an experience not unknown to his elders and betters! This child records that “when playing on the beach I made Buckingham Palace but a big boy came along and trod it and so we went home to bed”--an unconscious repetition of the often-recorded conclusion of Pepys’ eventful days. One of the small excursionists was taken by her hostess to see Tonbridge, and writes: “We went to the muzeam wear we saw jitnoes of different people”. The hospitality of the clergymen and their families and the goodness of doctors is also often mentioned. Some of the children write so vividly that the country vicarage and its sweet-smelling flowers, the hot curate and the active ladies, rise up as a picture, the “atmosphere” of which is kindness and “the values” incalculable. Other children merely record the facts--in some cases anticipating time and establishing an order of clergywomen. “We asked the Vicar Miss Leigh if we could swim and she said No because one boy caught a cold.” “We all went to the Reveren to a party.” “Saturday mornings we went to the Rectory haveing games, swings, sea sawes and refreshments.” “The party by the Church was fine.” “They had a Church down there called the Salvation Army. I thought there was only one Salvation Army.” One of the Vicars hardly conveyed the impression he intended, for the boy writes:-- “We went to Church in the morning and in the afternoon for a walk as the Clergyman told us not to go to Sunday School as he wanted us to enjoy ourselves”. One wonders if the Sunday School organization and the “intolerable strain” which would be put on it by London visitors was in that vicar’s mind. The letter that is sent by the Countryside Committee to the children before they leave London tells them in simple language something about the trees and flowers and creatures which they will see during their holiday, and asks them to write on anything which they themselves have observed or which gave them pleasure to see. This request is granted, for the children wrote:-- “The trees seemed so happy they danced”. “The wind was blowing and the branches of the trees was swinging themselves.” “The rainbow is made of raindrops and the sun, tears and smiles.” “It was nice to sit on the grass and see the trees prancing in the breeze.” These extracts show, in the four small mortals who had each spent the ten years of their lives in crowded streets, an almost poetic capacity, and the beginning of a power of nature sympathy that will be a source of unrecorded solace. The sights of the night impress many children, the sky seen for the first time uninterrupted by gas lamps. “When I (aged eleven) looked into the sky one night you could hardly see any of the blue for it was light up with stars.” “I saw a star shoot out of the sky and then it settled in a different place.” “One night I kept awake and looked for the stars and saw the Big Bear of stars.”