CHAPTER X

THE CURRICULUM[27]

_We, believing that the normal child has powers of mind which fit

him to deal with all knowledge proper to him, give him a full and

generous curriculum, taking care only that all knowledge offered

to him is vital, that is, that facts are not presented without

their informing ideas. Out of this conception comes our principle

that:--_

“Education is the Science of Relations”; _that is, a child has

natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so

we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts,

science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our

business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him

to make valid as many as may be of_--

“_Those first-born affinities

That fit our new existence to existing things._”

_In devising a syllabus for a normal child, of whatever social

class, three points must be considered_:--

(_a_) _He requires much knowledge, for the mind needs

sufficient food as much as does the body._

(_b_) _The knowledge should be various, for sameness in mental

diet does not create appetite (i.e., curiosity)._

(_c_) _Knowledge should be communicated in well-chosen

language, because his attention responds naturally to what is

conveyed in literary form._

_As knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced, children

should “tell back” after a single reading or hearing: or should

write on some part of what they have read._

_A_ single reading _is insisted on, because children have

naturally great power of attention; but this force is dissipated

by the re-reading of passages, and also, by questioning,

summarising, and the like._

_Acting upon these and some other points in the behaviour of

mind, we find that the educability of children is enormously

greater than has hitherto been supposed, and is but little

dependent on such circumstances as heredity and environment._

_Nor is the accuracy of this statement limited to clever children

or to children of the educated classes: thousands of children in

elementary schools respond freely to this method, which is based

on the_ behaviour of mind.

Few things are more remiss in our schools than the curriculum which

is supposed to be entirely at the option of the Head: but is it?

Most Secondary schools work towards examinations which more or less

afford the privilege of entry to the Universities. The standard to

be reached is set by these and the Heads of schools hold themselves

powerless.

Though Elementary schools no longer work with a view to examination

results yet as their best pupils try for scholarships admitting

them to secondary schools, they do come indirectly under the same

limitations. There is, however, much less liberty in Secondary than

in Primary schools with regard to the subjects taught and the time

devoted to each. The result is startling. A boy of eight in an

Elementary school may shew more intelligence and wider knowledge

than a boy of fourteen in a Preparatory school, that is, if he have

been taught on the principles I have in view, while the other boy

has been instructed with a view to a given standard of scholarship.

The Preparatory school boy does, however, reach that standard in

Latin, if not in Greek also, and in Mathematics.

If we succeed in establishing a similar standard which every

boy and girl of a given age should reach in a liberal range of

subjects, a fair chance will be afforded to the average boy and

girl while brilliant or especially industrious young people will go

ahead.

We labour under the mistake of supposing that there is no natural

law or inherent principle according to which a child’s course of

studies should be regulated; so we teach him those things which,

according to Locke, it is becoming for a ‘gentleman’ to know on

the one hand, and, on the other, the arts of reading, writing and

summing, that he may not grow up an illiterate citizen. In both

cases the education we offer is too utilitarian,--an indirect

training for the professions or for a craftsman’s calling with

efforts in the latter case to make a boy’s education bear directly

on his future work.

But what if in the very nature of things we find a complete

curriculum suggested? “The human race has lost its title deeds,”

said Voltaire, and mankind has been going about ever since seeking

to recover them; education is still at sea and Voltaire’s epigram

holds good. We have not found our title deeds and so we yield to

the children no inherent claims. Our highest aim is to educate

young people for their uses to society, while every faddist is

free to teach what he pleases because we have no title deeds to

confront him with. Education, no doubt, falls under the economic

law of supply and demand; but the demand should come from the

children rather than from teachers and parents; how are their

demands to become articulate? We must give consideration to this

question because the answer depends on a survey of the composite

whole we sum up as ‘human nature,’ a whole whose possibilities are

infinite and various, not only in a budding genius, the child of a

distinguished family, but in every child of the streets.

A small English boy of nine living in Japan, remarked,--“Isn’t it

fun, Mother, learning all these things? Everything seems to fit

into something else.” The boy had not found out the whole secret;

everything fitted into something within himself.

The days have gone by when the education befitting either a

gentleman or an artisan was our aim. Now we must deal with a child

of man, who has a natural desire to know the history of his race

and of his nation, what men thought in the past and are thinking

now; the best thoughts of the best minds taking form as literature,

and at its highest as poetry, or, as poetry rendered in the

plastic forms of art: as a child of God, whose supreme desire and

glory it is to know about and to know his almighty Father: as a

person of many parts and passions who must know how to use, care

for, and discipline himself, body, mind and soul: as a person of

many relationships,--to family, city, church, state, neighbouring

states, the world at large: as the inhabitant of a world full of

beauty and interest, the features of which he must recognise and

know how to name, and a world too, and a universe, whose every

function of every part is ordered by laws which he must begin to

know.

It is a wide programme founded on the educational rights of man;

wide, but we may not say it is impossible nor may we pick and

choose and educate him in this direction but not in that. We may

not even make choice between science and the ‘humanities.’ Our part

it seems to me is to give a child a vital hold upon as many as

possible of those wide relationships proper to him. Shelley offers

us the key to education when he speaks of “understanding that grows

bright gazing on many truths.”

Because the relationships a child is born to are very various, the

knowledge we offer him must be various too. A lady teaching in Cape

Colony writes,--“The papers incorporated in the pamphlet _A Liberal

Education: Practice_ (by A. C. Drury) testify to--to me--an almost

incredible standard of proficiency. The mistakes are just the kind

of mistakes that children should make and no more of them than just

enough to keep them from being priggish. There are none of those

howlers of fact or expression that make one view one’s efforts with

a feeling of utter despondency.”

The knowledge of children so taught is consecutive, intelligent

and complete as far as it goes, in however many directions. For it

is a mistake to suppose that the greater the number of ‘subjects’

the greater the scholar’s labour; the contrary is the case as

the variety in itself affords refreshment, and the child who has

written thirty or forty sheets during an examination week comes out

unfagged. Not the number of subjects but the hours of work bring

fatigue to the scholar; and bearing this in mind we have short

hours and no evening preparation.

SECTION I

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

Of the three sorts of knowledge proper to a child,--the knowledge

of God, of man, and of the universe,--the knowledge of God ranks

first in importance, is indispensable, and most happy-making.

Mothers are on the whole more successful in communicating this

knowledge than are teachers who know the children less well and

have a narrower, poorer standard of measurement for their minds.

Parents do not talk down to children, but we might gather from

educational publications that the art of education as regards young

children is to bring conceptions down to their ‘little’ minds. If

we give up this foolish prejudice in favour of the grown-up we

shall be astonished at the range and depth of children’s minds;

and shall perceive that their relation to God is one of those

‘first-born affinities’ which it is our part to help them to make

good. A mother knows how to speak of God as she would of an absent

father with all the evidences of his care and love about her and

his children. She knows how to make a child’s heart beat high in

joy and thankfulness as she thrills him with the thought, ‘my

Father made them all,’ while his eye delights in flowery meadow,

great tree, flowing river. “His are the mountains and the valleys

his and the resplendent rivers, whose eyes they fill with tears

of holy joy,” and this is not beyond children. We recollect how

‘Arthur Pendennis’ walked in the evening light with his mother

and recited great passages from Milton and the eyes of the two

were filled ‘with tears of holy joy,’ when the boy was eight.

The teacher of a class has not the same tender opportunities but

if he take pains to get a just measure of children’s minds it is

surprising how much may be done.

The supercilious point of view adopted by some teachers is the

cause of the small achievements of their scholars. The ‘kiddies’

in a big girls’ school are not expected to understand and know

and they live down to the expectations formed of them. We (of the

P.N.E.U.) begin the definite ‘school’ education of children when

they are six; they are no doubt capable of beginning a year or two

earlier but the fact is that nature and circumstances have provided

such a wide field of education for young children that it seems

better to abstain from requiring _direct_ intellectual efforts

until they have arrived at that age.

As for all the teaching in the nature of ‘told to the children,’

most children get their share of that whether in the infant school

or at home, but this is practically outside the sphere of that

part of education which demands a _conscious mental effort_, from

the scholar, the mental effort of telling again that which has

been read or heard. That is how we all learn, we tell again, to

ourselves if need be, the matter we wish to retain, the sermon, the

lecture, the conversation. The method is as old as the mind of man,

the distressful fact is that it has been made so little use of in

general education. Let us hear Dr. Johnson on the subject:--

“‘Little people should be encouraged always to tell whatever they

hear particularly striking to some brother, sister, or servant,

immediately, before the impression is erased by the intervention

of newer occurrences.’ He perfectly remembered the first time

he heard of heaven and hell because when his mother had made

out such a description of both places as she thought likely to

seize the attention of her infant auditor who was then in bed

with her, she got up and dressing him before the usual time, sent

him directly to call the favourite workman in the house to whom

she knew he would communicate the conversation while it was yet

impressed upon his mind. The event was what she wished and it

was to that method chiefly that he owed the uncommon felicity of

remembering distant occurrences and long past conversations.”

(Mrs. Piozzi).

Now our objective in this most important part of education is

to give the children the knowledge of God. We need not go into

the question of intuitive knowledge, but the expressed knowledge

attainable by us has its source in the Bible, and perhaps we cannot

do a greater indignity to children than to substitute our own or

some other benevolent person’s rendering for the fine English,

poetic diction and lucid statement of the Bible.

Literature at its best is always direct and simple and a normal

child of six listens with delight to the tales both of Old and New

Testament read to him passage by passage, and by him narrated in

turn, with delightful touches of native eloquence. Religion has two

aspects, the attitude of the will towards God which we understand

by Christianity, and that perception of God which comes from a

gradual slow-growing comprehension of the divine dealings with

men. In the first of these senses, Goethe was never religious, but

the second forms the green reposeful background to a restless and

uneasy life and it is worth while to consider how he arrived at so

infinitely desirable a possession. He gives us the whole history

fully in _Aus Meinem Leben_, a treatise on education very well

worth our study. There he says,--

“Man may turn where he will, he may undertake what he will but

he will yet return to that road which Dante has laid down for

him. So it happened to me in the present case: my efforts with

the language” (Hebrew, when he was ten) “with the contents of the

Holy Scriptures, resulted in a most lively presentation to my

imagination of that beautiful much-sung land and of the countries

which bordered it as well as of the people and events which

have glorified that spot of earth for thousands of years....

Perhaps someone may ask why I set forth here in such detail this

universally known history so often repeated and expounded. This

answer may serve, that in no other way could I show how with the

distractions of my life and my irregular education I concentrated

my mind and my emotion on one point because I can in no other

way account for the peace which enveloped me however disturbed

and unusual the circumstances of my life. If an ever active

imagination of which the story of my life may bear witness led

me here and there, if the medley of fable, history, mythology,

threatened to drive me to distraction, I betook myself again to

those morning lands, I buried myself in the five books of Moses

and there amongst the wide-spreading, shepherd people I found the

greatest solitude and the greatest comfort.”

It is well to know how Goethe obtained this repose of soul, this

fresh background for his thoughts, and in all the errors of a

wilful life this innermost repose appears never to have left

him. His eyes, we are told, were tranquil as those of a god, and

here is revealed the secret of that large tranquility. Here,

too, Goethe unfolds for us a principle of education which those

who desire their children to possess the passive as well as the

active principle of religion would do well to consider; for it is

probably true that the teaching of the New Testament, not duly

grounded upon or accompanied by that of the Old, fails to result

in such thought of God, wide, all-embracing, all-permeating, as

David, for example, gives constant expression to in the Psalms.

Let us have faith and courage to give children such a full and

gradual picture of Old Testament history that they unconsciously

perceive for themselves a panoramic view of the history of

mankind typified by that of the Jewish nation as it is unfolded

in the Bible. Are our children little sceptics, as was the young

Goethe, who take a laughing joy in puzzling their teachers with

a hundred difficulties? Like that wise old Dr. Albrecht, let us

be in no haste to explain. Let us not try to put down or evade

their questions, or to give them final answers, but introduce them

as did he to some thoughtful commentator who weighs difficult

questions with modesty and scrupulous care. If we act in this way,

difficulties will assume their due measure of importance, that

is to say, they will be lost sight of in the gradual unfolding

of the great scheme whereby the world was educated. I know of no

commentator for children, say, from six to twelve, better than

Canon Paterson Smyth (_The Bible for the Young_). He is one of the

few writers able to take the measure of children’s minds, to help

them over real difficulties, give impulse to their thoughts and

direction to their conduct.

Between the ages of six and twelve children cover the whole of

the Old Testament story, the Prophets, major and minor, being

introduced as they come into connection with the Kings. The teacher

opens the lesson by reading the passage from _The Bible for the

Young_, in which the subject is pictorially treated; for example,--

“It is the battle field of the valley of Elah. The camp of Israel

is on one slope, the big tents of the Philistines on the other.

The Israelites are rather small men, lithe and clever, the

Philistines are big men, big, stupid, thick-headed giants, the

same as when Samson used to fool them and laugh at them long ago.

There is great excitement on both sides,” etc.

There will be probably some talk and discussion after this

reading. Then the teacher will read the Bible passage in question

which the children will narrate, the commentary serving merely as a

background for their thoughts. The narration is usually exceedingly

interesting; the children do not miss a point and often add

picturesque touches of their own. Before the close of the lesson,

the teacher brings out such new thoughts of God or new points of

behaviour as the reading has afforded, emphasising the moral or

religious lesson to be learnt rather by a reverent and sympathetic

manner than by any attempt at personal application.

Forms III and IV (twelve to fifteen) read for themselves the whole

of the Old Testament as produced by the Rev. H. Costley-White in

his _Old Testament History_. Wise and necessary omissions in this

work make it more possible to deal with Old Testament History, in

the words of the Authorised Version, than if the Bible were used as

a single volume. Then, “each period is illustrated by reference to

contemporary literature (e.g., Prophets and Psalms and monuments).”

Again, “Brief historical explanations and general commentary are

inserted in their proper places.” For example, after Genesis iii,

we read, as an introduction to the story of Cain and Abel,--

“The original object of this story was to explain the development

of sin amongst mankind and the origin of homicide which in this

first instance was actual murder. There are difficulties in the

story which do not admit of satisfactory explanation. It may be

asked,--‘Why did God not accept Cain’s offering?’ ‘How was His

displeasure shewn?’ ‘What was the sign appointed for Cain?’ ‘Whom

did he marry?’ The best way to answer such questions is to admit

that we do not know, but we may add that these early stories are

only a selection which do not necessarily form a consistent and

complete whole, and that in this very case there are signs that

the original story has been cut down and edited.

“Among the lessons taught are the following,--(1) God judges

man’s motives rather than his acts. The service of the heart is

worth more than any ceremonial. (2) It is not the sin of murder

that is condemned so much as the sin of jealousy and malice: cf.

the Sermon on the Mount, Matt, xxi, 6. (3) The great doctrine of

the Brotherhood of Man, that each man is his brother’s keeper and

has his share of responsibility for the conditions of the lives

of others. (4) Sin always brings its own punishment. (5) God

remonstrates with man before the climax of sin is reached.”

The footnotes which form the only commentary upon the text are

commendably short and to the point.

Having received a considerable knowledge of the Old Testament in

detail from the words of the Bible itself and having been trained

to accept difficulties freely without giving place to the notion

that such difficulties invalidate the Bible as the oracle of God

and our sole original source of knowledge concerning the nature

of Almighty God and the manner of His government of the world,

children are prepared for a further study of divinity, still

following the Bible text.

When pupils are of an age to be in Forms V and VI (from 15 to 18)

we find that Dummelow’s _One Volume Bible Commentary_ is of great

service. It is designed to provide in convenient form,--

“A brief explanation of the meaning of the Scriptures.

Introductions have been supplied to the various books and Notes

which will help to explain the principal difficulties, textual,

moral or doctrinal, which may arise in connection with them.

A series of articles has also been prefixed dealing with the

larger questions suggested by the Bible as a whole. It is hoped

that the Commentary may lead to a perusal of many of the books

of Holy Scripture which are often left unread in spite of their

rare literary charm and abundant usefulness for the furtherance

of the spiritual life.... In recent years much light has been

thrown upon questions of authorship and interpretation and the

contributors to this volume have endeavoured to incorporate in it

the most assured results of modern scholarship whilst avoiding

opinions of an extreme or precarious kind. Sometimes these

results differ from traditional views but in such cases it is not

only hoped but believed that the student will find the spiritual

value and authority of the Bible have been enhanced rather than

diminished by the change.”

The Editor has in these words set forth so justly the aims of the

Commentary that I need only say we find it of very great practical

value. The pupils read the general articles and the introductions

to the separate Books; they read too the Prophets and the poetical

books with the notes supplied. Thus they leave school with a fairly

enlightened knowledge of the books of the Old Testament and of the

aids modern scholarship has brought towards their interpretation;

we hope also with increased reverence for and delight in the ways

of God with men.

The New Testament comes under another category. The same

commentaries are used and the same methods followed, that is, the

reverent reading of the text, with the following narration which

is often curiously word perfect after a single reading; this is

the more surprising because we all know how difficult it is to

repeat a passage which we have heard a thousand times; the single

attentive reading does away with this difficulty and we are able

to assure ourselves that children’s minds are stored with perfect

word pictures of every tender and beautiful scene described in the

Gospels; and are able to reproduce the austere if equally tender

teaching which enforces the object lessons of the miracles. By

degrees the Person of Our Lord as revealed in His words and His

works becomes real and dear to them, not through emotional appeals

but through the impression left by accurate and detailed knowledge

concerning the Saviour of the World, Who went about doing good.

Dogmatic teaching finds its way to them by inference through a

quiet realisation of the Bible records; and loyalty to a Divine

Master is likely to become the guiding principle of their lives.

I should like to urge the importance of what may be called a poetic

presentation of the life and teaching of Our Lord. The young reader

should experience in this study a curious and delightful sense of

harmonious development, of the rounding out of each incident, of

the progressive unfolding which characterises Our Lord’s teaching;

and, let me say here, the custom of narration lends itself

surprisingly to this sort of poetic insight. Every related incident

stands out in a sort of bas-relief; every teaching so rendered

unfolds its meaning; every argument convinces; and the personages

reveal themselves to us more intimately than almost any persons

we know in real life. Probably very little hortatory teaching is

desirable. The danger of boring young listeners by such teaching

is great, and there is also the further danger of provoking

counter-opinions, even counter-convictions, in the innocent-looking

audience. On the whole we shall perhaps do well to allow the

Scripture reading itself to point the moral.

“We are at present in a phase of religious thought, Christian and

pseudo-Christian, when a synthetic study of the life and teaching

of Christ may well be of use. We have analysed until the mind

turns in weariness from the broken fragments; we have criticised

until there remains no new standpoint for the critic; but if we

could only get a whole conception of Christ’s life among men and

of the philosophic method of His teaching, His own words should be

fulfilled and the Son of Man lifted up, would draw all men unto

Himself. It seems to me that _verse_ offers a comparatively new

medium in which to present the great theme. It is more impersonal,

more condensed, is capable of more reverent handling than is prose;

and what Wordsworth calls the ‘authentic comment’ may be essayed

in verse with more becoming diffidence. Again, the supreme moment

of a very great number of lives, that in which a person is brought

face to face with Christ, comes before us with great vividness in

the Gospel narratives, and it is possible to treat what we may call

dramatic situations with more force, and at the same time with more

reticence, in verse than in prose.

“We have a single fragment of the great epic which the future may

bring forth,--

‘Those holy fields

Over whose acres walked those blessed feet

Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed

For our advantage to the bitter cross.’

“If Shakespeare had given us the whole how rich should we be! Every

line of verse dealing directly with Our Lord from the standpoint of

His personality is greatly treasured. We love the lines in which

Trench tells us,--

‘Of Jesus sitting by Samarian well

Or teaching some poor fishers on the shore.’

and Keble’s,--

‘Meanwhile He paces through the adoring crowd

Calm as the march of some majestic cloud.’

or his,--

‘In His meek power He climbs the mountain’s brow.’

Every line of such verse is precious but the lines are few, no

doubt because the subject is supremely august. Meantime we are

waiting for the great epic: because the need seems to be urgent

the writer has ventured to offer a temporary stop-gap in the six

volumes of _The Saviour of the World_.” (_From the Preface to the

first volume_).

A girl of thirteen and a half (Form IV) in her Easter examination

tackled the question: “_The people sat in darkness_”.... “_I am

the Light of the World._” _Shew as far as you can the meaning of

these statements._ She was not asked to write in verse, and was she

not taught by a beautiful instinct to recognise that the phrases

she had to deal with were essential poetry and that she could best

express herself in verse?

“The people sat in darkness--all was dim,

No light had yet come unto them from Him,

No hope as yet of Heaven after life,

A peaceful haven far from war and strife.

Some warriors to Valhalla’s halls might go

And fight all day, and die. At evening, lo!

They’d wake again, and drink in the great hall.

Some men would sleep for ever at their fall;

Or with their fickle Gods for ever be:

So all was dark and dim. Poor heathens, see!

_The Light ahead_, the clouds that roll away,

The golden, glorious, dawning of the Day;

And in the birds, the flowers, the sunshine, see

The might of Him who calls, ‘Come unto Me.’”

A girl of seventeen (Form V) answered the question: _Write an essay

or a poem on the Bread of Life_, by the following lines,--

“‘How came He here,’ ev’n so the people cried,

Who found Him in the Temple: He had wrought

A miracle, and fed the multitude,

On five small loaves and fish: so now they’d have

Him king; should not they then have ev’ry good,

Food that they toiled not for and clothes and care,

And all the comfort that they could require?--

So thinking sought the king....

Our Saviour cried:

‘Labour ye not for meat that perisheth,

But rather for the everlasting bread,

Which I will give’--Where is this bread, they cry,

They know not ’tis a heavenly bread He gives

But seek for earthly food--‘I am the Bread of Life

And all who come to Me I feed with Bread.

Receive ye then the Bread. Your fathers eat

Of manna in the wilderness--and died--

But whoso eats this Bread shall have his part

In everlasting life: I am the Bread,

That cometh down from Heaven; unless ye eat

Of me ye die, but otherwise ye live.’

So Jesus taught, in Galilee, long since.

“The people murmured when they heard His Word,

How can it be? How can He be our Bread?

They hardened then their hearts against His Word,

They would not hear, and could not understand,

And so they turnéd back to easier ways,

And many of them walked with Him no more.

May He grant now that we may hear the Word

And harden not our hearts against the Truth

That Jesus came to teach: so that in vain

He may not cry to hearts that will not hear,

‘I am the Bread of Life, for all that come,

I have this gift, an everlasting life,

And room within my Heavenly Father’s House.’”

The higher forms in the P.U.S. read _The Saviour of the World_

volume by volume together with the text arranged in chronological

order. The lower forms read in turns each of the Synoptic Gospels;

Form IV adds the Gospel of St. John and The Acts, assisted by the

capital Commentaries on the several Gospels by Bishop Walsham How,

published by the S.P.C.K. The study of the Epistles and the Book

of Revelation is confined for the most part to Forms V and VI.

The Catechism, Prayer-book, and Church History are treated with

suitable text-books much in the same manner and give opportunities

for such summing-up of Christian teaching as is included in the

so-called dogmas of the Church. We find that Sundays together with

the time given to preparation for Confirmation afford sufficient

opportunities for this teaching.[28]

SECTION II

THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN

(_a_) HISTORY

I have already spoken of history as a vital part of education and

have cited the counsel of Montaigne that the teacher ‘shall by the

help of histories inform himself of the worthiest minds that were

in the best ages.’ To us in particular who are living in one of

the great epochs of history it is necessary to know something of

what has gone before in order to think justly of what is occurring

to-day. The League of Nations, for example, has reminded us not

only of the Congress of Vienna but of the several Treaties of

Perpetual Peace which have marked the history of Europe. It is

still true that,--

“Things done without example, in their issue

Are to be feared. Have you a precedent

Of this commission?”

(_Henry VIII._)

We applaud the bluff King’s wisdom and look uneasily for precedents

for the war and the peace and the depressing anxieties that have

come in their train. We are conscious of a lack of sound judgment

in ourselves to decide upon the questions that have come before

us and are aware that nothing would give us more confidence than

a pretty wide acquaintance with history. The more educated among

our ‘Dominion’ cousins complain that their young people have no

background of history and as a consequence ‘we are the people’ is

their master thought; they would face even the loss of Westminster

Abbey without a qualm. What is it to them where great events

have happened, great persons lived and moved? And, alas, this

indifference to history is not confined to the Dominions; young

people at home are equally indifferent, nor have their elders such

stores of interest and information as should quicken children with

the knowledge that always and everywhere there have been great

parts to play and almost always great men to play those parts: that

any day it may come to anyone to do some service of historical

moment to the country. It is not too much to say that a rational

well-considered patriotism depends on a pretty copious reading of

history, and with this rational patriotism we desire our young

people shall be informed rather than with the jingoism of the

emotional patriot.

If there is but little knowledge of history amongst us, no doubt

our schools are in fault. Teachers will plead that there is no

time save for a sketchy knowledge of English history given in a

course of lectures of which the pupils take notes and work up

reports. Most of us know how unsatisfying is such a course however

entertaining. Not even Thackeray could introduce the stuff of

knowledge into his lectures on _The Four Georges_. Our knowledge

of history should give us something more than impressions and

opinions, but, alas, the lack of time is a real difficulty.

Now the method I am advocating has this advantage; it multiplies

time. Each school period is quadrupled in time value and we find

that we get through a surprising amount of history in a thorough

way, in about the same time that in most schools affords no more

than a skeleton of English History only. We know that young people

are enormously interested in the subject and give concentrated

attention if we give them the right books. We are aware that our

own discursive talk is usually a waste of time and a strain on the

scholars’ attention, so we (of the P.N.E.U.) confine ourselves

to affording two things,--knowledge, and a keen sympathy in the

interest roused by that knowledge. It is our part to see that every

child _knows_ and _can tell_, whether by way of oral narrative

or written essay. In this way an unusual amount of ground is

covered with such certainty that no revision is required for

the examination at the end of the term. A _single reading_ is a

condition insisted upon because a naturally desultory habit of mind

leads us all to put off the effort of attention as long as a second

or third chance of coping with our subject is to be hoped for.

It is, however, a mistake to speak of the ‘effort of attention.’

Complete and entire attention is a natural function which requires

no effort and causes no fatigue; the anxious labour of mind of

which we are at times aware comes when attention wanders and has

again to be brought to the point; but the concentration at which

most teachers aim is an innate provision for education and is not

the result of training or effort. Our concern is to afford matter

of a sufficiently literary character, together with the certainty

that no second or third opportunity for knowing a given lesson will

be allowed.

The personality of the teacher is no doubt of much value but

perhaps this value is intellectual rather than emotional. The

perception of the teacher is keenly interested, that his mind and

their minds are working in harmony is a wonderful incentive to

young scholars; but the sympathetic teacher who believes that to

attend is a strain, who makes allowance for the hundred wandering

fancies that beset a child--whom he has at last to pull up with

effort, tiring to teacher and pupil--hinders in his good-natured

efforts to help.

The child of six in IB has, not stories from English History, but

a definite quantity of consecutive reading, say, forty pages in

a term, from a well-written, well-considered, large volume which

is also well-illustrated. Children cannot of course themselves

read a book which is by no means written down to the ‘child’s

level’ so the teacher reads and the children ‘tell’ paragraph by

paragraph, passage by passage. The teacher does not talk much and

is careful never to interrupt a child who is called upon to ‘tell.’

The first efforts may be stumbling but presently the children get

into their ‘stride’ and ‘tell’ a passage at length with surprising

fluency. The teacher probably allows other children to correct any

faults in the telling when it is over. The teacher’s own really

difficult part is to keep up sympathetic interest by look and

occasional word, by remarks upon a passage that has been narrated,

by occasionally shewing pictures, and so on. But she will bear in

mind that the child of six has begun the serious business of his

education, that it does not matter much whether he understands this

word or that, but that it matters a great deal that he should learn

to deal directly with books. Whatever a child or grown-up person

can tell, that we may be sure he knows, and what he cannot tell,

he does not know. Possibly this practice of ‘telling’ was more

used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries than it is now. We

remember how three gentlemen meet in _Henry VIII_ and one who has

just come out of the Abbey from witnessing the coronation of Anne

Boleyn is asked to tell the others about it, which he does with

the vividness and accuracy we obtain from children. In this case

no doubt the ‘telling’ was a stage device, but would it have been

adopted if such narration were not commonly practised? Even in our

own day a good _raconteur_ is a welcome guest; and a generation or

two ago the art was studied as a part of gentlemanly equipment. The

objection occurs that such a social accomplishment is unnecessary

for children and is a mere exercise of memory. Now a passage to be

memorised requires much conning, much repetition, and meanwhile the

learners are ‘thinking’ about other matters, that is, the _mind_

is not at work in the act of memorising. To read a passage with

full attention and to tell it afterwards has a curiously different

effect. M. Bergson makes the happy distinction between _word_

memory and _mind_ memory, which, once the force of it is realised,

should bring about sweeping changes in our methods of education.

Trusting to mind memory we visualise the scene, are convinced by

the arguments, take pleasure in the turn of the sentences and frame

our own upon them; in fact that particular passage or chapter has

been received into us and become a part of us just as literally as

was yesterday’s dinner; nay, more so, for yesterday’s dinner is of

little account to-morrow; but several months, perhaps years hence,

we shall be able to narrate the passage we had, so to say, consumed

and grown upon with all the vividness, detail and accuracy of the

first telling. All those powers of the mind which we call faculties

have been brought into play in dealing with the intellectual

matter thus afforded; so we may not ask questions to help the child

to reason, paint fancy pictures to help him to imagine, draw out

moral lessons to quicken his conscience. These things take place as

involuntarily as processes of digestion.

Children of seven are promoted to Form IA in which they remain

for a couple of years. They read from the same capital book, Mrs.

Marshall’s _Our Island Story_, and about the same number of pages

in a term; but while the readings in IB are confined to the first

third of the book embodying the simpler and more direct histories,

those in IA go on to the end of the volume and children learn at

any rate to love English history. “I’d a lot sooner have history

than my dinner,” said a sturdy boy of seven by no means inclined to

neglect his dinner.

In IA the history is amplified and illustrated by short biographies

of persons connected with the period studied, Lord Clive, Nelson,

etc.; and Mrs. Frewen Lord’s delightful _Tales from Westminster

Abbey_ and _from St. Paul’s_ help the children immensely in

individualising their heroes. It is good to hear them ‘tell’

of Franklin, Nelson, Howard, Shaftesbury, and their delight in

visiting the monuments is very great. One would not think that

Donne would greatly interest children but the excitement of a small

party in noticing the marks of the Great Fire still to be seen on

his monument was illuminating to lookers-on.

Possibly there is no sounder method of inculcating a sane and

serviceable patriotism than this of making children familiar with

the monuments of the great even if they have not the opportunity

to see them. Form II (ages 9 to 12) have a more considerable

historical programme which they cover with ease and enjoyment.

They use a more difficult book than in IA, an interesting

and well-written history of England of which they read some

fifty pages or so in a term. IIA read in addition and by way

of illustration the chapters dealing with the social life of

the period in a volume, treating of social life in England. We

introduce children as early as possible to the contemporary history

of other countries as the study of English history alone is apt to

lead to a certain insular and arrogant habit of mind.

Naturally we begin with French history and both divisions read from

the _First History of France_, very well written, the chapters

contemporary with the English history they are reading. The

readiness with which children write or tell of Richelieu, Colbert,

Bayard, justifies us in this early introduction of foreign history;

and the lucidity and clearness with which the story is told in

the book they use results on the part of the children in such a

knowledge of the history of France as throws light on that of their

own country and certainly gives them the sense that history was

progressing everywhere much as it was at home during the period

they are reading about.

The study of ancient history which cannot be contemporaneous we

approach through a chronologically-arranged book about the British

Museum (written for the scholars of the P.U.S. by the late Mrs.

W. Epps who had the delightful gift of realising the progress of

the ages as represented in our great national storehouse). I have

already instanced a child’s visit to the Parthenon Room and her

eager identification of what she saw with what she had read, and

that will serve to indicate the sort of key to ancient history

afforded by this valuable book. Miss G. M. Bernau has added to the

value of these studies by producing a ‘Book of Centuries’ in which

children draw such illustrations as they come across of objects of

domestic use, of art, etc., connected with the century they are

reading about. This slight study of the British Museum we find very

valuable; whether the children have or have not the opportunity of

visiting the Museum itself, they have the hope of doing so, and,

besides, their minds are awakened to the treasures of local museums.

In Form III children continue the same history of England as in II,

the same French history and the same British Museum Book, going on

with their ‘Book of Centuries.’ To this they add about twenty to

thirty pages a term from a little book on Indian History, a subject

which interests them greatly.

Slight studies of the history of other parts of the British Empire

are included under ‘Geography.’

In Form IV the children are promoted to Gardiner’s _Student’s

History of England_, clear and able, but somewhat stiffer than that

they have hitherto been engaged upon, together with Mr. and Mrs.

Quennell’s _History of Everyday Things in England_ (which is used

in Form III also). Form IV is introduced to outlines of European

history. _The British Museum for Children_ and ‘Book of Centuries’

are continued.

It is as teachers know a matter of extreme difficulty to find the

exactly right book for children’s reading in each subject and

for some years we have been regretting the fact that Lord’s very

delightful _Modern Europe_[29] has been out of print.

The history studies of Forms V and VI (ages 15 to 18) are more

advanced and more copious and depend for illustration upon readings

in the literature of the period. Green’s _Shorter History of the

English People_ is the text-book in English history, amplified,

for example, by Macaulay’s _Essays on Frederick the Great_ and the

_Austrian Succession_, on _Pitt_ and _Clive_. For the same period

we use an American history of Western Europe and a very admirable

history of France, well-translated from the original of M. Duruy.

Possibly Madame de Staël’s _L’Allemagne_ or some other historical

work of equal calibre may occur in their reading of French. It is

not possible to continue the study of Greek and Roman history in

detail but an admirably written survey informed with enthusiasm is

afforded by Professor de Burgh’s _The Legacy of the Ancient World_.

The pupils make history charts for every hundred years on the plan

either adapted or invented by the late Miss Beale of Cheltenham,

a square ruled into a hundred spaces ten in each direction with

the symbol in each square showing an event which lends itself to

illustration during that particular ten years. Thus crossed battle

axes represent a war.

The geographical aspects of history fall under ‘Geography’ as a

subject. This course of historical reading is valued exceedingly

by young people as affording a knowledge of the past that bears

upon and illuminates the present. The writer recollects meeting

a brilliant group of Oxford undergraduates, keen and full of

interest, but lamentably ignorant, who said, “We want to know

something about history. What do you advise us to read? We know

nothing.” Perhaps no youth should go to College without some such

rudimentary course of English, European, and, especially, French

history, as is afforded by the programmes.[30] Such a general

survey should precede any special course and should be required

before the more academic studies designed to prepare students for

‘research work.’

It will be observed that the work throughout the Forms is always

chronologically progressive. The young student rarely goes over

old ground; but should it happen that the whole school has arrived

at the end of 1920, say, and there is nothing for it but to begin

again, the books studied throw new light and bring the young

students into line with modern research.

But any sketch of the history teaching in Forms V and VI in a given

period depends upon a notice of the ‘literature’ set; for plays,

novels, essays, ‘lives,’ poems, are all pressed into service and

where it is possible, the architecture, painting, etc., which the

period produced. Thus questions such as the following on a term’s

work both test and record the reading of the term,--“Describe the

condition of (_a_) the clergy, (_b_) the army, (_c_) the navy,

(_d_) the general public in and about 1685.” “Trace the rise of

Prussia before Frederick the Great.” “What theories of government

were held by Louis XIV? Give some account of his great ministers.”

“Describe the rise of Russia and its condition at the opening of

the eighteenth century.” “Suppose Evelyn (Form VI) or Pepys (Form

V) in counsel at the League of Nations, write his diary for three

days.” “Sketch the character and manners of Addison. How does he

appear in _Esmond_?”

It is a great thing to possess a pageant of history in the

background of one’s thoughts. We may not be able to recall this or

that circumstance, but, ‘the imagination is warmed’; we know that

there is a great deal to be said on both sides of every question

and are saved from crudities in opinion and rashness in action. The

present becomes enriched for us with the wealth of all that has

gone before.

Perhaps the gravest defect in school curricula is that they fail to

give a comprehensive, intelligent and interesting introduction to

history. To leave off or even to begin with the history of our own

country is fatal. We cannot live sanely unless we know that other

peoples are as we are with a difference, that their history is as

ours, with a difference, that they too have been represented by

their poets and their artists, that they too have their literature

and their national life. We have been asleep and our awaking is

rather terrible. The people whom we have not taught, rise upon us

in their ignorance and ‘the rabble,’--

“As the world were now but to begin

Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

They cry,--‘Choose we!’”

(_Hamlet._)

Heaven help their choice for choosing is indeed with them, and

little do they know of those two ratifiers and props of every

present word and action, Antiquity and Custom! It is never too late

to mend but we may not delay to offer such a liberal and generous

diet of History to every child in the country as shall give weight

to his decisions, consideration to his actions and stability to his

conduct; that stability, the lack of which has plunged us into many

a stormy sea of unrest.

It is to be noted that ‘stability’ is the mark of the educated

classes. When we reflect upon the disturbance of the national

life by labour unrest and, again, upon the fact that political

and social power is passing into the hands of the majority, that

is of the labouring classes, we cannot but feel that there is a

divine fitness, a providential adaptation in the circumstance

that the infinite educability of persons of all classes should

be disclosed to us as a nation at a time when an emotional and

ignorant labouring class is a peculiar danger. I am not sure that

the education implied in the old symbol of the ladder does make

for national tranquility. It is right that equal opportunity of

being first should be afforded to all but that is no new thing. Our

history is punctuated by men who have risen, and the Roman Church

has largely founded herself as has the Chinese Empire upon this

doctrine of equal opportunity. But let us remember that the men

who climb are apt to be uneasy members of society; the desire for

knowledge for its own sake, on the other hand, finds satisfaction

in knowledge itself.

The young men see visions; the hardships of daily life are

ameliorated, and while an alert and informed mind leads to decency

and propriety of living it does not lead to the restless desire to

subvert society for the sake of the chances offered by a general

upheaval. Wordsworth is right:--

“If rightly trained and bred Humanity is humble.”

We live in times critical for everybody but eminently critical for

teachers because it rests with them to decide whether personal

or general good should be aimed at, whether education shall be

merely a means of getting on or a means of general progress towards

high thinking and plain living and therefore an instrument of the

greatest national good.[31]

II

THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN

(_b_) LITERATURE

Except in Form I the study of Literature goes _pari passu_ with

that of History. Fairy tales, (Andersen or Grimm, for example),

delight Form IB, and the little people re-tell these tales

copiously, vividly, and with the astonishing exactness we may

expect when we remember how seriously annoyed they are with

the story-teller who alters a phrase or a circumstance. Æsop’s

_Fables_, too, are used with great success, and are rendered, after

being once heard, with brevity and point, and children readily

appropriate the moral. Mrs. Gatty’s _Parables from Nature_, again,

serve another purpose. They feed a child’s sense of wonder and are

very good to tell. There is no attempt to reduce the work of this

form, or any other, to a supposed ‘child level.’ Form IA (7 to 9)

hears and tells chapter by chapter _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ and the

children’s narrations are delightful. No beautiful thought or bold

figure escapes them. Andrew Lang’s _Tales of Troy and Greece_, a

big volume, is a _pièce de resistance_ going on from term to term.

The great tales of the heroic age find their way to children’s

hearts. They conceive vividly and tell eagerly, and the difficult

classical names instead of being a stumbling-block are a delight,

because, as a Master of a Council school says,--

“Children have an instinctive power by which they are able to

sense the meaning of a whole passage and even some difficult

words.”

That the sonorous beauty of these classical names appeals to them

is illustrated by a further quotation from the same Master,--

“A boy of about seven in my school the other day asked his mother

why she had not given him one of those pretty names they heard in

the stories at school. He thought Ulysses a prettier name than

his own, Kenneth, and that the mother of his playmate might have

called him Achilles instead of Alan.”

There is profound need to cultivate delight in beautiful names

in days when we are threatened with the fear that London itself

should lose that rich halo of historic associations which glorifies

its every street and alley, that it may be made like New York,

and should name a street X500,--like a workhouse child without

designation; an age when we express the glory and beauty of the

next highest peak of the Himalayas by naming it K2! In such an age,

this, of their inherent aptitude for beautiful names, is a lode of

much promise in children’s minds. The Kaffir who announced that

his name was ‘Telephone’ had an ear for sound. Kingsley’s _Water

Babies_, _Alice in Wonderland_, Kipling’s _Just So Stories_, scores

of exquisite classics written for children, but not written down to

them, are suitable at this stage.

Form IIB has a considerable programme of reading, that is, not the

mere mechanical exercise of reading but the reading of certain

books. Therefore it is necessary that two years should be spent

in Form IA and that in the second of these two years the children

should read a good deal of the set work for themselves. In IIB

they read their own geography, history, poetry, but perhaps

Shakespeare’s _Twelfth Night_, say, Scott’s _Rob Roy_, _Gulliver’s

Travels_, should be read to them and narrated by them until they

are well in their tenth year. Their power to understand, visualise,

and ‘tell’ a play of Shakespeare from nine years old and onwards is

very surprising. They put in nothing which is not there, but they

miss nothing and display a passage or a scene in a sort of curious

relief. One or two books of the calibre of _The Heroes of Asgard_

are also included in the programme for the term.

The transition to Form IIA is marked by more individual reading

as well as by a few additional books. The children read their

‘Shakespeare play’ in character. Certain Council School boys, we

are told, insist on dramatising Scott as they read it. Bulfinch’s

_Age of Fable_ admits them to the rich imaginings of peoples who

did not yet know. Goldsmith’s poems and Stevenson’s _Kidnapped_,

etc., may form part of a term’s work, and in each and all children

shew the same surprising power of knowing, evinced by the one sure

test,--they are able to ‘tell’ each work they have read not only

with accuracy but with spirit and originality. How is it possible,

it may be asked, to show originality in ‘mere narration’? Let us

ask Scott, Shakespeare, Homer, who told what they knew, that is

narrated, but with continual scintillations from their own genius

playing upon the written word. Just so in their small degree do the

children narrate; they see it all so vividly that when you read or

hear their versions the theme is illuminated for you too.

Children remain in Form II until they are twelve, and here I would

remark on the evenness with which the power of children in dealing

with books is developed. We spread an abundant and delicate feast

in the programmes and each small guest assimilates what he can.

The child of genius and imagination gets greatly more than his

duller comrade but all sit down to the same feast and each one gets

according to his needs and powers.

The surprises afforded by the dull and even the ‘backward’ children

are encouraging and illuminating. We think we know that man is an

educable being, but when we afford to children all that they want

we discover how straitened were our views, how poor and narrow

the education we offered. Even in so-called deficient children we

perceive,--

“What a piece of work is man.... In apprehension, how like a god!”

In Forms III and IV we introduce a _History of English Literature_

carefully chosen to afford sympathetic interest and delight while

avoiding stereotyped opinions and stale information. The portion

read each term (say fifty pages) corresponds with the period

covered in history studies and the book is a great favourite with

children. They have of course a great _flair_ for Shakespeare,

whether _King Lear_, _Twelfth Night_, _Henry V_, or some other

play, and _The Waverleys_ usually afford a contemporary tale.

There has been discussion in Elementary Schools as to whether

an abridged edition would not give a better chance of getting

through the novel set for a term, but strong arguments were brought

forward at a conference of teachers in Gloucester in favour of

a complete edition. Children take pleasure in the ‘dry’ parts,

descriptions and the like, rendering these quite beautifully

in their narrations. Form IV may have quite a wide course of

reading. For instance if the historical period for a term include

the Commonwealth, they may read _L’Allegro_, and _Il Penseroso_,

_Lycidas_, and contemporary poets as represented in a good

anthology, or, for a later period, Pope’s _Rape of the Lock_, or

Gray’s poems, while Form III read poems of Goldsmith and Burns. The

object of children’s literary studies is not to give them precise

information as to who wrote what in the reign of whom?--but to give

them a sense of the spaciousness of the days, not only of great

Elizabeth, but of all those times of which poets, historians and

the makers of tales, have left us living pictures. In such ways the

children secure, not the sort of information which is of little

cultural value, but wide spaces wherein imagination may take those

holiday excursions deprived of which life is dreary; judgment, too,

will turn over these folios of the mind and arrive at fairly just

decisions about a given strike, the question of Poland, Indian

Unrest. Every man is called upon to be a statesman seeing that

every man and woman, too, has a share in the government of the

country; but statesmanship requires imaginative conceptions, formed

upon pretty wide reading and some familiarity with historical

precedents.

The reading for Forms V and VI (ages 15 to 18) is more

comprehensive and more difficult. Like that in the earlier Forms,

it follows the lines of the history they are reading, touching

current literature in the occasional use of modern books; but young

people who have been brought up on this sort of work may, we find,

be trusted to keep themselves _au fait_ with the best that is being

produced in their own days. Given the proper period, Form V would

cover in a term Pope’s _Essay on Man_, Carlyle’s _Essay on Burns_,

Frankfort Moore’s _Jessamy Bride_, Goldsmith’s _Citizen of the

World_ (edited), Thackeray’s _The Virginians_, the contemporary

poets from an anthology. Form VI would read Boswell, _The Battle of

the Books_, Macaulay’s _Essays_ on Goldsmith, Johnson, Pitt; the

contemporary poets from _The Oxford Book of Verse_, and both Forms

read _She Stoops to Conquer_. This course of reading, it will be

seen, is suggestive and will lead to much reading round and about

it in later days. As for the amount covered in each Form, it is

probably about the amount most of us cover in the period of time

included in a school term, but while we grown-up persons read and

forget because we do not take the pains to _know_ as we read, these

young students have the powers of perfect recollection and just

application because they have read with attention and concentration

and have in every case reproduced what they have read in narration,

or, the gist of some portion of it, in writing.

The children’s answers[32] in their examination papers, show that

literature has become a living power in the minds of these young

people.

II

THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN

(_c_) MORALS AND ECONOMICS: CITIZENSHIP

Like Literature this subject, too, is ancillary to History. In Form

I, children begin to gather conclusions as to the general life of

the community from tales, fables and the story of one or another

great citizen. In Form II, Citizenship becomes a definite subject

rather from the point of view of what may be called the inspiration

of citizenship than from that of the knowledge proper to a citizen,

though the latter is by no means neglected. We find Plutarch’s

_Lives_ exceedingly inspiring. These are read aloud by the teacher

(with suitable omissions) and narrated with great spirit by the

children. They learn to answer such questions as,--“In what ways

did Pericles make Athens beautiful? How did he persuade the people

to help him?” And we may hope that the idea is engendered of

preserving and increasing the beauty of their own neighbourhood

without the staleness which comes of much exhortation. Again, they

will answer,--“How did Pericles manage the people in time of war

lest they should force him to act against his own judgment?” And

from such knowledge as this we may suppose that the children begin

to get a sympathetic view of the problems of statesmanship. Then,

to come to our own time, they are enabled to answer,--“What do

you know of (_a_) County Councils, (_b_) District Councils, (_c_)

Parish Councils?”--knowledge which should make children perceive

that they too are being prepared to become worthy citizens, each

with his several duties. Our old friend Mrs. Beesley’s _Stories

from the History of Rome_ helps us here in Form IIB instead of

Plutarch, illumined by Macaulay’s _Lays of Ancient Rome_. In giving

children the knowledge of men and affairs which we class under

‘Citizenship’ we have to face the problem of good and evil. Many

earnest-minded teachers will sympathise with one of their number

who said,--

“Why give children the tale of Circe, in which there is such

an offensive display of greediness, why not bring them up

exclusively on heroic tales which offer them something to live up

to? Time is short. Why not use it all in giving examples of good

life and instruction in good manners?”

Again,--

“Why should they read any part of _Childe Harold_, and so become

familiar with a poet whose works do not make for edification?”

Now Plutarch is like the Bible in this, that he does not label the

actions of his people as good or bad but leaves the conscience

and judgment of his readers to make that classification. What to

avoid and how to avoid it, is knowledge as important to the citizen

whether of the City of God or of his own immediate city, as to know

what is good and how to perform the same. Children recognise with

incipient weariness the doctored tale as soon as it is begun to be

told, but the human story with its evil and its good never flags in

interest. Jacob does not pall upon us though he was the elect of

God. We recognise the justice of his own verdict on himself, “few

and evil have been the days of my life.” We recognise the finer

integrity of the foreign kings and rulers that he is brought in

contact with, just as in the New Testament the Roman Centurion is

in every case a finer person than the religious Jew. Perhaps we

are so made that the heroic which is all heroic, the good which

is all virtuous, palls upon us, whereas we preach little sermons

to ourselves on the text of the failings and weaknesses of those

great ones with whom we become acquainted in our reading. Children

like ourselves must see life whole if they are to profit. At the

same time they must be protected from grossness and rudeness by

means of the literary medium through which they are taught. A daily

newspaper is not on a level with Plutarch’s _Lives_, nor with

Andrew Lang’s _Tales of Troy and Greece_, though possibly the same

class of incidents may appear in both. The boy, or girl, aged from

ten to twelve, who is intimate with a dozen or so of Plutarch’s

_Lives_, so intimate that they influence his thought and conduct,

has learned to put his country first and to see individuals only as

they serve or dis-serve the State. Thus he gets his first lesson in

the science of proportion. Children familiar with the great idea

of a State in the sense, not of a government but of the people,

learn readily enough about the laws, customs and government of

their country; learn, too, with great interest something about

themselves, mind and body, heart and soul, because they feel it is

well to know what they have it in them to give to their country.

We labour under a difficulty in choosing books which has exercised

all great thinkers from Plato to Erasmus, from Erasmus to the

anxious Heads of schools to-day. I mean the coarseness and

grossness which crop up in scores of books desirable otherwise for

their sound learning and judgment. Milton assures us with strong

asseveration that to the pure all things are pure; but we are

uneasy. When pupils in the higher forms read the _Areopagitica_

they are safeguarded in some measure because they perceive that to

see impurity is to be impure. The younger children are helped by

the knowledge we offer them in _Ourselves_, and chastely taught

children learn to watch over their thoughts ‘because of the

angels.’ So far as we can get them we use expurgated editions; in

other cases the book is read aloud by the teacher with necessary

omissions. We are careful not to associate the processes of nature

whether in the plant or animal world with possible thoughts of

impurity in the mind of a child. One point I should like to touch

upon in this connection. The excessive countenance sometimes

afforded to games by the Heads of schools is not altogether for the

sake of distinction in the games. “I keep under my body,” says St.

Paul, and games which exhaust the physical powers have as their

unspoken _raison d’être_ the desire to keep boys and girls decent.

No doubt they do so to some extent though painful occurrences

come to light in even the best schools. Now a fact not generally

recognised is that offences of the kind which most distress parents

and teachers are _bred in the mind_ and in an empty mind at that.

That is why parents, who endeavour to save their sons from the

corruption of the Public School by having them taught at home,

are apt to miss their mark. The abundant leisure afforded by home

teaching offers that empty chamber swept and garnished which

invites sins that can be committed in thought and in solitude. Our

schools err, too, in not giving anything like enough work of the

kind that from its absorbing interest compels reflection and tends

to secure a mind continually and wholesomely occupied. Supply a

boy with abundant mental pabulum, not in the way of desultory

reading, (that is a sort of idleness which leads to mischief), but

in the way of matter to be definitely known, give him much and

sound food for his imagination, speculation, aspiration, and you

have a wholesome-minded youth to whom work is a joy and games not a

strain but a healthy relaxation and pleasure. I make no apology for

what may appear like a divergence from the subject of citizenship,

because all boys and girls should know that they owe a sound mind

and a sound body as their personal contribution alike to their city

and their State.

_Ourselves, our Souls and Bodies_ (by the Writer) is much used

in the P.U.S., as I know of no other attempt to present such a

ground plan of human nature as should enable the young student to

know where he is in his efforts to ‘be good’ as the children say.

The point of view taken in this volume is, that all beautiful and

noble possibilities are present in every one; but that each person

is subject to assaults and hindrances in various ways of which he

should be aware in order that he may watch and pray. Hortatory

teaching is apt to bore both young people and their elders; but an

ordered presentation of the possibilities and powers that lie in

human nature, and of the risks that attend these, can hardly fail

to have an enlightening and stimulating effect.

But the objects we have in view in teaching ‘Everyday Morals’ and

‘Citizenship’ cannot be better illustrated than by a few papers[33]

written by children of various ages, dealing with self management,

and exemplifying the virtues that help and serve city and country.

“Oh dear,” said a little girl coming out of a swimming bath, “I’m

just like Julius Cæsar, I don’t care to do a thing at all if I’m

not best at it.” So, in unlikely ways, and from unlikely sources,

do children gather that little code of principles which shall guide

their lives.

II

THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN

(_d_) COMPOSITION

Composition in Form I (A and B) is almost entirely oral and is so

much associated with Bible history, English history, geography,

natural history, that it hardly calls for a special place on the

programme, where however it does appear as ‘Tales.’ In few things

do certain teachers labour in vain more than in the careful and

methodical way in which they teach composition to young children.

The drill that these undergo in forming sentences is unnecessary

and stultifying, as much so perhaps as such drill would be in the

acts of mastication and deglutination. Teachers err out of their

exceeding goodwill and generous zeal. They feel that they cannot

do too much for children and attempt to do for them those things

which they are richly endowed to do for themselves. Among these

is the art of composition, that art of ‘telling’ which culminates

in a Scott or a Homer and begins with the toddling persons of

two and three who talk a great deal to each other and are surely

engaged in ‘telling’ though no grown-up, not even a mother, can

understand. But children of six can tell to amazing purpose. The

grown-up who writes the tale to their ‘telling’ will cover many

pages before getting to the end of “Hans and Gretel” or “The Little

Match Girl” or a Bible story. The facts are sure to be accurate and

the expression surprisingly vigorous, striking and unhesitating.

Probably few grown-ups could ‘tell’ one of Æsop’s _Fables_ with

the terse directness which children reproduce. Neither are the

children’s narrations incoherent; they go on with their book,

week by week, whatever comes at a given time,--whether it be

Mrs. Gatty’s _Parables from Nature_, Andersen or Grimm or _The

Pilgrim’s Progress_, from the point where they left off,--and there

never is a time when their knowledge is scrappy. They answer such

questions as,--“Tell about the meeting of Ulysses and Telemachus,”

or, “about Jason and Hera.” “Tell how Christian and Hopeful met

with Giant Despair,” or, “about the Shining Ones.”

Children are in Form IA from 7 to 9 and their reading is wider

and their composition more copious. They will ‘tell’ in their

examinations about the Feeding of the Four Thousand, about the

Building of the Tabernacle, How Doubting Castle was demolished,

about the burning of Old St. Paul’s, How we know that the world is

round and a great deal besides; for all their work lends itself to

oral composition and the power of such composition is innate in

children and is not the result of instruction. Two or three points

are important. Children in IB require a quantity of matter to be

read to them, graduated, not according to their powers which are

always present, but they require a little time to employ their

power of fixed attention and that other power which they possess of

fluent narration. So probably young children should be allowed to

narrate paragraph by paragraph, while children of seven or eight

will ‘tell’ chapter by chapter. Corrections must not be made during

the act of narration, nor must any interruption be allowed.

Children must not be teased or instructed about the use of stops

or capital letters. These things too come by nature to the child

who reads, and the teacher’s instructions are apt to issue in the

use of a pepper box for commas. We do not say that children should

never read well-intentioned second-rate books, but certainly they

should not read these in school hours by way of lessons. From their

earliest days they should get the habit of reading literature which

they should take hold of for themselves, much or little, in their

own way. As the object of every writer is to explain himself in

his own book, the child and the author must be trusted together,

without the intervention of the middle-man. What his author does

not tell him he must go without knowing for the present. No

explanation will really help him, and explanations of words and

phrases spoil the text and should not be attempted unless children

ask, What does so and so mean? when other children in the class

will probably tell.

Form II (A and B), (ages 9 to 12). Children in this Form have

a wider range of reading, a more fertile field of thought, and

more delightful subjects for composition. They write their little

essays themselves, and as for the accuracy of their knowledge

and justice of their expression, why, ‘still the wonder grows.’

They will describe their favourite scene from _The Tempest_ or

_Woodstock_. They write or ‘tell’ stories from work set in Plutarch

or Shakespeare or tell of the events of the day. They narrate from

English, French and General History, from the Old and the New

Testament, from _Stories from the History of Rome_, from Bulfinch’s

_Age of Fable_, from, for example, Goldsmith’s or Wordsworth’s

poems, from _The Heroes of Asgard_: in fact, Composition is not

an adjunct but an integral part of their education in every

subject. The exercise affords very great pleasure to children,

perhaps we all like to tell what we know, and in proportion as

their composition is entirely artless, it is in the same degree

artistic and any child is apt to produce a style to be envied for

its vigour and grace. But let me again say there must be no attempt

to teach composition. Our failure as teachers is that we place too

little dependence on the intellectual power of our scholars, and

as they are modest little souls what the teacher kindly volunteers

to do for them, they feel that they cannot do for themselves. But

give them a fair field and no favour and they will describe their

favourite scene from the play they have read, and much besides.

Forms III and IV. In these Forms as in I and II what is called

‘composition’ is an inevitable consequence of a free yet exact use

of books and requires no special attention until the pupil is old

enough to take of his own accord a critical interest in the use of

words. The measured cadences of verse are as pleasing to children

as to their elders. Many children write verse as readily as prose,

and the conciseness and power of bringing their subject matter to

a point which this form of composition requires affords valuable

mental training. One thing must be borne in mind. Exercises in

scansion are as necessary in English as in Latin verse. Rhythm and

accent on the other hand take care of themselves in proportion as a

child is accustomed to read poetry. In III and IV as in the earlier

Forms, the matter of their reading during the term, topics of the

day, and the passing of the Seasons, afford innumerable subjects

for short essays or short sets of verses of a more abstract nature

in IV than in III: the point to be considered is that the subject

be one on which, to quote again Jane Austen’s expression, the

imagination of the children has been ‘warmed,’ They should be asked

to write upon subjects which have interested them keenly. Then when

the terminal examination comes they will respond to such a question

as,--“Write twelve lines (which must scan) on ‘Sir Henry Lee,’ or

‘Cordelia,’ or Pericles, or Livingstone,” or, to take a question

from the early day’s of the War, “Discuss Lord Derby’s Scheme. How

is it working?”; or, (IV) an essay on “The new army in the making,

shewing what some of the difficulties have been and what has been

achieved.”

Forms V and VI. In these Forms some definite teaching in the art

of composition is advisable, but not too much, lest the young

scholars be saddled with a stilted style which may encumber them

for life. Perhaps the method of a University tutor is the best that

can be adopted; that is, a point or two might be taken up in a

given composition and suggestions or corrections made with little

talk. Having been brought up so far upon stylists the pupils are

almost certain to have formed a good style; because they have been

thrown into the society of _many_ great minds, they will not make a

servile copy of any one but will shape an individual style out of

the wealth of material they possess; and because they have matter

in abundance and of the best they will not write mere verbiage.

Here is an example of a programme set for a term’s work in these

two Forms,--“A good précis; letters to _The Times_ on topics of the

day; subjects taken from the term’s work in history and literature;

or notes on a picture study; dialogues between characters occurring

in your literature and history studies; ballads on current events;

(VI) essays on events and questions of the day; a patriotic play in

verse or prose.” Here are questions set for another term,--“Write

a pæan, rhymed or in blank verse, on the Prince of Wales’s tour

in the Dominions.” “An essay, dated 1930, on the imagined work of

the League of Nations.” Form V, “Write a woeful ballad touching

the condition of Ireland, or, a poem on the King’s garden party to

the V.C.’s.” “An essay on the present condition of England, or, on

President Wilson.”

The response of the young students to such a scheme of study is

very delightful. What they write has literary and sometimes poetic

value, and the fact that they can write well is the least of the

gains acquired. They can read, appreciating every turn of their

author’s thought; and they can bring cultivated minds to bear on

the problems of the hour and the guiding of the State; that is

to say, their education bears at every point on the issues and

interests of every day life, and they shew good progress in the art

of becoming the magnanimous citizens of the future. Here are a few

examples[34] of the compositions of the several Forms.

(F. B. IIA. Council School.)

ARMISTICE DAY

Soldiers dying, soldiers dead,

Bullets whizzing overhead.

Tommies standing cheerily by.

Waiting for their time to die;

Soon the lull of firing comes,

And naught is heard but the roll of drums.

And now the last shell crashes down,

A soldier reels in pain

Too late the glad news comes to him.

He never moves again,

He is the Unknown Warrior,

A man without a name.

Two years have passed and home he comes,

To the hearts that loved him well,

Who is the Unknown Warrior,?

No lips the tale can tell,

His tomb is in the Abbey,

Where the souls of Heroes dwell.

A nations sorrow and a nations tears,

Have gone with the nameless man,

Who knows, who can tell, the Warriors name,

We think that no man can,

So let our sorrow turn to joy

On the grave of the Unknown man.

(A. B. 13¾. III.)

_Write some lines, in blank verse, that must scan on one of the

following: (a), Scylla and Charybdis; (b), The White Lady of

Avenel; (c), The Prince of Wales in India._

THE WHITE LADY OF AVENEL

The sun had set and night was drawing on,

The hills stood black against the twilight sky.

A faint young crescent moon shone dimly forth

Casting a pale and ghostly radiance

Upon the group of pine trees on the hill,

And silvering the rivers eddying swirl.

Now all was silent, not a sound disturbed

The summer night, and not a breath of wind

Stirred in the pines. All nature slept in peace.

But what was that, standing up in the shade?

A woman, straight, and slim, all clad in white,

Upon her long soft hair a misty crown,

And ever and anon she deeply sighed,

Leaning against the rugged mountain rock,

Like to a moon beam, or a wisp of smoke.

And on her shimmering, moonlit, robe she wore

A golden girdle, in whose links was woven

The fortunes of the house of Avenel.

A cloud past o’er the moon, and the slim ghost

Faded and disapeared into the air.

A breeze sprang up among the pine trees tall;

And then the river murmuring on its way

Whispered a sad lament unto the night.

(K. L. 13½. III.)

_Write in Ballad Metre some lines on “Armistice Day” or “Echo.”_

ARMISTICE DAY, or THE UNKNOWN WARRIOR

Within the ancient Abbey’s sacred pyle,

Which proudly guards the noblest of our dead.

Where kings and statesmen lie in every aisle,

And honoured poets, soldiers, priests are laid;

Behold a stranger comes. From whence is he?

Is he of noble birth; of rank or fame?

Was he as great as any whom we see

Around, who worked to make themselves a name?

Surely he is a prince, nay, e’en a king?

For see the waiting thousands gathered here;

And hear the streets of ancient London ring

To the slow tramp of men who guard his bier!

And, surely, ’tis the King himself who comes

As chiefest mourner on this solemn day,

And these who walk behind him are his sons--

All here to mourn this man. Who is he? Say!

How long the ranks of men who follow him

To his last resting-place--the House of God.

Our bishops, soldiers, statesmen all are here,

Gathered to lay him in his native sod.

You ask “Is he a prince?” I answer “No!

Though none could be interred with greater state!

This man went forth to guard us from a foe,

Which threatened this our land--He did his work!”

He raised the flag of Liberty on high

And challenging the powers of Wrong and Might

He gave up all he had without a sigh

And died for the good cause of God and Right.

Nor is a sense of humour wanting,--

(M. O. 13. III.)

_Write in Ballad Metre some lines on “Echo.”_

ECHO

Jupiter once went away from his wife

To flirt with some nymphs in a wood

But Juno, suspecting that he was with them

Came after as fast as she could.

Now Echo, a nymph, knew that Juno was there

That the nymphs they would soon be found out,

And so she kept Juno away from the wood

For if they had gone she did doubt.

But Juno knew all; and her anger was great

And Echo this dreadful thing heard

“Since you are so fond of talking, from now

You only shall have the last word!”

Now Echo went far from the dwellings of men

And spent her sad life all alone

And often she’d weep and think of the past

And over her fate make her moan.

Echo loved a Greek youth, but he could not love her.

And she watched him all day from her bower

Till she pined away, all but her voice, which lives still,

And the youth was turned into a flower.

(R. C. 15. III. Elementary, Convent School.)

_Write some verses on (a) ‘Dandie Dinmont,’ or, (b) ‘Atalanta,’ or,

(c) Allenby._

Atlanta was a huntress,

Who dearly loved the chase.

She out-ran the deer in fleetness,

And possessed a lovely face.

Many eager suiters sought her,

But they sought her all in vain,

For she vowed she’d never marry

And her suiters all were slain.

She had heeded well the warning,

From a witch well skilled in lore,

Who had told her if she married,

Happiness was hers no more.

Then a youth whom Venus favoured,

Came one day to run the race,

And by throwing golden apples,

He out-ran her in the chase.

In their hour of joy and triumph

Venus they forget to thank,

And the goddess sore offended,

Lowered them to the wild beast’s rank.

(J. T. III.)

Phaëton was a wilful youth who always got his way.

He asked to drive his father’s charge upon a certain day.

But Phœbus knowing well what danger lurkéth in the sky,

Implored of him to wish again and not that task to try.

But Phaëton determined was to best this dangerous way,

And leaped into the chariot to spite his father’s sway.

The horses started forward at a dashing headlong pace,

Phaëton tried to hold them back and modify the race.

With dreadful swiftness on he flew, losing his proper road,

The earth and sky began to smoke in an alarming mode.

At length when all had burst in flames, Jupiter cried aloud,

Phaëton who had lost his head was killed beneath a cloud.

(H. E. M. 15-8/12 IV.)

_Write thirty lines of blank verse on (a), “A Spring Morning”

(following “A Winter Morning Walk”), or, (b), Pegasus, or, (c),

Allenby._

A SPRING MORNING.

’Tis Spring; and now the birds with merry song

Sing with full-throated voice to the blue sky

On which small clouds float, soft as a dove’s wing.

Against the blue the pale-green leaflet gleams.

The darker green of elder, further down,

Sets off the brilliance of the hawthorn-hedge.

Close to the ground, the purple violet peeps

From out its nest of overhanging leaves.

On yonder bank the daffodils toss their heads

Under the shady lichen trees so tall.

Close by a chesnut, bursting into leaf,

Drops down it’s sticky calyx on the ground;

An early bumble-bee dives headlong in

To a half-opened flower of early pear.

O’erhead, in the tall beech trees, busy rooks,

With great caw-caws and many angry squawks

Build their great clumsy nests with bits of twig

And little sticks just laid upon a bough.

And by the long, straight, path tall fir trees wave

Their graceful heads in the soft whisp’ring breeze

And pressed against one ruddy trunk, an owl

In vain tries to avoid the light of day,

But blinks his wise old eyes, and shakes himself,

And nestles close amid the sheltering leaves.

Now on the rhubarb-bed we see, glad sight,

Large red buttons, which promise fruit quite soon

And further down the lettuce shoots up pale

Next to a row of parsley, getting old.

But see the peas, their curly tendrils green

Clinging to their stout pea-sticks for support.

(B. B. 15. IV.)

A SPRING MORNING

Soft on the brown woods

A pale light gleams,

And slowly spreading seems

To change the brown wood to a land of dreams,

Where beneath the trees

The great god Pan,

Doth pipe, half goat, half man,

To satyrs dancing in the dawning wan.

And then comes Phœbus,

The visions fade

And down the dewy glade

The rabbits scuttle o’er the rings they made.

In the fields near-by

The cattle rise

And where the river lies

A white mist rises to the welcoming skies.

Where the downs arise

And blue sky crowns

Their heads, fast o’er the mounds

The mist is driv’n to where the ocean sounds.

White wings against blue sky,

Gulls from the cliffs rise,

Watching, with eyes

That see from shore to where the sky line lies,

Where blue sea fades in bluer skies

Soft, doth the tide creep

O’er the golden sands

With sea-weed strands

Which, mayhap, knew the dawn of other lands.

(R. B. IV.)

_Write thirty lines of blank verse on “Pegasus.”_

The sky was blue and flecked with tiny clouds

Like sheep they ran before the driving wind

The sun was setting like a big red rose

The clouds that flew by him like rose-buds were

And as I gaz’d I saw a little cloud

White as the flower that rises in the spring

Come nearer, nearer, nearer as I looked

And as it came it took a diff’rent shape

It seemed to turn into a fairy steed.

White as the foam that rides the roaring waves

Still it flew on until it reached the earth

And galloping full lightly came to me

And then I saw it was a wondrous thing

It leapt about the grass and gently neighed

I heard its voice sound like a crystal flute

“Oh come” he said “with me ascend the sky

Above the trees, above the hills we’ll soar

Until we reach the home of all the gods

There will we stay and feast awhile with them

And dance with Juno and her maidens fair

And hear dear Orpheus and the pipes of Pan

And wander, wander, wander up above”

“Oh fairy steed, oh angel steed” I said

“Horse fit for Jupiter himself to ride

What is thy name I pray thee tell me this”

Then came the magic voice of him again

“If thou wilt know my name then come with me.”

Yet tell me first I hesitating said

He told me and when I had heard the name

I leapt upon his back and flew with him.

(A. B. 16. V.)

_Some verses, in the metre of Pope’s “Essay on Man,” on the meeting

of the League of Nations._

From each proud kingdom and each petty state

The statesmen meet together to debate

Upon the happy time when wars shall cease

And joy shall reign, and universal peace.

No more shall day with radience cruelly bright

Glare down upon the carnage of the fight.

No more shall night’s dark cloak be rent aside

By flashing shells and searchlight’s stealthy glide

No more shall weary watchers wait at home

With straining eyes for those that cannot come

The nations shall forget their strife and greed

The strong shall help the weak in time of need

May they succeed in every peaceful plan

If war can cease as long as man is man.

(E. H. 16-11/12. V.)

_Gather up in blank verse the impressions you have received from

your reading of Tennyson’s poems._

Take up a volume of the poet’s works,

Read on, lay it aside, and take thy pen,

Endeavour in a few, poor, worthless lines

To give expression of thy sentiments....

Surely this man loved all the joys of life,

Saw beauty in the smallest and the least,

Put plainer things that hitherto were dim,

And lit a candle in the darkest room.

His thoughts, now sad, now gay, may surely be

The solace sweet for many a weary hour,

His words, drunk deeply, seem to live and burn

Clear, radiant, gleaming from the printed page.

Nature to him was dear and so has made

Her wiles for other men a treasure vast.

Old Books, his master mind could comprehend

Are shown to us as pictures to a child.

Read on--and when the volume’s put away,

Muse on the learnings thou hast found therein;

The time thus spent thou never will repent,

For love of good things all should seek and find.

(E. P. H. 16-11/12 V.)

A LULLABY SONG

The little waves are sighing on the shore,

And the little breezes sobbing in the trees;

But the little stars are shining,

In the sky’s blue velvet lining,

And Lady Sleep is tapping at the door.

The little gulls are flying home to shore,

And the little lights are flashing from the ships,

But close your eyes, my sweet,

And be ready then to greet

Dear Lady Sleep who’s tapping at the door.

The wind is rising all around the shore,

And the fishing boats speed home before the gale;

But hark not to the rain

That is lashing on the pane,

For Lady Sleep has entered by the door.

The storm has sunk the ships and swept the shore,

But there’s weeping in the town and on the quay,

But, sweet, you’re dreaming fast

Even though the dawn be past,

And Lady Sleep has gone, and closed the door.

(M. H. 17⅓. VI.)

_Write a letter in the manner of Gray on any Modern Topic._

Mr. Gray to Mr. ---- At Torquay.

My dear ----

“Savez vous que je vous hais, que je vous deteste--voici des

termes un peu forts,” still, I think that they are justified,

imagine leaving a friend for two months in this place without

once taking up the pen upon his behalf. If this neglect be due

only to your low spirits, I will for once pardon you but only

upon condition that you should come down here to visit me and at

the same time strengthen your constitution. I can promise you but

little diversion, but I think that the scenery will repay the

journey--not to speak of myself. You will also be able to study

many “venerable vegetables” which are not usually to be found in

England. But, I waste your time and my paper with these “bêtises”

and I know well upon what subject your mind is at present

dwelling--which of us indeed is not thinking of Ireland. I would

give much to hear your views upon the subject. For my part it

seems to me that there can be but one true view, and it surprises

me mightily to hear so much discussion upon the subject. Are we

not truly a peculiar nation who pass bills of Home Rule etc.,

with much discussion and debate, when neither of the two parties

concerned will accept the conditions that we offer them? The one

considering they give too little freedom, and the other too much.

Accursed be the man who invented a bill which was and will be the

cause of so much trouble “in sæcula sæculorum.” Surely we need

not have any doubt as to what line of action we should adopt,

surely it has not been the habit of England to let her subjects

revolt without an attempt to quell them, surely the government

will not stand by and see its servants murdered, and the one

loyal province oppressed. But alas many things are possible with

such a government. Here it is said by people who have been driven

from that country by incendiaries that the Government will let

things take their course till everything is in such a condition

that the Premier will rise in the house and say “You see how

things stand--it is no use trying to control Ireland, let us

leave it to the Seinn Feiners, and live happily ever afterwards,

free from such unprofitable cares.”

Such is the talk, but I believe it not. We have as a nation

always muddled things but we have muddled through triumphant

in the end. It is so obvious that our interests and those of

Ireland co-incide, that even to contemplate separation is to me

incredible.

Thus I remain your harassed friend, etc.

(N. S. 15-10/12. VI.)

_Gather up in blank verse the impressions you have received from

your reading of Tennyson’s poems._

ON READING TENNYSON’S POEMS.

Oh! Prophet of an era yet to come,

When men shall sing where men were wont to speak

In words which even Englishmen knew not.

And when I read thy songs, at once I felt

The breath of Nature that was lurking there.

And then I knew that all thy life thou dwelt

Amid the changing scenes of Nature’s play,

And knew the very language of the birds,

And drank the essence of the honeysuckle.

And when thou wast but young, I knew thy thoughts,

Thy Doubts and struggles, for thou gave them me;

And yet, had I been thee, my thoughts would still

Have rested deep within my heart; but still

T’would be relief to pour out all my woes

In the sweet flow of sympathetic verse.

Thy epithets produce a vivid scene

Of knights in armour or of maiden fair,

And yet, methinks, the fairness of her face

Doth sometimes cover many a fault below.

But to thy genius and thy work for ever

Be owed a debt of thankfulness that we

No longer tread the paths of level Pope

Or read those words that are not English-born.

(K. B. 16. V.)

THE CLOUDS

Among the spirits of the nearer air

There are three children of the sun and sea--

The Genii of the clouds; it is their care

To give the ocean’s bounty to the earth:

Oft they retain it in a time of dearth,

But they give all, however much it be.

The youngest of the three is very fair;

She is a maiden beautiful and sweet,

Of ever varying mood, changeful as air.

Now, plunged in merriment, she takes delight

In all she sees, now tears obscure her sight;

A breeze-swept lake shows not a change more fleet.

The fleecy clouds of April own her sway--

They, golden, lie against the golden sun,

Or sport across the blue when she is gay;

But when, anon, her girlish passions rise,

She marshalls them across the sunny skies

To flood the earth, then stops ere half begun.

Her elder brother is of different mien,

The clouds he governs are of different mould;

When the earth pants for moisture he is seen

To spread his clouds across the filmy blue.

When his rain falls, it steady is and true;

Persistent, gentle, ceaseless, yet not cold.

From the grey bowl with which he caps the earth,

It sweetly falls with earth-renewing force.

Not April’s rapid change from grief to mirth

Excites its fall, but calm, determined thought

Of middle age, of deeds from judgment wrought;

He recks not blame, but still pursues his course.

Aged, yet of awesome beauty is the third,

Of flashing eye and sullen, scornful brow--

With an imperious hand she guides her herd

Of wild, tempestuous mood; quick roused to ire

Is she, slow to forgive, of vengeance dire;

Before her awful glance the tree-tops bow.

And when enraged, she stretches forth a hand--

A long, thin hand--to North, South, East and West,

And draws from thence clouds num’rous as the sand;

They crowd on the horizon, and blot out

The sun’s fair light; then, like a giant’s shout,

The thunder booms at her dread spear’s behest.

(A. P. V.)

_Sketch a scene between a “Mr. Woodhouse” of to-day and a neighbour

of his._

SCENE:--Mr. Woodhouse’s private study.

_Persons present_:--Owner of study, and Miss Syms, a very modern

young lady.

_Mr. Woodhouse._--“Oh, good afternoon Miss Syms, I am charmed to

see you. Dear, dear, how dark it is. One might almost think it

were evening, if the clock opposite did not directly oppose the

fact.”

_Miss S._--“Oh, I don’t know, it’s not so bad out. I’m awfully

sorry to blow in like this, but I came to enquire after Miss

Woodhouse’s cold. Is she better?”

_Mr. W._--“How very thoughtful of you! No, I am afraid dear

Emma is very indisposed. It is so trying having an invalid in

the house, it makes me quite miserable when I think of my poor

daughter having to stay all alone, in bed. But really, that is

almost the best place in this dreadful weather. Do you really

mean to say that you have been taking a walk.”

_Miss S._--“Yes, why on earth shouldn’t I? It’s about the only

way to get really warm.”

_Mr. W._--“If the liberty might be allowed me, (dryly) I should

say, that it was the one way in which to get a feverish cold,

besides making oneself thoroughly miserable; and the ground is so

damp under foot!”

_Miss S._--“Oh, it hasn’t been raining much lately. I only got

caught in a little shower, (visible start from Mr. W.). (coyly,)

Excuse me, but is that a box of cigarettes up there on the

mantlepiece?”

_Mr. W._--“Cigarettes? Oh, no! I couldn’t think of keeping them

near the house. I _never_ smoke. It irritates my throat, which is

naturally weak.”

_Miss S._--“But don’t your visiters ever take the liberty

of enjoying something of the sort? Besides, what about Miss

Woodhouse?”

_Mr. W._--(horrified,) “Dear Emma smoke a cigarette!! Why, I

never heard of such a thing. What would she say if I told her.

Dear Emma smoke, no, no, certainly not.”

_Miss S._--(Laughing,) “Oh, I am sure I’m very sorry. I didn’t

mean to offend.

How do you think the old Johnnies in Ireland are behaving

themselves?”

_Mr. W._--(coldly,) “I _beg_ your pardon.”

_Miss S._--(sweetly,) “I said, how do you think matters are

looking, in Ireland.”

_Mr. W._--“I am sorry, I think I could not have heard aright

before.--Matters in Ireland, yes, oh I think the Irish rebels are

positively awful. To think of breaking into houses, and turning

the poor inhabitants out into the cold streets, (where they

probably nearly die of cold), it is too dreadful!”

_Miss S._--“Oh, I s’pose they are rather brutes sometimes. But

in a way I almost sympathise with them. I wouldn’t like to have

to knuckle under to the English (catching sight of Mr. W.’s

expression of horror and pained surprise,) I really think I’d

better get a move on. Please don’t look at me like that! I really

don’t mean half I say. Cheerio!!”

_Mr. W._--“Good afternoon Miss Syms, it was so kind of you to

come. (aside) Oh, how unfeeling of dear Emma to have a cold, if

it means visiters like this every hour. (aloud,) Good afternoon,

can you find your way out. I really shall catch cold if I move

out of this room!!”

(E. G. 17. V.)

_Write some lines on “Spring” in the metre of “Allegro.”_

SPRING

Begone! for a short space

Ye whistling winds, and fogs, and snowy clouds,

And frosts that with fair lace

Each window-pane in dainty pattern shrouds,

Offsprings of Winter, ye!

Begone! find out some icy arctic land.

Upon that cheerless strand

’Mongst piercing ice, and chilling glaciers dwell

Such regions suit ye well,

Go, cold Winter, well are we rid of thee!

Come Spring, thou fairest season come!

With the bee’s enchanting hum,

And the dainty blossoms swinging

On the tree, while birds are singing,

See how they clothe the branches gray

In dress of freshest pink, all day,

Then when the dewy evening falls

They close their flowers till Morning calls.

Sweet Morn! Spring leads thee by the hand

And bids thee shine o’er all the land;

Thou send’st forth beams of purest gold,

To bid the daffodils unfold,

While Spring bends down with her fresh lips

To kiss the daisie’s petal tips.

And as she walks o’er the green sward

A cheerful mavis, perfect bard

Breaks into song; his thrilling notes

Are echoed from a hundred throats

Of eager birds, who love to sing

To their sweet mistress, fairest Spring.

Then as she sits on mossy throne

A scarlet lady-bird, alone,

Bids her good welcome; and above

Is heard the cooing of the dove.

Two butterflies in russet clad

Fly round her head with flutt’rings glad;

While at her side a giddy fly

Buzzes his joy that she is nigh,

Oh! Spring my heart’s desire shall be

That thou wilt ever dwell with me!

II

THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN

(_e_) LANGUAGES

_English_ is rather a logical study dealing with sentences and

the positions that words occupy in them than with words and what

they are in their own right. Therefore it is better that a child

should begin with a sentence and not with the parts of speech, that

is, he should learn a little of what is called analysis before he

learns to parse. It requires some effort of abstraction for a child

to perceive that when we speak, we speak about something and say

something about it; and he has learned nearly all the grammar that

is necessary when he knows that when we speak we use sentences

and that a sentence makes sense; that we can put words together

so as to make utter nonsense, as,--“Tom immediately candlestick

uproarious nevertheless”--a string of words making perfect nonsense

and therefore not a sentence. If we use words in such a way as to

make sense we get a sentence; “John goes to school” is a sentence.

Every sentence has two parts, (1), the thing we speak of, and (2),

what we say about it. We speak of John, we say about him that he

goes to school. At this stage the children require many exercises

in finding out the first and second parts of simple sentences.

When they are quite familiar with the fact that the first part of

a sentence is what we speak about, they may get a name for it,

subject, which will be made simpler to them if they know the word

subject means that which we talk about. For instance, we may say,

the subject of conversation was parsley, which is another way of

saying the thing we were speaking about was parsley. To sum up such

a lesson, the class should learn,--Words put together so as to make

sense form a sentence. A sentence has two parts, that which we

speak of and what we say about it. That which we speak of is the

subject.

Children will probably be slow to receive this first lesson in

abstract knowledge, and we must remember that knowledge in this

sort is difficult and uncongenial. Their minds deal with the

concrete and they have the singular faculty of being able to make

concrete images out of the merest gossamer of a fairy tale. A seven

year old child sings,--

“I cannot see fairies,

I dream them.

There is no fairy that can hide from me;

I keep on dreaming till I find him.

There you are, Primrose! I see you, Blackwing!”

But a child cannot dream parts of speech, and any grown-up twaddle

attempting to personify such abstractions offends a small person

who with all his love of play and nonsense has a serious mind. Most

children can be got to take in the notion of a sentence as, words

making sense, especially if they are allowed a few excursions into

non-sense, the gibberish of strings of words which do not make

sense. Again, by dint of many interesting exercises in which they

never lose sight of the _subject_, they get hold of that idea also.

One more initial idea is necessary if children are not to wander

blindfold through the mazes of grammar ‘as she is’ not ‘spoke,’

but writ in books. They must be familiar with verbs and perhaps

the simplest way to approach this idea is to cause them to make

sentences with two words, the thing they speak of and what they say

about it,--Mary sings, Auntie knits, Henry runs. In each of these

examples, the child will see the thing we speak of and what we say

about it.

But these are matters familiar to all teachers and we have nothing

new in the teaching of grammar to suggest; but we probably gain in

the fact that our scholars pay full attention to grammar, as to all

other lessons. We look forward hopefully to the result of efforts

so to unify grammar that it will no longer perplex the student, as

English, Latin, French grammar, each with its own nomenclature.

Children in Form IIB have easy French Lessons with pictures which

they describe, but in IIA while still engaged on the _Primary

French Course_ children begin to use the method which is as full of

promise in the teaching of languages as in English, that is, they

are expected to narrate the sentence or paragraph which has been

read to them. Young children find little difficulty in using French

vocables, but at this stage the teacher should with the children’s

help translate the little passage which is to be narrated, then

re-read it in French and require the children to narrate it. This

they do after a time surprisingly well, and the act of narrating

gives them some command of French phrases as far as they go, much

more so than if they learnt the little passage off by heart. They

learn French songs in both divisions and act _French Fables_ (by

Violet Partington) in Form IIA. This method of closely attentive

reading of the text followed by narration is continued in each

of the Forms. Thus Form II is required to “Describe in French,

picture 20.” “Narrate the story _Esope et le Voyageur_.” Part of

the term’s work in Form III is to “Read and narrate _Nouveaux

Contes Français_, by Marc Ceppi.” Form IV is required amongst other

things to “Read and narrate Molière’s _Les Femmes Savantes_.”

Forms V and VI are required to “Write a résumé of _Le Misanthrope_

or _L’Avare_,” “Translate into French, _Modern Verse_, page 50,

‘Leisure.’”

We have not space to follow in detail the work of the P.U.S. in

French, which of course includes the usual attention to French

Grammar but it may interest the reader to see the sort of thing

that students of the House of Education are able to accomplish in

the way of narration. The French mistress gives, let us suppose, a

lecture in history or literature lasting, say, for half an hour. At

the end the students will narrate the substance of the lecture with

few omissions and few errors. Here is an example of the sort of

thing Mr. Household heard, on the occasion of a short visit to the

House of Education, Ambleside,--