18 FEBRUARY 1888, Page 13

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION.

[To THR EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR-"] Sia,—Thanks are due to Mr. Quick for his insistance upon one main point of the indictment against the present system of elementary education. The present curriculum is intellectual- looking, but is not intellectual ; the proposed "technical" curri- culum looks unintellectual, but may be made intellectual,— manual, but may be made mental also. And there is so much

better chance of this coming about from the fact that the pupil- teacher—against whom Mr. Quick is righteously warring—is never likely to have the handling of the technical instruction, for there is no machinery in existence for even giving him the semblance of qualification for the task ; and no sane person, after the experience of the past, is likely to create such machinery. Technical instruction, then, when it is introduced into the curriculum, will be given by expert adults ; and the area of the time-table over which the pupil-teacher ranges so prejudicially will be correspondingly reduced. That is a great gain, and is of itself a victory, if only a partial one, for intel- lectuality in elementary education.—I am, Sir, &c.,

E. F. M. MACCARTHY,

Chairman of Education Committee, Birmingham School Board. Birmingham, February 14th.