Perhaps the chief cause of stumbling lay in the fact that there was no clearly realised aim or policy except that of material results.  There were many fine-sounding principles in the air, but they were unrelated to each other; and the conditions of teaching were likely to crush the finest endeavours, and to make impossible a teaching that could be called educative.

CHAPTER XV

THE INFANT SCHOOL OF TO-DAY

Taking neither the best nor the worst, but the average school of to-day, it will be profitable to review shortly where it stands, to consider how far it has learnt the lessons of experience, and what kind of ideal it has set before itself.

In externals there have been many improvements.  Modern buildings are better in many ways; there is more space and light, and the surroundings are more attractive.  Most of the galleries have disappeared, but the furniture consists chiefly of dual desks, fixed and heavy, so that the arrangement of the room cannot be changed.  The impression given to a visitor is that it is planned for listening and answering, except in the Baby Room, where there are generally light tables and chairs, and consequently no monotonous rows of children, unless a teacher arranges them thus from sheer habit.  In each room is a high narrow cupboard about one quarter of the necessary size for all that education demands; most education authorities provide some good pictures, but the best are usually hung on the class-room wall behind the children, and all are above the children’s eye level.  “Oh, teacher, my neck do ache!” was the only appreciative remark made by a child after a tour made of the school pictures, which were really beautiful.

As a rule the windows are too high for the children to see from, and the lower part is generally frosted.  In a new school which had a view up one of the loveliest valleys in Great Britain, the windows were of this description; the head of the school explained that it was a precaution in case the children might see what was outside; in other words, they might make the mistake of seeing a real river valley instead of listening to a description of it.

In country schools of the older type the accommodation is not so good, but the newer ones are often very attractive in appearance, and have both space and light.  The school garden is a common feature in the country, and it is to be regretted so few even of the plot description are to be found in town schools.

Of late years the apparatus has improved, though there is still much to be done in this direction.  Instead of the original tiny boxes of gifts we have frequently real nursery bricks of a larger and more varied character, and many other nursery toys.  One of the best signs of a progressive policy is that large numbers of little toys have taken the place of the big expensive ones that only an occasional child could use.  It is a pity that the use of toys comes to so sudden an end, and that learning by this method does not follow the babies after they have officially ceased to be babies, as is the custom in real life.