in England and Scotland) are very great, and it is clearly providing soil for more definite educational work to spring up. It also seems to show that this is the way in which we should approach the question in reference to all educational work in its early stages. The Institute Education Committee at headquarters has begun what is sure to develop, if rightly handled, into a great educational movement.

This is for women. For men there are the innumerable types of clubs. The Village Club Association alone has 460 clubs affiliated to it, and helps in adult education in a useful way. It would be a great matter were the many isolated clubs, mutual improvement and literary societies, federated together, for it is difficult to get any systematic teaching arranged for without this. As far as one can judge, the most useful function of the State or any great trust is to give assistance at the beginning of what promise to be useful movements, thereby bringing about cohesion, which is always a difficult matter unless there is responsible backing, and to try to guide the movements into right and fruitful lines. The comparatively small sum spent on women's institutes through the Board of Agriculture has been richly repaid, and there is every promise that the movement will be entirely independent of outside aid before long. But the guidance given at the first has been invaluable. The drawback that every isolated rural unit suffers from, whether it be a club or society of any kind, is just its isolation, and though at the first it may rather enjoy its unique position, when the energetic promoter or rich patron passes away the result is likely to be disastrous.

The Young Men's Christian Association (Red Triangle) and its sister society have done great things for adult education, though more in the town than in the country. On the educational side the Young Men's Christian Association has appointed special educational secretaries in eight districts of England, and it has been very helpful in developing classes and courses of lectures, usually in co-operation with the local education authority; it thus performs a very useful function. A special effort was made after the war to supply young men with the advantages which they had so much appreciated during hostilities, both as regards social life and education, and many recreational huts were set up in the villages with good effect.

These are most of the direct agencies for rural education mentioned in the two reports, but many of us can fill up the blanks with individual societies or recollect efforts known to us personally. The drawback is, as we also know well, that the efforts are sporadic, leaving some parishes untouched, because there is little local public spirit, whilst others are renowned for their activities. This problem and the other of overlapping have been much in the

minds of those who have been considering the question, and two important conferences were held at Oxford to consider them along with the whole subject of rural development. At those conferences it was clearly brought out that whatever is done for the betterment of village life should be done through a county organisation and in co-operation with county administration, and this bears out the experiences of the societies above mentioned, for it is only with the help of a larger and comprehensive organisation that close touch with the villages can be maintained, and that the wide possibilities of country life can find expression. The resources of county public bodies and voluntary agencies will also thus be utilised. The suggestion was made that in each county there should be a rural community council, with (1) representatives of voluntary associations actively working to advance the development of educational or recreational facilities or promoting the health and welfare of the rural community as a whole; (2) representatives appointed by the county council and such of its committees as are specially concerned; (3) specially qualified individuals or representatives of such other bodies in the county as it may seem desirable to include.

Thus there would be representatives of the education and agricultural committees, and any other committees specially concerned, and there would be a real effort made to strengthen the hands of each of the constituent factors and bring their united efforts to bear on the needs of the community without any attempt at interference with their respective work. Economy would be arrived at by devices such as using a common motor van for all organisations concerned and having a common central office or meeting-place. Movements cannot be made to spring up from without; the seed must be there, and the only thing for outsiders to do is to further its growth as they can. A national advisory council in London was recommended in order to link up the community councils of the different counties and to serve as a meeting-place for the representatives from the headquarters of national organisations with special country interests, and from the Ministries and Departments concerned, and also to collect and publish the necessary informing papers. This has now been done, and though Oxfordshire was the first county to place the scheme in active operation, a number of others have now followed suit. The North Riding of Yorkshire has a scheme of its own on similar lines. Oxfordshire believes that its success is largely due to the services given by members of the University, and in all other counties the University element will be brought in, even if the county does not possess a University actually within its bounds. The University influence is a valuable asset even in what does not strictly come within its sphere.

This is perhaps the last step that has been taken in regard to the development of rural life-of' better living in the country,' as its promoters call it-and it promises to be a very important one, because if the public bodies realise that their efforts will not do much good unless they have the real support of the volunteers and have the way prepared for them at first; if the Universities and great educational bodies take the duties now laid upon them of developing University and higher teaching outside their walls as well as within; if the voluntary bodies are conscious that on their side they must have support, without which their effort may flourish but for a day and perish when funds or zeal evaporate; if all these work together, we may have a real revolution effected in our country life. Health schemes have been mentioned because health is so largely connected with other well-being, and here again public and private efforts form the best combination, but this part of the work has still to be developed. Growth in all things in the village must be slow, but there is the satisfaction of feeling that it is sure. After long experience of country life, I can bear testimony to the enormous increase in interest in things that really count during the last thirty-five or forty years. In the old days, so far as most villages were concerned, there were very few attractions beyond the somewhat rough dances. and occasional amateur concerts or lectures that were held. Books were hard to get, and those in village libraries were never changed and were mainly theological or painfully improving in type. Of music of a good kind there was hardly any, and in speaking of music we should not forget the great work done by the Musical Competition Festivals (begun in the north of England and now being held in many counties), which have raised the whole level of musical appreciation in the villages. We cannot wonder, in looking back and remembering the long working hours without the invaluable Saturday halfholiday, that much of the population migrated to the towns or emigrated to the colonies, and consequently that the country became depopulated. Now, though much is still to be desired, the standards are quite different for working people everywhere, and especially for the country dwellers. But the physical conditions of life are not the only things that count in determining men's attitude towards their environment. They must have the means of developing their social, intellectual, and spiritual side as well, and this is the meaning of the new movement towards adult education.

E. S. HALDANE.

THE FRIEND OF WAR

MANY a word suggests to the mind a confusion of varied things, so it has no particular meaning that sums up its multiplicity. War is one of these words; Peace and Competition are others. They are satisfying as words only to persons who never try to pass from jumbled emotions and impressions into ordered thought. When employed in careful and frank arguments, these nouns are · very troublesome, for nothing less than uncompromising candour can collect their aspects and phases into correct groups of associated actions and effects.

Most people pay no attention to this fact, and their views on competition, peace and war are composed mainly of conventional ideas expressed in fatigued catch-phrases. To them, for instance, war is always a tragedy of armed conflict, and therefore wet with human blood. Yet the word should awaken in their minds many memories of warlike action which are free from weapons and bloodshed. There is a line in the Psalms which says, 'The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart.' Here is one phase of enmity which has nothing to do with armies, navies and battles. Imagine a blockade that does not fire a single shot, and that hostile propaganda describes as peaceful pressure. Would it not be terrific war if it starved our island population into defeat, even supposing no loss of life were caused by famine ?

Every other attack calculated to do harm is a phase of war, as when a 'corner'in wheat raises the price of bread and assails poor families. Further, when one grocer prices a pound of particular biscuits at fourteen-pence, while another grocer in the same street receives from the unwary twenty pennies for a pound of biscuits called by the same name and made by the same manufacturer, an excess profit is made by an act of trading warfare. Cheating of this old sort is common in the competition of shops. All similar competitions encourage combativeness, and give greed a great advantage over those who have work to sell or necessaries to buy. They are manifestations of war, and they may be forerunners also of armed strife.

Take a new and powerful store financed by borrowed money that ruins its neighbouring competitors, who have less financial

capital and therefore less power of self-defence. Is this big shop a peaceful trader or a victorious coloniser? Its directors believe that in business competition might is right, as there is no such thing as aggression in civilian trading. Defeated competitors dislike this Bernhardian doctrine, just as Belgium disliked to be overrun by German armies. Besides, if might is to remain right in trade, why should it be wrongful in political manœuvres and ambitions? And if, as most persons believe, might in business competition cannot be prevented from conquering weaker tradesmen, why should reformers believe that vigorously growing nations can be restrained from gobbling up their small and weak neighbours? To accept in trade principles of aggressive power, while demanding from international affairs a benevolent fair play, is certainly irrational, because principles and customs active in daily affairs either foster or weaken those passions which culminate now and then in armed strife.

But workaday habits of thought are slovenly; they keep to a routine of clichés and catch-words, in which war is always armed conflict, while competition is viewed too frequently as a useful varied thing essential to private enterprise.

The noun peace' is a word generally misemployed, though in times of peace, so called, preparations for armed warfare have always been accumulated by rivalries between nations as well as between classes and creeds in the same nation. Mankind has never known a period of genuine peace, free from hurtful competitions and also from all political crises of threatened bloodshed. The peace that we have known throughout our lives has been thronged with accepted phases of strife which armed conflicts have interrupted from time to time. Peace,' then, is a word in the language of camouflage, a mirage ideal which inspires beautiful phrases and hopeful aspirations. Enfeebling warfare has often continued long after armed fighting has ended and a treaty of peace, so named, has been enforced and signed. This has happened since 1918, with far-spreading consequences which some parts of the world have begun to dislike very much.

Our Coalition Government, thinking overmuch of mythical economy, demobilised our armies with too much haste, and scrapped our air fleets recklessly, destroying our country's fair share of authority in foreign affairs. Did British boys die by the hundred thousand in order to make ' peace' as perilous to Europe as armed conflict? Briefly, then, competition, peace and war are troublesome things in a debate; their history inviting us all to pass from stereotyped phrases into multitudes of facts which are often distressingly at variance with current faiths, customs, habits, prejudices, and fireside interests.