The main proposal is that primary education between the ages
of seven and eleven shall be conducted separately from the infant schools. There would, of course, be a carefully guarded continuity through all the stages of education, but the case for regarding the years from seven to eleven as a distinct period of childhood is well estab- lished by both physiological and psychological evidence. The contributions to the Report on this subject by Professor Burt and Professor H. A. Harris are illuminat- ing. They describe the period as one of increasing differentiation between boys and girls, but they find no disadvantage in boys and girls being educated together. This period is also a time when medical and mental watching is specially needed. It is a time when defects may be remedied and development can be scientifically aided. It is by no means the " neutral time " in a child's life which some educationists have supposed it to be. The Committee suggest that some of the present hard and fast distinctions between " subjects " are unsuitable to children from seven to eleven, though they by no means take the view that school can be a go-as-you- please place where there is no necessity for regarding certain studies as a discipline.
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