An evening newspaper informs its readers that arrangements are being
made for "a school for M.P.'s"--"a weekly meeting of Unionist M.P.'s
new to Parliamentary life, who will receive instruction in the forms
of the House. They will be taught how to address the SPEAKER, how to
frame a question," and so forth.
This intelligence is of particular interest in that it conveys an
admission that our new M.P.'s do not know everything.
Interviewed by a correspondent, Mr. Raleigh Quawe, the able young
educationist, who, it is understood, is watching the experiment with
some concern, said, "While I do not wish to seem to be giving away
too much to the gloom of youth, I cannot help feeling that the school
may be run on wrong lines unless the greatest care is exercised.
Will the opportunity be taken for testing methods which have been so
disastrously absent hitherto from our public school system? I would
urge those in authority to put away the old formulæ, and to ensure
the introduction of a right spirit in the school by the appointment of
young masters endowed with vision and enthusiasm.
"I hope that the worship of sport will not be encouraged. I was never
one who believed that our battles have been won on the playing-fields
of Westminster. I am confident that I am not alone in the hope that
the old games at Westminster will be abandoned.
"It is most important that there should be no suppression of the
emotional nature. Rob politics of emotion and the newspapers are not
worth reading; and it must not be forgotten that what Westminster does
to-day is read of by the British Empire to-morrow. No effort should be
spared to awaken the artistic sense of the pupils. If the pictures and
sculptures in and about the corridors of the Houses of Parliament are
not enough, let others be prepared. No expense should be spared. For
my part I see no reason why a little music should not be introduced
occasionally.
"Freedom of opinion should also be encouraged. One fault of our
educational system has been its tendency to produce mass-thinking.
This will never do among our Unionist Members of Parliament. Yes, I
would even advocate that some of the seniors should be allowed to
read _The Herald_ if they wished to do so, and I question whether _The
Nation_ would do any of them any harm."
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