possible. Medical men of the highest authority regard the influence of
too prolonged hours of work as one which urgently demands attention.
Enlightened and experienced men of business like Lord Leverhulme have
expressed very strong views on the subject. Man, however, cannot be
looked on as a mere machine for production, nor is even health the only
question for him as a human being. He must have time for other pursuits,
for recreation, for a fuller life. As civilisation and education advance
this need becomes stronger. The duller the work the greater the need for
those who have any natural mental activity to find resources of interest
outside. The pleasure derived from literature and science should be open
to all. No one who knows working people can deny that the demand for it
exists. A fitter on weekly wages used to show in a poor cottage one of
the best collections of British butterflies and moths, made entirely by
himself. Many of them had been captured late at night on Chat Moss. A
hair-dresser has told how to watch the habits of birds was the delight
of his Sunday bicycle rides; his assistant called attention to some
little known poet whose works had a special appeal for him; another said
it was the study in his rare holidays at the seaside and in local
museums of some form of animal life--the name of it, now forgotten,
would convey no meaning to most University graduates--that made his
interest in life. You may find a large audience of workmen interested in
a lecture on Shelley, and some of them as well acquainted with his poems
as the lecturer. Such cases as these may perhaps be exceptional, but
given opportunity and sympathetic help and advice, they might be
multiplied almost indefinitely. Other men want time for cultivation of
allotments, which ought to be within the reach of thousands of urban
workers who find in them a perennial source of interest. A growing
number take a keen pleasure in seeing something of the beauties of their
own country. Tramping through the Yorkshire dales and knowing them well,
it was interesting to meet one who knew them better, and to find that he