364 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 



it is outside their province. Lack of space makes me dogmatic. The 

 other items are outside, or ought to be, the understanding of a normal, 

 heakhy boy. Could such subjects be made interesting to the immature ? 

 I doubt it.' 



When referring to the obstacles in the way of introducing a ' Short 

 History of Communications and Trade ' and possibly ' A History of 

 Innovations,' he wrote : 



' The fact that our present curriculum takes a normal boy all his time 

 to assimilate, whether he works for the Naval Entrance Examination, the 

 Common Entrance Examination or a Scholarship Examination. We 

 must leave the Public Schools something to teach their boys. Facts, not 

 ideas, come more easily to boys between the ages of 11 to 14, therefore 

 make hay . . . We hate teaching theories and politics to boys, unable 

 to refute what is told them successfully ; it's unsporting and un -British.' 



Replies from Secondary Schools to Questions on Grade C. 



An analysis of the replies presents some difficulty. This arises partly 

 from the variation of schemes and the distribution of the sections taken over 

 a wider age-range and partly from the method of approach to the subject, 

 a method which differs considerably from that indicated by Mr. Wells. 

 The questionnaire referred to the ' Informative Content ' of an education 

 which might be — Mr. Wells thinks should be — given to all pupils by the age 

 of 14. ' Our educational system is so different from that envisaged by 

 H. G. Wells that it is difficult to comment,' said Mr. Lyon of Rugby. 

 ' Mr. Wells is an interesting theorist ; but if the children whose capacities 

 he estimates so glibly were before him in a class he would discover in a 

 very salutary way that their reactions to knowledge he prescribes were 

 rather different from what he imagines them to be,' wrote Miss Clarke, of 

 Manchester High School for Girls. 



These observations raise an important question which appears to have 

 been in the minds of many correspondents. This is : ' How far are the 

 pupils in schools able, at the ages stipulated, to receive the information 

 included in the outline syllabus of Mr. Wells ? ' Possibly the teachers 

 underestimate the capacities of their pupils, as Mr. Wells suggests ; 

 but it is noteworthy that in these returns from secondary schools there 

 is unanimity regarding this point. What was indicated by Mr. Wells as 

 necessary is thought to be beyond the capacity of the pupils at the age at 

 which it is suggested that it should be taken ; but in some cases the informa- 

 tion is included for an older age-group. 



Thus Miss Gwatkin (Streatham Hill Girls' School) wrote : 



' We keep most of our girls till 18 and nearly all of them until 17, and 

 prefer to deal with many of the matters in your schedule when they are 

 over the age of 16 and more mature.' 



Mr. Barton, of the Grammar School, Bristol, expressed the opinion that 

 ' Here and there, from the standpoint of a practical teacher, the scheme 

 suggests precociousness, and I dare say the air of an ambitious set-out is 

 partly accounted for by the difficulty of concise indications in other than 

 academic language. The word " informative " seems to me a little mis- 

 leading ; e.g. our " ideas of the relation of oneself to the Universe " come 

 largely into the realm of speculative opinion and feeling rather than of 

 information in the usual sense. Such doubts however are inevitable, and 

 broadly speaking I think the consideration of the scheme has value, if only 



