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We did not hear much about ideals during lunch, as the freedom of conversation granted to the children meant that that indulgence was restricted for their elders. But I was bidden to observe that the principle of feeding at Highmoor was that every child had as much as he could eat of good wholesome food. The idea was to discourage the waste of money at tuck-shopsan unnecessary precaution, I thought, as there was no tuck-shop in the immediate neighbourhood. It also occurred to me that at least one put a limit to the number of buns one ate at Harrow, for fear, if not of indigestion, of that "aes alienum contractum in popina," a phrase of mournful meaning deeply underlined in my Catilinarian Orations; whereas there was no check whatever to the amount of food the Highmoor boys consumedonly genial smiles and a prompt seizing of the ladle greeted their cries for more. This, however, I knew at heart to be captious criticism.

I felt braced by my lunch for further instruction, and put myself into the Head-master's hands to be taken round the school. The slim pink lady bore off Agatha, and I chuckled as I saw them go. Then fresh streams of information poured into my ears. I have a confused impression that each garment worn by each child had been designed by a committee of the whole staff, and was specially suited to his peculiar needs as a sprouting individual and a child of Nature; and that every action of his day, from brushing his teeth to saying his prayers (always supposing that his parents wished him to pray), was under careful supervision. All this dazed me a little; but I recovered to find myself in a carpenter's shop, well fitted up, where one or two boys were working. "No one ever wastes his spare time here," said the Head with pride. "Every child has a hobby." wants one or not?" I asked doubtfully. taste or interest," was his firm reply. discover and develop them.'

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Then he took me the round of the class-rooms, of which I have little to say except that they were spacious and very airy; and that I saw numbers of boys and girls sitting at the feet of men with low collars and soulful eyes, and ladies who all looked like sisters of Agatha's captor. I have no doubt that those children were being very well taught. I had the word of the Head that

the teachers were all enthusiasts, and if they had not had strong personalities they would clearly, according to hypothesis, not have been there. As we returned to the Common Room the Head explained to me that the subjects in the curriculum were all correlated, and that the children who were taught the history of the seventeenth century by a soulful master in one room heard about its literature from an æsthetic mistress in the next. This was to avoid confusion of ideas, and indeed seems to be an excellent arrangement. Doubtless it was my obstinate attachment to that ink-splashed Horace that made me say to myself that I did not want my boys to be spoon-fed all their lives. But the whole expedition had a demoralising effect on my temper. There was something wrong with the air. In the first place there was too much of it, as I mentioned before; and in the second place it was so thickened with principles and ideals that I found it impossible to breathe freely. I thanked my host, would not trouble him to explain the theory on which the games were arranged, and declared my intention of waiting in the Common Room for my wife. Left alone, I became quite heated with sympathy (probably unnecessary) for poor little beggars who had to play cricket according to any theory besides the theory of cricket.

Agatha joined me shortly: she looked distraught. The slim pink lady was still with her, and had the appearance of one who had talked much and desires to talk more. Her yearning eyes, fixing themselves upon me, caused a prickly sensation to run down my spine. I felt sure she was wondering whether I wore the only healthy sort of wool next my skin. "Oh are you ready?" said Agatha hastily. "We must hurry if we are to catch the afternoon train." The reply that hurry would be useless, as the train was already lost, was frozen on my lips by a glance. The slim pink lady, who I daresay thought nothing of trains, was deceived into letting us go, and Agatha swept me off and out into the waiting trap before her persecutor had time to consult the local time-table.

"Never," she said, as we drove off to the station to catch a train which had already left. "Never in my life-time shall Peggy go near that school. You may send Dick and Roland if you like-but not Peggy, not for molten gold!" She

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spoke with terrific emphasis, and I did not even dare to defend myself against her implications. "While they are mending the roof," she told me in a blood-curdling whisper, "the girls are sleeping under the holes, covered by tarpaulins!!" Being in tonch with Nature, I suppose they call that," I said by way of assistance. "What else?" That woman!" said Agatha ; "she curdled my blood." "She was rather overcoming," I admitted; "what did she talk to you about?" "Ideals," said Agatha, "and crass materialism, and individuality, and the beauty of the human form-" "Please explain," I said. "That was when she showed me the swimming baths, and I asked if there weren't any sheds for undressing-Oh, it's all very well," said Agatha in a burst; "Call me hide-bound; call me conventional. Call me anything you like. All I say is Never! never! never!"

Dick and Roland are now at a preparatory school for Harrow. Some day I shall tell them that they owe this to a lady in a crushed-strawberry gown. For myself, I am now in the position, with regard to education, of a man who has been called too early and finds that he can settle down again for another hour in bed. From my sluggard's sheets I offer a few humble suggestions. The first is that I never knew a System that worked in a family, and I do not believe there is one that works at a school. The human boy owes it to himself to evade any System, and I am sure that at least one of those boys whom I saw at work on his hobby would have winked at me if I had given him any encouragement. Secondly, at a public school a boy at least learns that there are some things that a man doesn't do. I like that better, though it is wrong-headed sometimes, than a seething mass of principles connected with the sacredness of his personality. And finally, whenever I remember the voice of Highmoor's Head-master rolling out "the advantages of the correlation of subjects," I silence my conscience by recalling an incident related to me the other day by an unusually honest educationist. I know that anecdote does not prove anything, but sometimes it serves to blunt the sharp edge of theory. It appears that the London County Council had this same bright idea of correlating subjects; so in a certain elementary school the children studied

the snowdrop and its habits, they modelled the snowdrop in clay, they drew pictures of it, they wrote essays on it, and all their sums were worked in snowdrops. Finally an inspector visited the class and asked what it had been doing lately. "They have been learning about the snowdrop," said the teacher, wearily, I suppose. "Ah!" said the bland inspector; "now what can any of you little boys tell me about the snowdrop?" There was silence, except for an indistinct murmur in one corner. "I heard one boy say something. What is it, my little man? Speak up! speak up!" The author of the speech was bashfully silent, but his neighbours answered for him with one voice, "Please, sir, he said, 'Damn the snowdrop!""

M. C.

LORD KITCHENER IN INDIA

ON the 10th of this month Lord Kitchener hands over his high duties as Commander-in-Chief in India to his successor, Sir O'Moore Creagh. His tenure of office has been rendered memorable by its unusually protracted duration, but even more as productive of a controversy which nearly assumed the character of a battle royal between the Viceroy and the Commander-inChief, with the Secretary of State as referee.

Lord Kitchener's appointment was warmly approved by public opinion, but there were not wanting sinister prophets who foretold that he would find himself handicapped by his own masterful temperament and his lack of Indian service. A more substantial disadvantage for the new head of the Indian Army lay in the fact that, by force of circumstances, the office of Commander-in-Chief had of late been virtually in commission. During the latter period of his command Sir William Lockhart had been prevented by failing health from prosecuting his arduous duties with his former vigour, while to his nominal successor, Sir Power Palmer, was hardly accorded the full status of Commanderin-Chief. As an inevitable result the supreme military authority, even in matters affecting the personnel and discipline of the Army, passed into the hands of the Military Member.*

The assertion has often been made by Lord Kitchener's critics that he arrived in India with "preconceived notions" of military policy, and that he proceeded forthwith to advocate drastic changes without waiting to make himself familiar with

An illustration of this may be cited. Sir P. Palmer urgently asked that a member of his staff should be attached to the Somaliland expedition. The granting of the necessary leave for this was prevented by the Military Member, and it remained for Lord Kitchener on assuming office to put into effect his predecessor's earnest and reasonable wish.

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