rk of the Primary School begins, the
main emphasis at the beginning must be laid on the acquirement and
establishment of the language and number systems for their own sake. If
right methods are followed, the child can be interested in these
processes of construction without the need of calling into use at every
point some real interest. In the concluding stage the use of these
instruments as means to the realisation of the simpler practical ends of
life should receive more attention.

One reason, then, for the poor moral and social results effected in the
past by our Elementary School system has been the undue emphasis placed
upon the acquisition of the merely formal arts to the neglect of the
real interests to which the former are but the means. Another cause,
however, has been operative in producing this negative result. In the
Elementary Schools, in the past, little attention has been paid to the
individuality of the child, and little heed given to the differences
between children as regards their different rates of intellectual growth
and their differing aptitudes for various branches of study. Under a
system of classification which compelled each individual, whether
intellectually well or moderately or poorly equipped, to advance at an
equal rate, attention to the individual with any other aim than to raise
the weak to the standard of the average child in acquiring the three R's
was impossible. Again, our huge city schools, partly on account of their
vast size, partly on the ground that they are unable to organise school
games, partly on account of their lack of any common school interests,
do not and cannot foster any sense of a corporate life, any feeling of a
common social spirit. Where our English Public School system is strong,
our Elementary and sometimes even our Day Secondary School systems are
weak. If the home fails to foster these qualities, and the school does
not or cannot fill the gap, then as a rule we turn out our boys and
girls poorly equipped to fulfil their duties in after-life as members of
a corporate community and as citizens of a State. Mere teaching of
history or of civics in our schools will do little to attain this end,
unless by some method or other we can foster by means of the school-life
the real civic spirit. It is, of course, easy to point out the nature of
the disease; it is more difficult to prescribe a remedy. But much might
be done to strengthen and increase the moral influence of