s some truth. His view is that at home the girls come
chiefly under the influence of their mothers, whose experience of
domestic service gives them an idea of manners, while the boys take
pattern from their fathers, whose work encourages roughness. Whatever
the cause, the fact remains: the boys may be physically as sound as the
girls, but they certainly have less charm. It is not often delightful to
see them. They do not stand up well; they walk in a slouching and
narrow-chested way; and, though they are mischievous enough, there is
strangely wanting in them an air of alertness, of vivacity, of delight
in life. There is no doubt that their heavily-ironed and ill-fitting
boots cause them to walk badly; yet it is only reasonable to suppose
that this is but one amongst many difficulties, and that, in general,
the conditions in which the boys live are unfavourable to a good
physical growth.

As regards intellectual power, in boys and girls too, the evidence--to
be quite frank--does not bear out all that I wish to believe; for, in
spite of appearances, I am not yet persuaded that these cottage children
are by birth more dull of wit than town-bred children and those in
better circumstances. It must be remembered that in this village, so
near as it is to a town, there has been little of that migration to
towns which is said to have depleted other villages of their cleverer
people. A few lads go to sea, more than a few into the army; some of the
girls marry outside, and are lost to the parish. But it would be easy to
go through the valley and find, in cottage after cottage, the numerous
descendants of old families that flourished here, and were certainly not
deficient in natural brain-power, two generations ago, although it was
not developed in them on modern lines. Nor need one go back two
generations. To be acquainted with the fathers and mothers of the
school-children is to know people whose minds are good enough by nature,
and are only wanting in acquired power; and when, aware of this, one
goes into the school and sees the children of these parents, some of
them very graceful, with well-shaped heads and eyes that can sparkle and
lips that can break into handsome, laughing curves, it is very hard to
believe that the breed is dull. The stupidity is more likely due merely
to imperfect nurture; at any rate, one should not accept an explanation
of it that disparages the village capacity for intelligence until it is
made clear