itiMHinuiiiiiiiiiiiiii 
 
 iHiiliip 
 
 EDUCATIONAL 
 
 EXPERIMENTS IN 
 
 ENGLAND 
 
 ALICE WQPDS
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS 
 IN ENGLAND
 
 EDUCATIONAL 
 
 EXPERIMENTS IN 
 
 ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 ALICE WOODS 
 
 PRINCIPAL (1892-1913) 
 
 MAKIA fiKEY TRAINING COLLEGE, LONDON 
 
 METHUEN & CO. LTD. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. 
 
 LONDON
 
 First Published in igao
 
 LA 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 MY apologies are due to many schools for not 
 having included them in my account of experi- 
 ments ; but it has been impossible to do more 
 than take specimens here and there of the endless number 
 of experiments going on. 
 
 I thank the editors of Child Life and of Women's Employ- 
 ment for permission to make use of some of my articles. 
 I give my warmest thanks to Mr. Edmond Holmes, who 
 has most kindly helped me both by his advice and by 
 looking through the type-script ; to Miss K. M. Clarke 
 for her help in Chapter III ; to the two friends who have 
 contributed descriptions of experiments, and to the many 
 long-suffering heads of schools who have endured both 
 my visits to their schools and my accounts of them. 
 Owing to delay in pubhcation, some schools may feel 
 that the accounts of experiments are not quite up to 
 date, but, as many other schools will go through similar 
 experiences, it is hoped that these accounts will prove 
 helpful. 
 
 ALICE WOODS 
 
 Kadlf.tt, 1920 
 
 -f rri ^"^9
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Stirring in Sleep, 1850-1870 
 
 Looking backward through Punch's eyes — The struggle for 
 
 liberty, and gradual conquest of difficulties . . i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Part I. — Educational Movements from 1870 
 
 ONWARDS 
 
 Colleges for women — High schools for girls — Training 
 colleges for teachers — London lectures — Help by 
 Rugby masters and others — William Morris — Co- 
 education — Child study — Parents' National Education 
 and Mothers' Unions ...... 20 
 
 Part II. — Growth of Ethical Aspect of 
 Education 
 
 Ideas of character and service replacing idea of success — 
 The New Ideals of Education Conference — The Up- 
 lands Association — Sunday school — Play and Scout 
 movements — Modern Froebelianism — Montessorianism 
 — Workers' Educational Association and other move- 
 ments . . . . -. . . . .33 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Progress of Psychology in Relation to 
 Education 
 
 Scarcity of help and books circa 1870 — Dr. James Ward's 
 lectures at Cambridge, 1880 — Professor Sully's books — 
 Psychological laboratories — Tests of intelhgence — 
 Theories of Freud and Jung . . . . .61 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Present-day Experiments 
 
 Mr. Sargant's pioneer school in 1880 — The Caldecott Com- 
 munity — Changes of curriculum in Rugby, Marl- 
 borough, Clirist'b Hospital, co-educational, and other 
 schools ......... 76
 
 riii EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Present-day Experiments — contimied 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Community Government — Montefiore House — Girls' High 
 School — Abbeydale — Murray Boys' School — Caldecott 
 Community — Arundale School — Skelfield — Thorp Arch io6 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Present-day Experiments — continued 
 
 Individual free discipline — Garrard's Cross — Outwood and 
 Kearsley. Co-operation — Girl's high and private 
 schools. Social and religions life — York — Harpenden — 
 Letchworth — Glastonbury — Socialistic Sunday School 
 at Bristol 137 
 
 CHAPTER Vn 
 
 Present-day Experiments — continued 
 
 t Union between parents and school — Open-air and health — 
 Infant grouping — Day continuation school (Self ridge). 
 Rural districts — Warwickshire — Norfolk. Drama — 
 The "Old Vic," etc. Musical appreciation — Ton- 
 bridge — Christ's Hospital. Concentration of attention — 
 Arundale School and others. The King Alfred School 177 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 Comments on Experiments 
 
 The meaning of freedom — Freedom to serve — Freedom of 
 association — Freedom from distrust and convention — 
 Value of choice — Independence in work — Dangers of 
 formal freedom ....... 220 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A Vision of the Future 
 
 Work of universities and training colleges — Freedom of the 
 child's highest self — Co-operation in five directions — 
 Life greater than knowledge — Arts and crafts coming to 
 their own — Views of educationists .... 239 
 
 Index ......... 247
 
 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS 
 IN ENGLAND 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 STIRRING IN SLEEP, 1850-1870 
 
 LOOKING backward is sometimes fraught with 
 disastrous consequences. St. Paul bade the 
 _y Philippians " forget those things that are behind, 
 and reach forward to the things that are before," because 
 he knew that to dwell on the past is apt to produce a 
 morbidity of mind and a narrowness of outlook. This 
 is almost invariably true for the individual, and we are 
 right to urge the young to keep their minds fixed on the 
 future, and to go forward. Their look should always be 
 eastward. They should, even in repose, lie with their 
 faces to the dawn, as the pilgrim did in Bunyan's 
 Chamber of Peace. They should : 
 
 Feel on (their) brows as (they) wait. 
 
 An air of the morning, a breath 
 
 From the springs of the East, from the gate 
 
 Whence freedom issues and fate, 
 
 Sorrow and triumph and death. 
 
 But when we are dealing with a great movement such 
 as education, young and old alike do well sometimes to 
 look back and survey the path by which they have come. 
 The young should realize what were the struggles and
 
 2 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 difficulties of their predecessors, in order that they should 
 be able to contrast their happier lot and be thankful for 
 the many blessings which their elders never knew. 
 
 We should take sufficient cognizance of the past to 
 enable us to 
 
 rise on stepping-stones 
 Of our dead selves to higher things. 
 
 With this thought in view it is proposed to consider the 
 gradual change that has come over the attitude towards 
 education during the writer's hfe-time, which includes 
 the last half of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The slumber of the majority of our nation in regard to 
 education was profound in the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, though here and there a few wakeful people 
 were to be found. Between 1850 and 1870 we find 
 Froebel's influence at work, the first kindergarten being 
 started in 1854. But the full history of the development 
 of kindergartens is given in a little book by Miss E. R. 
 Murray, Infant Schools and Kindergarten, and need not 
 be repeated. 
 
 Here and there enhghtened parents cared for the 
 education of all their children, girls as well as boys, but 
 by far the majority accepted the tradition that boys 
 must have at all costs such an education as schools of 
 the day provided, whilst girls were taught deportment 
 and so-called accomplishments, with such a smattering 
 of other subjects as might be convenient, all instruction 
 coming to an end if poverty so much as knocked at the 
 door. 
 
 Education belonged in those days almost exclusively 
 to the wealthy ; for the poor there were a few charity 
 schools, orphan asylums, ragged schools, and so forth. 
 
 The stirring in sleep has been so amply described in 
 such books as Birchenough's History of Elementary Edu- 
 cation in the Nineteenth Century, the Memoirs of Anne 
 Clough, Dorothea J3eaie, and F. M, Buss, that it would be
 
 STIRRING IN SLEEP, 1850-1870 3 
 
 wearisome to the reader to describe it here ; but it is of 
 interest to see how Punch was astir during these years, 
 and to trace his influence. We can gather from his pages 
 how necessary it was to rouse tlie pubUc to some interest 
 in educational Ufe, especially in regard to the treatment 
 of governesses and the education of the poor. Of course 
 the advertisements that Punch selects for derision 
 represent the very worst side of the profession, but his 
 constant recurrence to the subject, and his earnestness 
 about it, show that the evils of unkind, thoughtless treat- 
 ment existed, and that great store was set on so-called 
 accomplishments, ladies being offered instruction in these 
 in return for gratuitous services as resident teachers. 
 Contemporary novelists, e.g. C. Bronte and C. Dickens, 
 confirm the opinion of Punch. 
 
 Considering first the condition of teachers in private 
 families or schools, w^e find that in 1850 a "small, quiet 
 family " wants a nurse-housemaid for £13 a year, and 
 at the same time a young lady to assist in the education 
 of three little girls in return for board, washing, and £$ 
 pocket-money for the first year. " This small, quiet 
 family may be very snug," says Mr. Punch, " but it is 
 to be feared it is very close." 
 
 The demands of parents are chiefly for spoken French, 
 accomplishments, and sound church principles. 
 
 In 1853 there appears to have been a craze that girls 
 should be taught all subjects through the medium of 
 French, at which Punch scoffs. A typical advertisement 
 of the worst character is as follows : " W^antcd a Junior 
 Governess who speaks French acquired in France with a 
 good accent, who can lead a singing class, and superin- 
 tend piano practice and help in schoolroom routine. No 
 salary, but instead lessons in music and drawing from 
 eminent professors; laundry and traveUing expenses." 
 
 It was a favourite custom of those days for famiUes to 
 engage a lady of indifferent capacity as daily governess 
 in a variety of subjects, who could act also as chaperon
 
 i EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 to masters of singing, music, drawing. Punch complains 
 bitterly in 1855 that such governesses are desired solely 
 for purposes of display, and declares that the practice of 
 governess grinding still continues in spite of his frequent 
 exposure of the offence. He quotes two advertisements, 
 in one of which a lady is required to help in the education 
 of six children, music, singing, and French being desir- 
 able. " Advantages " are offered instead of salary. In the 
 other, a girl is to take the entire charge of two children 
 and their wardrobes, and be a companion to a lady, in 
 return for a comfortable home. A salary of 8 guineas 
 in a Ladies' Seminary is suggested in 1857 in one adver- 
 tisement ; in another, " no salary for the first six months." 
 In 1859 Punch goes so far as to suggest a strike of 
 governesses. " The position of a governess is now so 
 bad that almost any change would benefit it." 
 
 A resident governess is required for five children from 
 five to fourteen, to instruct them in English, French, 
 music, and drawing, and to look after their wardrobe, 
 at 20 guineas a year and laundry. It is to be noticed 
 that in the advertisements picked out for condemnation 
 small salaries are now being offered, e.g. £20 for eight 
 children and £30 for four, but in 1862 the old plan of 
 offering accomplishments in exchange for services again 
 crops up. In the same year a daily governess is sought for 
 an adult, to teach her English, reading, music, singing, 
 and French, for three hours a day, at 6s. a week. 
 
 Evidently cheap private schools were popular through- 
 out this sleeping period. Punch derides the schools 
 which offer to board, clothe, and educate young gentle- 
 men at £18 per annum, and draws attention to a boys' 
 school, conducted by an M.A. of St. John's, with eight 
 able and experienced masters, in which " the best parts 
 of^'pubhc education are retained and the objectionable 
 discarded," and another in which " Youths are boarded, 
 furnished with books, and instructed in whatever their 
 future prospects may require for 20 or 22 guineas a year."
 
 STIRRING IN SLEEP, 1850-1870 5 
 
 The Punches of those days were far more didactic 
 than they are at present, and the strike he recommended 
 not having come off, Punch takes the pubUc seriously in 
 hand in 1864. He speaks of " Children and their Tor- 
 mentors " in connection with an advertisement which 
 demands a boarding school at 20 guineas each for a boy 
 of nine and girls of six and seven who are wild and un- 
 ruly, and on no account to come home for their holidays ; 
 and he writes a serious article, based on a lawsuit con- 
 cerning a boy who had been beaten about the head at a 
 school where £150 per annum was charged. The case 
 went against the schoolmaster, who was only fined £5. 
 Punch earnestly advises parents not to choose a teacher 
 with less care than they use in choosing a butler, " We 
 are afraid," he writes, " that you must really take the 
 trouble to make a good many enquiries before you dele- 
 gate your duties, and Mr. Punch will aid you." For all 
 teachers Punch has kindly thoughts. " Poverty and 
 grey hairs are," he thinks, " the common reward of 
 teachers," and he appeals to Lord Palmerston for help 
 for the son of the author of Guy's Spelling Book, who has 
 fallen on evil days. 
 
 The Public Schools come in for a share of Mr. Punch's 
 indignation. In 1853 he describes a serious case of bully- 
 ing that had come to light at Rugby, and complains of 
 the moral tone of a school that can allow eight or nine 
 boys to stand by and see a httle fellow brutally treated. 
 Lying and deception, he avers, exist in these schools 
 towards the masters. But Punch is even then hoping 
 for better things " from a new generation of masters." 
 He refers scathingly to the fagging at Harrow in 1857, 
 where " the scholars are schooling one another in pride, 
 insolence, cruelty, and servihty." 
 
 In 1865 we get the following : " Wanted a White-Slave 
 cheap." 
 
 " Mr. Punch has seen a good many cool things in the 
 way of advertisements for governesses. But the follow-
 
 6 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 ing strikes him as about the coolest : ' Governess wanted, 
 near town, age about 25, a lady by birth, of refined habits, 
 strict principles, Church of England, to instruct four 
 children in good English, correct French, and music, and 
 to teach them order and discipline. Salary £30. It is 
 desired that the lady should be active and cheerful, 
 contented to live entirely in her own rooms, and if 
 possible be absent from Saturday till Monday, unless left 
 
 in charge. Apply in person at • Street, St. James', 
 
 this day (Monday) between 11 and 2.' 
 
 " What a happy country this should be, if ladies by 
 birth, of refined habits, strict principles, able to teach 
 four children good English, correct French, music, to say 
 nothing of ' order and discipline,' are so plentiful that 
 they can be had for £30 a year ! When this modest ad- 
 vertiser was about it, why did he not throw in among his 
 conditions German, painting in oil and water-colour, 
 singing, the rudiments of Latin, arithmetic, and algebra, 
 the first six books of Euclid, and the use of the globes ? 
 But he is quite right in requiring the qualifications of 
 cheerfulness and contentment, even without the sug- 
 gested additions to his very moderate requirements. 
 The lady who takes such a situation ought not only to 
 be cheerful under circumstances to which the worst of 
 Mark Tapley's were child's play, but contented with 
 treatment which might disturb the patience of a saint. 
 There is only one set-off— she would have a prospect of 
 living entirely in her own rooms. This must be a decided 
 comfort in the case of the insolent snobs who could put 
 out such an advertisement." 
 
 " The ' absence — if possible — from Saturday to Mon- 
 day ' is an ingenious way of escaping the charges of the 
 lady's maintenance on the Sunday, and the awkwardness 
 of having her in the way on a day when we are apt to be 
 especially reminded of our duty to do unto others as we 
 would that others should do unto us." 
 
 Whilst Punch shows this human interest in the teaching
 
 STIRRING IN SLEEP, 1850-1870 7 
 
 profession, and is sincerely desirous to improve the con- 
 dition for the women who enter it, he appears to have 
 httlc or no sympathy with other work for women. His 
 attitude throughout this period — from 1850 to 1870 — is 
 kindly but contemptuous. Ladies, are to him dehcate 
 both in body and brain. They are not expected to under- 
 stand much. He is afraid of too many subjects for their 
 feeble minds ; especially is mathematics inappropriate. 
 He dreads what he calls " erudition under bonnets." 
 His pictures show shopping as the one great deUght of 
 ladies. She cannot, " poor little soul," know anything 
 of " rates and taxes." In 1857 he ridicules the bare idea 
 of her sitting in Parliament. 
 
 In 1855 public alarm is felt at the introduction of 
 " female school teachers in the Government Schools of 
 Art," and with the evident conviction that the only 
 natural result is bound to be ilirtation and marriage, and 
 with an air of saying, " What else could you expect ? " 
 Punch declares : " The females have been so far advanced 
 in mental power and influence as to have been lost to the 
 service by matrimonial engagements, obtained with ex- 
 ceeding rapidity. To avoid these losses plainer candi- 
 dates were selected for training, but they too have 
 obtained preference as wives to a perplexing extent." 
 
 In i860, when a society was formed for the employ- 
 ment of women, law-engrossing, the printing trade, and 
 book-keeping were suggested as suitable occupations for 
 them. Punch jeers at each in turn, although another 
 week in the same year he praises Miss Emily Faithful 
 and speaks warmly of Florence Nightingale. 
 
 Five years later he derides the idea of woman suffrage, 
 and in 1868 he reveals his ground of animosity to such a 
 measure. It is on account of his " hcte noire " the crino- 
 line. " Is it not fair," he writes, " to say to the fair sex, 
 ' Emancipate yourselves from the tyranny of fashion and 
 then you shall enjoy the rights of free women ? ' " At the 
 same time he admits that there is something in the Bill
 
 8 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 to give a wife control over her own property. " It may 
 be for the promotion of affection that there should be 
 separate interests." 
 
 Punch is now out, in 1868, for a war against chignons 
 as he was against crinolines, and describes women con- 
 temptuously as " chignon-bearing creatures." Discussing 
 a " Ladies' University " in 1875, he holds a brief for 
 domestic subjects. " Every young lady should be able 
 to prepare, from first to last, a nice little dinner." He de- 
 lights in the news that girls are to be taught cooking in 
 board chools. It is clear that he regards women as 
 solely or the use of man, and in this respect does not 
 rise in any way above the level of his times. 
 
 Throughout the dark period from 1850-70, when it 
 was held by a large majority of Englishmen that poverty 
 and ignorance of books were to be for ever inseparable. 
 Punch took the view of those who were just beginning 
 to realize that human beings have the same human needs, 
 and we find him complaining as early as 1850 that " the 
 only thing that the State brings forth is the total 
 incapacity of the State to educate the people," and he 
 derides its suggestion of spending only ;^30,ooo per 
 annum. 
 
 The North was the first to awaken to the necessity for 
 education, and after futile attempts to introduce a 
 system of secular education in Lancashire, the National 
 Public School Association was brought forward in 1850, 
 supported by Cobden and Combe. Free secular schools 
 for children from seven to thirteen were proposed. These 
 were to be maintained by local rates and governed by 
 local authorities. A storm of wrath burst forth from the 
 Church, the Wesleyans, and the Roman Catholics, but 
 Punch is sympathetic with Cobden's prime object to 
 rouse public opinion to the need of education for the poor, 
 and whilst he gently derides the wish to add to the three 
 R's "mathematics, history, geography, chemistry, natural 
 philosophy, the elements of anatomy, physiology, medi-
 
 STIRRING IN SLEEP, 1850-1870 9 
 
 cine and jurisprudence," he " hopes that Mr. C and 
 
 his colleagues will be enabled to meet their young friends 
 by the good sense of Parliament." 
 
 The Bill, however, was lost. But life was stirring, 
 though, unfortunately, it took the form of fierce religious 
 controversy, which has gone on ever since and hindered 
 the progress of elementary education in our country till 
 this day, even in Mr. Fisher's Act of 191 8. 
 
 A great cry arose for " national education on strictly 
 Church principles." The Church was filled with dismay 
 lest inspectors as well as teachers should not be expected 
 to be churchmen. It was horrified that it could be pro- 
 posed to teach the children " ample algebra, much 
 mathematics, and mechanics, land survey, and what not, 
 but of religion nothing, of dogmatic teaching nothing." 
 This a Q.C. announced as " a hideous deformity." Mr. 
 Punch on the other hand calls it " a very pretty plan." 
 He denies that such teaching will bring about " universal 
 infideUty and scepticism," and describes it as a blasphemy 
 against Truth to say that its consequences are lies and 
 evil. He writes an earnest plea for the safety of truth 
 and the need of education, and winds up his article with : 
 " The people of this country will learn to read and write ; 
 they will not let the parsons set their sums, and point 
 out their lessons, or meddle in all their business of life ; 
 and as for your outcries about infidelity and atheism, they 
 will laugh at you (as long as they keep their temper) and 
 mind you no more than Mumbo- Jumbo." 
 
 But the reUgious question still raged. Punch, in a 
 dialogue between a father and his little son, explains that 
 children can't be taught, because " Parliament is made 
 up of gentlemen who belong to different religions, and not 
 one of them except a few will vote for a school unless his 
 own religion is taught in it. So the poor little boys and 
 girls can't be taught anything because the sects can't 
 settle their differences." 
 
 Later on Punch tells us that " heavily taxed as the
 
 10 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 English people are, they receive very little if any educa- 
 tion in return for it from the State." 
 
 When Lord Shaftesbury introduced his Ragged Schools, 
 Punch was warm in his praise. 
 
 Manchester meets with his approbation for the opening 
 of a Free Library, which he describes as " an entrench- 
 ment against Ignorance." 
 
 In 1856, Punch satirically observes that at a great 
 ABC meeting a resolution was passed that " the object 
 of Lord J. Russell's Bill is to kindle the fires of rehgious 
 feuds, and that education at the cost of the State is no 
 other than an organized attempt to deprive the people 
 of their vested rights of ignorance, that the schoolmaster 
 is abroad, and is to be kept there." (A phrase started by 
 Lord Brougham.) He celebrates the failure of Lord 
 John Russell's educational efforts by verses that severely 
 rebuke the man in the street, who cheers more warmly 
 for the liberty of ignorance than for the fall of Sebas- 
 topol : 
 
 On account of the poor, this tremendous uproar 
 
 Is so feehngly raised by their betters. 
 All because Lord John's plan would have forced the poor man 
 
 Into letting his children learn letters. 
 With a stout voice and strong, sing " Live Liberty long," 
 
 And in ignorance hopeless and utter 
 May her ragged sons play with their sisters all day 
 
 In the street on the brink of the gutter ; 
 
 and thus. Punch prophecies, be brought " in the end to 
 the gallows." 
 
 The so-called rehgious party continued to spread 
 abroad its extreme views. It was questioned in 1862 
 whether some sewing classes about to be started in Man- 
 chester should be denominational or not. 
 
 In February, 1857, Sir John Pakington introduced an 
 educational Bill which he described as neither compul- 
 sory nor general. " Nothing worse," says Punch, " can 
 be said against such a measure. There is no immediate
 
 STIRRING IN SLEEP, 1850-1870 11 
 
 hope of the sort of legislation required, for the hostile 
 parties unite to hinder it. The church party, English, 
 Scotch [sic] will perniit no education unless the priests 
 prescribe it, and the Liberals insist upon being so liberal 
 as to leave it to a parent to say whether his children 
 shall be taught or not. The Bill is meritorious in inten- 
 tion, but will be of little avail. The wisdom of the Legis- 
 lature prefers building gaols to building schools." By 
 this time dissatisfaction was rampant with the existing 
 state of education and kept Punch busy emphasizing the 
 fact that money itself spent on educating the children 
 would be saved on criminals. He makes a powerful 
 appeal in 1854 for playgrounds for ragged children as 
 well as schools, and is far before his time in the view that 
 " a school without a playground seems to our mind an 
 anomaly ; wholesome recreation is as necessary as know- 
 ledge." Punch supports a scheme started by the Rev. 
 D. Laing to provide playgrounds for poor children in 
 populous districts. " It is our interest," he says, " to 
 improve the ragged bodies as well as the ragged minds." 
 In i860 he vainly supports Lord Shaftesbury in his indig- 
 nant protest against forty-two children being in prison 
 for playing tip-cat, hoops, or marbles on the highwaj^ 
 
 Enough has been said to show how slowly we all awoke 
 to the need of Elementary Education up to the time of 
 the great step forward in 1870, when National Education 
 was established in our country with its compromise 
 between the National Education Union and the Educa- 
 tion League, between the Voluntary and the Board 
 School. 
 
 It is clear that the general attitude was profoundly 
 soporific, especially as regarded girls. Every woman of 
 any pretence to gentility was expected to marry. To 
 become that dreaded thing, " an old maid," meant 
 retirement in a cap to an arm-chair by the fireside at 
 about the age of forty. Girls were brought up to con- 
 sider it one of the greatest misfortunes should they have
 
 12 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 to earn their living. In an old letter from the mother of 
 a family to a friend, we find her saying : " Poor X ! All 
 her five daughters must be brought up as governesses ! " 
 Perhaps the conditions in which governesses Uved in 
 those days might well account for the lament, for so 
 little did the education of girls signify that their educators 
 were despised and, as we have seen through Punch's 
 spectacles, ill-treated. The parents of those days looked 
 with horror on the daring nature of a cultured woman, 
 ]\Iiss Marsh, who, breaking through convention, preached 
 boldly and openly to navvies in halls or on the road, and 
 they even shook their heads over the work of Florence 
 Nightingale during the Crimean War. It was impossible 
 not to admire her, but her example was not one to be 
 followed by their own daughters. 
 
 Taking my own memories as typical of family condi- 
 tions among a great number of the well-to-do but not 
 wealthy in the fifties and sixties of last century, I find a 
 desire on the part of our parents to give us some intellec- 
 tual interests. Governesses and masters were engaged; 
 and our subjects included Latin, and for the elder mem- 
 bers of the family even Greek, but the chief stress lay on 
 the accompHshments of music, drawing, and sewing. 
 Other kinds of handwork were not encouraged, and 
 directly any need of economy arose it was always the dis- 
 missal of our instructors in intellectual subjects that took 
 place before any other curtailment was suggested. In 
 those days it was considered rather degrading in most 
 famihes for girls to take any share in household work or 
 cooking, and great restrictions were often placed on the 
 choice of books, so that the chance of self-education was 
 greatly hindered, though we find women of exceptional 
 ability educating themselves, as for example Miss Anne 
 Jemima Clough, who was, however, greatly helped in 
 her pursuits by her exceptional brother Arthur. As 
 early as 1846 the two were discussing how far single 
 women are at hberty to choose their own paths without
 
 STIRRING IN SLEEP, 1850-1870 13 
 
 reference to their families ; whilst in the fifties Miss 
 Clough was busy with classes for children, and carrying 
 out a carefully planned routine of private study. In our 
 days the war has brought to educated women un- 
 exampled opportunities of employment. In addition to 
 teaching, painting, needlework, authorship, and such 
 work as they were allowed in time of peace, there are 
 openings for them in factories, in businesses of many kinds, 
 in all sorts of clerical work, in engineering works, in 
 optical and scientific instrument making, on the land, as 
 doctors, surgeons, dentists, dispensers, almoners, nurses, 
 masseuses, as soUcitors, barristers, and even as M.P.'s, 
 It is no longer impossible for them to be commercial 
 travellers, milliners, dressmakers, and shopkeepers, whilst 
 for those who only need a living wage and abundant 
 opportunity of usefulness there are magnificent openings 
 for social service. How this long list of possibilities would 
 have taken away the breath of girls in the fifties of last 
 century, when there was scarcely any hope of work 
 except as wives, mothers, private governesses, humble 
 authors, and in a modest way as artists ! It was hardly 
 reputable to appear as a pubhc painter, but those who 
 wished to eke out a pittance might sell water-colour 
 drawings. Mrs. Punch writes in 1868 : 
 
 "Punch, 1868. 
 
 " I cannot conceal my satisfaction that I am not writing 
 this letter to you fifty years hence ; for your dear Papa, 
 Mr. John Stuart Mill, and all reformers, whether they 
 be great and glorious or the veriest ragtag and bobtail of 
 society, prophesy such changes, that the very thought 
 of being alive then, and of having daughters, makes my 
 hair stand on end. To be sure, it would be a good thing 
 for young ladies to find wholesome occupation, but how 
 overwhelming to think of one's girls being M.A.'s and 
 M.D.'s and Curates and Barristers and Members of Par- 
 liament ! I console myself with thinking that if the study
 
 14 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 of Greek and Algebra would not make ladies better 
 housekeepers and financiers than they are now, it could 
 not make them worse. To return to the point, though I 
 really forget what that is now, my heart swells with 
 British ardour and maternal pride when I contemplate 
 the education I have been enabled to give my daughter, 
 and all the money it has cost. I know that it is the fashion 
 to run down the present system of female education ; but 
 has not my daughter learned to dance, to sing, to speak 
 a little French, to dress her hair becomingly, to play 
 croquet, to discuss with knowingness every topic of the 
 day, to amuse herself from morning to night ? And is 
 not this the accepted curriculum of female education in 
 this great country ? " 
 
 In this passage Punch is clearly poking fun at the 
 current education of women, and it seems as though he 
 were not altogether opposed to the changes that were 
 in sight. 
 
 Our present wonderful opening out of possibilities is 
 not, as is sometimes implied, entirely due to the war. It 
 is but the acceleration of an onward movement which has 
 been taking place throughout the nineteenth century, 
 and which historians tell us began in the fifteen-hundreds. 
 Miss Louisa L. Lumsden, speaking of the service of the 
 State and of Society, writes in 1911 : " Mysterious forces — 
 chiefly spiritual in their nature — seem, now to be arousing 
 women over the whole world to realize that they have a 
 share in this great work." Looking back on one's own 
 memories of those early days, it is interesting to recall 
 the intense longing, even as a child, for greater liberty, 
 liberty to do as boys did, to read the books they were 
 free to read, to buy as they were allowed to do, without 
 even asking leave, those coveted slabs of pink or brown 
 toffee where almonds lay embedded, and to be able in a 
 lordly manner to divide these precious commodities with 
 the most perfect fairness among your sisters and yourself,
 
 STIRRING IN SLEEP, 1850-1870 15 
 
 was it not the very climax of the true bliss to be found in 
 free purchase and in free gift ? Or to go to school and 
 see something of a wider and different life, and to come 
 home to the very warmest of warm welcomes ! That was 
 the joy of boys, for of course mothers always loved their 
 boys better than their girls. This was accepted as one 
 of the natural laws of life. The idea that girls had a right 
 to a similar love and freedom did not dawn till much 
 later. If one had but been a boy instead of a restricted, 
 despised girl, or if one had belonged to a poverty-stricken 
 family, there might have been some chance of usefulness. 
 It is only fair to add that in the very same family where 
 the restrictions on independence were bitterly resented 
 by at least one of the girls, another looked upon them as 
 typical of the loving watchfulness of parents ; and a 
 lady who lived but five years later writes : "I never in 
 my own family circle, or among friends I knew in the 
 mid- Victorian time, either saw or heard of the restraints 
 on girls alleged to have existed." In some cases, too, a 
 thoroughly all-round good education was given. 
 
 For most girls, however, the one hope of a wider life 
 lay in authorship, and many were the stories planned and 
 narrated to such young friends as were ready to Usten to 
 them. The desire for work grew stronger and stronger as 
 childhood passed into youth, and yet the prospect of it 
 was as remote as ever. Such a question as ' ' WThat is this 
 girl good for ? " was never asked. Influence and aspira- 
 tion came through books. The perusal of Carlyle's 
 Sartor Resartus, with its praise of work, the reading of 
 Mrs. WilUam Grey's and Miss Sheriff's book on girls, 
 and above all the discovery of Mrs. Browning's Aurora 
 Leigh, expressing as it did the rebelUon of the inner 
 nature of young womanhood against the social re- 
 strictions and conventions of the day, were soul-stirring 
 episodes. 
 
 This intense longing for work and action which so many 
 girls felt came to be realized in the lives of nurses, doctors^
 
 16 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 and school teachers long before other professions and 
 occupations were open to women. Miss Clough found 
 some outlet for her wonderful energy and remarkable 
 talents by teaching in the Liverpool national schools, 
 and in her classes for children of tradespeople and farmers 
 at Ambleside, but even here she had to struggle for 
 hberty to teach. The struggle for entrance to the medical 
 profession carried on by the brave pioneers, Miss Jex 
 Blake and Miss Garrett, is too well known to need 
 description. 
 
 Entrance into ParUament and the legal profession has 
 been gained in this year 1919, but the struggle at the 
 present moment to find entrance into the Church may 
 serve the good purpose of reminding youth what agoniz- 
 ing efforts had to be made before the entry to other pro- 
 fessions was achieved. 
 
 In the past century, for a young woman who had 
 despaired of taking any place in the world around her to 
 become a teacher was a deep and satisfying joy. No 
 drudgery was too great, no seclusion from the society of 
 others too hard to bear. Salary did not much signify. 
 One visit to the Academy on a Saturday at its earhest 
 opening hour ; one concert in the term ; a very rare dinner 
 party; an occasional "At home" ; a course of the first 
 educational lectures ever delivered in London by Mr, 
 Joseph Payne or the Rev. R. Quick or Mr. Meiklejohn ; 
 growing friendships : all these delights sufficed as recrea- 
 tion. Enthusiasm carried such a teacher through all 
 difficulties and over all obstacles. She did not need what 
 her successor of the present day needs so sorely, a fuller, 
 wider life of leisure in addition to the happy work. It is 
 looking back on our own simpler experiences that some- 
 times makes us older women not always so sympathetic 
 as we might be with the view that many younger members 
 of the profession take of teaching as a cramping and 
 narrowing occupation which uses up every atom of time 
 and energy, and keeps them in many cases from any
 
 STIRRING IN SLEEP, 1850-1870 17 
 
 knowledge of the opposite sex. We ought to reahze that 
 each generation has a difference of outlook, and that it 
 is a healthy sign to desire a larger, wider life, and more 
 abundant leisure. We wore ourselves out in strenuous 
 work, and often grew hard and narrow-minded. We 
 should help the younger teachers to escape from our 
 dangers, and not blame them for their change of out- 
 look. 
 
 There is a fear lest in the far greater choice of openings 
 for work in the present day, girls who are well suited for 
 a teaching career should overlook its possibilities of 
 satisfaction and usefulness, and turn to other professions 
 and businesses. This would lead to a return to the old 
 despised position of teachers. The career of a teacher 
 has the great advantage that she is continually in contact 
 with young life, and that her pupils always have a claim 
 upon her sympathies. They can come to her for help 
 and advice, almost as a matter of right, long after she has 
 ceased to teach them, in a way that a doctor's old patients 
 would hesitate to do without offering payment. Teaching 
 is hfe-giving and life-creating work if rightly understood, 
 and it is bound to be a work pecuUarly suited to the 
 creative nature of women. At present, however, there 
 seems to be springing up a revulsion against it, and a 
 difficulty in reahzing that education is in reality the most 
 important of all social reforms. Girls fail to grasp the 
 greatness of the profession, second perhaps to none in 
 its possibiUties for the exercise of influence on individuals 
 and of service to the nation. Until women can enter 
 the Church, there is for them no such humanizing pro- 
 fession. Indeed, great as the influence of the preacher 
 and parish priest may be, it is difficult not to believe that 
 the influence of the educator on the Hfe of the young is 
 greater still, and to some of us it seems strange that the 
 headmasters of our great pubhc schools should look upon 
 bishoprics as a finer sphere of work than that of an 
 Arnold or a Thring.
 
 IS EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Whilst all the new openings may tend to draw away 
 candidates from the teaching profession there will be 
 this advantage, that those who do enter it will do so 
 from choice and not because it is their only means of 
 getting a livelihood. This may bring about a return of 
 the old enthusiasm of the earlier days when it was a 
 new thing to teach in a school. There will be fewer 
 teachers unfit for their profession. The " Schools of 
 To-morrow " call for the best men and women, who will 
 be reformers, and who will break down the barriers 
 between the different kinds of schools ; but since there 
 is also a call for those whose talents lie in other directions 
 it is well that they should study earnestly the many 
 paths opening out for them and decide in all seriousness 
 which is the best for them to tread. 
 
 There is no longer any necessity to force girls into the 
 teaching profession, as in days gone by, when it has often 
 been extraordinarily difficult to find occupations for girls 
 eminently unsuited to deal with children. Now there is 
 ample choice. " New occasions teach new duties," and so 
 parents should spare no pains to study their daughter's bent, 
 not only in order that she may be able to earn her bread in 
 the terrible times of suffering and poverty that will follow 
 this awful war, but that she may fill just that special 
 little niche in the social hfe to which she belongs and for 
 which she is naturally fitted. Parents should make sure 
 that she is as carefully prepared for her life-work as her 
 brothers are, and that she is not thrust totally untrained 
 on the labour market, as so many girls have been since 
 the outbreak of the war. Above all, she must be pre- 
 pared for a genuine citizenship, and it must never be for- 
 gotten that since so many girls of to-day cannot be married, 
 because their possible husbands have been slain on the 
 battlefield, parents should see that they have oppor- 
 tunities for using their productive and protective instincts 
 in other directions than those of motherhood. The joy 
 of service to their fellows will then be theirs, and if our
 
 STIRRING IN SLEEP, 1850-1870 19 
 
 girls can reach the level of those wonderful American 
 women who after the Civil War devoted their Uves to 
 work of all kinds for which there was an opening, and 
 who became leaders of remarkable power, women deserv- 
 ing the description given of them as " the salt of the 
 earth," we need not be afraid.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 I.— EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS FROM 1870 
 ONWARDS 
 
 THE passing of the Education Act of 1870 was 
 not only an epoch for the working classes of 
 England, but it seems to have roused educational 
 activities all over the country. 
 
 1870-80 showed great activity in the establishment of 
 residential colleges for women. A small band of women, 
 meeting at Hitchin in 1869 to prepare for the Cambridge 
 University degrees, laid the foundation of the present 
 Girton College. Newnham started two years later. The 
 Oxford women's colleges followed. London University 
 opened its degrees to women. Women doctors began 
 to triumph over obstacles. 
 
 The Girls' Public Day Schools Company started one 
 school after another, and finding that there was great 
 difficulty in getting good teachers for these schools, a 
 college for training women teachers for secondary schools 
 was started in 1879 by the Teachers' Training and Regis- 
 tration Society, and the present Maria Grey Training 
 College, now at Brondesbury, was opened in Bishopsgate, 
 and almost at the same time Cheltenham College started 
 a training department.^ 
 
 The Cambridge Training College, Bedford College 
 Training Department, the Froebel Institute, all came 
 later, and at the present time we have also the London 
 Day Training College, and training departments in almost 
 every provincial university, some combining secondary 
 and primary training, others separating them ; some for 
 
 * Bedford College, a day college for women, had started in 1849. 
 
 20
 
 EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS FROM 1870 21 
 
 both men and women, others for women only. Attempts 
 were also made to establish men's training colleges, but 
 training for men has never made the same progress as 
 training for women. 
 
 It was early in the seventies that Joseph Payne de- 
 Uvered in London lectures on teaching to which the 
 secondary teachers flocked eagerly. I began my teaching 
 career just too late for them, but attended stimulating 
 lectures by Professors Meiklejohn and Sonnensche'n and 
 Mr. Quick. A httle later Sir Joshua Fitch gave his lectures 
 on teaching which became known throughout the educa- 
 tional world. Our lecture-ridden teachers of the present 
 day can scarcely understand what those early lectures 
 did for the London teachers. 
 
 Whilst deaUng with the late sixties and early seventies 
 a tribute must be paid to the enthusiasm of the masters 
 of Rugby PubHc School who gave gratuitous help to all 
 women entered for " The Cambridge Women's Examina- 
 tion " [which developed later into the " Higher Local "]. 
 Mr. Arthur Sidgwick, Mr. R. W. Taylor, Mr. Frank 
 Kitchener, the Rev. Charles Moberly, and others all 
 coached by correspondence every woman candidate who 
 entered for the Rugby centre of examination, if she chose 
 to join the class. It is to these men that I and many 
 another woman of that time mainly owe our educational 
 careers. Rugby schoolmasters still keep up their repu- 
 tation by giving gratuitous help to struggling educational 
 efforts in their town. 
 
 Another helping hand was held out about 1876 by Dr. 
 Roth, who gave up his Saturday mornings to teach his 
 system of drill, without fees, to any London assistant- 
 mistress in the London girls' high schools, and his son 
 added an hour's dehghtful lecture on physiology. We 
 spent one whole winter's Saturday mornings at these 
 fascinating classes. 
 
 Girls' education in the seventies seems to me on looking 
 back to have been very closely modelled on that of boys.
 
 22 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 It was essential at that time to prove to the general pubUc 
 that girls could tackle as difficult subjects as boys ; 
 that they were capable of attaining as high a standard 
 of work, and so it came to pass that with the advantages 
 of a better education for girls, we had to accept along 
 with them a great many disadvantages — evils even — 
 which had crept into boys' education and which we 
 accepted as matters of course, e.g. the system of prizes, 
 marks, and place-taking, a stimulus needed it may be 
 in the early days for lazy, ill-taught boys, but which need 
 never have been introduced for girls eager to learn, 
 taught by keen, enthusiastic women. Even in the 
 seventies, however, there were here and there a few 
 women leaders who opposed the working-for-reward 
 system, and at least three of the schools of the Girls' 
 PubUc Day School Company decUned the gift of prizes, 
 to the amazement of the committee. 
 
 Another mistake which was made in the seventies, 
 closely in accordance with the Education Act, was a 
 definite neglect of the work of the hand. This was left 
 for the Uttle children in the kindergarten. Needlework 
 of the dullest character, and drawing of a kind the art 
 mistress of to-day would look upon with horror, were in 
 the majority of schools the only kinds of handwork in- 
 troduced. Very few of us thought of letting our pupils 
 illustrate their lessons in history and geography. We 
 gave them copies to imitate, and were dreadfully particu- 
 lar about the straightness of lines and absolute correctness 
 of curves. We taught plain hemming and sewing on little 
 squares of calico, a few enterprising spirits here and there 
 allowing the use of red cotton. We did not regard any 
 teaching as so worthy as the teaching of book-subjects. 
 We read a great deal more than ever we thought, and 
 disregarded the time-honoured precept : " Learn by 
 doing." 
 
 It was one of our chief ambitions that our scholars 
 should pass examinations with credit. But even in those
 
 EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS FROM 1870 23 
 
 days there were more discerning spirits who protested 
 against the tyranny of examinations, and produced, in 
 1889, a Uttle book called The Sacrifice of Education to 
 Examination. 
 
 It was in the eighties that many of us began to receive 
 rude shocks as to the perfection of our system. Various 
 educational movements began to gain greatly in force. 
 William Morris's studios, workshops, and printing rooms 
 were estabUshed at Queen's Square, Merton, and Hammer- 
 smith, and formed, as Mr. H. Wilson has said, " the 
 nucleus, the seed-bed, from which sprang the handicraft 
 revival of to-day." " The work and example of Morris 
 and his disciples supply not only the germs of what 
 industry so greatly needs, but the needs of real education 
 also ... a knowledge and culture not acquired from 
 books, but a culture which develops during the produc- 
 tion of any form of creative work. 
 
 Education is nothing if it be not the liberation of this 
 life-force and its transference into new fields of action." 
 W^e must be careful lest in the present day the swing of 
 the pendulum should lead us to despise books, and fail 
 to see that creative work is an important part of both 
 literature and mathematics and other book-subjects on 
 the curriculum. The Sloyd movement came to us from 
 Sweden, into which country it was brought by Herr 
 Saloman soon after 1866, and was introduced into many 
 of our schools, but almost always as an extra, for it in- 
 volved a serious outlay of tools and carpenters' benches, 
 and we were very poor in those days. 
 
 We discussed fiercely the question whether we should 
 follow the strict Swedish plan of perfection in each article, 
 or whether a child should be allowed to pass on from one 
 model to another without attaining perfection. Person- 
 ally I look back with shame to having been on the wrong 
 side, and failed to see the discouragement caused by an
 
 24 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 impossible perfection, and the folly of imitating Swedish 
 models unsuited to Enghsh needs. I was guilty too of 
 allowing " Sloyd " to be introduced as an extra, and I failed 
 to take the opportunity offered to teachers of a course 
 of woodwork at Stockholm. 
 
 By that time lectures and discussions on educational 
 questions had become much more common. The Journal 
 of Education had been started, and the Fellowship of the 
 New Life (the origin of the Fabian Society) took up 
 educational questions with ardour, and had its own 
 magazine. 
 
 One of the most remarkable movements during this 
 period has been that of co-education. 
 
 In the seventies of last century there were many village 
 schools in England which boys and girls attended 
 together under a master or mistress, but the sexes were 
 usually kept as much apart as possible, the boys being 
 seated on one side and the girls on the other. In secondary 
 schools there were a very few private efforts to introduce 
 a more genuine co-education. Froebelianism was making 
 steady progress, and kindergarten schools admitted Httle 
 boys and girls up to six or seven years of age, though even 
 kindergarten schools, especially those belonging to the 
 G.P.D.S., were sometimes for girls only. For older chil- 
 dren there was Mr. Herford's school, conducted by him- 
 self and his daughter in Manchester, and a school carried 
 on by two ladies at Alton in Hants. No doubt there 
 were other attempts less generally known. But the public 
 as a whole strongly opposed the system. It was an 
 unheard-of experiment to the majority, and would, it 
 was firmly believed, deprive the boys of all manliness, 
 and make the girls rough and coarse. When in the eighties 
 a day school was started under my care at Chiswick for 
 both sexes, and I and others spoke on pubUc platforms 
 in favour of co-education, we found the attitude of our 
 audiences was that of a kindly pity for our fooHshness ; a 
 sincere desire that such mad schemes should be entirely
 
 EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS FROM 1870 25 
 
 disregarded ; and a conviction that English people were 
 too wise ever to deviate from the good old plan of monastic 
 education. 
 
 In the eighties and nineties great progress was made. 
 At first it was chiefly women who advocated co-education, 
 but as time passed on men who had been masters in 
 public schools, and who realized the imperfections of our 
 system of education, began to break away from tradition 
 and to consider the possibihty of co-education. Mr. 
 Badley introduced girls into the school for boys he had 
 started in the South of England on the Unes of Dr. Reddie's 
 New School at Abbotsholme, an important educational 
 movement in itself. The Rev. Cecil Grant was the 
 first headmaster of a co-cducational school at Keswick. 
 Mr. Rice was the first headmaster of the King Alfred's 
 Day School for both sexes at Hampstead. He was fol- 
 lowed by Mr. John Russell, and the experiment began to 
 be tried in various parts of the country, usually in a 
 small way. 
 
 By the time the twentieth century had arrived co- 
 education was practically conceded in theory, though by 
 no means in practice, for all children up to ten years of 
 age, and quite a number of successful experiments were 
 being carried on, experiments which were really more 
 thorough-going than any in the eastern states of America, 
 as her own educationists were ready to admit. In the 
 next ten years St. George's, Harpenden, was started, 
 Bedales was completely estabhshed, Mr. Lowerison's 
 school at Hunstanton (now at Heacham), and Mr. and 
 Mrs. Piatt's at Grindleford in Derbyshire became well 
 known, and public opinion began to show a marked 
 change from the indifference and contempt of the last 
 century. Opinions were much stronger both for and 
 against co-education. The subject was discussed freely 
 on pubHc platforms, and the belief of its advocates that 
 great moral and social change were likely to follow from 
 its introduction was no longer derided.
 
 26 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 From 1910 to the present time progress has been still 
 more rapid owing greatly to the Theosophical Educational 
 Trust, which has established co-educational schools in 
 Letchworth, Bromley, Edinburgh, and in Australia. 
 
 IMany secondary co-educational schools have been 
 started in this century by local education authorities. 
 Some of these, like those above mentioned, have been 
 keenly alive to the value of co-education, and not neglect- 
 ful of its dangers and difficulties ; but, unfortunately, 
 many have been started merely from the motive of 
 economy, boys and girls being put together at the age of 
 fourteen, after a separate education, in order to save the 
 taxpayer's pocket, and without sufficient regard to the 
 extremely careful choice of chief and staff needful in such 
 schools. The result has sometimes been disastrous, and 
 given cause for the strengthened disapproval of those 
 opposed to the system. 
 
 In regard to co-education there are certain dangers 
 and difficulties which must be faced. 
 
 It is very important to realize that those educators 
 who have themselves been engaged in a genuine co- 
 educational school, and not the schools in which there is 
 merely co-instruction, are scarcely ever found to object 
 to the system, whilst unfavourable criticism almost 
 always comes from those who have never themselves tried 
 it. 
 
 Some years ago an earnest effort was made to get up 
 a fair symposium among women on the subject, and de- 
 spite the attempts honestly made to find speakers against 
 co-education who had their experience in co-educational 
 schools, not one was forthcoming. 
 
 In the present day there are chiefly three objections 
 brought forward against co-education. The first is that 
 the office of chief is almost invariably given to a man. 
 Miss Maude Royden holds that to have a man as head- 
 master in a school for boys and girls is a perpetual 
 silent implication that men are superior to women. The
 
 EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS FROM 1870 27 
 
 answer to this objection is, in the first place, as Mr. 
 Badley points out in Advance in Co-education, that it 
 is in the co-educational schools that men will learn to 
 work under women, for boys often have to submit to 
 girls who are their superiors in the school, and younger 
 masters work under senior mistresses. 
 
 " Boys and girls accustomed to see authority dependent 
 not on sex but on fitness, will not, when they grow up, 
 feel the difficulty." 
 
 It is true we may have to wait some time for perfect 
 equality of opportunity for headships, but it is bound 
 to come with that mutual understanding between men 
 and women which will be the inevitable result of a child- 
 hood lived in close association. 
 
 In the second place, we cannot but see by the trend of 
 events that women are already beginning to take the 
 chief place. In 191 7, a woman was appointed in 
 Brooklyn as head of a high school, a post hitherto held 
 by a man, and even before the war the Americans had 
 in some towns women superintendents of education. 
 A head-mistress has been appointed to the Edinburgh 
 school. 
 
 Another objection often brought forward is that girls 
 in a co-educational school are apt to become unmannerly 
 tomboys. It is probably true that for a year or two 
 girls in such a school often go through a tomboy stage, 
 but in the opinion of many educators such a stage is 
 better openly indulged than secretly suppressed, and 
 once lived through leads to a far more courteous youth 
 than is always the case. The testimony of a Newnham 
 student may be given for what it is worth, when she said 
 that in her opinion girls from well-known co-educational 
 schools were less hoydenish than those from our large 
 public girls' schools. As she herself had not been brought 
 up in a co-educational school, her opinion was not pre- 
 judiced in its favour. It is sometimes said that a tendency 
 to keep apart is noticeable in co-educational schools at
 
 28 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 the age of about twelve or thirteen, fourteen or fifteen. 
 If this be so, there is no difficulty in allowing the tendency 
 to prevail, as it would do in a family in which the interests 
 of the girls were dissimilar to those of the boys ; but there 
 can be no place so fit for the discovery of differences 
 as when boys and girls are Hving together under the same 
 roof. 
 
 The fear that boys and girls would have premature 
 love affairs is held by those who work in such schools to 
 be practically groundless. " The chief count against 
 separate education," writes Mr. Kenneth Richmond, " is 
 that it tends to hinder the natural process of sublimating 
 the sex instinct. Strong friendships between boy and 
 boy or between girl and girl are right and natural and of 
 high developmental value. But it is a mistake to suppose 
 that the component of specific sex can be sublimated in 
 this way : in separate schools it tends either to be 
 transferred to the comrade, which is dangerous, or re- 
 pressed, which is equally dangerous. My view is that 
 transference of the latent sex wish to contemporaries of 
 opposite sex is an essential of free and natural develop- 
 ment. . . . The whole sweep of pubhc opinion in a co- 
 educational school is against sentimentality and softness, 
 and towards the firmness and finer comradeship that 
 comes of sublimation." 
 
 There is, however, another danger which is, to speak 
 frankly, far more difficult to deal with, and that is lest 
 there should be unnatural and unwise flirtation between 
 the younger masters and elder girls, or younger mistresses 
 and elder boys. This danger has lately been brought 
 forward as a very serious one. 
 
 It points to the need of extreme care in the choice of 
 masters and mistresses, and also to the great importance 
 that all teachers should understand what they have to 
 consider and what to avoid in dealing with the opposite 
 sex. The Hght that is being shed on sex questions in 
 medical and educational quarters ought to help us here,
 
 EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS FROM 1870 29 
 
 and there should be frank discussion of these difficulties 
 between the headmaster or mistress and the staff. 
 
 Other points connected with co-education are so fully 
 dealt with in Advance in Co-education (Sidgwick and 
 Jackson) that it is unnecessary to discuss them here. 
 
 The final decade of last century saw rapid progress in 
 educational life. A great impetus came to us from Amer- 
 ica. Three British ladies — Miss Louth of Cheltenham, 
 Miss Clapperton of Edinburgh, Miss Crees of London — 
 attended the education section of the Chicago Exhibition, 
 and were so fired by the lectures of Dr. Stanley Hall that 
 on their return to England in 1894 they founded the 
 Child Study Society, which took such hold of the educa- 
 tional world that when Professor Earl Barnes came over 
 to our country in 1898 he found it thoroughly established. 
 Still he gave it a remarkable impetus. Teachers from all 
 parts of London gathered to his lectures and worked under 
 his directions. We had taken the great step forward of 
 looking upon the child as of more importance than the 
 subjects we wanted him to learn, and this view was 
 greatly helped by the publication of Professor James 
 Sully's Studies in Childhood, which was widely read. 
 Books about children began to be pubUshed in consider- 
 able numbers. 
 
 The Child Study Society started many branches. It 
 spread to Edinburgh, Dundee, Birmingham, iNIanchester, 
 Halifax, Exeter, and other places, but its stronghold has 
 always been in London. In 1899 it started an organ of 
 its own. The Paidologist, which was continued under that 
 title until 1906, when it became known as Child Study. 
 
 The Society has recently (in 1914) become the Child 
 Study Association, an amalgamation of several different 
 societies for the scientific investigation of childhood. 
 
 The main work of the Child Study Society has been to 
 provide lectures on various educational questions, and 
 to bring together as many different classes of teachers 
 as possible. Its platform has always been a very broad
 
 30 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 one. Opinions of the most extreme kind have had an 
 opportunity of being expressed, whilst the ordinary 
 spade-work of the teaching profession has by no means 
 been neglected. One characteristic of the meetings has 
 been the very unusual incident of a really effective dis- 
 cussion, largely due, it has been suggested, to the presence 
 at the meetings of a fair number of medical men and 
 women, and of well-known educationists. The bulk of 
 the audience has always consisted of elementary women 
 teachers, for there is Uttle doubt, as Sir Michael Sadler has 
 said, that it is among women, and in the ranks of our 
 elementary schools, that reform is making most way. 
 
 After its founders, it is to Miss Kate Stevens, Dr. 
 Kimmins, Mr. Tibbey, and Mr. Mulford that the Child 
 Study Society owes most. 
 
 Another educational movement began in 1850 with 
 the Pubhc Libraries Act obtained by WilUam Ewart, 
 whence municipal hbranes have sprung. About six 
 hundred and thirty local government areas adopted the 
 Public Libraries Act between 1850 and 1910. 
 
 A few Ubraries of various kinds started in the seventies, 
 but it was in the nineties that many libraries of all kinds 
 came into being. Their educational effect on the schools 
 has never kept pace with that in the United States of 
 America, where a hbrary association was started as early 
 as 1876. The United Kingdom followed suit in 1877, 
 but whilst America went ahead in the closing years of 
 the last century, we did little till this century, but we are 
 now following the example of the U.S.A., in such towns 
 as Hull, Manchester, etc., in having special rooms for 
 children, and we begin to regard libraries as part of our 
 system of national education. 
 
 In Springfield, Massachusetts, hbrarians and teachers 
 work most closely together. A teacher wishing to give 
 one or more lessons on, say, Arctic expeditions can go to 
 the librarian in charge of the geographical department 
 and ask her to recommend her books, and to have ready
 
 EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS FROM 1870 31 
 
 for her by a certain date extracts from papers and illus- 
 trations to give at her lesson. She calls and finds a neat 
 brown paper envelope full of pictures, etc., ready for her. 
 She can, if she likes, get a certain set of books from the 
 library for the special use of her form. Children often 
 come into the libraries to prepare their lessons, and can 
 get advice from the librarian as to what books to read or 
 consult. Notices are put up at the entrance of the 
 library about new books, and advice is given as to their 
 value. Models of new inventions or undertakings are 
 placed at the entrance to the library. In 1913, e.g., 
 there was a beautiful model of the Panama Canal, which 
 schools brought their pupils to see. Specimens of 
 beautiful photographs from foreign galleries are hung 
 on the walls of staircase and passages. They are changed 
 about once a fortnight, so that the school children can 
 become acquainted one fortnight with Venice and its 
 painters, and the next with Florence, and so on. 
 
 The librarians of New York regard themselves as 
 definitely belonging to the body of educational experts, 
 and have to take a very careful training and examination 
 to fit themselves for their posts, especially if applying 
 for the children's part of the library. A training college 
 for librarians exists in Pittsburg. 
 
 In the United Kingdom a great advance has been made 
 of recent years, and candidates for the post of librarian 
 are now examined in bibliography, classification, hterary 
 history, cataloguing, and library routine, but in close 
 connection with our schools there is still much to seek. 
 
 The Parents' National Educational Union was founded 
 by Miss Charlotte Mason in 1887 for the study of the laws 
 of education, as they bear on the bodily development, 
 the moral training, the intellectual work, and the reUgious 
 bringing-up of children. 
 
 The first meeting was held at Bradford, when eighty 
 members were enrolled. Four meetings for members
 
 32 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 were held during the winter months, the last of which, on 
 " Home Education," gave rise to the estabhshment of 
 the " House of Education " at Ambleside, in which girls 
 were trained as nursery governesses under Miss Mason. 
 
 In a very short time the movement spread all over 
 England, and a scheme was drawn up to help to bring 
 together all private governesses, to suggest to them 
 schemes and methods of work, and to examine their 
 pupils annually. It was a much-needed stimulus for 
 home education. 
 
 A magazine. The Parents' Union, was next started. In 
 1892 a definite three years' course of study in education 
 was arranged for mothers : 1894 saw the estabhshment 
 of thirteen branches of the Society in Britain, and since 
 then P.N.E.U. work has been carried on in other 
 countries. 
 
 Miss Mason's plans have been adopted within recent 
 years in some elementary schools, e.g. Drighhngton in 
 Yorkshire, as well as in some secondary ones, e.g. St. 
 George's, Harpenden. 
 
 The Mothers' Union sprang up later as a similar move- 
 ment, but on the whole it appeals to a somewhat different 
 class of society and confines itself more exclusively to the 
 religious aim.
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 33 
 
 II.— GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT OF 
 EDUCATION 
 
 With the beginning of the twentieth century educa- 
 tional interest increased rapidly and took a far more 
 ethical form. So far the attitude of the man in the 
 street towards education was that it should be something 
 that paid. It was to contribute to the production of 
 wealth. Everything that hindered the increase of 
 possession was to be done away with. In the seventies 
 and eighties of the eighteen-hundreds thoughtful people 
 followed the teachings of Malthus and brought up very 
 small families, lest large families should suffer poverty. 
 In spite of the protests by Matthew Arnold and others, 
 Government introduced, in the famous Act of 1870, the 
 system of payment by results in our board schools, with 
 the fatal effects now so clearly recognized, 
 
 Mr, Benjamin Kidd has shown us that the Darwinian 
 theory of the survival of the fittest was true enough as 
 the science of the evolution of the animal in the past 
 epochs of the world. It is " the science of the individual 
 efficient in his own interests " — " the science of the causes 
 which have made those who are efficient in the struggle 
 for their own interest supreme, omnipotent, in the world." 
 The mistake made was that of attempting to apply this 
 principle of the evolution of the individual to the evolu- 
 tion of society, for the first principle in the evolution of 
 the social world of civiUzation lies in the subordination of 
 individuals. 
 
 Education followed the line of a mistaken interpreta- 
 tion of Darwin's discoveries, and we find money-earning, 
 success in material good, a well-stored mind, a knowledge 
 of books, the passing of examinations, usually considered 
 the chief things that mattered. 
 
 But many educators began towards the close of last 
 century, mainly perhaps under the influence of Froebel 
 and Herbart and of some of our own advanced teachers,
 
 34 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 to think that after all character was of more importance 
 than knowledge or outward success. 
 
 Dr. James Ward, in a course of far-sighted lectures on 
 education given at Cambridge in 1880, which I have 
 frequently quoted to more than four hundred students 
 in training between 1892 and 1913, dwelt on the value of 
 character-forming. " Give a child self-control and love 
 of work and you have given him the bones and marrow 
 of a worthy character." This love of work can only be 
 absolutely secured through much freedom of choice. 
 
 Gradually our desire as educators to help to form a 
 good character changed, chiefly through American in- 
 fluence, to a desire to help the child to contribute as a 
 good character to the society in which he lived, to be a 
 good citizen, and along with this desire we rediscovered 
 with the help of Dewey what Froebel had tried to teach 
 us long before, that it is as much " by doing " as "by 
 learning " that the child nature grows. In order to help 
 his fellows he must be able to express himself. The 
 prime aim is service. " Service is our destiny," wrote 
 George Meredith. " If I can be assured of doing service, I 
 have my home within." 
 
 I do not hunger for a well-stored mind, 
 I only wish to live my life and find 
 My heart in unison with all mankind, 
 
 said Mr. Edmund Gosse. 
 
 This need " to live our life " has grown steadily through- 
 out the opening years of the present century, and whilst 
 in 1885 an audience might decHne to accept the view 
 that we educate for service, in 1919 it is a commonplace 
 principle stated on every platform, though by no means 
 carried out in all our schools. 
 
 The conviction is growing that the lust of results in 
 terms of cash was not the only error in the 1870 Bill, 
 but the way in which we regarded books as our one 
 salvation has proved disastrous in turning the interest of
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 35 
 
 the people from country to town, from work of the hand 
 as craftsmen to work of the brain as clerks. It was as 
 late as the nineties that I heard a well-known educational 
 leader urge the board school children he was addressing to 
 have the worthy ambition before them of a desk in an office. 
 
 An earnest effort is now being made throughout the 
 country to restore the dignity of work, but the contempt 
 for it that we have engendered will die hard. Even the 
 Workers' Educational Association, at its annual meeting 
 in 1 918, did not understand the desire expressed by many 
 present that handiwork should be made the main feature 
 in the education of every child under twelve, and it was 
 feared that by introducing handwork into our elementary 
 schools we should strengthen class distinctions. 
 
 Several recent educational movements are closely con- 
 nected with the ethics of the subject, e.g. the New Ideals 
 of Education Conference, which is neither a society nor 
 association, those only being constituted members who 
 have paid their fee for the annual meeting. Thus in the 
 summer of 1919, when the meeting was held at Cam- 
 bridge, only one hundred and fifty out of four hundred 
 and fifty people present had been at any of the conferences 
 before. 
 
 The subject in 1919 was the creative impulse of the 
 child and how to use it in education, and the whole trend 
 of the conference was that the child should be helped to 
 self-expression through either craft or art with a view 
 to the service of his fellow-men. 
 
 The aims of the Conference as set forth in the prospectus 
 are that its members should " work together upon the 
 basis of a common conviction that a new spirit, full of 
 hope for the world, is stirring in education. It may be said 
 that the essentials of the new spirit, as the committee con- 
 ceives it, are reverence for the pupil's individuaUty and a 
 belief that true individuality — surest antidote to the poison 
 of egoism — grows best in an atmosphere of freedom." 
 
 " The object of the Conference is to draw together in
 
 36 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 fellowship, under pleasant holiday conditions, all who 
 are seeking to embody this spirit in their work ... to 
 bring isolated experiments into touch with one another, 
 and to give to pioneering work the encouragement of 
 criticism and recognition," 
 
 The Conference has held six annual meetings, begin- 
 ning at the outbreak of the war with a small gathering 
 that consisted chiefly of IMontessorians who found 
 Montessorianism all too small for them, and with a desire 
 to extend their borders, and to bring together all earnest 
 experimentists in education, decided to make a wider 
 appeal. The result has been that the Cambridge Confer- 
 ence of 1919 numbered four hundred and fifty members 
 from all kinds of schools and colleges. The report of the 
 work of the Association, published annually, gives not 
 only a resume of the lectures but accounts of the ex- 
 periments in different schools described at the meetings. * 
 
 Other societies which help forward the ethical aspects 
 of education are the Handwork Association, the Civic 
 Education League, the Arts and Crafts Society, and 
 many others. Another gathering, called the Uplands 
 Association, which was started in 1914, has very similar 
 aims. Its wish is to put into practice principles of reform 
 in school life and teaching. These may be briefly ex- 
 pressed as follows : The school is to be a centre for com- 
 munal activity. The child is to be more carefully studied 
 as an individual. The traditional emphasis on the sphere 
 of intellect is to be replaced by a more careful balance of 
 intellectual, aesthetic, and practical experience. Co- 
 education is to be adopted, and a closer union is to exist 
 between the parents and the school. Under normal cir- 
 cumstances it is held that children should be educated 
 at home or in a day school until at least eleven years of 
 age. The Association insists on adult education. 
 
 The practical steps taken have been the establishment 
 
 1 " Reports of Meetings of the New Ideals of Education Confer- 
 ence." Miss Synge, 24 Royal Avenue, Chelsea, S.W. 3.
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 37 
 
 of a summer school to which parents, teachers, and chil- 
 dren are all invited. A special department is arranged 
 for the children, and all other members attend lectures 
 and discussions, whilst each one has to join some practical 
 class (such as a class for farm or garden work, regional 
 survey, domestic crafts, eurhythmies) during the fortnight's 
 session in the summer, at Edmunds Farm, Gee Cross, 
 Cheshire, which belongs to the Association. Other meet- 
 ings take place in the spring and winter. Each year some 
 special subject on educational reform is studied by some 
 of the members and reported on at the annual conference. 
 It is hoped to estabUsh at least one school in close con- 
 nection with the Association. The motto adopted is 
 " Levavi oculos.''^ 
 
 Sunday School Movement 
 During the period from 1870 onwards Sunday schools 
 were too often carried on in a very casual and promis- 
 cuous manner, but one of the results of " Child Study " 
 has been a remarkable educational movement in respect 
 to Sunday school teaching. Mr. Archibald, a Canadian, 
 who was an ardent advocate of " Child Study " in his 
 own country, and who made psychology as related to 
 education one of his favourite pursuits, came to England 
 about 1907 and gave lectures in various towns. Amongst 
 other places he went to Birmingham to attend a con- 
 ference, and made such an impression by his description 
 of what he conceived Sunday schools might become that 
 he was invited by Mr. Cadbury to start one at Bournville, 
 with the help of Miss Archibald, his daughter, a trained 
 FroebeUan student. In a few years a training college 
 developed for Sunda}^ school teachers at West Hill, 
 chiefly under the auspices of the Congregationalists, but 
 with a very liberal bias, and a readiness to admit students 
 of all denominations. 
 
 ^ Further particulars from the Secretaries of Uplands Association, 
 134 Portway, West Ham, E. 15.
 
 38 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 A Froebelian training college (the West Hill Training 
 College) grew up round the demonstration school pro- 
 vided for the Sunday school teachers, and the work is 
 carried on in close connection with the Friends' Theo- 
 logical College at Woodbrook. 
 
 The object is to train young men and women to be 
 teachers of the Sunday schools in connection with the 
 church or chapel to which they belong, near their homes 
 or places of employment. They start a primary depart- 
 ment for children of six, seven, and eight, which is divided 
 into groups of three or four scholars only, taught by the 
 young people of the chapel of about fourteen, fifteen, or 
 sixteen years of age. The infants are to be in the hands 
 of more experienced teachers. The trained leader con- 
 ducts a short children's service, and then after a march 
 the young teachers give ten minutes' Bible story to their 
 small classes, followed by some form of self-expression, 
 such as drawing, modelUng, or sandwork. Each young 
 teacher is compelled to attend a training class during the 
 week, under penalty of not being allowed to take the class 
 on Sunday, and a number of reserve teachers are pro- 
 vided to take classes when others are absent. At the 
 training class the Bible stories are studied, school 
 problems discussed, and children's needs considered. The 
 young teachers have three years' experience in the 
 primary department and are then moved on to the 
 junior department for children of nine to eleven. In 
 some cases, after the severe test of a lesson given in public 
 and after another three years they are considered fit 
 either to deal with infants or the intermediate grade for 
 children of tv/elve or thirteen. 
 
 Round Bournville Sunday School have sprung up a 
 week day school at West Hill, a nursery school and a 
 secondary school in Birmingham. The college is full to 
 overflowing. 
 
 A scheme is now on foot in connection with the Y.M.C.A. 
 for training leaders for all sorts of boys' clubs, the design
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 39 
 
 being to foster a new profession i to " remodel religious 
 effort along the line of educational evangelism." "It 
 aims to develop an atmosphere of fearless reverent 
 search for truths and seeks to obtain help from modern 
 Biblical research as well as from recent development in 
 biological science and psychology of the child's adolescent 
 hfe." " The design is to produce not only wise theorists 
 but skilful workers." 
 
 The course should last at least a year, but a special 
 course is planned for those young men who can only 
 arrange to spend one term. 
 
 The subjects included in the students' studies are the 
 organization and management of boys' clubs, genetic 
 psychology and especially the psychology of adolescence, 
 principles and methods of teaching, Bible study, sociology, 
 physiology, hygiene, nature study and woodcraft, camps 
 and camping, blackboard drawing, and other boys' 
 organizations such as scouts and bo37s' brigades. 
 
 The leaders turned out are expected to be in close 
 connection with continuation schools, " After Care " 
 committees, and the Employment Bureaux' boys' 
 departments. 
 
 The Church of England also trains women as Sunday 
 school teachers, and for ten years has had St. Chris- 
 topher's College, Blackheath, in being. ^ 
 
 Play Movement 
 
 The Education Bill of 1918 recognized, as the Bill of 
 1870 did not, the necessity of play in all children's hves. 
 The way had been prepared for this by the establishment 
 of Mrs. Humphry Ward's play centres in London, and 
 their great success led to the estabHshment of play centres 
 all over the country. Punch's desire long ago that no 
 
 1 For further information apply to the Warden, West Hill Institu- 
 tion for Training in Religious Education, Selly Oak, Birmingham. 
 
 * For further information apply to the Director, George Hamilton 
 Archibald, Lambavady, Oak Tree Lane, Selly Oak, Birmingham, or 
 the Principal, St. Christopher's College, Blackheath.
 
 40 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 school should be built without a good playground attached 
 has taken a long time to be fulfilled, but the old notion 
 that the children of the working classes need no play 
 has at last been laid low, and shortly before the war a 
 definite playground movement came into being both in 
 England and the United States. In our country Dr. 
 Jane Reaney has made an important study on the place 
 of play in education, and has written a treatise on the 
 psychology of the organized group game, and on the 
 correlation between general intelligence and play ability. 
 She looks forward to the time when there will be organi- 
 zation of the recreative facihties in large towns under 
 uniform control. Persons wiU be trained in the theory 
 and practice of play to act as administrators of pubhc 
 playgrounds and play centres. She holds that " if there 
 were a central organization it would be possible ultimately 
 so to make use of open spaces, parks, halls, clubs and 
 cinemas, that every city child and adolescent should 
 have facilities for recreation apart from the streets under 
 people with a knowledge of the scientific principles 
 which underlie the instincts of play, and the power to 
 apply this practically." Her conclusions lead her to 
 consider that the group games should not be introduced 
 to children at as early an age as we usually insist upon 
 them, that the preparatory schools make the mistake of 
 insisting on cricket and football when the boys are too 
 young, and their love of these games is imitative rather 
 than spontaneous, whilst they have not yet satisfied their 
 desire for imaginative games and individual prowess. 
 The question of play in the country is taken up in various 
 quarters, and an account of efforts for the improvement 
 of village recreation is given in one of the chapters on 
 experiments in this book.^ 
 
 ^ For further particulars write to Miss Jane Reaney, D.sc, 26 The 
 College, Bromley, or see " The Psychology of the Organized Group 
 Game." Monograph IV. British Journal of Psychology. Cambridge 
 University Press, 5$.
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 41 
 
 Boy Scouts 
 
 One of the most remarkable educational movements 
 of the present century is that of Baden Powell's Boy 
 Scouts, leading to the Girl Guides, and taking hold 
 throughout the world on account of its direct appeal to 
 the boys' love of adventure, spirit of independence, and 
 adhesion to a gang. It is so well known that an elaborate 
 account of it need not be given here, but it is worth while 
 to draw attention to a movement that has developed out 
 of it since the war, mainly through the influence of Ernest 
 Thompson Seton. It is called the Woodcraft Chivalry, 
 and claims to be entirely free from the tendency to 
 mihtary training which it is found possible to give to the 
 scout movement under a war-loving scout-master. It 
 endeavours to carry out more thoroughly than the scout 
 movement the distinguishing features of Hfe in nature, 
 and advocates life in camps for months at a time. Wood- 
 craft, it is maintained, is the first of the sciences in point 
 of time, and should therefore come first in point of edu- 
 cation. Crafts are to be sought as " the royal road to 
 learning." 
 
 Little girls are actually denied admission even to the 
 Wolf Cubs' scouting bands, but the Woodcraft Chivalry 
 admits both sexes. The aim is "to produce freedoni- 
 loving, self-rehant, self-controlled men and women." This 
 can only be done by adopting " self-government with 
 adult guidance." 
 
 " The first aim of education," writes Mr. Seton, " is 
 to make not an athlete or a scholar, a politician or a 
 rehgionist, but ' a man.' He must be developed in the 
 fourfold way — physical, mental, social, spiritual; any 
 one of these left out makes but a poor citizen. Any 
 education plan that does not include them all is doomed 
 to failure. W^oodcraft is merely the overcoming of the 
 daily obstacles of ordinary hfe." 
 
 The youngest members of woodcraft are called Wood-
 
 42 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 lings. They are not called upon as the Wolf Cubs are to 
 do a kindness every day, because of the two dangers in 
 volved in this promise ; first, lest priggishness should be 
 encouraged, and secondly, lest the boys, having performed 
 one act of kindness early in the morning should consider 
 themselves free to act as they will during the rest of the 
 day. Nor do they have to promise to obey the king, or 
 take any kind of religious oath. 
 
 The law of the woodlings is as follows : "A woodling 
 gives in to the pack. He is willing to do what the others 
 wish, even if he does not want to do it. A woodling does 
 not give in to himself. He is master over himself, doing 
 what he knows he should, even if he should feel like doing 
 something else. His promises are, ' I wish to keep the 
 woodUng law, and to play the game at all times.' "^ 
 
 It was in the nineties that the new Froebehanism began 
 to make itself very distinctly felt. A younger generation 
 of teachers had sprung up who were living rather in the 
 spirit of Froebel than in the letter of his teaching, which 
 had unfortunately been allowed to dominate the work 
 of very influential professed followers of Froebel, though 
 his true spirit was kept ahve by such sincere followers as 
 Miss Bishop and others. Our kindergartens came strongly 
 under Professor Dewey's influence. His work, which was 
 an intelligent interpretation of Froebel, was in the direc- 
 tion of that spirit of freedom which was already finding 
 its way into all our educational work, although at that 
 time we all talked a great deal more about the importance 
 of interest than of anything else, and many were the dis- 
 cussions in training colleges as to the true meaning of in- 
 terest, and the danger of making life too easy for the pupil. 
 
 Many people, who have taken up warmly the views of 
 Dottoressa Slontessori, have failed to realize how very 
 much the modern Froebelian had advanced already in 
 
 ^ Further information from the Organizer of Woodcraft Chivalry, 
 4 Fleet Street, E.C*
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 43 
 
 the direction of greater freedom for the child to hve his 
 own Hfe, and how carefully she or he was interpreting 
 Froebel's true spirit and escaping from the bondage to 
 apparatus and courses which was the cardinal sin of the 
 older Froebelians with whom the Montessorians are so 
 apt to make comparisons. 
 
 The modern Froebelian, following Froebel, looks upon 
 it as of first importance that the little child should gain 
 ideas and learn to express them through a most varied 
 contact with his environment. It is through self-con- 
 sciousness and self-determination that his instincts and 
 impulses are, through desire and feeUng, to develop into 
 a perfect will. To attain this object he must live in 
 surroundings which will offer every opportunity for action 
 and experiment, and must hear many stories. The material 
 he is to use is to be whatever will most closely link him 
 with real life around him ; hence the modern Froebelian, 
 greatly influenced by the work of Dewey, leads the older 
 child along the Unes of primitive man, and no longer 
 limits him to the rigid apparatus of the older Froebelians, 
 but provides him with sticks and stones, sand and clay, 
 wood and bricks, as the Froebelian always did, adding 
 pins, hammer, nails and string. The child's experiments 
 with Umbs and senses are to be almost unlimited. He 
 should be placed in surroundings where he cannot seriously 
 hurt himself and left to try all the experiments he wishes. 
 The sense of touch is to be no more neglected than the 
 other senses, and the baby is allowed to handle every 
 object that comes his way. He is to be allowed to feel 
 the prick of the knife and the heat of the candle before 
 he can speak. 
 
 As the infant passes into childhood he is still not to 
 be " spoiled by too much assistance." His natural im- 
 pulses to activity, helpfulness and imitation, investiga- 
 tion, construction, are all to be encouraged. He is to be 
 regarded as a member of society, and is to be trained to 
 realize himself as such.
 
 44 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Games are played in the Froebelian school in groups, 
 usually very happ}^ jolly games, in which first one and 
 then another can lead ; but the old artificial games which 
 were common in the sixties and seventies of last century 
 have disappeared for many years and linger only in the 
 old-fashioned kindergarten. The child is throughout to 
 be the guide for the adult, who is to note and minister 
 to his true needs — the needs of his body, soul, and spirit. 
 
 It may be asked how it was that, these aims being so 
 closely aUied to those of the Montessorians, the modern 
 Froebelian movement should have gone on so quietly for 
 years and the Montessori movement come at once into 
 the open, seized the popular fancy, and found converts 
 and supporters in every rank of educational society. It 
 may be answered in the first place that the modem 
 Froebelians prepared the ground for the Montessorians. 
 " Great men," it has been said, " are like the rockets 
 hghted in a bonfire. They shed their Hght far and wide, 
 and are seen by all, but they would not have been seen 
 had not the bonfire been there." So it is with the relation 
 between the modern Froebehan and the Montessorian. 
 
 In the second place, the marvellous personality of the 
 Dottoressa has been a great factor in the success of the 
 movement. 
 
 Third, the fact that she is a doctor and a scientist 
 appeals strongly to the majority of people, who feel that 
 in her hands the children's bodily health at least is safe 
 and her methods scientific. 
 
 Fourth, her very practical mind has carried out in the 
 schoolroom many of the plans which, though exactly in 
 accordance with the principles of Froebel, have only 
 occurred to the more enlightened of his followers, e.g. 
 the little chairs and small separate tables to seat only 
 one or two at a time, the httle beds light enough for a 
 child to Hft, the contrivances for enabhng children to 
 swing and balance themselves. In fact her system is, as an 
 American educator called it, "A very storehouse of ideas
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 45 
 
 for the intelligent teacher." The Dottoressa has redis- 
 covered Froebel's principles, for it is evident by her 
 lectures that she has not studied him. The differences to 
 be noticed in comparing some of our best modern Froe- 
 beUan schools and Montessorian ones, which are not being 
 ruined by the misapprehensions of followers, can perhaps 
 be best grasped by an account of some of the schools. 
 
 It is difficult to decide what is the exact difference 
 between the modern Froebelian and the Montessorian, 
 even when taking as far as possible the best schools in which 
 bhnd followers are not betraying their leaders by mis- 
 taken action. In theory the two leaders closely resemble 
 each other. Scarcely a word uttered by Dr. Montessori 
 at Harpenden would fail to find its counterpart in 
 Froebel's teaching. It would not, I beheve, be difficult 
 to rewrite some of the Dottoressa's lectures in quotations 
 from Froebel ; but there is no doubt whatever that 
 Montessorianism has taken hold of our teachers and 
 educational leaders in a way that FroebeUanism never 
 did, not even in 1884, when there was a good deal of 
 enthusiasm for Froebehan schools. Montessorianism has 
 invaded numbers of our elementary schools to their very 
 great advantage. A comparison of the work as seen on 
 different mornings in a modern Froebelian and a Montes- 
 sorian school may perhaps throw some Ught. In a 
 Froebelian school the children of three to seven assemble 
 joyfully in the morning, and after singing a hymn cluster 
 round their teacher and tell her the news, each con- 
 tributing his or her bit of nature-lore, telling of new toys, 
 or a birthday treat, or some expedition, and there may 
 be also some more singing or the children play their very 
 simple band. The morning proceeds for the youngest 
 children by a very elastic time-table. At ten o'clock 
 comes free play and the care of the room. Some child 
 suggests bead-threading. Others are asked if they would 
 Uke to join, and a party gathers on chairs round a Uttle 
 table and sets to work, Others choose drawing with
 
 46 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 coloured chalks and form a separate party. Others set 
 to work to see that all is in order in the room, and the 
 very youngest play on the floor with coloured card- 
 board shapes. The time-table says that a lesson on 
 number should come at 10.15, but as the children are 
 all absorbed in their occupations they are left to pursue 
 them till they join the transition class at games in the 
 big hall. The children seat themselves right round the 
 room whilst very soft music is played, and the teachers 
 call them in pairs, an older always to take care of a 
 younger, a big boy with little girl, or vice versa. Then 
 the marching begins, in accordance with the music, loud 
 or soft. Only one little new-comer wants to talk, and is 
 left to do so, whilst the others, looking radiantly happy, 
 respond extremely well, and skip or step according to 
 direction. They sit on the floor and perform all sorts of 
 hand movements to the music, dance round hand-in-hand, 
 have a lesson in right or left hands and feet to a httle song 
 of " Looby Loo," which a Httle boy tells me afterwards 
 is what he Hkes better than anything else at school, and 
 he would Hke to do it all the morning better even than 
 having lunch. A rest comes next on the floor whilst the 
 softest music is played and the children lie as if asleep, 
 the majority of them very still. Lunch follows games, 
 the children putting it out and clearing it away. The 
 stories that follow are given by students in training, but 
 much appreciated by the children, who beg to act the one 
 given, which they start off to do with great pleasure. 
 
 If the children do not want to continue these occupa- 
 tions, a number lesson may be given. On this special 
 occasion the children sit round in a circle and have each 
 an envelope full of different coloured disks which they 
 place on white paper to resemble a pattern shown to 
 them for a few moments by their teacher. They deal 
 with one, two, or three disks, and have to match in colour, 
 number, and position. The morning winds up with a game 
 which teaches observation, quiet movement, and self-
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 47 
 
 control. A table on its side forms a good hiding-place. 
 The children all close their eyes, and the teacher touches 
 one who goes and hides behind the table. The others 
 open their eyes and say at once who is missing, and run 
 up to look if they are right. Those who have peeped are 
 not expected to give the name of the hidden child. The 
 children delight in this game, and are very reluctant to 
 leave school with nurse or mother. 
 
 The rooms in which they assemble are very bright with 
 a few pictures, a low rocking-horse, a doll's house, and 
 an abundant supply of chalks, pencils, and paints, a 
 sand-tray and bricks. 
 
 Children in the transition class of five to seven have a 
 time-table which varies very much according to their 
 needs. Each day there is either nature talk, singing or 
 poetry ; reading or writing ; choice of occupation or 
 singing ; lunch and games ; number work or story ; 
 handwork or band. They are taught in classes of ten or 
 eleven children, a few very backward and very forward 
 being taken out for individual teaching. 
 
 Another of our best Froebelian schools is carried on in 
 very inconvenient premises. Here there is also morning 
 news to which each child is eager to contribute. There 
 are again pictures in the rooms, and a wooden horse, and 
 several school dolls, and low cupboards containing pencils, 
 paper, paints, coloured chalks, bricks, and tablets. A 
 sand-tray stands in the corner of the room. The youngest 
 children, from four to five, are in one room. A tiny girl 
 is extremely busy trying to dress a longclothed doll, 
 having been given a heap of dolls' clothes to choose from. 
 She is measuring and selecting with the greatest care, 
 and succeeds in the object she has in view. Some little 
 boys are very busy building with bricks, and make an 
 archway for a brick-train to go through. The train 
 proves too high for the arch, and measurements are care- 
 fully taken and the mistake corrected. Two little girls 
 are painting pictures and do so for almost the whole
 
 48 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 morning. Later on two parties of children set to work 
 to build a house in a corner of the room, and a stable under 
 the table, with huge light bricks the size of road-bricks, 
 which are stacked in the passage outside the room. One 
 boy pretends to be a pony, and, led by another, has a 
 brick or two put on his back to take back. Another 
 child starts using a little table turned upside-down, but 
 a teacher points out to him that this is not suitable, as 
 it is not strong enough, and shows him how it might break. 
 A wheelbarrow is found as a substitute, and the fetching 
 of bricks goes on merrily. 
 
 At the end of the morning the very tiny children join 
 in a few games such as " Looby Loo," then dress them- 
 selves with some help, and rest until their parents send 
 for them. Sometimes soft music is played to them. 
 
 In the room belonging to the older children there is a 
 wonderful home-made farm, with real wheat in the 
 fields. There are farm buildings made of a variety of 
 materials, such as twigs, straw, and clay, and animals of 
 different kinds. The children will in due course obtain 
 ears of wheat, and will actually carry out all the processes 
 involved in bread-making, until they one day make little 
 loaves for themselves and their friends, and have them 
 baked in the caretaker's oven. 
 
 The older children of six and seven wind up their 
 morning by a band, consisting of drums and triangles, 
 cymbals and tambourines, which they play together with 
 great glee, learning to concentrate attention and so 
 realize that the failure of one means the failure of all. 
 Or, all twenty-six are assembled to listen to a Bible story, 
 in which they show great interest, asking eager questions 
 and volunteering comments and anticipations as the story 
 proceeds. The story happens to be told in this kinder- 
 garten by an experienced teacher. 
 
 In both these kindergartens the older children are 
 taught in classes to read, write, or deal with numbers ; 
 and in both a great many students are busy learning to
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 49 
 
 teach or play with the children. A writing-class traces 
 its words and letters in the air before writing them. 
 
 In both schools children bring their household gods in 
 the shape of Teddy bears and dolls and toy animals. 
 One little chap of three hugs his dog in his arms the 
 whole time, and takes it to be with him in all his occu- 
 pations. 
 
 In the Montessorian school all the children, numbering 
 from twenty-six to thirty-five, according to the weather, 
 assemble in one large room with many windows, from 
 10 a.m. to 12 noon each morning ; but on three days in 
 the week they stay till 3.30 p.m. 
 
 The httlc people undress themselves, with guidance 
 from their teachers, and come into the big hall, which has 
 no toys, no pictures, and no sand-tray, but plenty of 
 Httle tables and chairs, small canvas beds, large low cup- 
 boards, and a piano. Ages vary from three to seven. 
 Each child goes to the cupboards and takes out what he 
 or she wants. A good many get out rugs and spread them 
 on the floor that they may carry on their occupations on 
 them. Nearly all take out Montessori apparatus, but a 
 few choose pencils and paper, or reading-books, and set 
 to work to write or read. The teachers go round showing 
 the children how to use the apparatus and checking any 
 misuse of it. There is a happy murmur of work, and all 
 the children are hard at it. Several work alone, but 
 there seems to be a great tendency to work in pairs or 
 even in threes. The coloured silks are one of the greatest 
 attractions, and one girl spends a long time putting 
 together colours that she thinks suit one another, and 
 producing quite an Oriental pattern. One tiny girl is 
 most persevering over the lacing frame, because she has 
 a new pair of laced boots, and wants to be able to lace 
 them up herself. 
 
 The children run up frequently to get help from the 
 teachers, but there is never any long delay whilst a child 
 waits for a turn. They go on trying. The teachers go
 
 50 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 to any child in difficulties, but the child who apparently 
 has no initiative is simply left to itself until it begins to 
 do as the others do. One little girl who could do nothing 
 at all for herself even went without her lunch one day 
 because it never occurred to her to fetch her own chair, 
 but now she fends for herself. 
 
 The first hour of the day is devoted to sense training. 
 Then comes a time of rest. " Silence " is written upon 
 the blackboard, and directly the children see it they at 
 once stop work, relax, and drop into a rest attitude, 
 either with head and arms on the table or stretched full- 
 length on the floor. 
 
 There is a perfect stillness till the teacher goes into a 
 corner of the room and very softly calls a child's name. 
 The child rises and very carefully threads its way to the 
 caller as silently as possible, among its reposing comrades. 
 The faces show great interest and enjoyment. When all 
 have been called they are sent back by the same soft 
 whisper, and return to their attitude of rest until " Silence" 
 is rubbed off the board and all set to work with vigour 
 to clear off their occupations. Silence time takes about 
 ten minutes.^ 
 
 When all the apparatus is put away and the rugs rolled 
 up, the big window is opened, the assistant teacher goes to 
 the piano and plays, whilst the children march in an oval 
 ring along a chalk-Une drawn on the floor, one small boy 
 beating time till someone begs for a dance, which they 
 are allowed to have. 
 
 Next comes lunch ; each child fetches its own in a paper 
 bag and sits at a table whilst some of the company bring 
 round mugs for milk. When a child eats badly the teacher 
 shows her how to handle mug and biscuit. After lunch 
 comes time for self-expression, and children choose their 
 material, coloured chalks, paints, clay, or plasticine, and 
 one little boy takes off some coloured bricks, although 
 
 1 In another Montessorian school " Silence " does not take place 
 unless the children themselves ask for it, which they frequently do.
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 51 
 
 advised not to do so by his teacher. If a child still wants 
 an occupation instead of other material he can have it. 
 A group of about five children join in making a hut of 
 plasticine, and a number of animals are made to go into 
 it. A good many are filling in geometrical patterns in 
 colour. 
 
 At twelve o'clock the children begin to go off, after 
 being most carefully guided in the process of dressing 
 themselves, in which they take great pride. 
 
 Evidently both the Froebelians and Montessorians are 
 desirous that the children should share in a communal life, 
 but they use different means to that end. The Froebehans 
 unite the children deliberately for the morning gathering, 
 for the band, for song, and in classes for teaching. The 
 Montessorians keep all the children of different ages 
 together and leave them to sort themselves as they choose. 
 I noted very little difference in the friendhness of children 
 towards each other. In all the schools the elder children 
 seemed to see after the younger, and were very friendly 
 to strangers. In the Montessorian school two httle girls 
 slapped each other somewhat crossly, and two boys hit 
 one another in cheerful play, but this might have hap- 
 pened in any Froebelian school. 
 
 To the onlooker it seems as though the comradeship of 
 the morning news and the gathering together for band 
 and story must help towards a spirit of unity. Some 
 form of assembly might well be adopted by the Montes- 
 sorian, whilst the full recognition of the child's need of 
 repose as well as acti\ ity would be a great improvement 
 in the Froebelian morning. 
 
 The Froebelian probably tends to too much grouping 
 and too little individual work. In the Froebelian classes, 
 e.g. in reading or number, several children were idling, 
 whilst the independent Montessorian child kept hard at 
 work all the time. His attention seemed more concen- 
 trated. The Froebelian gives a great deal more freedom 
 to the little children than the Montessorian. They can
 
 52 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 use the material given them as they please, and the 
 material chosen is the result of a careful observation of 
 what objects children naturally turn towards. The old 
 apparatus of the early Froebelians is quite done away 
 with. The Montessorian also observes but gives what 
 the adult considers best for the child, and refuses to let him 
 use his materials in his own way. He has the Montessorian 
 apparatus and nothing else. There are some schools that 
 after using this apparatus only for some time have decided 
 that English children need a wide choice of material, and 
 give it to them with good results. 
 
 The shorter morning hours and the greater concen- 
 tration are on the side of the advantages of the Montes- 
 sorian system, but the closer touch with Ufe's reaUties 
 are on the side of the Froebelian. Primitive man appeals 
 most powerfully to children, and plays an important part 
 with the children of seven and eight. The processes of 
 bread-making, the building of a real hut, the making 
 of bows and arrows, etc., seem to make an unwearying 
 appeal to the interests of small children. It is to be 
 feared that the followers of Dr. Montessori will do exactly 
 as did the early followers of Froebel, and give to children 
 of five and seven apparatus which was intended only 
 for children from three to four. In one of the Milan schools 
 I saw a girl take one piece of apparatus after another 
 from the cupboard, carry out carefully each operation 
 required and, when all had been gone through, begin 
 again with a sigh. 
 
 In the States, at one school, children of five yawned 
 wearily over the buttoning apparatus. The Froebelians 
 are keen to turn the energy into some purpose, and espe- 
 cially to lead children to make something for others — 
 Christmas presents, etc. The Montessorian child seems 
 busier over his own development. The Montessorians 
 treat the small children as kittens whose play is purpose- 
 less, and think that the mere doing is enough for them. 
 But for children at any rate over three, if not earlier, it
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 53 
 
 is surely the advantage of their human nature that they 
 are purposeful, and that they begin at a very early age 
 to have ends in view. " Man looks before and after." 
 
 All the above differences might, it is conceived, be 
 settled in a school which could combine the advantages 
 of both systems ; but there is one profound difference 
 which strikes the observer, and that is the complete 
 absence of any kind of " make-pretence " in a Montes- 
 sorian school. No child brought a Teddy bear or doll to 
 the school described. There was no kind of play at being 
 ponies, or postmen, dogs or trains, with the exception 
 of a small new-comer who puffed to his seat as an engine. 
 The children at both the Froebehan schools were left to 
 indulge in all the fancies they desired. 
 
 Readers may perhaps recall a controversy on the sub- 
 ject in The Times Educational Supplement three or four 
 years ago in which several of us, including Mr. Edmond 
 Holmes, expressed a fear that the lack of " make-believe " 
 would prove a defect of Montessorianism. 
 
 Our fear is lest the Montessori child, so carefully tied 
 down to facts, should never be able to look beyond the 
 surface of things, lest for him there should be no " Candle 
 of Vision," nothing that is unseen, lest brought up on 
 facts he should be Uable, as Dr. Greville Macdonald 
 would say, " to take illustrations for facts, and so become 
 the slave of dogma." Perhaps the " silences " may help 
 him in the direction of the inner life, as I understood the 
 Dottoressa to maintain at a lecture in New York, and in 
 any case it is to my mind a most helpful, desirable adjunct 
 to fancy as well as a means of estabhshing a rhythm 
 between work and repose, and I should hke to see the plan 
 in all our schools. But the condemnation of imaginative 
 play and stories for little children does need at least very 
 serious consideration. 
 
 Most of us hold, with Professor Sully, that every child 
 goes through a strongly imaginative and fanciful period, 
 and we think there is no harm, for example, in letting a
 
 54 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 three-year-old boy personify objects and invent their 
 antics. He is making a desirable attempt to understand 
 his environment and to be a part of it. 
 \ Montessorians would, however, say that we are either 
 deceiving the child by letting him " attribute desired 
 characteristics to objects which do not possess them," or 
 leading him towards lunacy by the creation of illusions ; 
 whilst WE maintain that we are only allowing him to 
 satisfy his natural propensities, and that, wisely satisfied, 
 he will pass on to that higher stage of imagination in 
 which he attributes to the objects around him a life or 
 existence of their own, no longer based on human 
 attributes. 
 
 Then Montessorians hold that mental confusion arises 
 through "make-believe," but, provided that there is no 
 dictation from his elders when the child himself makes his 
 blocks serve as all sorts of different objects, it is a matter 
 of observation that no mental confusion arises. He uses 
 them as animals, as towers, as houses, without the 
 slightest difhculty. As Robert Louis Stevenson says : 
 " The chair he has just been besieging for a castle is taken 
 away for accommodation of a morning visitor, and he is 
 nothing abashed." " In the midst of the enchanted 
 pleasance he can see, without sensible shock, the gardener 
 soberly digging potatoes for the day's dinner." " I can 
 remember the time when to call cold mutton red venison, 
 and tell myself a hunter's story, would have made it more 
 palatable than the best of sauces." " We see and touch 
 and hear through a sort of golden mist." 
 
 It may be noted that with English children the less 
 intelligent do not " make-believe." The ordinary child is 
 continually striving to enlarge his experience, and he 
 wants to utiUze his material to enrich his inner life. " He 
 is not sure how one would feel in certain circumstances ; 
 to make sure he must come as near trying it as his means 
 permit." His imagination is part of his attempt to live 
 out his environment, and to take flights beyond it. The
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 55 
 
 doll is with some children the embodiment of all that 
 goes on around them. It is either the one child in whom 
 all that happens to ourselves and a great deal of what we 
 have only heard is repeated, or it takes on a different 
 character from day to day, and has to play a vast number 
 of parts. 
 
 The Montessorian holds that a child's imaginative play 
 leads to credulity. It can, however, be regarded rather 
 as leading to idealism. R. L. Stevenson thinks this is a 
 truer view than to suppose that it leads to art. "It is 
 more akin," he says, " to the ' castle in the air ' of adult 
 life than to the manifestation of art." The httle three- 
 year-old boy who prayed night after night in the char- 
 acter of the animal or object he had personified during 
 the day : " Make me a dood pussy-cat," " a dood tider 
 (tiger)," " a dood wave," " a dood water-tart," was 
 forming even in his baby mind some vague notion of a 
 universal state of goodness, and aspiring towards it, and, 
 as our children grow older and personate heroes and 
 heroines, their adult ideals may owe much to the plays 
 of childhood. 
 
 There are doubtless some children who project their 
 images, and see the " brownies " they imagine, and some 
 who get lost between play and reality, and in such cases 
 a check may become necessary ; but normally the child 
 says, " Let's pretend," and keeps some knowledge of this 
 pretence even in the midst of his most vivid play. 
 
 To deprive a child of his imaginative plays would be 
 to deprive him of one of the greatest joys of hfe. He needs 
 from his earliest years an inner as well as an outer hfe : 
 nourishment for his spirit as well as his senses. 
 
 There is a danger lest, as R. L. Stevenson writes in his 
 charming essay, " The Lantern Bearers," " we miss the 
 personal poetry, the enchanted atmosphere, that rainbow 
 work of fancy that clothes what is naked and seems to 
 ennoble what is base ... for no man lives entirely in 
 external truth among salts and acids, but in the warm
 
 56 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 phantasmagoric chamber of his brain, with the painted 
 windows and storied walls." 
 
 Fairy tales are not introduced into the Montessorian 
 schools until the ages of eight or nine, lest the mental 
 equilibrium should be upset, and it seems as if the 
 Montessorian child will be cut off from that mythological 
 epoch in which he dwells according to R. L. Stevenson. 
 
 Professor Sully warns us in his Studies of Childhood 
 against the supposition that the child who fancies and 
 dreams is necessarily a child who has Httle grasp on his 
 material environment, and shows that " both tendencies 
 can exist in the same child, and belong simply to different 
 moods, the serious, matter-of-fact mood passing readily 
 as if in rehef from mental tension, into the playful fanciful 
 one." Thus, instead of being, as the Montessorian fears, 
 a means of hindering the child from reaching a state of 
 maturity, fancy may be a help in the form of recreation. 
 
 We may note in passing that the child, when left to 
 himself in the Montessori school, weaves fancies round 
 his material, and pretends that his spools of silk are 
 children or railway carriages. So strong is the imagin- 
 ative tendency in our httle ones that it is impossible to 
 get away from it, and our efforts should be rather to guide 
 it into wholesome channels than to destroy it. 
 
 Among such channels are the good old fairy tales 
 which, hke the myth of Santa Claus, are full of symboUsm 
 in which the httle child unconsciously hves, as his draw- 
 ings and his early speech indicate. 
 
 The story of Cinderella is an example of faithfulness 
 to duty. It sets before the child, in fantastic fashion, an 
 ideal that he can understand ; so in " Beauty and the 
 Beast " evil is overcome of good. 
 
 Such stories are a help to spiritual insight. They help 
 the child to live in an atmosphere of the ideal — in a 
 brighter, inner world than that of his prosaic surround- 
 ings ; to enable him in later life to experience those 
 " best moments " of " consecration " when " the light
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 57 
 
 that never was on land or sea " dawns on him. Who can 
 say that these " best moments " are untrue ? Do we not 
 feel down at the bottom of our hearts that they are the 
 truest moments of our lives ? 
 
 We cannot but fear that children deprived of their great 
 delights — imaginative play and fairy tales — will find 
 themselves later on bound in the chains of those things 
 that can only be seen and heard by the outer eye and ear. 
 
 R. L. Stevenson notes how imaginative plays lift the 
 child beyond the reach of his craving instincts. Greedi- 
 ness and fastidiousness over food vanish as he and his 
 cousin play over their porridge. As a Uttle girl once re- 
 marked, " When we are playing with those beautiful 
 china doll's-tea-things, we quite forget what we have to 
 eat." 
 
 Stanley Hall writes : " It may well be questioned 
 whether too vigorous a pruning and repression of this 
 play of imagination is sound pedagogy. Even the best 
 scientists, e.g. Herbert Spencer, seem to have been prone 
 to ' castle building,'" and he cites Mohammed and Napoleon 
 as men who were both dreamers and men of action. 
 
 Occasionally certain psychological points strike one as 
 strange in the writings of IMontessorians. They speak 
 sometimes as if they held that old faculty theory of bj'gone 
 times when imagination, reasoning, memory, and under- 
 standing were all looked upon as entirely separate powers, 
 and one could be developed without any effect on the 
 other. Thus one of the Montessorians writes of " the 
 faculty of self-denial," and one of " the faculty of obedi- 
 ence," whilst the Dottoressa herself speaks as though 
 imagination were completely apart from feeUng. " WTien 
 an apostle seeks to call a soul to a religion he has recourse 
 to the feeUngs, not to the imagination," she says. Surely 
 imagination and feeling are more closely connected than 
 this. Sympathy would be a barren matter did not 
 imagination enable us to transfer the feelings of others 
 to ourselves.
 
 58 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 The Dottoressa does not make it very clear what she 
 means by religion, but if it means neither " creed nor 
 form nor ritual word," but a striving after and faithful 
 following of the highest ideal we can conceive, then the 
 cliild who has lived joyously in the good old fairy tales, 
 and caught their spirit as signifying an ideal Hfe, is more 
 on the way to becoming man or woman with the spirit of 
 true reUgion, that " music of the infinite echoed from the 
 hearts of men," than the child who has been nourished 
 on nothing but a diet of material facts. 
 
 However many doubts may arise in our minds as to 
 the result of an unthinking introduction of Montes- 
 sorianism into our English schools, we can never cease to 
 be grateful to the Dottoressa for the wonderful way in 
 which she has roused the interest in education throughout 
 our country, and the impetus given to the idea of freedom, 
 which has never in her mind had anything to do with 
 licence, but implies rather the liberation of natural power. 
 It is especially to her that we are indebted for the idea 
 of freedom to move about, to rest when tired of work and 
 watch others, to avoid all hurry, and to put aside for ever 
 rigid positions, which is at last being introduced by edu- 
 cational authority into our elementary schools, the most 
 advanced of which have always been in the van of pro- 
 gress long before the time of Dottoressa Montessori, e.g. 
 Miss Grant's and Miss Solomon's schools in London, and 
 so many others that Sir M. Sadler once said that it is 
 from our elementary schools that educational reform will 
 come. It is a very helpful fact that the Dottoressa has 
 succeeded in gaining the allegiance of certain educational 
 authorities, who have hitherto paid far too Uttle heed to 
 the demands of advanced educationists, for more space 
 and more freedom of action, but there is a serious danger 
 that they will make a fetish of the Montessorian apparatus 
 as a fetish was made of the FroebeHan " occupations," 
 and fail to see that the schools that are on Froebelian 
 Unes should be encouraged to work out their own salva-
 
 GROWTH OF ETHICAL ASPECT 59 
 
 tion and not deprived of all the materials they demand 
 because they do not consider Montessorian apparatus a 
 necessity of hfe, forgetting that it is framed by adults, not 
 the result of the child's own expression of need. 
 
 Workers' Educational Association 
 
 Perhaps the Workers' Educational Association has 
 been the strongest movement of all. It is certainly not 
 directly concerned with children's education, but in- 
 directly it is a great power for good. Not only does it 
 rouse parents' interest in their children, but it strives 
 after changes for the better in pubUc education. One of 
 the notes on pohcy to be presented to the general council 
 runs as follows : " The work of the Association is two- 
 fold. First, to awaken interest in education, to create a 
 pubhc understanding of its true meaning and purposes, 
 and to advocate changes in the national system. Second, 
 the organization of facihties for adult education with a 
 non- vocational aim." " The attitude of the Association 
 to education is that the primary purpose of all education 
 should be to develop individual capacity, judgment, and 
 personality, together with a deep sense of responsibiUty 
 for the well-being of the community." Surely it will 
 follow from this that a desire to serve that community 
 will be evoked, and that in every branch of education, 
 down even to the smallest details, co-operation will take 
 the place of competition. 
 
 The W^E.A. movement has taken hold in Austraha, 
 New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada, and is making 
 progress in America, where seven important trade unions 
 are supporting it. America, \^ath her wide views, has 
 proposed an international conference on education in the 
 conviction that the spread of education among all the 
 workers of the countries will bring about better mutual 
 understanding. 
 
 Various educational movements have been selected
 
 60 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 for description, some on account of their great impor- 
 tance, some because they are not so widely known as 
 others and deserve more publicity ; but the rapidity with 
 which educational plans have sprung up during this 
 century, and especially since the war, will account for 
 many omissions. Time fails us to dwell on the Duty and 
 DiscipUne Movement, the " Anglo-American Fellowship," 
 the great spread of the University Extension Movement, 
 the extraordinary increase of Summer Schools of all 
 sorts, of which only two have been selected for description. 
 
 My first recollection of such a thing as a summer school 
 is in connection with the Fellowship of the New Life in 
 the eighties, when I believe a few of the " fellows " met 
 for a summer hohday in which study and recreation were 
 to be combined. 
 
 Adult schools have grown in importance, and affect 
 the education of children because they rouse the interest 
 of adults in education generally. 
 
 To close this chapter I will refer to the marvellous 
 difference between 1919 and 1889 (only thirty years after 
 all) in the number of books pubhshed on education and 
 the number of papers and lectures on the same subject. 
 We have had pubhshed during the last few years such 
 books as Janus and Vesta, an epoch-making production, 
 and we have regularly The Times Educational Supple- 
 ment, and more papers than we can possibly find time to 
 read.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGY AS RELATED 
 TO EDUCATION FROM 1870 ONWARD 
 
 THE connection between psychology and educa- 
 tion was thought very little of in the middle of 
 last century in England, and it was not indeed 
 till after 1861 that we had any work approaching an 
 educational classic. There is nothing really stirring 
 between Locke's Thoughts on Education in 1693 and 
 H. Spencer's -articles in 1854-59, which were published 
 as Education : Intellectual, Moral, and Physical in 1861. 
 
 In the seventies there was much more interest astir in 
 the educational world. Teachers began to realize that it 
 would be well for them to know something of mental 
 processes, and so turned their attention to psychology, 
 reading W. Hamilton, Bain, and H. Spencer. Mr. Croom 
 Robertson started his lectures on Psychology at University 
 College, London, which, though they dealt entirely with 
 adult psj^chology, proved very attractive to teachers, 
 who tried to apply in the class-room facts that they 
 acquired in lectures. An enthusiastic teacher going to 
 study at Girton in 1878 was advised by her head mistress 
 to work for the Moral Sciences Tripos as being the Tripos 
 most closely akin to the Educational Tripos she looked 
 forward to in the distant future. " It would not," she said, 
 " be so paying as acquiring knowledge of a definite sub- 
 ject of instruction, but it would be the best help that 
 could be had for the understanding of the child's nature." 
 Professor Titchener of Cornell University said that the 
 years 1878-94 were epoch-making in the advance of psy- 
 chology, because it was during these years that Dr. James 
 
 61
 
 62 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Ward lectured on Psychology in Cambridge University, 
 and, in 1884, published his world-famed article in the 
 Encydopccdia Britannica, whilst he continued to fire a 
 series of brilliant pupils, such as Professor Stout, Pro- 
 fessor IMcDougall, and others, with interest in the subject. 
 It was Dr. Ward who, following to a great extent the 
 criticism of Leibnitz and Herbart, did more than any 
 other Enghsh psychologist to destroy the old faculty 
 theory, which, as Professor Stout says, treated " concepts 
 of mental phenomena, the will, intellect, memory, as real 
 (and independent) forces producing these phenomena." 
 
 Dr. Ward reduced all faculties to one fundamental 
 power, that of attention. At the outset of conscious life 
 we have the subjective and objective in union, in other 
 words, we have " a subject attending to objects and 
 feeUng pleasure and pain in so doing." " All objects — no 
 matter what — must be there for, or be given to, the sub- 
 ject ; they cannot be ' posited ' by it — in other words they 
 must be 'presented.' Such presentation affects the sub- 
 ject : herein lies its one primitive capacity — that of feehng. 
 FeeUng again impUes but one primitive faculty — that of 
 being conscious or attending. . . . All the other faculties 
 with which a subject may be credited are resolvable into 
 attention to as many classes or stages or relation of the 
 objects which are presented." Without some form of 
 attention there could be no bodily power, no mentality, 
 no morahty. 
 
 Will and intellect are not two " separate " faculties, 
 they are a form of the attention of the individual subject 
 or self. " It is the individual subject that thinks, as it 
 is the individual subject that wills. The activity is one, 
 yet the differences between volition and intellection are 
 manifest. The one is primary, concerned with ends — the 
 conservation or betterment of self ; the other is secondary 
 and instrumental, concerned at the outset with the means 
 to these ends." 
 
 As already stated, Dr. Ward and Professor Sully
 
 THE PROGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGY 63 
 
 were the chief Enghsh psychologists who concerned 
 themselves with childhood, while Professor Lloyd Morgan 
 did much in comparative psychology, and Professor 
 Findlay was one of our chief educational experimental- 
 ists. The Americans were, however, far ahead of us 
 in the appUcation of psychology to child life. They had 
 been powerfully influenced by Germany, and in their 
 turn influenced EngUsh thought, especially through Pro- 
 fessor John Dewey, Professors Ladd, De Garmo, McMurry, 
 and other leaders, including Professor E. L. Thorndike, 
 Dr. Judd, and Miss Calkins. But the pedagogues from 
 1870 onwards were still under the influence of the faculty 
 theory, and persisted in thinking and teaching that 
 memory could be trained apart from imagination and so 
 forth. In 1890 Dr. Ward wrote : " One is constantly 
 coming across disquisitions on the training of the senses, 
 the training of the memory, the training of the imagina- 
 tion ; of the faculties of conception, abstraction, judg- 
 ment, and so on. . . . It is humiliating to reflect that this 
 defunct doctrine of faculties, having first retarded the 
 progress of psychology itself, should now be revived to 
 darken knowledge under the guise of psychology appUed 
 to education" {Journal of Education, Nov., 1890). 
 
 The theory has taken a long time to die out, but it is 
 now rare to find any educational work in which the child 
 is represented as a complex of faculties, and the various 
 mental processes considered in themselves as causes or 
 conditions of mind. It is a pity that the term still Ungers 
 to remind us of its old associations. But a change has 
 come over its use in educational books. " Faculties," 
 says a writer, " depend each upon the other " ; the word 
 is now nearly always used as equivalent to " abihty to do 
 anything," and it means, it may be presumed, that the 
 child's mind is one whole and cannot be regarded as a 
 bundle of sticks. We are told, for example, that " each 
 of the faculties depends for its full development upon an 
 equally full development of all the rest." The translators
 
 64 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 of Dr. Montessori's writings also sometimes tend to give 
 the false impression that she leans to old psychological 
 theories. 
 
 It was in 1880 that Dr. Ward gave a series of pubhc 
 lectures in Cambridge on the education of children. This 
 was one of the first attempts in England to bring into 
 close connection psychology and education. 
 
 Dr. Ward's lectures in 1880, had they only been pub- 
 lished, might possibly have saved the psychology that 
 deals with children from falling into many errors. His 
 definition of psychology as " the science of individual 
 experience, including behaviour " might have led us 
 much earlier to the study of children as individuals. 
 His warning that the educator must turn first to life to 
 ascertain his ideals, and his protest against the view that 
 " One ounce of brains is worth one ton of application " 
 are still needed. " Power of self-control and a will 
 determined by a right love and hate " were regarded 
 by him as more worth while than any amount of know- 
 ledge. " Moral worth is to be regarded as the end, intel- 
 lectual efficiency as a means to that end." We have 
 still hundreds of schools that in practice treat intellect 
 as of more value than moral worth. Dr. Montessori was 
 anticipated in the criticism that kindergartens of that 
 time were too mechanical, not individual enough, for the 
 child under seven needs to be left a great deal to itself. 
 Modern methods were also anticipated in the maxim, 
 " Direct your pupil rather than rule him." That is, in 
 other words, " Set him free to initiate, and to learn a love of 
 work." All the opinions expressed in these lectures went 
 to show that the younger the children, the smaller should 
 the class be. It has required nearly forty years to make 
 us realize the necessity of reduction in the size of our 
 classes. Another very strong point made in the lectures 
 was the emphasis laid on the extreme importance of 
 concentration of attention. Dr. Ward insisted that 
 training in concentration should begin in the child's first
 
 THE PROGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGY G5 
 
 months of life. Directly he began to notice he was to be 
 left to notice anything that attracted him as long as he 
 wished. If tearing up paper on the floor he was to be 
 left undisturbed till he tired of his job, and throughout 
 his infancy and childhood's days his leaders were to 
 think more of his powers of attention than anything else. 
 Sufficient care has scarcely ever been given by educators 
 to concentrated attention, and it is with great satisfaction 
 that we find so much thought bestowed upon the ques- 
 tion in the Montessori schools. 
 
 These lectures, to the best of my knowledge, have never 
 been published, but appeared partly in two articles sent to 
 the Journal of Education, " Intellectual Education " circa 
 1886, and "Educational Values " in November, iSgo. 
 
 Almost at the same time Professor Alexander Bain of 
 Aberdeen was helping to awaken and guide interest in 
 psychological studies, and was among the first to appre- 
 ciate the help that psychology might give to the study 
 of education and of child nature. His Science of Education 
 was brought out in 1879, 
 
 In the early eighties, when the new Training College 
 for Teachers at Bishopsgate wanted its students to study 
 psychology in connection with the education of children, 
 the only man in London who could be found to give 
 lectures on such a subject was Professor James Sully, 
 who lectured at the Maria Grey Training College from 
 1879, when he was appointed lecturer on the theory of 
 education, to the end of 1892. 
 
 Jn more recent times Professor Adams' book on 
 Herhartian Psychology led to his becoming Professor of 
 Education in the London University, and giving lectures 
 to the students from all the different colleges. Perhaps 
 no stimulus towards knowledge of the child has been 
 greater than that of these lectures. 
 
 As already shown in the last chapter, the psychology of 
 childhood made great strides under Dr. Stanley Hall's 
 and Mr. Earl Barnes' work at child study. It was in the
 
 66 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 eighties that the Journal of Education started its attempts 
 to make discoveries as to the contents of children's minds. 
 The institution of psychological laboratories first in 
 Gennany, then in America and France, and lastly in 
 England, caused steady progress in experimental psych- 
 ology, though we in England lingered far behind for 
 many years in regard to numbers and equipment. 
 
 Attempts to apply experiment to child mind were 
 greatly stimulated by the work of Binet and Simon at 
 Paris early in the present century. They set themselves 
 to apply a series of tests to children of different ages in 
 order to discover the nature of child and infant intelli- 
 gence, and its relation to the usual programme of studies, 
 starting with the theory that the child's intelligence 
 differs from the adult's not only in amount and degree 
 but in form. These tests were utihzed very promptly at 
 Cornell University in the U.S.A., where, in 1913, 1 visited a 
 carefully organized department which had existed for some 
 years for the application of these tests to the practical 
 teaching of children ; and no boy or girl was admitted to the 
 George Junior Republic who had not been through a series 
 of tests of intelhgence by a member of the department. 
 
 In our own country the Binet-Simon tests have been 
 carefully revised by Mr. Cyril Burt and Miss Cary. A 
 set of tests has been invented to be used for the discovery 
 of an adolescent's vocation. 
 
 The following account of the development of the Binet- 
 Simon method is taken mainly from Professor Terman's 
 Measurement of Intelligence : 
 
 After many years of research work — work which in- 
 cluded (a) study of the methods by which teachers 
 usually judged a child's intelligence, {b) a long series of 
 experiments of his own with children — Binet published 
 in 1905 his first scale of intelligence tests. It consisted 
 of thirty tests arranged simply in the order of difficulty, 
 without any consideration of age. Facts collected in the
 
 THE PROGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGY 07 
 
 use of this scale probably suggested the later arrangement 
 of tests, known as the Binet-Simon scale, in which age 
 standards were used : this was published in 191 1, shortly 
 before Binet's death. It consisted of fifty-four tests : 
 five for each age from three to ten, with the exception of 
 the age of four for which only four tests were provided ; 
 five each for the ages twelve to fifteen ; five for adults. 
 The conception of intelligence which guided Binet in 
 framing these tests included {a) the tendency of thought 
 to take and maintain a definite direction ; (6) capacity 
 to make adaptations for the sake of reaching a desired 
 end ; (c) power of self-criticism. 
 
 Professor Terman gives these as the most notable 
 characteristics of the advance made by Binet : 
 
 (i) He was the first to utilize the idea of age standards 
 in measuring intelUgence. (The discovery of this use of 
 age standards was, according to Professor Terman, 
 probably the most important discovery in the history 
 of psychology, from the practical point of view. Pro- 
 fessor Findlay whites of Binet's use of age standards as 
 enabling us to provide that each child shall be allowed 
 to progress at the rate which is natural to him, whether 
 that rate be rapid or slow.) 
 
 (2) His tests were not limited, as tests of earlier 
 psychologists had usually been, to the simple and ele- 
 mentary processes, but were appHcable to the higher and 
 more complicated mental processes. 
 
 (3) He was concerned to test " general intelligence," and 
 this implied abandonment of the faculty psychology which 
 had guided most of the earlier workers with mental tests. 
 
 Since 191 1 the Binet-Simon scale has been revised 
 and extended, notably by experimentalists working under 
 the direction of Professor Terman of Stanford University. 
 They aimed especially at correcting these faults of the 
 scale : " the dearth of tests at the higher mental levels, 
 the inadequate definition of procedure, so that there was 
 disagreement in the interpretation of data, and a certain
 
 68 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 misplacing of some of the tests which made the results 
 of an examination misleading." 
 
 In his book, The Measuremejtt of Intelligence, with an 
 introduction by Professor Findlay, Professor Terman 
 gives a very full account of the Stanford work. He 
 summarizes thus what has been done in the way of 
 revising the Binet-Simon scale. " Of the 49 Binet tests 
 below the adult group in the 191 1 scale we have eUminated 
 2 and relocated 29. Of the adult group series i is eUmi- 
 nated, 2 are moved up to superior adult, and i is moved 
 up to 14. So of Binet's 54 tests we have eliminated 3 
 and relocated 32, leaving only 19 in the position assigned 
 them by Binet." 
 
 We come now to the most remarkable and most recent 
 advance in child psychology, i.e. the discovery by Freud 
 of subconscious mental activities. Freud's discovery 
 was that unfulfilled desires and wishes, for the most part 
 unexpressed by and unknown to the patient, were the 
 cause of neuroses and hysteria. He believed them to be 
 almost invariably connected with the emotion of love in 
 some form. His researches into diseased conditions of 
 the human mind led him and his followers to investigate 
 also normally healthy people, and it was found that they 
 too had many similar experiences. They came to the con- 
 clusion that the mental powers of mankind had developed 
 more rapidly than the emotions, which were still primitive. 
 To this a parallel may be found in the fact alleged by 
 some doctors that mankind has taken to walking on two 
 legs before the rest of the body has learnt to do without 
 the support of four. Freud also became convinced that 
 there is in man a submerged region of mind in which the 
 past still lives and acts with great force on the conscious 
 life. This fact had, however, been recognized, though 
 not emphasized, some years ago by such psychologists as 
 Dr. Ward and William James. 
 
 Freud gave this the name of the " Unconscious." It
 
 THE PROGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGY 69 
 
 is, he held, in this reahii that disturbing emotions he 
 hidden connected with a marvellously complete memory 
 of the past, reaching back even to the earhest infancy. 
 These discoveries were made first through hypnosis, but 
 later on it was found that a free flow of ideas led to the 
 same result. The day-dreams and phantasies were in- 
 vestigated both in normal and abnormal individuals, and 
 finally the conclusion was reached that all night-dreams 
 are symbolic, and that the dreamer can be greatly helped 
 in his conscious life by a right interpretation of his dreams. 
 The hope of the psycho-analyst grew strong that it would 
 be possible " to render the effects of primitive tendencies 
 not only harmless but profitable by utilizing them to 
 higher aims, socially and individually valuable and satis- 
 factory." This hfting of infantile tendencies into higher 
 purposes that really suit the individual is what is meant 
 by sublimation. 
 
 Macbeth's question to the physician, " Canst thou not 
 minister to a mind diseased ? " is rapidly on the way to be 
 answered by a strong affirmative. 
 
 Owing to the great stress that Freud laid on the ques- 
 tions of sex, this dream theory was at first regarded as 
 most dangerous and objectionable, and some ten or 
 twelve years ago, when Dr. Hart spoke on the Freudian 
 dream theory at an Oxford meeting of the Psychological 
 Society, all women members were requested to withdraw 
 while the paper was read ; but we have grown wiser since 
 that time, and men and women now frankly discuss such 
 subjects with a view to the betterment of the race. 
 
 Professor Jung of Zurich has done much to make the 
 processes of psycho-analysis useful in education. Pie holds 
 that the dream arises in subconsciousness and is con- 
 cerned mainly with desires about the future. It consists 
 of a series of images which arise from psychologic material 
 which if rightly interpreted yields a clear meaning. " It 
 is a piece of the conquered life of the childish soul." 
 The easy flow of ideas and ready acceptance of aU events
 
 70 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 in dreams make them a rest from the trained thought of 
 the daytime. 
 
 The lesson for the teacher will be that extreme care 
 and caution are needed from the very earliest years in 
 building up the unconscious life of the child. The actions 
 of the parents, their conversation, their attitude towards 
 others, their very thoughts, are all helping to create the 
 background of a child's conscious life. If it is true that 
 " everything that has ever been in consciousness remains 
 as an affective movement in the unconscious," then all the 
 good the child sees and hears will remain with him to 
 help form his character. It is not only the child's dreams 
 which will be a help to the understanding of his inner hfe, 
 but his whole unconscious behaviour. His bodily tricks, 
 his very positions, are a means of interpretation to the 
 understanding parent or teacher, but unless there is 
 perfect confidence between teacher and taught little 
 advance can be made. 
 
 Jung lays great stress on the importance of free-and- 
 easy relations between the patient and doctor, or, as we 
 might say, between the child and adults who are respon- 
 sible for him. Such a relation existed between an English 
 head mistress and the children, whom she discovered to be 
 members of a secret society for telling each other vulgar 
 stories about the facts of birth, when they frankly 
 narrated their stories to her ; or the American head 
 mistress to whom a child came for help in overcoming 
 bad habits she had formed. Another lesson to be learned 
 from the work of Jung and other psycho-analysts is that 
 far greater attention must be paid to the emotional 
 development of children ; they must be well provided 
 with objects of love, and surrounded with beauty of all 
 sorts. The emotions of their elders must not be forced 
 upon them. Dr. Crichton Miller considers that one great 
 advantage of the Montessorian school is that the child is 
 not forced into any kind of adult emotion before his time. 
 Mr. Homer Lane thinks that we are continually making
 
 THE PROGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGY 71 
 
 the mistake of expecting emotional developments before 
 they are due. 
 
 Some schools in England are reahzing the duty of 
 providing for natural emotional outlet more than ever 
 before, and introducing their scholars to music, dancing, 
 poetry and acting, as helps to the emotional life. The 
 intellect must be recognized as the servant of the emotions 
 and the will as the guide of both. Wrong theories about 
 sex are found to have produced very disastrous conse- 
 quences and may affect the character for hfe, leading, in 
 some cases, to ceUbacy, in others to dissolute conduct. 
 Children should therefore be taught the truth from their 
 earliest years. Again, since psycho-analysis teaches that 
 hidden griefs and troubles exercise undue force, children 
 should be brought up to face situations and turn them 
 to use, to provide new interests which will prove channels 
 for that force which may be pent up in the unconscious 
 ready to burst forth in the form of disease or mental 
 trouble in adult life. " The unconscious," writes Jung, 
 " is a source of danger when the individual is not at one 
 with it. If we succeed in estabUshing the attitude that 
 I call transcendental (i.e. the direction of a force that 
 might work for harm into useful and beneficent channels), 
 the disharmony ceases, and we are admitted to enjoy the 
 favourable side of the unconscious." The most important 
 lesson of all perhaps is that parents must be prepared at 
 the time of adolescence to help their children to free them- 
 selves from their childish leaning on others and to stand 
 erect. Jung calls this the necessary self-sacrifice that 
 the child has to make in order to become a man. If 
 parents and teachers have succeeded in gaining the 
 complete confidence of the child, they will have learnt 
 his tendencies and aspirations and gained some idea of 
 the hfe that will really satisfy him. 
 
 These are some of the lessons which we may have learnt 
 empirically in the past, but for which in these modem 
 days we are gaining a scientific basis with the help of
 
 72 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 psycho-analysis. Psychology has been the guide to 
 pedagogy through the last half of the nineteenth century. 
 The Psychological Society has widened its doors to admit 
 educational, medical, social, and industrial groups ; and a 
 sign that old things are indeed passing away is that the 
 London University is considering the plan already 
 adopted in some parts of the U.S.A. for giving candidates 
 for the matriculation examination a choice between the 
 ordinary paper examination and a series of tests of mental 
 intelligence. 
 
 The head master of a county school is thinking of using 
 tests of intelligence for two or three boys who seem rather 
 abnormal as well as for one or two who may be good 
 enough for special work. He says : " We are also think- 
 ing of trying some form of the tests in choosing our Free 
 Placers who are already examined by the County Council 
 in ordinary school work, and only those who ' quahfy ' 
 are sent to us for selection." 
 
 There is little doubt that psycho-analysis will as time 
 goes on have a very marked effect on the education of 
 the future. 
 
 At present there is a great danger lest it should lead to 
 an underestimate of human nature. On the one hand a 
 danger pointed out by Mr. Graham Wallas in The Great 
 Society is that the natural tendency of men to think should 
 be behttled. " War," he writes, " is made more possible 
 wherever thought is represented as the mere servant of 
 the lower passions, and a cynical struggle for life as the 
 only condition which answers to the deeper facts of our 
 nature." " Thought may be late in evolution, weak in 
 driving power, but without its guidance no man or 
 organization can find a safe path amid the vast complex- 
 ities of the Universe." On the other hand there is such 
 stress laid by many writers on the reversion to the 
 emotions of primitive man and infancy, that it tends to 
 make us despair of human nature and revert ourselves 
 to the fatal doctrine of original sin. But, as I have said
 
 THE PROGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGY 73 
 
 elsewhere, though " All human beings are alike driven by 
 their instincts, full of racial tendencies, all are also seeking 
 the same goals of truth, beauty, and goodness. It 
 should never be forgotten that the aspirations and yearn- 
 ings of human beings for a higher, nobler life are just as 
 much a psychological fact of their subconscious, or we 
 might say their supraconscious, lives as those hidden 
 retrogressive turnings towards infancy, or towards the 
 bestial nature from which they have evolved."^ 
 
 Dr. Constance Long writes : " ]\Ioral instincts are as 
 much an essential content of the unconscious mind as are 
 the sexual instincts on which Freud has unfortunately 
 laid such undue stress." If nothing escapes being 
 treasured up in subconscious memory, then all the child 
 has heard and seen that is good and beautiful and true 
 must be present, and will help the formation of his adult 
 character, even more, it may be, than aU that is evil, 
 false and ugly. 
 
 Mr. Edmond Holmes writes in his valuable httle book. 
 The Secret of the Cross : " The result of the joint action 
 (of naturalism and supernaturalism) is an immense 
 underestimate of man's natural capacity, mental, moral, 
 and — above all — spiritual. There is reason to beheve 
 that vast reserves of spiritual vitality are waiting in each 
 of us to be realized. But so long as man, paralysed by 
 self-distrust and ignorant of his own possibilities, is 
 unable to call these into activity, they will remain 
 inactive and therefore, for all practical purposes, non- 
 existent : 
 
 For if our virtues 
 
 Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
 
 As if we had them not. 
 
 And this underestimate of human nature does more than 
 hinder development. It also perverts it. 
 
 " Self-distrust sends man, when he feels the need of 
 
 ^ " Principles," in Advance in Co-education (Sidgwick and Jackson), 
 3s. 6d.
 
 74 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 ethical guidance, to external authority. This leads to 
 externalism in morals, to the despotism of code and 
 creed in the Church, to the ascendancy of casuistry over 
 conscience, to the subordination of the spirit to the letter, 
 of cleanness of heart — purity of motive — to correctness 
 of outward action. It leads further than this. It leads 
 at last to the pursuit of outward ends for their own sakes, 
 to the externalizing and therefore the materializing of our 
 ideals and standards to a materialistic outlook on life, 
 with all that this implies — to individuahsm, to egoism, to 
 general demoralization. Cut off the sap from its true 
 source in the inward life of man, cut off from the sap 
 which alone can feed and sustain it, morahty withers on 
 its stem." 
 
 It will be seen how slowly and imperfectly psychology 
 and education have come together. The reason for this 
 is to be sought in the great imperfection of our method of 
 education. The majority of us steadily refused to follow 
 the advice of Froebel and learn directly from the child. 
 We have never left the child free enough really to show 
 us what his needs are. We adults have decided from the 
 outset what is good for the child, some of us with con- 
 siderable insight into child-nature, some with little or 
 none. We have had a profound distrust in the higher and 
 deeper human tendencies. We have bound the child 
 with creeds, conventions, and doctrines of adult making. 
 Our failures have arisen from a lack of faith. We have 
 thought it necessary either to reward or punish continu- 
 ally in order to lead him into the paths of righteousness, 
 whilst all the time there is within him an inborn love of 
 goodness which our systems too often fail to release. 
 
 Our problem is difficult. We have to make use of the 
 experience of the race and of ourselves, to let the child 
 enter into his inheritance, and yet to set him free to make 
 his own discoveries. Of old, we did nothing but the first ; 
 the modern tendency is to ignore our own findings 
 altogether. We must discover a happy medium, and it is
 
 THE PROGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGY 75 
 
 in the gropings after truth about child-nature and the 
 solution of our problems that the experiments described 
 in this work become valuable. 
 
 We have been too ready in the past to be 
 
 The band 
 Who captains young enthusiasts to maintain 
 What things WE view, 
 
 as George Meredith writes in The Wisdom of Eld. 
 But, speaking of youth wisely directed, he says : 
 
 With us for guides, 
 
 Another step above the animal 
 
 To views in Alpine thought are they helped on. 
 
 " The young generation," Ah, there is the child 
 Of our souls down the Ages to bleed for it, proof 
 That souls we have, with our senses filed 
 Our shuttle at thread of the woof. 
 May it be braver than ours ! 
 
 Our Earth is young, 
 Of measure without bound : 
 Infinite are the heights to climb, 
 The depths to sound.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 PRESENT-DAY EXPERIMENTS 
 
 IT will have been seen in Chapter II how much the 
 various educational movements of the last seventy 
 years have helped our country. It is to America 
 that we really owe most in England. America was at 
 one time in bondage to German ideas, but has of late 
 years shaken herself free to work in accordance with 
 her own genius, and it is to her that we are indebted for 
 the child study movement and the social or community 
 government of our schools. 
 
 Our awakening to the need of interest in education 
 was largely due to Froebel and Herbart. Our new methods 
 of developing interest received a wonderful impulse from 
 Dewey, and our growing sense of the need of freedom, 
 which is perhaps our most national asset, came to a climax 
 through the influence of Dottoressa Montessori, who 
 seized upon the popular imagination with a success that 
 the modern Froebelian had not achieved. 
 
 It has been already remarked that the first great change 
 to impress itself on the educational mind was that 
 interest was to take the place of boredom and force in 
 education. A love of the work was to be engendered, 
 and by degrees educators have come to reaUze that the 
 pupils work far harder when interested, that they remem- 
 ber better what they have learned, that their health is 
 better when they work with joy, that there is a greater 
 output of self, and that the attention on which we know 
 so much progress depends becomes more concentrated. 
 
 By degrees the educational desire for the introduction 
 of interest has widened out into a desire to set free the 
 
 76
 
 PRESENT-DAY EXPERIMENTS 77 
 
 life-force to flow in its own special direction within each 
 child, with a view to its value for the service of his fellow- 
 men. Such an ideal of brotherhood has come to our 
 schools as never existed before, and this is what the wave 
 of experiment in our pioneer schools means. It may be 
 thought that some of the schools described are " cranks," 
 but it must be remembered that it is the enthusiasts who 
 by their wonderful faith, which is " The flaming outrush 
 of an inward fire," burn up for us our rubbish and leave 
 the ground clear for others to build on. 
 
 Some schools which would have been described in this 
 book are left out of the account because already de- 
 scribed in Mrs. J. Ransom's little book, English Schools 
 of To-morrow. There must be many others whose work 
 is not known to me, but no matter where we turn life is 
 stirring, and those who were once asleep are now wide 
 awake. 
 
 By " experiments in education," which is the title of 
 this book, it is not meant to imply those scientific experi- 
 ments which require isolation of the phenomena exam- 
 ined, and freedom from all disturbing factors. Whenever 
 experiments deal with human beings, even when they 
 concern only such facts as fatigue, attention, memory, it 
 is hard to get rid of conditions which will affect the 
 results. The term " experiment " is here used in a much 
 looser sense. It signifies that authority, having some 
 definite aim before it, deliberately departs from some 
 estabUshed usage in education, overthrows some con- 
 vention, or starts some entirely new plan, and then notes 
 with the greatest care the changes that come about. 
 
 The educator sets his imagination to work, and pictures 
 the ideal state of school and scholar that he wishes to 
 bring about. He turns over in his mind such knowledge 
 as he possesses of child-nature, thinks out some plan 
 which will under such circumstances as he can command 
 lead as he hopes to the desired results, and then puts it 
 in practice and notes the effect on the children.
 
 78 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Should the effect appear to be satisfactory he pursues 
 his scheme with renewed ardour, should it be unsatisfac- 
 tory he bravely abandons it, and either returns to the old 
 regime or starts another working hypothesis. Instances 
 of this may be noted on various occasions in the accounts 
 of experiments that follow, e.g. in the Caldecott Com- 
 munity or some of our private schools. 
 
 The classification of experiments is a great difficulty. 
 It seems best on the whole to take different types of 
 experiments and describe them as they occur in different 
 schools under that heading. Thus under experiments in 
 self-government, all sorts of very different schools come in 
 for notice, but the same schools may again be described 
 under the experiments in rehgious training. This plan 
 makes some overlapping almost inevitable, but it is 
 likely to be less confusing to the reader than if all the 
 different experiments were described together under the 
 kind of school visited. 
 
 The number of experiments going on all over England 
 is astonishing. Everywhere we meet with a great up- 
 heaval of old time-honoured customs in all schools that 
 hope to play an important part in the making of a new 
 world. No doubt there are still thousands of rigid 
 schools which the breath of the spirit of progress has 
 left untouched. The writer has heard even of institutions 
 where children are still overworked, underfed, and ill- 
 treated. There are schools where Uberty is almost un- 
 known, and private schools where children's letters are 
 still read by authority whether sent to or received from 
 home. In one school in this year 1919 the pupils were 
 forbidden to talk of their homes, to go to beach or downs, 
 or near a shop, to look out of the window or laugh out 
 loud, and above all never on any account to look at a boy. 
 Parents left children for the holidays in this school, and 
 seldom even visited them. My correspondent tells me 
 that there are not a few such schools still existent in 
 England. In an elementary school in the North a little
 
 PRESENT-DAY EXPERIMENTS 79 
 
 child just up from an infant school, where she had been 
 treated as a rational being and allowed free movement, 
 received thirty " knucklers " because she had got out of 
 her seat without leave. In a school where girls are trained 
 for domestic service, the food is insufficient, and scarcely 
 any green vegetables or fruit given to the children. The 
 girls are not allowed to speak at meals nor whilst engaged 
 in household work. To this school the girls go from five 
 years of age to fifteen and sixteen, and during that time, 
 unless they go home, never speak to a boy or mix with 
 other girls. In one case the girl remained in the home for 
 ten years without once leaving it. Children of nine or 
 ten are set to scrub floors and carry heavy jugs upstairs. 
 They seldom leave the grounds belonging to the institu- 
 tion, play no games, and know no country delights though 
 living in the heart of the country. Education is carried 
 on in the school itself. Girls make their outfit for service, 
 but have to pay back a considerable sum for it when 
 earning wages. One night after a girl is in bed, a mistress 
 packs her box, and the girl is told in the morning that 
 she is going to service. At the station where she is seen 
 off she is told her destination. She learns about her work 
 on arrival. It is clear that the education in our land has 
 still serious defects, rare though we may hope such schools 
 as these to be. 
 
 It is, however, with the growing point of education that 
 we are concerned in this book, and it is most interesting 
 to note that even in schools where the intensely conserva- 
 tive authorities profess to be keeping carefully to the old 
 paths, these paths are broadening and there are little 
 deviations into new tracks. The book is designed as a 
 means of bringing together into one broader current the 
 endless number of little streams of enterprise throughout 
 our country. It hopes to encourage those already at 
 work by the knowledge that they are not working alone, 
 but with a vast number of other experimentists ; and it 
 trusts that the young student about to enter on the
 
 80 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 profession of teaching will see clearly that at the present 
 time there is a wide field for original work, and that the 
 possibiUties before him of helping to create a better 
 state of education and therefore of society are innumer- 
 able. Incidentally it may show that experiments have 
 been going on for many years, not only since the war. 
 
 One way of using the book will be to turn to the kind 
 of experiment in which the student is interested, to study 
 carefully the many different ways in which it is being 
 carried on, and to fit together in a new plan those that 
 most appeal to the individual in question, much in the 
 same way as some of our best bicycle-makers order each 
 part of the machine from those firms which they con- 
 sider the best, and put them together into their own 
 brand of cycle. 
 
 School Field 
 
 It was in 1888 that an experiment in elementary 
 school education, which contains the germs of almost 
 every one of our present-day experiments, was started. 
 Mr. E. Sargant, in 1887, took a house in a poor district 
 of South Hackney, and at his own expense opened School 
 Field, in 1888, for forty children at the fee of twopence 
 per week, free from external inspection, with freedom 
 from all grant-earning pupils, but in all other respects 
 under the same conditions as other elementary schools 
 except that there were marked differences in curriculum, 
 for the chief emphasis lay on recitation, drawing, com- 
 position, and arithmetic. There were Scripture lessons 
 absolutely free from any doctrinal teaching. Both boys 
 and girls were admitted, for the school was co-educational, 
 but though no class was excluded, by far the majority of 
 children came from the homes of artisans or labourers. 
 
 The scholars soon increased to eighty children. One 
 teacher was allowed to every thirty- five children, as 
 against the Government allowance of the day, which was 
 one for every sixty children. Reading was taught by^a
 
 SCHOOL FIELD 81 
 
 really remarkable " Look and Say " method invented 
 by the teacher. The classes had delightful books read 
 aloud to them, chiefly stories, poems and travels, and 
 were encouraged to reproduce the stories and to write 
 others for themselves. This they did with no small 
 success. Great stress was laid on design in drawing, with 
 the result that several of the scholars earned their living 
 as designers later on. Only the girls learnt sewing, but 
 all the children had lessons in gardening. Only the boys 
 were taught carpentering. 
 
 A school magazine was started, and once a fortnight 
 on Monday evenings, when old pupils met the school- 
 children for games and dancing, a solemn meeting took 
 place. The editor, who was always one of the children, 
 sat in the chair of state and read the minutes of the last 
 meeting. Stories and drawings were then produced, and 
 having been submitted to the judgment of all members 
 present were accepted or rejected. There were poems 
 and narratives, pictures and illustrations, including some 
 of the designs for which the school became quite remark- 
 able. The magazine was pubhshed once a term, every 
 bit of it the work of the children themselves, and proved 
 a great source of union between school and home. 
 
 When, about three years after the school was opened, 
 free education became practically universal, the twopenny 
 fee was dropped. 
 
 In 1892 a big board school was opened in the neigh- 
 bourhood, but only two children left School Field to go 
 to it. It was not till 1894 that the school ceased to exist. 
 Mr. Sargant, being no longer able to support the full 
 burden of the cost, was about to get help to carry it on 
 from year to year, when the landlords decided to accept 
 a new tenant. The discipHne of the school has been 
 described as one of " ordered liberty." The children 
 moved freely from place to place, as the modern Froe- 
 beUan and Montessorian children do to-day. 
 
 ]\Ir. Sargant set himself to prepare the boys and~girls 
 6
 
 82 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 who had to leave school at thirteen or fourteen for some 
 measure of responsibiUty, so the top class worked alone 
 in a room in his own house which adjoined the school 
 building. They had work set them for the week, and were 
 examined regularly in what they had done. As a rule 
 the plan answered well, but, if there had been any riotous 
 or unseemly conduct, the penalty was to follow the 
 head mistress wherever she went for a certain time, short 
 or long in accordance with the nature of the offence. 
 
 The children responded wonderfully to this treatment, 
 and had the educationists of that day been more far- 
 sighted they might have followed the example set by 
 this httle pioneer school many years ago. As it is, School 
 Field has probably had a wider influence than it ever knew 
 or guessed, and the advance of to-day owes a debt of 
 gratitude to Mr. Sargant, who became later on the 
 Director of Education in the Orange Free State. 
 
 Caldecott Community 
 
 Of all the experiments seen, perhaps the most original 
 is the Caldecott Community. 
 
 The Caldecott Community is a boarding school in the 
 country for the boys and girls of the families of working 
 men and women. The parents pay five shillings a week 
 for each child, donations and subscriptions covering the 
 rest of the expenses. 
 
 The Community began its career as an experimental 
 day school in Cartwright Gardens, under the voluntary 
 directors, Miss Rendel and Miss Potter ; but difficulties 
 arose about premises, and in the very middle of the war 
 its daring leaders decided to try the experiment of taking 
 the children into the country and sending them home 
 regularly for summer, spring, and winter holidays, 
 amounting in all to ten weeks. Their great desire was 
 that these town children should be educated in close 
 touch with rural life and occupations, and to give each 
 child an opportunity of growing up in thoroughly whole-
 
 CALDECOTT COMMUNITY 88 
 
 some surroundings ; to prepare them under guidance, by 
 " a simple, strenuous, and independent life, for just that 
 kind of labour and rank of society for which they should 
 prove themselves worthy." 
 
 " The Caldecott Community stands for an ideal and 
 a quest," the report continues, " for the emergence of a 
 new order of humanity — a humanity simpler and more 
 sincere, truer to itself, and nearer to the fundamental needs 
 and forces of life — men and women to whom all personality 
 is sacred, all labour worthy, all beauty worshipful." 
 
 Charlton, East Sutton, near Maidstone, is a house in 
 beautiful grounds which contain all that the heart of 
 child can wish, garden and playing-fields, blue distance, 
 wooded hills, hedgerows, copse, orchard, and yard, 
 and above all a Uttle stream, wandering through the 
 fields under the hawthorn hedgerows, sounds as though 
 entreating the children to come and sail their boats, to 
 splash and to paddle. Animals too abound, both tame 
 and wild, and the children, none of whom are above 
 twelve, help to tend the pigs, and rabbits, cows, cats, dogs, 
 and pigeons. There are about forty children in the 
 Community, from tiny three-year-olds to the responsible 
 people of eleven and twelve, nearly all of whom, when I 
 visited them, looked as well and happy as a country Ufe 
 could make them. The Community definitely sets out to 
 be a quest, therefore the plans vary from time to time. 
 The modem idea of freedom is in full sway, but it is 
 freedom interpreted as I have interpreted it elsewhere. 
 It is not mere absence of restraint and punishment, but 
 rather " the cultivation of inward as opposed to outward 
 restraint." It implies that freedom from the lower self of 
 which Meredith preached, and "the liberty to serve others." 
 
 The work is sometimes in groups and sometimes 
 individual. The only definitely class subject is singing. 
 The older children have, at their own request, made 
 their fixed time-tables. The middle division decide 
 daily on their own plans of work, fitting in their hours
 
 84 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 of study to suit the lessons which are at stated times, 
 unless they are children of no initiative, in which case 
 time-tables are made for them until the time comes when 
 they wish to make them for themselves. For this section 
 also some lessons are definitely fixed, but as they are few 
 and far between they are regarded as a great treat. The 
 children can do the rest of their work as they Uke, but, if 
 it is neglected, they do not come to the lesson. The 
 youngest division is occupied under direction with great 
 opportunities for choice. I witnessed a happy time of 
 playing and singing, after which three mites escorted me 
 to the nursery where they said they were going " to work," 
 and then each selected some occupation and buckled to 
 it with a will. 
 
 I was present in the " Upper Study," where three 
 children, a boy of twelve, and two girls of somewhat 
 younger age were at work. 
 
 John was in charge. He spoke severely to one girl 
 whom he had " told," he said, " ever so many times to 
 fetch her books." The girl departed meekly, and it 
 must be admitted took an unnecessarily long time over 
 her errand. Meantime Mary and John kept up a mur- 
 muring conversation entirely about their work. Mary 
 was reading, John writing. 
 
 Mary : "It says hollowed ground. What's that ? " 
 John : " Oh, no. It's hallowed — sacred." 
 Mary : " What does concentrated the ground mean ? " 
 John : " Why of course it's consecrated. It's not 
 think the ground." 
 
 Mary laughs and proceeds to read to herself, speaking 
 aloud as she goes. John gets absorbed, but is soon 
 interrupted again by further questions, and after infinite 
 patience he can at last stand it no longer, and says " shut 
 up," and Mary remains quiet till that particular lesson 
 is finished and she starts on some Latin. 
 
 Mary : " John, how many declensions are there ? " 
 John: "Five."
 
 CALDECOTT COMMUNITY 85 
 
 Mary : " And how many have wc done ? and why are 
 there three kinds of 'bonus ' ? " 
 
 John, with wonderful patience, explains masculine, 
 feminine, and neuter as well as he can. 
 
 Meantime Doreen has returned and is writing out 
 twelve words she thinks beautiful, and now attacks the 
 long-suffering John. 
 
 Doreen : " John, what does lachrymose mean ? " 
 
 John : " I don't know." 
 Jl Doreen : " Nor do I ; but I think it's a beautiful word, 
 don't you ? Shall I put it down ? " 
 
 John : " Yes, I should if I were you." 
 
 Doreen writes her list of words and trots off again, but 
 soon returns looking very serious and comes up to me 
 with a request for suggestions about a lecture she has to 
 give shortly. What subject shall she choose ? 
 
 Visitor : " WTiat do you know most about ? " 
 
 Doreen : " I don't know." 
 
 Visitor : " Do you know anything about rabbits ? " 
 
 Doreen : "I feed them. I know a good deal about 
 them." The other children chime in, and think it an 
 excellent subject. 
 
 Visitor : " You might have a blackboard and draw 
 illustrations." 
 
 Doreen : " No, I cannot possibly draw." 
 
 Mary : " You might bring the rabbits in." 
 
 Doreen : " Oh ! so I could ! " 
 
 This knotty point settled, all three children return to 
 their work, and for a few minutes silence reigns till 
 John's help is called upon. It is a marvel that the boy 
 gets his own work done, and his gentle forbearance and 
 patience indicate at least two qualities that will fit him 
 to be a teacher. 
 
 Mary's books show excellent work for a child of eleven. 
 She has written an account of Hannibal that few girls of 
 twelve could improve upon, and she is dealing with such 
 questions as " How is it that a large population is able to
 
 86 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 support itself on the strip of oasis between the Eastern 
 and Western desert ? " 
 
 John next invites inspection of his work. " If I give 
 you my studj^ book," he says, " you'll see the sort of 
 things I am doing, and then you can look at what I have 
 done." He learns French, geometry, English history, 
 geography, Latin, and arithmetic. 
 
 His work in English is to read two Celtic stories, to 
 narrate the story of a cattle raid, and to answer the 
 question, " From what part of Great Britain do we get 
 our earliest stories, and why ? " Looking through his 
 composition book, I find an excellent description of the 
 scene before him on the top of a hill, and his answer to 
 the question, " Find out what happened in England in 
 1802 to make Wordsworth write a sonnet on Milton," 
 shows careful looking up. His opinion of old people is 
 that they have had much experience, and are therefore 
 wise and to be trusted. His trust in his elders was ex- 
 pressed on another occasion when he told Miss Rendel 
 that she must decide for them on some point, as they 
 were too young to decide for themselves. 
 
 In the middle school the children aged from eight to 
 ten work at Httle tables, sometimes alone, sometimes in 
 pairs, with a teacher present to help and direct them. 
 
 There are also fixed classes. One mistress was telling 
 stories to a group of about six out of doors. A larger 
 group of children were being read to in another part of 
 the garden. Singing classes went on. 
 
 One interesting institution is " shop," at the close of 
 Wednesday morning for an hour or so. This is conducted 
 by one of the staff, and a child appointed to help for 
 half the term by the house committee, 
 f'i Another member of the staff sits beside the board 
 covered with pencils, pens, paints and paint-boxes, 
 rulers, india-rubber, toys, and other articles wanted in 
 school-Hfe, and has a cash-box in front of her. It is she 
 who takes charge of all the children's money whenever
 
 CALDECOTT COxMMUNITY 87 
 
 it is received, and she can tell each child how much she 
 can afford to spend. The shop is arranged ir a little 
 passage, and the children throng the stairs and take it 
 in turn three at a time to be purchasers. Children who 
 have no money from home or who want more can earn 
 it ; for instance, the children who belong to the Wood- 
 craft were trying to earn ten shillings by removing a 
 quantity of wood from the field to the yard in order 
 to purchase a Woodcraft uniform. 
 
 As the demand for chocolate is very great, an older 
 child sits apart and takes down the names of all chocolate 
 devourers. " X. cannot have chocolate to-day," says one 
 youngster, " because he's constipated." Enquiry as to 
 the meaning of this astonishing remark elicits the fact 
 that if an inmate has left anything about it is confiscated, 
 and people with confiscated property are not allowed to 
 buy chocolate. 
 
 The child in charge was not afraid to administer rough 
 justice. A smaU boy, unobserved by any member of the 
 staff, began to hit a girl's bare legs with a strap he held 
 in his hand. Instantly the chocolate namer rose from 
 his seat and without a word gave the offender a smart 
 slap on his cheek, whereupon without a sign of anger or 
 resentment the boy stopped his game. 
 
 The system of individual teaching may prevent as 
 much ground being covered as in a school where class 
 teaching prevails, but there are no gaps in the work of 
 each child, who can take up its work where it was left 
 after an absence. The plan enables children to work by 
 fortnightly shifts in house or kitchen, farm or garden. 
 As far as possible the three workers are chosen from the 
 same group of learners, so that one child has not to feel 
 that others are far beyond him. The most favourite 
 occupation of all is to help with the babies, to put them 
 to bed under careful guidance, to bind up their wounds and 
 see after all their needs. This privilege could be shared 
 alike by boys and girls, but so far only girls act as nurses.
 
 88 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 On Saturdays there are no lessons, but the morning 
 hours are usually spent on voluntary work. The whole 
 staff sends in Usts of jobs it wants done. These are read 
 out to the assembled children, and volunteers come 
 forward in an unfailing supply. 
 
 If by punishment is understood any kind of pain 
 deliberately inflicted by some one in authority, in order 
 to bring over the bad to the side of the good, then punish- 
 ment is not absent from the Caldecott Community, e.g. 
 one girl who persistently troubled her neighbours was 
 warned that if she could not Uve and let live in the 
 Community she would have to spend a day alone in 
 bed. 
 
 It is fully reahzed by the Community that if either of 
 the directors finds a child behaving badly some penalty 
 may be inflicted. If bad work is done, it is an understood 
 thing that no child can go to a lesson till the returned 
 work is properly done. If a child is perpetually lazy 
 there is no hesitation in keeping it in and making it do 
 a piece of work of some kind. A child who took three- 
 quarters of an hour to fetch a chair was kept in to do her 
 work after the others had gone out. 
 
 The treatment of a boy who professed to hate all books 
 and lessons was as follows. He was told that he need not 
 come to any classes, and could play alone all the time 
 the others were at work. No other jobs were given to 
 him, and in a week's time he begged to be allowed to 
 return to work. A girl, treated in similar fashion, was 
 glad to be back in four days. 
 
 When the Community first moved into the country 
 one of the most intelligent of the pupils, who had been 
 devoted to books, told Miss Rendel that he could not 
 stay indoors or read or work. She saw that he was in- 
 toxicated with the country, and so she told him that he 
 need not be indoors at all till he felt ready for it. The 
 boy spent almost his whole time in the garden for a fort- 
 night, working hard at his Httle plot and helping others
 
 RUGBY 89 
 
 till he came to say he wanted to get back to ordinary 
 routine. To this he came with a spirit saturated with the 
 love of mother earth, and a respect for work of the hand 
 he had never shown before. 
 
 It is the experience with these three exceptional 
 children that has given rise to an absurd but widely- 
 spread rumour that all the children were left to do 
 exactly as they liked on settling at Charlton, and that 
 in consequence no one would learn to read or write. 
 
 The main object of the Caldecott Community is not to 
 estabhsh boarding schools universally for all children, 
 but to break the record of bad slum street Ufe, and so to 
 alter the outlook of these children as future parents that 
 they will no longer need to send their children away from 
 them. But meantime whilst street conditions are what 
 they are the leaders would like to see such a community 
 as their own established in connection with every large 
 city. The difficulty is, as always, the cost, which is, 
 however, said to work out at less per head than those of 
 industrial schools in general. There is now a waiting Hst 
 of children. The children look forward with joy to their 
 homes and hoUdays ; the fear lest they should dread the 
 return to London meals, after the fresh, wholesome food 
 of the country, was soon dispelled by the discovery that 
 the youngsters were looking forward eagerly to fried fish 
 and pickles ! It is found that the parents make a good 
 deal more of their children during their hoHdays than when 
 always Uving at home. They do not exact so much from 
 them since they have learned to do without them. They 
 are more demonstrative in their expressions of affection, 
 and thus the children learn through absence the depth of 
 their parents' love, and appreciate it more rather than 
 less. 
 
 Change of Curriculum at Rugby 
 
 The educational course at Rugby School is undergoing 
 very considerable changes. 
 
 To begin with, the demands at entrance no longer
 
 90 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 include Greek, which the preparatory schools are advised 
 not to teach except to boys with exceptional Unguistic 
 powers. On the other hand, all boys are expected to be 
 well grounded in EngHsh, Latin, French, and elementary 
 mathematics, to which should be added if possible some 
 branch of the study of plant and animal hfe. 
 
 The next marked change is that every boy in the 
 school will henceforth study some branch of science. In 
 the lowest block of the school this will be of an informal, 
 introductory kind, and consist of a weekly lesson in either 
 biology, botany, or astronomy, and instruction in simple 
 manipulative work to prepare them for laboratory work 
 later on. In the middle block the boys on the classical 
 side will take physics and geography, the boys on the 
 modern side, chemistry and geography. In the fifths, 
 physics and chemistry wiU be taught, with a choice of 
 biology for boys on the new science side, and in the sixth, 
 the classical and modern boys will shortly begin the 
 study of the history and philosophy of scientific thought 
 and method, whilst the classical boys add either chemistry 
 or biology, and the modern boys physics or biology. The 
 scientific boys choose two subjects out of physics, 
 chemistry, and biology. 
 
 Another interesting point is that Enghsh Hterature 
 and composition, as well as Scripture, are studied through- 
 out the School, and that in the top forms modem condi- 
 tions of life are studied in relation to history. Boys in 
 the lowest block all learn manual work and drawing. 
 When a boy at the age of about fifteen enters the upper 
 middles he has to choose whether or not he will learn 
 Greek, and is advised to do so only if his Latin is strong 
 and he is likely to reach at least the form next below the 
 classical sixth. If he takes Greek his work will lead him 
 to the classical side ; if not, he will go to the modern or the 
 science side. At the conclusion of his passage through 
 the fifths, at the age of about sixteen or seventeen, every 
 boy takes the school certificate examination of Oxford
 
 MARLBOROUGH 91 
 
 and Cambridge in subjects that suit him. This may 
 exempt him from the entrance examination of any 
 university. If able to continue for two or three years more 
 at school, a boy on the classical side will take Greek, 
 Latin, and either mathematics or French and science, 
 as stated above ; but he will study English literature and 
 have some lessons on civics and economics. A boy on 
 the modern side will study English, French, and either 
 German or Spanish, science as stated above, but may 
 drop mathematics for concentrated work in some of his 
 other subjects. The boys on the science side take only 
 one language, French or German, choose between higher 
 mathematics and biology, and take two out of physics, 
 chemistry, and biology. Before a boy leaves he may, if he 
 likes, take the higher certificate examination of Oxford 
 or Cambridge as a guarantee of his fitness for a university 
 honours course. 
 
 Marlborough 
 
 In one of our great English pubUc schools (Marlborough) 
 the division between modern and classical sides has been 
 completely broken down, and a useful general education 
 planned for all boys up to Form V, as follows : 
 
 Junior boys coming either from preparatory or day 
 schools are found to be lamentably deficient in English. 
 Eleven periods are therefore given* to geography, history. 
 Scripture, and EngUsh literature, one period to drawing, 
 six periods to Latin and six to mathematics. French is 
 also taught, but there are no science lessons of any kind. 
 
 Normal boys enter the middle school at fourteen-and- 
 a-half, clever ones about a year younger. All boys aUke 
 take six periods* for science, six for mathematics, for 
 which subject they are redivided into sets, and seven 
 hours English. All learn French. In addition, some boys 
 take a classical course of Greek and Latin ; or if they have 
 a gift for modem languages, German is substituted for 
 Greek. If a boy shows no gift at all for languages he 
 
 * i.e. per week.
 
 92 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 drops all but French, and instead of Latin he takes 
 geography, a subject which is now taught at Marlborough 
 by exceptionally good masters. 
 
 At the conclusion of his course in the middle school 
 every boy sits for the " School Leaving Certificate," 
 which it is hoped will admit him to any university in the 
 United Kingdom without further examination. 
 
 The boys who remain at school enter the senior division, 
 which consists of the fifth and sixth forms, in each of 
 which a boy is expected to remain for one year. In 
 these forms there are seven divisions, and each boy 
 specializes in one of them, either in pure science, medical 
 science, classics, modern languages, mathematics, history, 
 or engineering. Should a boy wish to study some special 
 subject not in his course, special teaching can be arranged 
 for him. Members of each division are on an absolute 
 equality as to their place and authority in the school. 
 
 The divisions are held together by being massed for 
 certain subjects, e.g. the head master takes the classical 
 and two scientific divisions together for English literature, 
 whilst Scripture is taken by those masters who have a 
 special gift for teaching the subject, and no examination 
 is held in it. 
 
 The absence of science teaching in the junior school 
 is in a measure met by a very flourishing Natural History 
 Society, to which nearly 350 out of the 700 boys belong. 
 These are mostly juniors, with a few seniors who are 
 becoming experts in their subject. 
 
 The country for ten miles around consists of Savernake 
 Forest, downs, woods, commons, fields, lanes, ponds, 
 rivers and streams, so that the boys have an unusually 
 suitable ground for study, and great enthusiasm exists 
 for nature -lore. 
 
 Boys with hobbies are allowed a good deal of freedom, 
 and may leave off games. The decision rests mainly 
 with the house master, who has at most fifty-five boys 
 under his care, and should know each one weh. Arts and
 
 CHRIST'S HOSPITAI. 93 
 
 crafts can be cultivated out of school hours. There are 
 good studies and workshops. 
 
 Musical and dramatic taste is encouraged. The boys 
 get up concerts called " Penny Readings." The different 
 houses often act plays, and the School Shakespeare 
 Society gives performances. 
 
 Christ's Hospital 
 
 Arts and crafts have a definite place in the curriculum 
 of Christ's Hospital, as well as music. The little boys 
 have three or four periods a week for craft work and 
 three for art. The subjects taken include drawing, 
 colour work and modelling, design, imaginative drawing, 
 and some history of art, and the crafts comprise etching, 
 engraving on wood, hthography, plaster work, gesso, 
 modelled leather, stencilling, enamelUng on metal, 
 lettering, appUcation of gold leaf. 
 
 The middle school has three periods of craft work and 
 music, and two for art. The senior boys who are specializ- 
 ing in hterary or scientific subjects cannot include this 
 work in their normal curriculum, but many who have 
 developed a distinct taste for art attend voluntary classes 
 out of school hours. 
 
 In this school great care has been taken to give long 
 hours for sleep, and there is no lesson before breakfast at 
 7.45, and time for physical training is provided on alter- 
 nate days by making the lesson period forty minutes 
 instead of forty-five, and giving the last twent}^ minutes 
 of the morning school to physical exercise, 
 
 French is now the first modern language taught to the 
 juniors, and in the middle school either Latin or German 
 is added. 
 
 In the senior school the boys are in future to be 
 divided into three divisions : 
 
 (i) The literary side. (2) The mathematical and science 
 side. (3) The special side, which consists of boys suited 
 for agricultural and commercial work. None of these
 
 94 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 sides omits to have some guidance in subjects other than 
 those they are specially studying. 
 
 Newbury 
 
 In the Boys' Grammar School at Newbury a different 
 kind of change is taking place in curriculum. 
 
 This is essentially a day school for over two hundred 
 boys, with a small number of boarders which could be 
 increased greatly were there sufficient accommodation. 
 
 The head master's object is to bring school work into 
 the closest possible touch with hfe. He believes that the 
 drama opens the world to the child, and that the love of 
 acting is universal, and, as he writes, " We must at times 
 break down our narrow party walls, and transcend the 
 hmitations with which fortune and circumstance have 
 hedged us in. . . . The soul is always beating against its 
 bars and struggHng to get out. Acting, to the imprisoned 
 spirit, affords one way of escape. , . . The more limited 
 the child, the greater need of acting." 
 
 Convinced that the boys attending his school need 
 widening and deepening, acting is made a definite part 
 of the curriculum, from the Httle beginners in French 
 who start by learning and acting little French plays, to 
 the acting by the whole school of a Shakespeare play in 
 December, a Greek play in translation at the end of the 
 summer term, and a French play before the Easter 
 holidays. 
 
 Two English periods are given weekly to Shakespearian 
 practice, besides an hour and a half on Saturdays. For 
 the Greek play half an hour is taken daily, from 12.30 to i, 
 and special boys are sometimes allowed to practise for 
 an hour and a half on Saturdays. The Greek chorus 
 practises speech and dancing for an hour a week by the 
 time-table, and at odd quarters of an hour throughout 
 the term. 
 
 The effect on the boys has been excellent. Since the 
 introduction of the Greek plays and the dancing their
 
 ST. GEORGE'S, HARPENDEN 95 
 
 bearing and manner has greatly improved, and a great 
 earnestness is to be noticed in all their work. 
 
 The responsibility given to the boys in all the arrange- 
 ments for the performances has helped to make them 
 very reliable and careful about details. The boys them- 
 selves choose the actors for the different parts, and have 
 never been known to make a mistake. 
 
 History and French are made the strongest subjects 
 in this school, but a new departure is taken for a secondary 
 school, in reading elementary history of philosophy with 
 the sixth form, a subject which creates great interest. 
 
 Greek is taught to those boys who wish to learn it. 
 Some wish to do so in order to try for a scholarship at 
 one of the universities. Others learn from sheer pleasure. 
 It is taken as an alternative to science. There are usually 
 from four to twelve boys learning Greek. 
 
 One boy obtained the first classical scholarship for 
 St. John's, Oxford, on two years and a term's study of 
 the Greek language, which he learned entirely by means 
 of translations. He could read Plato and Greek plays 
 with ease and pleasure by the time he went to college. 
 
 St. George's, Harpenden 
 In the upper forms of St. George's, Harpenden, the form 
 head, as he or she is called, arranges with the head master 
 certain fixed lessons (these were, when the school was 
 visited. Scripture, mathematics, and a French lecture), 
 and counsel is then taken with each pupil concerning the 
 disposal of the remaining periods. The boys and girls 
 are expected to seek guidance in their independence, and 
 are never allowed to act against their form head. Thus 
 a girl who wished to drop all history because she hated it, 
 and came to the head master about it, was referred back 
 to her form head. It is interesting to notice that pupils 
 choose, under these conditions, to give much time to 
 some selected subject, and out of their periods of work, a 
 girl gave twenty-five to individual work, and a boy, who
 
 96 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 had twenty-four periods to dispose of, took eighteen or 
 nineteen for sohtary work, thirteen of which he devoted 
 to history. He has since gained a scholarship in history 
 at Cains College, Cambridge, 
 
 The form head is always with his or her pupils during 
 one of the morning periods, when (s)he can give either 
 general help, speaking to the collective body about their 
 plans and difficulties, or can advise pupils individually. 
 Should a case arise of idleness or seriously unsatisfactory 
 judgment among the members, the privilege of choice is 
 withdrawn, and the boys and girls sent down to V.B., 
 where the time-table is settled by authority. 
 
 The choice of the girls in the fifth is apparently rather 
 more limited than that of the boys, for they are obliged 
 to give one afternoon to mending their clothes, and, 
 though more sewing and some cooking is voluntary, 
 pubhc opinion in the school is so strong in favour of these 
 subjects for girls that almost every girl chooses at least 
 one hour's cooking and one hour's extra sewing. The 
 eurhythmic class is also voluntary, but there is hardly a 
 girl who does not wish to join it. 
 
 The head master is strongly of opinion that with our 
 present system of education a sudden change to freedom 
 is a great mistake. His plan is to begin with the top form 
 and gradually introduce greater freedom of choice in 
 lower forms. He considers, as his visitor expected, that 
 the abohtion of rigid time-tables is the greatest possible 
 help towards discovering a boy's and girl's real bent, 
 and the increase of energetic work, since the system was 
 introduced, is most marked. A mistress with a Montes- 
 sorian diploma is now in charge of the first form (average 
 age seven or eight), some of the children in which have 
 passed through the Montessorian House (age three to 
 seven) . 
 
 King's Langley 
 
 In the co-educational boarding and day school at 
 King's Langley for children of professional families, and
 
 KING'S LANGLEY 97 
 
 any others who choose to enter it, there is considerable 
 change from the curricuhim of ordinary schools. It is 
 many years since the partners, Miss Clark and Miss Cross, 
 came to the conclusion that domestic servants stood 
 between the children and the reahties of life. They felt 
 that " no service should be done for the children which 
 they could possibly do for themselves," and that by in- 
 troducing them to the routine of labour " there would be 
 created within them a bond of sympathy and understand- 
 ing for all thus occupied." " Children should be taught 
 that they have no right to create dirt and disorder that 
 they are not able to clear away." 
 
 All domestic servants therefore were dispensed with 
 except in cases of emergency, the heavier work being done 
 during the hohdays, when the place is put in perfect order 
 by whatever labour can be obtained. There is always a 
 professional gardener, and latterly he has been helped by 
 one of the parents who is in close sympathy with the 
 intellectual Ufe of the school. One of the partners under- 
 took the role of cook with success, and the rest of the 
 work was divided between the other partner, the staff, 
 and the children. Now, day by day, an hour's house- 
 work is given by the community every morning directly 
 after breakfast, whilst under the title of " useful works " 
 all the children, both boarders and day pupils, do diverse 
 jobs in house and garden for three-quarters of an hour 
 towards the close of the morning. 
 
 On the day on which I visited the school, rugs were 
 being beaten, stairs washed, silver cleaned, while some were 
 helping in the kitchen. All had the air of goodwill and 
 enjoyment. 
 
 In addition to this daily work special responsibilities 
 are assigned to the older boarders, such as attending to 
 goats, rabbits, chickens, and ponies ; guiding the younger 
 children at their harp and piano practice, or helping those 
 responsible for putting the httle ones to bed. The object 
 kept in view is " to increase the cliildren's control over
 
 98 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 their own minds by giving them a field of positive ex- 
 pression." 
 
 Few difficulties arise with parents. They are told 
 plainly what is expected from the children, and of the 
 methods adopted, so that only those boys and girls are 
 sent whose people are in sympathy with the school's 
 ideals. In several cases the homes have been re-modelled 
 in consequence of the school's example, and are now run 
 without servants. 
 
 There is greater difficulty with the staff, for but few 
 teachers of the present day are prepared, either by in- 
 cUnation or the tradition of their Uves, for any form of 
 domestic work, and they hesitate as to the desirabihty 
 of entering a school where it is expected from them. 
 Time may, however, make us all grow more accustomed 
 to mingle the work of the head and the hand, and girls 
 will be readier since the war to teach in such schools as 
 this, where an effort is being made to make closer the 
 connection of man and his environment and to bring 
 about a better balance between the intellectual and 
 occupational life. 
 
 A point in the curriculum equally characteristic of the 
 school is that regional survey has for years taken a 
 prominent part in the school activities. Concerning this 
 one of the leaders writes : " The impulse towards this 
 was given by contact with the work of Professor Patrick 
 Geddes and the Outlook Tower, Edinburgh. For many 
 5'ears the work of the School had been tending towards it, 
 but in 1914 one of Professor Geddes' students organized 
 a school regional survey. The studies began by a general 
 exploration of the whole region, developing in time into 
 more specialized ' jobs.' At first these pursuits were 
 chiefly organized by the elder girls, and carried out on 
 walks or in free time, but now for more than a year 
 ' survey ' has had its place on the time-table. Alone, or 
 in little groups of twos or threes, or even as a class, the 
 children are sent out to make their observations."
 
 KING'S LANGLEY 99 
 
 Some visit all the farms near at hand and discover 
 what special work goes on in each. Others year by year 
 investigate the fields and what grows in them, discover 
 and map out the sequence of crops. Others study and 
 make plans of the villages and find out all about their 
 shops, churches, chapels, ale-houses, and how the in- 
 habitants are occupied. It is usually the boys who are 
 most interested in railways and canals, whilst historical 
 investigation seems especially to appeal to girls. Several 
 boys in succession made a most interesting study of the 
 L. and N.W. railway. One boy drew a series of the engines 
 used on it from 1835 to the present time. He made a 
 plan of the villages in relation to the railway line and 
 station. Another showed how all the London railway 
 termini were related to Euston ; of England's main lines 
 in relation to the L. and N.W. Further work was done by 
 a plan of the railway itself, with all its engine sheds and 
 subsheds, signals, goods traffic, etc. Thus the local study 
 is seen to widen out into a larger sphere of grasp and 
 interest. 
 
 Another lad noted for his slowness with books made an 
 exhaustive study of all the public-houses in the district, 
 discovered the dates at which they were built, and, as 
 far as possible, the reason for their names and meaning 
 of their signs. Historical associations were also hunted 
 up in connection with them. Such work as this has 
 proved an immense help in discovering a child's bent and 
 in revealing characteristics. Industry, perseverance, and 
 steadfastness all came out in marked degrees, while 
 laziness, slackness, and lack of moral sense were merci- 
 lessly revealed. 
 
 One term the village church, which is rich in historical 
 association, was made the centre of " survey " work of 
 one class of children, aged about ten or twelve, and every 
 Monday during a whole term they went with their teacher 
 to visit it. Each child chose some special ol)ject in which 
 she was interested. One was fascinated by the carved
 
 100 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 pulpit, another by the old alms chest ; others were at- 
 tracted to monuments or brasses. All tried to draw their 
 favourite object, and each one in turn was made the centre 
 of further investigation. Quite recently the children 
 were asked to criticize the lay-out of King's Langley 
 village, and to make suggestions for its improvement and 
 development. 
 
 The result showed that they were by no means disposed 
 to accept Victorian ughness, and that behind all their 
 ideas lies the desire for a more corporate life in each 
 community. Another feature of King's Langley (in which 
 it resembles the King Alfred School) is that specialized 
 creed teaching is left entirely to the parents. 
 
 Each school morning opens with a short period of 
 silence shared by the whole household. Sometimes a 
 poem or other significant passage is read for a part of the 
 time, but more frequently the quarter of an hour is spent 
 in meditation. On Sunday morning those children whose 
 parents wish it attend the service at the parish church, 
 but those who remain at home are expected to read, or, 
 in the case of the youngest, to be read aloud to, during 
 the service hours. In the afternoon the time-table is 
 
 2.15. Outdoor occupations, e.g. games, care of the 
 animals, etc. 
 
 3.15. Reading for elder children. 
 
 4.30. Letters home. 
 
 Evening, Free time or music. 
 
 Knaresborough 
 There is a school at Knaresborough in Yorkshire which is 
 trying the experiment of teaching no languages except the 
 mother tongue, with a view to give more time to science 
 and to practical work in connection with the land. 
 Boys and girls enter about eleven or twelve years old 
 and stay till about sixteen, when they either leave school 
 to work on the land (with which at least 50 per cent of 
 the boys are connected), or to go in for engineering, elec-
 
 KNARESBOROUGH 101 
 
 trical, or mechanical work in the neighbouring towns, 
 whilst others take up commercial work or enter the post 
 office or railway service. If, however, boys or girls 
 show real ability and taste for htcrary study they are 
 sent on at sixteen to one of the more advanced secondary 
 or high schools of ordinary type, and in some cases go 
 on to a training college and take up teaching. Such 
 pupils are specially encouraged to go in for work in rural 
 schools. 
 
 The head master makes it his business to give a rural 
 bias to all the subjects taught without neglecting those 
 topics essential to sound knowledge, e.g. in chemistry 
 the study of such matters as soils, and the various fer- 
 tilizers, such as phosphates, nitrates, etc., is considered 
 of great importance to the boys, whilst the girls learn the 
 chemistry of baking-powder, baking-soda, vinegar, soap, 
 and simple food-stuffs, whilst the study of gases and 
 metals takes a secondary place, as being topics of less 
 interest for a rural than for a manufacturing district. 
 Chemistry relating to the everyday life of the children 
 is found to make a strong appeal to them. Gardening is 
 taken concurrcntl}' with botany and the rudiments of 
 zoology, these subjects being treated largely from the 
 point of view of the cultivator of the soil. In woodwork, 
 models of gates, wheelbarrows, or pigsties are very much 
 in evidence. ]\Ieasurement of the land leads up to 
 trigonometry for the boys, but the girls are not 3^et 
 allowed to learn it. 
 
 It might seem that it would be a great drawback for a 
 boy or girl to enter a high school without a knowledge of 
 any language but her own, and undoubtedly it is a serious 
 disadvantage in the first year, but the scholars are usually 
 so much more advanced in mathematics, geography, and 
 science that they are able to give nearly all their time to 
 French, and pay less attention to other subjects. One 
 boy was given special coaching in French by the head 
 master, and in a year's time he was able to take an
 
 102 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 excellent place amongst boys who had learned the 
 language for years. 
 
 In the lower forms much time is spent on English ; 
 Forms II and IIIb are chiefly interested in tales of 
 adventure, and show a love for good literature in the 
 form of poetry. In Form IIIa it often happens, especially 
 with the boys, that a disappointing taste for penny 
 dreadfuls breaks out ; but by the time Form IV is reached 
 there is almost invariably a return to what is best in 
 style and thought. Acting takes an important part in 
 school work, and during the war the children got up 
 entertainments to help various war funds. 
 
 The fervour for cultivation from 1916 onwards was met 
 by often granting excuses for home work that boys and 
 girls might have more time to help their parents, and 
 not infrequently leave of absence was given in some 
 critical moment for tending crops or sowing seed, whilst 
 the scholars voluntarily gave up their games time. 
 In order to arouse interest in passing events in local 
 matters every scholar is required to keep a diary for the 
 purpose of calling attention to local affairs, or to events 
 in the wider world. The diaries are read and discussed 
 in each form and lead to thought about the peace terms, 
 the League of Nations, the part America has played in 
 the war, ideals for the future, and so forth. 
 
 The scholars of this school are often of a somewhat 
 backward intellectual type. They develop very slowly, 
 and their parents are apt to take them away at fifteen 
 before they have a chance of " finding themselves," A 
 small minority of boys are then sent to York or other 
 city to some blind-alley employment, or allowed to 
 flounder hopelessly on their fathers' farms, whilst a few 
 of the girls stay at home, doing little or nothing. The 
 boys who leave later to help their fathers quickly become 
 very valuable, and can soon run a small farm with but 
 little parental guidance. 
 
 Fortunately the interest of school life is gaining ground.
 
 GIRLS' ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 103 
 
 and when the parents once realize how much the last 
 school year can do for their children they will be more 
 ready to let them remain at school another year. The 
 mothers find their girls of sixteen really capable of 
 helping with the poultry and the garden, whilst they can 
 cook, wash and iron, and have learnt needlework on a 
 system that gives them a real delight in making clothes 
 for the younger ones. At present they cannot deal with 
 bees, as the Isle of Wight disease has destroyed all the 
 school hives. They do not know how to handle tools so as 
 to m.ake and mend the furniture, or articles of household 
 use, for it is the boys only who go to the carpenter's work- 
 shop ; but in due time, as opportunities open and Board 
 of Education restrictions on girls' activities are removed, 
 the girls' home helpfulness will be still more marked. 
 
 The rank and file of the scholars are considered some- 
 what " slow in the up-take " but very retentive, and the 
 more bookish side of the work has gained rather than 
 suffered from the amount of handwork given. The boj's 
 who have gone on to mechanics, or to engineering work- 
 shops, or into the army have done very well. 
 
 It is the head master's opinion that it is important 
 not to emphasize rural occupation too strongly. His object 
 is not to force all his scholars to be " on the land," for 
 their proximity to great industrial centres is sure to make 
 many children wish to work in town ; but he wants to 
 make it perfectly clear to his pupils that a country 
 career is a possibiHty and full of interests. He wishes to 
 give each child under his care the chance of finding out 
 what he is fit to do in the world, and to go forth to do it 
 with joy, and a desire to help his fellow-men. 
 
 In a large girls' elementary school in the North of 
 England, the head mistress obtained leave from the 
 Educational Committee to experiment with her girls in 
 two subjects which she maintains are most educative. 
 These are woodwork and eurhythmies.
 
 101 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 I\Iatters were made easier by the fact that in a building 
 apart from the school there is a manual centre for boys, 
 in which two masters are at work all day long. 
 
 It has been arranged that one half-day per week should 
 be given up to the girls, in spite of the misfortune that 
 a certain number of boys have to do without half a day's 
 carpentering a week. 
 
 The girls are selected as specially good at other work, 
 and there is no question of their keen enjoyment in manual 
 work which is taken in connection with the Domestic 
 Arts. The master finds that sawing, with the special 
 knack required to do it well, and its rhythmic nature, 
 appeals strongly to them. To get time for this work, 
 shorter or fewer lessons are given in history and 
 geography, e.g. instead of three lessons in history and 
 geography, two are given per week. Rhythmic work has 
 also been introduced, and is taught by members of the 
 staff. 
 
 The head mistress v/rites : "At the beginning of the 
 course the pupils readily took up the suggestion that 
 they would have an opportunity to bring with them into 
 the Centre any suitable odds and ends of material and 
 express their ideas in the form of models useful for home 
 or school. 
 
 " As the work progressed, the more common tools, such 
 as the rule (English and metric measure) , hammer, pincers, 
 saw, plane, knife, chisel, file, bradawl, screwdriver, 
 scriber, gauge, and compass were gradually introduced 
 for observation, discussion, and use, and later a few special 
 tools were tried and well-used by the pupils, who gained 
 much valuable information by constantly asking sensible 
 questions in regard to tool processes, methods of setting- 
 out, and materials. 
 
 "Throughout the course the pupils were encouraged to 
 use well their freedom to think of ways and means for 
 carrying out their work to a satisfactory finish with good 
 design and construction. They also gained experience
 
 GIRLS' ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 105 
 
 in regard to care of tools and repair of useful articles for 
 home and school. 
 
 " Lessons in rhythmic movements have been given to 
 the same class three-quarters of an hour a week. The 
 lessons comprise part of the musical training of the 
 children, and are taken along with theory of music and 
 songs. The children learn how to beat the time and step 
 the note values of improvised rhythms, pieces of music, 
 and their songs, and by different groupings interpret the 
 phrasing and form of the music. 
 
 " Plastic work is taken, in which the children express 
 by gesture and movement their individual appreciation 
 of crescendo, diminuendo, etc. The work is extremely valu- 
 able from the artistic and aesthetic point of view. It is 
 musical education which gives grace and beauty to the 
 body and at the same time provides a healthy emotional 
 outlet."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 PRESENT-DAY EXPERIMENTS— continued 
 
 Community Government — Girls' Industrial School 
 
 THE Montefiore House, at 69 Stamford Hill, is a 
 Jewish Institute for sixty-six girls, either destitute 
 or committed by a magistrate. 
 Self-government was introduced about four years ago, 
 after the superintendent had carefully studied the subject 
 and spent a week at the Little Commonwealth. The self- 
 government is of a simple character, and is at present 
 (January, 1919) confined to the question of faults and 
 their punishment. 
 
 A court is held every Thursday evening at 6 p.m. 
 The officers are the judge, who must be over fourteen ; 
 the clerk of the court ; and the commissioner, who is 
 elected by the court, to see that penalties ordered by the 
 court are carried out. The judge is chosen by a ballot 
 of girls only, no member of the staff having a vote, and 
 it is said to be most rare for the choice to fall on an un- 
 desirable girl. Any member of the staff, all of whom are 
 present at each court, or any girl over ten, can bring a 
 complaint against any of the children. The judge and 
 clerk hold office for about three months. They can apply 
 to be re-elected if they choose, or for each other's offices. 
 The superintendent considers the court a grand success, 
 and would not give it up on any account. She told me 
 that on two occasions the court had been suspended. 
 Last summer the girls paid visits to the seaside in de- 
 tachments, and it often happened that neither superin- 
 tendent nor matron could be present, so the court was 
 not held. It was more serious when on one occasion 
 
 106
 
 MONTEFIORE HOUSE 107 
 
 there was a short interregnum because no older girls chose 
 to nominate themselves. A recurrence to the former re- 
 gime soon showed the girls that their own government 
 was preferable, and the difficulty has never occurred again. 
 
 The children are found to be excellent judges of each 
 other. At first there was a tendency to make the court 
 an opportunity for venting spite on the unpopular, but 
 this soon died away, and penalties inflicted have usually 
 been wise and just. If they are too drastic, the superin- 
 tendent interferes ; as, for example, when a girl was 
 ordered not to see her parents for a year. The children 
 themselves were, however, very willing to submit to the 
 severe judgment of their fellows. On one occasion, when 
 a judge was chosen who had constantly had complaints 
 brought against her, and who, though she judged others 
 well, failed to include herself in offences she also had com- 
 mitted, the superintendent asked her to resign, which 
 she did. 
 
 The great gain is said to be a loss of shyness, an increase 
 in naturalness, and, as the girls said, " It is a great help 
 to the girls to have courts, because they might do some- 
 thing naughty and be punished, and no one need know 
 about it, but they don't like the whole school to know." 
 
 There is, however, one great difficulty to contend with, 
 and that is the girls almost universally dislike the rcspon- 
 sibihty of office. 
 
 All the girls over eleven go to a mixed elementary school 
 near, going to and fro without superintendence, whilst 
 the young ones and those over fourteen are taught in 
 the Home. The little ones are either dealt with immedi- 
 ately by the teacher or, if she thinks it desirable, their 
 offences are brought up in court. 
 
 In this school all the self-government tends at present 
 to be penal, but in all probability a constructive court 
 will be started to supplement the other, and in it head 
 mistress, staff, and children will all consult together for 
 the good of the school.
 
 108 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Northern Girls' High School 
 
 An experiment on very definite lines in federal govern- 
 ment is being carried on in a large day high school for 
 over 450 girls in the North. 
 
 The head mistress took over a year to prepare for the 
 introduction of a scheme which she designed as an ex- 
 tension to all the upper forms of the government already 
 existing in Form VI. Her first step was to set certain 
 questions to all forms from I, IIIa to VI, the answer to 
 which would help her to gain some idea of what the girls 
 would consider an ideal girls' day school. They were 
 told that they might criticize existing conditions as fully 
 and freely as they liked, provided there were no personal 
 remarks of either praise or blame. Two of the subjects 
 set were " Freedom as a basic principle of education," 
 and " The ideal national scheme for education." 
 
 The answers given were in many cases very suggestive. 
 Two ideas stood out rather prominently, particularly in 
 the answers of the elder girls : 
 
 (i) A system of punishments for faults could hardly 
 ever be satisfactory in a school. Greater responsibility 
 and greater freedom should produce better discipline. 
 
 (2) Unexpected examination should frequently take 
 the place of set examinations,^ for on the whole results 
 would be fairer and feverish cramming would be avoided. 
 
 The next step taken was to make sure of the sympathy 
 and support of a large majority of the assistant mis- 
 tresses, and eventually it was decided to adopt a system 
 of federal government in the school from Form IV to 
 Form VI. It was understood from the first that the head 
 mistress would retain supreme power, but that, when 
 possible, matters of government should be definitely left 
 in the hands of the girls. 
 
 Such government is now, in 1919, in the hands of two 
 councils : 
 
 (i) The Form Council. This consists of two represen- 
 
 1 Cp. with plan in Drighlington Elementary School, p. 217.
 
 NORTHERN GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL 109 
 
 tatives, elected by the form to serve on the council, and 
 of a committee of three or more members of the form, 
 also chosen by themselves. A prefect of the Senior VI 
 is also assigned to each form from Lower IV to Upper V to 
 act in co-operation with the form mistress as adviser to 
 the form.^ 
 
 (2) The School Council. On this there are a number of 
 prefects, the head girl and vice-head girl, all of whom have 
 been appointed by the head mistress after consultation 
 with the sixth form and second mistress ; and also the 
 representatives chosen from the other forms belonging 
 to the federation. 
 
 The head mistress and the second mistress and one 
 representative of the assistant mistresses can be invited, 
 or can ask to attend the council meetings, which take place 
 once a week for general deliberation on school proceed- 
 ings, the paramount object being the promotion of the 
 welfare of the school. 
 
 There are also two courts in connection with the 
 councils, (i) The Form Court. This deals with minor 
 offences, but girls who fail to accept the ruling of the 
 court, or who are guilty of more serious offences, are 
 sent up to (2) The Prefects' Court. This court decides 
 whether the offender shall be dealt with by them or 
 reported to the head mistress, in which case a full account 
 of the proceedings is made. 
 
 The most serious punishment that can befall a girl is 
 suspension from school for one day or longer on the ground, 
 made known to the parents, that for the time being her 
 presence is harmful to the communitj'. 
 
 Minutes of the proceedings of the prefects' court are 
 kept in a book. 
 
 The head girl is, ex officio, chairman both of the school 
 council and the prefects' court. In her absence the vice- 
 head girl presides. 
 
 The head mistress, as already said, retains very definite 
 
 ^ Cp. p. I2J, Aruudalc School.
 
 110 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 powers, and explains that certain regulations, such as 
 that enforcing regular attendance, are laid down by the 
 governors, and that they must be kept by the whole school. 
 
 The head mistress enforces, in addition, a very limited 
 number of rules, e.g. (i) Not a word may be spoken any- 
 where in the school during prayer-time. (2) Every girl 
 going to and from school must wear the school hat-band 
 or scarf, unless special exemption has been allowed for a 
 time. 
 
 Every teacher in the school is expected to report a 
 girl to the head mistress in a case of dishonesty, direct 
 disobedience, or gross breach of courtesy. 
 
 Silence is expected immediately after prayers, but with 
 this exception there is no rule of silence either in the 
 corridors or cloak-rooms or on the stairs. There has 
 been some difficulty in the moderation of both voice and 
 movement, but the girls are learning gradually the general 
 convenience of orderly ways. 
 
 On two occasions, before the federal system was intro- 
 duced, the school was purposely left to look after itself. 
 The first time notice was given to Form VI that the 
 mistresses would not arrive on a certain day, and that it 
 would have complete charge of the rest of the school. 
 The second time certain girls were elected by the members 
 of each form to give them lessons, no mistresses being 
 present except in quite the junior forms. 
 
 This plan was tried with great success some years ago 
 in a girls' high school at Stroud. No notice whatever was 
 given to the pupils, but not a mistress appeared at the 
 usual hour. When the staff arrived at about 10.30 they 
 found everything going on in excellent order. The older 
 girls had set the middle forms to work, some of their 
 number were teaching the junior forms and in the kinder- 
 garten, whilst the rest were studying on their own account. 
 When the girls learned why their teachers were absent, 
 the remark made was : " Oh ! why didn't you leave us all 
 the morning ? "
 
 GIRLS' ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 111 
 
 NuRiiiiiKN Girls' Elementary School 
 In the same elementary school as that already referred 
 to, in which carpentering and eurhythmies were made an 
 important point of the girls' education, a plan of self- 
 government has been in vogue for some years. It was 
 started when the head mistress made up her mind that 
 there should be no corporal punishment. 
 
 It is made perfectly clear to the pupils that the measure 
 of self-government allowed is within the government of 
 grown-up authority, and all have to submit to what may 
 be called the rule of marks. Each girl starts with an 
 imaginary supply of marks, and can lose them for bad 
 conduct. Should she lose three marks her name is en- 
 tered on a black list, and she has to be supervised by the 
 mistress, and is bound to report herself at intervals, and 
 say how she has behaved in class or plaj^ground, wliere- 
 ever the offence was committed. The girls elect four 
 school prefects and four " reserves," as they are called, 
 or vice-prefects. Each class has also a prefect and a 
 reserve. Elections take place four times a year, and are 
 conducted as follows by the head mistress, who first gives 
 a preliminary talk to the whole school on the importance 
 of the right choice, of the right judgment needed, and the 
 necessity of the absence of favouritism. Later on when 
 the prefects are elected she has a talk with them alone 
 about their duties. 
 
 A week before the election an important ceremony of 
 nomination takes place. All girls in Standard VI and VII 
 are eligible for election, provided they are intending to 
 stay at school till the next election is due. Standards 
 V, VI, VII are assembled in their several class-rooms and 
 slips of paper given to each girl. The eligible ones stand 
 in a group apart, and the girls voting are asked to look 
 at them, and to consider carefully which girl would be 
 their first choice as prefect, and to write down her name. 
 They then make a second, third, and fourth choice. The 
 order of choice in nomination is written on a blackboard
 
 112 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 and left there two or three days in order that the electors, 
 who are girls in Standards VII, VI, and V only, may have 
 plenty of time to consider the question. Then comes the 
 election itself, with the head mistress in charge. The 
 three standards choose two tellers, and the names of the 
 candidates are written on the board in their order of 
 nomination. That there may be no possibility of mistake, 
 they all stand in front of this board. The voting is similar 
 to that for nomination. The tellers collect the slips, make 
 out the lists, destroy the papers, and bring the result to 
 the head mistress, who, in company with the assistant 
 mistresses, has no vote herself. The four with the greatest 
 number of votes become prefects, and the next four are 
 reserves. 
 
 It is to be noted that the reserves almost always 
 become prefects later on. 
 
 The elections for class prefects and reserves are con- 
 ducted in the same way by each form. 
 
 As a rule the choice is good. Girls likely to become 
 prigs are hardly ever elected. 
 
 The duties of prefects are to keep order generally ; to 
 take charge of the playground or of recreation, and of 
 the cloak-rooms without any mistress being present ; to 
 supervise work in the absence of a teacher ; and to 
 manage the whole school when a staff meeting is being 
 held, as it always is, in school hours, in order that the 
 assistants may not be overburdened by too long hours. 
 It is considered a greater disgrace to be reported to the 
 head mistress by a prefect than by a mistress, because 
 the prefect represents the authority directly chosen by 
 the school. The girls delight in their governing powers. 
 Only once has the head mistress had to deprive a girl of 
 office during the four years her scheme has been at work. 
 
 The great gain to the school has been increased order- 
 liness ; an absence of friction between teachers and taught, 
 a closer personal relation between them, and greater 
 respect from pupil to teacher than ever before.
 
 ABBEYDALE 118 
 
 Abbeydale 
 
 A new school has been started at Abbeydale, a village 
 in Derbyshire, some little way from Sheffield. It is an 
 instance of very gradual introduction of self-government. 
 Girls are pledged to remain until the end of the term in 
 which they reach the age of sixteen, and may stay till 
 the end of the year in which they reach the age of seven- 
 teen. Girls will pass out to the University, to the commer- 
 cial and industrial hfe of the city, and to the teaching 
 profession. 
 
 This school has started a form of self-government 
 from the first, although there are at present few girls 
 above thirteen. 
 
 It is a carefully recognized fact that there is always 
 to be behind this self-government the very definite 
 authority of the head mistress and her assistants (who 
 are exempt from the regulations framed by the girls). 
 
 Certain standing orders were given by the head mistress 
 at the outset, i.e. : 
 
 (i) Hair to be plaited. 
 
 (2) Shoes to be changed on entering school. 
 
 (3) Rubber shoes to be worn in the garden. 
 
 (4) Always to keep to the right going up and down 
 stairs, and in single file. 
 
 (5) Hat with school ribbon to be worn coming to and 
 from school and on school expeditions. 
 
 (6) Silence to be observed throughout the school at 
 certain iixed times. 
 
 (7) Only brooches and watches may be worn. 
 
 (8) Clothes to be marked. 
 
 No standing orders have yet been made by the girls 
 themselves. The government is carried on bv captains, 
 of whom there are three in each form, i.e. the form captain, 
 the vice-captain, and the games captain. Candidates for 
 these offices are nominated with their consent by a pro- 
 poser and seconder, and the list of names is given to the 
 form mistress. The complete list is posted up on the 
 i>
 
 114 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 notice-boards of the forms and the mistresses, and left 
 there for twenty-four hours. 
 
 Both head mistress and assistant mistresses have the 
 right reserved to add or remove a name ; but so far this 
 right has not been exercised as the girls have proved 
 very discerning, and have responded to the head mistress' 
 advice to vote not merely for friends but for the good of 
 the school. 
 
 The captains may hold office for two out of the three 
 terms in the year, but never for two consecutive terms. 
 
 This plan is in order to give as many girls as possible 
 the chance of holding office. 
 
 On the day of the election each girl has two votes, and 
 writes down the names of two girls. The one with most 
 votes is made captain and the second vice-captain ; 
 should the votes be even the head mistress has a casting 
 vote. 
 
 The games captains are elected on the same lines, but 
 with less formality. It is a form concern, not a school 
 concern. 
 
 The form captain wears a badge of the school colours. 
 
 The duty of each form captain is to take charge of the 
 class in the absence of the mistress, to be responsible for 
 the observance of standing orders and any other orders, 
 to see to order and tidiness in the cloak-room to which 
 she belongs, from which she is always the last to leave, 
 and to report anyone who is disobedient to the head 
 mistress. At their own request they are responsible for 
 the behaviour of the form out of doors. This request 
 was made because there had been a terrible disregard of 
 plants and possessions in the beautiful garden surround- 
 ing the house, so the order was given that there should 
 be no play out of doors for a week or more. This was 
 very hard as the weather was most beautiful, and at last 
 a humble deputation waited on the head mistress to beg 
 her to allow them to be in the garden if the form captain 
 undertook the responsibility of keeping every member
 
 ABBE YD ALE 115 
 
 of the form in order. The petition was granted, and 
 there grew up most wilhng obedience to the captain's 
 commands. 
 
 Ever since the school opened the two senior forms have 
 been left to work entirely alone for one period a week, and 
 have proved themselves quite capable of self-control. 
 
 The head mistress writes : " Except for the standing 
 orders and such orders as may from time to time be given 
 to deal with a situation as it arises (i.e. break indoors 
 because it is wet, or walking shoes worn instead of garden 
 shoes for the same reason) the girls have complete free- 
 dom. We have not attempted to legislate for circum- 
 stances that have not yet arisen. When the need arises 
 for further legislation it is hoped that the form captains 
 will claim the share in it which we are most wilhng for 
 them to have. They have already, at their own request, 
 instituted a meeting held once a month at which various 
 points are discussed and are afterwards referred to the 
 head mistress. (The subject under discussion now is the 
 starting of a school magazine.) It is hoped as the school 
 increases and as the present httle girls grow older it will 
 be possible to form a school council of specially respon- 
 sible girls with jurisdiction throughout the school, not 
 only in each form." 
 
 The school at present consists of very young girls, and 
 it is felt that the first step towards true freedom is the 
 ground of right choice. The idea underlying their right 
 to exercise choice is to train them to make up their 
 minds promptly. They have opportunities to exercise 
 choice thus : 
 
 (a) They choose where they will spend an indoor break, 
 when wet, whether in art room for games, assembly room 
 for dancing, leisure room for reading or playing draughts 
 or dominoes, or carrying on one of their crafts. They 
 have to abide by their choice for the whole of the break 
 in question, and are not allowed to go from room to room. 
 
 {b) They can choose among the subjects taken in hand-
 
 116 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 work classes. At the beginning of the school year each 
 girl gives in a paper, with the handwork classes named in 
 order of preference. The first choice is given to the older 
 girls, because they will have a shorter time at school and 
 fewer opportunities of studying the subject chosen ; the 
 younger ones may get their third or fourth choice. 
 
 (c) Each form chooses in turn the hymn to be sung at 
 the close of Friday afternoon. 
 
 It was interesting to a spectator to notice that : 
 
 (i) There was no supervision at break or dinner-time. 
 The mistresses all dined together at a table apart. 
 
 (2) The duty of dinner orderlies (two to each table 
 chosen from senior forms) is to lay the tables and serve 
 the meat and pudding, change the plates and fetch the 
 food from the kitchen, and see that plates and dishes, 
 etc., are collected at one end of the table before grace is 
 said after dinner. One pair of orderlies waits each week 
 in turn at the mistresses' table. 
 
 Dinner orderUes have been appointed by the head 
 mistress, as the older and more responsible girls were 
 wanted ; but in future they will be elected by the girls 
 themselves in the senior forms, probably after the four 
 captains have been elected. The choice will be made 
 from the girls who stay to dinner. 
 
 Murray Boys' School, Rugby 
 The Murray School, Rugby, is one of the Warwickshire 
 schools in which what is called the monitorial system 
 has been longest established and is best carried out. It 
 is, I believe, the first elementary school in England that 
 ever tried the plan. The system is one of government of 
 the school by the pupils in the two top forms of the 
 school. It is a cross between the prefects' system of 
 our pubHc schools and the more genuine scholars' govern- 
 ment of the elementary schools in the United States of 
 A.merica. 
 
 I visited the school under the guidance of H.M.'s chief
 
 MURRAY SCHOOL, RUGBY 117 
 
 inspector of the district, who asked that I might be allowed 
 to be present at a monitors' meeting. To this the head 
 master very kindly agreed, though he felt with me that 
 it was a somewhat artificial arrangement, but one so 
 rare that it was not likely to happen again during the new 
 captain's term of office. The said captain, a tall lad of 
 fourteen, who looked at least seventeen, seemed rather to 
 welcome the prospect of an extra meeting. He was new 
 to his work, and was therefore glad of some practice in it. 
 
 About twenty boys trooped in in most orderly fashion 
 and took their scats opposite the desk at which the cap- 
 tain stood with vice-captain and secretary on either side 
 of him. Everything was done in perfectly business-like 
 order. The minutes were read and confirmed, and then 
 the captain started to examine the report books, which 
 evidently contained accounts of each boy's jobs. It was 
 very difficult to hear, as the boys spoke very badly, too 
 rapidly and indistinctly. I gathered, however, that the 
 meeting was an adjourned one, and that the captain was 
 taking this opportunity of appointing a new monitor, 
 whose duty it would be to examine the report books 
 which each boy keeps, and so save the captain's time. 
 This question was not discussed at all. The captain 
 stated his wish, and then asked for volunteers, discovered 
 that one boy had a very " soft job," and proposed him 
 for the office. He was unanimously elected to it by a 
 show of hands, and on election was told that it would be 
 his duty to report to the captain if the entries were un- 
 satisfactor3^ 
 
 The captain then proceeded to make use of this extra 
 meeting to discover what each monitor's office was and 
 how he found it worked. One of the librarians complained 
 that the old boys who were allowed to borrow the books 
 did not return them punctually according to rule. The 
 question was discussed and some remedy proposed, but 
 I could not hear what it was. Questions were also asked 
 as to the equipment of the science room.
 
 118 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 The captain was carr3dng out two of his four chief 
 duties, i.e. to take the chair at the weekly meeting and 
 to see that all the monitors do their duty. The other 
 duties are to confer with the small executive body of 
 boys appointed to help the captain, and to confer with 
 the head master when difficult points of discipline or 
 conduct arise, such as smoking. Such cases are reported 
 first to the master of the culprit's class, and he and the 
 captain decide whether it should go before the head 
 master or not. 
 
 The offices for which monitors are appointed are very 
 numerous. There is a football, a cricket, and a gardening 
 captain ; two or three store-room janitors ; registrars 
 for fire-drill, for attendance, and for working out attend- 
 ance percentages ; woodwork corporals who conduct 
 boys to the woodwork centre ; supervisors of corridors 
 and of offices, of bells, of cap-room, of late arrivals. Some 
 monitors are responsible for the delivery of letters, for 
 the order of the library and giving out of books, for the 
 science teacher's help in preparation of his lessons, for 
 the collection of waste-paper, and proper supply of ink, 
 the weather chart, arrangements for sports ; whilst a 
 number of boys, called police, have charge of the play- 
 ground during breaks and as the boys come and go. 
 Mr. Carter, H.M.'s inspector, asked about the duties of 
 these police, and was told that they have no definite 
 authority in the streets, but that all monitors are expected 
 to keep an eye on the behaviour of boys living in their 
 district, and to report rowdy or unseemly conduct to the 
 captain. The police stand at each gateway and door to 
 see that all goes well, and one policeman is always stand- 
 ing by the drinking-pump to make sure that little boys 
 get fair play. The boys seemed to like the term " poHce " 
 — about which we had some doubt — and in reply to a 
 question said that it is considered a distinct honour to 
 hold any kind of office. One very responsible office is 
 that of the employment clerk, who has to keep a record
 
 MURRAY SCHOOL, RUGBY 119 
 
 of all boys who leave, and the employment to which 
 they go. 
 
 A number of other boys are called reserves, and have 
 to be ready to take temporary office in the absence of 
 the monitors. 
 
 The conduct of the meeting, in spite of the fact that so 
 many were new to ofhce, was exceptionally good. The 
 boys took the work earnestly, and were evidently keen 
 on doing it well. 
 
 Formerly the monitors were chosen by the two top 
 forms from a hst of boys supplied to them by their 
 teachers, but now the classes themselves send in their 
 list of candidates, and it is only the school captain who 
 is chosen by the teachers in conjunction with the head 
 master. 
 
 No rules are laid down by authority for the conduct of 
 the monitors, but it is made clear to them that their duty 
 is to help forward the well-being of the whole school, to 
 maintain discipline, and to learn the value of responsi- 
 biUty. The head master's hope is that they will come to 
 reaUze that no man lives to himself, and that every 
 increase of liberty means an increase of responsibility. 
 He wants their government to be on an ethical rather 
 than a legal basis, and he makes it perfectly clear that 
 behind the scholar's government there will always be the 
 authority of the teacher. It is partly with this point in 
 view that he does not leave the taking of assembly 
 entirely to the boys, but it is taken at frequent intervals 
 by one of the teachers, and one master is always present 
 in the playground. 
 
 He considered it very desirable to preserve the prestige 
 of the teacher. We saw the boys at play, and watched 
 the methodical way in which the school and class monitors 
 collected the classes and marched them into school, 
 wheeling them in fours without hesitation, which is always 
 a difficult accomplishment for small children. The 
 monitors are allowed to sew braid on their caps to dis-
 
 120 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 tinguish them from the rank and file, a simple and in- 
 expensive badge which few of them fail to adopt. 
 
 It was clear from an examination of the minute-book 
 that offences in this school are not very numerous, and 
 that a good deal of the work done was in the form of 
 suggestions for improvement in the school. 
 
 A monitor can be suspended by his peers, but cannot 
 be dismissed from office without the head master's 
 sanction. If his behaviour during suspension justifies it 
 he can be reinstated in office. Minor punishments are 
 the loss of games or of the honours' cap, which can be 
 obtained by any boy in the school. 
 
 One of the chief characteristics of this monitorial 
 system is that the younger forms in the school have no 
 share in it, but they are being gradually prepared for 
 office by a system of class monitors, who are trained to 
 see after the interest of the special class to which they 
 belong, and to carry out the small duties which schools 
 have been in the habit of handing over to them for many 
 a year past. 
 
 Warwickshire is a very progressive county in regard 
 to education, and Rugby has the special advantage of 
 great sympathy between the higher and more elementary 
 form of education. The head master of Rugby School 
 allows the beautifully-equipped laboratories of the public 
 school to be used for evening classes, and the masters of 
 Rugby School often take classes and give lectures them- 
 selves gratuitously. 
 
 The monitorial system is spreading throughout the 
 whole of Warwickshire in every kind of elementary school. 
 The only dangers that have been found in its adoption 
 are: first, that it should be introduced too soon. "A 
 year," as is wisely stated, " is not too much for the work 
 of preparation." The other danger is that it should 
 centre too much round the punishment of offences, and 
 thus lose sight of the real object of the system, which is 
 to rouse a sense of responsibility, to prevent and check
 
 CALDECOTT COMMUNITY 121 
 
 Licaches of discipline, and to stimulate efforts towards 
 improved conduct. 
 
 The Warwickshire Education Committee has recently 
 adopted the suggestion that prefects should be given a certi- 
 ficate partly filled in when appointed and completed when 
 they leave school. It is thought that this will interest their 
 parents in their school career, and as the system becomes 
 known in the neighbourhood it will prove a testimonial of 
 character which the employers will know how to appreciate. 
 
 Caldecott Community 
 
 An experiment in self-government, tried in the Calde- 
 cott Community when in London, did not succeed. A 
 court, a judge, and the infliction of punishment proved 
 too great a strain and too great a temptation to vindic- 
 tiveness for these children. But at Charlton a new 
 modified self-government contained within the definite 
 government of authority seems to work well. 
 
 A house corhmittee of nine children was chosen in the 
 first instance by Miss Rendel and Miss Potter, but as 
 changes take place the house committee is consulted 
 about new members. This committee meets once a week 
 out of school hours, with either Miss Rendel or Miss Potter 
 in the chair, and considers questions that concern the good 
 of the school. Any member of the staff is at liberty to 
 attend, and one of the staff takes down the minutes. As 
 an example of the kind of work done, one of the staff 
 brought forward a complaint that it was impossible to 
 get any quiet or rest in the garden after dinner owing to 
 the noise of rampant children. The children themselves 
 proposed that the garden should be divided for the hour 
 after dinner, one part to belong to the staff and one to 
 the children, a plan carried out with satisfaction to all. 
 All sorts of suggestions are brought forward by the 
 children at the committee meetings, e.g. as to rules which 
 are framed by them in conjunction with i\Iiss Rendel and 
 Miss Potter, as to penalties to be inflicted, or as to general
 
 122 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 improvements, e.g. the committee stated that the bread 
 and jam was cut and prepared so early in the morning 
 that the jam had soaked in and got dry by the time 
 it had to be eaten. In making an alteration the diffi- 
 culty of fitting in all the work was brought home to the 
 children. 
 
 At meal-times two members of the house committee 
 sit at the ends of each table, one of whom is the monitor 
 in charge. He or she has to see that when Miss Rendel 
 holds up a hand because there is too much noise, his hand 
 also goes up, and he must ensure silence at his table. The 
 monitor dismisses his flock at the end of the meal, and if 
 a child behaves badly during the meal requests him to 
 stand up. 
 
 Any naughty child can be brought by its peers before 
 the house committee. Lest the house committee, being 
 so young, should suffer from " swollen head," an assembly 
 of the whole school, with the exception of the babies, is 
 held every Saturday, and any member of staff or child 
 can complain of any member of the house committee. 
 Either Miss Rendel or Miss Potter takes the chair. The 
 children think it a most terrible thing to be called before 
 the house committee, even though very little beyond a 
 warning or reproof ever happens to them. On one 
 occasion two little ones refused to come in, and lay 
 screaming on their faces on the mat outside the door. 
 It was hard to persuade them to enter, but on discovering 
 that no severe treatment would be their lot, they became 
 quite cheerful and ready to atone for misdeeds. 
 
 Rules and Penalties Framed by Children 
 Themselves 
 Rule I. — The well in the kitchen garden is forbidden 
 to children. No one is allowed to go near it to get water 
 or for any other reason, unless asked to do so by the 
 gardener or any other grown-up person. This rule also 
 applies to the coal and coke heap and to the pond.
 
 CALDECOTT COMMUNITY 123 
 
 Penalty. — Anyone doing so will be punished by close 
 bounds (i.e. not being allowed to go outside the house 
 for a whole day) . 
 
 Rule II. — Children are not allowed to play round the 
 back door, and thus hinder those who are cooking the 
 meals. 
 
 Children are not allowed to gather round tradesmen's 
 carts nor the postman when they come to the back door. 
 
 Penally. — Anyone doing so will not be allowed to have 
 any pudding at the next dinner-time. 
 
 Rule III. — Children arc not allowed in the kitchen 
 garden without the gardcncr-in-charge, excepting those 
 who are working in their own gardens. This rule also 
 applies to the harness room. 
 
 Penally. — Anyone breaking this rule will be punished 
 by close bounds for a whole day. 
 
 Rule IV. — Children are absolutely forbidden to go 
 into the stokehole. 
 
 Penally. — Close bounds for a whole day. 
 
 Rule V. — No talking is allowed in the dormitories 
 after the lights have been put out at night. 
 
 Penally. — Anyone breaking this rule must have no 
 pudding the next day. 
 
 Rule VI. — No child is allowed to touch electric lights 
 or blinds upstairs, excepting the heads of the dormitories. 
 No light or blinds must be touched downstairs without 
 permission, excepting those in the lavatories or cloak- 
 room. 
 
 Rule VII. — No one is allowed to use the do^^^lstairs 
 pantry as a passage. 
 
 Penally. — Anyone doing so will be punished by having 
 no pudding at dinner. 
 
 Rule VIII. — No one is allowed to rush across the hall 
 in clogs or heavy boots.
 
 124 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Penalty. — Anyone doing so will be punished by close 
 bounds. 
 
 Rule IX. — The donkey must not be ridden unless some 
 grown-up person is present. 
 
 Rule X.— The trolly is not to be used on Sundays. 
 
 Rule XI. — No one is to slide down the backstairs' 
 bannisters. 
 
 Penalty. — To walk up and down the backstairs twelve 
 times under supervision. 
 
 Rule XII. — Every one must be punctual for meals. 
 
 Penalty. — Anyone late for meals must stand behind 
 his or her chair for ten minutes. 
 
 Arundale School 
 
 The Arundale School, Letchworth, is the first that was 
 founded by the Theosophical Educational Trust. Its 
 head master was Dr. Armstrong Smith, who left in 1916 
 on account of ill-health, to be succeeded by Mr. and Mrs. 
 Leyton, under whom the school now works. 
 
 There are about thirty-eight boarders, aged from 
 seven to nineteen, and about thirty day scholars, but all 
 new-comers go to a new day school just started. 
 
 A system of community government in close union 
 with government by authority has existed for several 
 years. The whole arrangement is very fluid. Constant 
 changes take place in accordance with new needs, and it 
 is clearly understood that the chief and his wife, together 
 with the staff, have definite power behind the regulations 
 of the school. 
 
 The government is formed by a " moot," which con- 
 sists of the whole school, and of a chairman and secretary 
 chosen by it. The first chairman was a member of the 
 staff, but for the last two or three terms it has been a 
 scholar. The secretary, on whom the real work falls, has 
 always been one of the pupils.
 
 ARUNDALE SCHOOL 125 
 
 In addition to members of the moot there are twelve 
 people called " servers." Six of these are chosen by the 
 six forms in the school, one in each form, and six are 
 appointed by the head master, always from among the 
 older scholars. He is bound to choose three boys and 
 three girls. 
 
 Each form, however, elects the best candidate irre- 
 spective of sex, in spite of the fact that girls are more 
 frequently elected than boys. There are three candidates 
 nominated in each form, out of whom one is chosen to be 
 a " server." 
 
 The duty of " servers " is to help in every way they can 
 devise, to " reprove, rebuke, exhort " wrong-doers ; to 
 invent plans for bringing over the bad to the side of the 
 good, and in the last resort to report culprits to the head 
 master. They meet very frequcntl3^ even twice in the 
 day, if some difficult case is on hand. 
 
 The secretary, a girl of eighteen, summons a meeting 
 when desired, and any of the " servers " can ask her to hold 
 a meeting. It is considered most important that even 
 the youngest form should be represented by a server, in 
 order that each individual may feel that he or she has part 
 in the whole school ; but since the very little ones often 
 find it hard to take messages, to conduct their elections, 
 and so forth, it has been decided to appoint from among 
 the head master's six servers one helper to each of the 
 servers in the three lowest forms in the school. 
 
 A day boy helps Form III, and the heads of the lower 
 and middle bo3^s' dormitories help Forms I and II. This 
 plan is held to work extremely w^ell. 
 
 It was suggested by the moot that the servers should 
 take in hand the duty of supervising preparation which 
 hitherto had been in the hands of one of tlie staff. But 
 a difficulty arose as to the method of enforcing the will 
 of the servers. The moot was against the definite punish- 
 ments suggested by the servers, so the servers framed a 
 careful plan to meet the fact that preparation was occa-
 
 12G EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 sionally shirked, for scholars, who were expected to do 
 the preparation in the period following midday dinner, 
 sometimes went off to their own pursuits and neglected 
 work. A big girl has been appointed by the servers to 
 see after the preparation of the younger ones. If prepara- 
 tion is not done the form master and mistress notifies the 
 fact in writing and gives the paper to the server of that 
 form, who takes it to the preparation overseer appointed 
 by the servers. She sends for the culprit and enquires 
 into the cause of negligence, and if there is no genuine 
 excuse, bids him bring the work properly learnt or 
 written next day. This done, she informs his teacher. 
 But if it is not done the offender is called before a meeting 
 of servers and his lack of helpfulness to the school pointed 
 out. If it is found that he is incapable of working alone 
 some one is appointed to help him. 
 
 It is extremely rare for any case to go beyond this, but 
 if it did the scholar would be called before a combined 
 meeting of servers and staff and dealt with according to 
 their decision. On one such occasion a boy was reported 
 to the head master, who told him he was not fit to mix 
 with his peers, and for one or two days he must have his 
 meals and sleep separately. He could be with the staff 
 or the head master and his wife, and was given plenty of 
 pleasant occupations, even having the pleasure of going 
 shopping with the matron, but could join in no work or 
 games that meant mixing with his own comrades. It 
 was very soon that the boy begged to be allowed to return 
 to ordinary life and do all his work. 
 
 Once a term the school gives the staff a whole holiday. 
 The scholars take council together and decide which 
 day shall be chosen, and then give out their intention. 
 The only condition is that certainly as much, and if 
 possible more, work shall be done during the absence of 
 all teachers. No one in authority goes near the class- 
 rooms on this occasion, and the success of the plan is 
 great.
 
 SKELFIELD 127 
 
 There are various voluntary self-managing brigades, 
 on each of which there must be one server. The house 
 brigade, the mending brigade, and the tidying brigade are 
 instituted at the beginning of each term, and volunteers 
 are called for in order to see that the house is always neat ; 
 that all defects of window-fastenings, locks, etc., are 
 promptly repaired ; and that tidiness shall prevail also 
 out of doors. No paper is to be left about, weeds are to 
 be taken up, and so on. 
 
 Many members of the school belong to " The Guild of 
 Arts and Crafts," started by Mr. Van der Straeten, in the 
 hope that it may extend to many other schools. It is a 
 crusade against every form of ughness, and " the object 
 of seeking membership of the Guild must be to serve by 
 expressing the Divine in its aspect of the beautiful." 
 
 Independently of the self-governing groups, the head 
 master often calls on the school for volunteers, e.g. he 
 wanted the outside boilers stoked better than they were 
 being done by the handy-man, so he asked for help. He 
 asked for boys only, but a girl offered for the job and was 
 accepted as well as a boy. 
 
 The care of chickens is in the hands of the girls who 
 volunteered for the work, and two girls have begged to 
 be allowed to learn how to stable and tend a new pony 
 that is expected, A group of boys assembled round a 
 caldron in the field were busy boiling the old pony's rug 
 for his successor. The secretary of the " moot," who is 
 practically head of the school, is anxious to arrive at a 
 time when every scholar, old and young, has some 
 definite duty, however small, for which he or she is re- 
 sponsible, from the seeing after the guest-chamber and 
 its inmate to keeping the keys of each piano well dusted. 
 
 Skelfield 
 In a private school for girls at Skelfield, Ripon, the 
 head mistress, Miss Yate Lee, is slowly introducing self- 
 government. After careful thought, reading, and talk
 
 128 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 with various experts, she proposed to the girls in her house 
 that some form of self-government should be introduced. 
 She found that there was a strong objection to the plan, 
 so it was wisely dropped. Later on, at the beginning of 
 the autumn of 1918, she again suggested that the girls 
 should try and rule themselves, but, though the leaders 
 were a new set of girls, the dislike to any kind of change 
 still prevailed. It so happened that the head of the 
 House, a girl of strong character and high standard, was 
 out of health and her rule failed. The girls were ob- 
 streperous and rebellious. After a talk with the head girl, 
 who felt her failure very keenly, the head mistress came 
 to the conclusion that some form of self-government 
 might be the solution of a somewhat difficult problem, 
 and when a deputation of older girls came to ask her 
 advice as to their treatment of younger ones, she 
 suggested that the question of self-government should be 
 brought before the House. The prefects said they would 
 willingly resign office in favour of such a scheme, and 
 the plan was carried with few dissentients. 
 
 The plan decided upon by the whole House was not 
 of the kind hoped for by the head mistress. It was 
 settled that : 
 
 (i) All members of the House were to be regarded as 
 equal. 
 
 (2) There was to be no stated government, but each 
 girl was to hold herself responsible for right conduct. 
 
 (3) All previous rules were to cease until the need arose 
 for new ones. 
 
 (4) A president, vice-president, and secretary were to 
 be appointed to conduct and convene, but with no special 
 powers. These officers were to be elected every three 
 weeks. 
 
 The result was a month of terrible chaos. Noise, un- 
 tidiness, and general confusion prevailed, and, added to 
 this, there was a serious epidemic of influenza, which 
 disorganized the daily routine. At the end of the month
 
 SKELFIELD 129 
 
 a House meeting was held, at which the girls decided that, 
 though they did not wish to return to the old method 
 of government, they wanted leaders. Miss Yate Lee 
 suggested prefects, but this they declined. They did not 
 wish to return to the rule of prefects, which they felt to 
 be very arbitrary and unsatisfactory. Then the head 
 mistress proposed that at least there should be proctors 
 elected as leaders. This plan was accepted, and many 
 meetings were held. Reading through the minutes of 
 this period, I note how gradually the need of some kind 
 of better order dawned. The girls appear at first to have 
 accepted all suggestions made by their head mistress, 
 adopting them with very little discussion, but later on 
 they began much more frequently not to vote as authority 
 suggested. The head mistress sometimes absented herself 
 on purpose to leave the girls free. They discovered that 
 the skies did not fall when their head mistress's sugges- 
 tions were not accepted, and that there would be a really 
 genuine " give and take " in discussions. The girls seem 
 to have been slow in discovering worth. One girl, who 
 evidently worked hard and with great interest at the 
 scheme, and who was again and again proposed for 
 office, was not elected to any kind of duty until March, 
 1919 ; but after that she was scarcely ever unemployed, 
 for whatever work she was given she did well and with 
 all her might. Girls who had never been considered 
 by their teachers as Hkely to bear responsibilty were 
 selected by their comrades and proved themselves excel- 
 lent leaders. 
 
 After many changes the constitution that existed in 
 May, 1919, was as follows : 
 
 (i) All the inmates of the House (with the exception of 
 the head mistress) are to be regarded as equal. 
 
 (2) The privilege which up to this time was accorded 
 to prefects and others selected by the head mistress, of 
 possessing a desk or drawer in the common room, is to be 
 awarded according to age.
 
 130 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 (3) The head of a dormitory is to be elected by the 
 members of the dormitory every half-term, the head 
 mistress reserving the right of deciding who shall sleep 
 in the dormitory. 
 
 (4) A merely executive body, consisting of president, 
 vice-president, and secretary, is to be elected every six 
 weeks, and can only be re-elected for two consecutive 
 sessions. 
 
 (5) Three girls called proctors are to be elected every 
 three weeks. 
 
 (6) Three girls called orderUes are to be elected to keep 
 the House tidy. 
 
 Their duties are responsibility for conduct and be- 
 haviour in a general way ; but, whilst any member of 
 the House can impeach or warn or reprove another for 
 wrong-doing, it is a positive duty of each proctor so to 
 do. One proctor is elected by the whole House, and two 
 by divisions of the House, i.e. the dormitories, which are 
 called constituencies. 
 
 Each candidate for office has to bring forward a pro- 
 gramme, e.g. attention is called to wrong-doings w^iich 
 the proctor intends to fight. One girl informed her con- 
 stituents that she meant to do her best to stop " ragging " 
 on the way to prayers. Another gave out her intention 
 of trying to help people to show consideration to others. 
 As the girls are well contented with their surroundings, 
 and there are not many serious faihngs, the programmes 
 were at first apt to become a Httle stale, but after a time 
 it began to be realized that they could be used as public 
 reminders of school failings. It is considered an honour 
 to hold office, the greatest honour being that of " House- 
 elected " proctor. 
 
 The head mistress used to have an hour with all school 
 prefects on Sunday evenings, and felt that the loss of 
 intimate talk would be serious ; so she now has her three 
 proctors and the whole of the sixth form, and another 
 meeting of the heads of dormitories and " orderlies,"
 
 SKELFIELD 131 
 
 All elections are carried out on a plan proposed by the 
 head mistress. It is known as the " knock-out " system. 
 Every member votes for some one of the candidates. 
 The one with fewest votes is " knocked out." All vote 
 again for one of those left in, and the process is repeated 
 until only one is left. It is a simple form of proportional 
 representation. The process is lengthy, but the results 
 are said to be most satisfactory. The greatest difficulty 
 felt by the girls was the accusing of any one of their 
 number by a comrade, so they devised a somewhat 
 different scheme, which was being used in May, 1919. If 
 a girl is found doing wrong she is asked by either proctor 
 or companion if she knows that she is breaking a rule. 
 If her answer is " No," she is told of the rule and warned 
 not to break it again. If she repUes " Yes," she is asked 
 to report herself at the next meeting. If she is found 
 doing something which is not a breach of rule, but wrong 
 in the eyes of the observer, an explanation is given, and 
 she is only asked to confess pubhcly if she persists in her 
 course. During one and a half terms only one impeach- 
 ment was made under the system of accusation first 
 adopted, and two girls have reported themselves since the 
 plan was changed. 
 
 The meetings at which self-reports are made are 
 convened as required, and not held at any stated 
 times. Reproof or punishment is decided upon by the 
 whole assembly, for there is no judge in this " School 
 House." 
 
 In the same school one of the forms (IV) has adopted 
 self-government, as they had a form mistress who suc- 
 ceeded in rousing their enthusiasm on the subject. One 
 of the first steps taken was to abolish their form mistress 
 and elect one of their own members in her place. Their 
 form mistress accepted the position and just came in to 
 give her lessons, and departed without any of the usual 
 friendly jobs of one in authority. After four days, during 
 which the new form mistress looked anything but happy,
 
 132 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 a deputy came to Miss X. and asked her whether she would 
 be so good as to stay a Httle while after her lesson the 
 next day. I was asked to tell the girls of some of my 
 experiences in America about self-governing schools, so 
 I told them of the George Junior Republic, where the 
 form master or mistress has no authority over the citizens 
 taught, but one of their number acts as policeman and 
 summons a boy or girl doing wrong, e.g. eating an apple 
 in school, rioting in the passage, passing a note, to appear 
 before the next court. If the teacher has occasion 
 to find fault, she reports the case to the officer in 
 charge. 
 
 In another school the form mistress is the supreme 
 authority whilst she is teaching, but the form has elected 
 a girl to be " mayor " of the class, and the moment the 
 teacher leaves her classroom, this girl immediately takes 
 her place, and gives her orders or finishes the lesson as 
 the case may be. She has an understudy lest she should 
 not be in school herself. The girls were strongly of opinion 
 that the latter was, as they called it, " a much nicer plan," 
 but they did not give up their present experiment, which 
 is not regarded by the staff as altogether successful. With 
 the younger and inexperienced teachers a good deal of 
 trouble is given. It is felt that, whilst authority was 
 taken seriously by the girl elected as form mistress, and 
 her character has been strengthened and developed by 
 her position, the rest of the class have not been as respon- 
 sive to self-discipline as was hoped. Still the form has 
 shown itself very capable over monitress arrangements 
 and all the minor details of daily work. 
 
 Since the above account was written the girls are re- 
 ported as working out their community government with 
 much greater success. 
 
 The following is an account given by the form mistress 
 at Froebel Educational Institute, Demonstration School, 
 Upper Fourth Gemot : —
 
 FROEBEL DEMONSTRATION SCHOOL 133 
 
 " Our method of form government has now been in 
 force for four school terms, and is this year being carried 
 on by special request of the members of the form. 
 
 " It must be understood that the aim of the system is 
 not to give practical instruction in civics. Though much 
 practical knowledge and benefit are gained, yet our aim 
 is the development of individual responsibility for 
 influence and action ; the destruction of old, long-standing 
 ideas that there is fun in naughtiness and that the crime 
 lies not in the action but in its detection ; and the putting 
 off of a grown-up external authority in goodness ... in 
 short, the teaching by practice of the idea that right action 
 should spring from within and not be plumes borrowed 
 from another, however experienced. 
 
 " To work towards the fulfilment of this aim the 
 members of the form are given complete freedom of dis- 
 cussion on any matters of individual or class action. 
 They are not left entirely to themselves, as their form 
 mistress takes her place on an equality with them in the 
 Gem5t, a name thought of by girls and mistress. They 
 often gladly avail themselves of the opportunity thus 
 given of referring difficult points to one of wider experi- 
 ence. 
 
 " We believe in the importance of giving this oppor- 
 tunity, as growing boys and girls are fully aware of the 
 value of guidance and, if left to themselves, will volun- 
 tarily seek it. 
 
 " One regular assembly of the Gemot is held weekly, 
 and special meetings arc called as required. A president 
 is elected to stand for a fortnight, whose business it is to 
 conduct the meetings and choose form monitors. Origin- 
 ally the secretary's duty lasted for a term, this year the 
 length of office is three wrecks. 
 
 " Looking back, one notices development resulting 
 from the freedom of the system along many lines. Two 
 may be mentioned : (i) Responsibility for class behaviour ; 
 (j) The matter of punishment.
 
 134 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 " (i) At first the girls were entirely individual. They 
 found it hard to grasp the thought of uniting to better 
 class behaviour. Their one idea was — punish the individual. 
 This term they have taken in hand two matters of in- 
 attentive and noisy behaviour. They have discussed 
 them freely, and in each case have, with good result, left 
 the responsibility on each single member of the form to 
 improve. At first it was suggested that, in case of con- 
 tinued bad behaviour, a Gemot should be called. This 
 was vetoed, one member most strongly urging that im- 
 provement should follow without fear of consequences, 
 and it did follow. 
 
 " (2) The early business of the Gemot consisted of 
 making rules and punishing offenders. A great stride 
 has been made in this matter of punishment. There is 
 not a member of the form who now believes in frequent 
 punishment. There is strong behef in the will of each 
 member to do right, and they have proved that the 
 bringing of any matter before the form generally results 
 in good. 
 
 " Punishment, it is considered, should be severe 
 enough to remedy matters, and should only be a last 
 resort in the case of a person who shows lack of will to 
 do better, 
 
 " At one time, one girl who objected to our plan on 
 account of the higher standard of conduct required by 
 it, did her best to wreck it, but the better feeUng of 
 the majority of the class prevailed. ' Are we going to 
 have the Gemot again ? ' asked a girl who had spoken 
 against it. 'I was thinking it was silly to rebel against 
 it.' 
 
 " Class meetings and committee meetings, held by 
 Forms Upper III and Lower IV, are developing personal 
 responsibihty for behaviour in the younger children, and 
 are preparing the way for the more complete system of 
 form government in force in Form Upper IV. 
 
 " The parents have been sympathetic and helpful."
 
 THORP ARCH 135 
 
 Thorp Arch 
 
 There is an industrial school for girls in the country 
 near Leeds, at Thorp Arch which has been so often de- 
 scribed in the daily papers that it is only necessary here 
 to show in what ways it shows a marked advance on the 
 ordinary industrial schools for girls. 
 
 My visit to it took place on a Saturday, which for the 
 junior and primary divisions is an entire hohday. In 
 the morning tlie children play or dance, under direction 
 of some member of the staff, but in the afternoon they 
 are perfectly free to do as they hke in the grounds. 
 
 The older girls take a certain time on Saturday morn- 
 ings to do household work. On the day I was there 
 everything and every corner was being tidied up to an 
 astonishing degree of perfection. Some of the Httle ones 
 had been pressed into the wilUng service of a girl who 
 was bent on having every dandelion head on the lawn 
 cut off. 
 
 Two big girls over sixteen are kept on as workers on 
 the farm, with a small wage, and two as gardeners. An 
 expert on the staff directs and trains them. They are 
 helped by older girls, who are allowed at certain times to 
 leave their ordinary classes, or who wish to give their 
 services at leisure moments. 
 
 Girls are allowed to go out in twos and threes for 
 country rambles. One girl had just been sent alone to 
 fetch the newspaper, another has the duty of going for 
 the letters every day. 
 
 The day before my visit the matron had taken twenty- 
 five of the older girls to Scarborough to spend the day. 
 She let them be scattered through the train in groups of 
 three or four. She provided towels for them to wipe their 
 feet with after paddUng, and large supphes of food, 
 adding to the joy of each girl by giving her a shilling to 
 spend as she liked. Then on arrival at Scarborough Miss 
 Smith sent them all off with instructions to meet her at
 
 136 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 a certain hour in the afternoon, and the advice to go 
 about in small parties and not all herd together. Not a 
 girl failed to be at the meeting-place at the appointed 
 time. Considering that at this school all the inmates have 
 either been committed before a magistrate for a first 
 offence, or sent on account of their parents' deHnquencies, 
 their punctual appearance is worth record. 
 
 The elder girls are sent to church by themselves in 
 groups of ten, instead of being marched thither " in 
 crocodile." The httle ones go only to the children's 
 afternoon service. 
 
 Nothing in the house is kept locked except money. 
 
 On Tuesdays and Thursdays, when special time is 
 allowed for classes in house-craft, mother-craft, hygiene, 
 laundry, and gardening, and for which (unHke the King's 
 Langley School) the Httle ones are considered too young, 
 the prehminary and junior divisions are allowed to do 
 whatever they hke, provided it is not play but some 
 occupation. One girl spent two hours making fairy wings 
 for a dramatic performance about to take place ; another 
 cut out a tea-service in cardboard ; another made a 
 thermometer ; whilst a fourth sketched the barometer. 
 This plan gives a good opportunity for choice. There is 
 no danger of idleness, for every child goes about with a 
 book she wants to read, and a bag of crochet to which 
 she can resort to if other employments fail.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 PRESENT-DAY EXPERIMENTS— cow^mM^t? 
 
 Free Discipline — Gerrard's Cross 
 
 MISS CHAMBERS' boarding school at Gerrard's 
 Cross for forty-three girls is the result of ten 
 years' experience in a large day school for four 
 hundred and thirty girls in Huddersfield. She came to the 
 conclusion, in consequence of her experiments there, that 
 the ideal upbringing for a child, producing the truest de- 
 velopment of mind and body, is a home. The best kind of 
 home is a home with cultured parents — who, instinct with 
 sympathy, are companions of their children — a large 
 family of boys and girls — enjoying the ordinary occupa- 
 tions of the home, sharing the literary, artistic, and musical 
 interests of the parents, the practical domestic difficulties 
 being helped out by the girls and boys each according to 
 their abilities, with freedom to make mistakes and to 
 gain experience, whilst their efforts are watched with 
 sympathy and a helping hand held out by their more 
 experienced guides. Seeing this, ]\Iiss Chambers planned 
 her Gerrard's Cross school as nearly as possible on these 
 Unes. Practical difficulties have so far prevented her 
 taking boys, and from carrying out all she has planned, 
 but this school is still young and still progressing. A 
 staff of thoroughly sympathetic teachers has been gathered 
 together, young women keen for improvement in our 
 educational plans, and every parent who thinks of 
 placing a child in the school is carefully informed of the 
 aims and ideals of the school, so that if out of sympathy 
 with the school life, he need not send his daughter. Girls 
 
 »37
 
 138 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 of every class of society are received, as tliere are to 
 be no false social distinctions. Fees are high because the 
 head mistress is set on experiments which cost a great 
 deal of money. Beautiful surroundings are considered 
 essential to training in refinement, so the schoolhouse 
 is set in beautiful grounds in a beautiful corner of Bucks, 
 and the house is furnished without display, but with the 
 air of substantial comfort that old oak brings with it, 
 every article used, e.g. the leadless glaze dinner-service, 
 being pleasurable both in colour and design. 
 
 The interpretation given to the term self-government 
 is that each girl shall be responsible for her own conduct 
 — a law unto herself, and the helper of others. There is 
 to be no inexperienced authority. Authority rests with 
 the head mistress and staff. The teachers are to regard 
 themselves as guides, as people with greater experience 
 than the children whom they wish to help in every way 
 to grow up. 
 
 Autocratic authority is exercised on two points, (i) If 
 any action is taken by the girls that is likely to injure 
 their health, it is at once stopped. (2) If suggestions are 
 made that are harmful to other members of the com- 
 munity they are not accepted. These two points are 
 frequently put before the girls themselves as of first 
 importance. 
 
 The younger children are watched and checked in 
 matters of health by the matron, the older ones of fifteen 
 and upwards are given clear and plain direction as to 
 what they are to do in regard to health, e.g. they must 
 wear thick boots out of doors, should not sit on damp 
 grass, etc., and they are then expected to see after them- 
 selves. If found ignoring these directions they are 
 promptly checked. 
 
 In other respects the aim is to set free life forces, to 
 reverence the individuahty of each child, to bring out 
 the best self in each, and to make the whole of education 
 as natural as possible.
 
 GERRARD'S CROSS 139 
 
 At first it was most difficult to get the children to be 
 really natural. They came at all ages between nine and 
 sixteen, and some had been at very artificial schools, 
 and they were mentally desperately excited to find that 
 they could pursue any study they liked. The little ones 
 rushed from one subject to another, and it was found 
 impossible to leave the youngest to themselves until last 
 Christmas, when they were introduced to free work and 
 the habit of steadfastness of choice was gradually formed. 
 They always know now what they want, and it is interest- 
 ing to note that they like to spend quite three-fourths of 
 their time on manual work, but they never care to leave 
 out a hterature lesson, one of which is at a daily fixed 
 time for forty minutes, to which the children can come 
 and go as they like, but it is the rarest event for a child 
 to miss it. They will write for hours on end at their stories 
 or verses. The general order of choice with the little 
 ones seems to be, first hterature. acting, dancing, eurhyth- 
 mies, clay modelling, then other kinds of art or craft 
 work, including sewing, but not carpentering, the taste for 
 which seems to come with girls at the age of twelve or 
 thirteen. Arithmetic and French are not usually popular 
 subjects. 
 
 Time-tables exist, but are very elastic, so that a 
 mistress, if not wanted elsewhere, could take twice the 
 ordinary time for any lesson. Lessons in literature, 
 French, eurhythmies, dancing, and musical appreciation 
 are all fixed lessons, but if a child wishes to miss her 
 lesson she can do so. The mere fact that she can go if 
 she likes usually suffices to make her wish to stay. 
 
 On the time-table there are many periods marked 
 " Free Choice," and it is in them that the little ones who 
 form Group I and II make their choice. It is found that 
 they tend to give their whole energies to one subject 
 until they are saturated with it ; thus in the summer 
 term they wanted to act almost the whole time, though 
 on one occasion, anxious to please her mathematically-
 
 140 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 minded form mistress, a child suggested that they should 
 have a box office and take tickets. 
 
 " Then you will have a Uttle bit of arithmetic," she 
 observed to her teacher. This was arranged, and the 
 child, after giving the wrong change, and being helped to 
 correct her mistakes, said with a sigh of rehef, " Now 
 that's over ! " 
 
 This term scarcely one member of Group I has sug- 
 gested acting. Their chief interests are writing stories 
 and handwork. With some children the tending of 
 animals is the chief joy, and many rabbits are kepti 
 For these animals they are absolutely responsible, and 
 in case of neglect the rabbits would be promptly sold. 
 
 The fear that children would be idle under the system 
 of free choice is found to be quite groundless. During the 
 year only two little girls have shown signs of it. But 
 there is a real fear of overstrain on account of their exces- 
 sive eagerness and ceaseless industry. A short rest after 
 dinner is therefore made compulsory, and sometimes a 
 httle girl will be put to bed quite early. 
 
 This fear of overstrain runs through the school, though 
 the elder girls are soon able to understand the rhythmic 
 laws of work and rest, and to take rest when desirable. 
 Two or three elder girls are, however, cormorants for 
 work, and have to be checked. 
 
 The girls each day decide what they want to do. Work- 
 ing so much alone classes become a treat, and are often 
 asked for. Group II, aged about twelve, has already 
 asked for some fixed lessons. They begged for regular 
 arithmetic, grammar, and history lessons, and at the age 
 of about fourteen and a half the girls who hitherto have 
 cared chiefly to be doing begin to be keen about know- 
 ledge, and want quite regular lessons, which are given to 
 them, and they tend to learn in six months what would 
 ordinarily take two years. 
 
 Every girl keeps a log-book, as she calls it, of work done. 
 A specimen of Group I runs as follows :
 
 GERRARD'S CROSS 
 
 141 
 
 ist Period : Read Lives of tJie Hunted. 
 
 2nd ,, Did my book. 
 
 3rd Period : Singing (a fixed lesson, to which she could 
 
 come or not as she wished). 
 4th ,, Did my box. 
 5th „ Ditto. 
 
 After dinner and a rest the girls all have to take some 
 form of exercise. This girl chose games till 
 
 4-30 
 5-15 
 6.0 
 
 Enghsh lesson. 
 
 Practice. 
 
 Free (which means all lessons are over) 
 
 Another specimen — Group II : 
 
 9.0 - 9.40 : Stayed to history. Lesson with a mis- 
 
 9.40-10.20 
 10.20- II. 
 II. -11.30 
 II. 30-12. 10 
 
 tress. 
 English. 
 
 Chose a mathematical lesson. 
 Break, and business with form mistress. 
 Chose to hear about Trojan women which 
 other girls had prepared for their mis- 
 tress. 
 12.10- 12.50 : Worked at music portfolio. 
 2.0 - 2.45 : Aural culture (a fixed lesson). 
 245- 3-30 : Played lacrosse. 
 4.20- 5.15: All Te3.d Westward Ho f together. 
 5.15- 6.0 : Dancing (fixed lesson). 
 
 There are some amusing remarks, e.g. " Tried to draw 
 a calendar all the morning," and on another occasion, 
 " Did odd jobs all the afternoon " : " Acted Henry VIII 
 and all his wives with Miss Edwards." Some girls for 
 nearly a fortnight concentrated all their efforts on a 
 play they were going to act. These plays are got up 
 entirely by the girls, the mistresses only helping if asked 
 for advice. Plays are often got up at extremely short 
 notice. hf^-'-J 
 
 The main difficulty in carrying out this principle of
 
 142 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 free work is the want of space. A great many rooms are 
 wanted where these active Httle people can carry out 
 their projects. 
 
 It must also be difficult sometimes to get the teachers 
 ready to work with the same spirit as their head, and 
 with the knowledge of child-nature as well as the college- 
 acquired subjects, for in this school method is nothing, 
 principle everything. The question each teacher must put 
 to herself is not " What does this child know as compared 
 with last year?" but "How is this child growing up, 
 and what is her increase of power to learn and act ? " 
 
 The school is in the making, the whole aim is con- 
 structive, and the authorities are prepared to give up or 
 postpone cherished projects if they find they do not work ; 
 for instance, on starting the school they expected that the 
 girls would take to farming and gardening, but these occu- 
 pations were entirely neglected at the start. Now in a 
 further stage of development several girls have asked for 
 allotments in order to grow green-stuff for their rabbits, 
 and I saw three girls hard at work on the ground assigned 
 to them. Botany also was almost uniformly rejected by 
 the older girls, who now, however, are eagerly studying 
 biology. 
 
 The girls write long essays, expressing themselves with 
 the greatest frankness. They delight in country excur- 
 sions, and in decorating their rooms, and doing all sorts 
 of art work. One girl had designed a charming peacock 
 pattern which they were going to stencil on their 
 dormitory curtains. The older girls choose their own sub- 
 jects at the beginning of a year, but the days and hours 
 are settled for them. At first this was badly done, but 
 now there is marked improvement. It is impossible to 
 apprise results after only one year's work, but what the 
 head mistress and staff think they can see is that the girls 
 are much noisier and much untidier than in ordinary 
 schools. Here I could not agree. I thought as I went 
 through the class-rooms that the girls were too absorbed
 
 OUTWOOD AND KEARSLEY SCHOOL 14.3 
 
 to be noisy. Their behaviour at dinner-time was quiet 
 and orderly. I heard no unseemly shouting in the passages. 
 
 The second defect noted I am bound to agree with : un 
 tidiness is everywhere rife. This is found also to be a try- 
 ing defect in the community-governing American schools. 
 
 The third difhculty is one that is common to all schemes 
 of self-government, however the term may be interpreted, 
 i.e. the possibility of overstrain from the excitement of 
 congenial work. In the opinion of the staff, however, the 
 difficulty is more than balanced by the lack of nerve- 
 strain and the markedly greater courage of the children. 
 No girl is made in any way responsible for the conduct 
 of other girls — the ideal put before them is that of a 
 healthy community life in which no one can live to herself 
 alone. " My business is to make myself good, and my 
 neighbour happy," is the tone of the school. 
 
 One girl told her people that the life at Malthams' Green 
 was " far harder than in a school where everything is 
 settled for you and you could drift without thinking. To 
 have to decide for yourself means much harder work," 
 and since the ideal put before the girls is that of a healthy 
 community life, in which no one can live to herself alone, 
 there are forty-nine people to rub off the corners of the 
 fiftieth. All teachers felt ahke that there is at Gerrard's 
 Cross a greater sincerity, naturalness and truthfulness 
 than they have known in any other school in which they 
 have taught. 
 
 One element seems wanting to approach the ideal of 
 a large family, and that is the presence of boys. 
 
 Perhaps one day the exactly opposite experiment to that 
 of Bedales may be tried. i\Ir. Badley added girls to a boys' 
 school. Miss Chambers may add boys to her girls' school. 
 
 OuTWOOD AND KeARSLEY COUNCIL SCHOOL 
 
 Many years ago Sir Michael Sadler was speaking on a 
 public platform, and made an interesting prophecy : 
 " The school which our schools of the distant future will
 
 144 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 most resemble," he said, " is that of Tolstoi." Some of 
 us were astonished, for the description of Tolstoi's school 
 had been regarded by many of us as that of an utterly 
 impracticable and impossible form of education. But Sir 
 M. Sadler's prophecy is brought vividly to mind by a visit 
 to a school near Manchester, the Outwood and Kearsley 
 Council School, under the Lancashire County Council. 
 It struck my South-country eyes as a good school building 
 placed in a dreary village beside a hideous and gigantic 
 mill, at which many of the children work as half-timers. 
 I do not know whether the head master, Mr. O'Neill, has 
 studied Bergson's philosophy, but it is impossible to 
 visit the school and not feel that the education carried on 
 there is a conscious or unconscious effort to bring out in 
 each child that " urge " of his being which means the 
 freedom of the individual. The energy of each child is 
 being set free to make his life real. " Change " is recog- 
 nized by Mr. O'Neill to be, as Meredith said, " the law 
 of Hfe," and thus his plans for the School are in such a 
 state of continual flux that any account given of it to-day 
 may be quite inaccurate a few months hence. Still the 
 school is so remarkable that it has brought to the 
 educational authorities of Lancashire such a vision of 
 possibihties for the future that they have decided to let 
 the head master work on almost unhindered for two 
 years. 
 
 The experiment may be described mainly as one in 
 which the energy of the individual is to be released, but 
 it is to be released with the definite object of creating in 
 each child the Christ-like character of helpfulness to his 
 fellow-men and to his country. The motto of the school 
 is " Make England white." The aim is to help the chil- 
 dren to reaUze the kingdom of Heaven that is within 
 them, to teach the children " how to Hve." They are to 
 become " world makers and world shakers." They must 
 leave the school with a desire for service rather than 
 success. How is this to be accompHshed with the children
 
 OUT WOOD AND KEARSLEY 145 
 
 of a district of miserable homes, inadequate for the simplest 
 human needs, with limited bedroom accommodation, no 
 bathroom, most imperfect sanitary arrangements ; all 
 houses alike, with no beauty about them, no gardens, only 
 a few dreary back-yards ? To add to these conditions 
 there is the great mill — " the curse of the neighbourhood," 
 as the head master described it — to which the children are 
 sent as half-timers at the age of twelve, even when, in 
 one case, the father was rich enough to buy himself a 
 motor-car. 
 
 Children Uving in such conditions as these need, 
 according to the head master and his wife, refinement 
 and a sense of beauty, and these will best be brought 
 to them by music and poetry. Hence the prominent 
 place given to singing, dancing to music, and the stress 
 laid on the constant reading aloud and copying of poetry. 
 " Our head master is poetry and music mad," remarked 
 one of his assistant mistresses. 
 
 Such children need also the constant guidance and 
 suggestions of their elders. The best must be constantly 
 put before them, though it may be alongside the vulgar 
 rubbish in which they at first delight, e.g. Comic Cuts, 
 Chuckles, and vulgar post-cards. It is Mr. O'Neill's firm 
 belief that the child left free to choose, but knowing to 
 which side those he loves will incline, learns to love the 
 best presented to him. The child's will to work must be 
 roused, not coerced. He can be helped to make plans for 
 his future, and so the children are taught to look forward 
 at first to plan their work for the next few hours, then for 
 the day, the week, for the term, for their lives. They are 
 invited to make lists of books to read, of articles they 
 would like to make, of actions they would like to carry 
 through. They have mottoes which are constantly 
 changed put up in their class-rooms both by autliorities 
 and by themselves that they may form aims for their 
 future lives. One boy asked leave to print for the school, 
 " To sin is to see the higher and do the lower," a sentence 
 
 10
 
 UG EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 he had once heard one of his teachers use. Another boy, 
 a hard worker but the most backward in his class, hit on 
 the idea of making a motto to put on his desk, and chose, 
 " I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do." 
 
 " Twelve months ago," said the head master, " they 
 would not have accepted guidance. They were so eager 
 to be released from the school yoke under which they 
 laboured that they cared for nothing else, but now they 
 are keenly eager to accept guidance, and just at present 
 that is what we are keen to give them." 
 
 The whole of the ordinary school routine has been cast 
 overboard by Mr. O'Neill. Many various plans have 
 been tried, so that I can only describe that in vogue when 
 I visited the school in October, 1919. 
 
 The first change to strike the eye of the visitor is that 
 the assembly hall has been turned into a kind of reading 
 and writing room. There is a piano in it, tables covered 
 with papers, magazines, and well-filled bookshelves round 
 the walls, besides pictures, an aquarium, and various 
 glass jars containing aquatic treasures. Maps and black- 
 boards are conspicuous by their absence. There was also 
 in a prominent position a little table called the art table, 
 on which were arranged a few well-bound books, some 
 paints and paint-brushes, and on a box in the middle was 
 an apple which a boy was busy drawing. In another 
 part of the room was a little cupboard and counter, the 
 tuck-shop of the place where children bought fruit and 
 sweets, the profits going entirely to the purchase of 
 magazines and papers. 
 
 Lately the plan has been adopted of asking the parents 
 to send articles, such as tea-cakes, parkins, and other home- 
 made good things, as gifts to be sold at the children's shop, 
 and the success has been so great that sometimes as much 
 as ten shillings profit is made in a week. Each class runs 
 the shop in turn. It is open daily at 10.45, and a report 
 of the sale is given in each week to the head master. 
 Another shop is a closed desk in the reading-room,
 
 OUTWOOD AND KEARSLEY 147 
 
 where goods such as pencils, pens, note-books, etc., are 
 sold. This is supervised by the head master. Here there 
 is no profit, every article being sold at cost price, and an 
 arrangement for the easy purchase of books is made 
 called the book club. If sixpence has been paid for a 
 one-shilling-and-sixpenny book the purchaser can have 
 the book, and pay by easy instalments and so on in pro- 
 portion to the value of the book. In consequence of this 
 arrangement the children are gradually amassing libraries 
 of their own. One girl had bought two copies of The 
 Wide Wide World because she Uked it so much that she 
 wanted different editions. One little chap of three 
 belonged to the book club. In this room the books can 
 136 safely left on the shelves, as the elder boys and girls 
 have learned to consult them as required, but for the 
 younger children it is found better to spread the books 
 out on tables so that they arc within perfectly easy reach 
 and can be freely handled. 
 
 When we entered the school reading-room a number 
 of children were spread about the room busily occupied. 
 At one table five or six children were, to our no small 
 astonishment, engrossed with Comic Cuts. The head 
 master explained that he had discovered that the best 
 plan to train taste is to leave the children perfectly free 
 to saturate themselves with such papers as Chuckles, 
 whilst placing within their reach an abundance of good 
 literature beautifully illustrated. The result has been 
 that the two upper classes have ruled out the purchase 
 of comic papers, and the taste for such reading tends to 
 die out earlier and earlier. The readers, I observed, were 
 all little chaps fresh from the infant school, who, being 
 taught on the ordinary class system, come up with the 
 idea that the freedom offered them means nothing but 
 play and amusement, and for a time they are left to 
 themselves, just as the young Tolstoian pupils used to be 
 left, until the desire to do as their elders are doing comes 
 to life and leads them to something better. The head
 
 148 EDUCATIONxVL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 master considers that the earlier the comic paper craze 
 comes on, the more quickly it cures itself. 
 
 Each of the other rooms is in charge of one of the staff, 
 seats and desks are dotted about, and there are big tables 
 covered with books, specimens of work done, and numbers 
 of home-made books, bound with cardboard, containing 
 stories or poetry either written by the young ones or 
 copied by them, and copiously illustrated in various ways, 
 e.g. there was a well-worn copy of The Bandits, The Glass 
 Steps, Father Christmas, The Merry Maiden, and so forth. 
 These books are written for the benefit of other scholars, 
 and are much read. 
 
 The drastic changes in school life are (i) that the classes 
 are quite differently arranged, and (2) that the ordinary 
 time-tables are completely done away Vvith. The classes 
 are mixed as to ages, and as far as possible the teachers 
 choose the children, and the children the teachers, with 
 whom they are most in sympathy. Thus it happens that 
 one assistant master has nearly all older boys. In the 
 other classes one of the teachers has attracted the worst 
 boys in the school, who thought that specially interesting 
 things went on in her class, but found their weaknesses 
 discovered with such ease that they soon began to regret 
 their choice. 
 
 The forty-one infants who came up after the summer 
 were distributed among all tlie classes, eight going to 
 each. The teacher who had previously had the equivalent 
 of Standard II gave some of each of hers to the other 
 classes, keeping fourteen of her old pupils. She then, in 
 common with other teachers, chose from among the other 
 children seven or eight whom she wanted with her, and 
 the children left over chose the class they preferred. If 
 a child is dissatisfied with his choice he can go to the 
 head master and ask to be moved. He will be asked why, 
 and if his reason is that the mistress does not like him, he 
 is told plainly why this is. His failure being made clear 
 to him, he is advised to try again, and come back in two
 
 OUTWOOD AND KEARSLEY 149 
 
 or three weeks' time, and very often the problem solves 
 itself in the interval. Should a teacher happen to be un- 
 sympathetic with any particular child, the head master 
 being convinced after careful observation that matters 
 are not Hkely to mend, deliberately moves him. If a 
 teacher does not want a child who has chosen him, the 
 head master does his best to persuade him to take him 
 but tells the boy why he is not wanted in order that he 
 may mend his ways. 
 
 The doing away with time-tables is met by every child 
 in the school having a certain definite amount of work 
 expected from him, which he may accompUsh when he 
 Hkes during the week. In this he can be helped and guided 
 by his teachers. A record of his work is hung on the wall 
 of the schoolroom and supervised by the master or 
 mistress. The work of each child is carefully watched, and 
 if he fails to carry out his weekly work he has " to endure 
 the bitter tongue," as the head master said ; but this is 
 never followed by the cane, as in the old system, but 
 by forgiveness, kindness, and wise advice. 
 
 Each child keeps a diary of work done. One boy of 
 nearly ten showed me his diary of the preceding week. 
 
 (i) He had written a story two pages long in printed 
 writing, called Father Christmas, and bound it in brown 
 paper. 
 
 (2) Copied out the song, " Nazareth," that he was 
 learning to sing. 
 
 (3) Copied out a poem of Blake's, " The Shepherd." 
 
 (4) Drawn and painted a map of the British Isles. 
 
 (5) Read The Three Woodmen, a story written by an 
 older boy. 
 
 (6) Copied " The Siege of Troy," which he narrated 
 well and eagerly for my benefit. 
 
 (7) For poetry he read Tennyson's " Sir Galahad." 
 
 (8) He drew a bottle in coloured chalks. 
 
 (9) In handwork the seat he was making for himself 
 had been half completed.
 
 150 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 (lo) His twenty sums had been finished. 
 
 (ii) He had finished the book he was writing on Lanca- 
 shire, well illustrated with picture post-cards and cuttings 
 from illustrated papers, and clearly printed. Chapter I : 
 The county. Chapter II : Its position. Chapter III : 
 Surface. Chapter IV : A trip round the coast. This book 
 lay on the table with other geographical productions on 
 Canada, Egypt, the Alps, and so on. 
 
 (12) As one essential part of the week's work he had 
 helped another child with his reading, and 
 
 (13) Had read aloud to another boy. 
 
 Having finished his set work early in the week he had 
 spent the rest of his time in the workshop and in reading 
 various books. He had neglected one duty, that of home 
 reading, but was going to read an extra amount this week 
 of his home book, which was Little Women. 
 
 Two of the oldest boys, who were working by them- 
 selves at their arithmetic in Mr. O'Neill's private room, 
 told me that they were great friends, and ever since Mr. 
 O'Neill came they had been able to work together and 
 help each other. They were both on some of the same 
 committees, the rabbit committee and the refreshment 
 committee being two of them. 
 
 They had only two sums to finish that Friday morning 
 and some drawing to do to complete their week's jobs, 
 and after dinner they expected to do what they called 
 " pleasure history," by which they meant " special " or 
 advanced history, which a class of eight were doing with 
 Mr. O'Neill. It was a book of history courses, they said, 
 which they studied first and then talked over. 
 
 The committees above referred to may be described as 
 " the rage " at the time of my visit. There were thirty 
 or forty organizers. In one class there was an organizer 
 who saw that the tables were tidy, another to see to the 
 booklets, and others whose duties were to arrange the 
 art table, to make the room more beautiful, to see after 
 three windows, shelves, cupboards, desks, the children's
 
 OUTWOOD AND KEARSLEY 151 
 
 records, to rebuke too great noise, and to provide what 
 they called a fairy carpet, that the tiny children might 
 play quietly with their building blocks, large pieces of 
 stray wood cut into a variety of shapes. The children 
 volunteer for their offices at the beginning of each term, 
 and if found to be unsuitable are deprived of them by 
 their class mistress. On coming up from the infant 
 school the Httle boys are found to be inclined to do 
 nothing but build with bricks or blocks. They are left 
 to do this till they tire of it, or till they accept the advice 
 to do something else than build. One boy reported as 
 unusually dull in most ways had made a capital model 
 of an engine on rollers. 
 
 One club is: "The Busy Bee Society," to which 
 twelve children belong who make things for sale to help 
 cripples. Societies for personal proht are stopped by the 
 head master, and when some little girls came up to ask 
 him to allow them to raffle a box full of sewing materials 
 and bright-coloured skeins of silk, and he objected to 
 raffling, they urged that it was for some object other 
 than themselves ; but he told them that he could not allow 
 them to engage in any form of gambling, even for charit- 
 able purposes, and advised them instead to get up a little 
 concert and charge so much for entrance, the box going 
 to the class that sang best, and the proceeds of the concert 
 to the object they had in view. 
 
 Another society proposed the day I was present was 
 that of " The White Englanders," a set of children who 
 wanted to hve more closely in accordance with their 
 school motto, and whilst I was there some children 
 brought the second copy of a school magazine for the 
 head master's approval, having planned and written it 
 entirely themselves. 
 
 A number of presents were already being prepared for 
 the homes at Christmas, and carefully-labelled parcels 
 were accumulating in the head master's private room, 
 but I do not think these were done by any society, but
 
 152 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 as part of the weekly demand that something should be 
 made for others. 
 
 It is somewhat hard to distinguish between hours of 
 work and play in this school. The children are not obliged 
 to go out in play-time. They can if they like stay in and 
 go on with the work and reading, and many choose to 
 do so. The gate between the boys' and girls' playgrounds 
 is left open, and many boys come into the girls' and 
 infants' playground. One big boy was driving a team of 
 little boys, to their evident delight. Others were helping 
 the little ones to attend to their gardens, for some of the 
 asphalted playground has been taken up and made into 
 httle gardens which the children cultivate. 
 
 In the afternoon much dancing and singing went on. 
 About twenty-four girls were thus happily engaged, some 
 eight boys joining in directly the music became especially 
 lively. They danced in accordance with the music. 
 Dancing is not actually taught, but sometimes one of the 
 teachers has danced with them and showed them how to 
 do it. Some of the children bring in movements they 
 have seen outside school, and the children seize hold of 
 any that attract them. The way in which suggestion is 
 frequently used in this school was shown during the dance. 
 " Don't stand in groups, as it is selfish to hinder the 
 dancers." " It's rude to stop and listen to what I am 
 saying." 
 
 A happy party of children danced " The Sleeping 
 Beauty." 
 
 In the woodwork shop a comparatively small number 
 of children were at work. They are caring more at the 
 present moment for reading and poetry than for carpen- 
 tering, perhaps because most of them have now provided 
 themselves with hand-made desks and seats which take 
 the place of the formal school desks. " A poor thing," 
 the child might often say, " but mine own." If these 
 desks survive their owner's school career, they can be 
 purchased for the cost of the material — is. 6d. or 2S. —
 
 OUTWOOD AND KEARSLEY 158 
 
 and taken liomc. It is thus necessary that new desks 
 should be continually suppHed. 
 
 It was especially noticeable that the children frequently 
 worked in couples ; they read together, looked at pictures 
 together, built with blocks together. The freedom to help 
 seemed to be keenly appreciated. 
 
 The love of poetry is very carefully cultivated. If 
 asked to do so, one teacher reads good poems aloud every 
 day, and a large number of children flock to hear her. 
 This leads to much private reading, and I found two girls 
 reading Poems of To-day and The Pageant of English 
 Poetry. One little girl chose Browning's " Star " as very 
 pleasing. Another girl said her favourite poems were 
 " The Lady of Shalott " and " The Musical Instrument." 
 They keep books in which they copy out favourite poems. 
 They care very little as a rule for children's poems, and 
 eagerly read day by day poems from the suggestive list 
 which the head master puts up for them. They none of 
 them seemed to think of learning poetry, so I told them 
 how easy it would be to learn their favourite poems by 
 reading them with concentrated attention once a day. 
 Before I left three letters were written to me on this 
 subject, one of which ran as follows : 
 
 " October 17, 1919. 
 " Dear Madam, 
 
 " Just a few lines to let you know that I will take 
 your advance [sic] of learning poetry. I like poetry very 
 much, I would like to be a poet myself. I like coming 
 to school very much, and I think it is very nice to have 
 all these nice things. I will now close my short letter. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 " A. B." 
 
 The children are encouraged to write letters that have 
 some purpose in them, and often write to their teachers 
 and express their views.
 
 154 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 To check the taste for vulgar picture cards, the head 
 master never forbids their introduction, but expresses 
 his opinion of them freely, and is continually having 
 something better placed before the school. He holds that 
 the best always wins, and has noticed that vulgar cards 
 placed on the shelves tend to disappear speedily. 
 
 It is undoubtedly a wonderful piece of educational 
 work that is being done here. It is experimental all along 
 the line, and success is in many ways attending the 
 efforts made. There is certainly not one idle or ap- 
 parently unhappy child to be seen. The children are very 
 frank and friendly. They seem on excellent terms with 
 their teachers. The whole atmosphere is one of goodwill 
 and of work. The reading and writing are excellent. As 
 to arithmetic, it is the subject that is giving most anxiety 
 at present. Experiments tried have had to be modified 
 or abandoned. The children who have had experience 
 of the subject in other schools hate it, and when free to 
 choose the work, fly from it. At present a certain number 
 of sums is expected to be done weekly. Some children 
 are beginning to care for arithmetic, especially for prac- 
 tical measuring, buying and selling. One boy of twelve, 
 after eight months at this school, during which he avoided 
 sums, has discovered that they are interesting, and put 
 his back into the work. The head master is convinced 
 that in due course arithmetic will take its place beside 
 reading and writing. 
 
 It was interesting to collect the opinion of some of the 
 staff on the " right about face " attitude of the school, for it 
 seems as if the exact opposite of all previous ordinary school 
 plans is the law of action, an attitude of which Rousseau 
 would have approved. Every teacher to whom I spoke 
 agreed that the present plans made teaching far more 
 interesting and led to closer intimacy with each child. 
 They would be unwilling to give them up, but they found 
 the work much more fatiguing, and felt the strain of the 
 constant change of attention required by dealing first
 
 GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL 155 
 
 with one and then another pupil at totally dilieient 
 stages, and perhaps taking different subjects. No doubt 
 these difficulties are but a passing phase. It is far easier 
 to rule as an autocrat than a democrat, and the head 
 master is convinced that in time the teachers will learn 
 to economize their energies. The children themselves felt 
 that they were learning more than under the previous 
 system with a delight that they had never known before. 
 
 It should be borne in mind by the reader that these 
 plans of work had not been in existence twelve months 
 at the time of my visit. 
 
 A Chinese gentleman who visited the school some 
 months after this account was written sums up the dis- 
 tinctive features of the school as follows : " I was greatly 
 struck by the general bearing of the children, with their 
 self-control, their charm of manner, their freedom of 
 demeanour, their distinctive personality, their industry 
 apart from the teacher." 
 
 Girls' High School 
 
 It has not been easy to discover schools in wliich co- 
 operation is put clearly and logically in the place of 
 competition, but I had the good fortune to find one such 
 girls' school of six hundred girls in a large town. The 
 plan has been in operation for about six years, having 
 been started before the war. 
 
 The motto of the school is " Fortis est qui se vincit." 
 
 The aim of the school is that every girl should leave it 
 strong in self-mastery, and with the desire to be the 
 helper of others rather than a seeker after personal 
 success. With this aim in view there are but few rules, 
 and scarcely any supervision either by mistresses or 
 girls. There are no prefects. The sixth form girls are 
 taught to consider themselves helpers, but in no sense 
 rulers. 
 
 Each form elects a representative with whom the 
 sixth form can consult should any difficulty arise, and
 
 15G EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 it is the ambition of these representatives to help in any 
 way they can, but not to rule. They do not even report 
 an offender either to the head mistress or to the sixth 
 form. In order to avoid rigidity, definite pohcy, even 
 tradition, everything is kept more or less fluid, so that 
 change is no difficulty. All that can be done is done to 
 build up in subconsciousness the idea of helpfulness. 
 
 This school is one to which elementary scholars come 
 in great numbers. When they find themselves in a school 
 of the character described, in which the usual punish- 
 ments do not exist, and there are neither prizes, marks, 
 nor place-taking, they think they have arrived at a place 
 of license rather than discipline, and difficulties often 
 arise. Various efforts are made to overcome these 
 difficulties. First there is an explanatory address from 
 the head mistress when the girls enter. Then the form 
 mistresses and the sixth form try to do all they can to 
 shepherd the wild new-comers into the orderly fold by 
 advice and watchful help. 
 
 In order to carry out the ideal of helpfulness very 
 thoroughly, various plans are set on foot. Societies are 
 formed both amongst seniors and juniors, of which a few 
 illustrations may be given. The head mistress writes : 
 " There is a classical society which has two sections : 
 
 " (i) Virgil reading : quite a number of girls and 
 mistresses meet for half an hour every week. Each week, 
 two have practised reading fifty lines, whilst two others 
 have prepared translations. Thus one hundred lines are 
 read each week — the work falling on four members only 
 each week — who may be girls or mistresses, just as it 
 happens. 
 
 " (2) This year the same society has been studying Greek 
 drama in English translation, and they have given two 
 presentations of Greek plays, reading the parts quite 
 simply and explaining any points, such as the plan of the 
 stage or where time has made a big cut necessary. Quite 
 large audiences muster for these. As in all our other
 
 CO-OPERATION 157 
 
 efforts, mistresses and girls take part on absolutely equal 
 footing. 
 
 " Our other societies — historical, hterary, musical, and 
 natural science — are run on similar lines." 
 
 Junior and senior historical expeditions take place, 
 and occasionally there is a gathering of a section of the 
 school for recitation. On one occasion an evening was 
 given by a block of forms, who invited other forms in the 
 literary society. Each form chose a particular subject, 
 such as " The Sea," " Men and Women," " The Month of 
 May," and those who liked learned poems and recited 
 them. One form elected a committee who, with the help 
 of their form mistresses, read as many poems as possible 
 on their chosen subject. They chose the poems they liked 
 and the children to learn them, and thus did their share 
 of the entertainment. There was no rehearsal with the 
 form mistress, but they held a sufficient number of 
 rehearsals on their own account. Songs on the same 
 subject were given by various individual girls, or small 
 sets of girls. 
 
 The head mistress writes : " Our latest effort (rather 
 more than a year old) is in the lessons themselves — here 
 the girls are encouraged to help one another. If a girl 
 gets stuck, say in a sum, she turns either to another girl 
 or to the mistress, just as it happens, and very often two 
 or three girls club together to attack a problem or a stiff 
 piece of translation — then any one of them reproduces 
 it — supposing that is the next move in the lesson. Just 
 the same in the home work, unless they happen to be 
 told that, for some reason, quite independent work is 
 desired. Or if it happens that a lesson is rather (or very) 
 imperfectly known — sometimes a little time is given the 
 girls, and the better ones coach the weaker ones hard so 
 that a better show may be made before the lesson is done. 
 I feel this sort of thing is a tremendous help against the 
 danger of the individualistic outlook. Among the 3'ounger 
 ones a form sometimes invites another, irj one of tlic
 
 158 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 regular lesson hours, to a little performance, a dramatized 
 story or perhaps a little French play. But this is never 
 allowed to become a regular event. There has to be 
 a real desire for it and something worth seeing to be 
 offered." 
 
 Lest the various subjects should get into water-tight 
 compartments, and each teacher work independently 
 of the others, a plan has lately been adopted of voluntary 
 evenings among the staff in the winter, when a teacher 
 reads a paper on her aims as regards the teaching of 
 English, science, French, or whatever it may be, and a 
 discussion is held. About four or five such meetings 
 were held last winter, and were very well attended. They 
 began at five o'clock, and proved of such interest that the 
 members sometimes failed to separate until eight or nine 
 o'clock. The unifying effect was very marked. 
 
 There are school " Houses," consisting of sets of girls, 
 about one hundred each. But these are not primarily 
 for games or competition, but because the school is too 
 large for all the big girls to know all the little ones, and 
 so it becomes the first duty of every " House " that its 
 members should know one another. Each " House " 
 elects a captain who remains in charge for one year, and 
 who has a committee of six girls chosen by the " House " 
 to work with her towards the desired aim of making the 
 " House " like one big family. The plans adopted in the 
 " Houses " are not yet considered by any means perfect. 
 The bond has proved itself too artificial. The difficulty 
 does not he either with the elder girls or the Httle ones, 
 but " House " interest is hard to arouse among the middle 
 form girls — who form an apathetic block. It is thought 
 that this difficulty may be, in some measure, met by 
 putting new girls from the same locaUty into the same 
 " Houses." 
 
 The " House " members together have an autumn party 
 to welcome the new-comers, and a picnic in the summer, 
 but other activities depend on the really effective wish of
 
 GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL 159 
 
 the whole " House." Though " Houses " play each other in 
 
 matches, they do not play for a cup or other reward. All 
 rivalry is minimized. 
 
 No mistress is ever in charge of a " House," but each 
 mistress belongs to one. 
 
 Each " House " has its notice-board, on wliich its own 
 notices are put. Suggestions thus made are free to be 
 followed by other " Houses." No change of " House " 
 is ever allowed. Sisters are always put in the same 
 " House," partly on account of the convenience in the 
 home of the girls having the same engagements and 
 going to and fro together, and partly in order to prevent 
 the least danger of division between the sisters. 
 
 It is hoped that the increase of friendliness on account 
 of these plans will prove one of the most satisfactory 
 results of the experiment. Perhaps the most striking 
 features of this school is the co-operation between the 
 teachers and the pupils. 
 
 Co-operation is promoted in various ways in the school 
 whose federal government has already been described. 
 
 From time to time the head mistress has a prefects' tea, 
 during which she discusses school matters, first with the 
 prefects alone, and then with the prefects and three 
 representatives of the staff. Tea is provided for the 
 staff every day by the school management, and twice a 
 week it is served in the head mistress's room, in order to 
 promote closer union between all workers. 
 
 One very satisfactory means of helping old girls to 
 remain in touch with the head mistress and the staff is 
 the institution of an " Old Girls' Room," well furnished, 
 and supplied with tea-things and tea-trays. The members 
 of the Old Girls' Club can come here, and invite the head 
 mistress or any member of the staff, or their friends among 
 girls still at school, to join them. Members of the staff 
 after seven years' service in the school can join the club. 
 
 There is also a dramatic society and a guild of charity,
 
 IGO EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 which consists of past and present members of the school, 
 and altogether the old girls may be regarded as an element 
 of help and strength in the school. 
 
 A plan that is gaining ground in various schools is 
 that of substituting a weekly record of form instead of 
 individual progress. The individual marks may be given 
 to the children or not according to the discretion of the 
 teacher. There need be no difficulty in letting the children 
 do different work, as whatever is done well will contribute 
 to the record of the class. Each child can be judged on 
 his or her own merits. A dull child who excels himself by 
 taking great pains can be considered as doing very good 
 work and so help to keep up the standard of the form, 
 whilst the clever child doing careless work can be counted 
 as " poor." The relation between the power of the 
 individual to help the class, and the work done can be 
 kept constantly in mind. 
 
 In the specimen chart here reproduced it is considered 
 that sixty per cent is good, and it is the aim of each form 
 never to sink below that percentage. Each term the 
 form with its new members begins where the old one 
 leaves off. 
 
 This plan very much resembles that adopted by Mr. 
 Simpson in An Adventure in Education,^ and is a develop- 
 ment of a plan adopted at the Chiswick Co-educational 
 School from 1886 onwards. 
 
 School Experiments in Social Life 
 At a school closely connected with Mr. Rowntree's 
 works, the head master, Mr. Kay, is endeavouring to 
 promote social life, and to lay the foundation of interests 
 which will give the boys and girls wholesome occupations 
 for their leisure hours. He obtains leave from the York 
 City Education Committee and H.M. Inspectors to take 
 sixty of his boys and girls in the summer term to the 
 
 * Published by Sidgwick and Jackson, 3s. 6d,
 
 GRAPH SHOWING FORM STANDARD AT END OF 
 EACH WEEK 
 
 Percentage 
 76 
 
 72 
 
 68 
 
 64. 
 60 
 56 
 52 
 48 
 44 
 40 
 
 FORM STANDARD 
 
 
 MayS'^f 12^ 19^ ee"- JuneZ""^ 9^^ leV^ 23"^ SO*!' 
 
 One Week. Class of io Children. 
 6 excellents . . . 6xio = 6o 
 
 10 very goods 
 8 goods 
 6 very fairs 
 3 fairs 
 I poor 
 
 34 
 
 Form standard 65% 
 Remarks. 
 Fair counts as 3 ; Very Fair, 4 ; Good, 6; Very Good, 8 ; Excellent 10. 
 
 10x8 
 
 8X6 
 6x4 
 3X3 
 
 =-- 80 
 = 48 
 = 24 
 = 9 
 
 
 34)2210(65% 
 170 
 
 Above 45%, Very Fair; 60%, Good; 75%, Very Good.
 
 162 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Guest House, Scalby, near Scarborough, which belongs to 
 the adult school movement. The children begin to save 
 up for this trip in January, and those who are willing to 
 work as well as play and who can afford the expense are 
 enrolled. The teachers who go to help to see after the 
 children pay their own expenses, which come in all to 
 about £2 IDS. 
 
 Mr. Kay's aim is, first, to give a week's open-air educa- 
 tion in as different a district to their own as possible ; 
 to let the spirit of moor and hill and sea enter into the 
 children's souls. Their work is a study of their historical, 
 archaeological, zoological, botanical, and geological sur- 
 roundings, different subjects being taken up in accordance 
 with individual interests. His other aim is a week's 
 communal life, in which teachers and scholars aUke 
 share. There is no question of good conduct to ensure the 
 week's joy. The sun is allowed to shine on both the evil 
 and the good. 
 
 During the war a scholars' association was formed for 
 both boys and girls. The head master is convinced that 
 the way to introduce classes for study is by beginning 
 with entertainments, so there was a social gathering once 
 a month in the winter, when they would have a sing-song, 
 or indoor games such as musical chairs, dancing or 
 recitation. In the second winter the head master offered 
 a singing class, which was accepted, and weekly classes 
 in other subjects followed. 
 
 For the last two winters four classes have been going 
 on, singing and needlework for the girls, gymnastics 
 and woodwork for the boys, the Vv^ishes of the young 
 people themselves being carried out. These comparatively 
 recreative classes are leading to more serious study, and 
 next winter it is hoped that classes in connection with the 
 Workers' Educational Association will be held, and a 
 dramatic club started for both sexes. In all these efforts the 
 old boys back from the front give ready assistance. The 
 school kept in touch with them throughout the war by
 
 ARUNDALE SCHOOL 1G3 
 
 sending parcels and writing letters, and those who have 
 returned in safety come back to their old school for 
 social evenings and are keen to help in every possible way. 
 They helped to start a morris dancing class in the summer 
 and to organize rambles and cycle runs. They also helped 
 to arrange for a weekly club for cards, darts, bagatelle, 
 quoits, chess, backgammon, draughts, dominoes, and 
 nine men's morris. The teachers at first gave voluntary 
 help, but last winter the Education Committee became 
 so convinced of the value of the work being done that it 
 now gives a salary to all who are willing to give their 
 services. 
 
 Once a year there is a parents' day, when all are invited 
 to come and inspect their children's ordinary work ; 
 and a scheme is on foot to invite the parents of those 
 children who are leaving to meet them at the end of each 
 term, and to get some good speaker to talk to them all. 
 
 The relations between the parents and the school are 
 very happy ones. Parents never hesitate to come and 
 consult the head master as a friend in any difficulty that 
 may arise with their children. 
 
 Social Service 
 
 The Arundale School, Letchworth, already mentioned 
 under community government, sets before itself, first and 
 foremost, the ideal of service. Hence all the ordinary 
 competitive methods are conspicuous by their absence. 
 There are no prizes, and no place-taking. The reward for 
 marked progress or exceptional talent is the privilege of 
 helping those who are less fortunate. Every unusual 
 power in a child is carefully noted, and encouraged as a 
 gift that he or she will be able to contribute to society. 
 No competitive school examinations take place. 
 
 The most important rule in the school is one against 
 gossip. Each pupil is provided with a card printed by 
 some of his comrades in which he is advised to have in 
 view the help instead of the hindrance of others by neither
 
 164 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 speaking, writing, nor thinking evil of them, and gossip 
 which is defined as " idle talk which helps no one " is to 
 be left " utterly alone." The contents of the " gossip 
 card " are constantly repeated to the children, and 
 quoted by their teachers. Above all that gossip is con- 
 demned which is liable to spring up in a co-education 
 school, about boy and girl friendships. On one occasion a 
 boy who, after a first warning, repeated his mockery of a 
 pair of comrades of opposite sex, was sent away from the 
 school for a term. This drastic treatment made a deep 
 impression on the community, as indeed has the rule 
 about gossip. The head girl told me that she was certain 
 that when an assistant master became engaged to a 
 visiting teacher, not a gossiping word was exchanged 
 between the pupils. 
 
 Even quite little ones check gossip. At one dining- 
 table a small boy began, " I think Jack's just horrid 
 
 to " " I say," exclaimed another little chap, " Isn't 
 
 that gossip ? " " Oh ! so it is," said the first speaker, 
 leaving his sentence unfinished. 
 
 It is held that there are no punishments, but " if a 
 child refuses to attend and behaves in such a way as to 
 disturb the work of the other members of the class, he 
 will be asked to withdraw from the lesson and do some- 
 thing more congenial to himself, for the classroom must 
 be a place of quiet and order." 
 
 There may seem to be some danger of priggishness 
 and too much self-reflection. There is perhaps some- 
 thing artificial in the repetition of a formula about gossip, 
 but in the hands of an enthusiast much that may seem 
 stilted or authoritative to the outsider fulfils its purpose. 
 
 Religious Life 
 
 The religious life in the schools of the Theosophical 
 
 Trust is very carefully thought out. No tenets are forced 
 
 on any pupils, and those pupils whose parents wish them 
 
 to attend special services in the town are allowed to do
 
 ARUNDALE SCHOOL 166 
 
 so, but at any rate at the Arundale School it is distinctly 
 understood that when questions arise in class which 
 touch on theosophical doctrine they will be treated from 
 the theosophical standpoint, whilst at the same time the 
 true importance of tolerance is carefully impressed. 
 
 The head master writes : 
 
 " Our staff are not all theosophists, so that questions 
 arising in class which may be much iUuminated by a 
 theosophical treatment do not necessarily receive any 
 such treatment, though I always tell parents that 
 children coming here are bound to come up against the 
 theosophical point of view, both in and out of class. But 
 the chief point we lay great stress on is ' tolerance.' " 
 
 The scholars, of whatever creed, are expected, though 
 net forced, to attend the school service at lo a.m. on 
 Sundays. It is a very simple service held in the gym- 
 nasium, and not lasting more than forty minutes. On 
 the occasion on which I was present, the head master 
 played a piece of music to the congregation, which was 
 seated in a semicircle on the floor or on chairs. This was 
 followed by a hymn, a reading of a chapter in the Bible 
 by one of the girls, a part song, a repetition of the rule 
 against gossip, the singing of Blake's " Jerusalem," a 
 meditation on a passage read three times by the head 
 master, a short address by the \4sitor at the request of 
 the school, and the service closed with another hymn. 
 The meditation was the most interesting part of the 
 service, owing to the intense absorption of the children. It 
 lasted scarcely more than two minutes, but there was 
 the most perfect stillness, and an atmosphere ot peace 
 and calm seemed to pervade the room. I was told by 
 one of the pupils that the scholars would not miss it on 
 any account. 
 
 One very interesting development is the proposal that 
 was made last autumn by some of the older girls that 
 the scholars might hold an evening service in the gym- 
 nasium arranged exactly as they wished to have it
 
 166 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 themselves. This idea was initiated by the girls, and 
 the service has only once, so far, been conducted by 
 a boy. 
 
 The ser\T.ces are arranged in four groups to suit different 
 classes of worshippers, and each has its own special 
 colour — blue for devotion, crimson for affection, green 
 for sympathy, and yellow for intellect. The point in 
 common with all the services is that a beautiful photo- 
 graph of a picture of Christ is introduced. This is placed 
 on a table draped with the colour chosen for the occasion. 
 The services differ according to the views of their 
 compiler in the amount of symbolism and ceremonial 
 introduced. 
 
 The candles necessary to light the building may be 
 arranged to suggest some special meaning ; flowers may 
 be introduced, and even incense. There is sometimes 
 instrumental music, but at present there is no singing. 
 This is because singing used not to be at all good in the 
 school. I was assured that as soon as ever they could 
 sing at all well, hymns would be introduced. The service 
 consists of a reading from more or less theological, de- 
 votional or social writings, not necessarily from the Bible, 
 but carefully chosen ; a prayer ; an invocation ; and, 
 most important of all, a meditation based on some beau- 
 tiful passage selected by the compiler. Sometimes the 
 leader of the service gives a few words of explanation on 
 the words chosen for meditation, and sometimes the girls 
 themselves write the invocation or prayer. The congre- 
 gation varies considerably in numbers, but there are 
 generally more girls than boys. It is seldom that big 
 boys attend, though one was the compiler of the intel- 
 lectual service. These services were originally designed 
 to be a real help in the daily hfe of the school, and their 
 originator felt quite sure that they were fulfiUing their 
 function. Those who came from mere curiosity either 
 came again because they hked the services or stayed away. 
 There has never been the slightest irreverence or sense of
 
 GERRARD'S CROSS 1G7 
 
 boredom. The congregation sits on the floor in a semi- 
 circle. The head master has a free invitation to attend 
 the services, but is careful not to do so very often lest 
 the children should consider him as a necessar}' part of it. 
 Mrs. Leyton and the assistant masters and mistresses are 
 sometimes invited. The service lasts about ten or fifteen 
 minutes. 
 
 In the opinion of the head master these services lead 
 neither to priggishness nor to sentimentaUty, but are the 
 outward expression of an inward need. They have been 
 started entirely by girls belonging to theosophical 
 famihes, but are attended by children whose home folks 
 belong to other forms of religion. 
 
 At the school at Gerrard's Cross morning prayers are 
 conducted by the head mistress just before school begins. 
 Attendance is voluntary. Scripture is taught regularly, 
 but the girls are not forced to attend the lesson. No 
 doctrinal instruction is given, and no one church put 
 before another. 
 
 If parents wish their daughters to attend church, or 
 the girls wish to go themselves, they go every Sunday, 
 but without escort. A wish was expressed by some of 
 the girls that they might arrange their own peace cele- 
 bration service. They asked for " lots of hymns and no 
 prayers and the story of Daniel." 
 
 This gave rise to a Sunday evening service of their 
 own. At this service prayers are read, usually from 
 Robert Louis Stevenson's book of prayers. A great many 
 hymns are sung, Miss Chambers reads something she has 
 herself chosen, and they wind up with music. So far no 
 girl has ever suggested having a quiet time of silence 
 during a service, as in some other schools. 
 
 At St. George's, Harpenden, a school of about two 
 hundred boys and girls, the school may be said to centre 
 round the chapel services, about which the pupils are
 
 168 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 always at liberty to make suggestions. On one occasion 
 I was present when a small boy ran up to the head master 
 to ask if they might have a particular hymn at the evening 
 service. The rigid order of the Church of England is not 
 adhered to, the head master rearranges the services in a 
 way better suited for children. The Lord's Prayer is 
 only used once. There is an advisory body or committee 
 consisting of staff and pupils. This committee takes 
 charge of the services and asks to have special services 
 or to diminish the number as they think fit. Most forms 
 have a day in the week on which they choose hymns, 
 reading, and the subject of the prayers, and sometimes 
 they compose the prayers themselves. On one occasion 
 the service sent in by the third class (aged about eleven 
 or twelve) was as follows : 
 
 Hymn : " We are but Httle children weak." 
 
 Reading : " The story of the Creation." 
 
 Prayers : " That we should not be disagreeable to each 
 other in the form. That we should remember how im- 
 portant it is to be clean. That we should behave ourselves 
 so that people are pleased to have us there. For poor 
 children. For the new Bishop of St. Albans." 
 
 Prayers for the birds in winter became so frequent that 
 the head master felt bound to suggest that in such mild 
 weather the birds were not suffering. 
 
 Boy prefects who offer to do so read the lessons on 
 Sunday. The head master raises no objection to the 
 girls reading, but they are not as yet prepared to offer 
 to do so. When chapel processions were first started the 
 girls especially begged that they need not join, but in 
 1918 they expressed a wish to do so, and their wish was 
 granted. 
 
 No layman (except as the " deputation " of a mission 
 or charity) and no woman has ever been invited to preach 
 in the chapel, but the second master, an ordained Non- 
 conformist, sometimes gives a sermon, and the head 
 master has made it known that he would gladly consider
 
 ST. GEORGE'S, HARPENDEN 169 
 
 any offer to speak or read by any member of the staff of 
 either sex.^ 
 
 All the talent that can be utilized in the school is 
 brought to bear on the chapel. The greatest honour 
 for a wood-carver is to design and execute one 
 of the chapel panels. The weavers and embroiderers 
 are entrusted with altar cloths or mats if their work 
 attains genuine proficiency. It is to old boys that the 
 chapel is indebted for the decoration of reredos, of 
 memorials of old boys fallen in the war, and of a stained 
 glass window. 
 
 The head master, after twenty years of Scripture teach- 
 ing, in which he has always felt that the attention given 
 and interest shown was rather from dutiful feeling than 
 genuine delight, has started an entirely new method of 
 dcaUng with his lessons. He gives a preliminary discourse 
 in which he shows that his proposal is to deal with the 
 Bible as a history of the effort of the human spirit to 
 explore its spiritual environment, to obtain an answer 
 to the three eternal questions of that spirit : Whence ? 
 Why ? Whither ? 
 
 He takes the various stages exhibited in the Bible of the 
 different ideas of God, and regards the position of the 
 Israelites as that of explorers or adventurers in the 
 spiritual world. 
 
 Every Wednesday morning in chapel a lecture on 
 these lines is given to the pupils, each of whom is supplied 
 with a printed summary, with the help of which, and of 
 his or her own notes, and of the head of the form, he or 
 she at once reproduces the discourse. The Scripture 
 lesson of the week consists entirely of questions asked 
 by members of the form and of difficulties expressed and 
 grappled with. The younger the class the more numerous 
 are the questions, and the best results have been obtained 
 in the fourth form. In the lower school the Psalms were 
 
 * Since the above was written Miss Royden has been invited to 
 preach in the chapel.
 
 170 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 being taken. Throughout the whole school the interest 
 has been most lively, quite a different matter to the 
 politely forced interest of the past. 
 
 At Chalice Well, Glastonbury, Miss Alice Buckton, the 
 author of Eager Heart, a Christian Mystery play, started 
 in pre-war days various schemes which had for their object 
 the introduction of greater happiness, a closer fellowship, 
 and more sincere religion into village life. 
 
 Some of these schemes have been given up under the 
 stress of difficulties caused by the war, and some were 
 found unsuitable, but now that the war is over fresh plans 
 are being devised of which a short account may be given. 
 
 It is especially by means of the Mystery drama that 
 Miss Buckton hopes to do her share in raising the tone of 
 village life. With her strong conviction that the family 
 life is, and should always remain, the unit of the State, she 
 seeks some means whereby the family may be closely 
 drawn together, unconsciously educating one another, 
 and she finds it in the Mystery play in which not only can 
 every member of the family act and find delight, but all 
 ages and both sexes are being educated together, whether 
 as actors or spectators. The difficulty lies in the right 
 introduction of suitable plays into our villages, so Miss 
 Buckton proposes to train well-educated young men and 
 women to become organizers of the play element ready 
 to work with any association that may desire their services 
 in villages, or town parishes, in the hope that such 
 dramatic clubs as they may be able to form will help to 
 unify the life of such places, strengthening family ties, 
 breaking down class distinctions, bringing together every 
 type of rehgion, and above all subconsciously calling to 
 vivid life the natural religious tendency of old and young. 
 
 The young people who come forward to be trained will 
 be expected to master crafts that are needed to establish 
 a play centre in the village. They must be able to deal 
 with rough scenery, to help put up a stage, if none exists,
 
 GLASTONBURY 171 
 
 and to arrange costumes. They are also instructed and 
 practised in the art of play-writing. 
 
 The kind of work that can be done in a village is 
 Illustrated in Glastonbury itself. For several years " The 
 Glastonbury and Street Guild of Festival Players " has 
 been in existence. It is made up almost entirely of the 
 village people without class distinction, and a great 
 many working-people belong to it, among whom remark- 
 able musical talent and power of acting has been dis- 
 covered. In the grounds of Chalice Well there happens 
 to exist a natural amphitheatre which it is proposed to 
 turn into an open-air theatre where Mystery plays can 
 frequently be given. The Guild, in spite of the war, gave 
 five or six plays between 1914-1919, to the great satis- 
 faction of the village in general. The spirit in which these 
 plays are given is that of a deep reverence for the past, 
 instilled by use of legends in which a store-house of material 
 is to be found, and an earnest looking-forward to the 
 future of our human life. 
 
 The origin of the Mystery plays written at Glastonbury 
 is often to be found in simple Sunday addresses to or 
 talks with adults and children together, the spirit of which 
 is unification and brotherhood. It was in this way that 
 The Dawn of Day was written. 
 
 There are various clubs to meet the needs of different 
 sections of the community. For adults, both men and 
 women, there is " The Pilgrims' Club," which knows no 
 distinction of class. Its purpose is to hold debates on 
 topics of the day, and to go together on archaeological 
 excursions. About eighty men and women belong to it, 
 and an excellent discussion was held under the auspices 
 of the League of Nations Union. There is also the 
 girls' club, out of which the Girl Guides have sprung, 
 backed by the Y.W.C.A. Girls are admitted to this club 
 when twelve years of age. A boys' club is about to be 
 started from which woodcraft or scouting may develop. 
 
 When any good musicians happen to be staying at the
 
 172 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Chalice Well hostel, an informal Sunday concert is 
 arranged for the village folk in the chapel or refectory. 
 Every visitor likely to be of value is turned to use for 
 Glastonbury. 
 
 A book-shop which avoids the sale of rubbish has been 
 instituted, where native objects of art are sold as well 
 as books, and where from time to time little exhibitions 
 of pictures on loan or carved woodwork are given. A 
 small fee is charged for entrance, and a penny admits to 
 the reading-room at certain hours every day except 
 Sunday and one other day. 
 
 The bequest of a young officer of his own private library 
 for the use of the youth of Glastonbury has led to the 
 establishment of a library of several hundred books. 
 
 Miss Buckton's aim is to help forward this kind of 
 work throughout England in co-operation with county 
 and borough authorities, the Workers' Educational 
 Association, the Society for Regional Survey, the 
 Agricultural Association, the Land Army, the Women's 
 Co-operative Guild, the Settlements for Social Work, and 
 all village institutes. Such a list of societies as this 
 shows how thought and action are astir. Amongst all 
 these. Chalice Well stands especially for the Mystery 
 play and its effect on the religious life of the people 
 quite independently of creed. 
 
 In Bristol, a socialistic Sunday school of some fifty or 
 sixty children, from six to fifteen, has existed for a little 
 over a year. Its leader, Mrs. Townley, is working it on a 
 communal basis. The view of socialism presented to the 
 children is that it " means faith in the brotherhood and 
 the comradeship of man." " It points to a time when 
 there will be no more strife of man against man, or of 
 nation against nation." " Men will one day be brothers, 
 and to do good for good's sake, without hope of reward, 
 will be their religion." The aim of the school is to make 
 children realize the need of social responsibility by estab-
 
 BRISTOL SUNDAY SCHOOL 173 
 
 lishing a community of school members acting towards 
 one another as members of a large and loving family. 
 
 The school is self-governed and self-d(!termined. It 
 has a president, secretary (who is a senior), roll-call 
 secretary, and minute secretary (who are, so far, always 
 juniors). The election of new officers was held at the first 
 annual meeting. Mrs. Townley and several others, 
 among them a boy in the school, were nominated for the 
 office of president. Mrs. Townley allowed her nomination 
 to stand as she said the school was still a baby and only 
 learning to walk, but she hoped at the next election her 
 place would be taken by one of the elder boys or girls. 
 Boys and girls were elected for the other offices. The 
 election was conducted in excellent order, and in 
 thoroughly business-Uke style. The school is divided 
 into live classes, taught by volunteers, men and women. 
 On assembling all stand, and the whole school recites in 
 chorus the opening words, as follows : " ' Love ' ! we give 
 ourselves to thee. May we live in thy spirit all this day, 
 in our work and in our play, in our joy and in our sorrow. 
 Wherever we are and whatever we do, may we live in thy 
 spirit all this day till the shadows of evening fall about us. 
 * Love ' ! we give ourselves wholly to thee, now and for 
 ever." After this a hymn is sung, chosen always by the chil- 
 dren themselves from the socialistic Sunday school hymn- 
 book, specially arranged to be " non-theological and 
 exclusively concerned with the spiritual and social 
 aspiration of the human race in regard to daily Ufe and 
 conduct." Like all hymn-books, it contains a good deal 
 of doggerel, but some fine verses by William Morris, 
 Dr. F. Adler, Edward Carpenter, Whittier, Lowell, and 
 others. It would be interesting to find out which hymns 
 most appeal to the children. 
 
 After the hymn has been sung the junior classes usually 
 have fairy tales read or told to them. The senior classes 
 have biographies on subjects connected with social or 
 icivic questions, e.g. on one occasion the senior girls were
 
 174 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 asked to come the following Sunday prepared with ideas 
 about municipal elections. They were to consider what 
 a municipal election is ; how it affects girls and women in 
 homes, factories, or schools, and were told that further 
 information and instruction would be given to them. 
 They had already heard of various celebrated women 
 who had done good service, and one girl asked to be told 
 about Annie Besant. The senior boys are dealing with 
 the question of land, and the economic structure of society 
 generally, and are about to begin the study of W. Morris's 
 News from Nowhere. Great interest is taken by the 
 different classes in their work. 
 
 The school closes with another song, and the closing 
 words of school are recited in chorus : " We have met in 
 love ; we now part in love. May nothing of ours that is 
 unworthy stain the purity or spoil the sweetness of this 
 good day, and may the time till we meet again be nobly 
 spent in building up the walls and setting up the gates 
 of the City of the Heart." 
 
 Each pupil is presented with a copy of Social Precepts, 
 which set forth the hope of a future reign of love and 
 fellowship. With one or two of these some exception 
 might be taken, though in all probabiHty it is the fault 
 of the wording rather than the sentiment expressed. 
 
 Two examples of the way in which the school com- 
 munity is helped to regard itself as one family may bC' 
 mentioned. To every child on his or her birthday is; 
 presented a well-designed and engraved birthday cardiji 
 That for 1919 has the picture of a group of children! 
 looking towards the dawn, and the words : 
 
 Be as the light of morning, 
 
 Like the beauteous dawn unfold. 
 
 With your radiant lives adorning 
 All the world in hues of gold. 
 
 Thaw the hearts that now are frozen. 
 Thaw them with the rays of love : 
 
 Know the task that you have chosen 
 Shall be blest all else above.
 
 BRISTOL SUNDAY SCHOOL 175 
 
 On the " open day," which is held the first Sunday in 
 every month, the school welcomed a baby which was 
 brought by its mother. It was the first baby that had 
 been " named " in the school just a year before, and the 
 whole company of some sixty or eighty people acted 
 towards it as though they were all friendly relations 
 anxious to see it and hear it say such words as it could. 
 The impression made on tliose present at this open day 
 was that a wonderfully wholesome atmosphere had been 
 created in which the children throve. There was a spirit 
 of genuine comradeship and no disorder, the biggest boj^s 
 quiet and interested. 
 
 On these " open days " all parents and friends of 
 the children are perfectly free to come. On the occasion 
 noted the whole school assembled together, and after 
 reciting the opening words, and having read the 
 minutes of the last meeting, the president invited 
 volunteers to come forward. Quite a number of 
 children responded to the appeal and came forward 
 in turn to sing, recite, or narrate. This was done with 
 great naturalness and freedom from self-consciousness, 
 and there was scarcely any hesitation due to nervous- 
 ness. On the last Sunday in the month the scholars are 
 reminded that the next Sunday will be " Open Day," 
 and are asked to say how many are willing to help, but 
 no programme is arranged beforehand, nor is there any 
 special coaching. 
 
 It is interesting to note that though there is in this 
 school a definite strong leadership, there is no assumption 
 of authority. The president is just a member of the 
 community chosen as leader, and she spoke always as 
 one of these members, never as an arbitrary com- 
 mander ; but her slightest suggestion that work would 
 be done better if done more quietly, or that closer 
 attention to business was required, met with a ready 
 response.
 
 17G EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 This Bristol school is still in its infancy, but there are 
 about one hundred such schools as this in Great Britain, 
 and in all probability the movement will spread still 
 more in the country.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 PRESENT-DAY EXPERIMENTS— continued 
 
 Union between Parents and School 
 
 ONE of the elementary schools in which co- 
 operation with parents is being carefully fostered 
 is the open-air school for normal children at 
 New Earswick, York. 
 
 The head master is very anxious that there should be 
 closer co-operation between the school and the parents, 
 who in this suburb of York are chiefly clerks or higher 
 grade employees. He finds, however, great difficulty in 
 getting the parents really into close touch with the school. 
 They are allowed to visit the school as often as they like, 
 but, unfortunately, the spirit in which they come is too 
 often that of fault-finding, and the attempt to give them 
 simple talks on the various problems relating to school 
 life and to get them to give their opinion on them failed. 
 Still there are signs of progress towards a psychological 
 attitude of mind. Thus many parents who at first thought 
 gardening a most unnecessary subject for those who were 
 not going to be gardeners, have now come round to con- 
 sider it a valuable training for all. In this school, garden- 
 ing has developed side by side with nature study and 
 science, and is universally popular. 
 
 The parents are not willing to accept the head master's 
 opinion that they should take a definite share in the dis- 
 cipline of their offspring while at school by coming to 
 some understanding as to methods and aims of punish- 
 ment. Consequently there is a lack of unity in the system 
 upon which the moral training of the children is based. 
 12 177
 
 178 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 The school tries to bring the influence of the parent to 
 bear upon the child's conduct in class or playground. 
 When little faults arise the offender's class teacher, if he 
 has any reason to think that the parent will be sympa- 
 thetic, visits the home in order to take counsel with the 
 parents as to remedies. If the fault is serious, the head 
 master sees the parents. In no case is the cane used. 
 The children are frankly told that their parents will be 
 consulted in cases of misconduct. 
 
 Another effort to promote a closer union between the 
 school and home is to have lectures or conferences in 
 connection with the Women's Guild which exists in the 
 village. In these there is a growing interest, but the work 
 needs to be more regular and systematic. Co-operation 
 between the head master and the staff is earnestly pro- 
 moted. All possible freedom is given to each assistant 
 teacher to carry out his or her plans, union of aim being 
 kept in mind by the frequent discussions on educational 
 problems. 
 
 The head master and his staff have worked out together 
 a method of classifying types of ability according to Mr. 
 Cyril Burt's suggestions, in order to discover the weakness 
 of each member of the class. Each teacher pays special 
 attention to the weakness thus discovered, leaving the 
 brighter scholars to work a great deal by themselves in 
 their strong subjects, and often to help the weaker 
 members, through co-operative study. 
 
 In the opinion of the head master and staff the form 
 of co-operation most needed in the schools of to-day is 
 that between the schools and the inspectors. The head 
 master writes : " Too often the inspector is looked upon 
 as a person from whom faults must be hidden, and before 
 whom good points are to be paraded and even magnified. 
 This attitude is quite a wrong one. The fault is on both 
 sides, for inspectors must find it extremely difficult to 
 help teachers, when important matters of fact are with- 
 held or given grudgingly, or only after pressure."
 
 SCHOOL AND PARENTS 179 
 
 Relation with Parents 
 
 At a large girls' secondary school at Huddersfield, 
 Miss Chambers made successful experiments to bring the 
 parents into close connection with school life. Her convic- 
 tion is strong that no school can really prosper unless it 
 succeeds in utilizing the wonderful force of parental love 
 which is acting unceasingly on the child, but which greatly 
 needs to be combined with the scientific knowledge and 
 experience of the teacher, through whose hands hundreds 
 of different kinds of children have passed. Failures in 
 our schools are often due, she maintains, to the lack of 
 this union between schools and parents. 
 
 There were four arrangements that proved a great help 
 in the working of educational schemes, (i) No child was 
 admitted over the age of twelve — preferably at eleven. 
 (2) Every girl was bound to stay four years with the option 
 of a fifth year, which was almost always taken. (3) No 
 pupils were admitted except in September, (4) Every 
 girl was medically examined before entering, and kept 
 under medical surveillance throughout her career. The 
 first step taken to get into close touch with the parents 
 was to know the two hundred and thirty-five children 
 well, so the head mistress scarcely taught at all, but had 
 every child sent to her for the slightest matters, whether 
 for praise or blame, or any kind of advice. She talked to 
 them in a friendly way about their interests and their 
 homes, and got to be on very intimate terms with them, 
 so that when meeting the parents she knew something of 
 every child. It might even seem as though this plan would 
 lessen the influence of the form mistress, but this was not 
 found to be the case. The form mistress -nearly always 
 took part in the consultations with parents about the 
 children, and had opportunities of talking to parents on 
 her own account. She came to regard her head mistress 
 as centralizing the knowledge of a girl's past and of her 
 home surroundings in a way that is not possible for an 
 assistant. To know one's girls was regarded in this school
 
 180 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 as of such supreme importance that each assistant was 
 glad to utilize the knowledge of her head. 
 
 In each difficulty that arose the parents were asked to 
 come and consult with the head mistress over the case, 
 and she expounded her theory of the connection between 
 abnormahty or health and common offences such as theft, 
 to the great reUef and interest of the parent. She found 
 that parents were usually much interested to hear of the 
 close connection between physical and moral deficiencies, 
 e.g. the fact that the lazy child has usually something 
 wrong with either heart or throat. So she started small 
 meetings of about thirty parents at a time, asking them 
 to come to tea and talk about matters connected with 
 the school, taking the greatest care to consult them 
 whenever they could give advice, and she found that the 
 parents talked freely and readily, and helped greatly by 
 the light they could throw on school conduct, and by their 
 description of the way in which they dealt with the sex 
 question. They felt that they were doing something for 
 the school, and were always ready in their turn to take 
 advice concerning their children, and to yield to the 
 opinion of the school should it differ from their own. On 
 the part of the school, there was always a frank acknow- 
 ledgment of mistakes made both to the parents and to 
 the girls, a sincerity which met with a warm response to 
 those in authority and led to trustfulness in them. 
 
 In June the entrance examination was held, and 
 between June and September the head mistress saw the 
 parents, or at any rate the mother, of each new pupil 
 individually, and discussed with her the doctor's verdict 
 on the child, or any peculiarities, talents, weaknesses or 
 powers she possessed. About eight weeks after term 
 began she would invite the new parents to parties. As 
 the parties of the old parents were going on all the time 
 this meant a party about once in every three weeks. 
 The head mistress also laid herself open to an interview 
 with a parent at any hour of the day that she chose to
 
 SCHOOL AND PARENTS 181 
 
 come, and was ever ready to let the parents seek her out 
 in her own home at the end of the week. 
 
 Sometimes golden opportunities arose for discussing 
 with parents the desirabihty of themselves tclhng the 
 children the facts of life and birth, and so satisfying a 
 very legitimate curiosity before they began to make 
 enquiries of one another. Books were bought on the 
 subject and lent to the parents, and since many of them 
 found great difficulty in talking to the girls on the sub- 
 ject, the services of a very wise gymnastic mistress were 
 given to those parents who wished for help. 
 
 Another matter for serious discussion, often with 
 individual parents, was the fact of outbreaks of naughti- 
 ness at the time of second dentition, and six months 
 before the approach of puberty, at about thirteen, when 
 girls' worst faults are Hable to be trebled, and their 
 virtues tend to disappear. It was arranged between 
 head mistress and parents that, when either of them 
 noticed changes in a girl's health at this time, they 
 should at once take counsel together, and whilst school 
 reports must perforce be somewhat severe, if truthful, 
 the parents were urged to take Httle notice. Much hght 
 was thrown in this way on girls' irregularity of conduct, 
 and an interesting observation made that whilst out of 
 twelve girls nine were Ukely to go through a difficult phase, 
 the three girls who came through their early adolescence 
 unhurt were all girls of very strong healthy affections. 
 
 The result of this close intercourse with parents was an 
 unbroken friendliness gained, one cannot but imagine, 
 at the cost of great physical fatigue on the part of the 
 head mistress. 
 
 In the boarding school for girls at Gerrard's Cross, which 
 Miss Chambers now conducts, there is not the same 
 opportunity for close relation with parents, but many 
 of the parents of the forty-three children are already well 
 known to her ; she receives no pupil without a previous 
 interview with the parents, whom she informs carefully
 
 182 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 of the principles on which her school is worked, and 
 unless they are in sympathy with her, strongly advises 
 them not to send their daughters. 
 
 \Mien in the first term there were only twenty-five 
 children, parents were constantly invited to spend a day 
 or two at the school, and now that there is no room they 
 are often advised to take rooms at a comfortable cottage 
 near at hand and to come in and out of the school as 
 much as they like. 
 
 INIuch correspondence goes on. Parents are encouraged 
 to express their views as to their children, and the head 
 mistress writes long letters about them. If she is asked 
 for advice it is given unstintingly. Parents' requests may 
 sometimes have to be refused, but if so, reasons are always 
 freely given. They can come to see the school at any 
 time they like, and are allowed to have their girls out 
 whenever they wish. 
 
 Reports are sent home at the end of each term, which 
 the children can see, but if there is anything which is for 
 the parents' eye alone, a private letter is sent. 
 
 Open-Air Experiments 
 One of the most interesting open-air schools is at 
 South Park, Lincoln, a school opened in 1913, for boys and 
 girls in the elementary schools who were suffering from 
 anaemia, general debihty, or with a tendency to tuber- 
 culosis, though definite tubercular cases are never 
 admitted. In designing this school the Lincoln Education 
 Committee kept before them the possibiUty of extending 
 the open-air system to the schools for normal children, 
 as they are convinced that quite ten per cent of scholars 
 in public elementary schools are in need of open-air 
 school treatment. All plans are made therefore with a 
 view to the possibihty of carrying them out in new ordinary 
 schools as these are required. The classrooms which 
 face south have a substantial brick wall background and 
 sides, and wooden roof, and extending the whole length
 
 OPEN-AIR SCHOOLS 183 
 
 of the two classrooms is a glazed verandah about fifteen 
 feet wide ; the classrooms are boarded, the verandah 
 asphalted. In the case of a very cold wind, it is possible 
 to put up screen shutters along the front of the class- 
 rooms between the posts supporting the verandah. At 
 right angles to the classrooms is an asphalted open shed, 
 where the children can have lessons and rest on days too 
 cool to allow of sleeping right out in the open. The 
 children can also play in it in wet weather. When I 
 visited the South Park School I found between forty 
 and fifty children present. It was a rather cold day, so 
 the classes were arranged as near the walls as possible. 
 The children looked so well with their bright, happy, 
 and in many cases rosy faces, that I wondered why 
 they had been sent there, but I learned that they had, 
 many of them, come white and thin and ill ; but the treat- 
 ment causes them to make most rapid progress, not only 
 in health, but in intelligence. No one now is allowed to 
 stay for less than a year in this school, as it is found that 
 however well they seem after six months they are apt to 
 relapse if they return to an ordinary school. 
 
 After a dinner of peas, potatoes and pudding, we tucked 
 the children up on their stretchers, which were placed in 
 the open shed by the children themselves before dinner. 
 The teachers were very particular to see that each child 
 had his or her own set of rugs, which were carefully num- 
 bered. Boots were taken off, the older helped the younger, 
 or tucked up some special friend. It was a moment for 
 confidential communications, and one little girl told me 
 that she had been in the school for three years, and was 
 sadly afraid she would soon have to go away. " I am 
 sure," she said, " I shan't have these nice rests then." 
 
 The weekly bath, in the bathroom belonging to the 
 building, in which several children can bathe at once, is 
 very popular after the first alarm of a tepid shower 
 following the hot water has been overcome. 
 
 Perfect quiet reigns for an hour and a half in the resting-
 
 184 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 shed. No child is ahowed to talk, and the greater number 
 sleep peacefully. It is a restful hour for the teachers too, 
 and some such rest period might with advantage be 
 introduced into our normal schools. In one girls' day 
 county school I visited, all the diners are read to after 
 dinner by the head mistress. In Dr. Reddie's boys' school 
 at Abbotsford, half an hour used always to be given to 
 music immediately after the midday meal. 
 
 It is not only open air and rest and medical supervision 
 that the Lincoln Committee provides for its delicate 
 children, but also three substantial meals a day. A car 
 brings the children at nine in winter or eight-thirty in 
 summer to a good breakfast. In cold weather hot milk 
 or cocoa is given during the morning, dinner is at twelve, 
 and tea at four. The diet is arranged after close con- 
 sultation with the doctor, and the children have meat 
 three times, fish once, and peas or lentils once a week. 
 Suet- or milk-pudding follows. No lack of appetite was 
 observed. Each child disposed of a large helping with 
 evident satisfaction, talking happily to its neighbours 
 meanwhile, boys and girls alike being appointed waiters 
 on the others. To serve at the staff table is esteemed a 
 great honour, and the boy who waited on us was most 
 anxious to do everything exactly as it ought to be done, 
 
 A great deal of time is spent on manual work, including 
 gardening, six of the thirteen hours allowed to general 
 education per week being given to it. 
 
 The whole school is based on the principle that the 
 health of the child is to be the first consideration, so if 
 one child needs a longer midday sleep than the others 
 it is allowed to take it, and if it should be thought advis- 
 able to give the whole school or a particular class a romp 
 in the open air, it is given to them. This makes the 
 length of holidays less than is usual in elementary schools, 
 and the Park Street School has only a total of four full 
 weeks instead of eleven, during the year. 
 
 Lest all the care taken of the children at school should
 
 OPEN-AIR SCHOOLS 185 
 
 he thrown away by bad home conditions, Lincoln docs its 
 utmost to secure the co-operation of the parents. 
 
 At the opening of the school all parents were invited 
 to come and see it and the school medical officers and 
 secretary for education addressed them, explaining as 
 clearly as possible the child's health needs, and the 
 proposal for turning each child into a robust man or 
 woman. The parents are welcomed as visitors to the 
 school at any time they like to come and are urged to 
 keep in close touch with the head mistress. Reports 
 are sent to the parents at regular intervals, and with the 
 parents' consent each child is put in charge of a lady 
 visitor on the children's care committee. This visitor 
 goes to see the home, consults the parent about her child, 
 and especially sets forth the importance of proper sleep- 
 ing arrangements and of plenty of sleep. Although the 
 experiment has existed only since 1913, it is held by 
 all teachers concerned that it is likely to lead to most 
 valuable results, especially by being a sign-post which 
 shall direct the normal schools on their right road. In 
 May, 1919, plans were already prepared for a normal 
 open-air school in Lincoln. 
 
 At the Thorp Arch school already mentioned, the 
 children almost live in the open air. \\'ashing arrange- 
 ments are put up out of doors, and in the big barn where 
 dancing and games go on there are pegs all round on which 
 hang the brushes, combs, and towels belonging to each 
 child. Brushes must indeed be frequently needed, for in 
 order to make their lives as little institutional as possible, 
 these girls are encouraged to have long instead of short 
 hair, which must, one would think, be a constant source 
 of trial to them, since they wear it down their backs and 
 not even in pigtails. They wore brown tunics and 
 knickers and were allowed bare legs and sandals, giving 
 many of those " square inches of flesh exposed to the air " 
 which some doctors hold to be so essential to health.
 
 186 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Attendance on the numerous animals, goats, cows, a 
 donkey, lambs, rabbits, pigeons, forms another open-air 
 occupation, and the courage with which two girls ran 
 up to and marched off with a troublesome goat who was 
 supposed to be about to attack me, would have been a 
 lesson for many children of their age. 
 
 In fine weather meals are always taken out of doors ; 
 and desks or chairs and tables are arranged under trees 
 in different parts of the playfield for the daily class 
 lessons. Fortunately the school is situated on quite a 
 little estate of 13^ acres. The greatest freedom for 
 experiments of all sorts is allowed by the Leeds Education 
 Committee and by H.M. Inspectors. 
 
 Miss McMillan's open-air school at Deptford is so well 
 known, and information about it is so easy to obtain by 
 writing for it to 2 Deptford Green, S.E., that a very few 
 words will suffice. 
 
 The day of my visit was a grimly cold grey one in July, 
 with occasional fierce showers, but nothing seemed to 
 daunt the spirit of either children, teachers, or students. 
 The babies' openings for amusement were many. There 
 was a beautiful pool, caused by the rain on the asphalt 
 pavement, where bits of stick or paper made glorious 
 fleets of boats, and from which the patient nurse or teacher 
 had occasionally to extricate a wee girl or boy who found 
 it impossible to resist the temptation of walking through 
 it. Perhaps they thought it was just a bath in their 
 playground ; for they had, no doubt, the happiest 
 memories of three blissful quarter-hours per week in 
 which they paddled and splashed contentedly, naked 
 as they were born, in a shallow tepid bath full of toy 
 ducks and boats, after having had a kindly drill in 
 " How to wash oneself." Fancy the delighted independ- 
 ence of a child of three allowed to try and do its own 
 washing, instead of having a great adult hand rubbing 
 soap into its eyes, and scrubbing the tender skin ! By
 
 OPEN-AIR SCHOOLS 187 
 
 five years of age the little learners are expected to be 
 able to bathe themselves, and can take their baths with 
 the big children. 
 
 But pavement and pools by no means constitute all 
 the joys. There is a garden in which grow flowers and 
 vegetables undisturbed by the children who are trained 
 to leave them untouched, and though a little three-year- 
 old may sometimes toddle across a bed of carrots, his 
 older comrades will promptly come and lead him by the 
 hand along the path. At one side of the garden there are 
 rabbits in hutches, surrounded by a group of small 
 admirers, waiting till a visitor comes along to lift each one 
 up in turn to have a nearer view. It is, however, beyond 
 the garden, down a long flight of steps, that the joy of 
 joys is reached in a waste piece of land, only partly used 
 for potatoes and cabbages. Here there are heaps of 
 waste bricks and of stones and old cans, the delight 
 especiahy of the elder children, to whom they are a 
 real treasure-trove. Such heaps of solid rubbish are a 
 boon to childhood and have always had a place at 
 Deptford, just as at the King's Langley open-air Priory 
 School, heaps of flints and of rubbish are placed by design 
 in a field so that all who wish can have access to them. 
 
 There are three important points to notice about this 
 school : 
 
 (i) Unlike the Lincoln open-air school, which has 
 money at its back, this school has struggled against 
 adverse circumstances, made the best it could of its small 
 means, and is the result of the self-sacrifice and labour 
 of two sisters instead of the work of an education com- 
 mittee. It was not until 1915, after years of strain, that 
 tlie Ministry of Munitions offered through the Board of 
 Education ;^5oo to put up new shelters and to pay seven- 
 pence a day for children under five, in order that their 
 mothers might be set free to work in the factories. The 
 offer was accepted, for the opportunity of showing what 
 a nursery school could be was too good to be lost. New
 
 188 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 poelite sheds have been put up, and other improvements 
 are to take place. 
 
 (2) Whilst the Lincoln School is for distinctly invalid 
 children, Miss McMillan's school is for nominally healthy 
 ones. It is intended to be preventive of disease in the 
 ordinary child, but incidentally many little ones who 
 would otherwise succumb to the results of rickets and 
 other infantine tendencies to ill-health are cured. 
 
 (3) This nursery school is an object-lesson to parents. 
 It is in the very heart of a slum district. A hundred 
 windows of tenement buildings overlook the children 
 in the garden. The parents can see the shelters with their 
 children asleep in them. They can watch them at meals 
 and at play. They must notice how gently they are 
 dealt with and rejoice in their happiness. There are no 
 heavy walls, but palings all round, through which it is 
 possible for older brothers and sisters to peer, and on 
 Wednesdays, at any rate, the open-barred gate is un- 
 locked. It was a pleasure to note the interest of the 
 passers-by. One little fellow of about nine was squat- 
 ting on the ground entranced by the sight of two tiny 
 mites who had scrambled on to a large rocking-horse 
 that was kept hard at work all the morning by its many 
 riders. 
 
 Health Experiments 
 
 Experiments in the direction of health are not so 
 numerous as others, but here and there some interesting 
 efforts may be noticed. There are schools in which in- 
 fectious diseases are kept at bay by never allowing any 
 exeats, by keeping out all day boarders, and by refusing 
 to allow the children to go to any hotel or house beyond 
 the school premises to see their parents, who must come 
 to the school. Open-air schools are of course one form of 
 health experiments already referred to. 
 
 In one private school the pupil's temperature is taken 
 every morning as a matter of course, any child with a 
 temperature being sent to bed. It is said that the result
 
 INFANT GROUPING 189 
 
 is an almost complete absence of any spread of colds or 
 infectious ailments, and that it docs not tend to make 
 childrcii hypochondriacs. 
 
 In another private school colds have been almost 
 completely banished from the school by the simple plan 
 of regarding every cold as a disgrace. It is held that to 
 have a cold is to cause much discomfort to the com- 
 munity, and to make oneself extremely unpleasant. Hence 
 a pupil who coughs more than once at a meal, or who 
 blows her nose during the repast, is requested to take 
 her plate and knife and fork into the next room and finish 
 there whatever meal it may be. The effect of this is to 
 nip in the bud many a spurious cold, and coughs are 
 said to have disappeared hke magic. The victim of a 
 genuine cold that has taken a firm hold is sent promptly 
 to bed in the isolation room. Should one of the heads 
 develop a cold, she retires quickly from the scene. 
 
 In some private schools advantage is taken of beautiful 
 weather, and the children are allowed outdoor pursuits 
 instead of lessons. On one glorious winter day the whole 
 school went tobogganing ; on another they turned out to 
 slide and skate. 
 
 Infant Grouping 
 
 It was in the seventies of last century that an un- 
 expected visit paid to an elementary school in Notting- 
 ham left an indelibly sad impression on my mind. In a 
 large class of about ninety boys all were standing up and 
 repeating over and over again in terrible sing-song voices 
 W.H.I.C.H.— " which." All had their arms folded in 
 front. The master's eye was on any little automaton who 
 slacked for a moment. The children's faces showed no 
 sign of interest in the work in hand, though as each tried 
 to shout louder than the other a slight interest was 
 created in the most successful bawlers. 
 
 In the infants' department there was a raised gallery 
 on which were seated rows and rows of babies, all with 
 arms folded in front listening to a story, but not allowed
 
 190 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 to interrupt in any way. One or two wee things who 
 dropped asleep were shaken awake by the teacher. 
 Restraint ruled, and a shrill rattle called the attention 
 of the children to a change of work. The contrast between 
 this state of affairs and the present day is great enough 
 to convince the most pessimistic that our world is going 
 forward. 
 
 I entered Miss McNichol's school in a slum district of 
 Sheffield in May, 1919, to find a crowded room, it is true, 
 but the children were all arranged in groups of eight in 
 different parts of it. 
 
 Four dual desks were placed together, on each of which 
 two children sat round a fifth desk or little table in the 
 middle, so that the eight faced each other and formed a 
 little group. Two children were sleeping peacefully and 
 undisturbed with their heads on the desks, whilst a wee 
 girl was having a delicious nap on her mistress's knee. 
 
 There was a happy hum of voices all over the room. 
 Every child was hard at work with some kind of apparatus 
 suited to his or her position in class, for the groups are 
 graduated according to ability ; group A being distinctly 
 advanced as compared with the lowest group, to which 
 the chief attention of the teachers was being given. 
 
 Miss McNichol invited me to hear the children sing, 
 but, instead of a rattle, one clap of her hands sufficed to 
 produce instant silence, and the groups rapidly formed 
 themselves into one large group ready for the singing. 
 
 The school is in one of the worst districts in Sheffield, 
 and the surroundings are hideous ; but within the school 
 there is happiness and contentment. The children long 
 to get back to school, where there are busy hands, cheerful 
 voices, and plenty of movement. But the classrooms are 
 still furnished in somewhat antiquated fashion, and in one 
 room I saw my old enemy the infants' gallery. 
 
 Miss McNichol has given such an excellent account of 
 her experiments and their results in the Report of the
 
 INFANT GROUPING 191 
 
 Conference of New Ideals of Education held at Oxford in 
 1918 that readers can be safely referred to it.^ 
 
 It was after careful investigation of the methods 
 adopted by Miss McNichol that the mistress of 
 method in the Hull municipal college for women 
 teachers decided to get leave to introduce infant 
 grouping in one class at Sidmouth Street Demonstration 
 School which she and her assistant students ran entirely 
 for three weeks. The two lecturers were present in the 
 class all the morning and part of the afternoon. They were 
 assisted by three students in training, the class teacher 
 being at first a spectator only, but gradually joining in. 
 At the end of three weeks she was asked if she would like 
 further help, or would prefer to continue the experiment 
 alone. She chose the latter alternative and did splendidly. 
 The success of the experiment was so complete that the 
 head mistress has adopted the plan throughout the school, 
 and all the assistants are now warm supporters of it. 
 
 Hull had the advantage at first of the help of the 
 students in making apparatus for the children, for in this 
 system an immense number of printed sentences and 
 words, of card dominoes and pictures, are required, besides 
 endless bags to contain each child's materials. In fact 
 there should be provided for each class more apparatus 
 than is actually required, in case of accidents. 
 
 The college made all the apparatus required for the 
 class of fifty-six children which was under its charge, 
 and made more than enough to give the school a good 
 start. As soon as the easiest was finished with, it was 
 passed on to a lower class. Since then the school has 
 itself made the apparatus for the other five classes. The 
 top class makes material for the babies. Each group 
 constitutes in the upper classes a little community of 
 helpfulness. If one child is quicker than the others to 
 complete the work of matching words, of making sen- 
 
 ^ Secretary, 24 Royal Avenue, Chelsea, S.\V.3. Two shillings (post 
 free),
 
 192 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 tences, of solving number problems, she is free to lend a 
 helping hand to others. Many methods of helping others 
 are used. Children in lower groups may go to others for 
 help whenever they need it. Children in upper groups 
 may each be appointed to help one other child for a whole 
 lesson. A child from an upper group may be in charge of 
 a lower group to help them all. In one room, when the 
 work of a child in an upper group is finished, she has a 
 special child. Tommy or Mary, attached to her in a lower 
 group whom she may trot off to help, unless some more 
 difficult work is given her to do. The unceasing work 
 that is going on led me to ask whether the children did 
 not suffer sometimes from overstrain, but the reply was 
 that the work brought them so much j oy that fatigue was 
 rare. The head mistress's opinion is that under this 
 system there is far greater initiative, that industry is so 
 continual that it grows into a habit, and a lazy child has 
 become the rarest phenomenon. The teacher must, 
 however, be aware of the danger that clever children may 
 secure undue attention. Her business must always be 
 with the stupid or backward child. Only a good dis- 
 ciplinarian can hope for good results. Power to attack 
 problems is thought by many to increase almost daily ; 
 knowledge is assimilated, and from it no child can escape 
 as it often did under old plans, for even absence from 
 school does not mean a big gap in progress, as the child 
 can easily be put into a lower group if its companions 
 have advanced beyond it. 
 
 Rest is often given to the little ones. In Sidmouth 
 Street all the children in the lowest class, aged about five, 
 lie down from 1.40 to 2.30 in the afternoons, whether 
 they sleep or keep awake. Children in the ex-babies' class 
 may lie down if they wish or if they appear sleepy. 
 
 The assistant mistresses spoke warmly of the much 
 greater pleasantness of their work. They " get to know 
 the children much better," they said, and although the 
 work entails a great deal of labour in preparing apparatus,
 
 INFANT GROUPING 193 
 
 the difficulty can be met in a measure by getting the older 
 children to make the simplest apparatus for the little 
 ones in handwork time, and help from the senior boys' 
 department lightens the work considerably. 
 
 To give some idea of the amount of apparatus required, 
 the work of a roomful of fifty-six children, arranged in 
 seven groups, who were having lessons in composition, 
 may be given as an illustration. 
 
 Group I. Each member of the top group was making 
 her own picture, and writing a story about it. 
 
 Group 2. Each child had a picture chosen or painted 
 by her teacher to write a story about. 
 
 Group 3. Each child read a story, long or short accord- 
 ing to attainments, out of a printed book, and wrote about 
 it. 
 
 Group 4. Each child read a story out of a Httle book 
 printed by the teacher to suit the stage (s)he was in, and 
 made sentences about it. 
 
 Group 5. Each child had a card with picture and short 
 story printed by the teacher, and did the same. 
 
 Group 6. Each child copied the beginning of a sentence 
 from a printed card, and tried to complete it. 
 
 Group 7. Each child read and copied sentences relating 
 to the picture on the card, or had words printed on card- 
 board given him which he made into little sentences. 
 
 Each child in the lower classes is provided with a Uttle 
 blackboard, and each child in the upper with a piece of 
 paper. All have coloured chalks, and directly the reading 
 task is finished the child proceeds to write down the 
 words learned. This constant combination of reading 
 and writing is said so to improve the spelling that one of 
 the mistresses thought that there would be no need for 
 set spelling lessons. Miss McNichol sums up the advan- 
 tages as follows : " From the child's point of view he is 
 educated in a natural atmosphere," " From the teacher's 
 point of view she spends her energies in educating children 
 instead of enforcing discipline." 
 
 13
 
 194 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 It must not be supposed that all class teaching is done 
 away with. Whenever the teacher sees fit, e.g. when in- 
 troducing a new piece of apparatus, she can call together 
 all the groups, and let some sit on the floor and others 
 stand round her, while she demonstrates on the black- 
 board, or puts on it some work with which the children 
 can afterwards compare their own, or she can take only 
 three or four groups as may be required. 
 
 Collective work always means silence, an idea readily 
 grasped by the children and impressed on them as a help 
 to bridge over the entry into the older boys' and girls' 
 schools. Short collective lessons are much appreciated 
 by children accustomed to work in groups. The children 
 working in groups are very free from self-consciousness. 
 They take scarcely any notice of visitors. 
 
 Details of method are not what is required for the 
 present book, but readers are referred to an account of 
 the work in the Hull schools which it is hoped will soon 
 be in the press. 
 
 In the Kirkstall Road Infant Department, Leeds, the 
 classes are more definitely based on the Montessori 
 method, and the apparatus is more strictly Montessorian, 
 some classes more so than others. Where the apparatus was 
 most in evidence there seemed to be less diligence than 
 where the teachers had put their own ingenuity to work. 
 
 The same thing strikes the observer in the United States 
 of America. In Springfield, Massachusetts, where the 
 teachers of children from six to eight had worked out 
 their own scheme of education by means of bricks long 
 before they had ever heard of the Italian dottoressa, there 
 was more earnest work and steadier effort than in the 
 schools which adopted the Montessori apparatus with 
 rigidity. 
 
 " Montessori's books," said the Superintendent of Edu- 
 cation, " are store-houses of ideas, to be used with intelli- 
 gence." One of these ideas was used admirably in the 
 Kirkstall Infant Department, i.e. the need that even the
 
 DAY CONTINUATION SCHOOL 195 
 
 smallest children have of quiet times and periods of silence. 
 Every morning some kind of silence game is played, not 
 necessarily exactly on the Montessori method, but with 
 greater variety, and always with the appreciation of the 
 children. 
 
 The teachers here do not object, as Dr. ]\Iontessori does, 
 to stories being told to the children, who delight in Bible 
 and other stories, which they illustrate either by acting 
 them, drawing pictures in pencil or coloured chalk, 
 cutting out paper figures and animals with scissors, or 
 playing them over again with bricks and sticks in the 
 sand-tray. 
 
 Day Continuation School 
 
 Selfridge's education department for the adult members 
 of the firm scarcely comes within the scope of this book, 
 which deals with education under eighteen; but as the 
 work of the day continuation school at the stores is very 
 important, and as the juniors share in many of the 
 educational activities that are going on, perhaps a few 
 words concerning it may be permitted. The head of the 
 department is a London University woman educated at 
 Westfield College, who with her staff is responsible for 
 maintaining a high standard of efficiency throughout the 
 House. One section of the education department deals 
 with the question of salesmanship, including a knowledge 
 of the merchandise handled ; another with the various 
 systems, including methods of making out bills ; another 
 with the use of good English in the correspondence 
 departments ; and yet another with the instruction of 
 new-comers in the policies of the firm, etc. The continua- 
 tion school, too, is a branch of the education department. 
 Mr. Selfridge has the excellent good sense to trust this 
 department entirely to educationists, responsible of 
 course to the general manager, who will try to fulfil his 
 desire that education should not cease with paid work, but 
 that all those employed in the business should have oppor- 
 tunities both in their work and in their ways of spending
 
 196 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 leisure. " Business is to be regarded as a means of 
 developing the best activities in every worker," 
 
 It is the wisli of the firm that each member of it should 
 regard him or herself as belonging to a big business family, 
 to a living organization in which the main point is helpful- 
 ness of each by each for the good of all. " The first indis- 
 pensable condition is goodwill." All new-comers are in- 
 terviewed by the head of the education department and 
 have these ideals explained to them by her in an interview 
 when she goes through the guide-book with which each 
 member is provided, explains that customers must come 
 first, and all should be treated rather as friends and guests 
 than tiresome people to be got rid of at all speed, and that 
 the purchaser of the fewest goods should be treated with 
 the same courtesy as he who buys most. She makes the 
 young people understand why there are no fines, and how 
 extremely important it is for them to take every 
 opportunity offered to them for self-improvement, that 
 they may gain a scientific understanding of their special 
 job. She urges them to master all such business details 
 as the use of the telephone and of scientific plans to 
 help the workers, and makes them realize that the buyer 
 of each department is to help the seller in every way he 
 can. 
 
 It is evident that the education department of 
 Selfridge's is set on helping to bring about a new co- 
 operation in business which will take the place of sharp 
 competition. Helpfulness and joy in work are to be 
 the keynotes. Study circles and social gatherings are 
 arranged for in the evenings, and indeed many such 
 circles are held during business hours if the subjects 
 studied are of a vocational nature. The heads of depart- 
 ments often instruct their staff in various subjects 
 connected with business, such as the art of displaying 
 goods, the history of the merchandize with which they 
 are concerned, the story of the production of imported 
 articles, whilst psychology is by no means neglected,
 
 DAY CONTINUATION SCHOOL 107 
 
 for the work of all is constantly with human beings, and 
 study circles on appHed psychology are found very popular. 
 " For a business to be successful, its leaders must be 
 students of human nature," and so must all its members. 
 These classes are voluntary, but especially arranged to 
 suit the needs now of one, now of another, department. 
 If any sellers or clerks are found deficient in arithmetic, 
 or sense of colour, or in any other way, they are requested 
 to join a suitable class. 
 
 Apart from the educational department, there is a 
 staff council, which consists of representatives of all the 
 departments, and sections of the House. Each section of 
 the business forms or contributes to the formation of a 
 sub-council from which delegates are elected for the main 
 staff council, whilst the buyers, superintendents, and 
 heads of non-buying sections form three " senior sub- 
 councils " and also send delegates to the main council. 
 
 These sub-councils exist to discuss matters of interest 
 with the sections concerned, having always in view " the 
 highest degree of happiness, well-being, and efficiency of 
 the sections." 
 
 The main council also appoints committees in support 
 of interests that run through all sections. The members 
 of these committees may be chosen from among all the 
 members of the House, and one member may serve on 
 more than one committee. The three committees at 
 present in existence are a social committee, an editorial 
 committee for the pubHcation of the House magazine, 
 and an educational committee which is consulted by the 
 management in matters touching the welfare and educa- 
 tion of members, and the proper understanding of the 
 policies and systems of the House. There are also classes 
 for elocution and deportment, and singing. 
 
 I came away from my visit to Selfridge's so impressed 
 with the trend towards co-operation that it was a bitter 
 disappointment to discover later that there is still in one 
 important respect a wide gulf between the theory and the
 
 198 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 practice. There is no sharing of profits with the workers, 
 but the old-time custom of commissions on the amount 
 sold still prevails, whilst the different departments are 
 invited to strive for a money prize given to that depart- 
 ment which makes the highest sales. There is, I am told, 
 but little danger of the autocratic dismissal so usual 
 in business houses. The staff controllers are specially 
 selected and trained for the purpose of carrying out their 
 work with justice and wisdom. The right of dismissal 
 rests with the chief of the staff ; but in case of a sense of 
 injury the member dismissed has a right to appeal to 
 Mr. Selfridge. 
 
 Other business firms are taking great steps towards 
 co-operation between employer and staff. At Peter 
 Jones and Co. the staff already work on a profit-sharing 
 scheme. 
 
 The continuation school within the educational depart- 
 ment is compulsory for boys and girls between fourteen 
 and sixteen and voluntary for those under seventeen if 
 they can be spared from work. The minimum of the 
 Education Bill, i.e. eight hours, is given per week to the 
 classes, but the whole time comes out of the business 
 hours. 
 
 The one hundred boys are taken twenty a day for four 
 hours twice a week ; the four hundred girls for two hours 
 four times a week. Those girls who are in the luncheon- 
 room always take classes from nine till eleven. 
 
 It is thought that the four-hours-at-a-time plan works 
 better than the other. Boys and girls are at present in 
 separate classes, partly owing to difficulties of organization 
 and partly because the boys and girls prefer it. For all 
 social activities and general lectures they come together. 
 The girls are mostly learning to be either saleswomen or 
 workers in the productive departments, whilst the boys 
 are doing the rough jobs of clearing up or cleaning shops 
 and sheds, work which it is hoped will soon be done with 
 machinery.
 
 DAY CONTINUATION SCHOOL lO'J 
 
 In July, 1919, it was proposed to have social gatherings 
 for both boys and girls. The girls have already clubs for 
 swimming and dancing, and the boys a club of their own 
 to which they are ready to pay a five-shiUing entrance 
 fee. They organize for themselves games of football, 
 cricket, billiards, and chess. It is hoped that dramatic 
 activities and choral singing will be shared by both boys 
 and girls. 
 
 Great pains are taken to prevent a cleavage between the 
 girls on the selhng staff and those engaged in production, 
 as the former are apt to regard themselves as of a higher 
 social status. All girls wear the same kind of gymnastic 
 costume, a plan which is found to help to destroy arbitrary 
 distinctions. 
 
 The teaching staff consists of about seven women and 
 two men. The men teach boys only, but the women 
 teach both boys and girls. The woodwork master takes 
 both boys and girls. Both boys and girls in the com- 
 pulsory classes have the eight hours divided aUke, four 
 hours for English, two hours for arts and crafts, one hour 
 for physical exercise, and one hour for arithmetic, which 
 is voluntary unless needed for business . The other subj ccts 
 are treated purely from the educational point of view. 
 In arts and crafts the girls can choose between cooking, 
 laundry, millinery, dressmaking, art work (drawing, 
 modelling, etc.) ; and lately there has been added domestic 
 woodwork, a form of handicraft in which the fewest 
 number of tools are to be employed, the objects to be 
 made by the workers with any available material, 
 all sorts of waste material being used up. Old tins, 
 hair-pins, match-ends, can all be utihzed, whilst for tools, 
 though milUners' pliers are desirable, scissors and a file 
 will do a great deal. It is held to be very important to 
 prove that crafts can be started without the heavy ex- 
 pense usually considered necessary. The interest and 
 helpfulness of the subject are shown by the fact that every 
 student chooses to do woodwork. The pupils are to be
 
 200 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 taught to consider either " What can I make of this 
 article ? " or " How can I get something to make this 
 object that I want ? " At present this is the only form 
 of woodwork open to girls ; but the boys can choose 
 between it and carpentering, or metal work, or art 
 classes. 
 
 History with an industrial and social bias is included 
 in the four hours' English. There is a voluntary French 
 class held out of business hours, which fifty girls but no 
 boys attend. A girl guides' company has just been 
 formed. 
 
 The boys and girls are found to be full of very different 
 interests. The girls care more for literature, especially 
 for poetry and thrilling stories. They are fonder of hobbies 
 than the boys, who are usually so tired after their hard 
 day's work that they shirk any form of employment. 
 The boys at first did not care for any kind of literature, 
 saying that they had had enough of Shakespeare and 
 poetry in their other schools ; but they are gradually 
 changing their views on this subject, and thoroughly 
 enjoying the acting of plays and the reading of superior 
 " blood and thunders." Their interests at present lie 
 more in the discovery of causes. Why is the sky red ? 
 and the sea blue ? are enquiries that suit them better 
 than the perusal of poetry. A liking for beautiful things 
 is springing up in them, for of their own accord they raised 
 a subscription to buy a few green vases to decorate their 
 classrooms. The firm gave a generous start to the 
 library by presenting five hundred volumes, but hence- 
 forth it will be supported by the students, who are anxious 
 to build up a splendid library and are very greatly pleased 
 with the library which has just been opened. The girls 
 love books of adventure and schoolboy stories. 
 
 It is found that in all work the girls want to serve some 
 purpose from the very beginning, e.g. in design they like 
 at once to apply their designs to candle-shades, just in 
 the same way as children love to start making bags at
 
 DAY CONTINUATION SCHOOL 201 
 
 their very first sewing lesson ; or the normal babies in a 
 free kindergarten find far greater satisfaction in standing 
 one behind the other to try and button the pinafore of 
 the child in front than in sitting down to button and 
 unbutton a piece of apparatus. 
 
 The girls were asked to write an account of the first 
 day at Selfridge's continuation school after it opened on 
 May 5th, 1919. The satisfaction expressed was very great. 
 Very many spoke with strong appreciation of the curtains 
 in the windows. " It is so hke home, and not at all like 
 school to see curtains in the window," was an opinion 
 expressed again and again, one girl adding with glee that 
 in the room she went to there were green curtains ; green 
 being her favourite colour. Unfortunately the opinions 
 expressed were seldom favourable to the schools the 
 girls had left, though some spoke of the continuation 
 schools being nicer even than their school, and one writes 
 that it resembled her former secondary school which she 
 thoroughly enjoyed. 
 
 The papers reveal the children's dissatisfaction with 
 ugly surroundings. " Most schools, especially board 
 schools, are so forbidding when viewed from the outside, 
 and their appearance from the inside is not much more 
 comfortable in a good many cases. Those three or four 
 stray buildings with their uncurtained windows are very 
 ugly and forbidding, but our school is such a contrast. 
 Every window has curtains, and there has been no trouble 
 spared to make it an ideal school." 
 
 Another girl vividly describes the interior of an 
 elementary school. " I must admit I pictured the school 
 dull — with a few atlases hung upon the walls, a nature 
 picture hung directly over the teacher's desk, and the 
 best specimens of the students' work to grace the door. 
 Perhaps a few plants upon the window-ledge. The bottom 
 part of the window of cathedral glass so that we could not 
 seek inspiration from the street below." The same girl 
 dreads the needlework, but instead of " darning stockings,
 
 202 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 or gathering seams, a brand new machine stared us in the 
 face. We began to think we had not been unlucky in 
 coming under the ban of the school act." 
 
 The subjects chosen meet with general approval, also 
 the librarjr, the friendly teachers, and the greater freedom. 
 
 " In the council school we were never allowed to express 
 our own opinions, as we are here. There are no rules 
 except those which we make ourselves, so that we do not 
 feel we are just coming here to learn, but to help build up 
 the honour and routine of it ourselves. That, of course, 
 makes us feel more ' at home,' and makes us wish to work, 
 behave better both at school and in the business store." 
 
 At present, in 1919, the work goes on in somewhat 
 inconvenient buildings, but a large piece of ground has 
 been purchased on which thoroughly suitable class, 
 lecture, and recreation rooms are to be built. When these 
 rooms are ready it is to be hoped that Selfridge's firm 
 will increase the numbers of hours for compulsory study, 
 and no longer give the mininum of eight hours a week 
 required by Government. The firm, however, has spared 
 no expense in the equipment for the classes, and the 
 educational leaders are left perfectly free to carry out their 
 idea of education for life rather than for mere leisure. 
 
 Wellesbourne Central Intermediate School 
 Warwickshire has the honour of being the first county 
 in England to establish schools which shall give advanced 
 education to children in out-of-the-way rural districts 
 which have no secondary schools within convenient 
 reach. The first school of this kind, which was started 
 before the war in January 1914, is at Wellesbourne, 
 a village distant about seven miles from both Stratford- 
 on-Avon and Leamington. It is called the " central," 
 because it serves a district of a radius of about seven 
 miles. It is " intermediate," because it is a link between 
 the elementary school and the secondary school and 
 training college. It has pupil teachers, but on a very
 
 RURAL INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL 203 
 
 different plan from that of times past. All the children 
 who come to this school are over twelve. When first 
 opened any boy or girl of the right age, whose parents 
 wished it, could come. There was no entrance examin- 
 ation, and no test of any kind had to be submitted to. 
 Mr. Bolton King, the Director of Education for the 
 County, wished an equal opportunity to be given to all. 
 
 Unfortunately, no proper buildings could be put up, 
 and in order to make room for the new pupils, rooms 
 in the ordinary school building had to be utihzed. The 
 infant school kept the whole of standard one and so 
 placed some rooms at the disposal of the central school, 
 but the premises are sadly cramped and at least two more 
 good rooms are needed in addition to a good laboratory, 
 for the head master would fain have every country pupil 
 given some knowledge of physics and chemistry, especially 
 chemistry of the soil. 
 
 The only way in which the scholars can come to school 
 is either on foot or cycle. The parents provide the cycles 
 and the pupils usually ride to and from school regardless 
 of weather, which is only on very rare occasions so bad 
 that they cannot attend. They bring their dinners with 
 them, and hot water is always provided for them in 
 winter to make themselves tea or cocoa. At the first 
 start, twelve village children over twelve years of age 
 returned to school, and about fifteen came from neigh- 
 bouring villages, the majority being boys ; but after the 
 war broke out the older boys were swept away, and in 
 October, 1919, when I visited the school, the top pupil 
 teacher's class had eight girls and one boy preparing to 
 be teachers, and two girls who did not intend to take up 
 the teaching profession. The result of the regular cycHng 
 to and from school is a great improvement in health. 
 Children who at first were pale and delicate have grown 
 strong and rosy. They all seemed to agree that the daily 
 rides were a great joy. Two girls cycle seven miles each 
 way.
 
 204 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 It is intended to establish such schools all over the 
 county, until it is impossible for any child of the working- 
 class to be without the opportunity for a good education 
 after leaving his elementary school. A further result will 
 be, it is hoped, that an important source of supply of 
 teachers, who have received systematic hand training 
 in addition to class work, will be opened. 
 
 It is proposed that the future central schools should 
 aim at having children over eleven, but in the opinion 
 of the head master of Wellesbourne it would be still 
 better in quite rural districts to let them come over nine, 
 as then a great economy would be effected in the staffing 
 of teachers, those in the ordinary schools not necessarily 
 requiring advanced subjects. Besides, he thought that 
 more could be done at the central schools to prepare the 
 children for good work as pupil teachers, if they could be 
 caught early. This is a view about which there are very 
 diverse opinions. 
 
 The boys and girls who wish to be teachers are 
 apprenticed for four years. Since 1914, twelve have 
 been sent out, and all have done well. One boy has 
 gone to Saltby Training College. The younger pupils 
 take the preliminary examination of the Oxford 
 school examination ; the older ones sit for the Oxford 
 Senior. There have been no failures, but several dis- 
 tinctions. 
 
 For a pupil teachership an examination is held, but 
 not for entrance to the school. This examination is partly 
 oral and partly written, in order to give every candidate 
 a chance. 
 
 The teaching at Wellesbourne is self-contained. There 
 are no peripatetic teachers, but fortunately the teachers 
 cover between them a very wide range of subjects. Some 
 of the English work was remarkably good. One girl 
 of fourteen had written an unusually clear, intelligent 
 essay on " Strikes." As the school is a church school, 
 forty minutes has to be spent daily on Scripture or Prayer
 
 RURAL INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL 205 
 
 Book lessons, so that it is hard to get time for all the 
 subjects desired. 
 
 Modelling was a strong point in the school, some very 
 good work having been done by the younger children in 
 plasticine. All the ordinary subjects taught in an elemen- 
 tary school are taught here, with the addition of more 
 advanced mathematics, botany, and French. The girls 
 also learn needlework, cooking, and housewifery, and 
 the boys woodwork, metal work, and gardening. A 
 large hall, about two hundred yards from the school 
 premises, is used for these classes. The boys make 
 simple apparatus for practical mathematics and rural 
 science, as appHed to land-measuring, gardening, and also 
 for practical geography. Although the school contains 
 both sexes, Warwickshire has not yet risen to the height 
 of giving that opportunity of choice to every pupil which 
 the true co-educator requires. It seems especially a 
 misfortune to exclude the girls from gardening, and the 
 boys from a chance of learning how to cook. 
 
 Only two hours a week can be given to gardening, 
 but each boy has a plot forty feet long and must indeed 
 put his back into the work, for the plots were in a state 
 of perfection surprising to those who know something 
 of the work a garden entails. 
 
 In the midst of the viUagcrs' allotments, a httle distance 
 off, the school has a fruit plot where the boys learn to 
 graft and prune. 
 
 The boys chiefly value the produce of their own plots 
 for home consumption, and the head master's effort to 
 secure co-operation for sale in the nearest market did not 
 meet with success. 
 
 The school is becoming a centre, not only for the educa- 
 tion of children, but also of their fathers. A remarkably 
 successful class is held by the Workers' Education Associ- 
 ation for working men (mostly agricultural labourers), 
 who, by their own choice, had had a course of lessons on 
 European history given by W. 0. L. Smith, M.A.,
 
 206 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Assistant Director of Education, which led to a course 
 on local history. The following season a Birmingham 
 professor gave lessons on natural science ; and the present 
 course is on citizenship and social subjects. 
 
 Parents are invited to come to the school at any time 
 to see the children at work, and constantly visit the head 
 master, not only about the school, but for help in making 
 their wills and in the adjustment of family difficulties. 
 
 The school sometimes gives plays and concerts under 
 very difficult conditions as to room, but, nevertheless, 
 the audience thoroughly enjoys them. As in other 
 Warwickshire schools, the monitorial system (fully 
 described under " Murray School, Rugby ") obtains 
 at Wellesbourne, and the discipline is so easy a matter 
 that the head master informed us that it was eighteen 
 months since he had used the cane, which is likely to 
 become as obsolete as the dodo. 
 
 The teachers spoke warmly of the generosity of the 
 Warwickshire Education Committee in providing books. 
 A complete set of the books required is given for the 
 use of each pupil teacher, during his or her four years of 
 work, but it seemed a pity that there was no opportunity 
 given to the pupils to buy these books at the end of their 
 course should they wish to do so. This will be corrected 
 in the future in the case of the pupil teachers, as the 
 Education Committee have raised the salary paid to the 
 pupil teachers on the understanding that they purchase 
 their own textbooks. In the case of the pupils, other 
 than pupil teachers, the textbooks will still be provided 
 and remain the property of the school. 
 
 The pupil teachers for the first year of their apprentice- 
 ship spend all their school-time in class, but after the first 
 year they spend one quarter of the school-time in practical 
 teaching for the remaining three years. At first they spend 
 their time with a class teacher, observing the methods 
 employed, and doing no actual teaching. In the second 
 stage they give formal lessons after due preparation before
 
 CHILDREN'S RECREATION ROOM 207 
 
 the head teaclier or fully qualified assistant, who points 
 out the mistakes made and corrects faulty methods. 
 During the last year they are allowed to take a class in 
 any subject, but still under proper supervision. 
 
 The staff consists of the head master, assistant mistress 
 (B.Sc), assistant mistress (B.A.). One of the teachers 
 on the staff is responsible for the domestic subjects. 
 The woodwork and metal work are taken by a 
 county staff teacher who is a speciahst in these 
 subjects. 
 
 There are upwards of fifty pupils who attend the school 
 from the surrounding district, and whose parents show, 
 by sending their children such distances, that they are 
 keen on an education above the type of the elementary 
 school. 
 
 Another interesting Warwickshire experiment is that 
 of independent study, but, unfortunately, the school in 
 Coventry, where this is admirably carried out, was closed 
 for a week's hoUday, and the girls' school, so well described 
 in The New Ideals Conference Report for 1916, had changed 
 hands, and the custom was not yet re-established. 
 
 Children's Recreation Room 
 The following is an account of a very young experi- 
 ment of three months. The place is a village with an 
 elementary school serving it and three small neighbouring 
 villages. 
 
 " A good many children have far to come and bring their 
 dinners with them. During the winter, the mid-day 
 break, except on fine days, is a weary time. The children 
 are tired of the place and for real refreshment need a 
 change of surroimdings and atmosphere, Hteral and 
 metaphorical, and something to do. 
 
 "There is in this village, about five minutes from the 
 school, a disused room, measuring roughly twenty by 
 thirty feet, very old and rather dilapidated, but it is well 
 hghted by windows on both sides and can be effectively
 
 208 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 warmed by a small stove. It has a brick floor and white- 
 washed walls. 
 
 "This is the room now being used for the children. It 
 was opened in the autumn of 1919, and has therefore 
 only been going for about three months. 
 
 " It was simply furnished with four or five trestle-tables 
 of different sizes, chairs, and a cupboard, and a little 
 wash-stand and some lamps. By good fortune a lady 
 was found who had experience in dealing with children 
 and had a great love of handicraft, and she was in- 
 terested and willing to try what could be made of the 
 experiment. 
 
 " It should perhaps be here explained that the hope 
 is to combine children's recreation with the development 
 of village industries. 
 
 " The plan was to choose two or three simple crafts and 
 to set the children at work upon them. 
 
 " The choice naturally had to be controlled by the tastes 
 and acquirements of the teacher. We began with wood- 
 carving, simple embroidery, and rafha work. 
 
 " One table was furnished with a few children's books 
 and pictures, and an atlas, some pencils, scissors, and 
 blank sheets of paper. 
 
 " The scheme was then discussed with the head master 
 who was sympathetic, and the children were invited to 
 come and see the room. On the first day they came in 
 great force, and it was at once evident that we must make 
 a selection. This was done very much at haphazard ; 
 three groups, from six to ten in each, were formed and 
 about ten more told they might stay if they could amuse 
 themselves. 
 
 " The room was opened daily from 12 to 1.15, and from 
 5.30 to 7 p.m. as well ; reserving the mid-day time for 
 children at a distance and the evening for children at 
 hand. 
 
 "On Saturdays the room is open to any from 10 to 12. 
 
 *' The attendance now varies from twenty to twenty-five
 
 RECREATION ROOM 209 
 
 in the morning and twenty-five to thirty in the evening. 
 Thus fifty to sixty children use the room daily. 
 
 *' All occupations were thrown open to boys and girls 
 indifferently, but so far no girl has chosen woodwork and 
 no boy embroidery. Raffia is done by both. 
 
 "We have practically no rules and there is perfect 
 freedom of movement. The children sit or stand as they 
 prefer or move from place to place, keeping only so far 
 in groups as is convenient for common use of tools and 
 materials. The teacher moves from group to group or 
 children come to her for help. 
 
 *' Not very much is done in direct teaching. Good 
 models are placed before learners and they make out a 
 good deal for themselves and largely teach each other. 
 
 " A beginner is generally started by a neighbour and they 
 go to each other freely for help, and watch each other at 
 work. They are encouraged to take their work home 
 and go on with it there. 
 
 *' Though we have no rules, as such, certain practices, 
 the usefulness of which is self-evident, become the rule. 
 It is understood, for instance, that the room must be 
 kept in order by the children themselves and at the end 
 of each morning and evening everything is put away 
 tidily, the floor is swept all over, dusting is done. Boys 
 and girls share the work, and there is brisk competition 
 to wield the broom or duster. It is understood also that 
 the users of tools must keep them in good condition : 
 also that places in the work groups must be given to 
 those who come most regularly and are the keenest. 
 
 " The children are prompt to recognize what is just and 
 expedient. A few do not settle readily to work, but, 
 speaking generally, what stands out most clearly is the 
 keen desire of every one to work. ' Can't / make some 
 thing ? ' was the anxious appeal of every child not 
 immediately attached to a group of workers. One sorely 
 disappointed and very small child, after watching the 
 weaving in and out ol raffia strands, set herself to weave
 
 210 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 a new bottom to a cane chair in the room with what stray 
 pieces she could annex. But by degrees the ' unattached ' 
 have made themselves very happy. A suggestion that 
 they might make draught-boards and men to play with 
 was acclaimed, and having added some old cardboard 
 boxes, bits of coloured paper, a foot-rule, and a pot of 
 paste to the play table equipment, quite good draught- 
 boards sprang rapidly into existence and draught com- 
 petitions are now keenly played. 
 
 '' At the moment spelling games, with home-made letters, 
 are the vogue ; a dictionary to settle differences of 
 opinion is the last requisition. Indeed, these games are 
 so popular that every one wants to play as well as work, 
 and it has become the practice to spend the last half- 
 hour over games. 
 
 "Theroomis no doubt noisy, talking of course is constant. 
 Whistling and even singing are sometimes heard, but 
 an appeal for quiet is always cheerfully responded to. 
 There has been no trouble as to discipline, and public 
 opinion is strongly against anyone who shows symptoms 
 of disturbing the peace. 
 
 " It is clear that it is not a difficult or very expensive 
 matter to open a children's room ; and that one person 
 of the right sort can run a room for any number up to 
 thirty or possibly more.^ 
 
 " As to the welcome of the plan, there is no doubt. 
 The clock has hardly struck twelve when a scampering 
 of feet may be heard along the road, and the children 
 are racing to their room and get to work at once. And 
 on dark wet nights of this winter they are there — as 
 
 ^ No figures as to expense have been given, because this will vary 
 a great deal, according to the cost of a room, or rooms, the necessity 
 or otherwise of buying all equipment, and whether voluntary or paid 
 help is available. 
 
 Details of expenditure in this particular experiment can be furnished 
 to anyone interested. It may be noted that it is work suited to many a 
 volunteer with leisure and a love of children, and that it is a part tinje 
 job.
 
 DRAMA: THE "OLD VIC." 211 
 
 many of them as when it is fine — chattering, laughing, 
 fetching out their work and tools, and settling themselves 
 in comfortably." 
 
 Drama 
 
 A very important attempt is being made to popularize 
 good drama, especially the plays of Shakespeare. It 
 was for this purpose that Miss Emma Cons founded the 
 " Old Vic," in Waterloo Road, London, in 1880. In 1914 
 a stock company was formed, directed almost from the 
 beginning by Mr. Ben Greet, and, despite the war, a 
 number of Shakespeare's plays, some of Sheridan's, and 
 a few others have been performed to full houses. 
 
 Miss Lilian Bayliss is now lessee and manager of the 
 theatre, and it is chiefly through her influence that since 
 the war the L.C.C. has allowed large numbers of its 
 scholars to go to matinees, chiefly of Shakespeare's plays. 
 Between October and December, 1916, no less than 
 27,000 children attended these performances. The 
 children are brought by their teachers from all parts of 
 London, an attendance at a play being allowed to count 
 as an attendance at school. Through the kindness of Miss 
 Bayliss I was present with a friend at a performance of 
 Macbeth when the hall was crowded with children. I 
 was warned that Macbeth was not a play that called forth 
 the absorbed attention oi As You Like It or A Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream, and that the conduct might 
 not be as perfect as usual ; but the audience behaved 
 excellently. Their attention to the music was interesting 
 to note, and when the strains of " Annie Laurie " were 
 heard, the children could not resist joining, to the 
 embarrassment of the orchestra. 
 
 We could not help sharing the doubts of the manager 
 as to the desirability of acting Macbeth before such 
 young children. Their interest so evidently centred round 
 the murders and the fighting. The only remark I heard 
 was from a httlc boy as he left the theatre : " That was 
 ve-ry good," he drawled, with the air of a connoisseur.
 
 212 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 The opinions of a schoolmaster and schoolmistress 
 on the effect of the plays on the children, are that the 
 plays are very valuable if properly prepared for before- 
 hand. They find a great danger in the tendency on the 
 part of the actors to exaggerate and even vulgarize 
 some of the minor parts to please the children, a point 
 we noticed and deplored in the witches in Macbeth. 
 One writer feels that " the Merchant of Venice is not 
 altogether suitable for these children, hundreds of whom 
 hissed Shylock, and thinks that only the older children, 
 whom it is possible to prepare in some measure, should go 
 to such performances." There is a danger lest children 
 should grow to dislike Shakespeare when they do not 
 understand what it is all about. On the whole, however, 
 the performances are thoroughly enjoyed, and to the 
 older children are really helpful as a means of " add- 
 ing culture to mere instruction," of " stimulating the 
 children's imagination." " Well-prepared children, even 
 if quite young, benefit considerably." " Any literary 
 gain is much conditioned by age, and is found most when 
 the sense of rhythm in words, music, and movement has 
 become powerful." " The effect on the children's 
 written English is almost untraceable." 
 
 Men returned from the front often express great appre- 
 ciation of their school visits to the " Old Vic," saying 
 how it helped them on the battlefield to remember the 
 deeds of heroes in the plays they had seen, and what 
 pleasant memories they had of those afternoons they had 
 in the theatre. 
 
 A new world is undoubtedly being opened to thousands 
 of little Londoners by these performances. 
 
 The reader should compare with the drama at the 
 " Old Vic." the account of the change of curriculum in the 
 Newbury Grammar School for Boys, as the great change 
 there is the definite introduction of acting on the time- 
 table. 
 
 In many schools we find acting playing a very important
 
 MUSICAL APPRECIATION 213 
 
 part, and a great deal more is now done by the cliildren 
 themselves than in former days, when the teachers 
 coached their pupils, showing them exactly how to act. 
 Mr. Caldwell Cook's Play Way shows how much can be 
 done by " miming," and many schools now work on his 
 lines. 
 
 In a co-educational boarding school at Swanage it is the 
 custom at the end of the term for each dormitory to 
 produce a scene of some sort for the benefit of the rest of 
 the school, and a few parents and friends. No help is 
 given to the actors by the staff except in the staging. 
 They choose their own scene, which is sometimes an 
 historical one, or from some popular book, or a well- 
 known nursery rhyme. The children rose to the occasion 
 when I saw them, and proved how much more capable 
 children are than we adults used to imagine. 
 
 Musical Appreciation 
 
 An effort is being made in various schools to give a 
 sense of musical appreciation, not only to the learners 
 of some instrument, or the gifted children, but to each 
 child in the school. 
 
 As an illustration of the kind of work being done, we 
 may take the Tonbridge County School for Girls, where 
 the aim is : 
 
 (i) To give all scholars a new interest in life. 
 
 (2) To get them to care for really good music. 
 
 (3) By the appreciation of such music to encourage 
 refinement and lessen vulgarity. 
 
 With these objects in view, every form to Upper V 
 has a thirty minutes' lesson weekly in aural culture 
 and musical appreciation, following the Hnes of Mr. 
 Macpherson, Forms I, II, III taking eurhythmies, the 
 other forms doing musical dictation, phrase making, 
 cadence playing, and transposition, etc., and frequently 
 a piece is played and the form phrasing, modulations 
 and character, etc., discussed from an appreciative point
 
 214 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 by the help of dictation and a paper on class work done 
 during the year. 
 
 In a class at which I was present their music mistress, 
 who is both a violinist and a pianist, played various 
 musical passages, and asked each girl to write down the 
 time in her book. This was done correctly by several girls. 
 
 Another exercise was for the mistress to play a fairly 
 long piece, and then ask for remarks. The answers came 
 rapidly. " It's in four time." " There's a change of key." 
 " A phrase is repeated." " It's an octave lower when it 
 comes again." " The middle part is louder, more jerky, 
 Uvely." 
 
 The teacher asked : " Is it a major or a minor key ? " 
 and finding a considerable uncertainty, she took a number 
 of major and minor chords and tested the girls again and 
 again. 
 
 Next came the ta-ta-ing of a passage, so mysterious to 
 the uninitiated, and many other exercises. The interest 
 of the class never wavered for an instant. 
 
 But other plans besides the weekly lessons are adopted 
 to arouse interest. After dinner the usual custom of the 
 school is for the head mistress to read aloud some light 
 story, such as Tom Brown's School Days, to all the girls who 
 stay for a mid-day meal, whilst they he or sit about the 
 gymnasium in any attitude they prefer ; but about once 
 a week, instead of the reading, the music mistress plays 
 to them, either on the vioHn or piano, after a preHminary 
 discourse on the piece she is going to play, and its com- 
 poser. Very often she plays some piece that has been 
 discussed at the lessons. 
 
 The head mistress sometimes reads, in connection with 
 these musical entertainments, the life of some great 
 musician ; and now and then the girls are asked to write 
 comments on music they have heard, saying why they 
 hke or dishke it. The music mistress has a choir which 
 is carefully selected from the scholars, but which is quite 
 voluntary. It is considered a great honour to belong to
 
 MUSICAL APPRECIATION 215 
 
 this choir, which practises hymns, anthems, and songs, 
 and leads the hymn-singing at prayers. Occasionally 
 there is a voluntary hymn practice for the whole school. 
 
 Carol singing has been carefully studied, and wounded 
 soldiers invited at different times to hear it. From time 
 to time special concerts are held of Russian or some 
 other nation's music, with the pupils as performers. 
 
 Finally, the school being divided into " Houses," 
 named after famous women, each " House " is expected 
 to provide a senior and junior choir, and, without any 
 help from the staff, they are expected to be able to sing 
 a hymn well together in parts, to provide their own 
 accompanists — a violinist and a pianist — and about four 
 people capable of doing musical dictation. They should 
 also be able to enter girls for the musical competition 
 held once a year between the different *' Houses." 
 
 The result of all these efforts is that " an almost 
 unbelievable interest," as the head mistress said, is now 
 taken in music although the experiments have only been 
 tried for one year. 
 
 Ashley Village 
 
 The possibility of training a whole school of village 
 children in power of song I found realized in a little 
 country village in Warwickshire, about four miles from 
 Coventry. 
 
 The head master is a musician and he has taught the 
 children to sing beautifully and with great enjoyment, 
 although they possess little of that native ability which 
 children in Northern counties, such as Lancashire, usually 
 display. 
 
 Little and big children, boys and girls together, sang 
 various ordinary songs, interpreted an old-fashioned 
 hymn and its tune in a new way, and gave a charming 
 rendering of " Strawberry Fair " and " My father is 
 mowing the barley," and this although the best singers 
 had left the school, and there were many new-comers. 
 The management of breath and the modulation of voice
 
 216 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 was most unusual for country children, and would have 
 done credit to trained choristers. 
 
 The head master told me he gave no form of musical 
 appreciation except the singing, but he never failed to 
 spend a few minutes on it every day, as well as giving the 
 ordinary weekly lesson, and he found that his little 
 scholars' musical taste steadily improved. 
 
 At Christ's Hospital, much has been done since its 
 removal to Horsham to encourage a love of music. There 
 is an excellent " music room " where lessons are given, 
 and every Sunday afternoon a concert is held which boys 
 who care for music can attend and at which masters and 
 boys are performers. A different form of music is chosen 
 each Sunday which an expert explains in a short address 
 and of which his pupils give examples. There are plenty 
 of small separate rooms for piano and violin practice. 
 When the school was moved from London in 1902, six 
 boys were learning to play on some musical instrument, 
 now nearly three hundred out of the eight hundred and 
 thirty learn. 
 
 On the time-table for Preparatory and Junior Schools 
 one period is devoted to vocal music, sight singing, ear 
 training, breathing and vocal exercises, cultivation of 
 the sense of rhythm and rudiments of music. Sometimes 
 the little boys have an instrumental lesson during school 
 hours, but as a rule these lessons are given in the boys' 
 free time. It is hoped that in future both the Middle and 
 Senior Schools will have "singing" and musical appreci- 
 ation on the time-table. There is also a string orchestra 
 and a brass band, to the strain of which all the boys 
 assemble and march into the hall to dine together. 
 There is a special "band room " in which the boys practise. 
 
 It is probably owing to this attention to music, as well 
 as to the fact that much reading aloud is encouraged in 
 class from the age of nine to sixteen, that the strong 
 cockney and provincial accents with which some boys
 
 CONCENTRATION OF ATTENTION 217 
 
 come to school disappear entirely in those who are 
 sufficiently inteUigent to stay after they are fifteen, the age 
 at which the strict system of superannuation begins to 
 operate. 
 
 Concentration of Attention 
 
 Some of the schools I visited are experimenting in 
 children's powers of concentration. The Arundale School 
 at Letchworth gives the pupils ten minutes' practice daily 
 in making careful observations of drawings and patterns, 
 or numbers, or phrases and sentences, or a collection of 
 articles, reproducing these immediately in pencil. 
 
 At another school in DrighHngton in the West Riding 
 — a girls' elementary one — Miss Mason's plans for 
 creating a love of learning and giving power over material 
 by forming a habit of genuine attention are very carefully 
 carried out. 
 
 The children know that, however badly they hstcn, the 
 dictated sentence will never be repeated. They are trained 
 to put into either words or writing a passage or story 
 read to them only once. I saw excellent descriptions of a 
 small picture of Carpaccio's " St. George and the Dragon," 
 after a quarter of an hour had been spent in passing it 
 round a large class. The children had no help whatever 
 from the teacher. They were allowed from twenty to 
 thirty minutes to wi'ite their account. Once a week 
 there is a written test for girls of eleven to thirteen on 
 work done. One question on each subject learned is 
 prepared by the teachers. These are numbered and 
 written up on the blackboard. Slips on which the numbers 
 are written are mixed up and given round, one to each 
 girl, so that she never knows on which subject her weekly 
 test will be set, and as she always wishes to do well she is 
 bound to pay close attention to all subjects. In addition 
 to this advantage there is the further one that all com- 
 petition is avoided, and each girl feels that her independent 
 work contributes to the good of the whole. This school 
 belongs indeed to that group of schools that are earnestly
 
 218 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 striving after co-operation, and which beheve that the 
 right training is to be a training for Ufe and neither for 
 mere personal success nor position. 
 
 Besides this three-quarter hour weekly test, there is a 
 quarter of an hour test on any subject that happens to 
 crop up, e.g. a poem is read once to the girls, e.g. Trench's 
 poem on " Duty," or they are allowed a few minutes to 
 read something in silence, and the rest of the quarter of an 
 hour is spent in writing out their thoughts on the given sub- 
 ject. The girls soon find that unless they give concen- 
 trated attention their written results are very deplorable. 
 
 Every day the elder girls get from a quarter to half an 
 hour for silent reading, knowing that this may be included 
 in the test at the end of the week. Each girl reads a 
 different book, unless she happens to want the same book 
 as one of her comrades. In the early morning, practice is 
 occasionally given in concentrated attention, very much 
 in the same way as at Letchworth, or in accordance with 
 plans set forth in Miss Catharine Aiken's book, Methods 
 of Mind Training. 
 
 The results of these varied efforts to secure attention 
 are telHng markedly in the younger children, whose work 
 at the age of eight and nine struck me as very much in 
 advance of children of their age in other schools. Two 
 Httle girls read aloud to me in such a manner that it was a 
 real pleasure to hsten to them. The absorption of the 
 older ones in silent reading was very noticeable. The 
 entrance of a visitor made no difference, for, in this school, 
 that fatal hindrance to attention of making children stand 
 whenever a stranger comes into the room is never allowed. 
 
 One school, the King Alfred School, Hampstead, 
 stands for so many of the points of progress noted in the 
 experiments that it may well form a close to the accounts 
 given, as School Field formed the introduction. 
 
 It is a secondary day co-educational school, but co- 
 education is by no means its only experiment. From its 
 beginning in 1898 it has been kept free from all external
 
 KING ALFRED SCHOOL 219 
 
 control. Though mspected by the Uourd of Education, 
 it has asked for no grant. It has always done its very 
 best to be in close co-operation with parents. Parents 
 are invited to meetings, and can visit the school at any 
 time. Representative parents sit on the council, and all 
 are left completely free to instruct their own children 
 in that form of reUgion to which they themselves belong. 
 There is no formal rehgious instruction in the school, 
 but it is the aim of all concerned that the spirit of love 
 and of unity shall prevail in it, not only now and then 
 but in every detail of school life. Thus there are no formal 
 rewards and punishments. The glory to be gained is 
 " the glory of going on " or of being advanced enough to 
 help a weaker member. Marks, prizes, and place-takings 
 are unknown. The school aims at close partnership be- 
 tween leaders and children, and the latter are encouraged 
 in every way to discipline themselves, to prepare them- 
 selves for the service of others in adult life. That they 
 may be free for some small measure of service in their 
 own homes, the younger children have no home lessons 
 at all, and the elder ones only one hour daily, and two 
 hours at the week-end, Saturday being a whole hohday. 
 One day in the week is set aside for chosen work, which is 
 an illuminating method of discovering a pupil's natural 
 bent. 
 
 Handwork holds an honoured place on the time- 
 table, and every girl as well as every boy goes to the 
 workshop. In one family a kitchen table is the result of 
 a girl's work, to say nothing of other useful articles ; 
 and in the head master's house may be seen results of 
 the combined efforts of the whole school in the form of 
 tapestry, silver goblets, and articles of furniture.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 COMMENTS ON EXPERIMENTS 
 
 A CAREFUL study of the experiments going on 
 in community or federal government makes 
 one realize that there are certain dangers to 
 be avoided in adopting the plan. 
 
 America has emphasized some of these. There is, in 
 New York, a society for helping schools that wish to alter 
 their autocratic form of government for a more demo- 
 cratic one. This society sends out advisers to schools, 
 writes pamphlets and gives lectures on the subject. 
 It tries to impress four important points : 
 
 (i) That the system should be introduced gradually, 
 and after a preparation prolonged until a large majority 
 of the members of the staff are ready for it, and the 
 scholars themselves anxious to try it. An English head 
 master in Warwickshire writes as follows concerning his 
 method of preparation : " Having at last selected what 
 boys I wanted, I set to work. Once a week for the first 
 hour in the morning, I dealt with such subjects as truth, 
 courage, cleanliness, personal appearance, self-control, 
 example, unselfishness, patriotism, companions, respect 
 for women, respect for age, etc. At first I had to do the 
 most of the talking, but eventually I got the boys to enter 
 into the discussion and debate the subjects. At last I 
 had round me some seven or eight loyal lads and I deter- 
 mined to start in earnest the system of prefects." 
 
 (2) The chief of the school should be a warm advocate 
 and supporter of the plan ; but 
 
 (3) He or she should not be the chief adviser to the
 
 COMMENTS ON EXPEllIMENTS 221 
 
 school community, but should trust this duty to that 
 member of the staff who is most enthusiastic in its favour. 
 
 (4) It must be clearly understood that behind all the 
 authority of the community there is the final authority 
 of chief or committee, which could bring that community 
 to an end in case of need. 
 
 A study of the accounts of experiments given in this 
 book will show the value of these warnings, and a study 
 of schools in which the results have been less obviously 
 successful than in those described reveals a very real 
 danger in the interpretation of freedom, which in some 
 cases seems to imply only " absence of authority," " no 
 punishments," " doing as we like," to quote the sayings 
 of some of the children. 
 
 This makes it worth wliile to spend some time in 
 elucidating the true meaning of freedom. The cry is 
 almost world-wide for greater freedom in education, and 
 for " the development of individuality." This latter 
 phrase may be taken to mean the help given to the child 
 to fulfil the unique promise that exists in every human 
 being. If our individuaUty means our " best self," then 
 freedom will mean in the first place opportunity for the 
 discovery and expansion of this best self, and in the 
 second place the subdual of the lower self by the higher 
 self. " A man is internally free," writes Dr. James Ward, 
 " whenever the ends he pursues have his whole-hearted 
 approval." Undoubtedly freedom does not in itself 
 imply that the man who is free is always good. As Dr. 
 Ward points out, the man who is internally free may 
 " say with Milton's Satan, ' Evil, be thou my good,' 
 or with Jesus, ' Thy will be done ' " ; but in all educational 
 discussions on the subject the assumption is made that 
 the ends to be pursued are good ends, and the freedom we 
 desire for our children is a freedom that will tend to 
 create a righteous world, a world better than that at 
 present known to us, because it will be a world ruled by 
 love and not by fear.
 
 222 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 The kind of freedom we designate as " true freedom " 
 will not then be one free from all restraint, but rather 
 there will be inward as opposed to outward restraint. 
 It will be freedom from that " small hungry shivering 
 self," so aptly described by George EHot when she wrote 
 of Mr. Casaubon, and so intimately known to us all. 
 It will imply a perfected self-control combined with a 
 perfected self-expression. More than this, since expansion 
 of the best self is bound to take place in the world of other 
 human beings, since it is only through other selves that 
 we come to anything approaching a knowledge of our own 
 self, true freedom means also liberty to serve. 
 
 Professor Green has truly remarked that the child's 
 first discovery of himself lies in his discovery that he can 
 help others, that he can serve, that he is needed by others ; 
 and his second discovery is that he needs them, that in 
 their service to him there is ground for his admiration. 
 
 " I am free," says Mr. Edmond Holmes, " when and 
 just so far as my action originates in my true self, and in 
 doing so escapes from the control of material or quasi- 
 material forces and laws." True freedom then is the 
 triumph of the spiritual. Professor Findlay, in a speech 
 on freedom, said most truly that "to be free we must 
 be free from something." Probably we are all agreed 
 really as to the basis of freedom already mentioned, i.e. 
 the freedom from the lower self which we desire for all 
 our pupils, but when we come to practical questions, and 
 begin to consider from what we want our children to be 
 free, we are not in such close agreement. A httle pamphlet 
 on one of the newest of schools says that it is freedom 
 from punishments that is aimed at. Others think that 
 the happy twentieth-century child is already free from 
 all that formed fetters round earlier generations, but as 
 has been shown in the introduction to the fourth chapter, 
 the child is still sometimes subject to callous and cruel 
 treatment from either parents or teachers. The brutal 
 schoolmasters, such as those described by Dickens and
 
 COMMENTS ON EXPERIMENTS 223 
 
 even in as recent a novel as Joan and Peter, are not yet 
 altogether beings of the past. It is true that there is 
 far less callousness, but the tyranny of hot and hasty 
 temper still remains. There are still children whose only 
 safety from a parent's wrath Ues in perfect silence ; and 
 the lust of power (that terrible snare of so many head 
 masters and head mistresses) still plays a terrible part 
 in our schools and homes, though the form of its mani- 
 festation may have changed. There are parents and 
 teachers who love to " play on their children's natures 
 as on the keys of a piano," who are satisfied to see them 
 grow up just hke themselves, to whom the cry of the 
 prophet Elijah is meaningless : " Now, O Lord, take away 
 my hfe, for I am not better than my fathers." 
 
 There is still what Sir Arthur Helps called " the 
 tyranny of weakness," which lets the child's tendency to 
 disorder run rampant rather than help him to gain self- 
 control. 
 
 We want too, in these modern days, to free the child 
 from the evils of unhealthy competition, and it is in such 
 efforts as have been described in the girls' high school 
 in the North, in the Caldecott Community, in Mr. O'NeiU's 
 elementary school, and others that perhaps the greatest 
 hope of the future lies. 
 
 One of the greatest lessons of the war, which we are 
 finding it terribly hard to learn, is that the old things 
 must pass away, and that we must work in the future for 
 such a co-operation between individuals, between peoples 
 and nations as has never yet been known. It is nigh upon 
 forty years since a few isolated voices used to be raised 
 against the prevalent competition in our schools, but now 
 the thoughts of co-operation and service are in the air, 
 exemplified, as will have been seen, in the " New Ideals of 
 Education Conference," the " Uplands Association," 
 the objects of the " Theosophical Educational Trust," 
 the " Education as National Service Association," and 
 such religious orders as " The Order of the Star in the
 
 224 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 East," " The Order of the Cross," " The Guild of Silence," 
 and " The Seventh-day Adventists," whilst the Bahai 
 and the Ethical movements accentuate with earnestness 
 the reUgion of love and duty. In these various com- 
 munities we have an outburst of comparatively new 
 endeavours, whilst for years past the King Alfred School 
 Society, the Fabian Society, and the Society of Friends 
 have worked steadily on, living and preaching the doctrine 
 of service. To every school plan, to every educational 
 device, we should bring this test : " Does it make for 
 co-operation, for union between man and man or for 
 disunion ? " If we are agreed on the point we must face 
 the consequences, and many of our most cherished plans 
 must go. Prizes, marks, and place-taking must become 
 barbarous devices of the past. For the refusal to allow 
 our pupils to help one another, the privilege of the more 
 advanced to give aid to the backward must be substituted. 
 In this connection it is worth considering how much the 
 growing plan of individual teaching noticed in so much 
 of our experimental work tends to the overthrow of 
 marks and prizes. Co-operation comes in quite naturally 
 in the place of competition, and the danger of an idle 
 child relying entirely on another's work does not seem 
 to be a serious one. There is much work still to be done. 
 It was as recently as 1916 that I found a plan adopted 
 (in what was really a good human elementary school) of 
 distributing sweets on Friday afternoons to all the so- 
 called " best " children of each class. In still more 
 recent years public school boys have been caned for not 
 " keeping above " their fellows. In industrial schools 
 the careful implanting of the love of money still goes on 
 in the plan of letting the monthly amount of pocket- 
 money depend on conduct. We complain bitterly of the 
 love of money amongst us, on the one hand, and encourage 
 it in our schools on the other, Mr. Simpson's A n A dven! '-'' ' 
 in Education'^ has shown what freedom from competi.. 
 
 1 Sidgwick and Jackson, 3s, 6d,
 
 COMMENTS ON EXPERIMENTS 225 
 
 can do for a class of public school boys. The Loom of 
 Youth, '^ written by a lad of seventeen, gives us a vi\id 
 picture of the evils of competition, with its boys of thirteen 
 and fourteen as cheats and Hars. Mr. Lowes Dickinson 
 was right when he described " the whole social atmo- 
 sphere of the EngUsh pubhc school as one of active, 
 pertinacious, unreflecting competition, and in its way one 
 of the main roots of war." 
 
 It is because we have to rear a generation whose out- 
 look shall be peace that it becomes so important to ponder 
 these facts which our experiments are teaching us. 
 
 In the past we have allowed our children to be isolated 
 from each other in a way that we should hesitate to do 
 any longer. It has been the custom to separate boys and 
 girls from one another's comradeship, both in work and 
 play, for many years of their lives. We must set them 
 free from this convention, and as has been already seen in 
 Chapter II, co-education has made great progress during 
 the present century. Our aim should be to let boys and 
 girls associate more than they have ever done before, 
 that they may gain an intimate knowledge of one another, 
 and be prepared to work harmoniously together in adult 
 life in the many vocations that will in future be open to 
 men and women alike. Of all the pleas that have been 
 made for co-education no recent one has been more 
 powerful than the unconscious plea of The Loom of Youth. 
 
 Another form of freedom we desire for our children is 
 that they should be free from the rooted distrust with 
 which we have too often regarded them. In the experi- 
 ments described one of the chief features shown is a 
 growing confidence in the natural goodness of childhood. 
 Two writers of the present day are doing much to help 
 forward this confidence, Mr. Edmond Holmes and Mr. 
 Glutton Brock, both of whom are making us realize that 
 the doctrine of original sin has to be banished from our 
 educational beliefs. 
 
 ''■ By Alec Waugh. 
 15
 
 226 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 \Vliat these writers teach in their books ^ Mr. Homer 
 Lane has proved in practice at the Little Commonwealth, ^ 
 where boys and girls alike responded to the perfect trust 
 placed in them. In experiments such as those at Thorp 
 Arch, Gerrard's Cross, and King Alfred School we have 
 noticed similar results. 
 
 The experiments show us also that it is possible to 
 free our children from many of our traditional plans and 
 methods without injury to them. It will have been 
 noted that our rigid time-tables can be done away with, 
 our curriculum greatly altered, our orthodox school 
 furniture made to give place to less cramping seats and 
 tables without that falling of the skies we should have 
 expected ten or twenty years ago. We are changing too 
 the silence of our cloakrooms and our classrooms, setting 
 our children free to be simple and natural, and we find 
 that those absurd rules which required a child to ask 
 leave to borrow a pencil, or to thank a comrade who has 
 lent her one, or even to open or shut a desk, are absolutely 
 needless. 
 
 It may be noted too that the strict convention which 
 completely ruled our pupils' leisure is yielding to more 
 enlightened thought. Organized games are not being 
 forced on our schools as they used to be. Even in some 
 of our big boys' public schools boys are now allowed time 
 for hobbies and are not forced to play games whether 
 they Uke them or not, e.g. Marlborough, Rugby, and 
 Christ's Hospital are giving boys far more freedom from 
 the tyranny of games than in former years. 
 
 These details may seem to have led us away from 
 that inner freedom with which this chapter started, but 
 it is by the removal of external barriers that we give 
 
 1 The Secret of the Cross and What Is and What Might Be, by Edmond 
 Holmes} The Ultimate Belief and The Kingdom of Heaven, by Glutton 
 Brock. 
 
 * The Little Commonwealth is not described in this book, as at 
 present it is not existent ; but it has been the source of many experi- 
 ments in community government.
 
 COMMENTS ON EXPERIMENTS 227 
 
 greater opportunity for the outrush of the inner spring 
 of hfe. 
 
 But the removal of our fooHsh conventions and customs 
 will not be enough to help each child to come to his or 
 her own ; to become the free giver of that own to his 
 fellow-men ; to attain to a genuine self-control ; to lose 
 himself ultimately in service. 
 
 We come here to a parting of the ways in the opinions 
 of modern educators. Some hold that children are to be 
 left to do exactly as seems good to them, that there is to 
 be no such thing as obedience, and even declare that they 
 would never deny a child anything that he may wish. 
 Others believe that the path to true freedom lies in a 
 rational willing obedience on the part of the Uttle child 
 to wise and intelligent elders. 
 
 The Uttle child has not intelligence enough, nor will 
 enough, nor experience enough to guide himself com- 
 pletely, as the children themselves often feel and as is 
 shown by the account of the children of the Caldecott 
 Community. " I remember," says a friend, " that I was 
 told that I might choose in which bed I would sleep and 
 stood howling on the floor unable to make up my mind. 
 I would have given anything to be picked up and put 
 into one of those beds, by the will of my elders, and I 
 believe this expresses the feehng of many a child." One 
 of the foremost apostles of freedom, Mr. Edmond Holmes, 
 writes : " I think it is possible to go too far in the matter 
 of freedom. ... It is only right that children should have 
 the benefit of the experience of the race ; and for this 
 reason, and also because their parents and vice-parents 
 are responsible for their health and safety, they must 
 learn to submit to discipline as well as to discipline them- 
 selves." 
 
 We must, however, be perfectly clear that obedience is 
 never an end in itself, a virtue per se, but always to be used 
 as a means towards self-control. There are times when 
 life itself depends upon obedience to orders, in cases of
 
 228 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 illness for example. Doctors have told sad tales of 
 precious lives being lost because the little invalid had not 
 learned to obey. Whenever it is possible reasons should 
 be given so that the child may trust his educators, and 
 then he will be ready to believe that they are acting in his 
 best interest when an order is given the purport of which 
 he cannot understand. 
 
 It is impossible to agree with those educators who would 
 allow children so to act that there is almost certain to be 
 retribution for them in later life, e.g. to sit up late at 
 night, laying the foundation for nervous disorders ; to 
 rise at dawn for many days in succession, contracting 
 a habit of insomnia ; to lie on wet grass or damp ground, 
 preparing for the rheumatism of old age ; or to eat 
 unwholesome food, and so ruin their digestions. Mutual 
 trust between parent and child will make commands 
 given for their future welfare a very light and easy yoke. 
 
 It may be noted in a careful perusal of the experiments 
 that the kind of freedom that is given to older children 
 is not altogether suitable for children under eleven or 
 twelve. Young children have not yet developed the 
 group instinct, and if they live in a wholesome atmosphere, 
 they are not, as a rule, eager to govern themselves. 
 They prefer the firm guidance of their elders to the 
 erratic rule of their own comrades, and they bear no 
 malice against those who may even punish them, pro- 
 vided the punishment is as fair and just as possible, 
 and that they are allowed in all reasonable ways an 
 abundance of freedom. 
 
 In some schools where the majority of the children 
 are very young it is doubtful whether plans of community 
 government are not being introduced too soon, and the 
 burden of responsibility thereby becoming too grievous 
 to be borne. In our adult eagerness for these new 
 developments we are too ready to impose our ideas on 
 the youngsters, and whilst we preach the importance 
 of following their lead follow our own, as the modern
 
 COMMENTS ON EXPERIMENTS 229 
 
 father did who wished his boy to have no schooUng 
 before he was twelve. At the age of ten the boy wanted 
 to go to school and learn with other boys, but the father 
 instead bought him a bicycle, thus acting very much 
 as the mother (whom Mr. Homer Lane so condemns) 
 who helps the baby to. convey a crust to its mouth, 
 instead of seeing that its aim is the spiritual one of 
 learning how to do it and thus gaining power, rather 
 than the material need of eating. 
 
 There is danger lest our reaction against all rule and 
 authority should be carried too far, and should lead to a 
 very serious swing of the pendulum later on in favour 
 of authority and bhnd obedience. Self-government 
 should not be forced on children who are neither desirous 
 nor ripe for it, and on whose shoulders the burden of 
 responsibility will fall too heavily, and lead them to a 
 tyranny of conscience quite unsuited to their years. 
 
 We can, however, begin to prepare children for the 
 community government of adolescence from their earhest 
 years by persistently giving them more and more choice, 
 as may be seen in such schools as the infant schools at 
 Sheffield and Hull, the Abbeydale School, and the 
 Caldecott Community. 
 
 With children who from some cause, such as ill-health 
 or previous upbringing, appear to be quite incapable 
 of any form of initiative it is best to choose for them 
 unhesitatingly, and then gradually to introduce some 
 form of choice, e.g. a choice between sitting still or having 
 some very attractive plaything, even if the play lasts 
 but a few moments. Even at such an early stage the 
 difference between simply enticing the child to play or 
 act in some way and offering him a choice between 
 sitting still and playing is important. In the second 
 case his having to decide is brought into the hght of 
 consciousness. The next stage in choice for children of 
 feeble will-power is to Umit it to two or three definite 
 alternatives, as, for instance. Will you walk along this
 
 230 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 path or ride in your pram ? Will j^ou have pudding or 
 fruit ? These simple cases of choice should be offered 
 again and again until the child begins to decide readily, 
 and to realize the pleasure of making decision for himself, 
 signs that more important choice can be given him. 
 For the naturally strong-willed, rebellious child the longing 
 for free independent action can often be met by giving 
 him a choice on the spot. A child who does not want 
 to wash his hands may be asked, " Shall I take you to 
 wash your hands, or will you go and wash them all by 
 yourself ? " One who objects to come in when it is raining 
 may be asked, " Shall I chase 3^ou in, or will you chase 
 me ? " A wise Swiss mother in a railway carriage with a 
 party of four high-spirited boys who wanted to make a 
 great riot produced a packet of provisions and said to the 
 ringleader, " Shall we wait till we get to the next station, 
 or will you help me to give these round to every one 
 now ? " A stimulus was here given to orderly action 
 without the slightest ruction being caused by reproof 
 or anger, and the child who most needed it had a choice 
 given him. A boy of about four was asked, " Would 
 you like to play or help me weed ? " " Help oo ! " was 
 the reply. He wanted to take up everything he saw till 
 he was shown a bit of groundsel, and instructed to pull 
 up all similar plants, and the joy with which he presently 
 looked up and asked, " Am I doing weal work ? " fully 
 made up for the indiscriminate upheaval of all plants 
 which he at first desired. 
 
 As children grow older, choice can be more and more 
 exercised. There can be choice of different ways of 
 spending money, of occupation, of pursuits, of hobbies 
 and games. Choice can be given in schools as well as in 
 the home, and it will be noted especially in the Tonbridge, 
 Abbeydale, Thorp Arch, and King Alfred schools, where 
 choice in occupation is seen to lead to what adults would 
 not in the least have expected. The tyranny of allowing 
 none but organized games is one of the oppressions from
 
 COMMENTS ON EXPERIMENTS 231 
 
 which we should free our children. The work done by 
 Miss Reaney^ in her original investigation of children's 
 choice in regard to games will be useful here. 
 
 Even the choice of punishments may sometimes be 
 given, and the culprit seriously consulted as to what 
 would help him most to the desired end of self-control ; 
 e.g. Will it most help the boy to be kept apart for a 
 time from the brother he has threatened with an open 
 knife, or deprived of that instrument of attack for a week ? 
 It will be seen that choice of lessons may be safely given 
 with limitation, as at Mr. O'Neill's school, and the King 
 Alfred and St. George's. Even as far back as the eighties 
 in last century Friday afternoon used to be set aside in 
 my Chiswick co-educational school for the children to 
 do over again any work done imperfectly during the week, 
 but if no such work existed the children could choose any 
 work they liked. On one occasion a girl of about twelve 
 chose to work out a number of sums on a notation other 
 than the familiar decimal one. In these days great 
 advance has been made on this plan, ordinary afternoons, 
 a whole day or even a week being given to chosen work 
 with great success. 
 
 The question of choice leads us to a most important 
 problem. Do we dare put children in such a situation 
 that they may choose between right and wrong action ? 
 The answer given in experiments described seems 
 emphatically " Yes," for in all the schools in which any 
 form of community government is being tried such 
 situations arise. It is clear in the first place that the 
 action that is done merely through docility, or from hope 
 of reward or fear of punishment, or because the environ- 
 ment is so arranged that no other course can be taken, has 
 no real moral value. There must be definite clear choice 
 between right and wrong if the moral life is to develop 
 and the will to be strengthened, Froebel has said, 
 " Man must have the possibility of failure in order to 
 
 ^ See Chapter II, p. 40.
 
 232 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 be good and virtuous ; he must be able to make himself 
 a slave (i.e. a slave to his higher self) in order to be truly 
 free. . . . Whoever is to do with self-determination and 
 freedom that which is eternal and divine must be at 
 liberty to do that which is finite and earthly." In the 
 words of Pico della Mirandola, " the young must define 
 their nature for themselves through their own free v^iW." 
 Intellectually, and in our search after beauty, we are 
 coming to believe more and more in the necessity of each 
 one of us learning by experimental experience, and it is 
 almost impossible to deny the need of experiment in 
 the moral and religious spheres. The Socialist Sunday 
 School at Bristol, the Theosophical Schools, the Christian 
 Science Schools in London, Torquay, and Gravesend, the 
 Caldecott Community, all show how experiment has 
 drawn forth the religious and moral needs of children. 
 
 In our great anxiety as parents or teachers to do the 
 right thing by our children we have felt incHned to carry 
 the theory that " prevention is better than cure " too 
 far, and to hedge our children in by all sorts of preventive 
 measures. This is one reason why some of our girls' 
 private schools, and most of our preparatory schools for 
 boys, fail to prepare the pupils for the greater freedom 
 from external restraint of the large public schools. 
 " Most boys," writes the author of The Loom of Youth 
 (and he might have added girls), " have at their prepara- 
 tory schools been so carefully looked after that they have 
 never learned to think for themselves. . . . They believe 
 impUcitly what their masters tell them is right and wrong." 
 This perfect trust in elders is no doubt natural up to the 
 age of eleven or twelve, for in early life a child's conscience 
 is external, but it is a frequent mistake to allow the 
 turmoil of adolescence to come upon him utterly un- 
 awares. Our business as educators is to help our pupils 
 to prepare themselves gradually for their coming stage 
 of advancement. The experiments described seem to 
 show that this is done best by avoiding too much super-
 
 COMMENTS ON EXPERIMENTS 233 
 
 vision, and thus, by leaving them opportunities of right 
 or wrong action, preparing them for a far less limited 
 freedom from about thirteen years of age, when some 
 form of genuine community government may be adopted. 
 It is sometimes said that our English pubhc schools are 
 examples of self-government, but the authority of the 
 prefects is after all government by a few boys selected by 
 authority, with rules laid down by the rulers of the school, 
 and we get the unceasing round of canings, lines, and 
 repetition, instead of the original punishments suggested 
 in a free community such as the Little Commonwealth. 
 " The head of the ' House ' is usually appointed by the 
 house master, and if that head chooses to revolutionize 
 the rules of the ' House ' he has only to consult the 
 house master. The wishes of all his brother prigs can 
 be ignored ; even the house master will be guided largely 
 by his decision, for he is entirely dependent on the 
 prefects and more especially on the head of the house 
 for the suppression of evil practices. If the head connives 
 at evil practices the house master is almost powerless. 
 No other position has such possibilities for a boy who 
 likes power," writes Mr. Lunn in The Harrovians. 
 
 It may be said that to allow choice between what 
 seems to be right and wrong action is to expose children 
 deliberately to temptation, to make for them surroundings 
 which will consist of snares and pitfalls. But it is not 
 an artificial environment of graded temptation that is 
 advocated but rather the lessening of all supervision in 
 schools and at home, the greater liberty of children at 
 school to play, walk, occupy themselves in diverse ways 
 without their elders being present. It is good that the 
 older staff should be on intimate terms with the young 
 learners, but not in the relation of governors and governed 
 all the time. It is this pleasant intimacy which is culti- 
 vated, as Mr. Kay points out, in the week or fortnight's 
 camp and which the Society of Friends carries out with 
 such success in a truly co-educational summer camp for
 
 234 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 boys and girls belonging to the Friends' schools. These 
 camps have been carried on for some years. In 1919 
 about ten boys and nine girls met at Jordans, the girls 
 sleeping in the well-arranged dormitory, the boys in 
 tents in the orchard. Every member of the camp took it 
 in turns to help with the cooking, to go on errands, clean 
 boots and shoes, and do all the necessary work, whilst 
 daily excursions were planned to all interesting places 
 in the neighbourhood, boys and girls going about together 
 in the most natural way. The educators of the future 
 must get away from our habit of perpetual distrust of 
 childhood and youth. 
 
 To our adult eyes the choice of the young may some- 
 times be undesirable, but this is often because of a lack 
 of understanding. We must help the young to prepare 
 themselves for choice by giving them a clearer knowledge 
 of facts. We must supply them with good material on 
 which to base their judgments ; and prepare them for 
 a reflective moral judgment on their own actions by 
 inviting them to judge the conduct of characters in- 
 troduced to them in history, literature, and Scripture 
 lessons. This is a point more emphasized in the schools 
 of the United States of America than in our own. In 
 Shakespeare lessons, and in those lessons (to be heard 
 almost ad nauseam) on The Ancient Mariner and Silas 
 Marner, the most important point is the invitation 
 to the pupils to weigh and consider the actions, 
 thoughts, and motives of the different characters, and to 
 put themselves in their places and imagine how they 
 would have acted under the circumstances. 
 
 We are too apt to forget our own childhood, and we 
 fail to remember how busy we were in building up our 
 own future from the example of our favourite heroes 
 and heroines, and how very keen we were in the moral 
 direction, caring far more for progress, for doing and 
 thinking rightly than most adults, who, in Dr. Adler's 
 words, are only too ready " to sit down on the greensward
 
 COMMENTS ON EXPERIMENTS 235 
 
 of imperfection." If we will but give our children 
 opportunities for abundant occupation in accordance 
 with their natural inclinations and also wide choice, 
 together with opportunities for judgment, consulting 
 them in cases in which we usually never dream of 
 letting them have a say, and keeping facts clearly before 
 them, we shall find that we can leave them free to decide 
 for themselves in questions of right and wrong with 
 which hitherto we have been afraid to trust them. The 
 freedom we desire for our pupils is not mere " freedom 
 from restraint, but freedom to initiate." The results of 
 freedom to initiate are shown in a remarkable way in the 
 results Mr. Sharwood-Smith experienced when he let the 
 boys choose their own actors of their plays, and the right 
 actors for each part were found. A Warwickshire head 
 master, quoted by Mr. Bolton King, says : "The choice 
 of prefects was at first a most difficult matter ; I was 
 never quite sure what influence a boy had behind the 
 scenes. Finally I came to the conclusion that the only 
 method I could adopt with any safety was to leave the 
 choice to the boys themselves, who from more complete 
 knowledge could judge better than I. . . . After a year 
 I am quite satisfied that the tone and general character 
 of the boys have improved and are improving a very great 
 deal. The growing conviction that boys are being trusted 
 to carry out, often on their own initiative, work connected 
 with the government of the school, and that they can 
 carry out such duties if they are trustworthy, self-reliant 
 and conscientious, is spreading throughout the school, 
 and is expressing itself in both character and work. 
 Discipline is easier and much more free, and the old 
 strained relations between teacher and class are dis- 
 appearing, giving place to friendly co-operation. The 
 decrease in corporal punishment has been most marked, 
 for the boys are now reahzing that to be caned places 
 them in a dwindling class of low morahty." 
 The attention of the reader is especially drawn to those
 
 236 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 schools in which an effort is being made to reach the 
 highest form of genuine self-government, in which each 
 member of the community is a law unto himself, and thus 
 the need of any form of penalty is done away with. These 
 are schools in which there are few or no very little children, 
 and in which the leaders, whilst unwilling to trust govern- 
 ment to the inexperienced, put forth every effort to help 
 each member to be a law unto himself. 
 
 Possibly the institution of court and penalties, given by 
 children to children, may be the stepping-stone to this 
 higher form of government. 
 
 In regard to the experiments in individual choice 
 of subject and independent work certain dangers manifest 
 themselves. 
 
 There is first the danger of the production of a 
 vacillating and wandering mind ; the child may acquire 
 a habit of taking up and dropping subject after subject. 
 Here guidance seems absolutely essential on the part of 
 the teacher, and it will be noted that it is freely given in 
 some schools. Again, it is said that the child who, having 
 free choice, always works at what he can do best, may 
 develop into a one-sided adult, who tends to look rather 
 for mere prominence than for service. The remedy for 
 this is again wise guidance from a thoroughly trusted 
 teacher, and experience seems to show (see, e.g., the 
 Outwood and Kearsley School, Gerrard's Cross, and 
 the Caldecott Community) that children follow advice, 
 and apply themselves to subjects which they have been 
 shown will help to make them women and men who can 
 serve. 
 
 A great beUever in freedom writes : " It is more likely 
 that the child who, being given free choice, discovers 
 his own strong points, will be ' bucked up ' by the 
 discovery, and will try to bring his other subjects to the 
 level of what he is strong at. There was a remarkable 
 instance of this in Mr. O'Neill's school. An apparently 
 hopeless duffer discovered that he was good at painting,
 
 COMMENTS ON EXPERIMENTS 237 
 
 and straightway the whole of his work rose to a higher 
 level." The great advantages of individual work, and 
 of a freer choice of subjects than was ever known in our 
 day, is brought out in tlie experiments. There is no fear 
 of gaps in a pupil's progress. The child who has been ill 
 or absent from any cause comes back to take up his work 
 just where he left it, and thus the maxim " Never let your 
 pupil suffer a defeat " is on the high road to fulfilment. 
 
 There is freedom from the fear of being " low down in 
 class." The duller children do not lose heart, for they 
 do not find their companions always in front of them. 
 All things become possible to them as they are allowed 
 to jog on at their own pace, whilst the brighter ones can 
 forge ahead without impatience at being held back by 
 others. 
 
 Dehverance from marks, place - taking, and prizes 
 comes quite naturally. When these have vanished, 
 there is no longer a need to forbid helpfulness, and the 
 reader will note how readily children set to work to help 
 one another and to conquer difficulties together. 
 
 It is found that children accustomed to work separately 
 consider it a great treat to be occasionally invited into 
 a class. Individual work seems to create a greater hunger 
 for knowledge, and a love of work, and having a choice 
 of their own leads to far greater concentration on the 
 work in which delight is taken. The children are becoming 
 " masters of themselves," and " consecrating themselves 
 to work " in a way to rejoice the hearts of genuine 
 educators. " The secret of real fife," it has well been 
 said, " is to be worthily occupied." This occupation 
 may be thought or dreaming, as well as action. 
 
 The great need that is made manifest in all experiments 
 described, is the importance of a personality that is ready 
 to stand aside and allow the children to develop their 
 natural capacity for self-government. Almost every- 
 thing depends in a system of freedom on the right kind 
 of personahty in the teacher. There must be a com-
 
 238 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 bination in him or her of both humility and power, and 
 an abihty to create a true moral atmosphere of goodwill 
 and kindness which all his pupils should breathe. It 
 would be better not to attempt freedom than to give it 
 promiscuously. A head master who had wilhngly allowed 
 an assistant to try the experiment of much freedom in 
 his form, felt it impossible to allow others to follow his 
 example. " No teacher should attempt to give freedom 
 who does not whole-heartedly believe in it." The chief 
 leader must always remain the superior authority. He 
 or she must be for ever on the watch to help the children 
 to unfold their powers, but to ignore authority is not to 
 create freedom. 
 
 Perhaps the most real danger of all is to introduce a 
 formal freedom, arranged in every detail not by the 
 children but by the adults.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 A VISION OF THE FUTURE 
 
 THE promise of the future rests largely with forms 
 of education not dealt with in this book, viz. our 
 universities and our training colleges for teachers. 
 In all the best of the training colleges, there is a stir of 
 Ufe that is most encouraging. Teachers full of modern 
 spirit, infused with what was wise in the past, are being 
 sent forth to raise the tone of the backward, and help 
 forward the more advanced schools. Training, like all 
 other educational efforts, is going through a period of re- 
 form, and there is little doubt but that the profession 
 of teaching will, in time, demand as careful a preparation 
 as the profession of medicine or the Church. 
 
 It is hoped that general education will be continued 
 till the age of nineteen or twenty for those who intend to 
 be teachers, and that a special training course will follow ; 
 that in the future " a trained teacher should not be 
 expected to be an experienced teacher " ; that the whole 
 course should be modified to allow time for more inde- 
 pendent thought, for a widening of view through social 
 experience ; that both sexes should take the course 
 together ; and that every kind of experiment in training 
 should be encouraged. 
 
 The experiment going on for training in continuation 
 schools, under the auspices of " The Training for National 
 Service," at ii Tavistock Square, deserves especial 
 attention. 
 
 The experiments in the education of children that are 
 going on throughout our land give us good cause for hope 
 
 2J9
 
 240 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 in the future of education. The best of them lead us to a 
 conviction that in the years to come there will be freedom 
 for the child's highest self to come to the fore, and that 
 co-operation will be the prevailing law in all our 
 educational work. 
 
 There will be co-operation between the generations. 
 The old will be humbler, less convinced that the past 
 held diamonds undiscovered by the present, and that the 
 present generation is in almost every respect inferior to 
 themselves. They will be ready to trust the young and 
 to share with them, on equal terms, all good ideas and 
 new suggestions. The young will be humbler too, less 
 aggressive, and being trusted by those who are older, 
 ready to trust in return their wider experience, and the 
 wisdom gained by a longer life. Young folk will have 
 more time to grow up, as Metchnikoff urged long ago, 
 on the ground that earthly hfe steadily tends to prolong 
 itself. All boys and girls will have definite educational 
 help until they are eighteen whether they belong to the 
 working-classes or not, and those who are fitted for more 
 intellectual callings, whether rich or poor, will continue 
 their education for a much longer period. 
 
 Co-operation too will exist between the sexes. All occu- 
 pations, trades, professions. Government appointments 
 will be opened to both sexes. Through the steady 
 advance of co-education, and other causes, men and 
 women will have arrived at a mutual understanding. 
 The genuine differences between them will have come 
 to hght, and be recognized as neither inferior nor 
 superior, but fitting each into each as the different 
 colours in a mosaic. 
 
 There will be co-operation between parents and other 
 educators. 
 
 The experiments scarcely seem to point to the hope 
 that day schools will prevail over the boarding schools, 
 but it may come in time when the present generation, 
 better educated than ever before in boarding schools,
 
 A VISION OF THE FUTURE 241 
 
 will feel more competent to take their share of respon- 
 sibility and keep their children who attend a day school 
 at home ; for it seems clear that we shall be nearer the 
 ideal when parents and teachers are working closely 
 together in a way only possible with day schools. At 
 any rate, since the age at which children are sent away to 
 boarding schools has advanced from six to nine or ten, 
 there is hope that it will advance still more. 
 
 It is held by the Montessorians that children of two 
 should be sent to school, but here again let us hope that 
 such a step will only be a temporary measure, and carried 
 out only where the few parents likely to be in such a 
 strait have the courage to admit their complete incapacity 
 for deahng with children by enlightened methods. In 
 the future, then, we may hope to find the co-educational 
 day school existing as the prevalent plan for children's 
 education, whilst boarding schools remain for those 
 children from whom circumstances force the parents to 
 part. 
 
 Co-operation wiU prevail also between every kind Oj 
 school, private or pubHc, State-aided or independent, 
 antiquated or pioneer, the schools in the same town 
 or district all working together for the good of the town, 
 the country schools working in harmony with the central 
 rural school of the district. The counties of Warwick- 
 shire and Lincolnshire are leading us to hope for this 
 gradual breaking down of class distinctions and an ever- 
 growing co-operation among all who care for education. 
 
 Experiments described show also greater co-operation 
 between teachers and taught, and between the pupils 
 themselves, leading us to hope that place-taking, marks, 
 prizes, severe punishments will become things of the past. 
 The experiments in groups and individual work are sign- 
 posts in this direction. 
 
 There will be further co-operation hehvcen different 
 nations brought about by wise teaching in the schools. 
 Already schools in various countries are getting into touch 
 i6
 
 242 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 with one another, and an international league of education 
 has been proposed. 
 
 The promise of the future holds, besides co-operation, 
 the possibiUty that life will be considered of more impor- 
 tance than knowledge. We have made a fetish of know- 
 ledge in the past, and it will be very hard to displace it, 
 but there is hope. The greatest step in this direction will 
 be that arts and crafts will come to their own. The 
 book-educated people of the passing generation who 
 cannot use their hands to any advantage will be succeeded 
 by a race of men and women not only learned in the world 
 of books, but skilful of hand and very keen of eye. It 
 may be that the dream of one of our idealists will come 
 true, and no man or woman be allowed a degree in any 
 university who cannot give proof that he or she is accom- 
 plished in some art or craft. The fact that artists and 
 craftsmen met educationists face to face in the summer 
 of 1919, when the subject of the New Ideals of Education 
 Conference was " The creative impulse and its use in 
 education," leads us to look forward hopefully to an 
 education that means a more complete living. The 
 ugUness of the past will tend to give place to beautiful 
 surroundings. 
 
 The educators of the future will recognize as never 
 before the value of rhythm in education. We shall 
 provide for our children repose as well as activity ; for 
 our adolescents solitude as well as society ; all will have 
 opportunity for meditation as well as achievement. 
 
 Greater harmony in our children's natures will be the 
 result. There will no longer be the complaint that pupils 
 at school lead a life of incessant rush from one thing 
 to another, every hour planned out so that leisure is 
 practically unknown. Instead, " the things that are 
 without will be at peace with those within." 
 
 It becomes clear too, from the trend of the experi- 
 ments, that the future has in store a new kind of freedom, 
 freedom to develop and to express the best self. This
 
 A VISION OF THE FUTURE 243 
 
 does not mean that disorder will be rife, that the members 
 of a class can do just as their lower self prompts them, 
 vieing with each other as to who shall be first heard, 
 seeking always to be to the front. Discipline there must 
 be, but it will be mainly self-discipline, though there 
 will also be a willing submission to the orders of those 
 elders who are experienced and trusted, especially in 
 matters of health, and of consideration for the freedom of 
 others. The freedom of the teacher will be of importance 
 as well as that of the child. 
 
 As already pointed out in the last chapter, obedience 
 will still exist, but it will be an obedience that is always 
 a means to the higher good of self-control and service 
 of others, and never an end in itself. The dogmatical, 
 dictatorial, repressive type of education will vanish. 
 This will be especially the case as regards religious train- 
 ing. In the children of the future "true religion " will 
 be " increased." It will be woven into their everyday life, 
 and no longer something kept for Sundays, and morning 
 and evening prayers, or belonging to creeds and cere- 
 monies only. Bernard Shaw in a lecture on modern 
 religion maintained that religion was a need of every 
 human being, but there are two divisions amongst us, 
 some needing a religion from without, and desiring 
 priests and institutions, others requiring a religion from 
 within, and demanding prophets and mysticism. We have 
 in the past forced our children into the institutions ; 
 henceforth we shall leave them free to choose. " The 
 dream of making people religious by imparling 
 ' religious knowledge ' to them in their childhood is as 
 mischievous as it is delusive. To scatter creeds and 
 texts and hymns and Bible stories on the surface of the 
 child's mind is worse than a waste of time. Religious 
 knowledge is not a mass of information which can be 
 imparted as one imparts (or used to impart) the multi- 
 plication table or the pence table or the names or dates 
 of the kings of England. It is a prize which each of us
 
 2U EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 must win for himself. This is true, as we are at last 
 beginning to learn, of all knowledge ; but it is doubly 
 and trebly true of religious knowledge." 
 
 Freedom is likely to be brought about in the teaching 
 profession itself. Some form of autonomy will probably 
 take the place of perpetual government direction. The 
 head masters and head mistresses will be free to carry 
 out plans of development for their schools. 
 
 There will not be the gulf between heads and their 
 assistants that now exists. The difference in salaries 
 will be greatly lessened, all receiving not merely a Uving 
 wage, but a wage that will enable them truly to live. 
 
 Such are our hopes. It is not to be denied that there 
 are dangers in our educational system, dangers of apathy 
 and indolence, of ignorance and carelessness, of officialdom 
 and mistaken government. 
 
 Even while attention has been confined to the advanced 
 and advancing schools of our day, there have been sad 
 revelations of benighted conditions, such as the doUng 
 out of pocket-money according to conduct ; and a want 
 of refinement in the plays acted. There still exist many 
 backward schools in which children are roughly treated 
 and cruelly punished. But those of us who lived through 
 that wonderful September of 1914, when our whole nation 
 was uphf ted by a vision of future peace and righteousness, 
 and for a while all jarring ceased, have learned an un- 
 forgettable lesson of the possibihties of human nature. 
 The potentialities within us all were for an all too brief 
 period revealed to us, and gave us ground for the opti- 
 mistic belief that the day of a genuine fellowship had 
 dawned in the midst of warfare. We believed in the value 
 of human nature. " Every human being is valuable, 
 because in all dwells the same spiritual life. Not in- 
 dividualism and not altruism is the satisfying doctrine. 
 Not the good of self, nor the good of others apart, but a 
 higher, overarching good, to promote which is, aUke, 
 the highest good of self and of others. Men grow and
 
 A VISION OF THE FUTURE 245 
 
 develop in proportion as they help others to grow and 
 develop. The mission of a spiritual being is to make 
 apparent the unapparent. The major part of the 
 potentiahties of the human divine nature are as yet 
 unreahzed. To attempt to realize them in others is, at 
 the same time, to unfold resources dormant in ourselves. 
 This is the harmonizing of the opposite theories. This 
 point of view reconciles the ever-conflicting claims of 
 individualism and altruism " (Dr. Adler). 
 
 In our first chapter we looked backward to a deplor- 
 able state of education, in our last we feel justified in the 
 hope that " the ideal will triumph over the actual," 
 that " Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever 
 bubble up if thou wilt ever dig " (Marcus Aurelius). 
 
 " The aim to which we are all striving is to hberate 
 man from bondage to material necessities, to ensure 
 opportunities for mental and moral progress, to provide 
 the peace - ensuring federation of civilized humanity, 
 and to take a future step towards the spiritual regener- 
 ation of mankind " (Sir O. Lodge). 
 
 This can be done only if we have in ourselves, and 
 encourage in our children, a behef in human greatness, in 
 the divine element in man, together with the conviction 
 that the duty and destiny of man is service.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbeydale School — 
 
 Experiment at, 229, 230 
 
 Self-government at, 1 1 3-1 16 
 Abbotsholme — Dr. Reddie's School 
 
 at, 25, 184 
 Acting. See also Drama 
 
 at Gerrard's Cross, 139-140, 141 
 
 at Knaresborough, 102 
 
 at Newbury Grammar School, 
 94, 212, 235 
 
 at Swanage, 213 
 
 of Mystery Plays at Glaston- 
 bury, 1 70-1 7 1 
 Adams, Professor, 65 
 Adler, Dr., quotations from, 234, 
 
 245 
 Adult Schools, growth of, 60 
 Advance in Co-education, by INIr. 
 
 Badley, 27, 29 
 Adventure in Education, An, by 
 
 Mr. Simpson, 160, 224 
 Agriculture at Knaresborough, 
 
 loi, 102 
 Aiken, Miss Catharine, 218 
 Alton, co-educational school at, 
 
 24 
 Animals, Care of — 
 
 at Arundale School, Letch- 
 worth, 127 
 
 at Caldecott Community, 83 
 
 at Gerrard's Cross, 140 
 
 at King's Langley, 97 
 
 at Thorp Arch, 186 
 Archibald, Miss, 37 
 Archibald, Mr., 37 
 Arts and Crafts Society, 36 
 Arundale School, Lctchworth — 
 
 Co-education at, 26 
 
 Experiments in concentration, 
 217 
 
 Arundale School, Letchworth — 
 Religious teaching, 164-167 
 Self-government at, 124-127 
 Social service at, 163-164 
 Ashley Village, music at, 215-216 
 Aurora Leigh.hylSlxs. Browning, 15 
 Australia, co-educational schools 
 in, 26 
 
 Badley, Mr., co-educational work 
 
 of, 25, 27 
 Bain, Professor Alexander, 61, 65 
 Barnes, Professor Earl, 29, 65 
 Bayliss, Miss Lilian, work of, at 
 
 the " Old Vic," 21 1-212 
 Bciile, Miss Dorothea, 2 
 Bedales, co-educational school at, 
 
 25 
 
 Bedford College Training Depart- 
 ment, 20 
 
 Binet, work of, 66-68 
 
 Binet-Simon Method, develop- 
 ment of, 66-68 
 
 Birchcnough, Mr., 2 
 
 Bishop, Miss, 42 
 
 Bishopsgate Training College for 
 Teachers, Prof essor J amesS ully's 
 lectures at, 65 
 
 Bournville, Sunday School started 
 at, 17, ^S^ 
 
 Boys' Clubs, training of leaders 
 for, 38-39 
 
 Boy Scouts Movement, 41-42 
 
 Bristol Socialistic Sunday School, 
 experiment at, 172-176, 232 
 
 Brock, Mr. Glutton, 225 
 
 Bromley, co-educational school 
 at, 26 
 
 Brooklyn, woman appointed head 
 of high school at, 27 
 
 247
 
 248 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Buckton, Miss Alice, work of, at 
 Chalice Well, Glastonbury, 1 70- 
 173 
 
 Burt, Mr. Cyril, work of, on in- 
 telligence tests, 66 
 
 Buss, Miss F. M., 2 
 
 Cadbury, Mr., 37 
 
 Caldecott Community — 
 
 Experiment at, 78, 82-89, 223, 
 
 227, 229, 232, 236 
 Self-government at, 1 21-124 
 
 Calkins, Miss, 6;^ 
 
 Cambridge Training College, 20 
 
 Carpentering — 
 
 at Girls' Elementary School, 
 
 104-105 
 at Knaresborough, 10 1, 103 
 at Outwood and Kearsley 
 Council School, 152-153 
 
 Carter, Mr., 118 
 
 Cary, J^Iiss, 66 
 
 Central Schools for rural districts, 
 202-207 
 
 Chalice Well, Glastonbury, plans 
 for village life at, 170-172 
 
 Chambers, Miss, work of, at Ger- 
 rard's Cross and Huddersfield, 
 137, 167, 179-182 
 
 Charlton, East Sutton, Caldecott 
 Community at, 83 
 
 Cheltenham College Training De- 
 partment opened, 20 
 
 Chemistry at Knaresborough, 10 1 
 
 Cliild Study, 29 
 
 Child Study Association, 29-30 
 
 Child Study Society, 29-30 
 
 Chiswick, co-educational school 
 at, 24, 160, 231 
 
 Christian Science Schools, experi- 
 ments at, 232 
 
 Christ's Hospital — 
 
 Changed curriculum at, 93-94 
 Music at, 216-217 
 Organised games at, 226 
 
 Civic Education League, 36 
 
 Clapperton, Miss, 29 
 
 Clark, Miss, of King's Langley 
 School, 97 
 
 Clough, Miss Anne, work of, 2, 12- 
 13. 16 
 
 Clubs. See Boys' Clubs 
 Cobden, 8 
 Co-education — 
 
 Aims of, 225 
 
 at the Caldecott Community, 
 82 
 
 at Chiswick, 24, 160, 231 
 
 at King Alfred's School, Hamp- 
 stead, 25, 218-219 
 
 at King's Langley, 96 
 
 at Knaresborough, 100 
 
 at St. George's, Harpenden, 95 
 
 at School Field, 80 
 
 at Society of Friends' summer 
 camp, 233-234 
 
 at Swanage, 213 
 
 Early experiments in, 24 
 
 In twentieth century, 25, 26 
 
 Objections to, 26-29 
 
 Schools started by Local Educa- 
 tion Authorities, 26 
 Combe, 8 
 Competition — 
 
 Disappearance of, in future, 241 
 
 Replaced by co-operation, 223- 
 225, 237 
 Concentration experiments — 
 
 at Arundale School, Letch- 
 worth, 217 
 
 at Drighlington, 217-218 
 Cons, Miss Emma, 211 
 Continuation School at Selfridge's, 
 
 195-202 
 Cook, Mr. Caldwell, 213 
 Cooking taught in board schools, 
 
 8 
 Co-operation — 
 
 at Girls' High School, 155-160 
 
 Need for, in future educational 
 work, 240-242 
 
 Replacing competition, 223- 
 225, 237 
 Cornell University, tests for in- 
 telligence at, 66 
 Coventry, independent study at, 
 
 207 
 Craft work at Christ's College, 
 
 93 
 Crecs, Miss, 29 
 Cross, Miss, of King's Langley 
 
 School, 97
 
 INDEX 
 
 249 
 
 Dancing — 
 
 at Xewbury Grammar School, 
 
 94-95 
 
 at Outwood and Kcarsley Coun- 
 cil School, 152 
 Darwin, Professor, 33 
 Dawn of Day, 171 
 De Garmo, Professor, 63 
 Dcptford, open-air experiments at, 
 
 186-188 
 Dewey, Professor, work of, 42, 63, 
 
 76 
 Diaries — 
 
 at Gerrard's Cross, 1 40-1 41 
 
 at Knarcsborough, 102 
 
 at Outwood and Kearsley Coun- 
 cil School, 149-150 
 Dickinson, Mr. Lowes, 225 
 Domestic service, training for, 
 
 79 
 Domestic work — 
 
 at Caldecott Community, %j 
 
 at King's Langley, 97-98 
 
 at St. George's, Harpenden, 
 96 
 Drama. Sec also Acting 
 
 at the " Old Vic," 21 1-212 
 Drawing — 
 
 at School Field, 81 
 
 Teaching of, in the 'seventies, 
 22 
 Dreams, psychological value of, 
 
 68-70 
 Drighlington — 
 
 Experiments in concentration, 
 217-218 
 
 P.N.E.U. plans adopted in 
 elementary school at, 32 
 Drill classes held by Dr. Roth, 
 
 21 
 
 Eager Heart, by IMiss Alice Buck- 
 ton, 170 
 
 Edinburgh — 
 
 Co-educational school at, 26 
 Woman appointed head of 
 school at, 27 
 
 Edmunds Farm, Gee Cross, meet- 
 ings of Uplands Association 
 held on, 2,7 
 
 Education — 
 
 Attitude towards, in first half 
 of nineteenth century, 2-19; 
 
 In last half of nineteenth 
 century, 20-32 
 
 In the future, 239-245 
 
 Mistakes in the 'seventies, 21-23 
 
 New aims of, 223-238 
 Education Act, 1870, 20, 33, 34 
 " Education as National Service 
 
 Association," 223 
 Education Bill of 1850, 8-9 
 Education Bill of 1857, 10-11 
 Education : Intellectual, Moral 
 
 and Physical, by H. Spencer, 
 
 61 
 Elementary School — 
 
 Experiment in, 103-105 
 
 Self-government at, 111-112 
 Emotions — 
 
 Development of, 68, 70-71 
 
 Necessity for outlet for, 71 
 English — 
 
 at Caldecott Community, 86 
 
 at Gerrard's Cross, 139 
 
 at Knarcsborough, 102 
 
 at Rugby, 90 
 English Schools of To-morrow, by 
 
 Mrs. J. Ransom, 77 
 Essays at Caldecott Community, 
 
 85-86 
 Eurhythmies — 
 
 at Girls' Elementary School, 
 105 
 
 at St. George's, Harpenden, 96 
 Ewart, William, 30 
 Experiments — 
 
 American warnings, 220-221 
 
 Classification of, 78 
 
 Definition of term, 77 
 
 General comments on, 220-238 
 
 Gro^^i;h in number of, 79-80 
 
 Fabian Society, 224 
 Fairy Tales — 
 
 in Montessori schools, 56 
 
 Use of, 56-57 
 Faithful, Miss Emily, 7 
 Fellowship of the New Life, 24 
 Findlay, Professor, work of, 63, 
 
 68, 222
 
 250 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Freedom — 
 
 in Modern education, 223-238 
 in Teaching profession, 244 
 INIeaning of, 221-223 
 of choice, 229-237 
 
 Freud, work of, 68-69 
 
 Friends' Theological College, 38 
 
 Frocbel, work of, ^6, 231 
 
 Froebel Educational Institute De- 
 monstration School, self-govern- 
 ment at, 132-134 
 
 Froebel Institute, 20 
 
 Froebel Movement — ■ 
 
 Compared with Montessori 
 
 movement, 45-49, 5i-53 
 Modern aspect, 42-44 
 
 Gardening — 
 
 at New Earswick, York, 177 
 
 at Wellesbourne Central Inter- 
 mediate School, 205 
 Garrett, Miss, 16 
 Geddes, Professor Patrick, 98 
 George Junior Republic — 
 
 Self-government at, 132 
 
 Tests for intelligence at, 66 
 Gerrard's Cross — 
 
 Co-operation with parents at, 
 181-182 
 
 Experiment at, 137-143, 226, 
 236 
 
 Religious teaching at, 167 
 
 Self-government at, i37-i43 
 Girl Guides Movement, 41 
 Girls' High School, co-operation 
 
 at, 155-160 
 Girls' Public Day School Com- 
 pany — 
 
 Prizes declined by certain 
 schools, 22 
 
 Schools opened by, 20 
 Girton College founded, 20 
 Glastonbury and Street Guild of 
 
 Festival Players, 171 
 Gosse, Mr. Edmund, 34 
 Governesses — 
 
 Position of, in first half of nine- 
 teenth century, 3-4, 5-7 
 
 Training of, 32 
 Grant, Rev. Cecil, co-educational 
 
 work of, 25 
 
 Grant, Miss, 58 
 
 Great Society, The, by Mr. Graham 
 
 Wallas, 72 
 Green, Professor, 222 
 Greet, Mr. Ben, work of, at the 
 
 " Old Vic," 211 
 Grindleford, co-educational school 
 
 at, 25 
 Guest House, Scalby, social life 
 
 experiment at, 160-163 
 Guild of Silence, 224 
 
 Hall, Dr. Stanley, work of, 29, 57, 
 
 65 
 Hamilton, Mr. W., 61 
 Handwork — 
 
 at Abbeydale, 11 5-1 16 
 
 at Children's Recreation Room, 
 208-210 
 
 at King Alfred's School, Hamp- 
 stead, 219 
 
 Neglect of, in the 'seventies, 
 22 
 Handwork Association, 36 
 Harrovians, by Mr. Lunn, 233 
 Harrow in 1857, 5 
 Hart, Dr., 69 
 Heacham, co-educational school 
 
 at, 25 
 Health experiments at various 
 
 schools, 188-189 
 Helps, Sir Arthur, 223 
 Herbart, 76 
 
 Herbartian Psychology, by Pro- 
 fessor Adams, 65 
 Herford, Mr., co-educational 
 
 school conducted by, 24 
 History of Elementary Education 
 
 in the Nineteenth Century, by 
 
 Birchenough, 2 
 Holmes, Mr. Edmond, theories of, 
 
 53, 73, 222, 225, 227 
 House of Education, Ambleside, 
 
 founded, 32 
 Huddersfield, co-operation with 
 
 parents at, 1 79-1 81 
 Hull, infant grouping at, 1 91-194. 
 
 229 
 Hunstanton, co-educational school 
 
 at, 25
 
 INDEX 
 
 251 
 
 Infant grouping — 
 
 at Kirk3tall Road Infant De- 
 partment, Leeds, 194-195 
 at Sheffield, 1 90-1 91 
 at Sidmouth Street Demonstra- 
 tion School, Hull, 191-194, 
 229 
 at Springfield, Mass., 194 
 Infant Schools and Kindcr^^artcn, 
 
 by Miss E. R. Murray, 2 
 Initiative, training in, 229-231 
 
 James, William, 68 
 Janus and Vesta, 60 
 J ex-Blake, Miss, 16 
 Jones, Messrs. Peter, & Co., 
 
 profit-sharing at, 198 
 Jordans, co-educational summer 
 
 camp at, 233-234 
 Journal of Education, 24, 63, 65, 
 
 66 
 Judd, Dr., 63 
 Jung, Professor, work of, 69-71 
 
 Kay, Mr., summer camp held by, 
 160-163, 233 
 
 Keswick, co-educational school 
 at, 25 
 
 Kidd, Mr. Benjamin, 33 
 
 Kimmins, Dr., 30 
 
 Ki nder gartens — 
 Co-education in, 24 
 First started, 2 
 
 King, Mr. Bolton, 203, 235 
 
 King Alfred School Society, 224 
 
 King Alfred's School, Hamp- 
 stead — 
 Co-educational work at, 25 
 Experiments at, 218-219, 226, 
 230, 231 
 
 King's Langley Priory School, 
 open-air work at, 187 
 
 King's Langley School, experi- 
 ment at, 96-100 
 
 Kirkstall Road Infant Depart- 
 ment, Leeds, infant grouping 
 at, 194-195 
 
 Kitchener, Mr. Frank, 21 
 
 Knaresborough, experiment at, 
 100-103 
 
 Ladd, Professor, 63 
 
 Laing, Rev. D., 1 1 
 
 Lane, Mr. Homer, work of, 70, 
 
 226, 229 
 Lee, Miss Yate, of Skelfield, 
 
 Ripon, 127 
 Leeds, infant grouping at, 194-195 
 Leyton, Mr. and Mrs., of Arundale 
 
 School, Letchworth, 124 
 Libraries, educational work of, 
 
 30-31 
 Little Commonwealth, the, 226, 
 
 233 
 Lodge, Sir O., 245 
 London Day Training College, 20 
 London University, consideration 
 
 of tests of mental intelligence 
 
 at, y2 
 Long, Dr. Constance, 72, 
 Loom of Youth, by Alec Waugh, 
 
 225, 232 
 Louth, ]\Iiss, 29 
 Lowerison, Mr., 25 
 Lumsden, Miss Louisa L., 14 
 Lunn, Mr., 233 
 
 Macdonald, Dr. Greville, 53 
 McDougall, Professor, 62 
 McMillan, Miss, work of, at Dept- 
 
 ford Open-air School, 186-188 
 McMurry, Professor, 63 
 McNichol, Miss, work of, at 
 
 Sheffield, 190-191, 193 
 Macpherson, Mr., 213 
 Maltmans Green. See Gerrard's 
 
 Cross 
 jNIanchester, co-educational school 
 
 at, 24 
 Marcus Aurelius, quotation from, 
 
 245 
 Maria Grey Training College — 
 
 Opening of, 20 
 
 Professor James Sully's lectures 
 at, 65 
 Marlborough — 
 
 Changed curriculum at, 91-93 
 
 Organised games at, 226 
 Marsh, Miss, 12 
 Mason, Miss, at Drighlington, 
 
 217-218 
 Mason, Miss Charlotte, 31
 
 252 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Meals — 
 
 at Abbej-dale, ii6 
 
 at Caldecott Community, 122 
 
 at Abbotsholme, 184 
 
 at South Park, Lincoln, 183- 
 184 
 
 at Tonbridge County School, 
 214 
 Measurement of Intelligence, by 
 
 Professor Terman, 66, 68 
 Meiklejohn, Professor, lectures by, 
 
 16, 21 
 Meredith, George, quotations from, 
 
 34. 75. 144 
 MetJiods of Mind Training, by 
 
 Miss Catharine Aiken, 218 
 Miller, Dr. Crichton, 70 
 Mirandola, Pico della, 232 
 INIoberly, Rev. Charles, 21 
 IMontefiore House, experiment at, 
 
 106-107 
 Montessori, Dr. — 
 
 Psychological theories of, 64 
 
 Work of, 42, 44-45, 76 
 Montessori Movement — 
 
 Compared with modern Froebel 
 movement, 45, 49-53 
 
 Dangers of, 58-59 
 
 Earljr age for attending school 
 in, 241 
 
 Growth of, 44-45 
 
 Lack of " make-believe " in, 
 53-56 
 
 Psychology in, 57-58, 64 
 
 Religion in, 58 
 Morgan, Professor Lloyd, 63 
 Morris, William, 23 
 Mothers' Union, 32 
 Mulford, Mr., 30 
 Murray, Miss E. R., 2 
 Murray School, Rugby, self- 
 government at, 1 1 6-1 2 1 
 Music — 
 
 at Ashley Village, 215-216 
 
 at Christ's Hospital, 216 
 
 at Tonbridge County School, 
 213-215 
 
 National Public School Associa- 
 tion, 8 
 
 Natural History Society at Marl- 
 borough, 92 
 
 Needlework, teaching of, in the 
 'seventies, 22 
 
 Newbury Grammar School — 
 Acting at, 94-95, 212 
 Changed curriculum at, 94-95 
 
 New Earswick, York, co-opera- 
 tion with parents at, 177-178 
 
 New Ideals Conference Report, 191, 
 207 
 
 New Ideals of Education Confer- 
 ence, work of, 35, 36, 223, 242 
 
 Newnham College founded, 20 
 
 Neivs from Nowhere, by William 
 Morris, 174 
 
 Nightingale, Florence, 7, 12 
 
 Nottingham Elementary School 
 in the 'seventies, 189-190 
 
 Obedience — 
 
 a means towards self-control, 
 227-228 
 
 Future meaning of, 243 
 " Old Vic," educational work at, 
 
 21 1-2 1 2 
 O'Neill, Mr., of Outwood and 
 
 Kearsley Council School, 144, 
 
 146, 223, 231, 236 
 Open-air experiments — 
 
 at Deptford, 186-188 
 
 at King's Langley Priory School, 
 187 
 
 at South Park. Lincoln, 182-185 
 
 at Thorp Arch, 185 
 Order of the Cross, 224 
 Order of the Star in the East, 223 
 Outwood and Kearsley Council 
 
 School, experiment at, 143-155, 
 
 223, 231, 236 
 
 Paidologist, The, 29 
 
 Pakington, Sir John, 10 
 
 Parents' Co-operation — 
 
 at Gerrard's Cross, 1 81-182 
 at Huddersfield, 1 79-1 81 
 at New Earswick, York, 177- 
 178 
 
 Parents' National Educational 
 Union, 31-32 
 
 Parents' Union, 32
 
 INDEX 
 
 253 
 
 Payne, Mr. Joseph, lectures by, 
 
 1 6, 21 
 
 Philosophy, history of, at New- 
 bury Grammar School, 95 
 
 Physical training at Christ's Col- 
 lege, 93 
 
 Physiology lectures given by 
 Mr. Roth, 21 
 
 Piatt, Mr. and Mrs., co-cducational 
 school at Grindlcford, 25 
 
 Playgrounds, Punch appeals for, 
 II, 39-40 
 
 Play Movement, 39-40 
 
 Plav Wav, by ]\Ir. Caldwell Cook, 
 
 213 
 
 Poetry — 
 at Girls' High School, 157 
 at Outwood and Kearsley 
 Council School, 153 
 
 Potter, Miss, of Caldecott Com- 
 munity, 82-89, 121-122 
 
 Practical work, growth of desire 
 for. 33-37 
 
 Private Schools. See tinder 
 Schools, Private 
 
 Profit-sharing at Messrs. Peter 
 Jones & Co., 198 
 
 Psychological Society, jz 
 
 Psychology — 
 
 Early interest in, 61-66 
 Modern theories, 66-75 
 
 Public Libraries Act, 1850, 30 
 
 Public Schools. See under Schools, 
 Public 
 
 Punch, influence of, on educa- 
 tional life, 3-14 
 
 Punishment — 
 
 at Arundale School, Letch- 
 worth, 126, 164 
 at Caldecott Community, 88, 
 
 122-124 
 at Froebel Educational Insti- 
 tute Demonstration School, 
 
 134 
 at Girls' Elementary School, 
 
 1 1 i-i 12 
 at Murray School, Rugby, 120 
 at New Earswick, York, 178 
 at Public Schools, 233 
 at St. George's, Harpendcn, 96 
 at School Field, 82 
 
 Punishment — 
 
 at self-governed High School, 
 
 109 
 at Skelfield, Ripon, 131 
 Choice of, 230 
 
 Quick, Rev. R., lectures by, 16, 21 
 
 Ragged Schools. See Schools, 
 Ragged 
 
 Ransom, Mrs. J., 77 
 
 Reading, teaching of, at School 
 Field, 81 
 
 Reaney, Dr. Jane, work of, 40, 
 231 
 
 Recreation room for children in 
 villages, 207-21 1 
 
 Reddie, Dr., at Abbotsholme, 2q, 
 184 
 
 Regional Survey at King's Lang- 
 ley, 98-100 
 
 Religion, future meaning of, 243- 
 244 
 
 Religious teaching — 
 
 at Arundale School, Letch- 
 worth, 164-167 
 at Bristol Socialistic Sunday 
 
 School, 172-176 
 at Gerrard's Cross, 167 
 at Glastonbury, 170-172 
 at King's Langley, 100 
 at St. George's, Harpenden, 
 
 167-170 
 Controversy as to, 9-10 
 
 Rendel, Miss, of Caldecott Com- 
 munity, 82-89, 1 21-122 
 
 Rice, Mr., co-educational work of, 
 
 25 
 
 Richmond, Mr. Kenneth, 28 
 
 Robertson, Mr. Croom, 61 
 
 Roth, Dr., 21 
 
 Royden, Miss Maude, 26-27 
 
 Rugby- 
 Change of curriculum at, 89-91 
 In 1853, 5 
 Masters' coaching of women 
 
 candidates, 2 1 
 Organised games at, 226 
 
 Russell, Lord John, 10 
 
 Russell, Mr. John, co-educational 
 work of, 2 J
 
 254 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND 
 
 Sacrifice of Education to Examina- 
 tion, 23 
 Sadler, Sir Michael, 30, 143 
 St. Christopher's College, Black- 
 heath, 39 
 St. George's, Harpenden — 
 Experiment at, 95-96, 231 
 Founding of, 25 
 P.N.E.U. plans adopted at, 32 
 Religious teaching at, 167-170 
 Saloman, Herr, 23 
 Sargant, Mr. E., School Field 
 
 opened by, 80-82 
 Sartor Resartus, 1 5 
 School Field, experiment at, 80-82 
 School Magazine — 
 
 at Outvvood and Kearsley 
 
 Council School, 1 5 1 
 at School Field, 81 
 Schools, Private, in first half of 
 
 nineteenth century, 4-5 
 Schools, Public — 
 in first half of nineteenth cen- 
 tury. 5 
 Organized games at, 226 
 Prefects at, 233 
 Schools, Ragged, introduced, 10 
 Science at Rugby, 90 
 Science of Education, by Professor 
 
 Alexander Bain, 65 
 Secret of the Cross, by Mr. Edmond 
 
 Holmes, 73 
 Self-government — 
 
 at Abbeydale, 11 3-1 16 
 at Arundale School, Letch- 
 worth, 124-127 
 at Bristol Socialistic Sunday 
 
 School, 173 
 at Caldecott Community, 12 1-4 
 at Froebel Educational Insti- 
 tute Demonstration School, 
 132-134 
 at George Junior Republic, 132 
 at Gerrard's Cross, 137-143 
 at Girls' Elementary School, 
 
 1 1 i-i 12 
 at Montefiore House, 106-107 
 at Murray School, Rugby, 1 16- 
 
 121 
 at Northern Girls' High School, 
 loS-iio 
 
 S el f -government — 
 
 at Skelfield, Ripon, 127-132 
 Highest form of, 235-236 
 Need of choice between right 
 and wrong, 231-232 
 
 Personality of the teacher in, 
 238-239 
 
 Unsuitable for younger chil- 
 dren, 228-229 
 Selfridge's education department, 
 
 195-202 
 Seton, Mr. Ernest Thompson, 41 
 Seventh-day Adventists, 224 
 Sex teaching — 
 
 at Huddersfield, 181 
 
 Necessity for, 71 
 Shaftesbury, Lord, 10, 1 1 
 Sharwood-Smith, Mr., of Nev/bury 
 
 Grammar School, 235 
 Shaw, Mr. Bernard, 243 
 Shef&eld, infant grouping at, 190- 
 
 191, 229 
 " Shop "— 
 
 at Caldecott Community, 86-87 
 
 at Outwood and Kearsley 
 Council School, 146 
 Sidgwick, Mr. Arthur, 21 
 Sidmouth Street Demonstration 
 
 School, Hull, infant grouping 
 
 at, 191-194 
 Simon, work of, 66-68 
 Simpson, Mr., 160, 224 
 Skelfield, Ripon, self-government 
 
 at, 127-132 
 Sloyd Movement, 23-24 
 Smith, Dr. Armstrong, of Arun- 
 dale School, Letchworth, 124 
 Smith, Miss, of Thorp Arch School, 
 
 135 
 Smith, Mr. W. O. L., classes held 
 
 by, 205 
 Social life at Guest House, Scalby, 
 
 160-164 
 Social Precepts, 174 
 Social service at Arundale School, 
 
 Letchworth, 163-164 
 Societies — 
 
 at Girls' High School, 156-157 
 
 at Outwood and Kearsley 
 Council School, 1 50-1 51
 
 INDEX 
 
 255 
 
 Society of Friends, 224, 233 
 
 Solomon. Miss, 58 
 
 Sonnenschein, Professor, 21 
 
 South Park, Lincoln, open-air ex- 
 periment at, 182-185 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 61 
 
 Springfield, Mass. — 
 Infant teaching at, 194 
 Work of libraries in, 30-31 
 
 Stanford University, work on 
 Binet-Simon tests at, 67 
 
 Stevens, Miss Kate, 30 
 
 Stevenson, R. L., on children's 
 imagination, 54, 55, 57 
 
 Stout, Professor, 62 
 
 Studies in Childhood, by Professor 
 James Sully, 29 
 
 Sully, Professor, work of, 29, 53, 
 56, 62-63, 65 
 
 Summer Schools, work of, 60 
 
 Sunday School Movement, 37-39 
 
 Swanage, acting at co-educational 
 school at, 213 
 
 Taylor, Mr. R. W., 21 
 Teachers — 
 
 Position of, in middle of nine- 
 teenth century, 16-19 
 Training colleges for, founded. 
 20-21 
 Terman, Professor, on Binet- 
 Simon tests, 66-68 
 Theosophical Educational Trust, 
 
 work of, 26, 124-127, 223, 232 
 Thorp Arch — 
 
 Experiment at, 135-136, 226, 
 
 230 
 Open-air experiment at, 185- 
 186 
 Thoughts on Education, by Locke, 
 
 61 
 Tibbey, Mr., 30 
 Time-tables — 
 
 at Caldecott Community, 83- 
 
 84 
 at Gerrard's Cross, 1 39 
 
 Time-tables — 
 
 at St. George's, Ilarpcndcn, 95 
 Done away with at Outwood 
 and Kcarlsey Council School, 
 
 149 
 
 Titchener, Professor, 61 
 
 Tolstoi. Count Leo, school of, 
 143-144 
 
 Tonbridge County School, musical 
 appreciation at, 213-215, 230 
 
 Townley, Mrs., of Bristol Social- 
 istic Sunday School, 172-176 
 
 Training Colleges, future impor* 
 tance of, 239 
 
 " Training for National Service," 
 239 
 
 Uplands Association, work of, 36- 
 37. 223 
 
 Van der Straeten, Mr., 127 
 
 Wallas, Mr. Graham, 72 
 
 Ward, Dr. James, work of, 34, 61- 
 63, 64-65, 68, 221 
 
 Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 39 
 
 Warwickshire, self-government in, 
 120-121 
 
 Wellesbourne, Central Interme- 
 diate School at, 202-207 
 
 West Hill, training college lor 
 Sunday school teachers at, 37- 
 38 
 
 Wilson, Mr. H., 23 
 
 Wisdom of Eld, The, by George 
 Meredith, 75 
 
 Women — 
 
 Foundation of colleges for, 20 
 Position of, in first half of nine- 
 teenth century, 6-8, 11-17; 
 in twentieth century, 13, 16- 
 
 19 
 Woodcraft Chivalry, 41-42 
 Workers' Education Association — 
 
 Classes at Wellesbourne, 205 
 
 Work of, 35, 59-60
 
 PrinteJ in Great Britain at 
 
 The Mayflower- Press, Plyniouih 
 
 William Brendon & Son, Ltd.
 
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