SOLVING THE SCHOOLS' PROBLEM SIR,—I write as both a ratepayer
and a father of teenagers to know what support your readers would give to the following proposal.
Since it has been amply proved in Germany, Scan- dinavia and elsewhere that children are educationally no worse off for not beginning their schooling before the age of seven, why do we not, at a time of acute nation-wide shortage of both teachers and school accommodation, do the same and cease to compel children into school at the age of five—and for a full day at that? By this change of ideas we could, by releasing staffs and space, reduce the size of classes and thus, among other benefits, raise at an increasing rate the proportion of children reaching the age of fourteen equipped to profit from a further year at school.
If the case for compulsorily taking the youngest children off their mothers' hands in the daytime is to enable those mothers to work, then the cost of this should, I submit, be borne where it belongs and not be thrust upon those parents' fellow- ratepayers.—Yours faithfully,
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