hildren to illustrate the real nature of this problem.

The first is the case of a child living in a very poor district of
London or of any large town. The school is presumably situated in a
narrow street running off the High Street of the district, the street
where all the shopping is done; at the corner is a hide factory with an
evil smell. Most of the dwelling-houses abut on the pavement, some with
a very small yard behind, some without any. Several families live in one
house, and often one room is all a family can afford; as that has to be
paid for in advance the family address may change frequently. The father
may be a dock labourer with uncertain pay, a coster, a rag and bone
merchant, or he may follow some unskilled occupation of a similarly
precarious nature; in consequence the mother has frequently to do daily
work, the home is locked up till evening, and she often leaves before
the children start for morning school. It is a curious but very common
fact that, free though these children are, they know only a very small
radius around their own homes. They are accustomed to be sent shopping
into High Street, where household stores are bought in pennyworths or
twopennyworths, owing to uncertain finance and no storage accommodation.
Generally there is one tap and one sink in the basement for the needs of
all the families in the house. There is usually a park somewhere within
reach, but it may be a mile away; in it would, at least, be trees, a
pond, grass, flowers. But an excursion there, unless it is undertaken by
the school, can only be hoped for on a fine Bank Holiday; there is
neither time nor money to go on a Saturday, and Sunday cannot be said to
begin till dinner-time, about 3 P.M., when the public-houses close, and
the father comes home to dinner.

It is difficult to imagine the conversation of such a household; family
life exists only on Sunday at dinner-time; the child's background of
family life is a room which is at once a bedroom, living room and
laundry. There is nearly always some part of a meal on the table, and
some washing hanging up. Outside there are the dingy street, the crowded
shops, the pavement to play on, and both outside and in, the bleaker and
more sordid aspects of life, sometimes miserable, sometimes exciting. On
Saturday night the lights are brilliant and life is at least intense.
Bed is a very crowded affair, in which many half-undressed children
sleep covered with the remainder of the