t, is to keep the children
out of mischief: mischief meaning for the most part worrying the
grown-ups.

What is to be Done?

The practical question, then, is what to do with the children. Tolerate
them at home we will not. Let them run loose in the streets we dare not
until our streets become safe places for children, which, to our utter
shame, they are not at present, though they can hardly be worse than
some homes and some schools.

The grotesque difficulty of making even a beginning was brought home to
me in the little village in Hertfordshire where I write these lines by
the lady of the manor, who asked me very properly what I was going to do
for the village school. I did not know what to reply. As the school kept
the children quiet during my working hours, I did not for the sake of
my own personal convenience want to blow it up with dynamite as I should
like to blow up most schools. So I asked for guidance. "You ought to
give a prize," said the lady. I asked if there was a prize for good
conduct. As I expected, there was: one for the best-behaved boy and
another for the best-behaved girl. On reflection I offered a handsome
prize for the worst-behaved boy and girl on condition that a record
should be kept of their subsequent careers and compared with the records
of the best-behaved, in order to ascertain whether the school criterion
of good conduct was valid out of school. My offer was refused because
it would not have had the effect of encouraging the children to give as
little trouble as possible, which is of course the real object of all
conduct prizes in schools.

I must not pretend, then, that I have a system ready to replace all
the other systems. Obstructing the way of the proper organization of
childhood, as of everything else, lies our ridiculous misdistribution
of the national income, with its accompanying class distinctions and
imposition of snobbery on children as a necessary part of their social
training. The result of our economic folly is that we are a nation of
undesirable acquaintances; and the first object of all our institutions
for children is segregation. If, for example, our children were set free
to roam and play about as they pleased, they would have to be policed;
and the first duty of the police in a State like ours would be to see
that every child wore a badge indicating its class in society, and that
every child seen speaking to another child with a lower-class badge, or
any ch