The root of the matter

Contents Note: Contents: Human relations, by J. D. Beresford .-- Politics, by L. Birch. -- The poetic approach to reality, by J. S. Collis. -- Education, by H. W. Heckstall-Smith. -- Religion, by H. R. L. Sheppard.

Summary or Abstract: Nearly all of us feel that there is something wrong with the general conditions of modern life, and nearly all, too, cast about for a way of putting things right, though for the most part we come to differing conclusions as to what is wrong, and follow differing theories as to how things should be righted. That we should make any effort towards amelioration is good, but that we should make such differing and opposite efforts tends towards cancellation: while we remain a house divided, we shall, to say the least, get little done.

This book, while it tries to avoid being dogmatic or didactic, is the attempt of five independent writers on different subjects to reach the root of the matter where what is wrong is concerned. But it is a further attempt than that, for the five writers, when the root of the matter has been exposed by a certain amount of apparently destructive spade-work, have tried to build up, still independently within their own subjects, a constructive proposal for a better state of affairs.

The five subjects were chosen because they seemed to be of paramount importance; to be, in another sense, the root of the matter of ordinary daily life. They are subjects, surely, in which every man and woman must take an interest.