The salary of assistant teachers in the London special schools is L10 a year more than the salary such assistants would be getting in the ordinary Council schools.  This extra pay only obtains until the normal maximum salary of assistant mistresses is reached, i.e., L150, so that the monetary advantage is confined to reaching the maximum a little earlier than would otherwise be the case.  With regard to head teachers, the extra salary varies with the size of the school, L10 being allowed for a one-class centre, L20 for a two-, three-, or four-class centre, and L30 for a five- or six-class centre.  Schools of six classes are unusual; the majority of schools contain three or four classes.  Elder mentally defective boys from several neighbouring schools are frequently grouped together in a special centre under masters, and there are a few schools specially for elder mentally defective girls, naturally under mistresses.  For elder physically defective girls there are centres in London where they may be specially trained in blousemaking and fine needlework.  These centres have, in addition to an ordinary teacher, a trade mistress duly qualified in the particular branch of work undertaken.  The age of compulsory retirement from teaching in special schools is sixty-five, as in the case of ordinary schools.  For both branches of the service married women are eligible.  The hours of work in mentally defective schools are from 9.30 to 12 and from 2 to 4.  In physically defective schools the hours are nominally from 9.30 to 12, and 1.30 to 3, but in practice they are longer, as the children begin to arrive at school in their ambulances by 8.45, and in the afternoon the last children rarely leave till an hour after the time of stopping actual lessons.  It is usual to arrange things so that the teacher who comes “early” one week, is free to come “late” the next, and it is also usually taken in turns to stay late in the afternoons.  The short dinner recess is due to the fact that most of the children necessarily have their dinner at school, so there is no reason to allow the usual two hours for going home and coming back.  During the dinner-hour the children are in charge of the school nurse and the ambulance attendants.

Work in both sorts of special school has its own particular difficulties.  One great drawback is the impossibility of adequate classification.  In a small three-class centre, there will be children from five years old up to sixteen years.  That, of course, in physically defective schools means that the work usually divided among all the classes of an ordinary infant school must be done in the lowest class, the second class must take the work of standards I. to III., while the highest class must take that of standards IV. to VII.  It is true that the special schools have a great advantage over ordinary schools in that the classes never contain more than twenty-five children, but even granted the small numbers, the need for taking