the same suggestion.  Their places of worship, the blank chapels and pseudo-Gothic churches rear themselves head and shoulders above the dull level, only to repeat the same threat of obedience to a gloomy law....  The thought of Gospel Oak and its like is the thought of imitation, of imitation falling back and becoming stereotyped, until the meaning of the thing so persistently copied has been lost and forgotten.”

A third case is that of the country child, the child who attends the village school.  Many villages lie several miles from a railway station, so that the younger children may not see a railway train more than once or twice a year.  The fathers may be engaged in village trades, such as a shoemaker, carpenter, gardener, general shop merchant, farm labourer, or farmer.  The village houses are often cramped and small, but there is wholesome space outside, and generally a good garden which supplies some of the family food; milk and eggs are easily obtainable, and conditions of living are seldom as crowded as in a town.  The country children see more of life in complete miniature than the slum or the suburban child can do, for the whole life of the village lies before him.  The school is generally in the centre, with a good playground, and of late years a good school garden is frequent.  The village church, generally old, is another centre of life, and there is at least the vicarage to give a type of life under different social conditions.

The home intellectual background may vary, but on the whole cannot be reckoned on very much; though in some ways it is more narrow than the suburban one, it is often less superficial.  In a different way from the slum child, but none the less definitely, the country child comes face to face with the realities of life, in a more natural and desirable way than either of the others.  It is difficult to estimate some of the effects of living in the midst of real nature on children; unconsciously, they acquire much deep knowledge impossible to learn through nature study, however good, a kind of knowledge that is part of their being; but how far it affects them emotionally or enters into their scheme of life, is hard to say.  As they grow up much of it is merely economic acquirement:  if they are to work on the land, or rear cattle, or drive a van through the country, it is all to the good; but one thing is noticeable, that they take very quickly to such allurements of town life as a cinema, or a picture paper or gramophone, and this points to unsatisfied cravings of some sort, not necessarily so unworthy or superficial as the means sought to satisfy them.

From these rather extreme cases we get near the solution of the problem; it is quite evident that each of these children brings to school very different contributions of experience on which to build, though their general needs and interests are similar.  Therefore the curriculum of the school will depend on the general surroundings and circumstances of the children, and all programmes of work and many questions of organisation will be built on this.  The model programme so dear to some teachers must be banished, as a doctor would banish a general prescription; no honest teacher can allow this part of her work to be done for her by any one else.