COMPILER'S NOTE vii 



to be taught. Therefore it would appear 

 that the hope of civilisation is really in the 

 child. Sometimes heredity may be too 

 great a handicap, but a sweet environment 

 is a gradual solvent of inherited vice; at 

 least it will prevent hardness, whence springs 

 un-understanding, and hate. It was on 

 a Sunday in May, 1920, in a tramcar at 

 Catford, a south-eastern suburb of London, 

 that the seed of this thought was sown by 

 the sight of children returning to the slums 

 after a day in the country. How eager 

 they were: and how their parents were 

 happy! Immediately afterwards, in a 

 visionary fervour, or, may be because I was 

 very young, I wrote " London Children 

 and Wild Flowers," which Austin Harrison 

 published, with Walter de la Mare as god- 

 parent. 



H.W. 



SKIRR COTTAGE, 



II th November, 1921. 



