talk and play, unrestrained, left wholly to themselves, taking for pattern those who are a little older than themselves.  As for their favourite amusements and their pleasures, they grow yearly coarser; as for their conversation, it grows continually viler, until Zola himself would be ashamed to reproduce the talk of these young people.  The love which these children have for the street is wonderful; no boulevard in the world, I am sure, is more loved by its frequenters than the Whitechapel Road, unless it be the High Street, Islington.  Especially is this the case with the girls.  There is a certain working girls’ club with which I am acquainted whose members, when they leave the club at ten, go back every night to the streets and walk about till midnight; they would rather give up their club than the street.  As for the moral aspect of this roaming about the streets, that may for a moment be neglected.  Consider the situation from an educational point of view.  How long, do you think, does it take to forget almost all that the boys and girls learned at school?  ‘The garden,’ says one who knows, ’which by daily culture has been brought into such an admirable and promising condition, is given over to utter neglect; the money, the time, the labour, bestowed upon it are lost.’  In the first two years after leaving school it is said that they have forgotten everything.  There is, however, it is objected, the use and exercise of the intellectual faculty.  Can that, once taught, ever be forgotten?  By way of reply, consider this case.  The other day twenty young mechanics were persuaded to join a South Kensington class.  Of the whole twenty one only struggled through the course and passed his examination; the rest dropped off, one after the other, in sheer despair, because they had lost not only the little knowledge they had once acquired, but even the methods of application and study which they had formerly been able to exercise.  There are exceptions, of course; it is computed, in fact, that there are 4 per cent. of Board School boys and girls who carry on their studies in the evening schools, but this proportion is said to be decreasing.  After thirteen, no school, no books, no reading or writing, nothing to keep up the old knowledge, no kind of conversation that stimulates; no examples of perseverance; in a great many cases no church, chapel, or Sunday-school; the street for playground, exercise, observation, and talk; what kind of young men and maidens are we to expect that these boys and girls will become?  If this were the exact, plain, and naked truth we were in a parlous state indeed.  Fortunately, however, there arc in every parish mitigations, introduced principally by those who come from the city of Samaria, or it would be bad indeed for the next generation.  There are a few girls’ clubs; the church, the chapel, and the Sunday-school get hold of many children; visiting and kindly ladies look after others.  There are working boys’ institutes here and