A NEW DEPARTURE.
During these years one or more prominent lecturers were engaged each quarter to deliver lectures to the employees. Amongst such lecturers, there were in later years, Mr Andrew Young, Miss Margaret M‘Millan, and Mr Philip Snowden. The Society’s kinderspiels continued to be very successful, as did the other agencies, but there was a sameness about the work of the committee which made for monotony; and in 1913 Mr James Young came forward with a suggestion to the committee which met with their hearty and unanimous approval. Mr Young pointed out that, while with some people education ceased as soon as they left school, with others it did not cease until they had had a University course and a tour round the world. The workers could not afford a tour round the world, nor a University course, but it was within the power of the educational committee of the Society to appoint several of their employees to make a tour of some of the most prominent concerns on the other side of the Border, and so learn their methods of doing business; how they provided for the housing of their employees, the relation of the employees to trade unionism, recreative societies, conditions of labour, hours, etc., and he suggested that such firms as the C.W.S., Cadbury’s, Lever’s, and Rowntree’s might be visited with profit. On the return of the deputation, short papers might be prepared by the members in which they would give accounts of what they had seen.
He pointed out that civic and other bodies believed in the value of deputations as necessary in enlarging the outlook and in helping the development of education.