It is at once an ideal means of disciplining and training the mind, of clarifying thought and of correcting vagueness and looseness of reasoning; it is an excellent preservative of natural nobility of character, by opening up to the student the whole treasury of lofty thought and sentiment that the language contains; it is a mental weapon against befoulment by prurient and other deleterious influences; it is an instrument of criticism that can be employed at any moment, in any contingency, against the appeals of demagogues, agitators, and corruptors of all kinds, and it is a means of lucid and logical communication, without which no man can be said to be safe against misunderstanding or confusion. Above all--and this is its principal value to-day--a knowledge of English is essential to anyone who wishes to know how to “read.” Now what would be the extent of the reforms required in order to make our elementary education chiefly a means of imparting a good and serviceable knowledge of English to the masses? In the first place, the elementary school teacher himself would have to be selected from a rather higher grade of educationalists. He would have to be qualified to teach English not only by precept but also by example. To-day, in the majority of cases, he could not teach English, even if he had [p146] the time. As to expressing a thought in good English, the elementary school teacher and his boys are a case of the blind leading the blind. This is not the teacher’s fault. He does his best, and in view of his training, his best is sometimes very good. Wherever the present writer has been, moreover, he has been compelled to recognise the efficiency and conscientiousness of this class of State official, and to applaud the result he obtains with the material at his disposal. Nevertheless, able as he is within his own limits, the elementary school teacher is, as a rule, incapable of teaching English, and if it is ever decided to extend the programme on the English side, the teacher himself will have to be the object of the first reforms. As regards the curriculum, the changes would be more simple. To begin with, the hours allotted to Arithmetic might well be reduced to a maximum of three per week. This would be ample to enable the least proficient scholars to master all the method they could ever be expected to require in after life, and at the same time would afford adequate opportunities for the detection of any mathematical genius who might be lurking in the school, and for whose case special provision might be made. The time for Geography, the study of which might with advantage be confined to the general relations of England to the rest of the world, without any specialisation in home topography, which is invariably forgotten, might be reduced to half an hour a week.