The Lighter Side of School Life Part 10

I

One of the most pathetic spectacles in the world is that of grown-up persons legislating for the young. Listening to these, we are led to suspect that a certain section of the human race--the legislative section--must have been born into the world aged about forty, sublimely ignorant of the requirements, limitations, and point of view of infancy and adolescence.

In what att.i.tude does the ordinary educational expert approach educational problems? This question induces another. What is an educational expert?

The answer is simple. Practically everybody.

All parents are educational experts: we have only to listen to a new boy's mother laying down to a Headmaster the lines upon which his school should be conducted to realise that. So are all politicians: we discover this fact by following the debates in the House of Commons. So are the clergy; for they themselves have told us so. So, presumably, are the writers of manuals and text-books. So are the dear old gentlemen who come down to present prizes upon Speech Day. Practically the only section of humanity to whom the t.i.tle is denied are the people who have to teach. It is universally admitted by the experts--it is their sole point of agreement--that no schoolmaster is capable of forming a correct judgment of the educational needs of his charges. He is hidebound, "groovy"; he cannot break away from tradition.

"What can you expect from a tripe-dresser," inquire the experts in chorus, "but a eulogy of the stereotyped method of dressing tripe?"

So, ignoring the teacher, the experts lay their heads--one had almost said their loggerheads--together, and evolve terrific schemes of education. Each section sets about its task in characteristic fas.h.i.+on.

The politician, with his natural ac.u.men, gets down to essentials at once.

"The electorate of this country," he says to himself, "do not care one farthing dip about Education as such. Now, how can we galvanise Education into a vote-catching machine?"

He reflects.

"Ah! I have it!" he cries presently. "_Religion!_ That'll ginger them up!"

So presently an Education Bill is introduced into the House of Commons.

Nine out of its ten clauses deal purely with educational matters and are pa.s.sed without a division; and the intellectual teeth of the House fasten greedily upon Clause Number Ten, which deals with the half-hour per day which is to be set aside for religious instruction. The question arises: What att.i.tude are the youth of the country to be taught to adopt towards their Maker? Are they to praise Him from a printed page, or merely listen to their teacher doing so out of his own head? Are they to learn the Catechism? Is the Lord's Prayer to be regarded as an Anglican or Nonconformist orison?

Everybody is most conciliatory at first.

"A short pa.s.sage of Scripture," suggest the Anglicans; "a Collect, mayhap; and a few words of helpful instruction--eh? Something quite simple and non-contentious, like that?"

"We are afraid that that is sectarian religion," object the Nonconformists. "A simple chapter from the Bible, certainly--maybe a hymn. But no dogmatic teaching, _if_ you please!"

"But that is no religion at all!" explain the Anglicans, with that quickness to appreciate another's point of view which has always distinguished the Church of England.

After a little further unpleasantness all round, a deadlock is reached.

Then, with that magnificent instinct for compromise which characterises British statesmans.h.i.+p, another suggestion is put forward. Why not permit all the clergy of the various denominations to enter the School and minister to the requirements of their various young disciples? "An admirable notion," says everybody. But difficulties arise. Are this heavenly host to be admitted one by one, or in a body? If the former, how long will it take to work through the entire rota, and when will the ordinary work of the day be expected to begin? If the latter, is the School to be divided, for devotional purposes, into spiritual water-tight compartments by an arrangement of movable screens, or what?

So the battle goes on. By this time, as the astute politician has foreseen, every one has forgotten that this is an Education Bill, and both sides are hard at work manufacturing party capital out of John Bull's religious susceptibilities. Presently the venue is s.h.i.+fted to the country, where the electorate are asked upon a thousand platforms if the Church which inaugurated Education in our land, and built most of the schools, is to be ousted from her ancient sphere of beneficent activity; and upon a thousand more, whether the will of the People or the Peers is to prevail. (It simplifies politics very greatly to select a good reliable s.h.i.+bboleth and employ it on _all_ occasions.) Finally the Bill is thrown out or talked out, and the first nine clauses perish with it.

That is the political and clerical way of dealing with Education. The parent's way we will set forth in another place.

The writer of manuals and text-books concerns himself chiefly with the right method of unfolding his subject to the eager eyes of the expectant pupil. "There is a right way and a wrong way," he is careful to explain; "and if you present your subject in the wrong way the pupil will derive no _educational_ benefit from it whatever." At present there is a great craze for what is known as "practical" teaching. For instance, in our youth we were informed, _ad nauseam_, that there is a certain fixed relation between the circ.u.mference of a circle and its diameter, the relation being expressed by a mysterious Greek symbol p.r.o.nounced "pie."

The modern expert scouts this system altogether. No imaginary pie for him! He is a practical man.

_Take several ordinary tin canisters_, he commands, _a piece of string, and a ruler; and without any other aids ascertain the circ.u.mference_ _and diameter of these canisters. Work out in each case the numerical relation between the circ.u.mference and diameter. What conclusion do you draw from the result?_

We can only draw one, and that is that no man who has never been a boy should be permitted to write books of instruction for the young. For what would the "result" be? Imagine a company of some thirty or forty healthy happy boys, each supplied gratuitously with several tin canisters and a ruler, set down for the s.p.a.ce of an hour and practically challenged to create a riot. Alexander's Rag-Time Band would be simply nowhere!

As for the last gang of experts--the dear old gentlemen who come down to give away prizes on Speech Day--they do not differ much as a cla.s.s. They invariably begin by expressing a wish that they had enjoyed such educational facilities as these in their young days.

"You live in a palace, boys!" announces the old gentleman. "I envy you."

(Murmurs of "Liar!" from the very back row.)

After that the speaker communicates to his audience a discovery which has been communicated to the same audience by different speakers since the foundation of the School--to this effect, that Education (derivation given here, with a false quant.i.ty thrown in) is a "drawing out" and not a "putting-in." Why this fact should so greatly excite Speech Day orators is not known, but they seldom fail to proclaim it with intense and parental enthusiasm. Then, after a few apposite remarks upon the subject of _mens sana in corpore sano_--a flight of originality received with murmurs of anguish by his experienced young hearers--the old gentleman concludes with a word of comfort to "the less successful scholars." It is a physical impossibility, he points out, when there is only one prize, for all the boys in the cla.s.s to win it; and adds that his experience of life has been that not every boy who wins prizes at school becomes Prime Minister in after years. All of which is very helpful and illuminating, but does not solve the problem of Education to any great extent.

So much for the experts. Their name is Legion, for they are many, and they speak with various and dissonant voices. But they have one thing in common. All their schemes of education are founded upon the same amazing fallacy--namely, that a British schoolboy is a person who desires to be instructed. That is the rock upon which they all split. That is why it was suggested earlier in these pages that educational experts are all born grown-up.

Let us clear our minds upon this point once and for all. In nine cases out of ten a schoolmaster's task is not to bring light to the path of an eager, groping disciple, but to drag a reluctant and refractory young animal up the slopes of Parna.s.sus by the scruff of his neck. The schoolboy's point of view is perfectly reasonable and intelligible. "I am lazy and scatterbrained," he says in effect. "I have not as yet developed the power of concentration, and I have no love of knowledge for its own sake. Still, I have no rooted objection to education, as such, and I suppose I must learn something in order to earn a living.

But I am much too busy, as a growing animal, to have any energy left for intellectual enterprise. It is the business of my teacher to teach me.

To put the matter coa.r.s.ely, he is paid for it. I shall not offer him effusive a.s.sistance in his labours, but if he succeeds in keeping me up to the collar against my will, I shall respect him for it. If he does not, I shall take full advantage of the circ.u.mstance."

That is the immemorial att.i.tude of the growing boy. When he stops growing, conscience and character begin to develop, and he works because he feels he ought to or because he has got into the habit of doing so, and not merely because he must. But until he reaches that age it is foolish to frame theories of education based upon the idea that a boy is a person anxious to be educated.

Let us see how such a theory works, say, in the School laboratory. A system which will extract successful results from a cla.s.s of boys engaged in practical chemistry will stand any test we care to apply to it. Successful supervision of School science is the most ticklish business that a master can be called upon to undertake. We will follow our friend Brown minor to the laboratory, and witness him at his labours.

He takes his place at the working bench, and sets out his apparatus--test-tubes, beakers, and crucibles. He lights all the bunsen burners within reach. Presently he is provided with a sample of some crystalline substance and bidden to ascertain its chemical composition.

"How shall I begin, sir?" he asks respectfully.

"Apply the usual tests: I told you about them yesterday in the lecture-room. Take small portions of the substance: ascertain if they are soluble. Observe their effect on litmus. Test them with acid, and note whether a gas is evolved. And so on. That will keep you going for the present. I'll come round to you again presently."

And off goes the busy master to help another young scientist in distress.

Brown minor gets to work. He takes a portion of the crystalline substance and heats it red-hot, in the hope that it will explode; and treats another with concentrated sulphuric acid in order to stimulate it into some interesting performance. At the same time he maintains a running fire of _sotto voce_ conversation and chaff with his neighbours--a laboratory offers opportunities for social intercourse undreamed of in a form-room--and occasionally leaves his own task in order to a.s.sist, or more often to impede, the labours of another. When he returns to his place he not infrequently finds that his last decoction (containing the balance of the crystalline substance) has boiled over, and is now lying in a simmering pool upon the bench, or that another chemist has called and appropriated the vessel in which the experiment was proceeding, emptying its contents down the sink. Not a whit disturbed, he fills up the time with some work of independent research, such as the manufacture of a Roman candle or the preparation of a sample of nitro-glycerine. At the end of the hour he reports progress to his instructor, expressing polite regret at having failed as yet to solve the riddle of the crystalline substance; and returns whistling to his form-room, where he jeers at those of his companions who have spent the morning composing Latin Verses.

No, it is a mistake to imagine that the young of the human animal hungers and thirsts after knowledge.

Arthur Robinson, B.A., of whom previous mention has been made, soon discovered this fact; or rather, soon recognised it; for he was not much more than a boy himself. He was an observant and efficient young man, and presently he made further discoveries.

The first was that boys, for teaching purposes, can be divided into three cla.s.ses:

(_A_) Boys whose conduct is uniformly good, and whose industry is continuous. Say fifteen per cent.

For example, Master Mole. He was invariably punctual; his work was always well prepared; and he endured a good deal of what toilers in another walk of life term "peaceful picketing" for contravening one of the fundamental laws of schoolboy trades-unionism by continuing to work when the master was out of the room.

(_B_) Boys whose conduct is uniformly good--except perhaps in the matter of surrept.i.tious refreshment--but who will only work so long as they are watched. Say sixty per cent.

Such a one was Master Gibbs. By long practice he had acquired the art of looking supremely alert and attentive when in reality his thoughts were at the back of beyond. When engaged in writing work his pen would move across the page with mechanical regularity, what time both eyes were fixed upon a page torn from a comic paper and secreted under his ma.n.u.script. He gave no trouble whatever, but was a thorn in the flesh of any conscientious teacher.

(_C_) Boys who are not only idle, but mischievous. Say twenty-five per cent.

There was Page, whose special line was the composition of comic answers to questions. Some of his efforts were really praiseworthy; but like all adventurous spirits he went too far at last. The rod descended upon the day when he translated _caeruleae puppes_ "Skye terriers"; and thereafter Master Page joked no more. But it was a privation for both boy and master.

Then there was Chugleigh, whose strong suit was losing books. He was a vigorous and muscular youth, more than a little suspected of being a bully; but he appeared to be quite incapable of protecting his own property. Sometimes he grew quite pathetic about it. He gave Mr.

Robinson to understand, almost with tears, that his books were at the mercy of any small boy who cared to s.n.a.t.c.h them from him. Certainly he never had any in form.

"I see you require State protection," said Arthur Robinson one morning, when Chugleigh put in an appearance without a single book of any kind, charged with a rambling legend about his locker and a thief in the night. He scribbled an order. "Take this to the librarian, and get a set of new books."

Mr. Chugleigh, much gratified--the new books would be paid for by an unsuspicious parent and could be sold second-hand at the end of the term--departed, presently to return with five new volumes under his arm.

"Write your name in them all," said Mr. Robinson briskly.