Where it has died out the idea of teaching oral composition has too often died with it.
Young children are, as a rule, voluble talkers, with a considerable command of language.

But it not infrequently happens that at the close of his school life the once talkative child has lapsed into a state of sullen taciturnity.

In common with other vital faculties, his power of expressing himself in speech has withered in the repressive atmosphere to which he has so long been exposed.
It is in the oral lesson that one would expect oral composition to be taught or at any rate practised.

In such subjects as _History_, _Geography_, _English_, _Elementary Science_, the teaching in most elementary schools is mainly, if not wholly, oral.

In the days of payment by results separate and variable grants were given for these subjects; and which, if either, of two grants should be recommended depended in each case on the result of an oral examination conducted by H.M.Inspector, the employment of a written test in any class being strictly forbidden by "My Lords." In this examination proof of the possession of information was all that the inspector could demand; and the quickest and easiest way of obtaining such proof was to ask the class questions which could be briefly answered by the children individually.