During the summer of 1944 a ‘Catholic People’s Week’ was advertised to be held during August at Walsingham. The Government ban on certain coastal areas forced the organisers to cancel their arrangements. As considerable interest in the project was aroused it will not be out of place to explain here the ultimate aims the organisers had in mind and the plans they have made for future action.

Educational reform is much to the fore at the moment. But the schemes to be put into operation are mainly concerned with the education of children. Many thinkers are convinced there is an equally if not more urgent need to provide for the education of adults. The acknowledged leader in this field is Sir Richard Livingstone, whose The Future in Education states unanswerably the case for adult education.

The human mind and will, the human senses and emotions, are never at rest. They are always open to the million influences of experience. Whether we realise, it or not, our own individual minds and wills are constantly fed and attracted by the realities of our daily round. Education should fit us to dominate these influences, to reject the unsound and absorb the wholesome. It should give us a high standard of discernment and firmness of character. Were we to drift and allow mind and will to submit passively to the flux of modern life with its press, radio, cinemas and factories, we should hardly succeed in retaining anything worthy of the name of personal autonomy. We do react, but do we react according to truth? Are our choices arbitrary, instinctive, thoughtless?