last years at school . Lord Amory is to head the central advisory council for education during its consideration of the 13 to 16 age group in our schools and further education institutes . it is within this age group that outlooks are formed and decisions are taken that lead to lamentable waste of young people who could make a valuable contribution to our national life and who do not , for the most part , make the best of their own lives . Lord Amory &apos;s long-standing interest in youth - particularly in the young teenagers now to be considered - will be of great value to the council as will his personal experience in medium-sized industry in which large numbers of youngsters must find their first jobs . one of the most important considerations for the council will be the use made of the last year in school and the use to be made of the additional year when the leaving age is raised to 16 . it took far too long for the secondary modern schools to adapt themselves to the new situation when the leaving age was raised to 15 , and the council will no doubt feel that much more positive planning must be done soon to prepare for a further year . they will have a lot of useful evidence from the experience of the schools in dealing with the 14- to 15-year-olds . the pattern has been very uneven over the country , but at least the evidence is likely to be highly informative . reduced to its simplest form , the problem is whether the last year in school ( for those children who will not go on to a grammar or senior technical school ) should be used to broaden the youngsters &apos; minds or for elementary vocational training to equip them for jobs . apart from the broad arguments about desirability one way or another there are often local complications when particular kinds of industry need regular intakes of school-leavers in particular localities . any teacher will agree that it is impossible to pursue both lines effectively during a single year . some formal subject teaching must go on in either case . the time left over can be fully occupied either in lectures , discussions and demonstrations aimed at broadening the understanding or in practical group work taking in pre-apprenticeship training , but it will not accommodate both . it might be that when the leaving age is raised to 16 the last two years should be marked by a departure from strict subject teaching . vocational training and appreciation courses could then be developed in one two-year curriculum with some hope of success in both directions . while the advisory council will be concerned mainly with children of average ability , they are charged also with considering those who fall below the average . it seems a pity that the terms of reference should cover both and it is to be hoped that the council &apos;s report will treat them separately for special provisions may have to apply in the second case . S Rhodesia agreement . perhaps one does not have to look very far for an explanation of the unexpected agreement on the constitutional future of Southern Rhodesia . it illustrates the fact that an ounce of example is worth a ton of exhortation . the example that has confronted Southern Rhodesia is the Congo , and reports from Salisbury show that Africans and Europeans alike have been severely shaken by the realisation of what can happen when political extremism leads to a break-down in the rule of law . Africans in Southern Rhodesia do not want to lose what they have gained in the past , little though it may be . the European community certainly does not want to see everything they have created come crashing down about them . neither side can go forward alone . the fact that African and European leaders have now decided to go forward together , even a limited distance , is the most encouraging event in central Africa since federation of the three territories there took shape . it is still too early to see what the effect will be upon Northern Rhodesia , where the European community is much smaller , but there are grounds for hope , even though the present constitutional conference in London may achieve little . hitherto , it has been the Europeans in Northern Rhodesia who have favoured federation and the Africans who have mainly opposed it ( on the ground that it would mean permanent subjugation to the powerful European community in Southern Rhodesia ) . now , with signs of a more liberal outlook in the south , and with the prospect of an advance in the Africans &apos; position there , a softening of the attitude of the Africans in Northern Rhodesia is possible . this , in turn , should ease or remove some of the worst fears of the Europeans among them . thus - and this in the long run is the really important gain - there is once again some hope that the central African federation can remain in existence instead of being torn apart either by the Southern Rhodesian government &apos;s determination to go its own way or by African suspicions . federation is essential if this area of Africa is to develop the economic means to sustain political advance . racial and political divisions still threaten it , but today there is new hope where only a week ago there was little but despondency and suspicion . Piccadilly Circus . at first glance Sir William Holford &apos;s design for the new Piccadilly Circus is extremely disappointing . indeed , it is more than that . it is alarming . many people will ask , is this really what is to become of Piccadilly Circus , and will shrink from the thought . architectural models are liable to be misleading because they are viewed from an above-the-rooftops position . in practice no one will ever stop to contemplate the Circus from such a level - from this angle it would be a fleeting view with swiftly-changing vistas seen from a helicopter . looked at from above , the model of the Holford scheme leaves an impression of congestion , jumble , confusion and meanness . to imagine a pedestrian &apos;s view from somewhere near the foot of Eros does not contradict such impressions but reinforces them . congestion because the surface area of the Circus seems to have been substantially reduced from what it is today . jumble because no discernible formal relationship between the surrounding buildings and pedestrian platforms is apparent , and confusion for the same reason , made worse by the compression of traffic into narrow canyons and tunnels between and under the buildings and pedestrian decks . meanness because of the impression of a meagre square shut in by immense buildings on all sides - and meanness because plainly one of the main thoughts has been to make the maximum use of the available area for new building . the publicity with which the scheme has been launched has made much of the gaiety of the new Circus . but gaiety is an expansive mood , and the effect of the model is restrictive and oppressive . there is something to be said for the intimacy of college quadrangle , and the enclosed treatment adopted in the Holford design might be attractive from an Oxford standpoint for this reason - but not when an area about as big as a largish quadrangle is flanked with buildings 10 to 15 storeys high . when the government intervened to stop the building of the Jack Cotton monster on the Monico site it seemed that , after all , Piccadilly Circus might be redeveloped in a way which would take up the opportunities of its situation . the Holford proposal fails on almost every score to do this . a much better solution exists in the scheme drawn up by the London county council &apos;s architects . it may not be perfect , but at least it has some of the qualities of spaciousness , harmony and style that one looks for in a modern city centre . there would be considerable advantages in going back to this design , even if it means , as it does , going back to the beginning in this controversy . a newspaper and its readers . the success of the Oxford mail , which publishes its 10,000th number today , has been due to the support of its readers , who , we hope , will share our pleasure in reaching a round number large enough to warrant a minor celebration . they do us the compliment of buying the paper , which suggests a measure of success in providing them with what they want . not that a paper &apos;s relations with its readers can ever be quite as simple as that , or if they are , the paper is probably on the wrong track . the hunt after circulation at any price has brought disaster to some papers , and has done the profession of journalism a good deal of damage in recent years , and it is not a policy to be pursued by papers in a monopoly position . like most provincial evening papers , the Oxford mail has a monopoly as a daily in the field of local news ( though we welcome the stimulus of some competition from the London evening papers ) . this imposes obligations . a paper in such a position should do more than merely please its readers . it has to try to cover the whole field of news in its area accurately and without bias . points of view which the paper may not share must be reported . minority interests must be given their claim on space . this is not necessarily a recipe for maximum popularity . but popularity by itself is not a good test of the performance of a paper . a paper must be prepared to be unpopular when necessary - especially a local one which is sometimes exposed to pressures at close quarters to soft pedal or even suppress when its job is to be open and provocative . so far as the official editorial opinion of the paper is concerned , it can be argued that a monopoly paper should not take a strong line of its own . we have never taken that view . we recall an editor who once proclaimed , I have nailed my colours to the fence as a wit rather than as a paragon . and in any event it has been the policy of the Oxford mail and Times Ltd , to encourage differences of view in the evening and weekly papers which are under separate editorship . when boiled down to essentials the functions of a newspaper are remarkably simple - though not easy to achieve . they are in essence to get the facts and get them right , and to provide a fair balance of argument about matters of controversy . there is no need for a paper to be stuffy in observing such principles . it is an exciting world we live in , and Oxford shares in most of the things our world gets up to . if the Oxford mail succeeds in reporting what goes on , and in shedding useful illumination upon it , it will , we believe , be recognised by our readers as a job worth doing . the Congo after Lumumba . what next in the Congo ? as the situation deteriorates it becomes clear that the united nations representation there can not remain as it is . to be present but ineffective is worse in some respects than not to be there at all . it does nothing for the Congo , it does nothing for the authority of the UN , and it is unfair to the troops and administrators involved who have to face increasing risks without being able to achieve anything . govern or get out , the classic phrase of politics , is a choice that the united nations must now face realistically . indeed unless it is faced there is a danger that the UN representation itself will disintegrate as individual countries decide to withdraw their men . but UN can not govern in the Congo without a new decision on policy and that decision can not be taken unless the countries of the security council agree upon it . that means in practice that Russia and the United States must find some common ground on which to approach the Congo question . this is where the slightly improved atmosphere between Moscow and Washington might prove to be of value . there is no reason to suppose that the Russians will act from any other motive than self interest , but it is just conceivable that if they can be convinced that the United States has no desire to exploit the Congo chaos they will themselves recognise the need to end it . 