All the boys above "Standard III"-- 94 in number--were grouped together, listening, or pretending to listen, to a "chalk-and-talk" lecture on "Prayer" [of which there are apparently five varieties, viz., (1) Invocation, (2) Deprecation, (3) Obsecration, (4) Intercession, (5) Supplication].
The Headmaster explained to me that "of course it was only during the Scripture lesson" that this overgrouping went on.

The lecture on Prayer was given by a young Assistant-master, whose naive delight in the long words that he rolled out _ore rotundo_ and then chalked up on the blackboard, had blinded him to the obvious fact that he was making no impression whatever on his audience.

The boys, one and all, reminded me forcibly of the "white-headed boy" in Dickens' village school, who displayed "in the expression of his face a remarkable capacity of totally abstracting his mind from the spelling on which his eyes were fixed." [8] There are many elementary schools which the Diocesan Inspector does not enter.

In the "Provided" or "Council" Schools "undenominational Bible teaching" takes the place of the "definite dogmatic instruction in religious knowledge" which is tested by Diocesan Inspection.

But even when undogmatic Bible teaching is given, the shadow of an impending examination, external or internal as the case may be, too often sterilises the efforts of the teacher.
Not that the efforts of the teacher would in any case be productive so long as the attitude of popular thought towards the Bible remained unchanged.