Science in Public Affairs 



some places on self-supporting lines. So too for 

 the special schools which the Physical Deteriora- 

 tion Committee suggest for " retarded " children. 

 These would be of the type of the present " Day 

 Industrial Schools," where the children are regu- 

 larly fed, and part of the cost is levied on the 

 parents under a magistrate's order. In the case 

 of backward children it would no doubt be found 

 that good feeding would work as wonderful 

 changes as have been brought about in the 

 special schools for the " mentally deficient." 



CONTINUATION CLASSES 



We have already referred to the need for 

 compulsory continuation classes for boys and 

 girls from fourteen to sixteen. The need is a 

 very pressing one. The children leave school, 

 and then for several years, now that the ap- 

 prenticeship system is disappearing, knock about 

 the streets as errand boys, "matching" girls, 

 newsvendors, or baby- minders. Discipline is 

 lost, lessons superficially learnt are hastily and 

 gladly forgotten, bad language and the pernicious 

 practice of smoking cigarettes are acquired, and 

 hooligans manufactured. Much of this evil could 

 be stopped by compulsory evening-school attend- 

 ance, and the time should be given, one half to 

 drill and physical exercises, the other, in the case 

 of girls, to domestic training. Not even at six- 

 teen should the boys pass out of the control of 



the State, for, as urged by Sir James Goldie in 



40 



