The question of the length of masters’ holidays in a reception area is a somewhat thorny one, the essential factor being that the boys must be looked after the whole year round. In order to fix our ideas it is convenient to consider two extreme cases. First, let us suppose it is decided that the masters are to have the same length of holiday period as the boys. If a programme of work can be arranged with two-thirds of the staff on duty, and if the boys can be properly supervised when on holiday by one-third of the staff, then diagram I shows a possible solution for a holiday of four weeks.

If we form the sum S(n) of the digits of a number n, and then the sum of the digits of S(n), and so on, in a finite number of steps we reach a number of one digit, R(n), which we call the reduce of n.

Starting with a number prime to 9, say 2, consider the reduces of powers of 2; we obtain the sequence 2, 4, 8, 7, 5, 1, 2, 4, 8, ..., which recurs after the sixth term. Consider next a five-digit number, say 16427; from this we derive 15794 formed by replacing each digit of 16427 by the reduce of the sum of the remaining digits. Repeating the transformation, we obtain in turn 73184, 72461, 49751, 48137, 16427, the number being restored to its original value after only six transformations. It will be found that a three-digit number repeats after eighteen transformations and yet for a twenty-digit number only six transformations are needed.