We are only gradually discovering the effects of evacuation on
town children. Light on one aspect of that is thrown by some very interesting figures quoted by Sir Edward Cadogan in the recent debate in the House of Commons on religious teaching. It is estimated, he said, that about 8o per cent. of the London school-children now in reception-areas attend church or Sunday-school regularly, but that where children are evacuated with a parent or parents they rarely attend either. There is no doubt that religious attendance tends to be higher in villages than in towns, particularly among children. Whether the effect, whatever it may be, of such attendance on the town child now in the country will be lasting is no easier to answer than the larger question of whether all the other effects of country life—most of them altogether beneficial—will slough off six weeks or six months after the return to the town environment. Not all will, and in some cases the habit of more or less regular
attendance at church or chapel may survive.
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