EDUCATIONAL WORK.
IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION—EARLY EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE SOCIETY—AN
EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE FORMED—ITS CONSTITUTION—WORK AMONGST THE
YOUNG—THE U.C.B.S. BAND FORMED—SOCIAL WORK—LECTURES—CLASSES DURING
WORKING HOURS—A NEW DEPARTURE—AN EDUCATIONAL TOUR—A SECOND
TOUR—VALUABLE WORK—THE YEARS OF WAR.
In all propaganda work there must necessarily be an element of
education, for at least a part of educational work consists in the
imparting of information, although the more important part is the
training to think. Co-operators from the very earliest days of the
movement have recognised the necessity of education, and have devoted a
part of the funds which came to them from Co-operative trading to its
support. Indeed the Rochdale Pioneers went further, and amongst their
objects they placed taking control of the functions of education,
meantime devoting 2½ per cent. of the surplus which accrued to them from
their Co-operative trading to the furtherance of education amongst
themselves. This example of theirs was followed by many other societies,
and associations of a more or less educational nature were formed
wherever a number of Co-operators could find it convenient to meet. It
was from the conferences of representatives from the societies that the
idea grew of what has become ultimately the supreme educational
authority of the movement in Britain, the Co-operative Union. Even
before the formation of the Union, conferences were being held in
Scotland to discuss Co-operative problems, and almost from the beginning
the Baking Society affiliated with the nearest of the Associations under
whose auspices such conferences were held. Thus we find them subscribing
to the funds of the Glasgow and Suburbs Conference Association and the
Renfrewshire Conference Association, and, later, to all the other
district associations in the country. But even before they began to
subscribe to the conference associations they were taking an interest in
and giving support to the literature of the movement. We find them at
the quarterly meeting which took place on 26th August 1871 agreeing to
subscribe for twelve copies of the _Co-operative News_, which were to be
distributed amongst the employees in the bakery.
The members of the committee were evidently diligent readers of this
journal too, for, as has been noted previously, they embodied in their
minutes at a later date a criticism of some remarks which had appeared
in that journal relative to the Society. It was not until 1896, however,
that it was decided to set up a separate committee, which would have
under its control the educative and recreative agencies of the Society.
Just prior to that they had published a _Year Book_ which contained a
history of the Society to date. A branch of the Women’s Guild had also
been formed, and classes in singing and ambulance work, as well as a
literary society. At a special meeting which the committee held on 1st
February 1896 they came to the unanimous decision that the time had now
arrived when an educational and charitable fund should be formed by the
Society, out of which all charitable donations and subscriptions should
be taken. At the following meeting the sum of £50 was voted for the
purpose of forming an educational fund.
The members of the board took the employees into consultation with
respect to the administration of the educational fund, with the result
that the following constitution was drawn up and agreed to:—
DUTIES AND WORK OF EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE.
This Committee shall consist of three Directors, who shall hold
office for one year, and shall be elected at the December meeting of
each year. They, along with the four members appointed by the
employees, shall form the Educational Committee.
They shall take a special oversight of all the clubs, classes, and
meetings of an educational nature connected with the Bakery.
They shall have at their disposal for the furtherance of educational
work connected with the Bakery 10 per cent. or such other proportion
of the Educational and Benevolent Fund (Rule 14) as the Directors
may from time to time determine.
It will further be expected from them to make recommendations to the
Directors from time to time on matters of public educational
interest, and it shall be competent for the Directors at any time to
remit such matters to them for consideration and report.
They shall meet monthly or oftener if required, and submit a short
minute of their proceedings at the Directors’ bi-monthly meeting.
The first report of the educational committee was issued in December
1896. From this report it appeared that the nucleus of a library had
been brought together, and that the library had been opened with 180
volumes; the literary association had had a membership of 105, and the
women’s guild a membership of fifty. A musical association had also been
conducted under the auspices of the committee, which had secured
forty-nine members, and the choir had given a concert in the Wellington
Palace. They had also sung at a mass meeting of Co-operators held in the
City Hall, and had supplied the music at a propaganda meeting held at
Blairdardie by the Glasgow and Suburbs Conference Association council. A
swimming class had had a membership of sixty, and an ambulance class had
a membership of thirty-five on the roll. A physical drill class had been
started for the younger lads in the factory, and a Christian Association
with twenty members on the roll had been started, and carried on a
service every Sunday in the Society’s hall. Altogether the committee had
done a remarkably good year’s work for a beginning, and had reason to
congratulate themselves on the success which had attended their efforts.
The members of the educational committee had not been long at work
before they came to the conclusion that the Society owed a duty to its
younger workers which it could not afford to neglect. The Society
employed over a hundred young people under eighteen years of age, and it
was the wish of the committee that they should find some method by means
of which they could assist these young people. Their first step was the
convening of a meeting of the young people in the London Street
tearooms, where they were addressed by Dr Henry Dyer and Mr James
Campsie; and, as a result of this meeting, eleven of the young people
joined the Glasgow continuation classes. It was during the second year
of the educational committee’s existence that the Society’s band was
formed, and the educational committee lent valuable financial aid in
establishing it, with the result that in the years which have followed
the band has proved itself a most valuable Co-operative asset. Mr James
Campsie, M.A., was also commissioned to write a booklet for the
children, which was entitled “Glimpses of Co-operative Land,” and of
which some 22,000 copies were sold.
The committee and the various agencies under its control also took an
active part in the work of the Homes bazaar, with the result that they
were in the happy position of being able to contribute £480 to its
funds. The members of the committee also took an active part in the
elections to the various local governing bodies of the city and in the
work of the Ward Committee. In 1899 a holiday club was formed, which in
its first year of existence disbursed £220 amongst the members at
holiday time. New agencies were continually being added, and new methods
tried of influencing the younger members amongst the firm’s employees
and of providing recreation and education for them. In 1903 a junior
musical association was started, and continued to do well for a number
of years, as did also an offshoot in the form of a kinderspiel choir,
which gave each year successful performances of operettas to large
audiences. A rowing club also became an immediate success until the war
brought to many of the members another form of outdoor exercise of an
even more strenuous nature.
In 1905 a series of lectures was organised; such well-known men as Mr
Will Crooks, T. P. O’Connor, M.P., and David Macrae being the lecturers
engaged. Annual festivals of the employees also became the rule, and
later, annual excursions in the summer, which proved very successful. A
whist club and a football club were next formed, and in 1908 a beginning
with a holiday camp was made, twenty-five young people being sent to the
Y.M.C.A. camp at Ardgoil, with the assistance of the educational
committee. From time to time the committee paid the fees of employees
who attended classes at the Technical College, and in 1912 they came to
the unanimous decision that in future the fees of all employees,
irrespective of age or sex, who devoted their spare time to attendance
at technical or continuation classes, should be paid for them, provided
the attendances they made satisfied the committee. They also decided
that all junior employees who attended the Technical College for a
session should be allowed to attend day classes at the college, time so
spent to be accounted as part of their day’s work. This admirable
decision, arrived at long before any steps in this direction were taken
by the educational authorities on either side of the Border, is an
evidence of the value which the committee set on education.
A NEW DEPARTURE.
During these years one or more prominent lecturers were engaged each
quarter to deliver lectures to the employees. Amongst such lecturers,
there were in later years, Mr Andrew Young, Miss Margaret M‘Millan, and
Mr Philip Snowden. The Society’s kinderspiels continued to be very
successful, as did the other agencies, but there was a sameness about
the work of the committee which made for monotony; and in 1913 Mr James
Young came forward with a suggestion to the committee which met with
their hearty and unanimous approval. Mr Young pointed out that, while
with some people education ceased as soon as they left school, with
others it did not cease until they had had a University course and a
tour round the world. The workers could not afford a tour round the
world, nor a University course, but it was within the power of the
educational committee of the Society to appoint several of their
employees to make a tour of some of the most prominent concerns on the
other side of the Border, and so learn their methods of doing business;
how they provided for the housing of their employees, the relation of
the employees to trade unionism, recreative societies, conditions of
labour, hours, etc., and he suggested that such firms as the C.W.S.,
Cadbury’s, Lever’s, and Rowntree’s might be visited with profit. On the
return of the deputation, short papers might be prepared by the members
in which they would give accounts of what they had seen.
He pointed out that civic and other bodies believed in the value of
deputations as necessary in enlarging the outlook and in helping the
development of education.
THE DEPUTATION.
The deputation, which consisted of three male and two female employees,
the manager, the chairman, and Mr Cadiz, spent the last week of June
1913 in visiting the premises of several English firms, for the purpose
of getting information on the points mentioned above, and recorded their
experiences and impressions in a pamphlet which was printed and issued
to employees and members of the Society. The principal points dealt with
were superannuation schemes; training of youth schemes and technical
classes; wages and hours of labour; discipline; piecework, etc., of
female employees; conditions of workrooms, costumes, baths, dining
facilities, etc., of female employees; wages, hours, and working
conditions of men employees and their relation to trade unions; social
activities in factories; bands, athletic clubs, holidays and holiday
arrangements; and housing schemes; each member of the deputation being
responsible for a paper on one of the groups of subjects. The net result
of the visit of the deputation was the collection of a considerable
amount of valuable information respecting betterment schemes:
information which, no doubt, had an influence on the directors when the
plans for the erection of the last section of the M‘Neil Street premises
were being considered. It had the subsidiary result of showing also
that, while so far as wages and hours of labour were concerned, the
Co-operative societies were decidedly in the front, in provision of
outlets for the social activities of their employees and in housing and
environment schemes they were far behind the best which was being done
by private firms. It is interesting to note, in view of the fact that
since then both the delegates to the Scottish Wholesale Society’s
meeting and to the Baking Society’s meeting have refused to adopt
superannuation schemes for their employees, that in every one of the
firms which were visited, including the C.W.S., a superannuation or
pension scheme was in operation; in some cases non-contributory and in
other cases contributory. It is noticeable also that, in two of them,
housing schemes of an elaborate nature were in operation, and that, in
each case, a town on the most up-to-date garden city lines had been
erected. It is perhaps also worthy of note here that, as this book is
being written, these firms have been placed first and second
respectively in a competition as to which firms in Great Britain are the
best employers, while no Co-operative society is even mentioned.
This pamphlet, “Education By Impression,” which was edited by Mr Young,
must have been of some value in opening the eyes of the more farseeing
Co-operators to what they had yet to do before the Co-operative movement
could claim to be in all respects a first-rank employer. On the other
hand, Mr Young, in his editorial note, pointed out that it might be
possible to carry organisation, even the organisation of an industrial
heaven, that far that the independent character of the Scot might rebel.
As a result of what he had seen, Mr Young recommended certain
modifications which he thought could be made at M‘Neil Street with
advantage. Some of these have since been incorporated to a greater or
lesser extent in the methods of works organisation in use at M‘Neil
Street.
A SECOND DEPUTATION.
So successful had the first visit to English factories been, and so
great was the information acquired, especially on points affecting the
welfare of the employees, that in the following year a second deputation
was sent, which was equally successful in its results; and had it not
been for the coming of war, doubtless others would have followed. Like
their predecessors, the members of this deputation placed their
impressions on paper, and these were also incorporated in a pamphlet
which was issued under the title, “Seeing Is Believing.”
On this second occasion, the deputation consisted of three ladies and
six gentlemen, including Messrs Buchanan and M‘Auslane, directors; and
Mr Miller, distributive manager; and as on the previous occasion each
member of the deputation was given a special subject, points in
connection with which he or she had to note and report on. These points
included housing; holiday camps; rest homes, etc.; profit sharing and
bonus to labour; general conditions of female employment;
superannuation; factory equipment; shop organisation; apprentices and
conditions of employment of female employees. In connection with the
housing investigation, which was carried out by Mr Buchanan, Letchworth
Garden City was visited, as well as several other garden villages of a
more or less satisfactory character.
VALUABLE WORK.
There can scarcely be anyone who will question the educational value of
such visits as these. Not only are they of great value educationally to
those privileged to take part in them, but the results of the
investigations carried out, when made available as these were, in book
or pamphlet form, convey much valuable information and become the means
of imparting many new ideas to people to whom the larger books in which
such information is to be found are not available. If they should have
served, in however small a measure, in penetrating the veneer of
complacency with which the average untravelled and uninformed
Co-operator regards his own movement as in all things the last word in
perfection of organisation and treatment of those employed, they would
be worth far more to the movement than the few pounds which each trip
cost.
THE YEARS OF WAR.
At first the war did not make much difference to the work of the
educational committee or of its agencies, but as more and more of the
younger male employees were called up or joined voluntarily, there was a
perceptible falling off in the membership of the various agencies. The
rowing club had to suspend operations altogether, and the band was hard
put to it to maintain the balance of instruments, new players having to
be brought in to take the places of those who had joined up. Meantime a
senior choir had been formed, and did much good work, not only by
providing concerts in St Mungo Hall, but by singing at concerts
organised in aid of war charities and to provide entertainment for
convalescent soldiers. In work of a semi-military character, the band
also took a full share.
The educational committee also took charge of the funds organised by the
various departments to provide parcels for employees serving with the
Forces, and in this way a constant stream of parcels went from the
Bakery to distant comrades. The provision of lectures by prominent men
and women in the Co-operative and kindred movements continued to be a
feature of the work carried on by the committee each winter, while it
was usually arranged that some prominent Co-operator should give an
address at the quarterly meeting held under the auspices of the
committee, such addresses being generally on matters of current
interest.
The work of an educational committee is usually arduous and somewhat
discouraging. In commercial work the results of a policy are generally
forthcoming immediately, but educational work is somewhat like
scattering bread upon the waters. Doubtless good results accrue, but
time must elapse before they show themselves, and the intervening period
is one of faith and hope. Then, also, educational work is work in which
a departure from stereotyped methods is necessary occasionally. There is
a monotony in doing the same work year after year, which tends to
“grooviness,” and this is a danger which must be avoided at all hazards,
for from “grooviness” comes staleness and with staleness comes satiety.
When an educational committee breaks new ground, as the Baking Society’s
committee did in 1913 with their deputation to works of prominent firms
in England, interest is stimulated, and even the stereotyped work takes
on a new freshness. In the future we may hope to see the good work
already done by the Baking Society’s educational committee broadening
out in new directions, and acquiring fresh vigour with new successes.
The educational committee has been in the past a welfare committee in
the best meaning of that word, and without any of the prying, sometimes
nicknamed “spying” by the employees, it has done much to promote the
physical and mental wellbeing of those for whom it works. As the years
pass, fresh outlets in this direction for its energies will also
manifest themselves, and these it will take advantage of as readily as
it has done in the past.