of its educational
worth such as we never dreamt of, and here again the pioneer was not
ourselves but a boy, and that boy not one of the group that had started
the paper. This boy, who had recently become head of his House,
conceived the idea that politics could become the medium of the same
spirit of joyous and unforced co-operation as is traditionally (and
sometimes actually) associated with athletics. His idea of a school
house was of a vigorous and jolly community, living together on terms
of friendly equality such as reduced fagging and the oligarchial
"prefect system" to a minimum, and uniting in a real effort to keep
abreast with the great world outside by means of a co-operative study
of politics and the Press. The idea will seem mere foolishness and an
impossibility to many of those who did not see it actually at work. At
the best it will seem the kind of thing we may have read of in books
about "freak schools," where so much loss has obviously to be set
against whatever is gained. In this case, not only the idea, but all
the practical details came from the boy himself and the little band of
enthusiasts that gathered round him. Indeed, one feels a sense of
impropriety in describing what was essentially not our work, but his.
However, it was the fine flower of political education, and as such may
fitly close this chapter. "Houses," after all, and not "forms," are
the natural social units that compose a public school, and a scheme of
education that becomes in the best sense popular may, indeed must, take
its rise in the classroom, but will find its freest development in the
life of house reading-room and house study.

The chief among many "stunts," as they were called, was a political
society. The twenty-five members of this society, rather over half the
house, undertook to read between them nearly all the more important
newspapers, including one or two French papers. On Sunday the society
sat in conclave, the three or four leading events of the week were
taken each in turn, and the individual or group responsible for each
newspaper put forward the view of the event in question taken by his
own particular organ. These views were compared and debated, and
ultimately a brief synopsis was drawn up, consisting of the event
itself, with the chief typical utterances of the press on the subject
set out underneath, for purposes of comparison and contrast. These
were typed and posted on a board as "news of the