COUNTRY SCHOOL EDUCATION.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin.—Thank you for your splendid article on country school "education" (Spectator, July 24th). The country parson's wife knows bow true it is. May I point to one universal example of misdirected time ? For sixpence I can make two pairs of warm woollen socks in ten days that will last a boy of six all the winter, or one pair of stockings. So could any girl in any cottage in the land. I do not speak of other garments, such as jerseys, which require a slightly, very slightly, higher degree of intelligence. Speaking for my own neighbourhood, I may say that every family, all through the winter, has always
got at least one member thoroughly unwell with a cold. I .do not say this is entirely due to being badly shod, but I do say that if every school-child could have a stout pair of stockings to supplement his boots the tendency of the children to the illnesses bred of colds—bronchitis, rheumatism, adenoids, con- sumption—would be enormously reduced. But does one ever see a child in hand-knit socks P One in five hundred. The other four hundred and ninety-nine pairs of feet are clothed in thin shoddy, which may or may not be in holes. In the mean- time the girls of the family, who could easily supply this want if they were taught and encouraged to knit in school, are busily occupied in learning the relation of the Predicate to the Subject (I think this is the expression) and the correct use of aspirates. Also in drawing in coloured chalks.—I am, Sir, &c., OUTREMER.
P.S.—I am aware that knitting is taught. I only complain that it is taught in such a way that it is not learned.
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