The Changing School: By Philip Boswood Ballard, M.A., D.Litt. (Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., London, 1925. Pp. 332. Price 6 s. net.)

This volume consists of twenty-two rather loosely strung together essays dealing, in the main, with modern educational theories and practices (such as the Discipline of Natural Consequences, the method of Individual work, the Nursery School, Script Writing, etc.), and written with all the ease and liveliness which make Dr. Ballard's writings and speeches invariably entertaining. A wide range of topics, all of present-moment interest, is covered by the book, and though it suffers somewhat from lack of continuity and of a central idea, on the other hand it is full of variety and touches deftly, if but slightly, on many important and still much-argued problems. Some of the best chapters, containing wise, sympathetic and very human points of view, are 'The Discipline of Natural Consequences' (Chapter V), 'Facing the Music' (Chapter VIII), 'Accuracy' (Chapter XVI), and 'The Nursery School', the last chapter in the book. In all of these Dr. Ballard's plea is for greater elasticity on the one hand, and on the other more close and carful investigation by educators of their own principles and practice. To give example, he points out in his chapter on 'Freedom' (Chapter VI) how variable and relative a thing is denoted by