I had hardly crossed the threshold of Eggenburg before I heard, what I rarely hear in institutions, peal after peal of hearty laughter; and I saw little urchins flying as the wind in pursuit of something, I could not tell what. The very way they threw up their heels as they ran, the speed with which they went, showed the stuff of which they were made, the strength of their legs and backs; while the cries they raised left no doubt as to the strength of their lungs. There was not a laggard among them, not a weakling. Some of them, it is true, would have been all the better for more flesh on their bones, I found when I came to examine them; and some few were not quite so well grown as they ought to have been. Still they were a wonderfully vigorous set, considering the handicap with which they had started in life; and they were as alert as they were vigorous. They swarmed up poles and twirled themselves round bars, in quite professional style; and went through their drill with head erect and soldierly swing. Evidently they were not troubled with nerves at all, nor had they any fear at all of strangers. They met my advances in the most friendly fashion; and answered my questions intelligently without hesitation, looking at me straight the while. Their eyes, I noticed, were not only bright, but, oddly enough, full of fun, many of them. They were a light-hearted set, it was easy to see, bubbling over with delight at being alive; they were a kindly sociable set, too, on good terms with themselves, one another, and even the officials. This Eggenburg experiment certainly proves that both boys and girls are the better, not the worse, for going barefoot. Why, then, should they wear shoes? The wearing of them is sheer waste, surely; and in war days waste of any sort is unpatriotic, especially waste in shoes. For leather is none too plentiful, and is becoming scarcer and scarcer from day to day; while it is only by straining every nerve that shoemakers can keep the men at the Front even decently well shod. Were all the children in England to go barefoot, even if only for the next three months, our soldiers would many of them have much better shoes than they have. And most children would be delighted to go barefoot; and very many mothers would be delighted to save the money they now spend on shoes, if only the School Authorities, by appealing to them to do so for their country’s sake, would give them the chance of doing so without offence to their fetish, respectability. Unfortunately, many of these Authorities seem to prefer the worst of leaking, toe-crippling shoes to bare feet. I once asked a certain Head Master to let a little Gipsy, who was sojourning in his district, go to his school without shoes. She had never worn them and did not wish to wear them. He was quite shocked. Such a thing was impossible, he assured me. The tone of the whole school would be lowered were a barefoot child to cross its threshold!