The success of the Workers' Educational Association shows both the strength of the demand among the workmen, and sometimes, too, among working women, for intellectual life and their capacity to make use of any opportunities offered for regular study. It is to be hoped that its promoters will not forget that some branches of natural science and literature, opening new realms of interest removed from the ordinary cares of life, are at least as important subjects for study as economic and social problems, and that one of the most important of such problems is how to give those who must earn their daily bread by work that is often dull and wearisome, the opportunity of sharing as far as possible in the intellectual life. We may well wish Mr. Mansbridge and his friends success as pioneers in the work of reconstruction, and renewed and extended activity when the pressure of War requirements is removed. It is to be hoped that the original ideals of the Association may never be forgotten. The aim of the Association is neither technical, i.e., to make workmen better qualified for their special work, nor to attain a higher general education with a view to their obtaining employment of a different class and ceasing to be manual workers. It is to enable them, while continuing to earn their living by manual work, to participate in the fuller life given by intellectual activity. There are some subjects which can be pursued and studied _thoroughly_ with pleasure and profit without any long or exact preliminary training. With some wise guidance in reading and some stimulating criticism to help him, the workman can really obtain all that is important from the study of the literature of his own language--to learn to know and to enjoy the best that has been written. It is of no importance that he will probably not become a "literary expert," able to trace the influence of this or that obscure writer of one age or country on the literature of another. It is to be hoped that he will not learn the kind of literary jargon affected by so many modern critics, or attempt in his essays to imitate those who think that obscurity indicates profundity. There are some sciences, too, especially certain branches of natural science, which can be pursued by men whose time is mainly taken up by manual work.