but now they
are merged together into something that seems to be permanent.

In a bleak Lanarkshire factory village in the south of Scotland, Robert
Owen, millowner, socialist and Welshman, found that unless he could
provide for the education of the children of his factory hands, no
parents would consent to settle in the district and he would be without
workers in his mill. As a consequence Owen found himself in the position
of education authority, privy purse and organiser, and he did not flinch
from the situation; he imposed no cheap makeshift, because he believed
in education as an end and not as an economic means; a twofold
institution was therefore established by him in 1816, one part for the
children of recognised school age, presumably over six, and one for
those under school age, whose only entrance test was their ability to
walk. It is with the latter that we are concerned.

The instructions given by Owen to the man and the women he chose for
his Infant School may serve to show his general aim; the babies under
their care were above all to be happy, to lead a natural life, outdoor
or indoor as weather permitted; learning their surroundings, playing,
singing, dancing, "not annoyed with books," not shadowed by the needs of
the upper school, but living the life their age demanded. In the light
of the 1918 Education Bill this seems almost prophetic.

Their guardians were selected solely on the grounds of personality, and
expected to work in the spirit in which Owen conceived the school. They
were gentle, without personal ambition, fond of children, caring only
for their welfare; but the sole guiding principle was Owen, and this was
at once the success and doom of the school, for the personality of Owen
was thus made the pivot round which the school revolved; without him
there was nothing to take hold of.

Very soon the experiment became known: persons with the stamp of
authority came to see it, and even official hearts were moved by the
reality of the children's happiness and their consequent development.
The visitors felt, rather than knew, that the thing was right.
Arrangements were made to establish similar institutions in London, and
after one or two experiments, a permanent one was founded which was
under the control of a man named Wilderspin.

Wilderspin's contribution to education is difficult to estimate;
certainly he never caught Owen's spirit, or realised his simple purpose:
he had ambitions reachin