3 OCTOBER 1896, Page 3

The most satisfactory item in the annual Report of the

London School Board, read on Thursday by the Chairman, Lord Londonderry, is the improvement in the attendance and in the quality of the education sought. Ninety per cent. of the children above five now attend regularly, the parents who have passed through the schools valuing the education more than the previous generation did. The number of children, too, who pass standards above the second has risen from 17 per cent. to 40 per cent., though the standards themselves have been "stiffened." That is excellent, especially if the true cause is, as Lord Londonderry hopes, an increase of receptivity in the taught. All experience shows that the children of the cultivated learn faster than the children of savages in trousers.