Abstract
MR. H. A. L. FISHER, the new President of the vL Board of Education, has not wasted much time in submitting his proposals for educational reform to the Cabinet, with a view to immediate legislation. The most urgent and necessary demand is that the compulsory school age for the children of the elemen tary schools shall be made effective until the age of fourteen at least is reached, and that all exemptions permitting the child to escape from school before that age shall be abolished. One of the greatest impediments in the way of this long-needed reform is to be found in the half-time system which prevails almost entirely in the well-paid texti le districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, to the abolition of which. despite the pleadings of trade-union leaders and of the Workers' Educational Association, the majority of the workers and even some employers are steadily opposed. It is a case where the Government ought to ignore merely political considerations in the best interests of the child and of the nation as a whole, and take a stiung lead. Those concerned with this vital reform must either convert their constituents Or urge the Government to immediate and drastic action.
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Educational Reform . Nature 99, 17 (1917). https://doi.org/10.1038/099017a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/099017a0