Sir Robert Blair, the Education Officer of the London County
Council, has issued the Draft Scheme of the Local Education Authority under the new Education Act. This elaborate work, well written and well indexed, outlines the history of education in London, describes the work done between 1904 and 1920, and explains the programme which the Council intends to carry out, now that its powers have been greatly enlarged by the new Act. The book is illustrated with maps, diagrams and plans. It will make readers understand the immensity as well as the com- plexity of the problems which face the London Education . Authority. There are many independent States in which the school and college population is smaller than in London, and the financial question here is exceptionally difficult. For the current year the County Council is spending on education £5,514,000, or 2s. 5d. in the pound, and ten years hence it expects to spend about £7,000,000, or 3s. ld. in the pound. Sir Robert Blair's illuminating report deserves very serious consideration also from the educational side. It shows a great breadth of view and a readiness to profit by the lessons of educational experiments in other places. We may draw attention also to a map showing the centrifugal tendency of London's population in 1901-11—a tendency that has been arrested by the war and the lack of houses. Nearly all the London boroughs had lost people, but some of the outer suburbs, like Ilford, Hendon and Ealing, had increased their population by half.
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