§ Sir H. BRITTAINasked the President of the Board of Education whether, in view of the great importance of a colloquial knowledge of foreign languages, he can inform the House what is being done to impart this knowledge in the State-aided schools and what languages are being taught?
§ Lord E. PERCYI assume that the hon. Member refers only to modern foreign languages. It is very difficult in ordinary elementary schools to find the sufficient amount of time which is necessary if instruction in foreign languages is to be effective, but instruction in French is given with good results in a number of central elementary schools, and in a few other cases German and Spanish are taught. As regards secondary schools, French is a regular subject of the curriculum, and some schools also provide facilities for the study of German, and, to a lesser extent, of Spanish, Italian and Russian. A pass in at least one foreign language is necessary for a pass in the First Schools Examination. For fuller particulars I would refer the hon. Member to Table 98 of the Board's "Statistics of Public Education, 1920–21." The facilities provided include instruction in the spoken as well as the written language, and attention is always paid to the former side of the instruction, the importance of which was emphasised by the Board in a Circular issued as long ago as 1912.