INTELLECTUAL INSTRUCTION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Being of the number of those who think, with Professor Huxley (see Nineteenth Century of this month), that our elemen- tary schools might do more than at present to cultivate "the faculties of observation" and "train the eye and the hand," I read with great pleasure your article on "Technical Instruction" in the Spectator of January 28th. But in your editorial note on Mr. Samuel Smith's letter this week, you accuse him of pro- posing "a substitute for intellectual instruction," and of "seeking a remedy for all our social and moral dangers rather in organised hand-work than in mental improvement." I cannot say that this charge seems to me substantiated by Mr. Smith's letter, or by "the general character of his published letters and his speeches in Parliament."
I have not the advantage of knowing Mr. Samuel Smith, and, of course, I cannot venture to speak for him ; but for many of us who hope to see changes introduced into our elementary educa- tion, I may say that, far from wishing a "substitute for intel- lectual instruction" or "mental improvement," we complain that the instruction now given is not intellectual, and that mental improvement is not duly cared for. If we are mistaken,
by all means expose our error. It would immensely gratify me to find that I was wrong ; but of this, so long as much of the instruction is given by boys and girls under eighteen, I see but little chance.—I am, Sir, dm.,
Previous page
