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This article analyses the impact of World War I upon elementary school practice, using Hertfordshire as a major case study. It challenges the wisdom of over-emphasising the much-publicised sections in the 1918 Education Act devoted to the ill-fated continuation schools and neglecting the less well-known clauses that successfully promoted practical instruction, technical education, physical education and the school medical service. It argues that the Act should be seen as the last in a long series extending, refining and controlling the working class element in a socially divisive education system, rather than a serious attempt to create significantly greater equality of opportunity. From the moment hostilities commenced, elementary schools were totally subordinated to the economy. Staffing was reduced, child labour soared and lessons became increasingly patriotic, practical and vocational. Most people of influence, such as major rural and urban employers, county councillors and education committee members, delighted in the changes. For years most of them had sought greater local intervention in school affairs in order to reduce costs and to enhance domestic, agricultural, workshop and factory skills in the future workforce. They went to great pains to ensure these features survived the war, and they were conspicuously successful.