During the past decade, many education authorities have issued syllabuses of religious instruction, framed by persons representative of various denominations and of the teaching profession, and graded to suit the successive stages of the child's mental growth and outlook. In these latterday syllabuses there is nothing perfunctory; they are inspired by a profound conviction of the place which religious teaching should occupy as an integral part of the national system of education. 'The teaching of religion is at the heart of all teaching'; 'An education which leaves this instinct without acknowledgement must be defective, starving a child on a most important side of his nature'; 'The aim has been to give instruction in the Christian faith as a living thing with power over daily life'; - such pronouncements as these are typical of the spirit and purpose of the syllabuses issued by the West Riding of Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Middlesex and other authorities, for use in council schools, and recommended for adoption as a common basis of religious education in other schools.

Two education authorities have widened somewhat the scope of the syllabus of religious instruction by producing, with the help of eminent biblical scholars, a Little Bible. (2) This contains a comprehensive selection of scriptural passages in prose and verse, arranged for teaching purposes, with an appendix for teachers and parents; maps, time charts and notes on the text. Also, several publishers have sought to meet the need for shorter Bibles and Bible anthologies at prices which make possible their use in primary schools. These publications are the outcome of a suggestion made in our

(1) See Sections 42-45.

(2) The Little Bible: Selections for School and Home (Oxford University Press).

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report on Books in Public Elementary Schools that there was 'room for a good anthology of the finest passages of the Bible suitable for school use and produced at a reasonable cost'. (1)

At the same time, it has been generally recognised that religious training cannot be confined within the limits of any syllabus, however comprehensive. In the Report of the Archbishop's Commission, attention was drawn to the fact that all these revised council school syllabuses 'have helpful introductions pointing out the essential unity of the three main aspects of a child's religious training in school, (i) through worship in the school prayers, (ii) through the school life and discipline, (iii) through the acquisition of knowledge.' (2)

Most of the revised syllabuses of religious instruction contain school prayers, or suggestions about school prayers, and about the choice of hymns. More precise in aim is a school service book already adopted by many education authorities. (3) It represents an attempt to develop quite definitely the principle of 'teaching through worship'.

In these and similar activities we find evidence of the re-organisation of religious education in council schools, and also of a notable advance in many areas towards an elementary basic syllabus which will serve all schools, and form a foundation for more specific religious teaching. We would urge upon all responsible for the education and training of teachers that adequate facilities should be offered for acquiring a sufficient knowledge of the Bible for this purpose.

The aim of English teaching between the ages of seven and eleven is the formation of correct habits of speaking and writing, rather than the abstract and analytic study of the language. In the primary school, the pupil should learn to read and understand modern English containing words in ordinary use, should gain fluency in expressing his own thoughts, and should obtain some power of private study and

(1) Report of the Consultative Committee on Books in Public Elementary Schools (1928) page 30.

(2) Report of the Commission on Religious Education appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York (1929) page 81.

(3) Prayers and Hymns for use in Schools (Oxford University Press).

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the ability to summarise his acquired knowledge. He should be able to spell all the words in the vocabulary that he uses; and, although oral expression will have a place of greater importance than exercises in written English, he should be able to arrange in order and set down in writing his ideas on a simple and familiar subject. His knowledge of literature should include some acquaintance with English lyrical poetry and good prose fiction suitable for his age. Practice in repeating good English verse and prose, as well as listening to it when read by the teacher, should assist him to obtain the correct pronunciation of words, and a distinct enunciation.

Between the ages of seven and eleven, the teaching of English is, in a special degree, involved in the teaching of all other subjects. Good habits of speech and writing will be formed within the sphere of the child's natural interests and in the course of his general studies. Failure to acquire these good habits will seriously affect his progress in all school subjects, scientific as well as literary.

Speech and Speech Training. Of the two habits, that of speaking correctly remains throughout the period the more important. It is customary in infant departments to devote special lessons to practice in oral composition: the children are encouraged to express themselves freely, not merely on school topics, but on everything that comes within the range of their experience. This practice should be continued in the upper stage of primary education. There is, however, in older children, a growing reserve; they are less ready to talk about their out-of-school affairs. The teacher will have to select topics of general interest which, while offering wider scope than more formal subjects, will not require the child to disclose what he would rather not. The ordinary school lessons afford the widest opportunity for practice in spoken English. Reproduction by means of a short oral narrative or class discussion of the main points of a lesson and of the child's private reading is very profitable at this stage. It makes the child attentive. encourages him to select important detail, and, in a special sense, it makes the teacher of every subject a teacher of English also.

Similarly, the answers of the pupils to specific questions should be expressed with as much attention to literary form as can be expected at their age. There is, however, a difference between answers to questions and oral narration. It is sheer pedantry to require that children should answer every question

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in a complete sentence: this will lead inevitably to the use of stilted and unidiomatic English. At the same time, the maintenance of a sound standard in the conversations between the teacher and his class cannot be overvalued. Where teachers expect substantial and relevant answers in good English, they will commonly get them. Where a good standard is not set, the resulting weakness in English will be reflected in the general weakness of other school subjects.

Speech training involves consideration of the use of dialect. There can be no doubt that an attempt to correct local peculiarities too early has a depressing effect upon the child's power of speech. With young children, the capital aim must be to secure that they begin to use language freely and easily; a nearer approach to the standard speech may be dearly bought by an unnatural reticence on their part. The teacher must boldly face the fact that there are many varieties of the English language; it is not the duty of the school to decry any special or local variations. As the children grow older, more should be done to teach the habits of standard speech. The best dialect words have a picturesque value, especially for literary purposes. In general, however, pupils should be trained so that they may be able to lay aside dialect, or to impose upon their own local speech that other which is known as standard English. In this, of course, the example of the teacher will be the most powerful influence. Children will readily imitate both the language and pronunciation of their teachers. The more correct and musical the teacher's pronunciation is, the more rich and appropriate his vocabulary, the greater will be the progress of his pupils. The most effective oral example is provided when a teacher talks to his class in such a way that, while he is fully understood by them, he is at the same time continually introducing and repeating in a fresh context a number of new words.

Above all, the degenerate speaking of standard English should not be confused with the speaking of dialect. It might even be advisable for a teacher who knows the local dialect to use it occasionally in his lesson, for the purpose of contrasting the dialectal forms with those of standard English. This will stimulate the pupil's interest in language: he will learn that the dialect may be spoken clearly and beautifully, and that slovenly speaking may be equally a defect of dialect as of standard English. The teacher, however, should avoid regarding idiomatic turns of language, which come with peculiar naturalness to a child, as incorrect English because

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it is English that is difficult to explain logically. An easy turn of the native speech, even if it be colloquial, is preferable to any stilted phraseology.

Reading. An adequate supply of suitable books for use in class, for purposes of reference, and for reading at home, is essential. (1)

The process of learning to read should be nearly finished by the time the pupil reaches the age of seven. The mechanical difficulties will have been overcome by most of the children. If the pupil is found to be backward, the teacher should investigate the causes of weakness, and take special pains to become familiar with the system of learning to read that has been adopted in the infant department, so that backward pupils may not be confused by being introduced to a fresh method, except when the former method is proved to have been ineffective.

In the upper stage of primary education the child should gain a sense of the printed page and begin to read for pleasure and information. The main objects will be an increased command of the language, the acquisition of knowledge, and the appreciation and enjoyment of literature. These cannot be really acquired except through some measure of comprehension of the message which a book is intended to convey. In general, reading will be individual and silent, since its chief purpose is to familiarise the children with the habit of acquiring the meaning of the printed page. Silent reading must be tested by discussion of the subject matter, with elucidation and comment by the teacher upon such points as present difficulty. We agree with the recommendation in the Report on the Teaching of English in England (page 81) that from the first the lessons should be called 'literature' rather than 'reading'. This type of reading may embrace many subjects of the school course. For the greater part of the period between the ages of seven and eleven it will, for example, be found unprofitable to separate historical studies from the general study of English, seeing that the pupil's reading in history will be mainly literary and non-technical in character. Until groups of stories give place to a continuous story, and the teacher turns back to trace the course of history from its beginning, and to show systematically the

(1) 'If the foundations of reading as an art are to be properly laid. Junior Departments need to be adequately equipped with books for (i) oral reading, (ii) individual, group and class study, (iii) silent reading for information and enjoyment and (iv) reference.' Report on Books in Public Elementary Schools (1928) page 26.

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development of the nation, the study of history is not to be distinguished from the study of literature. Similarly, although perhaps to a less extent, geography does not become a specific school subject during the earlier part of this stage.

Every class should have a small library from which books may be borrowed for home reading. (1) The books may be mainly story books, but they should be widely chosen. Care should be taken not to press upon the children books of a kind not likely to be attractive. If the children are interested in reading books they will gain much in the way of vocabulary and idiom, even though the books themselves may not offer much in the way of content. This type of reading should be mainly done out of school or in spare time. Only in schools in very poor neighbourhoods should it be necessary to give school time to it. The teacher, however, should regard the private reading of his pupils as within his province, make it his business to know what the children read, influence and guide them unobtrusively, and relate his own teaching to the pupil's private reading as opportunity offers.

We discriminate between reading and oral reading or 'reading aloud'. In the period between the ages of seven and eleven, reading aloud will be practised regularly as a training in a useful art, as an exercise in clear speech, and in order to afford the pupils an opportunity of learning the pronunciation of words that are not to be found in their home vocabulary. Reading aloud is a technical exercise, and school readers used for this purpose should be, so far as possible, graded in difficulty. (2) They should, however, have as much literary value as is compatible with the vocabulary which they introduce at each stage. A piece of standard literature should not be rewritten to produce a school reader. The literary value of the book should have first consideration. (3) Preliminary study of each passage is essential; 'unprepared' reading aloud is the source of most failures in reading.

(1) Section 54 on pages 63-64 of the Consultative Committee's Report on Books in Public Elementary Schools (1928).
See also chapter on Premises and Equipment, page 119.

(2) The scientific grading of readers with the object of concentrating attention in the early stages upon the words which are most commonly used has been insufficiently regarded in this country.

(3) 'Some modern books for oral reading take the form of prose miscellanies of a higher standard of difficulty, which can be read and re-read by the pupils and the teacher. They will also contain passages suitable for learning by heart and for class study.' Report on Books in Public Elementary Schools section on Books in Junior Schools, page 26.

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Spelling and Dictation. We have already implied that accuracy in spelling is primarily to be acquired through reading, although the value of committing to memory the few rules that govern the spelling of a large proportion of English words will not be overlooked. It is essential that pupils who do not naturally observe the form of the words while reading them should be specially trained in concentration. Moreover, mistakes in spelling can best be corrected by making the pupil transcribe many times the word that is wrongly spelt. Weakness in spelling is due to many causes, but the majority of pupils that are good at spelling appear to see the word in the mind's eye, and the practice of writing the word assists this mental sight. Those pupils whose ability to remember through visual images is abnormally low sometimes have a compensating advantage in a special aptitude for recalling muscular or aural impressions. A skilful teacher will contrive to provide appropriate means of appeal to this minority of pupils, whose inability to learn through visual images is an especially serious handicap to them in learning to spell. The pupil should learn to spell the words that are within the range of the vocabulary he uses, or of the literature that he is reading, and should not learn lists of unrelated words. Any attempt to teach spelling otherwise than in connection with the actual practice of writing or reading is beset with obvious dangers. The formal teaching of spelling becomes, therefore, mainly the elimination of errors in written composition. The most common errors that have occurred in the class essays may be pointed out to the whole class, just as in class teaching words that are new to the vocabulary of the children will be written down so that they may learn the form as well as the sound of them. When formal teaching is necessary in connection with the pupil's errors, words that are connected in meaning should be associated together rather than those that are connected in form. For example, with young children a little ingenuity will often reveal reasons for spelling which will help to differentiate words that are similar in form: thus, their is related to they, there to here, has to have.

The persistence of dictation exercises is no doubt to be explained by the fact that under the older 'Codes' pupils were examined in spelling by dictation tests. While dictation may incidentally be a means of testing spelling, it cannot in itself be a means of teaching spelling. The chief use of a dictation lesson is to afford the pupils a training in careful

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listening and comprehension and in careful writing at a reasonable speed. Passages for dictation should usually be selected not on account of the difficult words that they contain, but because of the interest or merit which they have in themselves, and because they may be wanted for use afterwards in class.

Written Composition. Written composition is often started too early in the primary school. Oral practice should not be sacrificed to the written essay. In early years, the periods given to written work should be short, the topics should be immediately interesting to the children and fall within their experience.

The success of the composition writing of the younger children depends fundamentally upon the choice of the subject. The pupil must have something to say. If the topic arises out of the scheme of teaching, as, for example, project topics, it will have received some literary foundation, and the performance of the pupil must be appraised accordingly. Topics will not be confined wholly to school work; but outside topics must be such as are familiar to the pupil. For example, upon incidents of home life, young children will write fully and naturally, and will desire to write. In the course of the upper stage of primary education, care should be taken to include narrative, description, some exposition, and if possible some argumentation; but abstract and general topics should be avoided. Written composition frequently takes the form of reproducing the sense and substance of a passage read to the pupils. This useful practice may be regarded as a stage between transcription or dictation and the writing of original essays.

In the marking of composition written by pupils between the ages of seven and eleven, the content requires more consideration than is sometimes given to it. If a child's composition is interesting, it is good, because the interesting matter it contains is an indication of the activity of the child's mind. High value should be given to an essay which shows that a child has intelligently and acutely looked at his subject. On the other hand, aridity of observation must be regarded as a corresponding fault, detracting from the higher literary finish that the essay may have received. The mere avoidance of mistakes in language is not merit. Some mistakes, indeed, deserve merit, as when a child tries to use a word or construction to express a more subtle idea and does not get it quite right.

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Literature. There are at the disposal of the primary school teacher traditional stories told in good English which will not only be enjoyed by the children at the time, but remembered by them in later years. It is not desirable to emphasise prematurely the purely literary point of view. The main object is to get the children to read fluently and with pleasure. Around the nucleus of simple rhymes should be gathered other suitable poems, especially those which deal vividly with action and narrative. The traditional ballads on which so many generations of distinguished Englishmen were reared, should have an important place in the primary school.

Among the books that are the property of the children, or at least should be in their keeping, anthologies should certainly be included. Pupils may also make anthologies for themselves. For the practice of handwriting, and to prevent the reasonable latitude allowed in written work from degenerating into mere slovenliness, a certain amount of transcription is necessary. This may cease to be a mere writing exercise and may be made more useful and interesting for the pupils if they transcribe their favourite verse and prose passages. Children will be more likely to write neatly and attractively when they know that their work is not a mere exercise but is the making of a little book which they will take away with them as a permanent possession. The production of such small anthologies will give occasion for both script and cursive handwriting, (1) and will afford opportunity for a clear and artistic arrangement of material. Transcription will thus serve more than one purpose. It will not only be an exercise in handwriting but also a literary exercise, and incidentally it will afford a proper exercise in spelling, since it will not be dealing with strings of unrelated words chosen haphazard, but with pieces of continuous language in which the words occur in their natural context. Moreover, books that contain worthy literature will repay care that is devoted to the lettering and binding of them. This suggests that in the making of such books there may be even a further exercise which is closely associated with the development of the children's aesthetic sense.

Just as the teaching of spelling should be as little pedantic as possible, so also should the teaching of 'meanings' in passages of literature. The difficulties of language must not be exaggerated. The hard words can be explained in such a way as not only to avoid wearying the pupil, but to increase his interest

(1) See Section on Handwriting, page 193.

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and enjoyment. (1) In the study of poetry, the important thing is that the poem as a whole, whether read by the children or to the children, should have a meaning for them. This point is sometimes overlooked, and poems of most difficult content are chosen merely because their language appears delusively easy. Whether the poem is ancient or modern, it should be excellent of its kind. Its appeal to the mind of a child should have been tested. (2) It should not be chosen merely because it touches a sentimental chord in the heart of a grown-up person. Through suitable modern poetry, selected for its narrative interest or for its beauty of music and rhythm, the pupil should be led back to the classical examples of English verse; and the teacher should not neglect those great pieces of English literature which have stood the test of time.

The value of dramatic work has long been recognised. It makes school studies enjoyable, and the writing and production of class plays is an aid to creative work. Dramatisation of poetry and other forms of literature should have a prominent place in the primary school. Even among the younger children, simple play production with criticism by the class of the interpretation given by different groups of players, will develop the beginning of critical and interpretative power, and will provide a more complete and intensive experience than reading only. Suitably easy plays or scenes may be selected, and natural play acting will be connected with literature, music, dancing, and handicraft. (3)

Grammar. Till the end of the eighteenth century, English 'Grammars' were made almost entirely by the artificial transference of Latin rules to English. The Latin rules did not fit; because not only is English a very different language, but a living language subject to constant change, a language with few inflections, little concord, and one whose words may vary in function without change of form. The survival of this grammatical teaching in schools where Latin was not taught, and where the pupils were too young to appreciate abstract rules, caused the decay of the teaching of grammar as a specialised subject in elementary education. Owing to this

(1) The over emphasis of separate images in a passage of poetry is similar to the over-elaborate elucidation of 'meanings' in its harmful effect upon literary appreciation.

(2) By 'tested' we mean deliberately 'tried out', just as a psychologist tries out his tests to ascertain their suitability before standardising them.

(3) See pages 188 and 194.

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reaction, the teaching of English has become weakest on its formal side. It is true that, speaking generally, pupils learn to write and speak correct English by imitation and practice, but an irreducible minimum of pure grammar should be taught as a part of the English course. The pupils must be made conscious of the functions of words and of the correct structure of the sentence, and must learn the grammatical terms arising therefrom. Where change of function is attended by change of form, e.g. the possessive case in nouns, the objective and possessive case in pronouns, singular and plural number, comparison in adjectives and adverbs, person and tense in verbs, the pupil will learn the use of grammatical terminology. Having learnt this, he will recognise that in an uninflected language similar word relations exist, and these grammatical relations will be none the less real to him when they are not indicated by change of form. Thus he will become acquainted with grammatical principles that are statements of linguistic habit, the knowledge of which will assist him later in learning a foreign language.

The difference between the formal teaching of grammar and the more informal teaching that is here indicated lies mainly in the method of approach to the subject. It is doubtful whether the abstract study of formal grammar, suitable though it may be to a language in which changes of form correspond to changes of function, is desirable even for the later study of a foreign language. While the learning of English grammar will enable the pupil to appreciate the construction of a foreign language, any elaborate attempt to prepare him for this by the study of the grammar of his own language may lead to the emphasising of unimportant features of English, to the omission of important features, and to the description of features which do not exist. Without an excess of analytic and abstract teaching, and without formal definitions, the pupil may obtain a good working acquaintance with the important features of his own language, if grammar is taught for its practical utility and not merely as a logical exercise. The teaching, as we indicated in a previous Report, (1) 'will be more concerned with the examination and study of current English'.

'The art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety', which was Lindley Murray's definition of English grammar, should, up to the age of eleven, be acquired largely

(1) Books in Public Elementary Schools (1928), page 33.

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by actual contact with the language and by acquaintance with such grammatical terms only as are necessary to explain the difference between accuracy and inaccuracy in its use. Mistakes in writing and speaking are the result of unfamiliarity with good English. They are merely symptoms, and teaching should not be directed to removing symptoms but to removing the underlying causes of them. These causes cannot be removed by correction of common errors which the children themselves have not made, nor by learning facts about language, isolated idioms, figures of speech, synonyms, homonyms, and so forth, but by using the language in reading and writing. At the same time, in order to use the language properly, the pupil must make some study of the way in which language does its work. He must perceive function and structure, and must therefore become acquainted with grammatical terms. There is a glossary of language as of most other subjects, for example, architecture and music. The grammar that is taught should constantly be used in intensive study of passages treated as models of writing. The force of grammatical terms will thus be felt by the pupil; he will not be required to 'define' them.

The evidence from the Principality in respect of conditions common to schools in England and Wales differed very little from that submitted by witnesses from England. There is, however, as the evidence showed, one outstanding problem in Wales which clearly demands special treatment more particularly at the primary stage. It is the problem of the two languages, Welsh and English, in the schools.

We have already drawn attention (1) to the profound change in the purpose of the school as it is now understood and in the conception of its curriculum at the primary stage. This new attitude is perhaps of even greater importance in its bearing upon the problems of the primary school in Wales than on those of the primary school in England. To think of the curriculum of the primary school in terms of activity and experience rather than of knowledge and of facts to be stored will of itself in our opinion go far towards mitigating the language difficulties in the Welsh schools.

(1) See Chapter VII.

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Since the main effort is to be directed towards developing the gift of expression, which means, in the main, the teaching of language, a second language can be cultivated under much more congenial conditions. The general atmosphere is more humanistic. The second language can, whether English or Welsh, be taught as a living language, so that gradually it may become to some extent a medium of expression and instruction. Nor will it now become a question of trying to find room for a second language on a timetable already overloaded by the demands of so many other subjects. The demands of subjects are to be regulated by their usefulness as occasions for producing experiences appropriate to children between seven and eleven. The development of so-called subjects at this stage will not be an end in itself and it is certain that this restricted, but more effective, use of them will leave more time during school hours in which to teach the second language.

During the last few years there has been a great deal of systematic investigation into the language question in the schools of Wales. For instance, in 1927 a Departmental Committee published a report on 'the position occupied by Welsh (language and literature) in the educational system of Wales', (1) and in 1929 the Welsh Department of the Board of Education issued a memorandum designed to afford guidance to authorities and teachers in accordance with that Report. (2) This memorandum deals with the two language problem and language teaching, and also contains certain considerations on the curriculum for the primary stage which are designed to secure for children between the ages of seven and eleven a training that will meet more completely their particular mental and physical needs at this stage. Although this line of thought had been pursued apart from any special consideration of the two language problem, it became clear that the general conclusions involved would affect the position and development of Welsh in the primary schools, whether as a first or a second language.

Since language and experience are indissolubly associated, the primary school in Wales, as in England, must furnish children with experiences through which they can express themselves fully and accurately. For Welsh speaking children, the Welsh language is the natural medium of instruction during the early years of school life. In later years its use might

(1) Welsh in Education and Life (1927).

(2) Suggestions for the consideration of Education Authorities and Teachers. (Memorandum No. 1).

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properly be continued, at least to such an extent as will not imperil the ultimate proficiency of the children in English. The divorce in Welsh speaking areas between the language used at school and the language actually employed by the child inevitably delays development, and indeed may be regarded as one cause of retardation.

The general suggestions regarding language training given in the memorandum mentioned above are as follows:

(a) That there be no attempt to give formal instruction in a second language, whether English or Welsh, in any infant school. Simple rhymes, folksongs and games, however, can be taken in that language, mainly as mimetic exercises, so as to take advantage of the plastic state of the child's vocal organs at this early age, and accustom it to utter sounds in the second language, which it would master with great difficulty at a later stage. It is considered that the chief function of the infant school is to reinforce the child in the home language, whether English or Welsh.

(b) That in predominantly Welsh or English areas the formal teaching of the second language, whether English or Welsh, shall begin at about the age of seven. It is to be expected, naturally, that the ultimate attainments in English of the Welsh speaking child will be higher than those of the English speaking child in Welsh, since the needs of the former in English will, usually, be greater in later life than those of the latter in Welsh.

(c) In linguistically mixed areas, the position varies almost from school to school as the ratio of Welsh and English-speaking children varies in each school. In large schools, where parallel classes can be formed, it is possible to adapt the language teaching according to the mother tongue of the separate classes. In smaller schools, the solution is more difficult and a compromise that has regard for the interests of the majority is inevitable.

The problem of teaching history to children under the age of eleven is one in which much experiment is still necessary, particularly with regard to the scope and content of the subject

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and the most satisfactory approach for different types of younger pupils. This is the more necessary in a subject like history where the material is so largely literary, because young children have a remarkable facility for committing to memory generalisations which, to them, have little or no foundation in actual experience and although they often display considerable eagerness and pleasure in this apparent conquest of knowledge, a prolonged course of it soon brings the inevitable reaction. The acquisition of these 'inert ideas' is of little value and may be harmful: for ideas which cannot be related to the child's life and experience soon cease to have any attraction whatsoever, and the work tends to become valueless drudgery which kills all desire for, and interest in, the subject. Moreover it is surely a waste of valuable time and effort to attempt to cover work more appropriate to a later stage when there is so much historical material which is eminently suitable for these young children and which, while perhaps not being the history of the text-book, is valuable as a foundation for securing a greater degree of understanding at the secondary stage.

For the purposes of the primary school there are rich and varied literary courses from which to draw a supply of suitable subject matter. Bible stories, classical narratives, mediaeval romances, stories of exploration, travel and invention furnish obvious instances. The mere recital of these sources is sufficient to indicate the desirability and even the necessity for not establishing any very distinct demarcation in the timetable between literature, history and geography, since in most of the sources mentioned above the elements of all three enter. Moreover the child has not yet reached the age when the line of argument proper to history, namely, tracing the development of a community and its civilisation through a period of time, makes a natural appeal. But the wide range of material and the lack of defined boundaries in the subject renders history lessons in the primary school liable to several dangers. In the first place the topics selected may be of such a miscellaneous character as to make history in the child's mind a mere jumble box. In the second place they may be chosen because of their outstanding importance in history without regard to the suitability for young people of the subject matter which is likely to be connected with them. On the other hand in the teacher's endeavour to make such topics interesting there is the danger that the work may degenerate into mere anecdotes of no value historically, and of little value in any other direction. In general use these dangers are principally matters of

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selection and they emphasise the fact that selection both of topics and of the subject matter connected with them is of primary importance.

Our witnesses agreed that the subjects chosen for inclusion in any syllabus of history work for the primary school should not be confined to British history. The tendency in the primary school is to approach history through topics which may serve as an introduction to, and illustration of, the different stages of civilisation, though more coherence is desirable than is shown by the various topics that figure in some schemes. Furthermore an increasing number of well illustrated books written from this point of view is being published. Another principle which will receive general acceptance is that the subject matter connected with each topic should also be such as makes a natural appeal to the youthful mind, either on account of its romantic character or because of its close connection with the child's outlook on life and with his experience. A third principle, the adoption of which was urged by many witnesses, is that only topics which have some important bearing on the present, or which are actually in the present, should be selected. But while there is no question that the observance of the idea underlying this principle does vitalise the history work of later stages, care needs to be exercised in the primary school lest the romance of history disappear altogether. For although such stories as Hereward the Wake and Ivanhoe might appear to have no important bearing on the present, the child who has not become acquainted with them has certainly sustained real loss, not only spiritually and mentally, but on the side of historical comprehension also. We are unanimous in believing that history has already gained much in interest and reality for pupils over the age of eleven by the past being brought more definitely into relation with the present and on this ground we would urge that more consideration might be given to the possibility of approaching the past in this way in the primary school. On the other hand we would refer to the almost universal interest that has been displayed, even by young children, in the recent Egyptian and Babylonian discoveries as an illustration of the romantic appeal which the past makes and will continue to make irrespective of its significance to the present. For the final stage there appears to be a consensus of opinion that the work should consist mainly, if not wholly, of topics selected from British history. By this means, while the work would still be largely topical in character and still

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mainly for the purpose of forming a background, it would begin to assume the character of a connected narrative in which the process of change is to some extent being traced.

In the presentation of history to young children pictures are essential, especially in the early stages. The selection of pictures demands ay much thought and care as the selection of subject matter. For the younger children they should be few, bold, representative, and as historically accurate as is possible. Pictures of simple figures like a knight or a bishop or a monk and other simple contemporary illustrations are very valuable. A miscellaneous assortment of pictures may well be even more disastrous to the growth of ordered historical conceptions than a miscellaneous collection of topics. In addition to pictures, historical monuments and historical objects in museums may play a part: but at this stage their use is to arouse interest and wonder, and incidentally to enable the child to understand references to such things when he meets them in his later studies. After the first stages 'of the course are completed, some teachers would introduce the time chart. At the beginning this also would be pictorial in character becoming in the last year more nearly of the form required in the secondary stage. Children at this age are greatly interested in drawing and much that is important in history can be taught to them by means of their own drawings. Again handwork is favoured by a number of teachers because it is valuable in making certain features of the past more intelligible to the child's mind. On this question, however, others feel that the ability of pupils under the age of eleven in using tools and materials is insufficiently developed for this work to be done accurately, easily and quickly. But all are agreed that, where it is done, it should be carried out under the direction of the history teacher in times set apart for handwork. We are in accord with this view, especially with that part of it which holds that the making of the models should be assigned to the handwork periods. We feel that whereas there is insufficient distinction between literature, history and geography on the story side to make them entirely separate subjects in the time table, there is a real distinction at the primary stage between handwork, experimental work and observation work on the one hand, and literary work on the other. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that models should in no way run counter to the historical conceptions which they are intended to convey.

If at the end of this course in the primary school the child can read a simple history book with some real understanding

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and its main outlines are not unfamiliar to him, and if in addition, he is beginning to have a lively sense of the bearing of history upon his everyday life and environment, the course will have accomplished its purpose and its work will have been well done. This we believe will form a better foundation for the secondary stage of education than can be provided by any attempt to acquire at the primary stage a knowledge of historical facts which properly belongs to the later stage. The later stage of the pupil's work in history, the building up of a simple constructive view of the development of his own community in particular and of civilisation in general, would then offer a field of intelligent thought and interest which should not fail to attract and this in turn should lead to the conception that our civilisation is the fruit of the activities of many peoples, and is rapidly becoming the common possession of mankind.

Work in the primary school in geography, as in other subjects, must 'be thought of in terms of activity and experience rather than of knowledge to be acquired and facts to be stored', though due regard will be paid to the stimulation of the imagination by means of vivid description: it ought not to be regarded merely as a preparation for stages yet to come. The work must be such that it is suited to the development and interests of the children. Children should not begin geography by learning definitions nor by memorising capes and bays. Certain geographical facts must be learned, but the mere learning of those which are not connected with known realities has little value. In our general chapter on curriculum we have suggested that more use might be made of what is known as the project method. Geographical teaching can be readily adapted for treatment on these lines.

Much of the teaching in the past has lacked reality. Either the facts were taught badly - for example they were expressed in words which had no touch with reality - or an attempt was made to teach facts which could not be understood. Sometimes these two mistakes were made simultaneously. It is not necessary that a teacher should have the vast store of geographical knowledge possessed by a specialist, but it is necessary that he should not attempt to teach things which the children cannot understand.

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It follows that it would appear advisable to delay the beginning of formal geography to a later stage than has been common in the past. It is true that much geography is implied in the general teaching which takes place in infant schools before this is differentiated into subjects at a later stage. Children love folk tales and stories of the peoples of other lands. It is obvious also that a child is learning geography all the time out of school. Every time that he goes to school and comes home, he is learning place and movement. This activity and experience is indeed the germ from which the understanding of geography should develop. Whether in town or country, local geography is fundamental. Continual reference to things which the children know is one of the few ways by which geography may be kept real throughout the school course, and intelligent curiosity in things they can see for themselves may be stimulated without the expenditure of very much school time. Experience in local geography, too, supplies the initial means by which the rest of the world may be understood. Such terms as 'hot' and 'cold', 'high' and 'low', 'wet' and 'dry', when introduced, are interpreted by the children in terms of what they themselves have seen and felt. But all this takes time and cannot be hurried. It is only about the age of eight that geography which involves simple reasoning may usefully be begun. With slow children the work may be delayed for six months or even a year.

This early teaching has two aspects: (a) the beginning of map work and the geography of the home region, and (b) the introduction of a conception of the world as a whole and its representation by means of a globe, from which it is an easy step to a simple map of the world. In view of the fact that modern methods of teaching geography have become more widespread it is unnecessary to describe in detail the method followed to make map studies real, but a brief outline may be helpful. First and foremost it is essential that the maps should be used and not merely talked about. It follows then that only such maps as the children can understand should be put before them. The first map should be a plan, even if it is of nothing more complicated than the teacher's table. The need for indicating fixed position soon introduces a knowledge of the cardinal points. This use of the plan on which position may be indicated is then extended to the school and its playground, and to the main roads or streets in the immediate neighbourhood of the school. By the age of eight the child should know

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a good deal about the neighbourhood of his home and school, and be capable of recognising known features on a plan. By this time he will have reached the stage when simple scale drawing will probably have been begun, and he will need in the next stage to see his local map in terms which he can already comprehend, and to recognise all these features when represented by conventional signs. He will now have not only direction and distance to consider with but configuration also. Here the rural child should have an advantage because he can observe many of the actual objects before seeing their conventional representation. If this is impossible for the town child, pictures of simple but actual scenes should be shown alongside their representation on the map. (1) An average child of the age of nine or ten soon begins to see in the representation, say of a part of the Cotswolds, the slope of the hills indicated by the varying shades of brown, and the spread of the plain shown by the stretches of green. The principle is then extended to a small portion of a mountainous region where pictures and map are again shown side by side. The conventional use of colour and the elements of scale maps must be understood, but children will not experience any difficulty if use be first made of maps of districts familiar to them. In this way the child approaches the map of England on which the different features appear in relation to one another. At the same time it will be realised that when once a child has acquired an approximate idea of the physical representation of one country, he is in a position to begin using maps in which other countries are shown in relation to his own. Care must be taken to ensure that children obtain a true idea of the comparative area of other countries by the use of maps which are drawn on the same scale as the map of England.

In the infant school changes in the weather will doubtless have been noticed. Between the ages of seven and eleven much attention should be devoted to outdoor work, e.g. direct observation of the apparent motion of the sun, and its increasing height in the heavens at midday as summer approaches; cold and warm winds; the function of the weather vane; wet and dry weather, etc. All these combined with the early stages of map work described above will bring home to the child the necessity for the use of the cardinal points.

We turn now to the other side of the geographical work. The earliest conception will be formed through folk tales and

(1) Photographs taken from the air may be used with great advantage at this stage.

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stories of other lands. For the purpose of showing young children where these lands lie, neither a map of the world nor a globe should at first be used. Their actual position should be indicated by pointing in the direction in which they lie, or by connecting them with some natural phenomenon like the morning and evening sun. These directions might be pointed out on the simple plan of the school or the map of the district with which the child is familiar. This will cease to be necessary as soon as it is possible to use the names of the cardinal points. At first, the teacher will use pictures to give the child some idea of the appearance of a land and its people. This use of pictures will take the place of the use of the globe and the map. Selection not only of pictures but also of stories is a vital factor, and if this selection be made satisfactorily, the child should have acquired by the age of nine some conceptions of the more strongly contrasted regions of the world. Moreover with the ability to use simple maps, which he will have acquired at the same time, comes now the possibility at this age of introducing the globe; and when it has once been introduced, it should be continually in evidence.

After this the work may become somewhat more systematic and progressive than has been possible earlier, and the children may obtain some kind of conception of the world as a whole, but, while no attempt should be made to cover the whole world in outline, the majority of the pupils by the age of eleven will have acquired a knowledge of the position of the continents, oceans, more important countries, chief mountain ranges, and a few of the most important towns. Many methods of giving this conception are possible. It may be suggested, however, that a selection of topics which are interesting to children may be made in such a way that while each is more or less complete in itself they may together build up a conception of the world as a whole. If a satisfactory selection of topics is made the child begins to realise through these that there is a certain completeness in the world.

Some witnesses suggested that work of this character and scope is all that can be expected in primary schools. If the systematic work is not begun until the age of nine this is probably true. Even so the study of the home region should be extended to include some other simple study of the principal geographical regions of the British Isles, and it should not be difficult by the end of the primary stage to show the pupils how these regions are interrelated.

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There is a general agreement among our witnesses that too much time is given to arithmetic in primary schools, and a general regret that too little attention is given to the study of simple geometry form. At the present time it is usual for about one fifth of the total timetable to be allotted to arithmetic, while the subject matter is confined almost exclusively to purely arithmetical topics, and rarely includes any geometry apart from a little mensuration. This liberality in the matter of time is undoubtedly due to the traditional position given to arithmetic in the public elementary school, but it is often maintained by the importance attached to the subject in free place and scholarship examinations. Nevertheless it is widely believed that the time allocated to arithmetic can be greatly reduced without loss, provided agreement can be reached as to the proper scope of the work in these schools. We concur in this belief.

We believe that arithmetic in the primary school should mainly be concerned with the fundamental processes or 'rules'. The chief problem for the teacher is how to secure a thorough mastery of these basic operations without devoting too much time to them, and without creating a distaste for the subject. In these basic operations we include a working knowledge of the systems of notation for integral and fractional - vulgar and decimal fractions - numbers and their written forms, a sound knowledge of the weights and measures in ordinary use, and the four processes in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division as applied to numbers, whole and fractional, and to weights and measures. We do not include the application of these 'rules' to difficult commercial transactions, nor do we contemplate complex examples and involved problems. We believe that examples should be brief and numerous rather than long and complex. They should at all times, but especially in the earlier years, include a very considerable amount of oral questioning by the teacher, the answers being written down by the children, and they should constantly test back work. Thoroughness in a certain nucleus of knowledge and skill and keenness in its pursuit as a whole form the best equipment with which the pupil can leave the primary school.

It has often been urged that the beginnings of arithmetic should be 'concrete'. If by this is meant that the child's early work should be founded on his personal experiences and deal as far as possible with things familiar to him, it is a truism,

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and applies to all teaching at this stage. But if it means that the child must only deal with numbers of articles and never with number in the abstract, must add horses to horses and take nuts from nuts, and never add three to four or take seven from twelve, it is pure pedantry. It is common experience that abstract numbers present no difficulties to children while to label quantities in a sum adds nothing to their sense of reality. The truth is that the fundamental operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division belong to the abstract side of mathematics and are most simply and effectively dealt with in the abstract.

It is essential that these fundamental processes of arithmetic shall become automatic before the child leaves the primary school. Unless he can add, subtract, multiply and divide accurately, quickly, and without hesitation, his future progress will be severely handicapped. This means that he must know his addition and multiplication tables through and through as certainly as he knows his own name, and must know them in such a way that each separate formula constitutes a self-contained system and is completely usable without reference to any preceding formula. The child who cannot give the value of six eights without thinking of six sevens of the 'six times' table has burdened himself with a superfluous bit of mental mechanisation.

Any discussion as to the way in which the fundamental processes should be taught may be left to the numerous text-books on method, with the one caution that it does not follow that the method which it is easiest to demonstrate is necessarily the method which will lead most easily and surely to the desired result. A child should know how the multiplication table is built up and be able to build such a table as the 'sixteen times' table when he requires it, but this knowledge is no substitute for the rote knowledge of the ordinary tables. Nor is it reasonable to expect a child in the primary school to justify the process he employs, say in subtraction or division, this is too hard an exercise of his reasoning powers and should be left to the secondary school. The aim in the primary school is to secure ability and readiness in using the processes, and this can only be attained by much practice of them both oral and written. There is no necessity to use large numbers, though a child who wishes to test his powers of concentration by experimenting with large numbers need not be discouraged on the ground that he cannot form a concrete idea of such

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numbers; very few adults have more than a vague idea of a number of any size. But it is important that the methods taught should be of universal application.

In all written work attention should be paid to its arrangement. Schools in this country have in the past rarely attached sufficient importance in the form in which arithmetical computations are recorded, and the written work is often nothing more than a succession of rough notes of computations which form part of the mental argument and which are put down on paper, either because they are too elaborate to be performed mentally, or because the results of the various interim operations might otherwise be forgotten. Clear thinking is essential in arithmetic, and the habit of clear thinking is assisted greatly by the use of a logical form of arrangement of written work. A form for arithmetical work which follows the menta| steps of a clear thinker, and has regard to its usefulness at a later stage, should be prescribed. Thus, the future needs of the subject will lead to the adoption of the algebraical arrangement in multiplication:

where the first line of the working gives a first approximation to the result, and each subsequent line adds a finer approximation.

In written work again, children should be taught from the first to check their results, (a) by making a preliminary rough estimate of the result to be expected, and (b) by a subsequent checking of the written record. This subsequent checking should always take a different line from that followed in the original calculation. Thus, subtractions should be tested by additions, multiplications by divisions, divisions by multiplications, etc. If in long additions children are taught to add downwards - so that the addition ends where the resulting total is to be entered - then additions can be checked by adding upwards. Later, when children have learnt the simpler tests for divisibility, less laborious methods of checking can be introduced.

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The interest of children in this work with pure numbers can be greatly increased by talks on the simpler properties of numbers and the history of their discovery. The difference between odd and even numbers, the factors of a number, prime numbers, square numbers and square roots, even the triangular numbers of the Greeks, all appeal to children and may lead to what an eminent mathematician has called 'a personal friendship with numbers'. The tests for divisibility by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9 and their uses can be illustrated, and children enjoy discovering the principle on which a simple series of numbers has been constructed.

From the first increasing attention should be paid to the applications of arithmetic to matters within the children's environment. Here the teaching will be concerned, on the one side with money, on the other with elementary notions of shape, size and weight. In dealing with money, the children's home experiences will provide a sound foundation which has only to be extended and developed. In dealing with shape, size and weight, however, home experiences have to be clarified and arranged before they can be used. This can only be done satisfactorily through practical work - so far as shape and size are concerned, by the actual handling of the simpler geometrical figures, their construction, their measurement in all kinds of ways, and by making plans of them to scale. In this way children will acquire a knowledge of the simpler properties of spacial figures, plane and solid, and learn to use the words associated with them correctly. They will also form clear concepts of area and volume through their measurements of the simpler regular figures and obtain valuable experience in the use of straight-edge and compasses. By the age of ten they may reach the measurement of angles and be ready for the simple field-work which has been given the name of 'Boy Scout Geometry'. Nothing in the nature of formal geometry will be attempted; but work such as this will not only add interest to the work of the primary school but provide an admirable foundation for future development.

The teacher will realise that behind all the arithmetical treatment of these real things lies the choice of the units of measurement, and that our British units are the source of most of his difficulties. Only rarely does our choice of unit depend on any physical fact; most are purely arbitrary and were adopted independently of other units. Nor in ordinary life do we measure things in terms of a single unit; we use different units at different times. We measure a line of print in inches,

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the length of a room in feet, a cricket-pitch in yards, a journey in miles, the distance of a star in light-years. Or we may use two or three units in one measurement, as when we speak of so many pounds, shillings and pence. Before we can deal arithmetically with any quantity involving 'mixed' units, we must know the relations of these units and be able to translate the measurement into terms of a single unit. We must know our tables of weights and measures.

To the facts which have to be memorised in the primary school we must accordingly add the tables of the weights and measures in common use in this country - money, weight, length, area, capacity and time. But a mere mechanical knowledge of these tables is not enough; the child must have such real experience of the various denominations included, that they stand for definite realities in his mind. The smaller units can be learnt from exercises that can be done in the classroom, the larger by establishing associations in the mind with familiar objects - thus the country child can associate the term acre with the area of a field which he knows well, the town child with the area of a football field, or at worst with the area of his school playground, and similarly for the mile, gallon, hundredweight and ton.

The importance of being able to convert measurements from one or more units to another is responsible for the 'rule' of the arithmetic books which is known as 'reduction'. The treatment of this 'rule' in the books, however, is often widely removed from its use in real life. No one is in the habit of reducing millions of inches to miles, furlongs, etc, or of converting miles into inches. Exercises of this kind have no other value than the so-called disciplinary one - to ensure accuracy in computation - and there are better ways of obtaining accuracy than by the performance of long-winded and arbitrary calculations of this kind. The practical utility of reduction is to simplify computation, and it should be confined to examples of this nature. It is less trouble to deal with 3 yards 1 foot 6 inches as 3 and a half yards or as 10 and a half feet than as it stands, or than as 126 inches. Reduction need never include more than three consecutive units - pounds, shillings, pence; yards, feet, inches; gallons, quarts, pints - and should take two forms: (a) reducing from larger units to smaller (Reduce £2 11s 6d to sixpences), and (b) expressing smaller units as a fraction of a larger unit (Express 11s 6d as a fraction of £1).

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All physical measurements are necessarily approximate, and will often include a fraction of the unit adopted. As we have just seen, the reasonable use of 'reduction' also involves the use of fractional quantities. The idea of a fraction is familiar to children long before they reach the age of seven, and there is no reason why they should not be taught early to write down the simple fractions with which they have become familiar in their homes or in their handwork lessons in school. So long as the denominators are small, they can deal experimentally with the addition, subtraction, and multiplication of two fractions by means of a geometrical diagram long before any formal treatment of vulgar fractions is attempted, and in this way be saved from the bewilderment which children often show when they first meet with fractions as abstract quantities. But before the children leave the primary school they should have learnt to manipulate simple sums involving vulgar fractions, though fractions with denominators that are unlikely to be met with in life should be avoided and complicated examples should not be attempted. If these types are omitted there is no necessity to include 'greatest common measure' and 'least common multiple' in the primary school course, and we consider that they should be omitted.

The use of the straightedge in measurement in inches and tenths of an inch, or in decimetres, centimetres and millimetres, will introduce the notation of decimal fractions and the addition or subtraction of lengths so measured will show that these processes as applied to decimals are essentially the same as those employed in dealing with whole numbers. Children in these measurements will obtain a real idea of the metre and its subdivisions, but the metric tables as a whole should not be included in the primary school course.

The process of multiplication and division of simple decimals should be taught. If children have been taught to make rough estimates of the value of the answer to a sum before working it, there should be no difficulty in placing the decimal point correctly, and the mechanical rules for determining its place may be regarded at this stage as supplementary.

It is important that children should realise that vulgar and decimal fractions are only two ways of expressing the same measurement, and they should be able to interchange the notations readily in order to adopt the one which is most suitable for their purpose at any moment. There is no harm in their learning that the measurement can be expressed in a

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third way, as a percentage, but the use of percentages as a regular practice in the solution of commercial problems should be deferred to a later stage.

A knowledge of the fractional processes is useful in simplifying calculation, and can often be used to convert a multiplication sum into a division sum and conversely. Thus, multiplication and division by 25 becomes a mental business when the numbers are thought of as hundreds and parts of a hundred, and £2 12s 6d is often more manageable when it is thought of as £2 and five eighths or as £2 + £half + £eighth (1), or as £2.625. Text-books usually confine this use of fractions to particular commercial operations and teach it as 'practice', but these operations are rarely necessary in real life, and when they occur are circumvented by 'ready reckoner' tables. There is no need in the school to limit the use of fractions. Simple applications of 'practice' methods may be taught in the primary school, but the method need not be stressed. Their use does not always materially save time and is often a matter of temperament. They help to relieve the monotony of overmuch mechanical multiplications and division.

Practical measurements will give many opportunities for the use of decimals. Since, however, all physical measurements are necessarily approximate, it is absurd to carry the calculation beyond the limits of accuracy of the data. It the data are only true to the first decimal place, the calculation should go no farther than that place; all figures in the answer subsequent to the first decimal place are meaningless, and to allow them is to blur the child's knowledge of his limitations in powers of measurement.

The decimalisation of money is often useful in commercial application, and should be taught. The fineness of the approximation used depends on the purpose for which it is employed. To use three decimal places only is not sufficient if multiplication by any number greater than eight is to follow. The converse operation is often more useful; here it is unnecessary to consider any figures beyond the third decimal place since for business purposes it is sufficient to find the value to the nearest penny.

In the preceding paragraphs we have dealt in order with the various topics which we think should be included in the

(1) Children are always interested to learn that the ancient Egyptians and Greeks were in the habit of expressing all fractions (except two thirds) in the form of a sum of fractions each with numerator unity.

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arithmetical work of any primary school. We have laid stress on the formation of good habits of computation and procedure because we believe that to ensure these is an important function of the primary school. But the work should never be confined to mechanical drill in the use of what are after all arithmetical tools; some use of the tools is obviously needed. But the problems for the purpose should be quite simple, involving not more than two or three steps in the argument and no large numbers, and they should be related to the ordinary transactions of daily life and to measurements made or collected by the children themselves. They will include questions of the types usually grouped in the text-books under the name of 'rule of three' (1) which can be worked by the method of unity or a fractional method. Children who have mastered the processes of multiplication and division often discover this method for themselves long before they meet with it in text-book 'rule'. The involved questions which have been set from time to time in scholarship examinations are in our opinion quite unsuitable for inclusion in the primary school course, and in this opinion we are fortified by the evidence of our psychological witnesses.

In all this we have had in view the child of ordinary abilities. We believe that the content of this course can be covered without pressure and without loss of thoroughness with a very considerable reduction of time from that now ordinarily given. We believe that the primary school can give this nucleus of knowledge and that the chief variation from child to child, will lie, not in the certainty of his knowledge, but in the speed with which he can use it. But in many schools there are likely to be children who will be capable in the time available of doing more than is involved in the necessary mastery of these fundamental processes. It would be disastrous both to their keenness and enthusiasm and to their habits of industry if they were allowed to 'mark time'. We think that these children should be allowed to go forward to the new work of which they are capable.

Nature study should form an integral part of the curriculum of every school, but whilst its cultural value cannot be denied in the education of any child, town or country, the study

(1) The formal treatment of ratio and proportion should be left to the later stage of education.

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has an additional significance in the mental development of the country child. In rural areas where the home life of the children generally centres around outdoor pursuits and where contact with nature is intimate and many sided, nature study should lead to that breadth of outlook and grasp of essentials which raises the value and increases the dignity of rural occupations.

The necessary grasp of essentials can only be attained if the child handles living things and thus becomes aware of the order and method required for successful cultivation. Gardening (1) has in the past been confined almost entirely to older scholars. The removal of the older children will automatically release the school garden which can be cultivated in a manner suitable for the younger children. Indeed, the garden provides a more appropriate space for the experiments in nature study than the classroom. The problems presented are so interrelated and associated that any attempt to classify them in terms of subjects is not only undesirable but almost impossible. For this purpose the garden should be remodelled so that it is, to the child, a place of order and of pleasant colour schemes and beauty, and not merely a group of isolated plots for cropping purposes only.

If conditions are reasonably favourable, the garden can be a series of seasonal studies in design, linked up with measured plans and schemes, thought over, talked about, and generally prepared in the classroom. The designs of paths and borders of appropriate widths and shapes, the arranging and grouping of seasonal shrubs and plants to secure flowers at all times of the year. In addition, there should be some opportunity for laying out a small lawn, for building a rockery, a bird bath, nesting boxes, a sundial and so on. In all this work, there is the necessity for the exercise of care in the recognition of plants at their different seasonal stages in order that disaster may not occur when beds are being cleared of weeds.

Naturally many of these gardening operations will coordinate with the seasonal operations of the farm, and a few specimens of farm crops can be grown for the intensive observation of the children, e.g. potatoes, corn crops, various roots, some of which should be allowed to flower in order that the seeds may be collected.

(1) See also Section on Handicraft, page 199.

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Beside this nature study associated with the garden, there are some other general aspects of nature which appeal to all, such as the curious ways of animal life, garden fires, still and running water, stones and earth. The child will naturally become acquainted with such aspects as these through rambles and nature walks, and discussion around them will lead to the necessity of experiment and careful examination which can best be successfully undertaken in the classroom, regarded as a laboratory for this purpose. The classroom can therefore fulfil two purposes: (a) the awakening of an enquiring interest in the physical changes which accompany the seasons, the importance of spring rains and a rising temperature in inducing spring growth, an accurate record of the various ways in which seeds germinate, the influence of light, observation of different growth habits, e.g. climbing plants and rosette plants like the daisy, and some discussion of growth in plants in relation to growth survival; and (b) the arranging of nature exhibits in the form of a general record of the changing face of the countryside as the seasons progress, the bursting of buds, the flowering of trees and plants, the ripening of fruits, the dispersal of seeds.

It is undesirable that the detail associated with many so called botanical studies should be over-elaborated. It is not the minor details associated with one or two plants which matter, so much as the general recognition by the children of the wealth of life around and its various forms and manifestations.

The problem of dealing with animal life in school obviously presents many difficulties. An aquarium may be kept without causing cruelty if the teacher understands the necessary balance between its plant and animal contents, so that it is unnecessary to disturb the aquarium except at long intervals. Breeding cages for insects are also possible. Care should be taken only to stock them with larvae for which an abundant food supply can be found. It is not necessarily the rare and uncommon which provide the most fascinating studies of life histories. In certain appropriate cases it may be possible for children to bring their own pets to school for a few days. It is essential that there should be no possibility of any animal being left without food or attention. In any case special arrangements must be made for the care of an aquarium during the weekends and school holidays. There are so many live objects available that it is inadvisable to create a museum of dead things. Plant and plant products which are common

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articles of food can be read about in well illustrated accounts. Similarly, animals such as the beaver, the fox, the wolf and the swan have associated around them much attractive literature.

The classroom is the natural place in which to build up a record of observation. The keeping of a gardening diary, for example, will encourage descriptive work. In the same way, painting in colours and simple craft exercises will suggest themselves which afford the enjoyment of producing simple forms of beauty. All this work can be linked up through little books of the loose-leaf type which can be compiled and finally bound in a cover of the child's own design. Further topics which lend themselves to work of this kind include simple studies on the crocus, the caterpillar, the tadpole, etc.

Although nature study for town children should in general principle resemble that of country children, there is no doubt that their work is heavily handicapped. Teachers often find the provision of materials for study a heavy burden, and children have less opportunity for exploration and adventure on their own account. Nevertheless many city schools have proved that satisfactory work can be done when they are directed by a teacher with vision and a general interest in the subject. Much can be done even with a limited supply of material. The effort to supply the classroom with a succession of either cut or growing plants and flowers is always worthwhile. It supplies the right background of associated impressions for the healthily growing child and relieves that formality of wall and furniture which gives the impression of 'institution' rather than 'school'. The general scope of the work can comprise the following: (a) Observations on the weather, weather charts and nature calendars; (b) more detailed examination of animals and of plants in season which are found in gardens or within easy reach of the school: special attention to trees and the rearing of butterflies and moths; (c) observations on the appearance and habits of common birds in towns, feeding of birds in winter; (d) continued observation of bulbs, underground stems and seedlings, grown by the children in the classroom, and of some common pond animals in the aquarium; (e) where a special room or part of the school hall is not available for the purpose, practical work in connection with a 'nature table' where seasonable and curious plants are displayed and provided with explanatory labels.

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Although nature study will form the main part of the work in science of the primary school, it should not be the whole of that work. Physical facts play so large and obvious a part in modern life that they cannot be neglected entirely in the school, and even young children can properly be introduced to those outstanding facts which come within their everyday experience. The choice of topics should be closely related to the children's interests and their treatment should aim at providing an answer to their inquiries which will satisfy them for the moment, without destroying their wonder or quenching their natural curiosity. 'How it works' is a good practical guide for the teacher in all this early work. The lever in its practical uses, the magnet and the mariner's compass, the effect of heat on water - these are the kinds of topic which seem suitable in the primary stage. But no attempt should be made to build up an organised body of science at this stage; the aim should be to interest children in just those physical phenomena which they meet in their ordinary experience.

Many natural phenomena have a relation to other fields of activity. Thus, the observation of the apparent movements of the sun, moon and a few stars, taken in connection with the sequence of day and night and the seasons, arises naturally in the introductory work to geography, and has already been mentioned in the section on that subject.

The importance of good music teaching in the early stages cannot be too strongly urged. The facts of daily life do not form a corrective to poor teaching in music, as in some other branches of the curriculum, and unskilled teaching in the early stages may quite easily blunt the musical sense that nearly all children possess, thereby making it much more difficult both for the pupil and teacher in the later stages. It is generally agreed that if the child in the early stages learns a considerable number of songs of a simple character he has more chance of developing the musical sense. These songs should be chosen carefully. A song is not necessarily good, or even appropriate for children, because it is childish. Good clear melody and good poetry are the essentials. This does not, it must be observed, exclude nursery jingles, or much poetry that Mr Gradgrind would have called worthless.

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The importance of inculcating a sound melodic taste cannot be over-estimated. For this purpose the use of national and folk songs is strongly recommended. The melodic directness of the songs makes an instant appeal to the child, and forms an instinctive and never failing criterion in after life. The aim should be to learn a great number of these songs, rather than to practise a few with a view to finished performance, although breadth of treatment, intelligent phrasing, and undisturbed rhythm must be secured. The more simply they are sung the better the effect will be. Such songs may also form the basis of the early teaching of what is known as 'musical appreciation'. Elementary ideas of form, melodic outline, rhythmic balance and climax can be learned from them. Every child should be steeped in the strong British idiom and musical flavour of these songs. Nothing can form a sounder foundation for a musical education. It is of vital importance that the accompaniment should be musically sound, both in its composition and in its performance. Piano playing is a desirable accomplishment for the teacher of young children. Experienced teachers agree that young children's voices as a rule are not naturally beautiful. Every effort should be made to secure that the songs are sung beautifully, with quiet, easy tone. Some children are inclined to sing at full strength. The teacher must get them to realise that in so doing they are making a beautiful thing ugly. As we have pointed out in Chapter III, the artist is strong in the child, and it is to this side of the child's nature that the teacher should appeal. Useful suggestions for exercises will be found in the last edition of the Board's Suggestions to Teachers (1927). In this connection, we would urge that teachers should try, so far as possible, to associate the pronunciation of words in music with the general training in correct speech. Many of our witnesses pointed out that it is not uncommon, especially in rural schools, to find that the children pronounce their words much better in singing than in reading or speaking.

Of recent years many experiments have been made in the teaching of the more theoretical part of music to young children. Many artificial aids in the form of pictorial representations of the stave have been found to be of doubtful value, and much that is valuable has emerged from the testing of various methods. Thus the percussion band has been valuable as a means of cultivating the rhythmic sense, the beginnings of form in music, and concentration of the mental powers. There seems to be a growing consensus of opinion

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that the earlier staff-notation is taught, the better. It has been found that the actual making of minims and crochets and quavers with pencil and paper is invaluable as an aid to the understanding. This leads logically to the taking down from dictation of short and easy musical phrases both of pitch and rhythm. In this connection, we would urge that all pupils in the class should have their own manuscript books. This kind of work should be taken in conjunction with the teaching of sight singing. There is no reason why a child of eleven should not be a fairly proficient reader from the staff notation after two or three years of steady progressive work.

The subject of musical appreciation has lately occupied the attention of teachers, perhaps to the detriment of other branches of musical teaching. At first undue emphasis was laid upon the importance of programme music or music with a story, or music that 'painted a picture'. Other and more important aspects were overlooked. The best results have been obtained when the children have accomplished the music with movement. In this way the essential mood of a piece of music may be grasped, the interplay of themes noticed, and the general form of the piece understood.

The educative value of music has been often overlooked in the past. It has been sometimes mistakenly regarded as a soft relaxation. Its spiritual and mental stimulus has not been adequately appreciated. If taught on sound lines it should react upon the whole work of a school. In no subject is concentration more necessary; in no subject is there so much scope for the disciplined and corporate expression of the emotions; in no subject is there such an opportunity for generous response to be made to the appeal from the teacher. For these reasons it would seem desirable to allocate an ample allowance of time to this subject in the primary school. The lessons should be short and as varied as possible. The rhythm in music might well in some way be associated in the pupil's mind with rhythm and ordered sequence in verse and in dancing or in physical exercises. The gramophone and the wireless may well be used for pupils below the age of eleven. (1) Very short concerts may be given in which the children should take a definite part, however small. It is impossible to over emphasise the importance of a really good pianoforte. (2)

(1) See Chapter IX, page 121.

(2) It is found in actual practice that an equally important thing is to see that the piano is periodically tuned and kept in repair.

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The inclusion of drawing and elementary art in the curriculum of the primary school has, it is generally agreed, a two-fold purpose: to cultivate in the children sufficient skill to enable them to express their own ideas in some form of art, and also to stimulate the growth of such sympathy and sensitiveness as may lead eventually to aesthetic appreciation. Both of these objectives can be realised only through activities and experiments on the part of the children themselves, since this stage of school life is one of doing and making rather than of acquiring information, and the teacher may guide and direct but not dictate.

Creative and constructive art may be developed in many ways, and if the variety of ideals and methods suggested by our witnesses is significant, the particular temperament and circumstances of teacher and child must, to some extent, determine the most appropriate course to be adopted. In general, however, there are two main lines of development, one, the use of graphic or plastic forms imitative of the visible appearance of life around the child, by means of which he expresses his ideas in line, colour or mass; the other, more definitely constructive in character, supplying opportunities for using tools and handling materials, suggesting considerations of purpose and fitness as well as the representation of beautiful or interesting forms.

It is clearly most necessary for a teacher of the youngest children in the primary school to ascertain what stage the pupils have reached in their own spontaneous drawing and modelling, not only in order to determine how they may be guided, but also to discover what subjects are of outstanding interest to them. It is normally found that children of seven or eight years are just emerging from the period when their drawings are symbolic, when they express knowledge without caring whether the visible form of expression is realistic. Gradually rejecting these scribbles and symbols, they begin to draw what they see, and they intend the drawings to convey a definite meaning to other people. (1) This desire for greater realism usually leads to a certain dissatisfaction with their own efforts, and they may abandon drawing as a language unless they can acquire increasing skill to express their rapidly increasing range of ideas, or receive inspiration or guidance to progress further.

(1) See Chapter III, page 51.

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This situation presents a great opportunity to the teacher as surely as it holds a snare and a temptation. By training mere skill it is possible to foster the desire to draw, but it is essential that the art should remain within the child's natural understanding and ability, and should not assume an artificial and sophisticated quality because undue emphasis is laid on technique.

There is too often a tendency to impress on the child's work a mature and usually a photographic style; in a maze of technical studies the child ceases to select, observe and record for himself, and merely does what he is told. It is salutary for a teacher to appraise, with quite impartial judgement, a child's crude drawing of a man or animal in some characteristic action, and to compare this with his laboured representation in pencil 'shading' of a flower pot, then to decide which actually has more truth or artistic merit, and what is the precise value in the child's mental or aesthetic education of the technical exercise.

Drawing should at this or any stage of school life remain an interest and joy to the child, and in these early years he should be encouraged to draw things which have an attraction for him, such as human figures, flowers, animals or any of the significant forms of the street, the fields or the sea shore. He should draw rapid movements and active life from memory, and also attempt a direct and more intense observation of the subjects of his choice. He should gain further inspiration by being encouraged to use other media besides colour. He will discover, by this means, how to translate his impressions or visual images into the limited form imposed by his materials, experiencing as he does so something of the artist's perception of the terms of his art. All these activities will, it is hoped, help to widen the child's horizon of interest and knowledge, and the teacher's part is clearly to ensure that the supply of inspiration and material does not fail. In addition, exercises thoughtfully and cautiously devised which are intended to increase ability to express his ideas should be given in answer to a felt need on the part of the child, not from any preconceived notion as to the type of work he should produce at any particular stage, and this assistance should not be given before there is such need, nor omitted altogether so that the child's imagination is hampered by lack of skill in handling tools or mixing and matching colours. In any case such guidance will be doubly effective if the child himself recognises its exact purpose. But it is also possible to give some help

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without imposing a mature style, or even associating it with ideas at all; studies in colour, pattern making, lettering, and various simple crafts are of such character. (1) It is generally agreed that all children should feel and recognise the joy of colour, and the pleasure of rhythm and harmonious pattern. Opportunities for experiencing colour will include practice in handling paint, pastel, coloured paper, stuffs, threads, etc, while rhythm is as much felt in such activities as pattern making, weaving and stitchery as in dancing, verse speaking and singing. It becomes apparent as these activities develop that all branches even of elementary art are connected in a very subtle way. Pattern making, for instance, affects the placing and arrangement of illustrative or representational work, and such considerations as spacing, order, balance and composition are inevitably introduced. The part played by colour in producing pattern, and in the working out of crafts must not be overlooked. Children will be ready to discover that the shapes suggested by many of the traditional crafts, such as by woven, twisted, plaited or interlacing threads, coiled clay or chequered bricks are intimately connected with the patterns which they themselves devise for pleasure or ornament. The symmetry and grace of trees and plants and the shapes of such natural forms as shells, wings, fish scales, leaves, honeycombs, all take their place in the same course of appreciative study which, in a simple, spontaneous fashion leads gradually to the subject of design.

So far the activities referred to have been those which give an outlet to the child's instinctive sense of pleasure in form, colour and movement. It is hoped that he will also be encouraged to give shape to his ideas about the subjects and incidents which appear in literature, history, geography and nature study. These will not only supply him with the mental stimulus of a wide range of illuminating subjects, but will also suggest to him the difference between imaginative or descriptive illustration and the formal, accurate drawing that is necessary in any scientific record. Nor will his ideas be adequately expressed in drawing and painting only. Many of his impressions can be given reality more readily by an attempt to construct models to represent them, and manual skill and dexterity can be developed by handling materials such as cardboard, wood, metal, clay, leather, etc, whose limitations, possibilities and recalcitrant qualities

(1) See also Section on Handicraft, page 197.

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present new interests and problems. The necessity for measuring, folding, ruling and drawing with exactness and precision will be convincing when related to a definite purpose, while, on the other hand, the child who can make a rapid sketch or judge distance and proportion by eye will demonstrate the value of such skill in practical issues. These varied activities lead to the recognition of the special gifts of individual children, and thus to the possibility of projects or of cooperative efforts in which the skill and taste of different members of a group can be fitly utilised.

The question of making a deliberate attempt to develop some sort of aesthetic appreciation (1) in children between the ages of seven and eleven is a delicate one, and can probably only be approached indirectly. The most potent influence will undoubtedly be found in the efforts of the children themselves, their response to colour, form and rhythm, their imaginative sympathy with nature and with the subjects of descriptive art, and their first realisation of the terms of art, e.g. painting or modelling through their own immature productions in various media. These spontaneous impulses will help to form a foundation for a more conscious appreciation of the great achievements in fine or applied art, and it is probably undesirable to expect or encourage more formal analysis at this early stage.

But there are, in addition, two very important factors in this early development of art appreciation. One is the influence and personality of the teacher, and the other the character of the child's environment. There is no doubt that the most successful achievements in this field will be made by a teacher who is personally responsive to aesthetic impressions, and is able to recognise and enjoy the simple forms of aesthetic significance in the child's own life, in speech, games, movement and constructive activities. Just as it is unwise to impose a mature judgement upon a young child's spontaneous response to pictures or other artistic forms, so the teacher must use tact and discernment in dealing with the class of ideas produced by the differing standards and appearances of school and home. It is generally agreed that the child's surroundings should, as far as it is possible, be

(1) See also Chapter III, pages 44-47.

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orderly, harmonious and beautiful, and many references have been made by witnesses to the refining influence of flowers, pictures and tasteful arrangements of coloured materials, pottery, etc. But it is also important that the children themselves should take some responsible part in the care and decoration of the schoolroom, and that their own choice and effort should find some form of expression there.

It may be said, therefore, that a single principle runs through the treatment of this subject in the primary school, since both skill and appreciation depend largely on the child's capacity to produce by his own efforts a form in some way corresponding to that which is present in a work of art.

The simplification of the dual task of teaching the elements of reading and writing to infants, which arises from the adoption of a single alphabet, is so well recognised that unjoined print script is now almost universal in the infant school. The lettering adopted is so similar to that of ordinary print that only in the formation of the two letters a and g is there any material difference, and some publishers have eliminated even this difference by printing reading books for infants in the print script alphabet. The print script alphabet has the two great advantages of extreme simplicity and great legibility, so that for young children and those of a low mental age it would appear almost essential.

Another important reform adopted in recent years is the postponement of the use of the pen until the age of eight or nine. It is not long ago that a great deal of time was devoted in infant schools to laborious practice in the use of the pen whereby round-hand writing could be performed by children of the age of six and even five; but it has been discovered that what took many months to learn at that stage owing to the lack of muscular control possessed by the fingers of such young children can be rapidly acquired when finger control is more fully developed and the handling of the pen a comparatively easy matter.

On general grounds it is desirable that the transition from the infant school to the upper stage of the primary school should be made as easy as possible, and that such changes as are necessitated by the different aims and objects of the school for pupils between the ages of seven and eleven should be introduced by easy and gradual steps. While, therefore,

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it is necessary that by the age of eleven the child should be able to write in ink with good legibility and fair speed, it is desirable that this should be achieved by slow degrees instead of by a sudden change from the unjoined pencil script of the infant school to cursive writing in ink immediately the children enter the upper stage. Experience has shown that the two changes (a) from unjoined to joined letters, or, if desired, to round-hand writing, and (b) from pencil to ink can well be made at different times, and it will be sufficient if these objects have been achieved during this stage. Some teachers take the view that a suitable time for the change from pencil to ink is about the age of nine and for the change from unjoined to joined letters not later than the age of ten. The use of ink should be gradually introduced, as for instance by allowing the children during their first term of writing in ink to do only their mechanical written exercises by this method, and adhering to pencil for such exercises as require a good deal of thought and consideration, e.g. arithmetic and composition. As soon as some facility in the use of the pen has been acquired the child may be expected to do most of his written work in ink.

Many teachers have found that the transformation from unjoined to joined script - not round-hand, which is a much more difficult change - can well be made in one month provided that it be postponed until the tenth year, and there are many instances where this has been accomplished with excellent results in the time mentioned.

The true criterion of good writing is that it should be legible and clear. The style adopted should be such that the writer may be capable of attaining sufficient speed to put down his thoughts without being unduly hampered by laborious manuscript. So long as these requirements are met, the actual details of the style do not matter. It must not be forgotten that in addition to a cursive hand for general purposes schools may and do teach artistic lettering and manuscript writing of various kinds. These, while hardly possible for everyday use, will undoubtedly have the effect of improving the ordinary writing. Skill in this direction hardly comes within the scope of the primary school.

We have already touched upon 'education through activity' in its wider implication, as the discovery of living centres of educational interest, through contact with which

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the real value of book learning may be perceived by the pupil. In the present section we treat this aspect of education in its narrower sense of manual occupation.

The realistic trend of teaching which very many children will require in the secondary stage will be anticipated in the primary school. The practical arts cannot be taught here merely as a relief or diversion; because they will form the background to the later education of all those pupils who are found to respond best to teaching which is largely based upon manual activity. Nor is this the only reason why the realistic element in the curriculum of the primary school should be emphasised. As we have remarked elsewhere, the conditions of modern industry are such that there is little inducement even for the skilled craftsman to develop that high degree of persistence and will-power which was essential when the same craftsman had to see one complete job through from its beginning to its end. Not only, therefore, have the schools to lay a foundation of technical skill and of sympathy for pure handicraft, but, so far as possible, they have to make up for this deficiency in the later industrial training of their pupils. (1) This task must be begun in the primary school if it is to become a dominant factor in the secondary.

The methods of craft teaching acquire a further positive value as soon as we perceive that the attitude of mind which craft teaching should induce is the mental attitude that is most healthy for all learning. The central fact about craft work is that it is an active pursuit with an end in view towards which, with the tools and material at his disposal, and with the wise guidance of his teacher, the child is finding his way. The good handicraft teacher does not give training in a routine process so that the pupil may acquire an instinct to cope with one set of conditions only; he seeks to give his pupil the power of finding ingenious solutions under all sorts of conditions. Furthermore, handicraft gives a meaning and a practical application to the teaching of design and the appreciation and use of colour. In the primary school, owing to the character of the materials that will be generally used and the way of using them, training in pattern making and elementary training in design are an inevitable consequence of handicraft teaching. (2) Handicraft has also a use, if in the primary stage a limited use, in illustrating the teaching of

(1) See pages XXIV-XXV.

(2) See section on Drawing and Elementary Art, page 191, where this aspect of handicraft is more fully treated.

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history and geography, and in helping children to learn arithmetic, geometry, and the elementary principles of physics; while, on the other hand, the story of the various crafts, being a significant part of the story of mankind, will provide valuable material for the pupil's reading when suitable books are available. Finally, there is a social significance in craft teaching, when the pupil sees the work on which he is engaged as typical of processes that have in past ages been devised by man to meet his living needs, and as the key to that vast and complex industrial machinery which the inventive genius of man has evolved out of these small beginnings.

The elaboration of craft practice is more particularly the concern of the secondary teacher, because, after the age of eleven, the special aptitudes of children can be discerned more clearly than in their earlier years. But such considerations as those which we have just mentioned make it important that, even in the primary stage, the crafts in which the children are occupied should be authentic and genuine crafts, or should lead up to genuine crafts, and that the jobs which they undertake should be complete jobs. The danger of craft practice degenerating between the years of seven and eleven into a mere pastime arises from two causes. On the one hand, with very young children the joy of making things, however trivial, is its own justification, and the character of the thing made is not important; it is therefore not surprising that there should be an inclination to ascribe to similar occupations in a later stage rather a negative than a positive value, and to use them merely as a relief to verbal methods of teaching. On the other hand, craftsmanship and manual occupation, as they are understood in the school workshop and garden, have traditionally been deferred until after the age of eleven. Thus, the years between seven and eleven may easily become, for real training in handicraft, almost a fallow time.

The fact is that the actual range of the manual occupations suitable for the primary school is not appreciably narrower than that of the secondary. The difference between the earlier and later stages of handicraft teaching is not one of kind, but of degree. There are few school crafts that may not have their beginning in the primary stage; and no craft is for this purpose greater or less than another. But some tools are more difficult or more dangerous to use than others, some materials are more intractable than others, and all materials are not readily obtainable in all districts. Within such

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limitations the teacher will make his choice; but primarily he will be guided by his own skill in some particular craft, and by his own love for it.

We assume that the primary school will contain a 'practical' room, or a space set apart for practical work, with suitable furniture and fittings; and that three or four hours in the week will be given to handicraft with drawing. (1) The existence of a workroom implies that the teacher's choice of crafts should not be indiscriminate, and that there should be a unity and a backbone of purpose in his scheme: it does not imply that prolonged occupation or fine work should be expected of very young children. The 'free' occupations of the infant school should lead, by easy and natural gradations, with steadily growing accuracy in observation, measurement and technique, to the more definitely ordered tasks of the later primary stage; they should also grow in reality, as the infantile joy in mere making begins to wane. In order that the teaching may not be discontinuous, much of what the child does for some time after leaving the infant school should, however, be directed by his own interests; he is far more likely to become acquainted with the broad principles that govern design and construction through experimenting with toys and moving machines, and by improvising models of them from strips, blocks, wheels and axles, than by making, to the teacher's design and measurement, trays and boxes out of paper and cardboard.

The important point is that, even in the primary school, the things which the children make should be worth making; and that, whatever the material the children are using, they should be engaged in a genuine craft. Thus, even the elementary occupation of modelling in paper and cardboard should form part of a graduated scheme which leads up to an authentic craft, the binding of books. (2) Many other things that involve the fundamental processes of bookbinding may be made by the way - not paper furniture and boxes, but real and useful things such as calendars, writing pads and cases, blotters and blotting pads, files and portfolios.

(1) Ability to prepare dimensioned hand sketches of simple objects, to draw plane figures such as the square, circle, hexagon and octagon, and to use compasses, rule, and set square in the production of drawings, may reasonably be expected of pupils by the time they leave the primary school. See further the sections on Arithmetic and on Drawing and Elementary Art, pages 178 and 191.

(2) See also this section on English, page 162.

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There are other materials, besides paper and cardboard, which are suitable for genuine craft practice in the primary school. Certain elementary forms of weaving in coloured thread, wool, and raffia on simple cardboard shapes will already have been attempted in the infant school; these are valuable in teaching colour and its harmonies, and they will be developed into the weaving of braids, girdles and scarves on small frames and table looms. These latter may be of such simple construction that they can be made by the children themselves. The light exercises involved in building the looms, the arranging of the warp threads, and the preparation of the shuttles to effect a prepared design, are, together with the actual process of weaving, tasks in line with tradition and rich in historical association.

Needlecraft is closely allied to weaving. It has a long history and tradition in the primary school. In the later changes that have come over the teaching of this subject, largely due to the greater use of the sewing machine, there has been much gain and a little loss. The wearisome repetition of processes, the use of fine materials and microscopic stitches, are things of the past. They have been replaced by the planning and making of complete articles, which call for manipulative skill and a general handiness in dealing with fabrics. Even young children are trained on production, and both in the arts of making and mending and in the nature of the materials used there is an air of usefulness. But there has also been some loss. In the needlework displays of primary school children a lack of finish and attractiveness may sometimes be apparent. Beauty of colour and design with a decorative use of stitches should be encouraged, and daintiness and accuracy can be secured without that fine sewing which proves an undue tax on eyesight. Perhaps the 'finish' of much of the older work may be revived, without producing articles that are tedious in the making or lacking in usefulness and desirability. Needlework in the primary school will include knitting, which is not only a household art but in some areas is connected with the local industries. The teaching of the other household arts of cookery, laundry, and various branches of housewifery, will be deferred until the secondary stage. Another craft, nearly related to weaving and even more primitive, is basketry. Here, the scope of the work will be more limited than in raffia working: willow will be found too intractable for young children, and they will be confined to cane.

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The use of plastic material is general in the teaching of infants. In some districts, clay-modelling may develop in the primary school into simple moulding and forms of coiled pottery in self-setting and potter's clays; and this may lead to the use of the potter's wheel. No craft affords a finer training in the appreciation of form; and no craft better illustrates man's ingenuity in subduing nature's resources to his own service by the use of his hands and a few rough tools. Like many others that we mention, its history also is rich in material for classroom study. Its practice, however, cannot be general because, if it is to have reality, some means of firing the pottery must be available.

Wood and metalwork mostly require the introduction of tools that are sharp and difficult to use. It may, however, be possible in some schools during the last two years to incorporate prepared wood and light sheet metal and wire in a variety of exercises that are connected with other crafts. Vices, hammers, screw-drivers, small saws, files, pincers and pliers can be used, as well as various measuring and gauging tools; and the fret-saw, for the making of models and toys out of ply-wood, is a great favourite with young boys. But this equipment should not form the basis of a course in which the different tools are introduced in systematic order: these should be regarded as standard aids to construction, to be used as they are found to be fitted for their purpose, at which times their special technique will be explained by the teacher.

Primary schools should have a garden, or a place, however small, where things may grow. A three-year course, involving the simpler and lighter of the gardening operations, is possible. It will begin with flower gardening between 8 and 9, flowers and salads between 9 and 10, with the addition of a few vegetables and small bush fruit in the third year. With flowers may be grown various agricultural grasses, a small plot being given to each kind; and there should be a plot for bulbs. The sowing of seeds, thinning and transplanting, weeding, hoeing, watering and tending generally, teach the fundamental principles of life and growth. The pupils learn at first hand about nature and seasonal change; and the use of a fork, a trowel, a barrow and a small spade is not beyond their physical powers. Many great teachers of the past began their work in a garden; they found that it touched their indoor teaching at many points, and made it real. (1)

(1) See further the section on the Study of Nature, page 183.

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The physical training recommended by the Board for elementary school children between the ages of five and fourteen includes systematic physical exercises based broadly on the Swedish system, outdoor games suited to the school playground and the playing field, dancing, swimming, and other forms of recreative activity.

A scheme of systematic and graded exercises was issued in 1909 by the Board of Education as a syllabus for the guidance of teachers, and was revised in 1919 in the light of ten years' experience of its use. The exercises included are carefully selected with a view to the circumstances in which they are employed, namely in the training of both boys and girls of varying degrees of physical strength and development, with due regard to the fact that they have in many instances to be taught together in 'mixed' classes often under unfavourable conditions and by teachers who are not experts in the subject. In the wide-spread introduction of a system of physical exercises to be applied in these circumstances it was essential to take account of individual differences of age and sex and so far as possible to ensure that nothing should be included which might make excessive demands upon the weakest child. It is probable, therefore, that in the Syllabus the physical capabilities of the children have been rather underestimated. Experience goes to show that with due care to avoid excessive repetition the exercises may be safely performed by children of comparatively weak physique.

The effects produced depend not merely on the character of the exercises, but in larger measure on the manner in which they are selected and performed. The Syllabus points out to teachers that the object of the training is to secure the careful and well-balanced development of the physical powers of each individual pupil, and that this result will be achieved not by mechanical methods but by appropriate adaptation to the capacity and needs of the particular class and even of each member of the class.

In the matter of the organisation of play, the Syllabus points out that the choice of games should be determined by the age, ability and physique of the players, and the actual conditions under which the game is to take place. A graded list of playground games is given in the Syllabus. Many of the simple games for the youngest children may be suitably played by boys and girls together. For the rather more

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complex games, suited to the older children in primary schools, in which a higher degree of skill and energy is demanded, it is the usual practice in 'mixed' classes, where numbers permit, for the boys and girls to organise separate games. (1) When the usual field games, football, netball, etc. are taken up, this separation of the sexes is generally complete. (2)

Ideally, it is doubtless desirable that children should be graded for physical training according to sex and age, and that individual children of very poor physique should be dealt with separately. With such a classification a greater degree of progress should be possible for the pupils. Unfortunately the normal school organisation precludes the complete attainment of this ideal. The usual class arrangements provide a fairly satisfactory classification by age. The organisation of the new schools for pupils over the age of eleven will generally permit of a grouping by sex, but that of the primary schools will not always allow of this, and in these schools continued reliance will need to be placed on the safeguards with reference to individual differences of sex and physique which the Syllabus provides, and which customary practice based now on considerable experience has established.

The majority of our witnesses were of opinion that health education must, for the most part, be given indirectly as an integral part of the daily life of the school. It is most important that the school premises and equipment should provide a civilising environment favourable to the foundation and practice of healthy habits. For example, roomy classrooms with abundant sunlight and ventilation, well arranged and properly equipped offices and lavatories with a supply of hot water, suitable cloakrooms, facilities for drying clothes and boots, and adequate playgrounds are essential. Dining rooms and kitchens are of great importance. (3) Proper facilities must also be provided for exercise and for rest within the school hours. Our witnesses agreed that formal lessons on hygiene for children between the ages of seven and eleven are of minor importance compared with the formation of right

(1) See Chapter II, Section 33, and also Appendix II, p. 228.

(2) See also Chapter IX, page 122.

(3) See also the chapter on the Premises and Equipment of Primary Schools, page 117.

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habits through training in those practices which are the foundation of a healthy life. Such training may include, among other activities, the practice of cleanliness of the hands and face, hair and teeth; appropriate breathing exercises; periods of rest and quiet; keeping clean and tidy the classroom and its equipment, e.g. the cupboards; the ventilation of the classroom. Suitable subject matter for health practice and health talks for young children up to the age of eleven are set out in the Board's Handbook of Suggestions on Health Education (1928). Throughout the whole primary school stage an effort should be made to develop in the children a sense of responsibility in matters relating to hygiene.

In general we agree with the view expressed in the Board's Handbook of Suggestions (1927) to the effect that 'The study and practice of health must form, from the first, part of the everyday life of the School'. (1)

As we have shown in Chapter III the view of psychologists and teachers is that in general the corporate sense is not much developed in children under the age of eleven. Nevertheless in many primary schools efforts have been made with a fair measure of success to develop the incipient team spirit, especially among the older children. For instance, in a number of schools the teachers assign to some of the older children small responsibilities calculated to foster latent powers of initiative and leadership; modifications of the house and prefect system are other devices to this end which have been adopted in many schools. In some of the small rural primary schools the teachers sometimes appoint older children as 'helpers' to the younger children in the school and in the playground. It is well to remember, however, that many of the children are unduly weighted with responsibilities in the care at home of their younger brothers and sisters. It is not necessary, indeed it may be inadvisable, to introduce such responsibilities into their school life.

In addition to the ordinary instruction in the various branches of the primary school course, there are other highly important aspects of education for which provision should be made.

(1) See also The Health of the School Child, 1927, page 76, and The Health of the School Child, 1929, pages 37-55.

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Every opportunity should be taken, whether in the ordinary lessons or by means of short talks, to inculcate good manners, courtesy and consideration for others, and to develop in the children self-reliance, self-control, thrift, punctuality, kindness to animals and fair play. The midday meal, which is now taken by the pupils in some primary schools, should afford invaluable opportunities for training the children not only in hygienic habits, but also in manners and general social sense. The school and its general environment must undoubtedly exercise great influence on the formation of character and this influence will be enhanced if the active interest and cooperation of the parents be secured. Parents' associations, open days and school sports afford valuable opportunities for contact between teachers and parents, as does also the practice which has been adopted in a large number of primary schools of sending annual or terminal reports to the parents. (1) Such reports should not, however, be regarded by the teachers as an alternative to direct contact with the parents, but rather as an important factor in co-operation with them.

The report of the Joint Committee on Mental Deficiency rightly lays stress on the fact that much further research is required on the subject of suitable curricula and methods of teaching for retarded children. There is no doubt that excellent work in this field is being done in a number of individual schools, but hardly any attempt has been made up to the present to pool the experience thus acquired. Further inquiry and research are urgently needed. In general, it may be said that the problem of devising a suitable curriculum for the retarded children has not advanced much beyond the experimental stage. The experience hitherto acquired has been admirably summarised by Professor Burt in a Report on Provision for Backward Children which was published by the London County Council in 1925, and which has been reprinted, in part, as Appendix A to the Board's Handbook of Suggestions for Teachers (1927).

(1) See also Chapter X, page 130, and Chapter XI, No. 68.

(2) This section does not refer to the 'more retarded' or 'educably defective' pupils who are transferred to 'special schools'.

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It seems to be generally agreed that the curriculum for the retarded child should differ not only in range but also in quality from the curriculum in vogue for the ordinary classes for normal children.

(a) Range. The aims in view must not be too ambitious. In the ordinary curriculum much of the work in the lower classes or groups is really preparatory to work in the higher classes. For the type of retarded child who is innately dull, work which has no intrinsic value of itself and merely prepares the way for more advanced studies should be excluded from the curriculum. His work in all branches of the curriculum should be directly related to the comparatively simple needs of his after life. For example, he should not be troubled with the spelling of words which he will never think of using in his written work.

The retarded child will progress at a pace which at best will be only three-quarters the rate of the normal child, and at worst little more than half that rate. It is accordingly useless to attempt to cover the same ground with him as would be covered by the normal child in the same period of time. In order to do so, the work would have to be done superficially and nothing would be thoroughly learnt. Further, it is now generally agreed that for retarded children more time should be allotted to lessons of a less formal character.

(b) Character. More formal and abstract aspects of the various branches of the curriculum should not figure prominently in the work for retarded children. The topics dealt with in the lessons should be practical and concrete and book and paper work should be greatly reduced. Ordinary text-books are, as a rule, unsuitable for use with such children. A child of the age of nine or ten who is backward in reading needs words that are suited to an infant of the age of seven, but he will scorn the babyish style and content of the conventional infant primer. In the same way, the ordinary arithmetic books often contain too many difficult problems and not enough simple mechanical exercises to impress the fundamental rules on retarded pupils. In the best organised classes for retarded children, the teacher, often with the aid of his pupils, makes reading books and arithmetic tests of his own.

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Most retarded children are visualisers, and understand by seeing and by doing. They learn reading and spelling best by the 'look and say' or 'word-whole' method, and are usually perplexed by a purely phonic approach. In general, their grasp of words, whether written, printed or spoken is limited and weak. Hence, instruction of the lecture type is unsuitable for them; their written composition should be greatly reduced, and it is desirable that the classroom should be equipped with visual and manual aids of different kinds. The children should not merely be told about things, but should also see them. Above all, instead of being trained to sit still, they should be constantly active, on their feet, and with their hands. This implies that muscular movement should figure largely in the curriculum - handwork of different types, physical exercises, dancing, simple hobbies, and organised and unorganised games. Even the more formal branches of the curriculum should be taught through movement rather than through the unaided eye or ear, and the need for reading or arithmetic should arise naturally out of the difficulties or problems connected with manual and creative work. It must not, however, be assumed that handwork is in itself a panacea. It is certainly an easy way of keeping the retarded child occupied, concentrated or apparently concentrated on a definite task, with something to show for it at the end. Yet to exercise the hands is not necessarily to exercise the brain as a whole; and monotonous forms of handwork - such as knitting, plaiting, weaving, threading beads, and the like - which require little or no thought, may leave the child torpid or daydreaming. Some innately dull children, too, are as inapt in manual work as they are in intellectual work. The actual type of handwork, therefore, should be carefully graded to suit the needs and capacities of each individual, and judiciously chosen and arranged so as to widen interest, stimulate thinking, and bear closely upon other work.

Above all, in every branch of the curriculum and at every stage the problems and the tasks that are put before the child should be well within his powers, and yet sufficient to evoke some mental effort. Instead of feeling that he is the dunce of his class, failing every day at whatever task he is given, he should experience the joy of successful work and the satisfaction of something achieved. If the product of the child's work is not only a visible well-finished job, but an embodiment of his own simple creative and aesthetic tastes, his character as well as his intelligence will be simultaneously trained.

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The old idea that intellectual exercises, however dull and incomprehensible, may nevertheless provide a wholesome mental gymnastic, has long ago been exploded and is least of all applicable to dull or backward children. The teacher will not improve the dull child's memory simply by keeping him memorising. (1) On the other hand, just because the dull child's memory is weak, he will undoubtedly need more 'drill' in certain subjects; but this should be always drill on something that in itself is useful. One outstanding defect of the innately dull child is his lack of attention; the best way to awaken attention is to arouse interest. At every moment, therefore, the teacher should be appealing to the natural interests of the child. Forcing him to work at a task which he neither likes nor understands is worse than useless.

The dull child is as a rule singularly slow in talking in front of the class and the teacher. He has little to say, and does not know how to say it. In the past what he has ventured has seemed stupid to others, and he has thus grown shy and and monosyllabic. Simple homely talks, story telling, dramatic work and the like, might be freely used in the lower classes to draw the dull child out of his shell.

Individual guidance and attention will be almost indispensable. Retarded children differ far more amongst themselves than normal children. Hence explanations may often have to be elaborated for each particular child, and patiently repeated and illustrated again and again. Throughout he will need more personal assistance than would be necessary for the normal child. The teacher should be at once patient and enthusiastic. The discipline should be free. The strong points of each child should be known as well as the weak, and studied as avenues of approach. The most effective stimulus will be the child's own sense of progress.

(1) See Chapter III, p. 37, and Appendix III, p. 263.