Welsh Journals

on Friday morning, when Mr. A. Clutton-Brock spoke on Beauty and Duty "-a charming and immensely suggestive address, which was listened to with rapt attention by a very large assembly. One could go on and on describing the meet- ings, but it is unnecessary to do so. All that need be said is that the Executive Committee is to be congratulated upon an excellent set of morning and evening gatherings, and it is obvious that the School is fulfilling a great mission in the life of Wales just now. The Committee this year, too, deserves the thanks of the members because it remembered that they were very human after all, especially when they are on holiday. They were provided with an occasional free evening, and one afternoon an excursion was arranged which enabled members to visit the Secondary School-bovs' Camp at Aberedw. That was a delightful experience. And not less pleasant was the visit which the members of the Welsh Holidav School of Llan- wrtvd paid one afternoon. when they sang a number of Welsh folk songs, and were after- wards kindly entertained to tea by Mrs. Davies and the Misses Davies of Pla^inam, on behalf of the Welsh School of Social Service. IV. The School is exceptionally fortunate in its officers. As Chairman of its Executive Com- mittee. Mr. Lleufer Thomas has added greatlv to the obligations of Welsh men and women to him for his many sterling services to Wales. To praise or attempt to estimate the value of the Hon. Secretary's work would be a case of polish- ing the diamond, as an old Welsh preacher used to say. Those two gentlemen and the Executive The Primary School and the Adolescent. By Evan T. Davis, M.A., Director of Education for Pembrokeshire. OUR problem-that of the unfolding of human personality so as to secure its most fruitful adaptation to the countless demands of an increasingly involved and ever-changing environment-is one of the most ancient, the most complex, and the most urgent problems in the world. It is a problem with a thousand facets-the influence of parenthood and the problem of how to call into being an ever- increasing provision of wise parenthood, con- gestion in cities and depopulation of the country- side, increasingly monotonous industrial pro- cesses, more leisure and less capacity for enjoying it and so on. Our particular facet of the great problem is the one of how the primary school can so environ childhood as to hand over to those concerned with the care of adolescence a never- Committee are thoroughly alive to the fact that the School has now got to consolidate its posi- tion and advance along the line of developing the research and corporate thinking side of the School's activities without impairing, much less abandoning, the propaganda side of its work, which is so well served by the public meetings of the School. Perhaps something could be done in this regard by closer, though unofficial, co- operation with and support from various Welsh educational institutions and the assemblies and courts of the Churches in Wales. It is some- thing solidly to the good that already among the members of the School there are to be found representatives of all the Christian communities in Wales and of all its political parties. In no decent respectable quarter is there a scrap of antagonism to the School and its activities. And the future is full of promise. The opinion of individuals and classes hitherto has moved slowly in the realms of thought and practice wherein the work of the School lies. but there are many indications of a change in that respect just now. It is highly fortunate that the Welsh School of Social Service is getting into its stride at a time when the need for it is so unmistakable. The social conscience too often reminds one of William James's description of European weather as something which is so stagnant and immovable that it seems as if it had fed on solid pudding and got stuck. and was in need of a kick to start it. And in Wales no institution seems cut out more clearly for the work of enlightening and inspiring the social conscience and of moving it to definite and helpful action as the Welsh School of Social Service. ending supply of young life which shall be material meet to be moulded by the best and highest wisdom and inspiration in the State. We must have in mind exactly what is connoted by the term adolescence, together with some idea of the problems which confront, and the temptations which beset, our young people, and the proposals designed to supply their highest and best needs and to develop their best elements. Knowing these things we can proceed to examine the problem of how our primary schools can set childhood on paths producing a happier, healthier, more usefully employed and less dis- tracted adolescence. Of adolescence one has spoken as The dangerous age," another as The age of in- stability and crisis." and still another has said Every adolescent is a reformer, and the world probably advances through the utilisation of ideals and energies of successive generations of youth." The significance of adolescence is to be recognised in the fact that its chief business is the formation and projection of ideals." Here, then, are to hand the warp and woof of a glorious pattern-hopes and fears, faith and