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. A SELECTION FROM Messrs. Methuen's P UBLICATION S This Catalogue contains only a selection of the more important books puhli-ihcd Vy Messrs. Methuen. A complete catalogue of their publicatiottE may be obtaineU on application. Bain (F. W.)— ^ ^ A PiciT OF THE Moon: A Hmdoo Love Story. Thu Desckn i of thf. Sun: A Cycle of Birth. A Hkifer of the Dawn. In ti:e Great God's Hair. A Draught OF THE Blue. An Essenck of the Dusk. An Incarnation of the Snow. A Mine OF Fai"-ts. The Ashes of a God. Bubbles of the Foam. A Svrup oi- the Bees. The Livery of Evs. The Sub- STANXE of a Dream. Ali Fcap. %vo. s.r. tut. An Echo of the Spheres. Widt Demy. \is. 6d. net. Balfour (Graham). THE LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. Fif- teenth Edition. In one i^'olurm. Cr. Zvo. BucK-ram, ys. dd. net. Eelloc (H.)— Paris, is. 6d. net. Hills and thp. Sea, 6s net. On Nothing and Kindred Subjects ts. net. On Everything, 6^. net. On SomE' thing, &i. net. First and Last, 6s. net. This and That and the Other, 6^. net. Makie Antoinette, i8j. net. The Pyre nees, los. 6d. net. Bloemfontein (Bishop of). ARA CCELI .\N Essay in Mystical Theology. Sevent/i Edition. Cr. Zvo. 5J. net. FAITH AND EXPERIENCE. Third Edition. Cr. ?,vo. 55. nrt. THE CULT OF THE PASSING MOMENT. Fourth Edition. C . iro. 5J net. THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND RE- UNION. Cr. Zvo. 5s. net. SCALA MUNDI. Cr. Zvo. ^s. 6d net. Chesterton (G. K.)— The Ballad of the White Horse. All Things Considered. Tremendous Trikles. Alarms and Discursions. A Miscellany of Men. All Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. Wine, Water, and Song. Fcap. Zva. IS. 6d net. Clutton-Brock(A,). WHAT IS THE KING- DOM OF HEAVEN? Fourth Edition. Fcap. Zvo %s. net. ESSAYS ON ART. Second Edition. Fcap. Zvo. 5J. net. Cole (Q. D. H.). SOCIAL THEORY. Cr. Zvo. ss. net. Conrad (Joseph). THE MIRROR OF THE SE.\ : Memories and Impressions. Fourth Edition. Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. Einstein (A.). RELATIVITY : THE SPF.CIAL AND THE GENERAL THEORY. Translated by Robert W. Laus n. Cr. ?>7jo. $5. tiet. Fyleman (Rose.). FAIRIES AND CHIM- NEYS. Fca.p. Rvo. Sixth Edition. Zs. 6d. rut. THE FAIRY GREEN. Third Edition. Fcap. %vo. 3.5. 6d. net. Glbblns (H. de B.). INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND: HISTORICAL OUT- LINES. With Maps and Plans. Tenth Edition. Demy Zvo. 11s. 6d. net. THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. With 5 Maps and a Plan. Twenty-seventh Edition. Cr. Zvo. 55. Gibbon (Edward). THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Edited, with Notes, Appendices, and Maps, byj. B. BuKY. Illustrated. Seven Volumes. Demy Zvo. Illustrated. Each 12s. 6d. net. Also in Seven Volumes. Cr. Zvo. Each ys. 6d. net. Glover (T. R.). THE CONFLICT OF RELIGIONS IN THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE. Eighth Edition. Demy Zvo. loj. 6d. net. POETS AND PURITANS. Second Edition. Demy Zvo. \os. 6d. net. FROM PERICLES TO PHILIP. Third Edition. Demy Zvo. los. 6d. net. VIRGIL. Fourth Edition. Demy Zvo. 1C5. 6d. net. THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND ITS VERIFICAIION. (The Angus lec- ture for 1912.) Second Eaition. Cr. Zvo. 6s. net. Qrahame (Kenneth). THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS. Tenth Edition. Cr. Zvo. ys. 6d. net. Hall (H, R.). THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE NEAR E.VST FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS. Illustrated, t-ourth Edi- tion. Demy Zvo. \6s. net. Hobson (J. A.). INTERNATIONAL TR.^DE : An Application ot Economic Theory. Cr.Zvo. ^s. > et. PROHLCMS OF POVERTY: An Inquiry INTO THE Industrial Condition of the Poor. Eighth Edition. Cr. 8rc. ^j. «■-/ THE PROBLEM OF T H E U N- EMPLOYED: An Inquiry and an Economic Policy. Sixth Edition. Cr. Zvo. Ss. net. Messrs. Methuen's Publications GOLD, PRICES AND WAGES : With an Examination' of the Quantity Theory. Second Edition. Cr. Zvo. 5^. net. TAXATION IN THE NEW STATE. Cr. Zvo. 6s. net. Holdsworth (W. S.)- A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW. Vol. /., //., ///., Each Second Edition. Demy Zvo. Each. 155. net. Inge(W. R.). CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM. (The Bampton Lectures of 1899.) Fourth Edition. Cr. ?iVO. 7s. 6d. net. Jenks (E.). AN OUTLINE OF ENG- LISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT. Fourth Edition. Revised by R. C. K. Ensor. Cr. Zvo. 5^. net. A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Ykar 191 i. Second Edition, revised. Demy 8»o. \is. (>d. net. Julian (Lady) of Norwich. REVELA- TIONS OF DIVINE LOVE. Edited by Grace Warrack. Seventh Edition. Cr. Zvo. ss. net. Keats (John). POEMS. Edited, with Intro- duction and Notes, by E. de Selincourt. With a Frontispiece in Photogravure. Third Edition. Demy Svo. los. 6d. net. Kipling (Rudyard). BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS. 205/^ Thousand. Cr. 'ivo. Buckram, 7s. 6d. net. Also Fcap. Zzio. Cloth, 6s. net; leather, 7s. 6d. net. Also a Service Edition. Two Volumes. Square/cap. Zzio. Each y. net. THE SEVEN SEAS. \s'^nd Thousand. Cr. %vo. Buckram, 7s. 6d. net. Also Fcap. %vo. Cloth, 6s. net; leather, 7s. 6d. net. Also a Service Edition. Two Volumes. Square/cap. Zvo. Each -^s. net. THE FIVE NATIONS. "126M Thousand. Cr. Svo. Buckram, 7s. 6d. net. Also Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, 6s. net ; leather, 7s. 6d. net. Also a Service Edition. Two Volumes. Square /cap. 8vo. Each 3.?. net. DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES. 94M Thou- sand. Cr. %vo. Buckram, 7s. 6d. net. Also Fcap. ivo. Cloth, 6s. net; leather, 7$. 6d. net. Also a Service Edition. Two Volumes. Square/cap. ivo. Each v- net. THE YEARS BETWEEN. Cr. Zvo. Buckram, 7s. 6d. net. Also on thin paper. Fcap. 8vo. Blue cloth, 6s. net; Limp latnbskin, 7s. dd. net. Also a Service Edition. Two Volui-ies. Square fcap. 'ivo. Each v- net. HYMN BEFORE ACTION. Illuminated. Fcap ^to. IS. 6d. net. RECESSIONAL. Illuminated. Fcap. ^to. IS. 6d. net. TWENTY POEMS FROM RUDYARD KIPLING. 360th T/iousand. Fcap. 8vo. IS. net. Lamb (Charles and Mary). THE COM- PLETE WORKS. Edited by E. V. Lucas. A New and Revised Edition in Six Volumes. With Frontispieces. Fcap. Svo. Each 6s. net. The volumes are : — I. Miscellaneous Prose. 11. Elia and the Last Essay of Elia. hi. Books FOR Children, iv. Plays and Poems. V. and VI. Letters. Lankaster (Sir Ray). SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR. Illustrated. Thirteenth Edition. Cr. &vo. 7s. 6d. net. SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR. Illustrated. Second .Series. Third Edition. Cr. 87/0. 7s. 6d. net. DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST. Illustrated. Third Edition. Cr. Zvo. 7.r. 6d. net. SECRETS OF EARTH AND SEA. Cr. ivo. ?>s. 6d net. Lodge (Sir OliYer). MAN AND THE UNIVERSE : A Study of the Influence OF the Advance in Scientific Know- ledge UPON OUR Understanding of Chkistianity. Ninth Edition. Crown%vo. 7s. 6d. net. THE SURVIVAL OF MAN: A Study in Unrecognised Human Faculty. Seventh Edition. Cr. 'Avo. 7s. 6d. net. MODERN PROBLEMS. Cr. Zvo. 7s. 6d. net. RAYMOND ; or Life and Death. Illus- trated. Twelfth Edition. Demy Svo. 15s. net. THE WAR AND AFTER: Short Chap- ters ON Subjects of Serious Practical Import for the Average Citizen in a.d. 191 5 Onwards. Eighth Edition. Fcap ?,vo. 2S. net. Lucas (E. v.). The Life of Charles Lamb, 2 vols., 21J. net. A Wanderer in Holland, laj. 6d. net. A Wanderer in London, 10s. 6d. tiet. London Revjsited, lor. 6d. net. A Wan- derer in Paris, ioj. 6d. net and 6s. net. A Wanderer in Florence, ios. 6d. net. A Wanderer in Venice, ios. 6d. net. The Open Road : A Little Book for Wayfarers, 6s. 6d. net and 7s. 6d. net. The Friendly Town : A Little Book for the Urbane, 6s. net. Fireside and Sunshine, 6s. net. Character and Comedy, 6.f. net. The Gentlest Art : A Choice of Letters by Entertaining Hands, 6s. 6d. net. The Second Post, 6i-._ net. Her Infinite Variety : A Feminine Portrait Gallery, 6s. net. Good Company : A Rally of Men, 6.r. net. One Day and Another, 6s. net. Old Lamps for New, 6s. net. Loiterer's Harvest, 6s. net. Cloud and Silver, 6^. net. Listener's Lure : An Oblique Nar- ration, 6s. net. Over Bemerton's : An Easy-Going Chronicle, 6s. net. Mr. Ingle- side, 6s. net. London Laventjer, 6s. net. Landmarks, 6s. net. A Boswell of Baghdad, and other Essays, 6s. net. 'TwixT Eag; E AND Dove, 6s. net. The Phantom Journal, and OTHER Ess AYS AND Diversions, 6.f. net. The British School : An Anecdotal Guide to the British Painters and Paintings in the National Gallery, dr. net. Messrs. Methup:n's Publications MoDougall (WlUlam). AN INTRODUC- TION TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOOY. Fifteenth Edition. Cr. %vo. -js. i>d. net. BODY AND MIND : A History and a Dekence of Anmmism. Fourth Edition. Demy Zvo. lis. fid. net. Maeterlinck (Maurice)— The Hlue Bird : A Fairy Play in Six Acts, bs. net. Maky Magdalene : A Play in Three Acts, 5J. net. Death, y. fxi. net. Our Eternity, 6s. ml. The Unknown Guest, ds. net. Poems, 5J. net. The Wkack of the Storm, ()s. net. The Miracle of St. Anthony : A Play in One Act, 3J. td. net. The Bur(;omastek of Sti lemon DE : A Play in Three Acts, 5^-. net. The Betrothal ; or. The Blue Bird Chooses, 6j. net. Mountain Paths, bs. net. Milne (A. A.). The Day's Play. Thb Holiday Round. Once a Week. All Cr. Zvo. -js. net. Not that it Matters. Fcap Zvo dr. net. Oxenham (John)— BeesinAmiie' : A Little Book of Thought- ful Verse. All's Well : A Collection of War Poems. The King's High Way. The Vision Splendid. The Fiery Cross. High Altars: The Record of a Visit to the Battlefields of France and Flanders. Hearts Coorageous. All Clear ! Winds op the Dawn. All Small Pott Zvo. Paper, is. -^d. net ; cloth boards., 2S. net. Gentlemen — The King, 2s. net. Petrie (W. M. Flinders). A HISTORY OF EGYPT. Illustrated. .Six Volumes. Cr. ivo. Each gs. net. Vol. I. From the 1st to the XVIth Dynasty. Ninth Edition. los. 6d. »■:/. Vol. II. The XVIIth and XVIIIth Dynasties. Sixth Edition. Vol. IIL XIXth to XXXth Dynasties. Second Edition. Vou IV. Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty. J. P. Mahaffy. Second Edition. Vol. V. Egyft under Roman Rule. J. G. Milne. Second Edition. Vol, VI. Egypt in the Middle Ages. Stanley Lane Poole. Second Edition. SYRIA AND EGYPT, FROM THE TELL EL AMARNA LETTERS. Cr. Zvo. SJ. net. EGYPTIAN TALES. Translated from the Papyri. First Series, ivth to xilth Dynasty. Illustrated. Third Edition. Cr. Zvo. 5x. net. EGYPTIAN TALES. Translated from the Papyri. Second Series, xviiith to xixth Dynasty. Illustrated. Second Edition. Cr. Zvo. $s. net. Pollard (A. F.). A SHORT HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. With 19 Maps. Second Edition. Cr. Zvo. los. 6d. lut. Price (L. L.). A SHOUT HISTORY OF POLITICAL I'.CONO.MY IN ENGLAND FKO.M ADAM SMITH TO ARNOLD TOYNlJEE. Ninth Edition. Cr. Zvo. 5i. net. Reld (Q. Arohdall). THE LAWS OF HEREDITY. Second Edition. Demy Zvo. £,\ I jr. net. Robertson (C. Grant). SELECT STAT- UTES, CASES, AND DOCUMENTS, i6':o-i832. Third Edition. Demy Zvo. JSs. net. Stilus (Edmund). TOMMY SMITH'S ANIMALS. Illustrated. Eighteenth Edi- tion, heap. Zvo. 3J. td. net. TOMMY SMITH'S OTHER ANIMALS. Illustrated. Eleventh Edition. Fcap. Zvo. y. 6d. net. TOMMY SMITH AT THE ZOO. Illus- trated. Fourth Edition. F'cap, Zvo. 2s. gd. TOMMY SMITH AGAIN AT THE ZOO. Illustrated. Second Edition. Fcap. Zvo. 2S. gd. JACK'S INSECTS. Illustrated. Cr.Zvo. 6s. net. JACK'S INSECTS. Popular Edition. Vol. I. Cr. Zvo. 3J. 6d. Shelley (Percy Bysshe). POEMS. With an Introduction by A. Clutton-Brock and Notes by C. D. LococK. 'Two Volumes. Demy Zvo. £1 is. net. Smith (Adam). THE WEALTH OF J.VATIONS. Edited by Edwin Cannan. Jivo Volumes. .Second Edition. Demy Zvo. £1 $s. net. Stevenson (R. L.). THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. Edited by Sir Sid-ney Colvin. A New Re- arranged Edition in/our volumes. F'ourth Edition. Fcap. Zvo. Each 6s. net Sui'tees (R. 8.). HANDLEY CROSS. Illustrated. Ninth Edition. Fcap. Zvo. TS. td. net. MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. Illustrated. Fifth Edition. Fcap. Zvo. ■JS. td. net. ASK MAMMA: or, THE RICHEST COMMONER IN ENGLAND. Illus- trated. Second Edition. Fcap. Zvo. ys. td. net. JORROCKS'S JAUNTS AND JOLLI- TIES. Illustrated. Seventh Edition, Fcap. Zvo. bs. net. MR. FACEY ROMFORD'S HOUNDS. Illustrated. Third Edition. Fcap. Zvo. TS. 6d. net. HAWBUCK GRANGE ; or, THE SPORT- ING ADVENTURES OF THOMAS SCOTT, Esq. Illustrated. Fcap. Zvo. 6s. net. PLAIN OR RINGLETS? Illustrated. Fcap. Zvo. ys. 6a. net. HILLINGDON HALL. With 12 Coloured Plates by Wildrake, Heath, and Julia- cob. Fcap. Zvo. ys. 6d. tut. Messrs. Methuen's Publications Tileston (Mary W.). DAILY STRENGTH FOR DAILY NEEDS. Twtnty sixth Edition. Meaiutn itmo. 3^. (>d. net. Underhill (Evelyn). MYSTICISM. A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness. Eighth Edition. Deviy %vo. 15*. net. Yardon (Harry). HOW TO PLAY GOLF. Illustrated. Thirteenth Edition. Cr. ?>vo. SS. net. Waterhouse (Elizabeth). A LITTLE BOOK OF LIFE AND DEATH. Twentieth Edition. Small Pott 8vo. Cloth, ni. 6(i. net. Wells (J.). A SHORT HISTORY OF ROME. Seventeenth Edition. With 3 Maps. Cr. Zvo. ds. Wilde (Oscar). THE WORKS OF OSCAR WILDE. Fcap. "ivo. Each 6s. 6d. net. I. Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and THE Portrait of Mr. W. H. ii. The Duchess of Padua, hi. Poems, iv. Lady Windermere's Fan. v. A Woman o? No Importance, vi. An Ideal Hus- band. VII. The Importance of Being Earnest. viii. A House of Pome- granates. IX. Intentions, x. De Pro- FUNDis and Prison Letters, xi. Essays. XII. Salome, A Florentine Tragedy, and La Sainte Courtisane. xiii. A Critic in Pall Mall. xiv. Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde, xv. Art and Decoration. A HOUSE OF POMEGRANATES. Illus- trated. Cr. ^to. 21s. net. Wood (Lieut. W. B.) and Edmonds (Col. J. E.). A HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR IN THE UNITED STATES (1861-65). With an Introduction by Spenser Wilkinson. With 24 Maps and Plans. Third Edition. Demy %vo. 155. net. Wordsworth (W.). POEMS. With an Introduction and Notes by Nowell C. Smith. Three Volumes. Demy Zvo. i8j. net. Yeats (W. B.). A BOOK OF IRISH VERSE. Fourth Edition. Cr. Svo. ys. net. Part II. — A Selection of Series Ancient Cities General Editor, Sir B. C. A. WINDLE Cr. Svo. 6s. net each volume With Illustrations by E. H. New, and other Artists Bristol. Cantekbuky. Chester. Dub- I Edinburgh. Lincoln. Shrewsbury. LIN. Weli,s and Glastonbury. The Antiquary's Books General Editor, J. CHARLES COX Demy Svo. los. (id. net each volume With Numerous Illustrati-ons Ancient Painted Glass in England. Archaeology and False Antiquities. The Bells of E,vo The Complete Amateur Boxer, io^t. 6d. net. The Compi ete Association Foot- baller, laf. 6