24 MARCH 1961, Page 5

Next Week

'There is something which, like a malig- nant disease, is eating away the enthusiasm and successfully preventing all of us from doing anything like the work we arc capable of.' What the 'something' is can be judged from the UNESCO figures for public education in different parts of the world, which show that the UK's expendi- ture is only a quarter per head of the Russians' and the Americans' and substan- tially less than the West Germans' or the French. But the bare statistics make little impact; and in next week's Spectator Charles Brand discusses their implications to a teacher of English in the sixth form of a grammar school—a case history which is both enlightening and disturbing.