SIR.—Miss Kendon generalises very rashly. It is possible, though often
misleading, to make general statements about the social habits or the mental attitudes of children from various kinds of home; but where their emotional capacities are concerned we are on very different ground, and must move with great caution and with a respect for personality which I find lacking both in Miss Kendon's book and in her article. How can she know that the children whom she teaches have never felt a wound,' and have • little capacity for love, or for suffering, or for real joy' ? Children at school seldom tell us the secrets of their hearts. I am sure that those of whom Miss Kendon writes differ, like all others, in their potential power to love and suffer; in some, it may be weak and shallow; in others, it is certainly strong and deep. I am equally sure that in some of their homes character. training is neglected, and in others given the foremost place; Miss Kendon cannot really ask us to accept her facile assertion: ' The parents of elementary school children have never even heard of it' Human beings are too diverse and too complex to be classified and dismissed with so much assurance.— Yours faithfully,
V. E. ST -J
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