And all the time he is secretly longing to energise--to do something with himself--to use his mental, if not his physical faculties--to work, if not to play.

One might have thought that in the history and geography lessons, if in no other, "Standards VI" and "VII" (where the numbers were too small to admit of these standards having a teacher to themselves) would be separated from "Standard V," and allowed to work out their own salvation by studying suitable text-books under proper supervision and guidance.

But no; the force of habit is too strong for the machine-made teacher.

Twenty years ago history and geography were "class subjects," and as such were taught orally to whole classes of children.

And they must still be taught as "class subjects," even if this should involve the "Sixth" and "Seventh Standards" being brigaded with, and kept down for one or even two years to, the level of the "Fifth,"-- kept down, it would seem, for no other purpose than that of being the passive recipients of the teacher's windy "talk," and the helpless witnesses of his futile "chalk," and of having their own activities paralysed and their own powers of expression starved into inanition.
I will deal with one more "secular" subject before I bring this sketch to a close.