ABSTRACT
The present system of selection for secondary education rests to a considerable extent on the work of psychologists, on the advice they gave to the Hadow and Spens Committees, on the weaknesses they have demonstrated in conventional school examinations and teachers' assessments, and on the alternative attainments and intelligence tests they have devised. But although current controversy and criticism often focus upon their contributions, it is entirely false to regard the problems of selection merely as a matter of psychological techniques. Cheapness was also a prime consideration with the School Board and Local Authority elementary and higher-grade schools. Some of the latter developed excellent experimental programmes among their older pupils, and this was encouraged by the Hadow Report in 1926; but the majority merely provided a dull continuation of the elementary curriculum to keep the children busy until they went to work. Generalization about working-class opinion is more difficult, since evidence is meagre, having little empirical basis.
