Mr. Hickling’s article on “Mathematics in the Schools” is a challenge to all those of us who are following the modern tendencies in the teaching of Mathematics. Many good and sufficient reasons have been advanced why Trigonometry, Mechanics and even Calculus should be made available to the average boy before he has passed School Certificate. Experiments have been made, suitable text-books have been published, and the idea has been recognised by examining boards by the introduction of “Additional Mathematics” as an optional subject. Mr Hickling asks us to go back on all this, to damp down the “unfortunate demand for Higher Mathematics”, and to restrict the work to the Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry of thirty years ago. The burden of proof therefore lies with him, and we are entitled to ask whether he is facing the facts.