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Forum. It is cut circular and held at the neck by one large coat-button. It is ample enough to envelop any playboy, and falls naturally into good folds. Being made of rough blue serge it is very serviceable and may well outlive generations of playboys.

PLATE E shows again how a tunic alone can satisfactorily disguise everyday costume. The player on the left is in military uniform, and having been summoned hurriedly by the mister from his place among the onlookers has not even had time to take off his jacket.

PLATE F shows two Belgian playboys in the costume selected by themselves in the Mummery Tiring-house. Their class was acting the story of "The Babes in the Wood" as an extempore play, for practice in English. The players asked to be allowed to dress, and as I could not be bothered to direct the dressing I gave them five minutes' leave from the stage to do what they could. These two figures are the murderers. The one on the left is in military uniform as to his legs. He has added an orange cloak, originally made for Tyr, the God of War, a scoutmaster's hat, a striped waistcoat, and a strip of material from the rag-bag for a neck-wrap. The one on the right has taken the red Paisley tunic, and tied it about with a sash to serve as sword-belt. A battered scout hat and Sir Toby's boots complete his rig. They chose to be photographed in these attitudes: the player on the left is saying, By this murder I will get much money for me ; the other anticipates a flow of liquor and says, Only to drink, to drink. I don't care, only to drink."

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PLATE G. A player who was acting Macbeth suggested that he should get a kilt made at home. The photograph shows the costume which arrived about a week later. It is very smart, but scarcely suitable for Macbeth! The player was allowed to wear his kilt, but with tunic, cloak, helmet, and sword from our Tiring-house.

The provision of costume for classroom plays is a simple matter. But if the teacher leaves the boys to get tunics and cloaks made by their mothers, the result will naturally be a strange assortment of attire representing all styles and periods. For the making of costumes we are indebted to the kindness of parents; but my system was to go to a player's house with materials of my own choosing, and then drape the boy this way and that until I hit upon a satisfactory design. Then the mother stuck pins here, there, and everywhere, and I left her to carry on. This is only a rough-and-ready method of designing costumes, but the suggestion may be useful to those who can boast no more skill in the craft than myself.

Materials should be obtained from a theatrical costumier, because a draper's stock is not bold enough in pattern and colour for stage purposes.

CHAPTER X

THE SUBJECT TEACHER

In the difference of wits I have observed there are many
notes; and it is a little maistry to know them, to discern
what every nature, every disposition will bear; for before we
sow our land we should plough it. There are no fewer forms
of minds than of bodies amongst us. The variety is incredible,
and therefore we must search. Some are fit to make divines,
some poets, some lawyers, some physicians; some to be sent
to the plough, and trades.

BEN JONSON

THERE is much to be said in criticism of the subject teacher. Perhaps of all the influences which have operated to reduce school to its present unsatisfactory position as a repository of education this fetish of dividing the whole teaching time among a limited number of set subjects is most to be blamed.

The whole system should be organized on a far wider and more practical basis. We must make it our end to prepare boys for life in the world; and such a preparation to be sound must be considered in relation to the world's needs. We schoolmasters must not centre our whole thought in the teaching of mathematics or science or languages, but must pay more heed to the point of view of the man of the world. One of the first new studies to find a place would be politics, both in the organization of the school and in the teaching. For a theory of education if it is designed to be carried out in practice at all must have been considered in relation to the social conditions of its day. Schoolmasters of to-day are always expected to keep their politics out of their teaching. The wisdom of this counsel may be admitted, so long as " politics means nothing more intellectual than a narrow and prejudiced partisanship, a blind belief in one or other of the self-seeking

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cliques who conspire to take turn about in governing the country. But even to-day there are many to whom "politics means something wider, some regard for the State more befitting the dignity of an honest and intelligent man.

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Surely schoolmasters should take a leading part in the education of public opinion, to put an end to the criminal farce known to-day as politics," and to train the future electorate to understand their duty to themselves and to the State.

If the boys now facing you in school are to be educated for life, trained to cope with the difficulties and to realize the duties which will confront them in the modern world, then the system on which our schools are organized must in the first place be wrought in keeping with the social and economic conditions which obtain at the present time, and, further, both schoolmasters and their pupils must have an understanding, a very real and practical understanding, of the state of public affairs, if they are to act rightly as citizens.

What if there should one day be a school in which the boys of fifteen and upwards took a real interest in public affairs, and held clear views on current events such as strikes, lock-outs, factory bills, and insurance proposals-views which were not only independent of the newspaper leaders, but for the most part right contrary to such party influence? Perhaps you will say, "There never will be such a school." And you may be right. But if these things do not come about, it will be because parents and school governors remain too narrowly partisan to permit boys to be educated on such lines, and not because boys of fifteen are unable, in their way, to understand State affairs, nor because masters are not available to teach them such things. If the teaching of modern history extended to the year 1914-as it certainly should, since that year was the culminating-point of many influences and tendencies which have been operative for many decades past-then, unless the teaching were a mere sham, the observant and thoughtful boys would apply their knowledge of politics and economics (elementary though it might be) to the events of the current weeks.

The study of ancient and modern history, of constitutions,

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