THE FUTURE.
The methods and work of the School have been briefly outlined in this report, and its hopes for future development have been suggested; but above all it must be remembered that the Community, when it comes into existence, does not wish to be set up as a universal model. It does not maintain that all children should live in Communities, or that Council schools and inspectors should be swept away, and educational anarchy take their place. It does not even wish to grow greatly in numbers, or to undertake the training of teachers. Although it educates its children and delights their mothers, its main object is to provide a garden in which to test and weed out the new educational theories of which the last decade has been so full. The Community would like to test the new theories that are slowly but radically changing our national education; it would like to be, not a universal mode!, but a forerunner. It does not wish to preach community life, nor Montessori games, nor country holidays; but to show by trial what are the good, and what are the bad tendencies in the modern theories of collective life and non-collective teaching.
Until the war broke out the hopes of the Communitv were high. Friends, money, and encouragement seemed to be at hand; an ideal Community building was not even an utter impossibility. Now, however, these conditions are changed; money is scarce, friends are pre-occupied, and suspense and uncertainty hang over every project. And yet we cannot afford to let our children suffer; the training they have already had must not be cut short and lost, and the lessons that they have taught their teachers must not be wasted. Science may stop, and scholarship come to an end; humanity and political reform may roll backwards, and the blackest misery may come over the world, and yet our children must be undisturbed. They must be better educated, and more wisely balanced than we, if they are to put together the pieces of our shattered civilisation, and build up again the security of Europe; and we must see to it, even if it is at the expense of all our other most cherished causes, that the cause of education still goes forward.
AN APPEAL
The Community must now appeal very earnestly to those who believe that its methods are of interest and its experiments worth making. It must appeal to them for the money without which it cannot exist.
At present there is barely enough money to enable the School to go on for three months, and if those who believe in its methods do not now help it the work must come to an end.
The Community hopes that this Report may not prove to be its last, and that the optimism with which it still faces the future may be justified by the generosity of its supporters.