort and sorrow upon the poor, because without good manners life is made so very much more difficult and wretched, and so very much less smooth and harmonious. How the idea of education ever came to be divorced from manners, it is hard to explain; but that it has been thus divorced is unquestionable. The consequences of this gross

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initial error fall with greater severity upon the poor, or the masses, than upon the rich; perhaps that is why so little is done to correct it. The reason of this unfair incidence of the evils resulting from a lack of manners, is not, however, due to the fact that the rich are necessarily good mannered, or better educated in manners than the poor; for there is ample evidence to the contrary; but that the lack of manners of the rich is not so keenly felt by those in their immediate circle, because they live in larger rooms, larger houses, larger areas, and they are thus able to get away from one another's bad manners — an escape which is denied the poor.
        But while no attention is given to manners in elementary education, it must not be supposed that training in sound views, whether concerning Life or Humanity, is the subject of more careful attention. Apart from copy-book maxims, nothing whatever is done for the masses of the people in this matter. It is true that the Church and its teaching are supposed to cover precisely this ground in the mental upbringing of the nation, but even if we admit that the Church is capable of teaching sound views concerning Life and Humanity, how many of the working classes still believe in Christianity to-day? How many of them believe so fervently as to insist upon their children observing all the tenets of Christianity? Moreover, it is only fair to judge this department of education by its fruits. Where is the evidence at present, after generations of Church teaching, that the mass of the people have been taught any views at all

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about Life and Humanity — not to mention sound views?
        At all events, this is obviously a factor in education that ought never to have been left to an independent and uncontrolled body — particularly a religious body. It ought to have been included as an essential element in any scheme of secular education that was devised. What, indeed, could be more important than the necessity of imparting to your growing citizen sound views about himself, his kind, society, and life in general? What could be more vital in the formation of his character, his outlook, and the moulding of his ultimate conduct? It scarcely requires to be pointed out, however, that, like manners, this is a factor in education which the State schools leave entirely aside.
        People will tell you that there is no time for such a branch of learning. No time — to attend to one of the most important prerequisites of a sound education! It would be a mistake to suppose, however, that the wealthy and well-to-do classes are any better off than the poor in this respect. On the whole, they are a little worse off. For, while the children of the working classes are sufficiently in touch with life's realities to have a number of fundamental truths forced upon their attention, the children of the wealthy and well-to-do classes live in an atmosphere so perfectly truth-proof, so far removed from life's realities, and their schools do so little to correct the benighting influence of their homes, that there is probably no creature on earth more hopelessly devoid of sound views on any subject than the public schoolboy of seven-

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teen. Everything has been done, no pains have been spared, to inculcate upon him every false doctrine and valuation of which the present age can boast.
        In a complicated society like ours, the means of intercourse in education cover practically everything that does not come under the head of "vocational training." Men and women must know how to understand other people and how to make themselves understood. They must know how to count money, how to read and comprehend a letter or a book, and command such general information as will protect them from deception, from going astray, or from otherwise failing to hold their own among their fellow beings.
        Now it is precisely in this department that the State education of England really does pretend to accomplish all that is desired; and yet nowhere is the inadequacy of its achievement more conspicuous. We have seen that it does not even pretend to teach manners, and that it does not claim to inculcate sound views upon the masses whom it professes to educate; but it does claim to teach them the means of intercourse. Countless millions are spent upon this instruction annually. Hundreds of thousands of children are bored to stultification while they are supposed to be acquiring it, and the net result is that 99 out of 100 of them neither know how to understand other people, nor how to make themselves understood. They do not even know how to understand what they read. And nothing is done to equip them in this all-important branch of knowledge.

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        Anybody would have thought that one of the first concerns of any educational body dealing with "national" education would have been to secure to all citizens of the same nation, irrespective of rank, at least a thorough knowledge of their native tongue. For what, indeed, could be more vital? It is the first pre-requisite of all satisfactory communication, whether from or to the subject; it is the first essential weapon of the rational faculties. A particular native language may have faults and shortcomings as compared with other native languages; it may be poorer in words, more complicated in syntax, less copiously supplied with racy idiom, etc., but surely any national scheme of education that fails to make the mastery of this-native language — such as it is, perfect or imperfect — the foremost object on its programme, is guilty of a gross dereliction of duty. For whatever its faults may be, the masses, at least, have no other means of communication, and if they are going to be made articulate, they must be taught their native tongue.
        At present the situation of the English working classes is in this respect, pathetic in its helpless and infantile humility. Their talk is the babble of babes, their vocabulary the means of expression for creatures whose feelings and thoughts are no more complicated than those of primitive savages. Not only are they incapable of understanding complex states of feeling or complex thoughts when they hear them accurately and carefully expressed, but they are also utterly unable to give expression to at least three-quarters of their own thoughts and emotions.

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In regard to a very large number of thoughts and emotions, which, to the cultivated man, are commonplace matters, the masses of England are therefore literally inarticulate. The same word answers for a hundred meanings in their conversation, all of which it but inadequately expresses; while for those emotions and thoughts for which they have no words, there can exist only mute and mystified suspicion.
        This is bad enough. Life is sufficiently tragic for millions of creatures to-day, without its being either necessary or desirable to aggravate it with the additional affliction of dumbness. And yet the fact that this inarticulateness, which ignorance imposes, is equivalent to dumbness, or at least to partial dumbness, is surely incontestable.
        But there is a consequence of this ignorance which is even more serious than that discussed above. And that is the danger to which it exposes its sufferers of falling under false guidance, misdirection and pollution from outside. Whereas dumbness, although a sad affliction, is often merely another form of constraint; misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or the inability to criticise and to reject the expressed thoughts of others, may be a source of pollution, a source of grave error, and a speedy means of complete and incurable perversion.
        If people are to be protected from misconceptions, false leaders, demagogues, and all those smart and slippery unemployed who are ever ready to exploit ignorance, and take advantage of simplicity, they must be in a position to listen critically to an address or an appeal made to them in their

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own language. They must be in a position to tell to what extent their proposed leader or misleader understands what he is talking about. How much false sentiment, false doctrine, inflammatory teaching, is simply an abuse of language, a forcing of terms, in fact, catachresis! How much of it would be detected and exposed, if the majority of the nation possessed that precision and understanding in the use of words, which would come with a proper knowledge of their native tongue.
        To-day the man who is ever ready to mislead, to confuse, and to inflame, the minds of ignorant people, encounters no check, no critical scrutiny of his pronouncements, for his listeners are hardly able to understand correctly the simplest words he uses. The temptation, therefore, to use language loosely and even unscrupulously is as powerful as it is repeatedly unresisted.
        The huge and flatulent press, that has grown up within the last fifty years, cares as little for accuracy of expression, or for sober precision in language, as it cares for any other ideal which formerly seemed worth striving after. The power of the press is enormous. It guides opinion, it influences the hearts of the people, it has the united effort of nations under its direction; and yet where does it show any signs of being chastened by the awful duties which, it is true, it may never deliberately have intended to shoulder at the outset of its career?
        The traditions of the Middle Ages, at least, included certain principles which led to the protection of the poorer and more ignorant classes; the Church of the Middle

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Ages also protected the poor and the ignorant according to its lights. It may be questioned, however, whether this new force, the press, has as yet even considered the function of protecting the ignorant as among its most sacred privileges. And by this protection there is no intention here to imply a conspiracy to withhold truth from the uncultivated, or to distort facts for their digestion; what is meant is that necessary vigilance and caution which, if observed by all editors and publishers of journals and periodical literature, would induce them to regard as a public crime, as an unsocial act, the inculcation upon those who are ill-equipped for self-guidance, of any notions, sentiments, or points of view concerning life and human relationships that were not sound, proper, or healthy — not to mention noble.
        Unlike that other force, the Church, the press was ushered in with scant ceremony, almost imperceptibly. It grew to omnipotence with but a fraction of the solemnity and pomp which attended the development of the Church; hence, too, it has come to ripeness, to the zenith of its power, without any of that centralised organisation, without any of that self-conscious administration of its enormous powers for good and evil, and assuredly without any of that insight into the immensely sacred responsibility of its functions, which characterised the Church from the beginning.
        Now its shrieking headlines, its catchpenny exaggerations, its hysterical falsehoods, do not even savour of sanity. How, then, could it be suspected of a sense of

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responsibility? Sensationalism as a money-making method, ruthless and frequently thoughtless attacks on the existing order, without any guarantee of being able to supply a better order in the place of the one attacked, abuse of language as a method, as the journalistic technique for all occasions, and the determination not to enlighten, but to dazzle, dumbfound, scare, thrill and excite at all costs, willy nilly — après moi le déluge, — these are among the characteristics of the modern press, and indicate the direction in which its power is tending.
        To overthrow or to curb this power has again and again proved too great a task even for the most popular government. It is invincible, impregnable. The "Freedom of the Press" may mean the freedom to abuse the credulity and the ignorance of the masses; but powerful claims are not frustrated by exact definition, however condemnatory.
        There is only one way of curbing the wantonness of the press and of bringing it to a sense of the responsibility with which its power ought to have inspired it, and that is to make the masses who are its readers capable of reading it critically, capable of detecting its flagrant abuse of language, and of nailing to the counter its flame-words, its decoy cries, its whole apparatus of sensationalism.
        And the only means to this end is to give to the masses a knowledge of their own language.
        Who doubts that the mountains of vulgar, inept and thoroughly deleterious literature that is being published to-day depends wholly

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and exclusively upon those countless hordes to whom the State has failed to impart that which is every man's direst need — a sound knowledge of his native tongue? Who doubts that all this literature would be swept away in an hour if a generation arose which was equipped to detect its solecisms, its vulgarity, its false sentiment, and its tumid claptrap?
        The newspaper press, and the flood of vulgar literature which daily accompanies its productions into the homes of almost all British people, are together partly responsible for the steady enfeeblement of the nation's moral fibre and intelligence; and the so-called "education" with which the mass of the nation is equipped is one of the necessary conditions to the success both of the present newspaper press and of the vulgar literature which supplements it.
        Thus it amounts to this, that the huge outlay which this country makes every year for the purposes of education, is virtually a subsidy to its most incompetent, most unscrupulous and most despicable writers.
        In order to render the outlay worth while, in order to convert it into a profitable investment, which at one and the same time would produce desirable citizens and lay the foundations of order among them, the present writer suggests as a leading reform, to be placed at the head of every party's programme, that the English language should be made the principal subject of study in our State schools.
        What subject is there that is not touched upon in the learning of the precise meaning of words? And what subject is of any

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value whatsoever if the precise meaning of words has been neglected in tuition?
        This may sound revolutionary enough; but on examination it will be found to guarantee a much more stable and orderly form of society than the present system. For if it be asked what a man, educated in our elementary schools, remembers in after life of all the information he has been given as a child, the answer is: a little arithmetic — enough to make the everyday reckonings involved in buying and selling — and the trick of converting signs into sounds.
        It is, however, precisely upon this trick of converting signs into sounds that his powers of subsequent self-education will chiefly depend. For, when once he has left his school career behind him, the working man who wishes to increase his knowledge and grasp of vital, human and social principles, will rely almost entirely upon the literature he can obtain and understand.
        If, therefore, he approaches this literature, not equipped to understand, criticise and test its soundness, as matter, or the care and accuracy of its form, but only practised in the trick of converting signs into sounds, his attempts at subsequent self-education will be a futile waste of time.
        For there is all the difference in the world between this acquired trick of deciphering, or converting signs into sounds, and true reading.
        What is precisely meant by this antithesis?
        By the "power of reading" most people understand not merely the power of deciphering signs, but also the ability to understand the meaning of the decipher once it is

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made. Reading in the ancient Anglo-Saxon sense of the word (rœdan) "to discern," is the only reading that can possibly be of any value, "discerning" therefore is the only valuable meaning that the word reading can have. *
        But reading in this, its true sense, implies an understanding of the language deciphered.
        Now can it be truly said of the children that leave our elementary schools that they have been taught reading in this sense? They have certainly been taught to decipher; they have certainly been given the mastery of converting signs into sounds; but have they been taught to "read"?
        At the most it might be conceded that they are partially taught to read — that is to say that they have a partial knowledge of reading; the amount being limited by the extent of their acquaintance with their native tongue. For the rest they know only a trick, which consists in turning signs into sounds.
        Thus the neglect of English in our elementary schools to the advantage of other subjects, most of which are entirely forgotten by the pupils in later life, imposes upon our working classes, not only dumbness, not only susceptibility to infection by unsound opinion and doctrine, but also the inability successfully to achieve self-education

        * The German lesen and the French lire, both have the same implication. They both imply discernment, understanding. The old high German lesan meant to collect with discrimination, and, with the French lire, was allied to the Latin legere, which may mean to choose, to pick out, to single out, and to select, — all actions implying discernment and understanding.

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by means of reading, when once the school career is done.
        The question remains, are these distressing results sufficiently counterbalanced by the advantages supposed to derive from the study of other subjects?
        There surely can be but one answer to this question, and that is an emphatic negative.
        What greater asset can a man have then a sound knowledge of his native tongue? What surer safeguard could be given him against corruption, pollution, false doctrine, and inflammatory counsels? What more coveted power could he hope to acquire? And, above all, in this age of loose thinking and even looser speech, what nobler check could he have upon the vagaries of his fancy or the intemperance of his tongue?
        It would constitute his greatest possession, and it is the nation's soundest policy to endow him with it. If the principle of State education be admitted at all, it is incumbent upon a people to teach its working classes to "read" before anything else, because reading in itself is at once a lofty accomplishment and the most certain means to all other accomplishments. Among the State's foremost and ineluctable duties, therefore, is the teaching of their native tongue to the masses. For, without this, reading is an impossibility.
        We have seen how social disturbances — aye, and even revolutions, have been the outcome of falsely interpreting a single word; we have seen how national disillusionment and depression can arise out of the pursuit of ideals that are ultimately found to be

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empty, simply because the words in which they were originally framed, though capable of creating much emotional activity never had any precise meaning. We have seen, moreover, how difficult it is to ascribe any genuine significance to such popular decoy words as Justice, Equality, and Liberty, than which no words in the English language can make a stronger emotional appeal to a crowd. If these remarks have been carefully considered, can there any longer be any question concerning the most vital, the most urgent reform in our educational system?
        It now remains to discover what modifications would have to be made in our elementary school teaching in order to effect this reform.
        The children who attend our elementary schools work about 22 hours a week — certainly not more — and they start their school career at about six years of age, and finish it at fourteen. *
        The boys' curriculum at an average elementary school consists of the following subjects:— †
        English, Arithmetic, Geography, History, Nature Study or Hygiene, Physics, Drawing, Singing, Physical Exercise, Manual Work.
        The reader will only need to glance at this curriculum in order to realise how

        * They may now continue their studies at continuation evening schools after fourteen years of age, if they choose, and earn money the while in some daily employment.
        † The girls' curriculum, into which it will not be necessary to enter here, is very much the same as the boys', except that it excludes Manual Work and Physics, and includes Laundry, Cooking and Needlework.


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varied the programme is, and how assiduously the subjects would require to be studied in the eight years of school life, in order to leave in the minds of the scholars a sufficient knowledge of them to be of use in later life.
        Eight years, with 22 hours a week for forty-four weeks * a year, and such a programme! Can it be possible for the boys to acquire anything more than a mere smattering of each subject?
        Subtracting from the total 22 hours, the hour and forty minutes per week allotted to Physical Exercise, there remain twenty hours and twenty minutes during which English, Arithmetic, Geography, History, Nature Study or Hygiene, Physics, Drawing, Singing and Manual Work have to be taught to children who reach school not yet knowing how to read. And elementary school teachers affirm that it is impossible to insist on the children doing any homework.
        Of these 20 hours and 20 minutes in Standard VII.:— English occupies 5 hours 10 mins. per week, or 227 hours 20 mins., i.e., 32 seven-hour days per year.
        This leaves 15 hrs. 10 mins. per week for other subjects, and of this total:—
        Arithmetic occupies 4 hrs. 20 mins. per week, or 190 hrs. 40 mins., i.e., about 27 seven-hour days per year.
        Geography occupies 2 hrs. per week, or 88 hrs., i.e., 12 1/2 seven-hour days per year.
        History occupies 1 hr. per week, or 44 hrs., i.e., 6 1/4 seven hour days per year.

        * All the calculations that follow are based upon the assumption that eight weeks are allowed for holidays each year.

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        Hygiene occupies 30 mins. per week, or 22 hrs., i.e., 3 1/8 seven-hour days per year.
        Physics, the same as Hygiene.
        Singing, the same as History.
        Drawing occupies 2 hrs. 45 mins. per week, or 121 hrs., i.e., a little over 17 seven-hour days per year.
        Recreation and Registration occupy the remaining 3 hrs. 5 mins. per week, or 139 hrs., 20 mins., i.e., a little over 19 seven-hour days per year.
        Seeing that there is little or no homework in elementary schools, it is obvious that none of these subjects, except, perhaps, Arithmetic, can be taught sufficiently well to be of any use whatever to the child in after life. For, in the lower standards, although the apportionment of time varies somewhat, the variation is not material. When, moreover, it is remembered that most of the boys take 3 hours a week for Manual Work, and that these hours have to be subtracted from the time allotted to other subjects, it is clear that the ultimate result, in so far as that knowledge is concerned which represents a permanent asset to the individual, cannot be very satisfactory.
        In fact, take it how you will, it must be acknowledged without either bitterness or malice that elementary education is nothing more than a very expensive and very elaborate farce,
        It teaches the boys two things that they undoubtedly remember: the trick of deciphering letterpress, which constitutes them purchasers and readers of the lowest and most fatuous literature that sweated literary hacks can produce, and enough arithmetic

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for them to master the ordinary numerical problems that may arise in the daily routine of their adult lives. Of History nothing, literally nothing, is remembered, except, perhaps, that there was once a king who spoilt some tarts (they are not quite certain whether it was Alfred the Great or the King of Hearts), and that there was once a monarch called William the Conqueror. Of Geography only the vaguest notions are retained, and these relate more often to the world as a whole than to their native land. Of Hygiene, Physics, not a trace is left — not even a recollection of the names of the subjects. While Singing and Drawing, except to the few, are a pure waste of time.
        It is safe to say that this is true of the majority of the scholars, and since it is the majority of the children that constitute the great mass of the nation, it is on them we must concentrate our attention.
        Since the object of all our expensive elementary school organisation ought to be to impart to them some valuable knowledge that they can retain throughout their lives, some valuable knowledge, moreover, in the acquisition of which the highest faculties of their mind would be disciplined and trained, surely it would be an advantage in the first place to concentrate on a fewer number of subjects, and secondly to select only those which could be of service to them in later life (for they are the only subjects that are ever remembered), and thirdly, to confine the study of the subject or subjects chosen, as far as possible, to those limits which, while they guarantee a solid foundation of learning, allow of further

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unassisted progress when once the school career is over.
        Now it seems to the present writer that no subject in the whole curriculum of schools answers these requirements more satisfactorily in every way than English itself.
        It is at once an ideal means of disciplining and training the mind, of clarifying thought and of correcting vagueness and looseness of reasoning; it is an excellent preservative of natural nobility of character, by opening up to the student the whole treasury of lofty thought and sentiment that the language contains; it is a mental weapon against befoulment by prurient and other deleterious influences; it is an instrument of criticism that can be employed at any moment, in any contingency, against the appeals of demagogues, agitators, and corruptors of all kinds, and it is a means of lucid and logical communication, without which no man can be said to be safe against misunderstanding or confusion. Above all — and this is its principal value to-day — a knowledge of English is essential to anyone who wishes to know how to "read."
        Now what would be the extent of the reforms required in order to make our elementary education chiefly a means of imparting a good and serviceable knowledge of English to the masses?
        In the first place, the elementary school teacher himself would have to be selected from a rather higher grade of educationalists. He would have to be qualified to teach English not only by precept but also by example. To-day, in the majority of cases, he could not teach English, even if he had

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the time. As to expressing a thought in good English, the elementary school teacher and his boys are a case of the blind leading the blind. This is not the teacher's fault. He does his best, and in view of his training, his best is sometimes very good. Wherever the present writer has been, moreover, he has been compelled to recognise the efficiency and conscientiousness of this class of State official, and to applaud the result he obtains with the material at his disposal. Nevertheless, able as he is within his own limits, the elementary school teacher is, as a rule, incapable of teaching English, and if it is ever decided to extend the programme on the English side, the teacher himself will have to be the object of the first reforms.
        As regards the curriculum, the changes would be more simple.
        To begin with, the hours allotted to Arithmetic might well be reduced to a maximum of three per week. This would be ample to enable the least proficient scholars to master all the method they -could ever be expected to require in after life, and at the same time would afford adequate opportunities for the detection of any mathematical genius who might be lurking in the school, and for whose case special provision might be made.
        The time for Geography, the study of which might with advantage be confined to the general relations of England to the rest of the world, without any specialisation in home topography, which is invariably forgotten, might be reduced to half an hour a week.
        History might be cancelled altogether,

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and the teaching of the subject confined to such historical knowledge as the scholar could not help acquiring in learning the meaning of certain English words such as: Peer, Parliament, Constitution, Rebellion, Regicide, Suffrage, Reformation, Prime Minister, etc. *
        Hygiene, Physics and Singing might also be cancelled with advantage, and the detection of specially good voices, or musical talent, left to that part of the English lessons given to the learning of old English folk-songs, canons and ballads.
        With regard to drawing, it seems ridiculous that all boys should devote two hours 45 minutes per week to this subject. To thousands it must mean the most intolerable drudgery. Surely one hour per week would be enough to reveal any exceptional talent in the school, and for the teacher to discover all those who could not possibly profit from the subject, even if they continued at it to the end of their lives. The latter could then be weeded out of the class, and the hour allotted to drawing, in their case, could be sacrificed to Manual Work.
        At all events, the hours set aside for

        * Owing to the great importance of history in inspiring children to maintain the traditions of their country, it is only with the greatest reluctance that this subject is not allotted special hours to itself. It is, however, felt that in view of the short space of years that elementary education covers in the life-time of the working-class child, some drastic pruning of the curriculum must at all costs be made, as anything in the nature of a compromise inserts the thin edge of the wedge of superficiality in the teaching. Moreover, seeing that the English lesson will draw largely upon historical facts for the explanation of words, the subject cannot be regarded as entirely neglected in this programme.

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Manual Work, seeing that it is a form of exercise, might be taken from the time allowed for Recreation * and the time allowed for Drawing (in the case of untalented boys), or from the time allowed for Recreation and the time allowed for Arithmetic (in the case of artistic boys).
        By this means it would be possible to add 7 hrs. 40 mins. per week to the time occupied in teaching English, or 337 hrs. 20 mins., i.e., 48 seven-hour days per year, making a grand total, with the existing hours allotted to English, of 12 hrs. 50 mins. per week, or 564 hrs. 40 mins., i.e., 80 1/2 seven hour days per year.
        Although this still appears to be an exiguous allowance, in view, not only of the importance of the subject, but also of the home influences which for a generation at least would prove a serious obstacle to progress, it is sufficient for much to be made of it; and in this period, for seven years, it ought to be possible to give each boy a very considerable mastery of English. In any case, it would enable a foundation to be laid upon which subsequent self education could safely repose.
        The teaching would have to consist principally of exercises in the precise meaning and proper use of words, the aim being to give each child, not only a very much larger vocabulary than that which he learns at school to day, but also a mastery in the

        * As the whole week's work amounts only to 22 hours, and there is no home work, boys at an elementary school cannot in any case be said to be overworked, and there would be no hardship involved in curtailing the time allowed for recreation, or in cancelling it altogether.

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use of each word, which would prevent both confusion in expression, and misunderstanding in reading or listening. Good, careful reading would therefore be exacted from all, and the excellence of the performance of each boy would not be judged so much from the standpoint of glibness or fluency, as from the ease and accuracy with which he understands the meaning of what he has read.
        In the process of teaching the correct meaning of words, the boys would necessarily acquire their stock of sound and proper ideas about life and humanity, because it is impossible to teach the meaning of certain abstract words relating to society and life, without imparting true ideas. Thus, without feeling any of the natural repulsion that healthy boys would instinctly feel towards a moral or philosophical lesson, they would nevertheless be able to absorb a philosophy of life, the lack of which in their education to-day is one of its principal blemishes. *
        More stress would also be laid on the teaching of grammar than is the custom to-day. The present system, inspired by the Board of Education, deliberately neglects grammar, and the results are noticeable in every sentence that proceeds from

        * It is true that in its Suggestions for the Consideration of Teachers (p. 28) the Board of Education does lay down that: "One of the fundamental purposes of education is to ensure that the child has an ample fund of ideas about the world in which it lives, and that these ideas should be, as far as may be, full and exact"; but what follows (pp. 28, 29) is so meaningless and reveals such an inadequate appreciation of the value of ideas in adult life, that it stultifies the value of the foregoing.

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the lips of a working class child. * Since logical expression, and the understanding of the logical construction of a long sentence are impossible without a complete mastery of Grammar, it is most important that Grammar should be properly and specially taught. And with English as the only big subject of the school curriculum, this ought to be perfectly possible.
        Next in importance would be the study of good authors in and out of class. The boys would have to learn to appreciate instances of happy construction, or apt and vivid expression. In Standard VI. and VII., they would also be encouraged to call the teacher's attention to what they thought was a misuse or abuse of words, either in their father's newspaper, or in any literature of doubtful quality at home.
        Daily practice in accurate expression, and in criticism of other boys' speech, together with the learning by heart of long passages from the best poets, the Bible, and some of the best prose writers; weekly exercises in composition, and a rigorous training in exact definition — these with a leisurely training in the best old English songs, canons and ballads, would complete a training that would send every child forth into the world with at least one subject thoroughly learned, with at least one weapon well mastered for

        * Ibid, p. 39: "The minutiæ of Parsing should be completely omitted. . . . There should be no Grammar teaching apart from the other English lessons, it should arise naturally out of the reading and composition lessons." One headmaster of an elementary school with whom the present writer discussed the question of Parsing, declared that he greatly regretted that it had been dropped.

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the struggle of life, and above all with a more or less certain guarantee that he would be immune to the lure of vulgar taste in literature, and to the deliberate deceptions and traps that all those quill-driving monsters, who to-day stand enthroned over the minds and the hearts of our working classes, daily and hourly prepare for the further stultification and corruption of their victims.
        Very soon a marked change would come over the nation. Its present highly strung and hysterical condition, which has been induced chiefly by the sensationalism of its vulgar newspapers and other cheap literature, would yield before a more sober and more dignified state of mind. Not a child whose spirits had been brought into vivifying contact with the noblest of the nation's thoughts and sentiments, could help manifesting signs of this invigorating intercourse in later life. Among the meanest of them it would leave behind at least the dim recollection that there were things in heaven and earth that were greater than themselves, that there were sacred and lofty heights in the intellectual productions of their nation, which they had once gazed upon as it were from afar, and while this memory would sustain them in their patriotism and fortify them in their self-respect, it would also tend to check that spirit of irreverence for all things which is one of the most alarming features of the Age.
        Again, instead of opening the school gates to let loose a flood of fourteen-year-old hooligans, with no mental equipment except gutter smartness, children taught in this

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way would be sent forth into the world possessing at least a foundation of sound knowledge, a basis of valuable ideas and principles concerning life and humanity, the benefit of which they themselves and their neighbours would feel at every moment of their lives.
        And this immensely desirable result, this crying need of the present day, could be obtained at what cost? At the cost of small smatterings of History, Geography, Drawing, Hygiene, and Physics, which are forgotten within nine months of leaving school, which even remembered would be of little practical Value, and which, so far from having been introduced into the curriculum with serious intent, appear rather to have found their way there by accident and to have been retained purely from motives of idle and fruitless display.

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