In Utopia, the average human being would not know how to read or write, would have no knowledge of the past, and would know no more about life and the world in general, than he had derived from his own impressions. The sum of those impressions would be the measure of his wisdom, and I think that the chances are that he would be a good deal less ignorant than he is now, when his head is full of confused ideas borrowed from other men and only half-comprehended. I think that our system of education is bad, because it challenges the right of the individual to think constructively for himself. In rustic families, where the father and mother have never learnt to read and the children have had the advantages of “scholarship,” the illiterate generation will always be found to have more intelligence than their educated descendants. The children were learning French and arithmetic when they should have been learning life. And, after all, this is the only kind of education that counts. We all know that a man’s knowledge of Latin or the use of the globes does not affect his good-fellowship, or his happiness, or even the welfare of the State as a whole. What is important is, that he should have passed through certain experiences, felt certain emotions, and dreamed certain dreams, that give his personality the stamp of a definite individual existence. Tomlinson, the book-made man, with his secondhand virtues and secondhand sins, is of no use to any one. Yet while we all realise this, we still continue to have a gentle, unreasoning faith in academic education; we still hold that a man should temper his own impressions with the experience of others. ON COMMON SENSE ABOUT this time last year I was fortunate enough to go to a very nice children’s party, or, rather, a very nice party for children. I add the appreciative epithet because there was only one grown-up person there, and that person was not I; and when all is said it may be stated confidently that the fewer the grown-ups the better the children’s party. Nevertheless, although there was only one grown-up for about thirty children, and she the most charming and tactful of girls, I had not been long in the place of fairy-lamps before I discovered that with one exception I was the youngest person there. I had come out that night in the proper party frame of mind. My shoes were tight and my mind was full of riddles of which I had forgotten the answers, and as I drove along in a four-wheeler—who ever went to a party in anything else?—I noticed that the stars smelt of tangerine oranges. When I reached the house everything looked all right. The place was very busy, and there were lots of white frocks and collars, and pink faces.