of ordinary elementary schools provided most of the nation's industrial and agricultural workers and fighting men. Inexorably, and perhaps inevitably, during the four years of continual crisis these schools sought to inculcate attitudes that would strengthen national resolve and to intensify activities contributing materially to the war effort. Indeed, the schools became totally subject to the demands of war, and rightly so in most people's eyes. This paper identifies the relentless subordination of the predominantly working-class elementary schools to the needs of wartime nation? al efficiency and shows how this process placed them in high public favor. Then it argues, far more controversially, that this phenomenon led directly to a dramatic increase in the practical and vocational dimensions of elementary school work after the Armistice, a process encouraged by the 1918 Education Act itself. As historians emphasize so often, major sections of this Act, notably those introducing the part-time day continuation classes for elementary school pupils, remained virtual dead letters due to the postwar slump in both interest and economic fortunes. The same historians generally fail to note, let alone explain, the continuing national interest in the expansion of practical and vocational education David H. Parker is principal lecturer in history, Faculty of Arts and Education, University of Plymouth, Devon, U.K. All HRO HEdl and HEd2 references are to Hertfordshire school logbooks except where stated otherwise.