THE NEED FOR ECONOMIC TEACHING. [To the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I have read with pleasure the correspondence on the need for Economic teaching. It is clear that the country is awakening to the need of some understanding of all these great problems, and my experience with the Workers' Educa- tional Association and other forms of adult education have shown me how real and genuine is the demand for such teaching amongst many of the wage-earning classes. But it is also very obvious that the type of boy with whom we at the public schools have to deal is not usually very well-informed about subjects connected with finance, taxation, capital and labour, and so forth ; and in the last ten years I have been trying experiments in a small way at Eton to interest these boys in these problems. My efforts have been rewarded with a very genuine keenness on the part of many ; and it does not seem to me too much to suggest that some such teaching should become part of the regular curriculum of many public school boys in their last year or two, before leaving for the Universities, business, or the Army. - The difficulty usually urged is that the existing textbooks on the subject are too difficult. This is not really the case, such books as Professor A. W. Kirkaldy's Wealth, or Mrs. le Mesurier's Common-Sense EcoSomies, to name only two out of many, are well within the grasp of a public school boy, and lead to thought and discussion, suggesting plenty of subjects for Essays.—I am, Sir, &c., Eton College, Windsor.
CUIIIBERT BLAKISTON.
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