Final judgement on the merits of the unhappy situation that
has arisen at Ashridge must clearly be suspended till we get a clearer statement of all the facts than is available yet. A financial problem, no doubt, had to be solved. Costs could not be covered by the fees of students paying £3 sos. od. for a week-end, yet it is those students that Ashridge, with its admirable adult-education courses, wants to attract. Of the various ways in which the gap should be covered the proposal—though it is in fact a fait accompli, accom- plished without a word of consultation with the Principal of Ashridge, General Sir Bernard Paget—to give over half the accommo- dation at the College, or something like it, to young ladies from an institution called the House of Citizenship in Kensington, who will pay go guineas a term, sounds, to put it mildly, very far from being the best. General Paget, it may be, was not consulted because General
Paget had been given notice by the Governors last May—a step calculated to shock considerably anyone who knows what Sir Bernard Paget's reputation in the Army and out of it has been. The Educa- tional Council at Ashridge, of which Mr. Arthur Bryant is chairman, seems also to have been told of, not consulted about, the new departure. All this may be better than it seems, but there is clearly much more to be said if anxiety about the future and functions of Ashridge is to be dispelled.
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