But the passing of regulations cannot in themselves effect a reformation. They can be of great assistance; they can support and they can protect. They cannot build. And, in the study of public school life, we have to return in the end to the point from which we started. Boys and parents and schoolmasters must meet on a common ground and discuss their mutual welfare. They can do nothing till they are honest with each other, till they face the facts together. When they had once done that they would not find the road hopelessly barricaded. The solutions that I have, from time to time, suggested in these chapters, would, I believe, prove beneficial. But it is as a statement of facts, an analysis of certain conditions, tendencies, and lines of thought, that I would chiefly submit this book to the consideration of parents and schoolmasters and those others who are interested in these questions. For nothing can be done till the conspiracy of silence, the policy of evasion and self-deception, the diplomacy of the merchant and his goods is broken down, till, that is to say, parents and schoolmasters meet on the common ground of co-operation, till they can look each other in the face and say: 'Things are so, and it is for us to find a remedy.' GLASGOW: W. COLLINS SONS AND CO. LTD. Some New Publications _from_ MESSRS COLLINS' LIST Published from their London Offices, 48 PALL MALL, S.W. NOTE.--_Messrs Collins will always be pleased to send lists of their forthcoming books to any one who will send name and address._ Old England BERNARD GILBERT Royal 8vo, Cloth, 20/- net