The children who attend our elementary schools work about 22 hours a week--certainly not more--and they start their school career at about six years of age, and finish it at fourteen.[26] The boys’ curriculum at an average elementary school consists of the following subjects[27]:-- English, Arithmetic, Geography, History, Nature Study or Hygiene, Physics, Drawing, Singing, Physical Exercise, Manual Work. The reader will only need to glance at this curriculum in order to realise how varied the programme is, and how assiduously the subjects would require to be studied in the eight years of school life, in order to leave in the minds of the scholars a sufficient knowledge of them to be of use in later life. Eight years, with 22 hours a week for forty-four weeks[28] a year, and such a programme! Can it be possible for the boys to acquire anything more than a mere smattering of each subject? Subtracting from the total 22 hours, the hour and forty minutes per week allotted to Physical Exercise, there remain twenty hours and twenty minutes during which English, Arithmetic, Geography, History, Nature Study or Hygiene, Physics, Drawing, Singing and Manual Work have to be taught to children who reach school not yet knowing how to read. And elementary school teachers affirm that it is impossible to insist on the children doing any homework. Of these 20 hours and 20 minutes in Standard VII.:--_English_ occupies 5 hours 10 mins. per week, or 227 hours 20 mins., _i.e._, 32 seven-hour days per year. This leaves 15 hrs. 10 mins. per week for other subjects, and of this total:-- _Arithmetic_ occupies 4 hrs. 20 mins. per week, or 190 hrs. 40 mins., _i.e._, about 27 seven-hour days per year. _Geography_ occupies 2 hrs. per week, or 88 hrs., _i.e._, 12½ seven-hour days per year. _History_ occupies 1 hr. per week, or 44 hrs., _i.e._, 6¼ seven-hour days per year. _Hygiene_ occupies 30 mins. per week, or 22 hrs., _i.e._, 3⅛ seven-hour days per year. _Physics_, the same as Hygiene. _Singing_, the same as History. _Drawing_ occupies 2 hrs. 45 mins. per week, or 121 hrs., _i.e._, a little over 17 seven-hour days per year. _Recreation and Registration_ occupy the remaining 3 hrs. 5 mins. per week, or 139 hrs., 20 mins., _i.e._, a little over 19 seven-hour days per year. Seeing that there is little or no homework in elementary schools, it is obvious that none of these subjects, except, perhaps, Arithmetic, can be taught sufficiently well to be of any use whatever to the child in after life. For, in the lower standards, although the apportionment of time varies somewhat, the variation is not material. When, moreover, it is remembered that most of the boys take 3 hours a week for Manual Work, and that these hours have to be subtracted from the time allotted to other subjects, it is clear that the ultimate result, in so far as that knowledge is concerned which represents a permanent asset to the individual, cannot be very satisfactory.