COUNTRY LIFE
To School by Cycle Village life in England is about to be greatly changed by the new educational methods and arrangements. The village school in many places is to be split into two ; and where hamlets are at all small, the elder children will be transported daily to a central school at some distance. Education will be better ; but a good many parents, and others, are extremely nervous, not without reason. A particular example may serve, especially as it is taken from the hub of England, the physical and spiritual centre at Stratford-on-Avon. A big school for the elders—save the mark !—that is, children over eleven, is to be built at Stratford. The village of Snitterfield (most English in name and nature) is three and a half miles away. A beneficent authority proposes to equip the children with bicycles, which, in spite of their individual cost, are cheaper than a special omnibus. The journey lies in part along the main (and famous) Stratford and Warwick road and ends in a network of narrow streets, which the memory of Shakespeare has made rather busier and fuller of traffic than in any country town of England. Parents who listen weekly to the tale of road casualties given by the B.B.C. may well shiver at the prospect ; the more so as it is unlikely that children provided with these delectable toys will altogether avoid the delights of joy-riding on the (alleged) way home.
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