History might be cancelled altogether, [p147] and the teaching of the subject confined to such historical knowledge as the scholar could not help acquiring in learning the meaning of certain English words such as: Peer, Parliament, Constitution, Rebellion, Regicide, Suffrage, Reformation, Prime Minister, etc.[29] Hygiene, Physics and Singing might also be cancelled with advantage, and the detection of specially good voices, or musical talent, left to that part of the English lessons given to the learning of old English folk-songs, canons and ballads. With regard to drawing, it seems ridiculous that all boys should devote two hours 45 minutes per week to this subject. To thousands it must mean the most intolerable drudgery. Surely one hour per week would be enough to reveal any exceptional talent in the school, and for the teacher to discover all those who could not possibly profit from the subject, even if they continued at it to the end of their lives. The latter could then be weeded out of the class, and the hour allotted to drawing, in their case, could be sacrificed to Manual Work. At all events, the hours set aside for Manual Work, seeing that it is a form of exercise, might be taken from the time allowed for Recreation[30] and the time allowed for Drawing (in the case of untalented boys), or from the time allowed for Recreation and the time allowed for Arithmetic (in the case of artistic boys). By this means it would be possible to add 7 hrs. 40 mins. per week to the time occupied in teaching English, or 337 hrs. 20 mins., _i.e._, 48 seven-hour days per year, making a grand total, with the existing hours allotted to English, of 12 hrs. 50 mins. per week, or 564 hrs. 40 mins., _i.e._, 80½ seven-hour days per year. Although this still appears to be an exiguous allowance, in view, not only of the importance of the subject, but also of the home influences which for a generation at least would prove a serious obstacle to progress, it is sufficient for much to be made of it; and in this period, for seven years, it ought to be possible to give each boy a very considerable mastery of English. In any case, it would enable a foundation to be laid upon which subsequent self-education could safely repose. The teaching would have to consist principally of exercises in the precise meaning and proper use of words, the aim being to give each child, not only a very much larger vocabulary than that which he learns at school to-day, but also a mastery in the use of each word, which would prevent both confusion in expression, and misunderstanding in reading or listening. Good, careful reading would therefore be exacted from all, and the excellence of the performance of each boy would not be judged so much from the standpoint of glibness or fluency, as from the ease and accuracy with which he understands the meaning of what he has read.