Sir,--Is the nation properly alive to the seriousness of the educational
_impasse_ in Herefordshire? Personally I view with alarm the state of
things of which that is a symptom.
What will it mean if this sort of thing spreads, as I fear it may? We
shall have the children of our working-classes growing up ill-educated
and with imperfect manners. Their spelling will become phonetic. They
will cease to speak grammatically. They will lose their pleasing accent.
Their lack of instruction in arithmetic may even lead them into errors
savouring of criminality. Worse, they will fall back in their
appreciation of music, art and poetry. They will be reading trashy and
sensational literature rather than the classical works to which our
elementary education directs their tastes.
To my mind, the condition of things is grave in the extreme, and for the
sake of the children I beg the nation to wake up and put an end to
conditions which make these strikes possible.
Yours obediently,