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AN IMPRESSION OF THE CALDECOTT COMMUNITY. By EVELYN SHARP. It has always seemed to me that we cannot even begin to talk about education in this country, until we eliminate from it all discrimination. That the accident of birth should deprive the workers children of full educational advantages, whatever their capacity, is not only grossly unfair to the children : it is also, from the Nation’s standpoint, a silly waste of material. One only has to visit the Caldecott Community in its home at Charlton, to realise the value of what the country now loses because the worker s child is given little chance of developing or even discerning the possibilities that are in him. Let me at once mention, however, that the Caldecott children are ordinary hoys and girls, not specially selected for their qualities or for their defects, as is usually the case in those few instances where such children arc separated from their fellows. They are the average youngsters to be found playing in any I,ondon street; and in this lies the strength of the experiment. 1 he Directors are making a real experiment, because they are making it with the common stuff of everyday humanity. I am impressed with this truth every time I visit the Community. When a small person in a woollen jersey, with hare feet and a pigtail, helps me to tidy up the lawn and manages to do less work and talk more about it than most people 1 have met. 1 know that Charlton is not peopled with little paragons of industry. When at " Assembly ” on Saturday morning, jobs are announced to the waiting school, and there are a dozen applicants for cleaning out the pig sty to one for sewing tapes on stockings. I cease to doubt that young human nature is the same everywhere, whether you meet it at Charlton or at Bedales. And. as at Bedales. the principle on which this boarding school for workers children is founded is co-educative. and that in more senses than one. The teachers as well as the taught are learning all the time. Indeed, not the least interesting aspect of the experiment is its general acceptance both by the grown - up and the juvenile elements engaged in it. Most of us. probably, still remember the sense of injustice under which we laboured as children because of the omnipotence claimed by those who had the ordering of our young lives, and were often so pathetically astray in their understanding of us. The Caldecott children will grow up with no sore memories of that kind. Of course their teachers often misunderstand them; hut the children know that the misunderstanding is mutual and can be cleared up. and that no one at Charlton pretends to be omnipotent. The " strike" was an instance of this spirit. It happened half in fun. half seriously; and the complainants tabled a series of grievances. No one felt hurt or annoyed about it. no one was made to feel presumptuous for complaining. The Community met at once in conference and the thing was reasonably talked out. Amongst other things it was