Around the year 1916, Bertrand was attracted to a lady named Dora Black. Dorothy Winch and Jean Nicod, two of Bertrand’s pupils had brought Miss. Black along and Bertrand had gone for a two - day walk along with them. Though he had not seen Dora before, Bertrand was immediately enthralled by her presence and her sincerity. To Bertrand’s question as to what each of them most desired in life Dora replied that she wanted to marry and have children. This was an answer that Bertrand desired to hear most. Alys had failed to give him a child. Both Lady Ottoline Morrell and Lady Constance Malleson also called Collette did not care enough for Bertrand to risk their marriages and give birth to Bertrand’s children though he had made such a request to both of them. After meeting Dora, Bertrand saw to it that both of them had many opportunities to be together. About this relationship Bertrand says: Dora and I became lovers when she came to Lulworth, and the parts of the summer during which she was there were extraordinarily delightful. The chief difficulty with Collette had been that she was unwilling to have children and I could not put it off any longer. Dora was entirely willing to have children, with or without marriage, and from the first we used no precautions (Russell 2: 97)

Bertrand was still meeting Collette and had not made up his mind as to whether he should bring his relationship with her to an end. In the mean time, Dora who was a Fellow of Girton went back to Paris to pursue the researches that she was doing. Russell postpones the Dora - narrative and dwells on the portrait of a well-known personality. This time the portrait he unveils is that of Wittgenstein.

Dora had wanted to accompany Bertrand on his visit to Russia that came along during this time. He thought that, with typhoid raging all over Europe it would be dangerous to take her along. More over, Bertrand felt that Dora was not interested in politics as he was. Interestingly, Bertrand found that Dora had followed him to Russia though they were not able to meet there. On his return from Russia, he found an opportunity waiting for him to visit China. This time Dora was to accompany him. Their preparation for the journey is worth quoting in full as Bertrand was poised for a divorce and a second marriage at this time:

At last, Bertrand succeeded in getting a divorce from Alys and as the last line of the chapter reads, "a completely new chapter began."

In China, Bertrand was to lecture at The National University of Peking. China was then in the process of being modernised and the Chinese youth especially were becoming aware of the modern world. Of the English men in the East, Russell makes a pertinent remark:

While in China Bertrand fell ill for a period of three months. It was very cold in Peking in winter and for a while Bertrand had Bronchitis. He had paid no attention to it and one day while at a hotel with Dora he felt ill. In a very short time, he was delirious. Bertrand had to be hospitalised as his condition worsened quickly. Dora looked after him during the day and at night, there was a professional nurse to take care of Bertrand. Though he was extremely ill, there were some reasons for him to be happy. About Dora he says:

Bertrand’s condition was extremely critical and there were occasions when Dora thought that he would not live. The Japanese Press published the news of his "death" and Bertrand had the opportunity to read his own "obituary notices" (2:132). The Chinese said that they would bury him by the western lake and build a shrine to his memory. One can easily read a death wish in these incidents mentioned in the autobiography. The Peking winter brings death or almost death and the spring season brings a new life or rebirth to Bertrand. It is possible that these thoughts are triggered off by the birth of his first child. This was a happening that he had dreamt about for too long. He had obtained a divorce from Alys and now he was sure that he would have an heir. All his happiness and wonder is expressed in the passage quoted below which is another splendid example of epiphany in Russell’s autobiography:

His new born child placed in the wilderness of his life brings meaning to it and the passage quoted above is proof of Bertrand’s conversion to the happiness of living a new life. Every human being has the wish to be remembered by posterity. Most autobiographers express that desire without saying it. Russell in his chapter titled "Second Marriage" speaks out his mind:

Bertrand and Dora returned from China and after the birth of his second child they decided to found a school of their own so that their children would get the best kind of education. They were not satisfied with the kind of education imparted in regular schools. The state schools had "the vices characteristic of the modern world: nationalism, glorification of competition and success, worship of mechanism, Love of uniformity and contempt for individuality" (qtd. in Hendley 43). The Church schools on the other hand aimed at producing submission to authority, belief in nonsense through the hypnotic effect of early and frequent repetition, respect for superior individuals rather than for the spirit of the herd. According to Brian Patrick Hendley, Bertrand and Dora read widely in educational psychology for the purpose of choosing the right kind of school. They were familiar with the ideas of Freud, Adler, Piaget, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Montessori and Margaret McMillan. When they went around in search of a good school, they disliked what they found at Margaret McMillan’s open-air nursery school and the rigidity of the Montessori approach. About the academic reasons for founding the school Russell says in his autobiography:

With the intention of founding a new school, Bertrand rented his brother’s house on the South Downs. This was known as the Telegraph House. The school later came to be known as the Beacon Hill School as the Telegraph House was a Semaphore station during the time of George lll. There were a number of difficulties in running the school. The first of these was the lack of adequate financial support. The second was that the staff failed to understand the principles behind the running of the school and would never execute instructions given to them satisfactorily. A third difficulty according to Russell was that they got an undue proportion of problem children, which upset all their plans. This was something that they had not foreseen. Russell had to take on the role of a policeman often. He says: "A school is like the world: only government can prevent brutal violence. And so I found myself, when the children were not at lessons, obliged to supervise them continually to stop cruelty" (2: 154).

Both Bertrand and Dora had to undertake lecture tours in order to raise money for the school. Most of the time they were thus forced to stay away from the school. Both of them could not give due attention to their own children, as they did not want the other children to feel neglected. This was reason enough for personal worries. According To Russell, there was pretence of more freedom than in fact existed. The children always tried to push the limits of freedom allowed to them. The press was as unkind as his own countrymen were and there were plenty of sensational stories in circulation about the school. The autobiography leaves the Beacon Hill narrative at this point.

Hendley’s book, Dewy, Russell, Whitehead. Philosophers as Educators gives us a more detailed account of the Beacon Hill experiment. Russell himself admits the fact that it was a failure in the long run. He says, "in retrospect I feel that several things were mistaken in the principles upon which the school was conducted" (2: 155). Hendley writes that Bertrand had advertised in an American daily the opening of the school. Bertrand and Dora were more ambitious in this than what the autobiography reveals. The advertisement that appeared in The Nation of 16 March 1927 quoted in Hendley’s study reads as follows:

There are two things that have been concealed in the autobiography .The school was intended to be set up on an international scale. The fact that the advertisement was seen in an American newspaper proves it. Secondly, the advertisement says that the school caters to the needs of children from babyhood to university age. It is surprising to note that Bertrand and Dora did not see the implications of this statement. The responsibility on Bertrand and Dora was higher than that they had imagined. The prospectus carried the following claims: 1. The school was planned to meet the needs of parents who desired to break with traditional educational methods. 2.To begin with there would be two women teachers, one Swiss and the other English besides Bertrand and Dora. 3. The methods of teaching were to be on the lines of Margaret McMillan, Dr. Montessori, and some Froebel. 4. Domestic practice was extended to boys as well as girls. Music, art, dancing and production of plays would be taught. 5. At all ages, every question, on no matter what subject, will be answered. 6. Knowledge will not be viewed as mere knowledge, but as an instrument of progress, the value of which is shown by bringing it into relation with the needs of the world. 7. Finally the aim of the school was not to produce listless intellectuals, but young men and women filled with constructive hopefulness, conscious that there are great things to be done in the world, and possessed of the skill required for taking their part (Hendley 46).

The reason why the school became a financial burden was due to the reason that the expenses were much higher than the actual income, which came only by way of fees paid by the parents. To make matters worse not all parents paid the required amount and the school as such was treated in a frivolous or hostile manner within their own country. Russell raised the much-needed money by writing what he called "pot-boilers." Interestingly, On Education (1926) Marriage and Morals (1929), that got the Noble Prize, The Conquest of Happiness (1930), Education and the Social order (1932) were some of them. Hendley summarises the theory behind the Beacon Hill School in the following words:

Education was a subject with which Russell was deeply involved between the years 1927and 1933. Most of his lectures during this time were related to the topic of education with special reference to young children. The reasons for this interest were personal. He was extremely fond of his children and wanted to give them the best kind of education and he had to keep the Beacon Hill School going. The book On Education is perhaps his best known work on the subject. Russell addresses the parent and writes from the point of view of an experienced parent. According to Russell, the first consideration is health and character is the second in the education of a child. He says that the book is mainly concerned with character (On Education 59). Russell points out that "infants are far more cunning than grown up people are apt to suppose." If a baby cries other than when it really needs food or for some other biological need, it is to be ignored. "Every educated mother nowadays knows such simple facts as the importance of feeding the infant at regular intervals not when it cries." This practice according to Russell is not only good for the child’s digestion but also from the "point of view of moral education." Russell the educator takes early infancy as the right point to start education and education according to his views begins at home with the parents as teachers: "The right moment to begin the requisite moral training is the moment of birth, because then it can be begun without disappointing expectations" (On Education 60). One wonders whether Russell is speaking from his own experience and the memory of it as a child. It would do well to remember that Russell as a child was looked after by numerous governesses and nurses employed to look after all the needs of the child. Russell says that it is ideally wrong to restrict the movements of the child as in the old days when children were coddled, sung to and pampered. This old practice according to Russell turned them into parasites. So Russell says: "Do not let the child see how much you do for it, or how much trouble you take. Let it where ever possible, taste the joy of a success achieved by its own efforts, not extracted by tyrannising over the grown ups" (On Education 61). As an internal self-discipline is easily acquired in the first year of life, it is important to reduce external discipline to a minimum. This should be the aim in modern education, according to Russell. When the child reaches the age of two the educator has a new weapon: "praise and blame." Russell says that this weapon is extremely powerful and must be used with care (On Education 64). Experience of success is a great incentive to all human beings. The difficulties that a child encounters according to Russell must not be insurmountable. They must neither be trivial. The child should not be allowed to entertain a feeling of self-importance. The parent should not let the child see his concern when the child does not eat or sleep. Parental concern over such things will make the child feel that it has "acquired a new source of power." The child then would expect to be coaxed into action which it ought to perform spontaneously (On Education 66).

Moral education ought to be complete by the time the child is six years old. The child should be left to itself to acquire spontaneously the further virtues which will be required in later years. Russell does not offer any remedial training for children whose early training, which he calls moral education, has been bad. This task, he leaves to the schoolmaster. He adopts a behaviourist approach and says that most of the fears are acquired and not instinctive. The source of fears in children according to Russell is grown-up people. Russell writes of his own experience with his children, in curing the fear of dark, fear of depths, and fear of water. Russell speaks of his experience in dispelling fear of the dark and depths in his son. Russell taught him to make shadows and about depths, he told his son that if he went over an edge he would fall and shatter like a plate. Thus according to Russell fear never seems to occur in children who have never been exposed to the suggestion that something is terrifying (On Education 69).

Russell is impartial in his theory when it comes to teaching boys and girls. This is a very important factor when we take into consideration the fact that the book was written in the twenties. Writing about physical cowardice he says:

It is unhealthy to sympathise with children as that would encourage them to invent ailments in the hope of being petted and treated softly. "It is just as bad to be soft with girls as with boys; if women are to be the equals of men, they must not be inferior in the sterner virtues" (On Education 77). These two passages prove that as far as education was concerned Russell desired equal standards for men and women.

Russell does not accept the ideas of most of the psychoanalysts of his time. Some of them, he says have made out that there is an underlying sexual symbolism in children’s play. This according to Russell is utter "moonshine." "The main instinctive urge of childhood is not sex but the desire to become adult or perhaps more correctly the will to power." Elaborating on this point Russell writes that in play, two forms of the will to power could be discerned. One is "the form which consists in fantasy. Just as the balked adult may indulge in daydreams that have a sexual significance, so the normal child indulges in pretences that have a power significance. He likes to be a giant, or a lion, or a train; in his make believe, he inspires terror" (On Education 82). With the deep insight that Russell has in the affairs of children he proves himself to be a theoretician among other reputed educators of his time. Children according to Russell enjoy the pretence of terror. This is because they know that they are safe and that they are only pretending. Games are important to growing children, as they are far more interesting than reality. Both imagination and truth are important but it is imagination that develops earlier in the history of the individual, as in that of the race.

Russell is a passionate advocate of freedom in child education. With emotion, perhaps in the memory of his own child hood days he says: "To kill fancy in childhood is to make a slave to what exists, a creature tethered to earth and therefore unable to create heaven." Autobiographically Russell’s own childhood was devoid of the freedom that engendered fancy. As though reacting to the memory of his own childhood, Russell defines education thus: "Education consists in the cultivation of instincts, not in their suppression" (On Education 85).

Criticising the English upper class educators, whose product and victim Russell himself was, he says that the kind of co-operation they teach is in the competitive form. "This is the form required in the war not in industry or in the right kind of social relations" (On Education 87). Speaking about constructiveness Russell says that "the instinctive desires of children . . . are very vague; education and opportunity can turn them into many different channels" (On Education 99).A child according to Russell begins his games with destruction. It will pass on to construction only at a later stage. Both construction and destruction satisfy the will to power. As the child grows and when it has learnt to construct, it becomes proud of itself and refrains from destructive impulses. A child should be encouraged to develop constructive impulses. This according to Russell will eliminate "thoughtless cruelty." Finding fault with the conventional upper class education, Russell’s biting remarks are:

Parenthood according to Russell is the great educator in later life. However, in the upper class English families this rarely is the case as they leave their children to be taken care of by "paid professionals." Children thus imbibe wrong values. This is again from Russell’s own childhood experience. In his arguments in the book, Russell presents himself as a theoretician who is aware of the latest trends in education. Psychological constructiveness according to Russell is essential to a right theory of education, politics and all purely human affairs. It should dominate the imagination of citizens, if they are not to be misled. Russell’s autobiography shows that Russell was a solitary child. Perhaps, from his experience he says, "it is difficult if not impossible, to teach justice to a solitary child." Justice, according to him, can only be taught where the child is not solitary and there are other children. "A solitary child must either be suppressed or selfish - perhaps both by turns. A well behaved only child is pathetic, and an ill behaved one is a nuisance . . . " (On Education 98). This is Russell’s reason for recommending nursery schools.

Based on common sense and not on high theory, Russell writes about property and selfishness. Russell says that a child should have "enough property" in the sense of belongings, lest he should become a miser. Private property can be allowed if it stimulates a desirable activity and teaches careful handling. According to Russell "it is not through suffering that children learn virtue, but through happiness and health." While discussing virtue, Russell says that moral education aim at producing the habit of truthfulness. Wherever power is used tyrannically, lying will be justified. Untruthfulness, according to Russell is a product of fear. It is when the child learns that it is dangerous to tell the truth that he takes to lying. Russell’s observation on children’s memory is an example of his psychological insight. He says that children often do not know the answer to a question when adults think that they do. Children often talk in a dramatic manner and often adults mistake play for earnest.

Based on his own childhood experiences Russell advises the grownups never to pretend to be faultless and inhuman. The child will have a tendency to mistrust its elders. He says: "I remember vividly how at a very early age I saw through Victorian humbug and hypocrisy with which I was surrounded, and vowed that, if I ever had children, I would not repeat the mistakes that were being made with me" (On Education 106). As a child Russell’s questions either were left unanswered or were provided with misleading answers. With the experiences of a suppressed child he says: "Children who are not suppressed ask innumerable questions, some intelligent, others quite the reverse . . . Do not put him off with ‘you cant understand that yet,’ except in difficult scientific matters, such as how electric light is made" (On Education 108). According to Russell, a child’s trust can be won by invariable truthfulness.

Regarding punishment, Russell says that it need never be severe. He does not approve of physical punishment and says that it is never right. In a mild form, physical punishment may not do any harm but does not do any good. According to Russell, "to win the genuine affection of children is a joy as great as any that life has to offer." He says that it is a pity that his forefathers did not know of this joy. They taught their children that that it was their duty to love their parents.

As a child, Russell was educated at home. Having known the drawbacks of this practice Russell says that the presence of other children is important in the education of children; "Children feel that other children are more akin to them than adults are, and therefore their ambition is more stimulated by what other children do" (On Education 118). Again referring to his childhood he says:

In his childhood, Russell was overshadowed by his grandmother. She influenced him emotionally and intellectually until he left Pembroke Lodge for university education. About undue parental influence, Russell says the problems in the education of character are scientific belonging to what he calls "psychological dynamics" (On Education 124). Love, according to Russell is not something to be demanded but it is something to be elicited. "An adult, and even an adolescent ought not to be so overshadowed by either father or mother as to be unable to think or feel independently. This may easily happen if the personality of the parent is stronger than that of the child" (On Education 126). This statement has direct reference to his childhood experiences. Russell speaks of another psychological complication that comes nearer to the Freudian point of view. When the sex life of a woman is not satisfactory, she seeks "an illegitimate and spurious gratification of desires" from her children. This results in a kind of relationship where there is a "certain emotional tension, a certain passionateness of feeling, a pleasure in kissing and fondling to excess" (On Education 128). A woman, Russell says, cannot be a perfect mother or for that matter a perfect teacher unless she is sexually satisfied. Hence, according to Russell it is psychologically wrong to employ celibate females as teachers. Russell does not seem to accept the fact that sexually starved men also make bad teachers.

Children like their parents not for economic support that they provide but for the sheer joy parents give them while playing with them or sharing knowledge with them. There are different kinds of affections: the love of the husband for his wife, the love of the parents for their children, and the love of the children for their parents. These loves according to Russell are not to be confused. Affection cannot be created, says Russell. It can only be liberated. Affection is sometimes rooted in fear. Affection for parents has an element of fear, as it is parents who give children a sense of protection.

Russell has a chapter on sex education, in his On Education. It is interesting to note that some of the points discussed here have direct reference to his autobiography. Further, it seems that Russell has in mind the male child. He does not take into account the sexual problems of the female child. The first problem, which is also referred to in his autobiography is that of masturbation. Though this is a problem confronted by mothers and nurses, Russell says that it is not harmful as long as no attempt is made to stop it with threats. The mystery of the human body should be dispelled as early as possible by parents. Children should be allowed says Russell, to see their parents, brothers and sisters without their clothes on whenever it so happens naturally. Questions on sexual matters should be answered truthfully and sex knowledge should be handled like any other knowledge. The child should not even sense that the parent has a feeling of embarrassment in answering his questions. About his own childhood experience Russell says: "I remember vividly being told all about it by another boy when I was twelve years old; the whole thing was treated in a ribald spirit, as a topic for obscene jokes. That was the normal experience of boys in my generation." Sex according to Russell is a subject to be treated as "natural," "delightful" and "decent" (On Education 142).

Boys and girls should be told clearly about puberty and the changes it brings about in the body much before they attain that age. Adolescents and young men and women should be told about the seriousness of having a child. They should be made to understand that childbearing should not be undertaken unless the child has a reasonable prospect of health and happiness. Girls should be prepared for womanhood and motherhood by their parents at the right time.

Related to sex is the feeling of jealousy. About this Russell says, "jealousy must not be regarded as a justifiable insistence upon rights, but as a misfortune to the one who feels it and a wrong towards its object." Love should not be preached as a duty. It is "a gift from heaven, the best that heaven has to bestow" (On Education 145).

The nursery school according to Russell is an institution to be encouraged world-wide He does not favour home tutoring that was the accepted mode of education during his childhood. Russell says that even the best parents would benefit from sending heir children to nursery schools at least for part of the day. To support this view Russell quotes Miss Margaret McMillan:

Russell advocates a scientific attitude for the education of children. He says that there is only one road to progress in education and that is, "science wielded by love." Russell says that without science, love is powerless and without love, science is destructive. Finally, he has a word of caution about the education of young minds:

The third part of the book deals with intellectual education. Children who have been "properly handled" up to the age of six can be taken in for a training that would lay stress upon intellectual progress. The purpose of education at this stage, that is, after the age of six should be, according to Russell, to impart knowledge for intellectual purpose and not to prove some moral or political conclusion. Education at this stage must equip the child to acquire independently the necessary knowledge needed to satisfy his curiosity. If his curiosity is morbid and perverted as in the matters related to sex, things should be explained to him in scientific terms so that soon the child loses interest in such perverted thoughts. Russell emphasises the fact that he has mentioned elsewhere, that prohibition and moral horror is never the treatment for such cases. According To Russell, there are certain qualities that are essential to the pursuit of knowledge. He calls them intellectual virtues. They are curiosity, open-mindedness, belief that knowledge is possible though difficult, patience, industry, concentration and exactness.

An ideal way of teaching, according to Russell is to stimulate the child’s desire to know. The child then can be given the knowledge it wants. Here very much less external discipline is required. Russell insists that after the age of six the parent should never function as a teacher. As teaching at this stage needs special skill, trained teachers should be made use of.

About what children ought to learn before they are fourteen Russell says: "In the main the things taught at school before the age of fourteen should be among those that everyone ought to know; apart from exceptional cases, specialisation ought to come later" (On Education 169). Subjects of utilitarian importance should be taught to everybody. To motivate the students to learn, Russell says that it is essential to make the schoolwork seem important to the pupils. If the work is below their standards of comprehension, they may soon lose interest in the activity. Current controversial questions of importance related to Politics, Society and Theology should be made topics of discussion for the pupils. About his own plans for Beacon Hill School Russell says:

It is well known that the Beacon Hill School was predominantly a boarding school. However, in the last part of the book Russell favours day scholars, as this system would give the pupils the much-needed parental care.

Regarding university education, Russell makes a relevant observation. He says that the university should not be a venue open only to the wealthy. University education should be regarded as a privilege for special ability, and those who possess the skill but no money should be maintained at the public expense during their course. No one should be admitted unless he satisfies the tests of ability, and no one should be allowed to remain unless he satisfies the authorities, that he is using his time to advantage (On Education 199).

Hendley writes that Russell’s On Education "might well be called ‘the hand book of Beacon Hill -- at least during the period in which Russell was affiliated with it’ " (Hendley 52). Russell himself had called it, says Hendley, " ‘my chief book on the subject.’ " Hence, the theory on which the school functioned had its source in On Education. Russell in his autobiography enumerates various reasons for the failure of the school. One feels that Russell the autobiographer with his hindsight was determined to make it look like a thwarted project. The advertisement of the school that ran in "The Nation" and the prospectus of the school suggest that it was an ambitious project. It is possible that Russell did not give much thought to the practical implications of the claims made at the time of the inception of the school. It is true that financially the school was running at a loss. Like any project, financial set back could have been only an initial difficulty. The difficulties posed by the problem children and the staff who did not rise up to Russell’s expectations were not insurmountable. Dora Russell who was also involved in the project has a totally different view. Hendley writes:

Kate Russell, daughter of Russell, was a student of Beacon Hill. Her opinion to a great extent is contrary to that of her father’s. Hendley quotes her as saying, " ‘Though I have been among the school’s critics, I believe that it performed an invaluable service, both to the children who learned there and as what is now known as a pilot project for others’ " (Hendley 68). The reason for Russell’s insistence that the school was a failure lies elsewhere. Russell was not a happy husband. Alan Ryan says:

Griffin Barry was a regular visitor at the Beacon Hill School. Dora had two children by Griffin Barry who was an American journalist. Harriet was born to them in 1930 and Roderick in 1932. The marriage broke up in 1933 and Russell was also responsible for it. Hendley writes, "On another occasion, Dora returned from a trip to be confronted by her Irish cook Hanna who tearfully informed her that Russell was sleeping with the children’s governess while she was away" (Hendley 63).

According to Alan Ryan, Russell’s arguments in favour of the break up of his marriage with Dora are not wholly convincing. In connection with this, Russell the advocate of liberal love had said " ‘ . . . If the marriage persists, the husband is faced with the necessity of having another man’s child brought up with his own, (if scandal is to be avoided) and even as his own. This goes against the biological basis of marriage, and will also involve an almost intolerable instinctive strain’ " (Ryan 104). Alan Ryan comments, "one might wonder how the man who inveighed so eloquently against the possessive and exclusive impulses could be so unselfconsciously proprietorial about children. Their marital relationship was thus no longer cordial. In his autobiography, writing about his book Marriage and Morals, Russell says:

Russell obviously did not consider the case of a husband having a child in another woman. He is evidently defending his reasons for his separation from Dora. The chapter titled Later years of Telegraph House surprises the reader by opening with the words: " When I left Dora, she continued the school until after the beginning of the second war, though after 1934 it was no longer at the Telegraph House" (Russell 2: 190). Their separation is then the reason that makes Russell say that Beacon Hill was a failure and Dora contradict it.

Much is left unsaid about Beacon Hill School and his second wife Dora in his autobiography. Dora brought much happiness to his life especially by giving birth to his two children. But the unorthodox views he held about marriage caused the break up of his marriage with Dora. Russell advocated freedom in marriage but as far as his own marriage was concerned, one can never say where he drew the line.