It is easy, of course, to say that, but it is very difficult to know how to set about it. Our institutions are mirrors in which are reflected our personal imperfections. They can be no better than ourselves; and the merchants of panaceas take for granted a world which has left behind it envy, greed, malice, and desire. To that degree of perfection we shall never attain, but we can at any rate be honest with one another. And there is no side of English life about which rulers and ruled, fathers and sons, old and young have been so consistently dishonest with one another in the past as they have been about the standards and ideals of the English Public Schools. It is the old trouble of the merchant and his goods, and though the English Public Schools do not insert double-column advertisements in the daily papers, they are at least beholden not to prejudice the value of their stock. The greengrocer does not inform you that, on the whole, his potatoes are not bad, considering that he bought them from a farmer with a leaking shed. A head master does not tell a parent that, if he is going to send his son to a Public School, his own school is not worse than any other. Yet the same man who views with grave suspicion eulogies of a patent medicine, accepts complacently the house-master's assurance that Tommy is improving enormously both morally and intellectually under his care. A schoolmaster spends a large part of his life boosting the value of his goods, and in time, of course, he comes to believe that every word of what he says is true. The commercial traveller of two years' experience will wink his eye: 'I spun him the tale!' But the commercial traveller of ten years' experience has a solemn countenance. 'People know good stuff when they see it.' A few weeks ago I was staying in the country with some friends, and was taken over by them to the prize-giving of the Preparatory School at which their sons were being educated. The ceremony was enacted in the gymnasium. The staff sat at the end of the room on a raised dais, in the centre of which was a table covered with 'calf-bound mementoes of industry.' Behind this table stood the head master. He was a large, genial, middle-aged man, rubicund with a surfeit of golf, and he smiled down upon the school and upon its parents. 'Well, you boys,' he said, 'I want to tell you how pleased I am with the way you've backed me up this term. You've worked hard and you've played hard: I don't really know how long it is since we've had such a thoroughly satisfactory term: of course there are one or two young gentlemen'--and at this point a twinkle appeared in the corner of his eye--'who have been a little, well, shall we say, difficult; but that's past history, we won't say anything more about it; and, as a whole, as I've already said, I don't think I've ever had such a satisfactory set of fellows.' There were a few more remarks of mutual congratulation, and then he proceeded to the distribution of the prizes.