ABSTRACT
The origins of the elementary school were altogether humbler and its curriculum more Spartan. Where the grammar school taught Latin, French, English literature and mathematics, the elementary school taught reading, writing and arithmetic. The central schools and senior departments, like the secondary schools, will give a humane and general education. If the two traditions represented by the academic grammar school and the non-academic ex-elementary school have showed signs of drawing closer together, it has been under the pressure of examination requirements – a pressure which in turn can only be accounted for in terms of a growing demand for vocational skills and qualifications. The work of the schools has to be related to the requirements of the many and varied establishments of higher and further education to which many of the pupils will go on leaving school, and to the training arrangements and entry requirements of a wide range of professional bodies and of employers generally.
