THE FORGOTTEN PARENT
111,—Forgotten indeed! Mr. Roger Clarke raised an issue of some import- ce in his article of July 17th. He contended that educational reformers -ould be well advised to secure the co-operation of parents, dwelt on the vision between wage-earner and teacher, and commented on the alleged talitarian trend of education. In my letter of July 31st I tried to show at any resentment shown by parents towards teachers results from e state of social insecurity in which most families live.
From this point onward, the parent slowly faded from the picture, and e discussion has now reached the comfortable stage of debating celibacy Public School housemasters. Surely the original article referred to ge-earning parents and children in elementary schools? In The Pectoral of August 7th D. Welstead Williams remarks, in a somewhat 'tar context, " most of the writers were unconscious of the fact that ere was such an establishment as a Council School at all." This is so e that I rejoin L.e discussion not in the hope of being able to add much it, but rather in an attempt to deflect it from the leafy side-turning of
t another discussion on Public Schools, back to the fierce, Woad ghway of Elementary Education. I think it was H. G. Wells who said that elementary education has been a process of appeasement of the workers by the ruling class. It has been handed to them grudgingly, as a privilege, the curse of mean- ness mixed with every blessing of enlightenment it has been imposed upon, not made part of their lives.
When the " two nations " of Council School parents and " the rest " become one nation, no parent will feel himself " forgotten "—Yours
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