m if the real education is not to centre in the
self-chosen and self-directed pursuits of leisure.

One word more. It must not be supposed that all that has been
described is only possible, or only needed, in the boarding school or
only for a specially leisured class. If, as has here been urged,
these activities and interests form an integral part of education in
its fullest meaning, they are just as necessary in the day school and
cannot be left to chance and the home to see to. And of all the needed
reforms in elementary education, amongst the most needed is the
greater utilisation of the active interests and instincts of children,
in a training that would have a wider outlook and a closer bearing,
through practical experience, both on the work of life and the use of
leisure.

X

PREPARATION FOR PRACTICAL LIFE

By SIR J. D. McCLURE

Head Master of Mill Hill School

I

It is, perhaps, the chief glory of the Ideal Commonwealth that each
and every member thereof is found in his right place. His profession
is also his vocation; in it is his pride; through it he attains to the
_joie de vivre_; by it he makes his contribution to the happiness of
his fellows and to the welfare and progress of the State. The
contemplation of the Ideal, however, would seem to be nature's anodyne
for experience of the Actual. In practical life, all attempts, however
earnest and continuous, to realise this ideal are frustrated by one or
more of many difficulties; and though the Millennium follows hard upon
Armageddon, we cannot assume that in the period vaguely known as
"after the war" these difficulties will be fewer in number or less in
magnitude. Some of the more obvious may be briefly considered.

In theory, every child is "good for something"; in practice, all
efforts to discover for what some children are good prove unavailing.
The napkin may be shaken never so vigorously, but the talent remains
hidden. In every school there are many honest fellows who seem to have
no decided bent in any direction, and who would probably do equally
well, or equally badly, in any one of half-a-dozen different
employments. Some of these boys are steady, reliable, not unduly
averse from labour, willing--even anxious--to be guided and to carry
out instructions, yet are quite unable to manifest a preference for
any one kind of work.

Others, again, show real enthusiasm for a business or profession, but
do not possess those qualities which