29 JANUARY 1927, Page 13

What will probably be most directly effective in the scheme

is the arrangement for obserVation of country crafts or operations. The elder children are to be given the oppor- tunity of studying on the spot the arts of stacking and thatch- ing, of ploughing and drilling seed, of draining land and cleaning ditches and hedging, of the care of all sorts of live stock, of visiting blacksmiths' and wheelwrights' shops, mills, malt houses or other local industries. With the young, seeing is believing, and it is a certainty that if such visits can be properly conducted some of our best country children will be caught by the charm and attraction of their proper country pursuits. It is not unlikely that the historian of the future, the Trevelyan of the twentieth century, will find in this syllabus the turning-point of national ambitions, the return to a democratic interest in the land. When asked hoW they inspired such a lively patriotism in their people, a famous Japanese replied: ' It is gaffe simple. We teach it in the elementary schools." We, too, can teach in the same place a love of the country as easily as the love of country generally

called patriotism. * * * *