There is a theory in the school, and it is borne out to a certain extent by fact, that some of the youngest and best-looking are the children of girls who just got the benefit of the Education Act before they were too old, and who in their young married life have reaped the benefit of those principles of cleanliness and thrift which the Board School inculcates. The young mothers are already a race far ahead of the older ones in this district, and the children naturally benefit by it. It must be borne in mind that the girls of this class marry or take a mate at a very early age. Many of them have three or four children by the time they are twenty, so that they would have been brought under the influence of the present Education Act. These young women, too, live in a better way; their room is tidier and cleaner, there is a little coquetry in them, and they have a sense of shame which renders them excellent service. They are anxious about their children's education, they recognise the advantage the discipline and instruction have been to them, and the general tone of their lives is every way a distinct advance on the old order of things. I quote these facts because they so fully bear out the theory that Education must be the prime instrument in changing the condition of the poor for the better, whatever results it may have later on upon the condition of the labour market, and the political and social questions of the future. The many theories which are put forward about the result of educating the masses, it is not my province here to discuss; nor need I consider those doctrines which are closely akin to Socialism, and which are the favourite arguments of a school of advanced thinkers when discussing the future condition of the masses. I have only to confine myself to the facts before me, and I think this great improvement in the children of the young mothers a most important one. The best examples are in a room which is a kind of _crèche_. Here the babies can be left by the mothers who have to go out to work, and the tiny mites are looked after with motherly care by a kind-hearted creature whose lot I do not envy. Fancy forty infants, some of them little over two years old, to take care of for eight hours a day! Mothers will appreciate the situation better than I can describe it.