Geography,

the Conference proposes amendments, but not the amendment that seems to me the most essential—viz., the abolition of the teacher's option in respect to a programme of work in this subject. I do not believe in this option. Let the classes be combined as much as you like, but let all scholars be taken ultimately through a complete systematic course, carefully napped out and imposed by the department. Such a programme cannot be produced without a good deal of thought—sometimes more thought than either teacher or inspector has leisure for. As a matter of fact, therefore, an original scheme of geography for each school generally means an inferior scheme; and, anyway, the exams. in it will never be so appropriate or satisfactory. But all the matters to which I have hitherto referred merely touch the surface of school work, and I have only discussed them by way of page 4 introduction to what I am now to say. I find fault with the Conference because the resolutions at which it arrived fail to grapple with