L.— EDUCATION. 227 



his employer. In this case the hopeless situation involved in * the square 

 peg in the round hole ' will tend to disappear. 



For many years it has been recognised that there has been a con- 

 siderable amount of ' marking time ' in elementary schools, from 11 to 

 14 years of age. There has also been a strong feeling that adequate 

 opportunity has not been given to boys and girls to express themselves in 

 practical activities, and that for a large proportion of the children the 

 purely academic nature of the curriculum was profoundly unsatisfactory. 

 The Hadow Report emphasised this very unsatisfactory state of affairs 

 in various departments of educational procedure, and recommended 

 drastic changes in many directions. 



The result has been a decision of the Board of Education to bring about 

 a thorough re-organisation of the Schools. The scheme is admirably 

 described in the Board's Educational pamphlet (No. 60) bearing the title 

 ' The New Prospect in Education.' It would be difficult to over-estimate 

 the importance of this pronouncement which is veritably a message of 

 glad tidings for the children, who will derive enormous benefit from the 

 more generous outlook on education, and the ampler provision of facilities 

 for practical and more interesting work. It marks the first stage in the 

 forward movement towards ' secondary education for all.' 



Based upon the famous Hadow Report, the pamphlet gives official 

 sanction and encouragement to schemes for which pioneers in education 

 have been fighting and pleading for many years. It sounds the death- 

 knell of any number of abuses which have had a strangle-hold on the free 

 development of a vigorous personality by the less intelligent children of 

 our schools. Not only that, the important reforms which are proposed 

 are conceded in no carping spirit, but with a generous outlook which does 

 infinite credit to a great Government Department. The various points 

 are set forth with a definiteness which admits of no misunderstanding ; 

 there can be no going back. 



The most important conclusions are the following : 



(1) That primary education should be regarded as ending at about the 

 age of 11, and that all children should then go forward to some form of 

 post-primary education. 



(2) That this second stage should as far as possible be organised as a 

 single whole within which there should be variety of types. 



The varieties of post-primary schools in large centres of population 

 will be : (1) The ordinary senior school under a new head teacher with a 

 change of curriculum and greater facilities for practical work. (2) The 

 junior technical school with a direct leaning to a particular trade or group 

 of trades. (3) The central school with a definite bias towards industry or 

 commerce. (4) The secondary school with a higher standard of education 

 for children who may remain under instruction up to the age of seventeen 

 or eighteen years. 



In most districts, the scholarship competitions at eleven years of age 

 will, to a large extent, settle the transfer to secondary and central schools. 

 Children who are so fortunate as to gain admission to these senior schools, 

 with or without money grants in addition to free education, are generally 

 those of superior mental ability and they should do well in after life. In 

 the secondary school different courses are open to them, some leading to a 



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