er's judgment. He
believes in him so little that he thinks it simply does not matter what
happens in the class-room, provided the boy seems to enjoy himself--how
many parents really _know_ whether their boys do enjoy themselves at
school?--and provided the house master is not actively complaining.

Now, there is only one hope, and that is that the parents should come
to look at this matter of their son's education politically.
School-time is a training, and we are all familiar enough with the idea
of training now. Before the war, as since, schools had their O.T.C.'s.
But these O.T.C.'s were wretched perfunctory affairs, boring everybody,
because we hardly any of us seriously envisaged them as a training,
only as an incubus. Now, we all see them as training for a part that
has got to be played, and the whole spirit is different. But the
country will soon be calling upon our public school boys to play
another and perhaps even more difficult part, and where is the training
for that? When the war is won we shall plunge into another maelstrom;
and it will all be politics, politics, politics. The leaders of labour
have roughly charted their course; they mean to make a new world for
the masses whether we like it or not, and they mean in the main right.
But what part are the public school men going to play? It is an
extremely difficult position, and the difficulties crop up not only in
the details, of which only mature experience can give a knowledge, but
in the elementary principles regulating our outlook, our attitude. And
that is where the public schools could come in with irresistible effect
if only they would brace themselves to the task. "Your king and
country need you," said the old recruiting poster of 1914. "Good God!
have they never wanted me till now?" was the natural rejoinder. In any
case they will not cease to want the public school boy when the war is
over.

In this task the parents must co-operate. The normal father, we are
told, will object if his son brings home opinions other than his own.
But, in sober truth, if the son brings home the same opinions as the
fathers have always held, we are in a poor way. It was the fathers and
the grandfathers who brought the world to its present pass. It is the
sons who, starting with new principles from new beginnings, have got to
set it on a better road. The _Saturday Review_ and _The Westminster
Gazette_ offer us, in the quotations at the head of this chap