Revelations on certain aspects of British education are disturbing. In
different papers one day this week there occurred (1) the assertion by a commission on religious education appointed by the Bishop of Liverpool that "more than 3,000,000 adults and young people in England and Wales can scarcely read or write." (A good deal depends on what " scarcely " means.) (a) A statement by the Under Secretary to the War Office that two in every hundred recruits today can neither read nor write. (3) The statement by a boy of twelve in Merthyr juvenile court that he had never heard the name of Jesus Christ. The Manchester Guardian quotes from the Liver-, pool commission's report the Lord's Prayer as inscribed on the blackboard by another boy of twelve. It ran as follows : Our Forder, wec hort in hven halow dedon as it his in heven for gev is or tresd a gnst it and leys is in to trespes a ganst is. It looks as if those critics might be right who urge the advisability of concentrating on primary education and leaving secondary alone for the present.
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