ONE of the most cheering signs in all grades of education, and not least elementary education, at the present time is the rapid increase of interest of parents in their children’s school life. A generation of married people has arisen to whom their own school life had a real significance as a period when both interests and idealism were aroused, and they are very anxious that their children should have the very best of what the school can give them. Moreover, it is at last appreciated that the school offers opportunities of social and material progress that is almost entirely independent of the financial position of the parents.

50 years ago May 1, 1953

NO one needs reminding, with the American example before us, of the importance of preserving a sense of balance about communists in schools and universities. There is news of a sensible decision of the Minister of Education. The Liverpool education committee referred to her a lecture given by a communist to students of Edge Hill training college. No possible exception can be taken to this lecture. At university and college level it is dangerous to proscribe any political doctrine.

25 years ago May 5, 1978

MAY, 1968, had many of the mythical ingredients with which the French endow their grander moments of history. Looking back, the sequence of local student revolts which disturbed the peace of academe from Berkeley to Berlin in the late 1960s can more easily be seen as symptoms of the end of one era than the beginning of another. The participants were children of the post-war bulge. They came on the scene at the end of an unprecedented period of sustained economic growth and prosperity. In Britain, they could even indulge the luxury of political extremism on full grant.