MEMORANDUM SUBMITTED BY MR. A. E. PALFERY ON THE SCHEME FOR THE CIRCULATION OF BOOKS IN LONDON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 1. As the result of suggestion made at two Conferences held by the London County Council in 1906 and 1908 on the teaching of English in elementary schools, an experiment in the interchange of reading books was made in a few selected schools. By 1912, the experiment had been extended to 15 of the electoral areas into which London is divided. A report by the Inspectors of the Board of Education on the supply of books in London Schools (1913) stimulated the further extension of the scheme, which has now (May 1920) been brought into operation throughout the whole of the administrative county. 2. The scheme, in its present form, is under the control of the teachers themselves through the Local Consultative Committees of head teachers. In each of the 61 electoral areas, there are two of these Committees composed respectively of (a) the Headmasters, and (b) the Headmistresses of all schools in the area. In several areas, the two Committees, and here and there the Committees of adjacent areas, have combined for the administration of the scheme. Certain of the larger Consultative Committees have appointed for this purpose a small executive sub-committee. The total number of Local Committees for the administering of the scheme is 93. " As a first step in the application of the scheme to a group of schools, a catalogue was compiled of the books already in the possession of the schools in each area and deemed suitable for inclusion in the scheme. The books included were those commonly known in the schools as Supplementary or Continuous Readers," that is to say, story books"; text books, historical, geographical and science readers," and poetry books were excluded. The catalogue, when completed, was typed by the Authority, and a copy sent to each school. Working with this catalogue in hand, Head Teachers furnished the local Committee with a list of the Isets" of the books they desired, giving alternatives in case their first choices were unobtainable owing to the demands of other schools. In order that the scheme might be fairly elastic the local Committee were authorised to requisition additional sets of books which appeared to be in general demand, and also additional copies to make up small sets to the size required by the schools which had asked for them. In the end a full list of the books assigned to each school, to meet its demands as far as possible, was drawn up by the Committee, and on the warrant of this list the Authority provided the necessary transport. to convey the books from school to school. As a rule, exchanges are made twice yearly. 3. The average number of sets of books now in use is three per class in the upper classes and four per class in the lower classes, the books suited to the lower classes being as a rule shorter and more rapidly read. Individual schools are not limited to this number if additional books are available. When the total number of "sets" included in the area catalogue is insufficient to meet the needs of the schools, a requisition from the local Committee for further sets is certain of a favourable reception by the Authority. As most of the books supplied are suitable for use in more than one class, the number available for any class is considerably greater than the three or four allotted to it in the first instance. In some areas, where a majority of schools have adopted a system of " sectional " teaching, composite" sets have been formed, containing, say, ten copies of each of four books of similar standard, or six copies of eight titles, instead of a large number of copies of one book. By this means the variety of books available for each child is considerably increased. Provision is made thus for the study of particular books by a class as a whole and at the same time for the study of others by individual scholars. It is in the discretion of Head Teachers to allow books to be taken away for home reading. 4. In practice it has been found that the deterioration of the books is much less rapid than was anticipated. The reading habit fostered by the scheme has doubtless brought about a respect for books which leads to greater care being taken of them. When a " set of books is certified by a local Committee to be no longer in fit condition for circulation, permission is given by the Authority for the set to be written off." The books contained in that set may then, at the discretion of the Head Teacher concerned, be sold to the children at a small price, given away, or disposed of as waste paper. A certain number of the books included in the original catalogues have been found by experience to be lacking in interest, or too difficult, or otherwise unsuitable for reading in elementary schools. These have been withdrawn from the scheme, and in most cases it has been possible to transfer them with advantage to the loan collection of books for use in Evening Institutes. Provision has been made for the disinfection or, when necessary, the destruction of any books which have been handled by children found to be suffering from contagious or infectious diseases, and no trouble appears to have arisen from this source. 5. The general verdict of the Head Teachers upon the scheme is strongly in its favour. Some few schools which had accumulated an exceptionally good stock of books felt at first that they were being called upon to sacrifice their advantages to supply the deficiencies of others, and it is still sometimes complained that books which are particularly required to illustrate some portion of the schemes of work are not procurable at the time when they are most needed. Again, as the total number of sets in any area is only just sufficien to provide each school with its due quota, it may happen that sets for which a school has not asked have to be substituted for some of those demanded, and it is occasionally found that some of these are duplicates of those provided at the previous distribution. 6. The Authority has, however, done its best to remedy any cause of complaint of this character, and it is probable that these disadvantages will be reduced to a minimum as the distributing organisation is improved by experience and the selection of books for inclusion in the catalogues becomes more suited to the needs of the schools. In any case it would seem that such objections as are found are far outweighed by the immense gain in the scope of the reading matter now rendered available, by which there can be no doubt that the children have been very greatly benefited. It is certain also that the existence of the circulating scheme has enabled the London schools to surmount with a minimum of inconvenience the difficulties caused by the shortage of books during the war, and their greatly increased price. In this connection also it is interesting to note that, whereas in the first instance the scheme was applied to the upper standards only, it was soon realised by the various Committees of Head Teachers that it was equally valuable to the lower classes, and it is now applied to all classes in all areas. 7. There can be no doubt that great strides in the knowledge of English have been made during recent years by London Elementary Schools, an improvement which may be traced in great measure to the increased facilities for reading afforded by the scheme. This view is not merely one formed by inspectors from their visits to schools; it is also the judgment of external examiners who are concerned with scholarship examinations. A few figures will show the magnitude of the scheme :- The books may be classified in three groups :- B. Those in moderate or irregular demand. The following is a list of books in Class A, arranged in order of popularity: Tales and Stories from Shakespeare, Robinson Crusoe, Arthurian Legends, Peter Pan, David Copperfield, Tale of Two Cities, Christmas Carol, Water Babies, Ivanhoe, Tales of Robin Hood, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Treasure Island, Westward Ho! John Halifax, Gentleman, Tom Brown's Schooldays, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Arabian Nights, Andersen's Fairy Tales, Gulliver's Travels, Esop's Fables, King of the Golden River, White Company, Coral Island, Mrs. Molesworth's Story of a Short Life, Children of the New Forest, Hereward the Wake, Oliver Twist, Stories from Chaucer, Micah Clarke, Kingsley's Heroes, Settlers in Canada, Granny's Wonderful Chair, Pickwick Papers, Silas Marner, Tales of the Fairies, Sindbad the Sailor, Old Greek Stories, Stories from Dickens, Black Arrow, Three Monkeys, Cranford, Deeds that Won the Empire, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin, Stories from the Faerie Queene, Cinderella, Barnaby Rudge, Shackleton in the Antarctic, Story of Raleigh. APPENDIX IV. MEMORANDUM SUBMITTED BY THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON GRAMMATICAL REFORM. We, the undersigned members of the Standing Committee on Grammatical Reform, beg leave to call attention to the movement which we represent and to ask the Departmental Committee on English to take cognizance of it in its Report. It is probable that the study of English in all its branches will occupy a central position in the educational schemes of the future for English speaking peoples: the need of a movement in this direction was emphasized by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in his address to the British Association (Educational Science Section) on the " Teaching of English" on September 9th last. Now grammar is a study in which it is of prime and even vital importance to assign a central position to English. The concepts of grammar are best approached in connection with the mothertongue; for grammar cannot be studied inductively when the concrete examples on which the rules are based are given in an unknown language. It is true that English suffers somewhat as a medium for teaching general grammar owing to its comparative poverty of inflexions. Nevertheless English grammar can be made to serve perfectly as a centre round which the grammars of other languages of our family may be grouped; for all the fundamental concepts of Indo-European grammar—including the notions of case, tense, and mood-can be sufficiently illustrated by English examples. But English grammar loses much of its value as a gateway to the study of foreign tongues if it is expressed, as it generally is, in terms for which other terms are substituted in the case of every new language taken up; the resulting waste of time and brainpower produces in the learner discouragement and even disgust. To remedy this evil a Joint Committee* was called into existence in 1909, the object of which was to work out a common system * Representing the Classical Association, The Modern Language Association, The English Association, The Incorporated Association of Head Masters, The Association of Head Mistresses, The Incorporated Association of Assistant Masters in Secondary Schools, The Incorporated Association of Assistant Mistresses in Public Secondary Schools, and The Association of Preparatory Schools. |