Only those who are intimately acquainted with the inside of the elementary school can realise to what an extent the machinery of education has in recent years encroached upon the vital interests of the school and the time and thought of the teacher.

In schools which are administered by business-like and up-to-date Local Authorities, this encroachment is becoming as serious as that of drifting sands on a fertile soil.
Time-tables, schemes of work, syllabuses, record books, progress books, examination result books, and the rest,--hours and hours are spent by the teachers on the clerical work which these mechanical contrivances demand.

And the hours so spent are too often wholly wasted.

The worst of this machinery is that, so long as it works smoothly, all who are interested in the school are satisfied.

But it may all work with perfect smoothness, and yet achieve nothing that really counts.