ard that has
always been paid in our elementary schools to neat handwriting and
correct spelling is characteristic of the whole Western attitude
towards education. No "results" are more easily or more accurately
appraised than these, and it follows that no "results" are more
highly esteemed by the unenlightened teacher. For wherever the
outward standard of reality has established itself at the expense of
the inward, the ease with which worth (or what passes for such) can
be measured is ever tending to become in itself the chief, if not the
sole, measure of worth. And in proportion as we tend to value the
results of education for their measureableness, so we tend to
undervalue and at last to ignore those results which are too
intrinsically valuable to be measured.

* * * * *

Hence the neglect of _Composition_ in so many elementary schools. I
mean by composition the sincere expression in language of the child's
genuine thoughts and feelings. The effort to "compose," whether
orally or on paper, is one of the most educational of all efforts;
for language is at once the most readily available and the most
subtle and sympathetic of all media of expression; and the effort
to express himself in it tends, in proportion as it is sincere
and strong, to give breadth, depth, and complexity to the child's
thoughts and feelings, and through the development of these to weave
his experiences into the tissue of his life. But sincerity of
expression is not easily measured, and the true value of the thoughts
and feelings that are struggling to express themselves in a child's
composition is beyond the reach of any rule or scale; whereas
neatness of handwriting and correctness of spelling are, as we have
seen, features which appeal even to the carelessly observant eye.

Knowing this, the teacher takes care that the exercise-books of his
pupils shall be filled with neat and accurate composition exercises,
and that some of the neatest and most accurate of these shall be
exhibited on the walls of his school. The visitor whose eye ranges
over these exercises and goes no further may be excused if he forms
a highly favourable opinion of the school which can produce such
seemingly excellent work. But let him spend a morning in the school,
and see how these "results" have been produced. He will probably
change his mind as to their value. The teaching of composition in
the ordinary elementary school is too often fr