the solution of this problem such subjects as gymnastics, games,
dancing, needlework, cooking, and domestic economy will come in as a
welcome relief from the more directly intellectual studies, and
equally as a relief to the conscientious but hard-pressed woman who is
trying to save her pupils from the evils of unoccupied time on the one
hand and undue mental pressure on the other.

Boys, and to a less extent girls, attending elementary schools who
leave at fourteen are not likely to suffer in the same way or from the
same causes. One of the difficulties in their case is that they leave
school just when work is becoming interesting and before habits of
study have been formed, indeed before the subjects taught have been
thoroughly assimilated, and that therefore in the course of a few
years little may be left of their painfully acquired and too scanty
knowledge. Free education has been given to the children of the poor
for nearly fifty years, and yet the mothers who were schoolgirls in
the seventies and eighties appear to have saved but little from the
wreck of their knowledge except the power to sign their names and to
read in an imperfect and blundering manner.

Here, too, there are many problems to be solved, one among them being
the great necessity of endeavouring to correlate the lessons given in
school to the work that the individual will have to perform in after
life. It would appear as if the girls of the elementary schools, in
addition to reading, writing, and simple arithmetic, sufficient to
enable them to write letters, to read books, and to keep simple
household accounts, ought to be taught the rudiments of cookery, the
cutting out and making of garments, and the best methods of cleansing
as applied to houses, household utensils and clothing. In addition,
and as serious subjects, not merely as a recreation, they should be