Sir John Lubbock reintroduced in the debate of yesterday week
on the Education Vote, his resolution of last year to the effect that " it is desirable to modify the regulations issued by the Committee of Privy Council in such a manner as to give more encouragement lb the teaching of history, geography, ele- mentary social economy, and the other so-called extra subjects, in the elementary schools of the country," and remarked that to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic without teaching anything to which reading and writing are the mere keys, is like rating the knife and fork above the dinner. Mr. Forster's reply virtually was that if the dinner could not be got at without the knife and fork, the knife and fork would be essential conditions of the dinner, and would be very properly insisted on by all dinner-seekers, but he denied that the need of inducing an appetite for the dinner was ignored out of formal regard for the knife and fork. This is indeed the real point, and we fear that the masters of our elemen- tary schools do a little too much forget to cultivate the appetite for knowledge, while teaching the means of gratifying it as soon as it is actually awakened. Mr. Forster, we are sure, sees as clearly as any one that a child once thoroughly interested in some subject to which reading is the only mode of access, will learn to read twice as soon as a child who only groans over the alphabet as a task. An awakened intelligence learns to read in half the time of an unawakened intelligence. Cannot the certified masters and mistresses be made to see that somewhat more distinctly?
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