Even if it were desirable that the upper house should be a kind of reflex of the lower, it is very doubtful if machinery to secure this object could be invented. Conservatism seems to be the inseparable attribute of a second chamber, and a House of Lords containing a strong Radical proportion, or possibly a Radical majority, would be a pure contradiction in terms. The idea of having political parties more evenly balanced sounds plausible enough, but in this event all important divisions would be conducted on party lines.

The plea of Lord de Broke embraces several examples of upper house legislation deemed by him to be instances of wisdom and proper discretion. Referring to the Education and Trade Disputes bills, the writer declares that:

termined upon was not to allow anything to impair the teaching of religion in elementary schools. In handling the bill this was the chief principle the peers kept in view. No better example than the passing by the House of Lords of the Trade Disputes bill can be found of its willingness to give effect to what is conceived to be the clearly expressed wish of the vast majority of the electors, even though the provisions of the bill were directly opposed to the best traditions that have previously animated the legislation of this country.

The writer of the "Plea," in connection with the view just quoted, further declares of the House of Lords that:

THAT a child needs to play in order to be healthy, to acquire control of its mental faculties to think and to do, needs no discussion; but the place of play in human conduct, as related to ethics, is a question for determination. Dr. Luther H. Gulick, in the Homiletic Review for July, elucidates this problem. "Play" may mean amusement or recreation, or "that thing which children do when adults suppose they are amusing themselves." Play demands intense attention, for it is a development of personal activity, of the highest part of the self. When a baby drops a spoon from a high chair and, on regaining it, repeats the process seventy-nine times, it is not amusing itself. It is learning in a pragmatic way something about its own power in relation to that object. It could not be called recreation, for recreation follows labor. Play is rather the pusuit of the ideal as it then appears. When a baby lies on its back and plays with its toes, it is actuated by a similar impulse to Livingstone when he crossed Africa, Abruzzi when he sought the North Pole, or the violin-maker who made violins -better than was necessary through sheer love of the undertaking. They are all in pursuit of an ideal.

He illustrates this very charmingly by referring to an experience with two little girls, sisters, who were playing together. They did not always agree. Presently one said to

the other: "Let's play we were sisters"; and then there was a new atmosphere. Each treated the other in an ideal fashion, and their relations were established on an ideal basis.

The lash of economic necessity has not produced the great poems or statues of the world. Play is not something less than work. It is a difference in attitude. One may play when cooking, or one may work. One is the pursuit of the ideal; the other is the yielding to the compulsions of life. Play is part of one's life work, and when it can be made the great work it is ideal and glorious.

Ethical conduct springs from self-control, not from control by others. This is a primary reason why children should play, and, in this connection," the boy without a playground is father to the man without a job,"

that is, using "job" in the sense of a life enthusiasm, or work. But there must be a kind of "mutual-consent control." in the play, such as that seen in "team" play, which, the writer believes, is the "highest type of moral power,—the individual sinking himself into the consciousness of the whole." While not under compulsion the individual is one of the group, yet is at his highest when completely lost in the whole. When this idea extends to all society, the passionate devotion of the individual in seeking to ally the self with the "game of the whole,"not seeking self-expression, will be realized.