turned to Dumfries for Christmas with my husband's aunts. A few friends, such as Mr. Benecke of Magdalen and Sir Michael Sadler, sympathised with our educational aims; but had it not been for the friendliness of West Downs and Mr. Helbert's humour and sympathy, and the support of such friends as Mrs. Sumner (of the Mothers' Union), and Dr. and Mrs. Burge at Winchester College we should have felt almost cut off from our former sociable life. Mrs. Burge was much interested in the P.N.E.U. and asked me to join her committee. I also learned much from my Scotch friend, Mrs. Douglas Carnegie, née Johnstone Douglas, who lived out at Longwood and who had brought up her children on P.N.E.U. teaching, instructing them herself. She is by nature a competent and gifted teacher. David went to see Miss Charlotte Mason at Ambleside, having a great admiration for her educational work, and especially for her pamphlet named "The Basis of National Strength."

The building of our house, in which we tried to combine something of the stateliness of our house at Oxford, with the charm of a country home like Conheath, was an absorbing interest to us. Now that we had begun this work among boys, the great joy was in the thought that we were building also for them, and not only selfishly for ourselves. The house was to be large and homelike, with plenty of sunshine and air, and with as much as possible of all that a boy can desire, and the grounds laid out for amusement and delight, as far as it was possible for us to do so. The place became to us a sort of poet's dream, as though its counterpart was in the land of ideals and this its imperfect image. David's Library, where he combined his Scottish and Oxford libraries, was a large and sunny room opening by windows on to the lawn. Here he wrote and here he loved to welcome his family and friends. The building of our music room with its little chapel,

with everything adapted to youth and simplicity, was a great delight. This chapel, from the first, seemed the heart of our attempt at serviceable work. Mr. Helbert, sometimes discouraging, sometimes amused, but always eventually sympathetic and helpful, watched our progress sometimes with pride, sometimes with playful bantering. He was very staunch in commending our industry and sending us the right sort of boy. From the first we

were most fortunate in loyal helpers on our staff. The school was young, and young teachers came to it. Of our masters, first and last, and of our lady helpers, I can only think with a grateful heart. Of these, Mr. Sidney Smith of Queens' College, Cambridge, now a distinguished member of the British Museum Staff, was the most companionable to my husband, and I had the loyal and devoted friendship and help of Miss Evelyn Kirby, whose loving ministrations were surely unique among friends and teachers. Mr. Williams, with his cheerfulness, humour, and musical talent, did much for the boys and for us all. Mr. Godber Ford gave us and the boys devoted service all through the war in a way that was past praise.

Mrs. Rose, the wife of Major Rose of West Downs, helped us with the boys' music and singing. Her musical talent was of great benefit to us all. She wrote us a beautiful School hymn, setting it to music :

Father Divine, encompassing our path.

She was unfailing in service and in kindness; her young people helping us in School plays, in which they showed unusual talent and artistic gift.

It may be asked what was David's aim as a teacher, whether at Oxford, or in the later years at West Hayes ? During the last year of his life he was writing a paper on what education is, in which he sets forth some of his ideas, and I hope this paper

may yet see the light by being published in another volume. In practice, with the boys who came to us at West Hayes, he aimed first that the teaching should be first rate, accurate and sympathetic; that it should be redeemed from dullness by careful preparation and reading beforehand on the part of the teacher, but that the boy should be taught to work for himself by handling books, and by his curiosity being awakened in the subject. He thought that nothing could justify teaching that was second rate or unintelligent.

He believed in the beaten track rather than in eccentricities of education, and thought that our Public and Preparatory Schools, though they might need progressive reform, yet, like public opinion, represented the collective wisdom of the ages. He thought that the less eccentric a teacher was the more power he would have to launch out into any original method should he feel called upon to do so. He kept his eyes open to modern methods and found much to admire in Bedales School at Petersfield, Miss Gilpin's remarkable school at Weybridge and Miss Mason's House of education at Ambleside. He gained the respect and liking of the masters who taught under him and of the boys themselves, and West Hayes justified itself under his guardianship by a number of successes. He inspired the boys with his own reverence and sense of duty, and to put forth effort in the grind for excellency and scholarship; but he desired all gladness and encouragement possible to be given them to lighten the burden, opening windows in their minds, and showing them vistas of imagination.

The success of the boys was his justification. One of the first eventually gained a Winchester Scholarship, Alan Fletcher was First Scholar of Trinity College, Dublin, Hugh Francis was King's Cadet at Woolwich, Christopher Macgregor, who had been thoroughly well taught before he came to