SIR,—COIM Brogan's excellent account of one per- son's impression of
a secondary modern school was, alas! only too true, and I Mink that it would be true to say that a goodly proportion of grammar- school pupils in many areas, particularly in and around cities, are equally bored, apathetic and even hostile to education, especially if they come from working-class homes. There seem to be few of the Keir Hardie breed left.
Many of these young people are, of course, gravely handicapped by their backgrounds. Their parents in many cases belong to a generation which knows nothing of secondary education and its values and thinks only of quick returns for a young adolescent in some dead-end job. Many of these children go home to empty houses and have to wait about for mum and dad to return from work. Their evenings are spent trying to do homework in com- petition with wireless or television or at the cinema. Youth and sporting clubs do good work for some, but there is a yawning artistic and moral vacuum in many of their lives which is filled only too frequently with the trashiest of popular amusements and the search for excitement in dubious ways.
It is to be hoped that the enthusiasts for com- prehensive education fully realise the probable effect on the cleverer and more sensitive child of being plunged into a vast community largely made up of the kind of pupil described in Mr. Brogan's article.—Yours faithfully, EDUCATIONALIST
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