Report on the Teaching of English in the U.S.A. By
M. Atkinson Williams. (Swan Sonnerischein and Co. 2s. net.)— Miss Williams explains that this volume represents the work done by her as the holder of a Gilchrist Travelling Studentship. And very valuable work it seems to have been. Those who draw up school programmes in this country, and those who carry them out, may alike learn much from it. English, to put the matter briefly, occupies more room in an American than it does in an English time-table. In the grammar-schools of Cambridge, Maas., it had eight and a half hours out of a total of twenty-three and three-quarters, and this does not include the time given to history and geography. On this side arithmetic is preferred to it ; the place is "usurped," thinks Miss Williams, and we are inclined to agree. Only it must be remembered that arithmetic is a subject in which all children "start fair." Enviroinneat does not count, as it does when literature comes on the scene. The detailed criticisms of the book we must leave. Miss Williams saw much to admire, but found some defects. The mixture of races puts the American school at a disadvantage. Much of the English spoken is bad and the spelling often indifferent. And sometimes there is more show than reality in the knowledge acquired. But the average of intellectual activity brought to bear on the subject seems to be greater. Some quite pretty verses are given as specimens. Hero is a stanza from one of them. First we hear of the "bare brown feet Of a girl of the Northern laud," and then of a "Southern boy," and bow they dream of knights and maidens :— " The broad blue sea that stretched between To the girl and boy was naught.
For they crossed and met on Fancy's Bridge O'er childhood's Sea of Thought."
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