L.—EDUCATION. 203 
of the sympathy of the teachers, and gain something from the familiar sur- 
roundings and their undoubted but mysterious influence, At fourteen 
they might be allowed to go to work on condition that they were enrolled 
in a continuation school and that all employers were organised to make 
the earlier stages of industrial life more educational, by the provision 
of welfare supervision for leisure hours, by enlarging and encouraging 
the already considerable number of wise trainers among the workmen, 
_and by eliminating from the early years in the factory as much as possible 
of the merely fetch-and-carry work. But these are details. This is only 
‘one possible experiment. What I ask you to consider is the desirability of 
such geographical experiments in setting up the warp of education. To 
the teachers themselves I do not fear to entrust the task of designing an 
infinite variety of patterns for the woof. 
There are great difficulties of finance, of local jealousies, of statutory 
and administrative red tape, and some of even less respectable origin, in 
the way of such an experiment, but there are always difficulties. I under- 
stand that many, many years ago a certain stable was the despair of all 
the sanitary authorities, but it was cleansed by a brave man—an amateur 
‘scavenger who harnessed a river to his purpose. Our stable is not in such 
an offensive state, but it does need cleansing, and we need the faith to 
depend more on the enthusiastic and less on the Pactolean properties of 
_ the river of public opinion to enable us to do our work. Depend upon it 
that, when its cleansing work is accomplished, this river, joined by all 
available streams, those from the snow-clad mountain-tops where solitary 
thought is possible and high ideals are cradled, those from the table- 
lands where teachers trained and untrained must still humbly work side 
by side with parents and all the friends of childhood, and those from 
the upland valleys where employers, whether of the single servant or of 
an army of factory workers, will be enthusiastically conscious that they 
too are teachers with the teacher’s opportunity to curse or bless—this 
river, gathering its strength from all these sources, will in its journey to 
the lowlands of life have the power—the smokeless power—as have so 
many harnessed Alpine streams, to lighten the burdens and to enlighten the 
lives of the dwellers in the plain. 
