Dr. L. clu Garde Peach, the famous BBC. playwright, has made himself highly "popular with the present, generation of children by declaring at 4 prize-giving in, the North of England, at which be presided, that it he had his way he would lead a revolution to abolish all homework, and make examinations illegal. Hav-, Ing got the school, to a boy, on: his. side "he proceeded' to say that, how grown up visitors to schools ever had the nerve to tell schoolboys that their school days. were their happiest was beyond belief. For himself, he declared himself devoutly thanicful that his were over.
Dr. Peach certainly did his little best to sow seeds of revolution among, school children, for he warned them against accepting facts merely on the teacher's unproven word. He thoroughly amused the children, and for once, a, prize-giving was bright and sparkling, and the youngsters rely in agreement with the [speaker for the afternoon.
"Have you ever wakened in the night and thought that the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are ked. "Have you ever thought what an awful thing it would be if they weren't? Do you think it would matter? As a matter of fact you cam take it from me that it wouldn't really matter if all these things worked the other way round. Why then do they want you to come to school to learn things ike that?
Dr. Peach contended that facts did! not matter. He himself, he said, had had all sorts of facts punched and poked into him, and now he was a Doctor of Philosophy. He added: "When you are a Doctor of Philosophy it means that they have gone on felling you things for so long, and you are so full of facts that they can't Ret another into you with dynamite. But, what good fs it all?"
"The speaker added, however, that! the real reason why children went to school was so that they might become decent citizens who would not make life a burden to anyone else, and who would not be a danger to the community.
Much that the Doctor said would meet with the thorough accord of every boy under sixteen, but, with all Jdue respect to the speaker's superior experience one would venture to sugfgest that orthodox schooling has Uses. After all, children with grow: Ing minds must have some sort mental exercise and discipline, and if boys are not employed in working, lout Euclid' it sometimes happens that they fill in vagrant moments by learning how to get into slot machines: without first bulting in the coin. We have read of truant children breaking into gas meters in empty houses and extracting pennies, or of stealing apples from. fruit sialls, and it seems fo me that they might better be: wrestling with the subject of the: square on the hypotenuse than illegal ly with stot meters.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.