loss to themselves, secure a better class of tenants and confer a benefit upon the community. But I do demand that they should see that their houses are fit for human habitation; that they should insist that a decent article is provided, whatever price they ask for its use. A great deal might be done by them in this direction if they would consent to employ as agents those who will care something for the individual welfare of the tenant, as well as the pockets of their employer.

Upon the working classes, in addition to doing their best to keep their houses clean and in good order, I would urge above all things that they should recognise the value of sufficient air space, that they should be willing to make some sacrifice of comforts, and even of apparent necessaries in order to obtain this priceless requirement.

To the general public I would say: Take more care of the suburbs of your large towns-insist that they grow healthily and well; bring more pressure to bear upon bad landlords, and induce manufacturers to set up their businesses in smaller centres. But, above all, care a little more about the question. These families whom you are depriving of a full life are the families of the nation; these men are doing the nation's work; these women are the mothers of the next generation; these children are the race that is to come. If through your ignorance or indifference their lives are wasted fretting against the cruel bars of their prison, the blame will rest with you.

Do not let the century go by without finding a solution to this problem.

III

THE CHILDREN OF THE TOWN

E

ACH individual when he enters life as a babe puts to the world the silent question, "What manner of man shall I become?" Years afterwards he finds the answer himself when as a man he replies, "What you see me to be now." Must we wait for the answer till he brings it himself, or can we predict what that answer will contain? Experience tells us that a definite environment tends to create a definite type of human being. If, therefore, we know the circumstances under which the child's life will be passed, it is possible to say in advance that, when he grows to be a man, he will have stamped on him certain distinguishing characteristics. On the other hand, experience also informs us that each child is possessed of certain peculiarities, constituting his individuality, which baffle all exact prediction of his future career. This double experience points at once to the power and to the limitation of the forces of education. Its power is due to the fact that, by rightly ordering the conditions of existence, education may hope to develop the faculties of the child, mould them into some desired shape and impress on his nature some ideal type of character; its limitation is due to the unknown personal element in every man which may balk and render futile even the wisest efforts.

This essay treats of a certain special environment, namely, that found in cities, and attempts first to answer

the question put by the town child, "What manner of man will these conditions make of me?" and secondly to consider how that answer can be modified in order to be in better harmony with the high purposes of humanity. In particular I have in view the children of London, with whom alone I can claim to have any special acquaintance. It is perhaps well that this should be the case. For London is itself the problem of all problems. Presenting in an exaggerated form all the peculiar features of city life, it stands like some voiceless prophet mutely pointing to the strange wounds and scars upon its face which have been the price paid for its greatness. If this essay is to be of any value the child must be regarded as a complex organism, so cunningly knit together that any change in one part reacts on the rest and produces far-reaching alterations, which can never be foreseen so long as that part is isolated and not looked on as being a mere fragment rent from a larger whole. It is waste of time to point out a few evils and vaguely to hint at means for their removal without considering the entire question of child-life in towns. Attempts of this kind usually end in suggesting remedies that bring in their train evils worse than the disease they seek to cure. Better far to face the general problem, to recognise that such a problem does exist, even though the attempt to solve it ends in miserable disaster, than to discourse blindly, though amiably, on some subsidiary point.

A child has three needs: he is, first, an animal and needs to be a healthy animal; he is, secondly, a thinking animal and needs to think correctly; he is, lastly, a feeling animal and needs to feel aright. As a thinking, feeling animal he possesses character, which is a product of the physical, mental, and moral state of development. The end of all education is, therefore, the formation of character. Character may be looked on as possessing two meanings. -an external and an internal. It is used in the former sense when we regard man as he appears to the world as an acting creature, and in the latter when we think of him as he is in himself, as a being conditioned in a certain way and tending to respond in a definite manner to each

stimulus. The external character is an outward expression and revelation of the internal, which last is alone of permanent importance. This would seem almost selfobvious; for if one phenomenon is the effect of another, however desirable the effect may be, its presence can only be secured by seeing that the cause of its appearance shall be always at hand. But unfortunately the peculiarity of the general attitude towards education is the tendency to regard only external character; men consider what acts are to be encouraged and pay exclusive attention to these, while they leave out of account the actor. For example, a common objection raised to the inclusion of some subject in the elementary school course-say history-is that it can be of no use in later life. After remarking that the child would be far better employed in learning to dig a garden or sweep out a room, the ordinary individual considers that he has settled the question in a most satisfactory way. Now if all life were made up of simple tasks like these, and if there were no other alternative except to see them through, there might be some force in the argument. Unluckily, whether the task is done or left undone depends not merely on whether the person is able to do it, but also on whether he chooses to perform it; and, further, the definition of right living includes something more than a list of pieces of work to be carried out. Some one has remarked that the distinction between the moral teaching of the Old and the New Testament lies in the fact that the former commanded men to do this, while the latter bade them be this; in other words, the one laid stress on the external, the other on the internal character. What is really needed in right living is not the monotonous repetition of the same acts, but the performance of acts directed towards the attainment of the same end. Conduct can only become consistent when it is the expression of the internal character; no mere acquisition of certain aptitudes can make anything but a machine-a machine capable indeed of doing the same piece of work under the same conditions, but unable steadfastly to carry through any purpose amid the ceaseless changes of daily life. Formation of internal character must be the object of all educa

tion; that is to say, we must strive to so order a child's environment that the germs of all that is highest within him, while he is still young and not yet thrust down into the sunless dungeon of life's servitude, may grow strong and unfold their treasures.

The education of a child is the result of the influence of two forces: the one is derived from intercourse with things, the other from intercourse with man and all that is associated with man. They may be called respectively the nature element and the human element. The effects they produce are very different, and are to a great degree opposed to one another, or perhaps more truly complementary. The peculiarity of the nature element is the calm, tranquil, and stable character it tends to form; while excitement, wildness, and unrest have their origin in the human element. To understand why this should be so is not difficult. In spite of all the advances of science, Nature still stands before man as a mystery. Her ways are not his ways; and he finds himself, whether he will or no, face to face with some power greater than his own, which he can only control by obeying. All opposition is vain; in her presence, as though moved by some primeval instinct, his passions and desires die away. Further, there is the actual peacefulness of Nature when in the silent loneliness of the evening she seems to fall asleep — a peacefulness which so steals over her children that they see in it a promise of the rest that comes to all one day.

Goethe has given voice to this feeling in the beautiful lines below:

All connected with Nature, her mystery and her beauty, tend to lift a man out of himself (or is it truer to say that they turn him back into his Self ?), and the clang of the