father to
make all the moves, the son might himself hold out a hand and help the
father to understand the changes that had taken place within him. That
is how the matter stands on the boy's side, and it may help some
fathers to know it.

One of our boys, we remember, wanted to discover something at first
hand of the real interests of employees in his father's firm. Whatever
he discovered, it made an excellent holiday interest for him. Among
other things, he attended some W.E.A. lectures, because he found that
the more intelligent men were interested by them. This was a boy of
rather unusual initiative; but we believe there are many boys who would
find a genuine interest in such matters, if the fathers gave them the
lead. Thus the wretched tradition that the holidays are for
unemployment would be gradually broken down, and games would take their
proper place--in holidays and term alike. Perhaps, too, the father on
looking back might find that there had been some "education" in it for
himself also.

The principle from which we started was that the public schools were
full of glorious possibilities, to-day largely unrealised. Is not the
same true of many homes?

APPENDIX

"It is quite evident that the boys have been encouraged to read
periodicals such as _The Nation_ and _The English Review_, and their
articles read like elaborate parodies. There is no particular harm in
allowing a clever boy to do monkey tricks of this type, but there is a
good deal of harm in printing it instead of gently deriding the
self-sufficiency of these youthful oracles."--_Church Times_.

"The most obvious fact about these articles is that the boys are
writing what they mean, and what they want to say, and that they are
able to do so because they feel sure of the community that forms their
audience."--Mr. Kenneth Richmond in _The New Age_.

[Of the three articles that follow, the first was printed in the first
issue of _The School Observer_; the second was written for the
suppressed sixth issue; the last was written on the day after the final
collapse of the whole experiment, and was, of course, never intended
for the paper at all.]

I

EDUCATION AND THE FUTURE

If workmen strike, if employers oppress, if prostitution flourishes, if
paper demagogues are allowed to rule, if poverty exists, if men fight,
whatever evil it is, the remedy lies at the root--education. All
reforms are mere palliatives until the f