The B.B.C. has recently issued its - third" inquiry pamphlet" into "The
Evidence Regarding Broadcast Speech Training." Mr. Lloyd James, -the broadca-st teacher selected by the Central Council for School Broadcasting, declares that the aim of a speech training course should be " to provide the children with the opportunity of acquiring another speech outfit, in case circumstances arise in the, child's career when a new speech outfit may be of greater value than a clean collar." To make children thus bi-lingual is perhaps a laudable aim, but I for one cannot help feeling a. considerable antipathy to the procrustean tactics necessary for its fulfilment. It may be conservative of me, but I find it hard to resist a smile when I read, in this report, such comments as the following : " No improvement in playground speech, but marked improve- ment in reading,' or The children can imitate Mr. Lloyd :fames in -single sounds but revert to local pronunciation when it comes to sentences." Local Speech is as natural as local weather and I cannot help viewing with distaste the day when every child, from Land's End to John o' Groats speaks the same broadcast English.
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