OLD VILLAGE LIFE.*
THMRR is a great deal of talk about the reconstruction of life in our villages. " No one," says Mr. Ditchfield in the preface to his new book, Old Village Life, " is more eager than we are, who live in the country, for a true policy of reconstruction." But the best policy of reconstruction " is to blend the new with the old " :— " I prefer to reconstruct backwards, to see the Roman in his villa, which usually stood on the site of the present manor- house ; the Saxon thane and the Norman lord ; the monks at their country grange gathering in their corn in their huge barns ; the mediaeval labourers in the fields ; the revival of agriculture in Tudor and Stuart times ; the old methods of farming ; the customs, games, and pastimes of the villagers—all these interest nie ; and when I walk through the fields and lanes they are as real to me ,as the squire, farmer and peasant who now dwell • Old Village £9%. By P. H. Ditchfieid. London : Methuen. 1,7s. 6d. netj around me. I will endeavour to introduce them to you and to look back a little before we look forward and welcome the changes which wise men are devising for our improvement and betterment."
Readers of Mr. Ditehfield's numerous and attractive books about
English country life of the past will not be surprised to find that in his new volume he seems more interested in looking back than in looking forward. He has some words of welcome for the efforts that are being made to improve rural conditions— the housing schemes, the provision of small holdings, the attempts through village clubs, the revival of old folk songs and dances and the village drama to bring back something of old-time gaiety and pageantry, or at any rate to increase the amenities of rural life—but it must be admitted that on the whole he seems more fearful than hopeful of the future. The lessons of history seem to give him little consolation. But if Mr Ditch- field's book has not quite the value it might have had as an aid to the reconstruction of our village life, it is an attractive survey of rural conditions from the earliest times down to the present day, with special reference to the Tudor and Stuart periods and the problems and developments of the eighteenth and nine- teenth centuries. The book is marked by all that infectious enthusiasm for his subject which is characteristic of Mr. Ditch- field's writings.
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