ABSTRACT
To those who are so well accustomed to this state of things that they have come to regard it as of divine dispensation, the sight of a class of children who are heartily enjoying their lessons, and seem to be thoroughly happy in their school life-in school as well as out of school-must be disconcerting in no small degree. The feeling that children ought not to be happy in their school life, that they ought, for their own sakes, to be working against the grain of their natures, is strong amongst the men and women-especially the womenof my own generation. When I describe the Montessori system to my friends and tell them how happy the children are who are working under it, I am often met with the rejoinder-made in perfect good faith and without any suspicion of its savouring of paradox-" Oh, but isn't that a bad preparation for the drudgery of life?" I have lately come into possession of a pamphlet issued under the auspices of the " Duty and Discipline Movement." The name of the pamphlet is Anarchy; it belongs to what is called the " Patriot Series " ; and the writer is a Mrs. Colvill. I have not yet succeeded in discovering what the leaders of the " Duty and Discipline Movement " mean by the words Duty and Discipline: but I have reason to think that some of their supporters regard the " movement " as a buttress to the tottering fabric of Feudalism; that the " Duty " which they have in mind is the duty of the lower classes, as they call them, to order themselves lowly and reverently to all their betters; and that the " Discipline " which they have in mind is the coercion of the lower classes by the upper, and in general of the weak by the
strong. To such persons any serious departure from feudal ideals and the feudal scheme of life is anarchy. Mrs. Colvill seems to be one of these. At the beginning of her pamphlet she tells us that one day she caught herself saying to a friend of hers. .. England is going downhill; going to destruction like the Gadarene swine. You and I see the beginning of the end; our children will be in at the death." An unfortunate prophecy this. to which the events of the past two years have given the lie direct. The spirit in which this country is waging the greatest of all wars is not that of a dying people; and our army in France and elsewhere-an army of millions drawn from all classes of the community. including that class which Mrs. Colvill. in characteristically feudal fashion. speaks of as .. the dregs of the population "—can scarcely be described as a herd of Gadarene swine. But I have no doubt that many of the supporters of the .. Duty and Discipline Movement " think. as Mrs. Colvill seems to do. that from impatience of swaddling clothes to desire to dance the carmagnole there is but a single step.
