I have been getting up debates in the village institute this Christmas, and I have been surprised at the high level of intelligence displayed and the sincerity of the oratory of the few who speak. They were diffident at first, but soon warmed up as they got interested and we have always roused considerable warmth of feeling before we have finished the evening's entertainment. What does distress me about village life is the education. I am almost certain that no education at all would be better than the present half-and-half system. To take away a boy or girl from school at thirteen or fourteen is criminal: children at that age have just been trained to want to know--and they are then taken away and the labour of years all undone by being pushed into mills, on to farms, or behind counters, where nothing but mechanical obedience and servility are required. They forget to read, they forget how to write, they have no interest in the things of the mind. It amazes me that they grow up at all with anything but animal instincts. Education in England, so far as the majority of the children go, is useless and will continue to be so until it is made compulsory that no boy or girl shall leave school before the age of sixteen or seventeen. You can't do much with mindless louts of eighteen with one hour's Bible lesson a week. If any one disbelieves this, let him try to coach a dozen villagers in amateur theatricals: I've tried it and I know. They are simply blocks of wood once you put them on a platform. The average Public School boy of fifteen is quite at home on the stage: your yokel of any age is simply stiff and lifeless, unable to be anybody but himself, charcoal his face never so deeply. _January 15, 1911_ I have had a gay fortnight in the Potteries, staying with the Pasleys. Young Pasley is in Heatherington's house and in my form; his father is a tile manufacturer and fabulously wealthy. I found the whole family lovable. They live in a large house in the middle of grimy Hanley. They are real sons of the soil and proud of it. The father and mother speak broad Staffordshire, the three girls and the two boys as the result of Public School education are ultra-refined and are inclined to bully their parents, who, however, hold the whip-hand. They have high tea instead of dinner; they sit down soberly in the evening to hear Adela (who is fresh home from Dresden and is engaged to the local curate) play the violin. At ten Mrs. Pasley rises with, "Well, lads, it's time for bye-bye: I'll be sayin' good neet to you, Mester."