A conversation between two M.P.'s and a Minister who knows
working-class conditions better than most people, on how far the average working man reads books and possesses books (a subject worth pursuing here or somewhere else some day), turned off on to primary schools and their efficiency. The Minister produced a case he had just come across in a Yorkshire city of a small girl of five who had read Treasure Island through and clamoured to know from her teacher whether it was true, where Treasure Island was, and every other kind of question the book might suggest. The teacher—this is, of course, the point, or one of the points—responding immediately, introduced the whole class to the story, and all of them plunged forthwith into building model wigwams and log huts (and I hope gallows), learning about pieces of eight and Execution Dock and all the rest of it. That, decidedly, is one up to the schools.
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