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tended to be slack, as they have certainly been amateurish, with regard to the 

 intellectual or scientific life; but they have maintained this fundamental prin- 

 ciple, that the spiritual nature is best developed through life as a member of a 

 society, and that a society of such a kind that the membership can be real and 

 effective. Recent experiments, such as that of the ' Young Republic,' are 

 carrying into new developments precisely this idea, and their success — for I 

 think we may already pronounce them a success — is a great vindication of the 

 idea itself. But for the supreme testimony to the value of this education we 

 must turn to our colonial and imperial administration. There has been nothing 

 to equal it in the history of the world. It has faults, of course, and some of 

 them arise from just each an amateurishness as we have noticed in our Public 

 Schools. Yet there has been the sense of 'fair-play,' the readiness to take 

 whatever comes as part of the day's work, the absence of self-advertisement 

 and personal ' push,' the capacity to take command and act with authority 

 when called upon, which are the very qualities most developed by Public-School 

 life and most vitally needed in the public servants of a world-wide Empire. 

 The great evil has been that the boys of a Public School all come from one 

 social class, so that, though their public spirit is keen, their horizon is very 

 narrow and they do not see the need or even the opportunity to exercise public 

 spirit except in the ways traditional in their class. 



In order that this social life may exist in any real completeness it is neces- 

 sary that its control should be in the hands of members of the school itself. 

 There should, of course, be supervision by masters or mistresses, who can in 

 case of necessity take complete charge and prevent the occurrence of disaster; 

 but the normal life should be under the control of senior members of the com- 

 munity itself. This will involve the acceptance within that community of boy 

 or girl standards, and this is wholesome. It is not desirable that the growing 

 conscience should be perpetually confronted with standards which are forced 

 upon it but which it does not accept; it should be left free to form and to 

 follow its own judgment under the stimulus of wise kaders who^ without 

 impatience at its youthfulness, will yet guide it onvsrard to fuller and fuller 

 development. The things that are important to a child may often seem trivial 

 to the adult, but_ they are genuinely important to the child, and provided that 

 his growth is being encouraged, and not artificially arrested, it is quite right 

 that at each stage he should take interest in those "things that are appropriate 

 to that stage. Moreover, when children are thrown into a social life of this 

 kind they immediately exhibit the root principle of all morals, namely, the 

 sense of membership in the community and of obligation to serve it. ' The 

 community in question is a narrow one. The boy of fourteen on arriving at a 

 Public School hardly regards himself a« standing in any ethical relation, for 

 instance, to the masters. If he can outwit them, that is just a score for him. 

 So, for example, dishonest work, when the boy cheats in order to avoid punish- 

 ment, is very leniently judged by his fellows; whereas precisely the same act, 

 ]f done for the sake of gaining promotion over others, is regarded as disgrace- 

 ful. The schoolmaster is often tempted to class both of these together under 

 ' cheating,' because he does not realise that the latter is a sin against a com- 

 munity to which obligation is recognised, while the former is merely an act 

 of hostility against a natural foe. But .so it is; and there is no harm in it 

 provided it IS only a stage in development. After all, if Jael had treated 

 Barak in the way in which she did treat Sisera, Deborah would not have suno' 

 her praises. " 



Now, one main activity of a society composed of children or adolescents will 

 necessarily be found in games. This is partly because physical growth is one of 

 the main businesses of life at that stage, and it is right that the growino- boy or 

 girl should delight in developing and exercising the physical faculties But "it is 

 also because a game is felt to be more communal than school work. With work 

 arranged as it now is, it inevitably follows that school work is reo-arded as 

 being done for one's own sake, while the boy who plays hard is regarded as 

 serving the community ; he does it for his house or the school as much as for 

 himself. I shall suggest in a moment that experience shows that by chano-eg 

 which are otherwise desirable, with regard to school work itself a good deal of 

 this difficulty may be overcome, but it will still remain true, at any rate with 



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