n's Group, the Arts Group, and Groups for
Education, Biology, and Local Government. The careers of these bodies
were various. The Arts Group included philosophy, and, to tell the
truth, almost excluded Socialism. But all of us in our youth are
anxiously concerned about philosophy and art and many who are no longer
young are in the same case. Moreover artists and philosophers are always
attractive. Mr. Holbrook Jackson and Mr. A.R. Orage, at that time
associated in "The New Age," founded the group early in 1907, and soon
obtained lecturers as distinguished, and audiences scarcely less
numerous than the Society itself. But in eighteen months "Art and
Philosophy in Relation to Socialism" seems to have been exhausted, and
after the summer of 1908 the Group disappears from the calendar. Biology
and Local Government had a somewhat longer but far less glorious career.
The meetings were small and more of the nature of classes. Education is
the life-work of a large class, which provides a sensible proportion of
Fabian membership, and teachers are always eager to discuss and explain
the difficult problems of their profession and the complex law which
regulates it. The Education Group has led a diligent and useful life; it
prepared a tract (No. 156), "What an Education Committee can do
(Elementary Schools)," and besides its private meetings it arranges
occasional lectures open to the public, which sometimes attract large
audiences.

The Nursery belongs to another class. When a society, formed as many
societies are, of quite young people, has existed over twenty years, the
second generation begins to be adult, and wants to be quit of its
parents. Moreover the young desire, naturally, to hear themselves talk,
whilst the others usually prefer the older and more famous personages.
So a number of younger members eagerly took up a plan which originated
in the circle of the Bland family, for forming a group confined to the
young in years or in membership in order to escape the overmastering
presence of the elderly and experienced. Sometimes they invite a senior
to talk to them and to be heckled at leisure. More often they provide
their own fare from amongst themselves. Naturally the Nursery is not
exclusively devoted to economics and politics: picnics and dances also
have their place. Some of the members eventually marry each other, and
there is no better security for prolonged happiness in marriage than
sympathy in regard to the larger