Now that I am in my seventy-sixth year, I feel that I shall not
write another book about education, for I have little new to say.
But what I have to say has something in my favor; I have not
spent the last forty years writing down theories about children.
Most of what I have written has been based on observing chil-
dren, living with them. True, I have derived inspiration from
Freud, Homer Lane, and others; but gradually, I have tended to
drop theories when the test of reality proved them invalid.

It is a queer job that of an author. Like broadcasting, an au-
thor sends out some sort of message to people he does not see,
people he cannot count. My public has been a special one. What
might be called the official public knows me not. The British
Broadcasting Company would never think of inviting me to
broadcast on education. No university, my own of Edinburgh
included, would ever think of offering me an honorary degree.
When I lecture to Oxford and Cambridge students, no professor,
no don comes to hear me. I think I am rather proud of these
facts, feeling that to be acknowledged by the officials would sug-
gest that I was out-of-date.

At one time, I resented the fact that The London Times
would never publish any letter I sent in; but today, I feel their
refusal is a compliment.

I am not claiming that I have gotten away from the wish for
recognition; yet age brings changes--especially changes in val-
ues. Recently I lectured to seven hundred Swedes, packing a hall
built for six hundred, and I had no feeling of elation or conceit.
I thought I was really indifferent until I asked myself the ques-
tion, "How would you have felt if the audience had consisted of

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