"I the head would see," I began, "the ober-johnny, the chef."
"Ja!" he exclaimed with an enlightened grin, and nodded. In ten
seconds the chief stood before me. He could speak a broken English,
and said he would be glad to show me round. It was a third class
school, and I gathered that in Holland there are three grades of State
school; the first class is attended by the rich, the second by the
middle class, and the third by the poor.
The school was very like a Board School in England. The children sat
in the familiar desks and were spoon-fed by the familiar teacher.
There was nothing new about it. I noticed that hand writing seemed to
be the most important thing, and each class teacher proudly showed me
exercise books filled with beautiful copper-plate writing. Most
obliging class teachers they were. Would I like to hear some singing?
It was wonderful singing in three parts; what surprised me was that the
boys seemed to be just as keen on singing as the girls. I have always
found it otherwise in Scotland and England.
In this school I got the gratifying news that corporal punishment is
not allowed in Dutch schools, and later I learned that this applies to
all reformatories also.
I think the Dutch are fond of children. Children seem to be
everywhere. I went to the police-station to register as an alien, and
as the inspector was examining my passport this wee girl of three
toddled in and climbed on his knees. He laid down his pen and fondled
the child. Then his wife came in; she had been out shopping, and
wanted him to admire the big potatoes she had bought. I was delighted
to see the human element mingle with the official. A country that
allows wives and children to mix up with its red-tape is on the right
road to health if not wealth.
I went to the Hague next day, and English friends met me at the station
and piloted me to their home. Next morning I visited an establishment
called the Observatiehuis, and found that the superintendent had spent
six years in England and had an English wife. The observation house,
he explained, is a home for bad boys. When convicted they are sent
there and are "observed." If a boy is well-behaved he is sent to live
with a family and learn a trade; if he is incorrigible he is sent to a
reformatory.
I looked in vain for the new psychological way of treating delinquents.
There was discipline here, but it was kindly discipline, for Mr. Engels
is a kindly man; the boys sang as they swept the stairs. That was
good, yet, it was Mr. Engels that brought freedom into the school; his
successor may be a bully.
From Mr. Engels I got a letter of introduction to a real reformatory in
Amersfoort, and off I set. Amersfoort is inland and I expected to find
much language difficulty there, for I thought it unlikely that English
would be spoken so far inland.
Amersfoort is a beautiful old town, and I at once set out to find the
Coppleport mentioned in my guide-book. I suppose I looked a lost soul.
A youth of eighteen jumped off his cycle and lifted his cap. Then he
pointed to a badge he wore in his coat.
"Boy scout!" he said.
"Excellent!" I cried, "you speak English?"
He held out his hand.
"Good bye!" he said; "pleased you to meet!"
"How do you do?" I said.
He grinned.
"God damn!" he said sweetly.
After that conversation seemed to die down. I managed to convey to him
that I was looking for the Coppleport, and he led me to it. Gradually
his English improved, and he told me of his brother in England. A nice
lad. I told him that I had once had a long conversation with the great
B.P., but he looked blank.
"Baden Powell, your chief," I explained.
He shook his head; he had never heard of B.P. I think now that what
was wrong was that he did not understand the name as I pronounced it;
possibly he knows B.P. under the sound of Bahah Povell or something
similar.
On the following morning I went to the reformatory. It was a beautiful
building fitted with every appliance necessary . . . and one not
necessary--a solitary confinement room. A young teacher, Mr. Conijn, a
very decent chap, who could speak excellent English, showed me round.
Every door we came to had to be opened with a key and locked behind us.
Here there was more of military discipline than in the Observatiehuis,
but none of the boys looked sulky or unhappy. The relations of the
boys and the teachers were fine; as Conijn passed a lad he would pull
his hair or pass a funny remark, and the boy would grin and reply.
"Any self-government?" I asked.
"We tried it but it was no good. It may work with English boys but not
with Dutch," said Mr. Conijn.
"Did you have locked doors?" I asked.
"Oh, yes."
"Then self-government hadn't the ghost of a chance to succeed," I
remarked.
We entered a class where an old man of about eighty was teaching a
group.
"Why do these lads keep their eyes on the ground?" I asked. "Is their
spirit crushed out of them?"
Conijn laughed.
"They are admiring your boots!" he cried.
I wore a pair of ski-ing boots on my trip, and all Holland stared
open-mouthed at them. If I had been wanted for a murder I don't think
anyone in Holland could have identified me, for their eyes never got
above my boots.
One of the masters, Mr. van Something-or-other, very trustingly lent me
his bike, and on the following day I cycled to Laren to see the
Humanitarian School there. Nearly every road has a cycle path on one
side and a riding path on the other, but in spite of the excellent
roads I did not enjoy cycling in Holland; a free wheel was of little
value on the flat surface. One delightful feature about cycling in
Holland is that there are no mid-day closing times for pubs, but on the
other hand you cannot raise much of a thirst in a flat country.
Well, I reached Laren after many narrow escapes, for I was continually
forgetting that you keep to the right in Holland. A postman came
along, and I jumped off.
"Humanitaire School?" I asked as I doffed my hat.
By his expression I judged that he did not know the institution under
that name.
"School," I said, and he nodded and pointed to the village State school.
"Nay! School Humanitaire!" I persisted.
At this juncture another man came forward, and the two of them jawed
away gutturally for some time. I began to grow weary.
"Hell!" I murmured to myself half aloud.
The postman brightened, and enlightenment came to him.
"Engelissman!" he exclaimed.
"Liar!" I cried, "I'm a Scot," and I left the two of them discussing
Engelissmen.
After much trouble and many bitter words I found the school. A
gentleman who looked extremely like Bernard Shaw before Shaw's hair
turned grey, was digging in a garden with a lot of boys and girls. He
was Mr. Elbrink, the head-master. He could speak English and he showed
me round.
The school is rather like what is known as the crank school in England.
In a manner it is the super-crank school, for everyone on the staff is
teetotal, vegetarian, and a non-smoker. Here it was that I heard of
Lightheart for the first time, and I blushed for my ignorance of the
gentleman. It appears that he was a great educational reformer, a sort
of Froebel I fancied, for handwork seemed to be the main consideration
in the school. But I regret to say that the school did not impress me
much. Too many children were doing the same sort of work; they sat in
desks and held themselves more or less rigid. Here was benevolent
authority again, not true freedom. All schools in Holland are State
schools, and the Humanitarian School is one of them. It is almost
impossible for a State school to be very much advanced; I think it is
impossible, for the State is the national crowd, and a large crowd has
little use for the crank.
I returned to Amersfoort, where by this time I had become the guest of
the International School of Philosophy. This is a building standing in
about twenty acres of ground amid the pine forests two miles south of
the town. I was the sole guest, for the summer classes had not
started. This school is the beginning of a great movement. Here
students from every country will meet and discuss life and education.
Mr. Reiman, the president, talked long and earnestly to me about the
scheme, but I found myself challenging his insistence on spiritual
education.
The aim of the school is to develop the spiritual side of man, an
excellent aim . . . so long as man does not imagine that by living on
the higher plane he is annihilating his earthly self. Everyone there
was very, very kind to me, but I did not feel quite in my element, for
I am not an obviously spiritual person. I find that I can discuss the
higher life best when I have a glass of Pilsener at my elbow and a
penny cigar in my mouth. It is clear that I have a complex about the
higher life, and it may be a sour-grapes complex. All the same I
should like to attend a summer course at Amersfoort and listen to the
wise men dilate on the Bhagavadgita, Psycho-analysis and Religion,
Plato, Sufism, and other subjects on the programme; anyway I would have
no prepossessions and prejudices in listening to Dr. G. R. S. Meads'
course of lectures on The Mystical Philosophy and Gnosis of the
Trismegistic Tractates.
From Amersfoort I went to Amsterdam.
"Umsterdum, dree klasse, returig," I said to the ticket office girl.
"Third class return?" she asked with a smile and gave me the ticket.