ndours; when the continuity of self is broken, and the lad of
to-day is different from him of yesterday; when the energies, physical
and intellectual, wake into new life, and impel the youth in new
directions. Everyone has been young, but somehow we forget that sweet
spring season. Let us try to remember, in the interests of the
uncared-for youths and girls, the time of glorious dreaming, when the
boy became a man, and stood upon some peak in Darien to gaze upon the
purple isles of life in the great ocean beyond, peopled by men who
were as heroes and by women who were as goddesses. Our own dreaming
was glorified, to be sure, with memories of things we had read; yet,
as we dreamed, so, but without the colour lent to our visions, these
sallow-faced lads, with the long and ugly coats and the round-topped
hats, are dreaming now. For want of our help their dreams become
nightmares, and in their brains are born devils of every evil passion.
And, for the girls, although not all can become so bad as those
foul-mouthed young Bacchantes and raging Maenads of Hamstead Heath, it
would seem as if nothing could be left to them, after the education of
the gutter--nothing at all--of the things which we associate with holy
and gracious womanhood.

Truly, from the moral as well as the educational point of view, here
is a great evil disclosed. There is, however, another aspect of the
question, which must not be forgotten. If we are to hold our place at
the head of the industrial countries of the world, our workmen must
have technical education. But this can only be received by those who
possess already a certain amount of knowledge, and that a good deal
beyond the grasp of a child of thirteen years. How, then, can it be
made to reach those who have lost the whole of what once they knew?

These facts are, I believe, beyond any dispute or doubt. They have
only to be stated in order to be appreciated. They affect not London
only, but every great town. The working men themselves have recognised
the gravity of the situation, and are anxious to provide some remedy.
At Nottingham an address, signed on behalf of the School Board and the
Nottingham Trades Council, has been addressed to the employers of
labour, entreating them to assist in the establishment and maintenance
of remedial measures. At the meeting of the Trades Unions'
representatives held in London last year, two resolutions on the
subject were passed; and the School Boards of London,