Both in 1913 and in 1914 the Conference was well attended and prolonged, but in 1915, partly on account of the war and partly because of the defection of several University Societies, few were present, and the business done was inconsiderable. * * * * * The Summer School was another enterprise started at the period. It was begun independently of the Society in this sense, that half a dozen members agreed to put up the necessary capital and to accept the financial responsibility, leaving to the Society the arrangement of lectures and the management of business. It was opened at the end of July, 1907, at Pen-yr-allt, a large house, previously used as a school, looking out over the sea, near Llanbedr, a little village on the Welsh coast between Barmouth and Harlech. The house was taken for three years partly furnished, and the committee provided the beds, cutlery, etc., needed. One or two other houses near by were usually rented for the summer months. The value of the plan for a propagandist society is largely this, that experience shows that people can only work together efficiently when they know each other. Therefore in practice political and many other organisations find it necessary to arrange garden parties, fêtes, picnics, teas, and functions of all sorts in order to bring together their numbers under such conditions as enable them to become personally acquainted with each other. In times of expansion the Fabian Society has held dinners and soirées in London, many of which have been successful and even brilliant occasions, because the new members come in crowds and the old attend as a duty. When new members are few these entertainments cease, for nothing is so dreary as a social function that is half failure, and a hint of it brings the series to an end. But a Summer School where members pass weeks together is far more valuable in enabling the leaders and officials to find out who there is who is good as a speaker or thinker, or who is a specialist on some subject of value to the movement. Moreover, gatherings of this class attract those on the fringe of the movement, and many of our members have come to us through attendance at the school. Apart from the direct interests of the Society, a School of this character is valued by many solitary people, solitary both socially, such as teachers and civil servants, who are often lonely in the world, and solitary intellectually because they live in remote places where people of their way of thinking are scarce.