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INAUGURAL ADDRESS                         63

The Children's Houses spread rapidly over the world, in spite
of the difficulties due to the war and to prejudices. And today,
during the second world war, the Children's Houses are multi-
plying in India.

The history of the movement shows us that the same educa-
tion is possible, though with some degrees of adaptation, in all
social grades of society, with happy children, as with children
shattered by the shock of a disaster, and among all races of the
world. The Child is the driving force which is manifested in our
time, bringing new hope to men in nations wrapt in obscurity.

The Children's House is endowed with double importance: its
social importance is wrapt up in its form of a " school in a house ";
its purely educational importance depends on the methods for
child education with which I experimented.

As a factor of civilization affecting the people directly, the
Children's House deserves to be illustrated in a separate volume.
It indeed solves many social and educational problems which
seemed Utopian, and it forms part of the modern transformation
of the home; that is, it touches directly the most important side of
the social question, that which concerns the intimate life of men.