In this as in all other matters, the Government of India cannot afford to stand still, and will have to take Indian opinion more and more into account. But whilst there is a very general consensus that more should be done by the State for primary education, there is no unanimity as to its being made free and compulsory. Various Indian members of Council have expressed themselves against it on different grounds. Some contend that many parents cannot afford, as bread-winners, to be deprived of the help of their children. According to others, there is already much complaint amongst parents that school-going boys do not make good agriculturists and affect to consider work in the fields as beneath their dignity. Others, again, ask, and with some reason, who is going to care for boys of that age who may have to leave their homes and be removed from parental control in order to attend school. There is, doubtless, something in all these objections. Assuming that Government can do more than it has hitherto done to further primary education, the wisest course would be to improve the quality rather than the quantity, and, most of all, the quality of the teachers. Here, again, uniformity should be avoided rather than ensued. No primary curriculum can be evolved which will meet the needs alike of the rural population and of the townsfolk, or of the different parts of India with their varying conditions of climate and temperament. Even more than with regard to secondary schools, the needs of parents must be consulted, and the greatest latitude given to provincial Governments to vary the system in a practical spirit and in accordance with local requirements. Nor can the opinion, strongly held by many parents, be overlooked that religious instruction cannot be safely excluded from the training of such young children. Some of the objects to be kept specially in view have been well stated by Mr. Orange, the Director-General of Public Education:-- We desire to see, if not in every village, within reach of every village, a school, not an exotic, but a village school, in which the village itself can take pride, and of which the first purpose will be to train up good men and women and good citizens; and the second; to impart useful knowledge, not forgetting while doing so to train the eye and the hand so that the children when they leave school, whether for the field or the workshop, will have begun to learn the value of accurate observation and to feel the joy of intelligent and exact manual work. This is undoubtedly the goal towards which primary education should be directed, but it can only be reached by steady and continuous effort spread over a long term of years. Otherwise we shall discover, again too late, that, as in the case of secondary education, most haste is worst speed.