of life, whether in the region of original thought or in the busy traffic of men and things is to put no slur upon the mighty bookmen that have been. The best of them used or made books, and did not let them use or make him. And where are your historians, from the makers of earliest epic down to the latest biographer, apart from the life they witness? For the fabric of their chronicle is wrought of the deeds of men, so that however noble the record they make, or the prophecy either, life itself, and not its recital, is still the stuff of their say. Moreover there are many who feel that the more intense is the glow of romance, and the more ideal the portraiture, only by so much the more near comes that showing forth to the real figure of life, quick and working. But because doing comes before saying, or, coming after, is greater nevertheless, I do not deny the poet the highest place in the hierarchy of men of power; but I put him first as a maker, a creator, which supposes things still to be, and not as a recorder, a mere repository of a gleaming past.

The world goes on, and the life of each individual with it, not in telling what has been done, nor in saying what yet remains to do, but in the present doing of present deeds. Let the reader squirm if he will because I labour the obvious; I will writhe, too, because for all our knowledge we do not act on it; power runs to waste, and the water overflows the wheel it will not turn. A moment's thought, a pause to recall old faded realizations, will tell you at once what is lacking. It is the will to do. We do not feel what we know; that is, we have not the will to translate power into deeds.

Interest must be the starting-point in all we do, or we shall not do well. The best expression of one's thought is the use of the right words in their fullest sense, the unfolding of the latent philosophy in words. I can make no clearer exposition of my thesis than may be found in the true reading of the terms here in use. Interest is "what matters," the one thing needful. You may call it "interessence, if you will; that is, the being at the very heart of the matter. Once there you have only to do as interest bids. The operation of interest is Play. To do anything with interest, to get at the heart of the matter and live there active--that is Play. You need not ask how we are or the one mosi interest, for it is the heart's desire we are born

with. There is no truth but the old truth: interest is only what your hand finds to do, and play is but doing it with your might. Consider what pedagogy is doing for the child. This elfish little being with itching fingers and restless feet, full of curiosity and a desire to investigate; this quaint embodiment of wonder, this ache of instinctive longing, is taught to read before he can word his questions intelligibly, is given information on subjects which have no interest for him, while yet his real wants remain unsatisfied; is set to pore upon the thrice-diluted opinions of others rather than allowed to try anything for himself. He is bound over to letters in defiance of the spirit, and of the play-call of nature which alone speaks with authority and not as the scribes.

For fear of a possible misunderstanding I must here most definitely dissociate the Play Way and myself from any who decry study and belittle the value of books. We yield to none in our love of and faithfulness to literature. Our complaint is against that pedantic misuse of books which represents the greater part of what is called education at the present time.

Why this everlasting slavery to books? The defenders of the old regime protest that there is much virtue in your book. Certainly it is the storehouse of wisdom, and treasures up the achievement of old time. But to what end? Is there not virtue also in your boy? I say the boy shall master the book; but not if he is bound a slave to it. Where is the boy to find the real experience of his life if not in his own doing and thinking? You give him moulds for his brick-making, and overseers, and models and straw. But you give him no clay.

I sometimes feel that the best models for school-books are those manuals of conjuring wherein nothing is intelligible until you set to work upon the apparatus; or dance-books full of impossible jargon which must be translated into action before it can have meaning and delight; or cookery-books which satisfy neither hunger nor curiosity until the pudding is madethe proof of which is always in the eating."

For one boy who has gained any knowledge at school through the experience of his own senses, five hundred-nay, five thousand-have been deluded with the shadow of knowledge cast in the form of some one else's opinion. That one lad is generally "a lazy good-for-nothing scoundrel.

I should like to take up the discussion of the scholar's mental content. How much of the learning he possesses is of any value at all as his own; and how far does he merely exist in handing on the conclusions of other men as he has taken them over entire? I fear that many a famous scholar is no better than a shopful of ready-made goods.

The sad condition of our schools is mainly owing to the teachers' unthinking compliance with a rotten tradition. The defence of those who have given thought to the matter of booklearning amounts to no more than this: "The individual child cannot try over again for himself all the experience of the ages, and therefore he must study the record of the past." But this study, to have any value, must persuade the child to live over again, briefly in his imagination, the ages gone by; and my simple contention is that the child be allowed to express his imaginings in the manner that most appeals to him, the way that is most natural. This will be the Play Way, with the high thoughts and noble endeavour of that super-reality which is make-believe.

It comes in the end to this: Why should we stop a game now going on in order to dictate the rules of another which we do not intend shall ever be played? Why call in Robin Hood and the Redskins and the Pirate Captain from the playground to read of Luther, or even of Cœur de Lion?

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But we have pretty pictures in our books."

"Ah, yes, so we have. And here is a man wielding a sword just like the one you made me leave in the lobby. Please may I go and fetch it ?"

"No, you may not."

"But, please, sir

"Get on with your work."

Old habits of mind are not easily broken. You are convinced, are you not, that school is a place of learning to which a boy must come in order that he may learn? But it is not so in truth. The boy is first. Again, you have told your pupils very often-have you not?" You must remember that you come here to work." Quite apart from the mean way in which the whole question is thus settled without reference to the wishes of the one most concerned, this point of view is entirely wrong.

What the Greeks called σxoλń, and the Romans ludus, can only be expressed in English by the word play.

Once you realize that the teacher only exists for the learner, once you believe that the soul of any other being entrusted to your care is greater than the furniture of your own mind, once this belief in you reaches the level of a faith, then, believe me, the mountain of your learning and self-sufficiency is easily removed and brought to the feet of the prophet.

In religion, in philosophy, in poetry, in politics, in all the affairs of men that go far enough to require a guide, there is every now and then a revolution. The flow of human thought is subject to deep-reaching disturbance from time to time. Numerous causes co-operate to produce a periodical troubling of the waters, a welter in which the principles of all human concern are involved. At such a time faiths are transformed, new ideals set up, and the hope of millions set in another direction. Fused in the heat of active change, institutions lose their character, and creeds, doctrines, and opinions are all melted and remodelled. Nothing passes scatheless through the fire, and the world, as man has made it, is created anew.

If this spirit of revolution could be summed up in a phrase. it would be found always to represent a clearing away of encrusted dogma, a breaking from bondage grown irksome, an upsetting of the tables of authority, and a restatement of direction and aim. But, to the great joy of all true believers, the new ideals are only revivals of the old, stripped of base accretion; the new heaven and the new earth are those of the old creation, only cleansed by the flood. Your true revolutionary is only a conservative endowed with insight.

The seer brings his vision to the market-place, and urges the people to destroy their city and rebuild it. They do so, but live on in these new homes, adding from time to time a coat of paint or a crust of stucco, and still calling them new until reawakened by the coming of another seer.

Though it would be unwise to prophesy any definite changes which the war will bring about in education, yet it is possible for us to recognize even now its cathartic action, and to feel that