directed, of course, principally to establishing a satisfactory system of elementary education. To test the enlightenment of our day, it is possible to put in percentages the education of an average boy, say in a London school. It would seem from this calculation that his time is allotted as follows: 45 per cent to reading and writing English, and to arithmetic; 15 per cent to the threefold study of geography, history, and nature; 18 per cent to the artistic pursuits of drawing, handicraft, and singing; 12 per cent to physical exercises and recreation; 10 per cent to religion. It should be added that the work of a girl is somewhat differently distributed, as she has to give much time to domestic economy and housewifery. A mediæval schoolmaster who taught the seven sciences would have been little edified on hearing of this procedure, and might even have been aghast.
The instruction thus given to the 700,000 children of London, to take them as a sample, may be viewed in another light. They spend twenty-eight hours a week continuously during nine years under fairly satisfactory conditions of air, warmth, and light, engaged in wholesome and stimulating pursuits. Considering what their homes often are, this itself must be reckoned an immense benefit.
It would be an error to conclude from all this that the problems of our elementary education have even yet been solved by the administrative energies of half a century. The warring claims of
