“_To understand the things that are at our door is the best
preparation for understanding those that lie beyond_.”—HYPATIA.
In this sentence the Reverend Charles Kingsley carries forward the
message left by Aristotle.
When preparing to write this little booklet I was greatly impressed with
the above words. No more fitting motto could I find for it, since it
deals with the tyranny of our own country side.
It is a challenge to autocracy, a protest against injustice and a warning
signal to the teaching profession.
It shows how a simple, moral, God-fearing little community may be roused
into action against parochial busybodies and local glebe lords. The
squire and the rector have been the Lord High Tololorums of the
countryside for centuries.
To dispute their divine authority, or to question their insolence, oft
means social ostracism, or a tour abroad without a Cook’s guide.
Emigration returns will prove this.
The people of Burston, in Norfolk, are deeply religious and law-abiding.
The reverend rector has, however, gone too far.
Their struggle against him for fifteen months, their brave devotion and
loyalty to their teachers, is almost without parallel in the history of
Nonconformity.
They have seceded from the Church, their children have voluntarily left
the Council School, and the parents, though fined again and again, have
successfully defied that poor man’s Dragon of Wantley—the Law. The
struggle is not yet concluded, and Heaven knows where and how it will
end.
The reverend rector finding teachers, parents, and children still true to
each other, has issued notices to quit at Michaelmas, next September.
Not succeeding from the religious point of view, he is now about to try
his luck as landowner.
By means of these glebe notices he seeks to remove the bravest and best
so that he may once more hold the destinies of the villagers in the
hollow of his hand.
The purpose of this booklet is to focus the clear white light of public
opinion upon Burston. I believe I voice the wish of every true woman and
man, every lover of justice and genuine freedom, when I express a hope
that he may not succeed. Had he brought an atom of brotherly love or the
true charity which he quotes on Sundays, or sought to crystallise the
true spirit of Christianity into his dealings with his village folk, then
this booklet would have remained unwritten.
However, it may serve a useful purpose if it only shows other reverend
rectors what they must avoid.
When the teaching profession becomes as wide-awake to its interests as,
say, the dock labourers, the miners, and cotton operatives, then will its
members join their Union, loyally co-operate with each other, and form a
linked breakwater against oppression.