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LABOUR AND CHILDHOOD

the duty of saving the neglected. It was prophesied that these leaflets though carefully worded would give offence to many. But no! They gave offence, as it happened, to none. It was prophesied that parental responsibility would die. But on the contrary, parental responsibility was born in many. In many it began for the first time to grow and flourish apace. It was foretold that the children who washed at school would be neglected at home. But as time went on the children who had been quite neglected at home began to wear cleaner clothes, to wash (for the first time) at home so as to come clean to the baths. What is more wonderful, the mothers came and wanted to use the baths and to learn swimming.

The mothers were not offended. They took to bathing quite as naturally as did their social superiors a generation ago. As for the prediction that parental responsibility would be destroyed, that always was contradicted in fact. The school experience that brought relief to the child brought awakening to the mothers. Parental responsibility was created by the new kind of school lesson. It was born in some; it was stimulated in many.

Last year, 1906, the Education Committee of London beginning to feel perhaps that the prophets