Supplementary — Too Wide a Mesh
“The wide world dreaming on things to come” is concentrating on a luminous figure of education which it beholds, dimly, emerging from a cloudy horizon. This gracious presence is to change the world, to give to all men wider possibilities, other thoughts, aims: but, alas, this Education which is to be open to all promises no more on a nearer view than to make Opportunity universal—that is, in spiritual things, he may take who has the power and he may keep who can.
The net is cast wide no doubt and brings in a mighty haul but the meshes are so wide that it will only retain big fishes. Now this is the history of education since the world was and is no new thing. The mediæval schools of castle or abbey, the Renaissance schools, the very schools of China, have all been conducted upon this plan. Education is for him who wants it and can take it but is no universal boon like the air we breathe or the sunshine we revel in.
We are a little sorry for the effect of this limitation upon the ‘working classes’: only a small percentage of the children of these are ‘big’ enough to be retained in the examination net which, to do it justice, explores all waters. A few of the pass men may do big things and fill big posts, but for the rest, a large percentage is, in practice, illiterate except for the spelling out of a local ‘rag’ for football and parish news.
But is the mischief confined to what we call the ‘working classes’? Is it not a fact that in most schools the full force of instruction is turned on upon a few boys who are likely to distinguish themselves? While for the rest of the school teaching is duly given no doubt but the boys find they may take it or leave it as the humour takes them.
We were all fascinated a while ago by the story of a pair of charming ‘Twins’; these went through the usual preparatory school education and then passed on to a great Public School where they remained until they were nineteen; that is, they had ten or twelve good years among most excellent opportunities. As they were attractive boys we may take it that their masters were not at any rate unwilling to teach them. Their record should have been quite a good one, and, though it is the fashion to sneer a little at Public Schools, we know that these have turned out and do turn out the best and most intellectual men the country has occasion for. Therefore what happened in the case of these ‘Twins’ does not cast any reflection upon Public Schools but solely upon the system of the Big Mesh. Here are some of the things we read in that delightful biography:—
“While in hospital after a smash at polo R—— wrote to F——:—‘I enjoyed it immensely. What lucky people we are taking an interest in so many things!’”
Surely here was material for a schoolmaster to work upon! Again, we read:—
“They never ceased to wonder at the magnificence of the world and they carried a divine innocence into soldiering and travel and sport and business and, not least,—into the shadows of the Great War.”
And this ‘wonder’ of theirs was the note that marked them at school. Again, what material for their instructors!
“But,” we read, “at X—— they showed little interest in books and, later, were wont to lament to each other that ‘They had left school wholly uneducated.’” (The italics are ours.)
Their kindly biographer and dear friend goes on to say:—
“But they learnt other things,—the gift of leadership, for instance, and the power of getting alongside all varieties of human nature.”
But was not this nature rather than nurture, school nurture at any rate, for these gifts seem to have been a family inheritance? Born in 1880, they left school in 1899, when there follows a delightful record for the one brother of successful and adventurous sport while—
“R—— was soon absorbed in the city... and beginning to lament his want of education.” “F——, while in Egypt was greatly impressed by Lord Cromer and writes to R——, ‘he is quite the biggest man we have!... to hear him talk is worth hearing.’”
The two brothers correspond constantly and R—— takes the part of mentor to his brother. He advises him to learn The Times leaders by heart to improve his style,—“because they are very good English.” Again,—
“I will send you out next mail a very good book, Science and Education, by Professor Huxley which I have marked in several places, the sort of book you can read over again.” R—— “had discovered that he was very badly educated and was determined to remedy this defect:—‘It don’t matter... I do believe not having learned at X—— so long as one does so now.’”
See the fine loyalty of the young man; his failures were not to be put down to his school!
If the schools take credit for any one thing it is that they show their pupils ‘how to learn’; but do they? We are told that R—— set to work at a queer assortment of books and writes to F——:—
“Anyone can improve his memory: the best way is by learning by heart—no matter what—and then when you think you know it, say it or write it.... After two or three days you are sure to forget it again and then instead of looking at the book ’strain your mind’ and try to remember it. Above all things always keep your mind employed. One great man (I forget which) used to see a number on a door, say 69, and tried to remember all that had happened in the years ending in 69. Or, see a horse and remember how many you have seen that day.... Asquith always learns things by heart, he never wastes a minute; as soon as he has nothing to do he picks up some book. He reads till 1-30 every night. When driving to the Temple next morning he thinks over what he has read. Result: he has a marvellous memory and knows everything.”
Think of the Herculean labours the poor fellow set for both himself and his brother! They ran an intellectual race across a ploughed field after heavy rain and the marvel is that they made way at all. Yet these two brothers had sufficient intellectual zeal to have made them great men as Ambassadors, Governors of Dominions, Statesmen, what not; whereas so far as things of the mind go, they spent their days in a hopeless struggle, alert for any indication which might help them to make up lee-way, and all because, according to their own confession, they ‘had learned nothing at school.’ Here are further indications of R——’s labours in the field of knowledge:—
“I am reading Rosebery’s Napoleon and will send it to you. What a wonder he was! Never spent a moment of his life without learning something.... I enclose an essay from Bacon’s book. Learn it by heart if you can. I have and think it a clinker.... I have also finished Life of Macaulay. I have always wondered how our great politicians and literary chaps live.... I also send you a Shakespeare. I learnt Antony’s harangue to the Romans after Cæsar’s death; I am also trying to learn a little about electricity and railroad organization, so have my time filled up. Pickwick Papers I also send to you. I have always avoided this sort of books but Dickens’ works are miles funnier than the rotten novels one sees.... I have learnt one thing by my reading and my conversation with Professors,—you and I go at a subject all wrong.” (Italics ours.)
These letters are pathetic documents and, that they are reassuring also, let us be thankful. They do go to prove that the desire of knowledge is inextinguishable whatever schools do or leave undone; but have these nothing to answer for when a pursuit which should yield ever recurring refreshment becomes dogged labour over heavy roads with little pleasure in progress?
Here, again, is another evidence of the limitations attending an utter absence of education. A cultivated sense of humour is a great factor in a joyous life, but these young men are without it. Perhaps the youth addicted to sports usually fails to appreciate delicate nonsense; sports are too strenuous to admit of a subtler, more airy kind of play and we read:—
“R—— heard Mr. Balfour and Lord Reay praising Alice in Wonderland. Deeply impressed he bought the book as soon as he returned to London and read it earnestly. To his horror he saw no sense in it. Then it struck him that it might be meant as nonsense and he had another try, when he concluded that it was rather funny but he remained disappointed.”
We need not follow the career of these interesting men further. Both fell early before they were forty. Their fine qualities and their personal fascination remained with them to the end, as did also, alas, their invincible ignorance. They laboured indefatigably, but, as R—— remarked,—“You and I go at a subject all wrong!”
The schools must tell us why men who attained mediocre successes and the personal favour due to charming manners and sweet natures were yet somewhat depressed and disappointed on account of the ignorance which they made blind and futile efforts to correct; but they never got so far as to learn that knowledge is delightful because one likes it; and that no effort at self-education can do anything until one has found out this supreme delightfulness of knowledge.
It must be noted that this failure of a great school to fulfil its purpose occurred twenty years ago, and that no educational body has made more well-considered and enlightened advances than have the Headmasters of the great Public Schools. Probably that delightful group of Eton boys in Coningsby has always been and is to-day typical; there is a certain knightly character in the fine bearing and intelligent countenances of the Head Boys one comes across there which speaks well for their intellectual activity. The question is whether more might not be done with the average boy.
The function of the schools is no doubt to feed their scholars on knowledge until they have created in them a healthy appetite which they will go on satisfying for themselves day by day throughout life. We must give up the farce of teaching young people how to learn, which is just as felicitous a labour and just as necessary as to teach a child the motions of eating without offering him food; and studies which are pursued with a view to improve the mind must in future take a back seat.
The multitudinous things that every person wants to know must be made accessible in the schoolroom, not by diagrams, digests, and abstract principles; but boys and girls, like ‘Kit’s little brother,’ must learn ‘what oysters is’ by supping on oysters. There is absolutely no avenue to knowledge but knowledge itself, and the schools must begin, not by qualifying the mind to deal with knowledge, but by affording all the best books containing all the sorts of knowledge which these ‘Twins,’ like everyone else, wanted to know. We have to face two difficulties. We do not believe in children as intellectual persons nor in knowledge as requisite and necessary for intellectual life. It is a pity that education is conducted in camera save for the examination lists which shew how the best pupils in a school have acquitted themselves, the half-dozen or dozen best in a big school. Finely conscientious as teachers are they can hardly fail to give undue importance to their group of candidates for examination and a school of four or five hundred stands or falls by a dozen head boys.
[See note under Table of Contents for (a) the large number of children’s answers, and (b) Book IV of which only Chapter 1 appears in this volume].
Footnotes
1 Now ten.
2 Now ten.
3 Now over 300 in 1924.
4 I quote from the article on Psychology in the Encyclopædia Britannica as being the most likely to exhibit the authoritative position.
5 The Home Education Series.
6 In connection with the Parents’ Union School.
7 The small Practising School attached to the House of Education (ages of scholars from six to eighteen) affords opportunities for testing the programmes of work sent out term by term, and the examinations set at the end of each term. The work in each Form is easily done in the hours of morning-school.
8 I again quote from the article on Psychology in the Encyclopædia Britannica.
9 See Some Discussions of the Method. (P.N.E.U. Office, 1/-).
10 The Home Education Series.
11 Home Education, by the Writer.
12 See Some Studies in the Formation of Character, by the Writer.
13 See Some Impressions of the Ambleside Method. (P.N.E.U. Office, price 9d.)
14 See Ourselves, our Souls and Bodies. By the Writer. (P.N.E.U. Office.)
15 Ourselves, our Souls and Bodies. By the Writer.
16 Parents and Children. By the Writer.
17 See Some Impressions of the Ambleside Method. (P.N.E.U. Office, price 9d.)
18 Isaiah xxviii.
19 Parents and Children, by the Writer.
20 Education from a National Standpoint.
21 The Herbartian Psychology applied to Education, by John Adams.
22 Across the Bridges, by A. Paterson.
23 Across the Bridges, by A. Paterson.
24 Memoirs of Count Witte.
25 Education of the Young.
26 What Religion Is, by Bernard Bosanquet, D.C.L.
27 All particulars may be had from The Director, Parents’ Union School, Ambleside. The illustrations in the way of children’s answers for the various sections of this chapter have been omitted for want of space, except in the case of a few answers under Composition.
28 Examples of the work of scholars of various ages illustrating what has been said may be seen at the P.N.E.U. Office.
29 This book is now in print again.
30 Of the Parents’ Union School.
31 Examination papers giving some idea of the scope of the history studies in the P.U.S. may be seen at the P.N.E.U. Office.
32 Examination Papers can be seen at the P.N.E.U. Office.
33 Examination Papers can be seen at the P.N.E.U. Office.
34 These answers are uncorrected and are taken from Examination papers not sent back. Most parents and teachers have their papers returned.
35 Examination answers can be seen at the P.N.E.U. Office.
36 For details see the Parents’ Union School programmes.
37 Specimens of the children’s Examination work can be seen at the P.N.E.U. Office.
38 The Ambleside Geography; Book IV, by the Writer.
39 Ambleside Geography: Book IV.
40 The Ambleside Geography: Book V, by the Writer.
41 For details see the Parents’ Union School programmes.
42 Citizens to Be, by Miss M. L. V. Hughes.
43 cf. “Introduction.”
44 pp. 13 to 15.
45 The P.U.S. was started in 1890.
46 These are omitted for want of space but other sets can be seen at the Office of the P.N.E.U.
49 cf. Continuation Schools, ed. by Sir Michael Sadler, and published by the Manchester University, 1908, to which the writer is greatly indebted.
50 Page 106.
51 1890.
52 1913.
53 In Elementary and Continuation Schools.
54 The Author owes to the Editor of The Times permission to reprint the chapters under this heading written in 1912; as also the happy titles of the several chapters and the general title.
Pg xxii: an entry for ‘Index 349’ has been added at the end of the Table of Contents.
Pg 3: ‘about Nietszche’ replaced by ‘about Nietzsche’.
Pg 17: ‘a congerie of’ replaced by ‘a coterie of’.
Pg 72: ‘Not, again, can we’ replaced by ‘Nor, again, can we’.
Pg 82: ‘the idiosyncracies’ replaced by ‘the idiosyncrasies’.
Pg 89: ‘satiable curtiosity’ replaced by ‘satiable curiosity’.
Pg 139: ‘irrefragible proofs’ replaced by ‘irrefragable proofs’.
Pg 140: ‘no more then they’ replaced by ‘no more than they’.
Pg 168: ‘clothes and ca e’ replaced by ‘clothes and care’.
Pg 181: ‘by naming it D2’ replaced by ‘by naming it K2’.
Pg 197: ‘statemen all’ replaced by ‘statesmen all’.
Pg 200: ‘And ne tles close’ replaced by ‘And nestles close’.
Pg 202: ‘eyes for thoes’ replaced by ‘eyes for those’.
Pg 232: ‘perfer not to have’ replaced by ‘prefer not to have’.
Pg 275: ‘by Velasqeuz which’ replaced by ‘by Velasquez which’.
Pg 334: ‘irrefragibly logical’ replaced ‘irrefragably logical’.
Pg 357: ‘Nietszche, 3’ replaced by ‘Nietzsche, 3’.