_Increasing Importance of the Public Elementary School._--The family circle in which the proletarian child lives tends, as a rule, to counteract the beneficial effects of school life. Nor are the other elements in the environment of the proletarian child such as tend to exercise a good educational influence. For this reason quite recently the question has been mooted how the school may best counteract the evil influences of the family and the environment. As time goes on the public elementary school becomes ever more important, its circle of duties becomes more comprehensive, and it undertakes many elements of education which formerly appertained to the parental home and the environment. The public elementary school and the associated institutions begin to exercise functions outside the domain of education in the narrower sense, and to absorb some of those formerly exercised by the poor-law authorities, inasmuch as the schools are coming to satisfy other needs of the proletarian child in addition to the need for education. Consider, for example, the association with the public elementary school of preparatory schools, supervised playgrounds, baths, gardens, workshops, savings-banks, &c. _Feeding of School Children._--The children of the lower classes are to-day quite unable to pay for their schooling. If every pupil had to pay school fees, a strict enforcement of compulsory school attendance would involve gross injustice to the poorer classes. If the State makes school attendance compulsory, the State must make it possible for every child to attend school. Many children fail to attend school because they lack proper clothing, and especially boots and shoes. Is it not the duty of the education authorities to provide for poor children of school age the clothing they need to make it possible for them to attend school? This is not as yet recognised as a public duty, but we see an unmistakable movement in its direction. In most countries public elementary education is already free, in some cases for all the children, in others only for the poorest; school materials and books are as yet supplied gratuitously only in France, Switzerland, and the United States of America.