Jan, 7.
"The remark made by Robert Lynd in the article on "The Higher Slang," quoted in our pages a few days ago, that knowledge of the familiar quota tions from great literature which have become household ids serves to remind us that we have ancestors," recalls the statement made some years ago by a missionary that "at a cor~ tain festival the Chinese offered to those ancestors wh had no descendants." It is recorded that a committee of the Board of Education have overed that English children no longer know such phrases as "a barren fig tree," "a mess of pottage" ete, 'The presumption is that the classical litera ture of our language is not now taught in schools, or taught so intermittently and inadequately that the pupils' minds are not stored with the music of great prose. This, which is a very serious omission, must be, in great measure, the fault of the Board of Education itself. For the curriculum in public schools is conducted according to schedule and the schedule is, perforce, designed to enable the pupils to pass the approved ruinations which the Board inoists shall be taken, as proof that the teaching is efficient and that the range of subjects covers the requirements laid down by itself. The tests set for the Cambridge Local Examinations, held here not many days aga, necessitated a period of seven days' work by those taking part. 'To be sure, no scholar sat for every paper set but, on the average, each candidate did five full days' grind, This was a severe test of physical fitness and it speaks well for the stamina of the youth of Shany-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.