A block education officer writes: 'The evening study centre raised the share of pupils passing in the coastal block from 61 in every hundred to 78 in three years. We should open one here and expect the same.' The officer's reasoning is most open to criticism on the ground that it

The officer's only evidence is what happened somewhere else, and that evidence carries over only so far as the two blocks are alike in whatever made the centre work — evening electricity, the distance children walk home, the hours they are needed at home. None of this is examined. Nobody's testimony or interest is relied on, 'pass' keeps one meaning throughout, and the officer never suggests the centre would be free.