This very dogmatic assertion leaves out of account one of what seem to be the undisputed advantages of public school education, the advantage of living in an orderly and disciplined community for a greater part of the years of later boyhood. There will always be exceptional boys to whom this life is not appropriate, but for the majority of boys it is both beneficial and enjoyable. It might even be said that the majority of boys demand it. Even the holders of opposite views agree that it is an infinitely better system for boys from inadequate homes than the day school. In my opinion, the definition of an inadequate home would be a very wide one, and likely to remain so in spite of all possible advances in the way of greater social equality and uniformity. The Montessori system is based on the belief that the home, which is organised for the convenience of its adult inhabitants, cannot give the requisite attention and liberty to children, who are slow in action, capricious and inexperienced: home life to young children, in this view, is both too protective and too restrictive. For different reasons there is a case to be made out for holding that, as a rule, the home is not properly organised for the advantage, out of school hours, of growing boys between the ages of thirteen and nineteen. All parents are naturally anxious to prepare their children for life in the world, to enlighten them in their difficulties and aid the opening of their minds, but it remains sadly true that most of them find their incapability of fulfilling this natural function only too soon. As a well known man of letters said to me recently: “Yes, the boys have got to go to school. My wife and I started with all sorts of jolly ideas about keeping them at home and educating them ourselves. But we found it was no good. They said they wanted to go to school, and so they must.”