traditional village life, I found nothing but worthless
forms of modern art which left the people's taste quite unfed. Once, it
is true, a hint came that, democratic though the club might be, it was
possibly not democratic enough. A youth mentioned that at home one
evening he and his family had sat round the table singing songs, out of
song-books, I think. It suggested that there might still lurk in the
neglected cottages a form of artistic enjoyment more crude than anything
that had come to light, and perhaps more native to the village. But I
have no belief that it was so. Before I could inquire further, this boy
dropped out of the movement. When asked why he had not come to one
entertainment, he said that he had been sent off late in the afternoon
to take two horses miles away down the country--I forget where--and had
been on the road most of the night. A few weeks afterwards, turning
eighteen, he went to Aldershot and enlisted. So far as I remember, he
was the only boy of the true labouring class who ever took any active
part in the proceedings--he performed once in a farce. The other lads,
although some were sons of labourers and grandsons of peasants, were of
those who had been apprenticed to trades, and therefore knew a little
more than mere labourers, though I do not say that they were more
intelligent by nature.

If, however, they were the pick of the village youth, the fact only
makes the more impressive certain truths which forced themselves upon my
notice at that time with regard to the needs of the village since the
old peasant habits had vanished. There was no mistaking it: intercourse
with these young men showed only too plainly how slow modern
civilization had been to follow modern methods of industry and thrift.
Understand, they were well-intentioned and enterprising fellows. They
had begun to look beyond the bounds of this parish, and to seek for
adaptations to the larger world. Moreover, they were learning
trades--those very trades which have since been introduced into our
elementary schools as a means of quickening the children's intellectual
powers. But these youths somehow had not drawn enlightenment from their
trades, being, in fact, handicapped all the time by the want of quite a
different education. To put it rather brutally, they did not understand
their own language--the standard English language in which modern
thinking has to go on in this country.

For several of the entertainments they cam