THERE is considerable danger that in spitz of the Luxmoore
Report rural education may get less than its fair share of attention in coming discussions on educational reform—except, of course,' in
connexion with the dual system argument. For that reason thei appearance of this wise, human and eminently readable volume 'U peculiarly opportune. Mr. Btirton, indeed, handling his subject with easy familiarity, devotes one chapter to the problem of dual control and another to the typical village school ; if his picture of the latter seems unduly sombre, his answer, no doubt, is that he is describini what he knows. The general aim of the book is to indicate means by which the brighter boys and girls, or a proportion of them, can be retained in the country, for its benefit and their own, instead of drifting inevitably to the towns—as the writer himself puts it, "to discover how we may so `improve the quality of life' for country people that we may ultimately contribute something valuable towards a general restoration and rehabilitation of the countryside." The book is to be recommended strongly to those who know and under- stand the countryside, and still more strongly to those who do not But a writer on education should not mis-spell the name of Mr. Ramsbotham (now Lord Soulbury), and the middle figure in the trinity John Burns, T. E. Cook, J. H. Thomas is rather puzzling. Should T. E. be A. J.?
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