Page:Labour and childhood.djvu/134

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LABOUR AND CHILDHOOD

more, nothing is safe till this has been done. Many reforms have been carried already, and lost for lack of it. Some reforms are, indeed, always in jeopardy till science has put their value beyond dispute. People will find substitutes for them—or what they regard as substitutes. The moralist may declare he should have lessons on temperance, truthfulness, diligence, and a score of other virtues (which may be true enough). But lessons do not take the place of life. Some may expect the school doctor to confine himself to showing methods by which the boys can escape having favus, or eye-diseases. But the greater service will have been rendered only when he brings reasons to show how or why the education the youth once longed for (or would, in any case, have eagerly responded to) would have saved him from moral and physical shipwreck. The new technical schools already show that this education saves—they show, at least, pupils who, at first feeble and unstable of character, after a certain time become strong, and self-controlled, and are saved from shipwreck. But the schools where such training is given are in peril all the time. Who will believe their report? It is still only a report. The thing that would give it authority is still lacking. The men who could find out and explain why this is so do not even so much