"It is quite evident that the boys have been encouraged to read periodicals such as _The Nation_ and _The English Review_, and their articles read like elaborate parodies. There is no particular harm in allowing a clever boy to do monkey tricks of this type, but there is a good deal of harm in printing it instead of gently deriding the self-sufficiency of these youthful oracles."--_Church Times_. "The most obvious fact about these articles is that the boys are writing what they mean, and what they want to say, and that they are able to do so because they feel sure of the community that forms their audience."--Mr. Kenneth Richmond in _The New Age_. [Of the three articles that follow, the first was printed in the first issue of _The School Observer_; the second was written for the suppressed sixth issue; the last was written on the day after the final collapse of the whole experiment, and was, of course, never intended for the paper at all.] I EDUCATION AND THE FUTURE If workmen strike, if employers oppress, if prostitution flourishes, if paper demagogues are allowed to rule, if poverty exists, if men fight, whatever evil it is, the remedy lies at the root--education. All reforms are mere palliatives until the fundamental reform of education is perfected. There are no connecting links of argument. It is a natural corollary, justified by any particular example that may be traced. It is another question whether education or lack of it is more calculated to hasten the ultimate ideal of well-ordered anarchy, which, consciously or unconsciously, we all entertain; but for the meanwhile the affirmative assumption must be adopted. The sole remaining question, then, is, By what means is education to rectify the immediate evils? While it is fairly generally established that the purpose of education is efficient citizenship, it is clear that, owing to the diminished proportion of the individual to the community, the purpose is being gradually lost sight of. To borrow from scientific phraseology, the tendency of the unit to remaining an "idiot" (in the Greek sense of the word!) varies directly as the magnitude of the mass. And this is a truism that public schools do not help to abolish. Although "school patriotism" is invariably quoted as a denial of this, there prevails in modern schools a definite inclination towards unsentimental cynicism in the matter. This does not necessarily denote an unhealthy spirit, but an increase of intellect that, whether with justification or not, vaguely asks for something wider or more substantial. Perhaps our grandfathers are right when they tell us that the modern youth becomes a man sooner than his predecessors. Perhaps our grandfathers are right when they tell us it is a pity.