RECREATION.
The Children’s Country Holiday Fun’--Recreation of the People--Hopes of
the Hosts--Easter Monday on Hampstead Heath--Holidays and School
days--The Failure of Holidays--Recreation in Town and Country.
THE CHILDREN’S COUNTRY HOLIDAY FUN’.[1]
BY MRS. S. A. BARNETT.
April, 1912.
[1] From “The Cornhill Magazine”. By permission of the Editor.
Five thousand two hundred and eighty Letters, 872 Sketches, 199
Collections, all in parcels neatly tied up, the name, age, and sex of
the writer, artist, or collector clearly written on the first page of
the covering paper. There they lie, all around me, stack upon stack. The
sketches are crude but extraordinarily vivid and unaffected; the
collections are very scrappy but show affectionate care; the letters are
written in childish unformed characters, and are of varying lengths,
from a sheet of notepaper to ten pages of foolscap, but one and all deal
with the same subject. What that subject is shall be told by a maiden of
nine years old:--
“On one Thursday morning my Mother woke me and said, ‘To-day is Country
Holiday Fun,’ so I got up and put my cloes on”.
On that Thursday morning, 27 July, 22,624 happy children left London and
its drab monotonous streets, and went for a fortnight’s visit into the
country, or by the sea. Oh! the joy, the preparation, the excitement,
the hopes, the fears, the anxieties lest anything should prevent the
start; but at last, by the superhuman efforts of all concerned, the
Committee, the ladies, the teachers, and the railway officials, the
whole gay, glad, big army of little people were successfully got off. It
is from these 22,624 children, and 21,756 more who took their places two
weeks later, that my 5,280 letters come; for only those who really
choose to write are encouraged to do so.
In almost all cases the journey is fully described, the ride in the
’bus, the fear of being late, the parcel and how “it fell out,” the
gentlemen at the station, the porter who gave us a drink of water
“cause we were all hot,” the gentleman who gave the porter 6d. because
he said: “This 6d. is for you for thinking as how the children would
be thirsty”. The number that managed to get in each carriage, the boy
who lost his cap “for the wind went so fast when my head was outside
looking,” the hedges, the cows, the big boards with ---- Pills written
on them, how “it seemed as if I was going that way and the hills and
cows and trees were going the other way”. It is all told with the fresh
force of novelty and youth. The names of the Stations and the mileage
is often noted, as well as the noise. “We shouted for joy,” writes a
boy of eleven. “We told them it was rude to holler so,” writes a more
staid girl. “I got tired of singing and went to sleep,” records a boy
of eight; but the journey over there follows the description, often
given with some awe, of how,--
“We all went and were counted together, and there were the ladies
waiting for us, and the gentleman read out our names and our lady’s
name and then we went home with our right ladies,”
and then, almost without exception, comes the bald but important
statement, “and then we had Tea”. Indeed, all through the letters there
is frequent mention of the gastronomic conditions, which appear to
occupy a large place among the memories of the country visit. Evidently
the regularity of the meals makes a change which strikes the
imagination.
“I got up, washed in hot water and had my breakfast. It was duck’s
egg. I then went out in the fields till dinner was ready. I had
a good dinner and then took a rest. We had Tea. My lady gave us
herrings and apple pie for tea, then we went on the Green and
looked about and then came home and had supper and went to bed.”
Some letters, especially those written after the first visit to the
country, contain nothing but the plain unvarnished tale of the supply of
regular food. One girl burns with indignation because
“We girls was sent to bed at 7·30 and got no supper, but the boys was
let up later and got bread and a big thick bit of cheese”.
A boy of eight chronicles that
“I had custard for my Tea and some jelly which was called corn flour”.
One small observer had apparently discovered the importance of
meal-times even to the sea itself, for he writes: “The sea always went
out at dinner time and came back when Tea was ready”. I can see my
readers smile, but to those of us who know intimately the lives of the
poor, the significance of meals and their regularity occupying so large
a place in a child’s mind is more pathetic than comic.
From all the letters the impression is gathered of the generosity of the
poor hostesses to the London children. For 5s. a week (not 9d. a day) a
growing hungry boy or girl is taken into a cottager’s home, put in the
best bed, cared for, fed three or four times a day, and often
entertained at cost of time, thought, or money.
“I like the day which was Bank lolyiday Monday because it was a
very joyafull day. My Lady took me to a Flower Show. It was 3d. to
go in but she paid, and I had swings and saw the flowers, and then
we had bought Tea, and a man gave away ginger beer.”
Another girl of eleven writes:--
“My lady took me to Windsor Castle. The first thing I saw was the
Thames. I went and had a paddled and then I went in the Castle and saw
a lot of apple trees.”
The visits to Windsor are modern-day versions of the old story of the
Cat who went to see the King and saw only “Mousey sitting under the
Chair,” for another child records:--
“There were plenty of orchards with apple trees in it. But we would
not pick them, or else we would be locked up but I went in the
Castle and I saw a very large table with fifty chairs all round it
and a piano and a looking glass covered up on the wall.”
One boy who was taken to the lighthouse, though only ten, was evidently
eager for useful information. He writes:--
“I asked the man how many candlepowers it was but I forgot what he
said----”
an experience not unknown to his elders and betters!
This child records that “when playing on the beach I made Buckingham
Palace but a big boy came along and trod it and so we went home to
bed”--an unconscious repetition of the often-recorded conclusion of
Pepys’ eventful days.
One of the small excursionists was taken by her hostess to see
Tonbridge, and writes: “We went to the muzeam wear we saw jitnoes of
different people”.
The hospitality of the clergymen and their families and the goodness of
doctors is also often mentioned. Some of the children write so vividly
that the country vicarage and its sweet-smelling flowers, the hot curate
and the active ladies, rise up as a picture, the “atmosphere” of which
is kindness and “the values” incalculable. Other children merely record
the facts--in some cases anticipating time and establishing an order of
clergywomen.
“We asked the Vicar Miss Leigh if we could swim and she said No
because one boy caught a cold.”
“We all went to the Reveren to a party.” “Saturday mornings we went
to the Rectory haveing games, swings, sea sawes and refreshments.”
“The party by the Church was fine.” “They had a Church down there
called the Salvation Army. I thought there was only one Salvation
Army.”
One of the Vicars hardly conveyed the impression he intended, for the
boy writes:--
“We went to Church in the morning and in the afternoon for a walk
as the Clergyman told us not to go to Sunday School as he wanted us
to enjoy ourselves”.
One wonders if the Sunday School organization and the “intolerable
strain” which would be put on it by London visitors was in that vicar’s
mind.
The letter that is sent by the Countryside Committee to the children
before they leave London tells them in simple language something about
the trees and flowers and creatures which they will see during their
holiday, and asks them to write on anything which they themselves have
observed or which gave them pleasure to see. This request is granted,
for the children wrote:--
“The trees seemed so happy they danced”.
“The wind was blowing and the branches of the trees was swinging
themselves.”
“The rainbow is made of raindrops and the sun, tears and smiles.”
“It was nice to sit on the grass and see the trees prancing in the
breeze.”
These extracts show, in the four small mortals who had each spent the
ten years of their lives in crowded streets, an almost poetic capacity,
and the beginning of a power of nature sympathy that will be a source of
unrecorded solace. The sights of the night impress many children, the
sky seen for the first time uninterrupted by gas lamps.
“When I (aged eleven) looked into the sky one night you could hardly
see any of the blue for it was light up with stars.”
“I saw a star shoot out of the sky and then it settled in a different
place.”
“One night I kept awake and looked for the stars and saw the Big Bear
of stars.”
“At night the moon looked as if it were a Queen and the stars were her
Attendants.”
“The clouds are making way for the moon to come out.”
The sun, its rising and setting, is also frequently mentioned. One child
had developed patriotism to such an extent as to write:--
“One day I looked up to the Sky and saw the sun was rising in the
shape of the British Isles”.
Alas! What would the Kaiser think?
Another of my correspondents expressed surprise that “the moon came from
where the sky touched the Earth,” an evidence of street-bound horizon.
In other letters the writers record:--
“I saw the sun set it was like a big silver Eagle’s wing laying on a
cliff”.
“When the sun was setting out of the clouds came something that looked
like a County Council Steamer”.
That must have been a rather alarming sunset, but hardly less so than
“the cloud which was like Saint Paul’s Cathedral coming down on our
heads”.
The animals gave great pleasure and created wonder:--
“The cows made a grunting noise, the baa lambs made a pretty little
shriek”.
“The cows I saw were lazy, they were laying. One was a bull who I
daresay had been tossing somebody.”
“I heard a bird chirping it was make a noise like chirp chirp twee.”
“I saw a big dragon fly. It was like a long caterpillar with long
sparkling transparent wings.”
“The birds are not like ourn they are light brown.”
“There were wasps which was yellow and pretty but unkind.”
“I (aged eleven) saw a little blackbird--its head was off by a Cat. I
made a dear little grave and so berreyed it under the Tree.”
The flowers, of course, come in for the greatest attention and after
them the trees are most usually referred to:--
“I (aged nine) know all the flowers that lived in the garden, but not
all those who lived in the field”.
“Stinging nettles are a nuisance to people who have holes in their
boots.”
“The Pond is all covered with Rushes. These had flowers like a rusty
poker.”
“I picked lots of flowers and always brought them home--”
shows influence of the Selborne Society in teaching children not to pick
and throw away what is alive and growing.
“The Cuckoo dines on other birds.”
“There was one bird called the squirrel.”
“Only gentlemen are allowed to shoot pheasants as they are expensive.”
“We caught fish in the river some were small others about 2 feet
long.”
“Butterflies dont do much work.”
“The trunk of the oak is used for constructing furniture, coffins and
other expensive objects.”
But my readers will be weary, so I will conclude with the pregnant
remark of a little prig, who writes:--
“I think the country was in a good condition for _I_ found plenty of
interesting things in it.”
One or two of my small correspondents show an early disposition to see
faults and remember misfortunes.
“There was no strikes on down there but there was a large number of
wasps,” was the reflection of one evidently conscious of the fly in
every ointment. Another (aged ten) writes:--
“DEAR MADAM,--When I was down in the country I was lying on the
couch and a wasp stung me. As I was on the common a man chased me,
and I fell head first and legs after into the prickles, and the
prickles dug me and hurt me.... I was nearly scorched down in the
country.... One day when I fed the Pigs the great big fat pig bit
a lump out of my best pinafore. One morning when I was in bed the
little boy brought the cat up and put it on my face. When I was
down in the country the Common caught a light for the sun was
always too hot. So I must close with my love.”
Was there ever such a catalogue of misfortunes compressed into one short
fortnight? Still, in the intervals she seems to have noticed a
considerable number of trees, of which she makes a list, and adds: “I
did enjoy myself”. Poor little maiden! Perhaps her elders had graduated
in the school of misfortunes, and she had learnt the trick of
complaining.
A good many children, both boys and girls, were very conscious of the
absence of their home responsibilities.
“I did not see a babbi. I mean to mind it all the time.”
“The ladys girl dont mind the baby as much as me at home. It stops in
the garden.”
It opens up a whole realm of matters for reflection: the baby not
dragged hither and thither in arms too small and weak for its comfort,
and then plumped down on cold or damp stones while its over-burdened
nurse snatches a brief game or indulges in a scamper; the clouding of
the elder child’s life by unremitting responsibilities, and the
effortful labour which sometimes wears out love, though not so often as
could be expected, so marvellous is human nature, and its capacity for
care and tenderness. “I didn’t have to mind no twins,” writes one small
boy of nine, “I think thems a neusence. I wish Mother had not bought
them.” But the baby left in a garden! opening its blinking eyes to the
wonders of sky and flowers and bees and creatures, while its elder
brothers and sister do their share of work and play. This makes a
foundation of quiet and pleasure on which to build the strenuous days
and anxious years of the later life of struggle and effort.
The reiteration of the kindness of the cottage hostesses would be almost
wearisome if one’s imagination did not go behind it and picture the
scenes, the hard-worked country woman accepting the suggestion of a
child guest with a lively appreciation of the usefulness of the 5s.’s
which were to accrue, but that thought receding as the enjoyment of the
town child became infectious, until the value given for the value
received became forgotten, and generous self-costing kindnesses were
showered profusely.
“My lady she was always doing kind to me.” “Mrs. P. washed my clothes
before I came home to save Mother doing it.” “My lady told Mr. S. to
shake her tree for our apples.” “The person that Boarded me gave me
nice thing to bring back.”
In some cases the thrifty, tidy ways of the country hostesses conveyed
their lessons.
“She use to make browan bread and She use to make her own cakes and
apple turn overs and eggloes and current cake.” “The wind came in my
room and blew me in the night.” “We always had table clothes where I
was.” “I washed myself well my lady liked it.” “We cleaned our teeth
down in the country ever morning.”
Sometimes examples on deeper matters were observed and approved of.
“Every morning and dinner and tea we say grace.” “The lady told us
Sunday School was nice and we went.” “We had Church 3 times. Morning
noon and night”--
is not reported with entire approval, but the letter ends:--
“I loved my holidays very much and hope that I can go next year to
live with the same lady”.
A boy writes:--
“The lady was very kind she never said any naughty words to me”.
And another lad reports:--
“I was fed extremely well and treated with the best respect”.
One little girl had clear views on the proper position of man.
“My ladie,” she writes, “had a big pig 4 little ones, 2 cats. some
hens a bird in a cage a apple tree a little boy and a Huband.”
Sometimes the history of the place has been impressed on the children.
“I (aged eleven) was very glad I went to Guildford because Sir
Lancelot and Elaine lived there but its name was then Astolat.”
“When I (aged eleven) reached Burnham Thorp I felt the change of
air and I heard the birds sing--and then I knew that I should see
the place where our great English sailor Lord Nelson was born,”--
he being a character so indissolubly associated with innocent country
joys.
The letters both begin and end in a variety of ways, for though I do not
write all the letters which are issued to the children by the
Countryside Committee of the Children’s Country Holiday Fund, it is
considered better for me as Chairwoman to sign them, so as to give a
more personal tone to the lengthy printed chat, which the teachers
themselves open, kindly read and talk about to the children, and a copy
of which each child can have if it so wishes. Thus the reply letters are
all sent to me, and the vast majority begin “Dear Madam”; but some are
less conventional, and I have those commencing, “Dear Mrs. Barnett,”
“Dear Country Holdday Site Commtie,” “Dear friend,” “Dear Miss,” while
the feeling of personal relation was evidently so real to one small boy
that he began his epistle with “Dear Henrietta”--I delight in that
letter! Among the concluding words are the following: “Your affectionate
little friend,” “Your loving pupil,” “From one who enjoyed,” “Yours
gratefully,” “Yours truly Friend”.
Some of the regrets at leaving the country are very pathetic:--
“I wish I was in the country now”. “I shall never go again; I am
too old now.” “I think in the fortnight I had more treats than
ever before in all my life.” “The blacking berries were red then
and small. They will be black now and big.” “I wish I was with my
lady’s baker taking the bread round.” “I enjoyed myself very much,
I cannot explain how much. Please God next year I will come again.
As I sit at school I always imagine myself roaming in the fields
and watching the golden corn, and when I think of it it makes me cry.”
And those tears will find companions in some of the hearts which
ache for the joyless lives of our town children, weighted by
responsibilities, crippled by poverty, robbed of their birthright of
innocent fun. The ecstatic joy of children in response to such simple
pleasures tells volumes about their drab existence, their appreciation
of adequate food, their warm recognition of kindness, represent
privation and surprise. In a deeper sense than Wordsworth used it,
“Their gratitude has left me mourning”.
I know, and no one better, the countless servants of the people who are
toiling to relieve the sorrows of the poor and their children, but until
the conditions of labour, of education, and of housing are fearlessly
faced and radically dealt with, their labour can only be palliative and
their efforts barren of the best fruit; but articles, as well as
holidays, must finish, and so I will conclude by another extract:--
“We had a bottle of Tea and cake and it was 132¾ miles. I saw all
sorts of things and come to Waterloo Station and thank you very much.”
HENRIETTA O. BARNETT.
THE RECREATION OF THE PEOPLE.[1]
BY CANON BARNETT.
July, 1907.
[1] From “The Cornhill Magazine”. By permission of the Editor.
Work may, as Carlyle says, be a blessing, but work is not undertaken for
work’s sake. Work is part of the universal struggle for existence. Men
work to live. But the animal world early found that existence does not
consist in keeping alive. All animals play. They let off surplus energy
in imitating their own activities, and they recreate exhausted powers by
change of occupation. Man, as soon as he came into his inheritance of
reason, recognized play as an object of desire, and as well as working
for his existence, and perhaps even before he worked to obtain power and
glory, he worked to obtain recreation. A man, according to Schiller’s
famous saying, is fully human only when he plays.
Work, then, let it be admitted, is undertaken not for work’s sake but
largely for the sake of recreation. England has been made the workshop
of the world, its fair fields and lovely homesteads have been turned
into dark towns and grimy streets, partly in the hope that more of its
citizens may have enjoyment in life. Men toil in close offices under
dark skies, not just to increase the volume of exports and imports, and
not always to increase their power, or to win honour from one another;
they dream of happy hours of play, they picture themselves travelling in
strange countries or tranquilly enjoying their leisure in some villa or
pleasant garden. Men spend laborious days as reformers, on public boards
or as public servants, very largely so as to release their neighbours
from the prison house of labour, where so many, giving their lives “to
some unmeaning taskwork, die unfreed, having seen nothing, still
unblest”.
Recreation is an object of work. The recreations of the people consume
much of the fruit of the labour of the people. Their play discloses what
is in their hearts and minds and to what end they will direct their
power. Their use of leisure is a sign-post showing whether the course of
the nation is towards extinction in ignorance and self-indulgence, or
towards greater brightness in the revelation of character and the
service of mankind. By their idle words and by the acts of their idle
times men are most fairly judged.
The recreation of the people is therefore a subject of greater
importance than is always remembered. The country is being lost or saved
in its play, and the use of holidays needs as much consideration as the
use of workdays.
Would that some Charles Booth could undertake an inquiry into “the life
and leisure of the people” to put alongside that into their life and
work! Without such an inquiry the only basis for the consideration which
I invite is the impression left on the minds of individuals, and all I
can offer is the impression made on my mind by a long residence in East
London.
People during the last quarter of a century have greatly increased their
command of leisure. The command, as Board of Trade inspectors remind us,
is not sufficient as long as the rule of seventy or even sixty hours of
work a week still holds in some trades. But the weekly half-holiday has
become almost universal, some skilled trades have secured an eight or
nine hours’ day, many workshops every year close for a week, and the
members of the building trades begin work late and knock off early
during the winter months. There is thus much leisure available for
recreation. What do the people do? How do these crowds who swarm through
the streets on Saturday afternoons spend their holiday?
Many visit the public-houses and try to drink themselves out of their
gloom. “To get drunk,” we have been told, is “the shortest way out of
Manchester,” and many citizens in every city go at any rate some
distance along this way. They find they live a larger, fuller life as,
standing in the warm bright bar, they drink and talk as if they were
“lords”. The returns which suggest that the drink bill of a workman’s
family is 5s. or 6s. a week prove how popular is this use of leisure,
and they who begin a holiday by drinking probably spend the rest of it
in sleeping. The identification of rest with sleep is very common, and a
workman who knows he has a fair claim to rest thinks himself justified
in sleeping or dozing hour after hour during Saturday and Sunday.
“What,” I once asked an engineer, “should I find most of your mates
doing if I called on Sunday?” His answer was short: “Sleeping”.
Another large body of workers as soon as they are free hurry off
to some form of excitement. They go in their thousands to see a
football-match, they yell with those who yell, they are roused by the
spectacle of battle, and they indulge in hot “sultry” talk. Or they
go to some race or trial of strength on which bets are possible. They
feel in the rise and fall of the chance of winning a new stirring of
their dull selves, and they dream of wealth to be enjoyed in wearing a
coat with a fur collar and in becoming owners of sporting champions. Or
they go to music halls--1,250,000 go every week in London--where if the
excitement be less violent it still avails to move their thoughts into
other channels. They see colour instead of dusky dirt, they hear songs
instead of the clash of machinery, they are interested as a performer
risks his life, and the jokes make no demands on their thoughts. The
theatres probably are less popular, at any rate among men, but they
attract great numbers, especially to plays which appeal to generous
impulses. An audience enjoys the easy satisfaction of shouting down
a villain. The same sort of excitement is that provided on Sunday
mornings in the clubs, where in somewhat sordid surroundings, a few
actors and singers try to stir the muddled feelings of their audience
by appeals, which are more or less vulgar.
There is finally another large body of released workers who simply go
home. They are more in number than is generally imagined, and they
constitute the solid part of the community. They are not often found at
meetings or clubs. Their opinions are not easily discovered. Large
numbers never vote. They go home from work, they make themselves tidy,
they do odd jobs about the house, they go out shopping with their wives,
they walk with the children, they, as a family party, visit their
friends, they sleep, and they read the weekly paper. All this is
estimable, and the mere catalogue makes a picture pleasant to the
middle-class imagination of what a workman’s life should be. The workers
get repose, but from a larger point of view it cannot be said they
return to work invigorated by new thoughts and new experiences, with new
powers and new conceptions of life’s use. Repose is sterilized
recreation.
These, it seems to me, are the three main streams which flow from work
to leisure--that towards drink, that towards excitement, and that
towards home repose.
There are other workers--an increasing number, but small in comparison
with those in one of the main streams--who use their leisure to attend
classes, to study with a view to greater technical skill or to read the
books now so easily bought. There are some who take other jobs,
forgetting that the wages which buy eight hours’ work should buy also
eight hours’ sleep and eight hours’ play. There are many who bicycle,
some it may be for the excitement of rapid motion, but some also for the
joy of visiting the country and of social intercourse. There are many
who play games and take vigorous exercise. There are a few--markedly a
few--who have hobbies or pursuits on which they exercise their less used
powers of heart or head or limb.
Such is the general impression which long experience has left on my mind
as to the recreations of the people. It is, however, possible to give a
closer inspection to some popular forms of amusement.
Consider first one of the seaside resorts during the month of August.
Look at Blackpool, or Margate, or Weston. On the Saturday before Bank
Holiday £100,000 was drawn out of the banks at Blackburn and £200,000
from the banks at Oldham, to be spent in recreation, mostly at
Blackpool. How was it spent?
The sight of the beach of one of these resorts is familiar. There is the
mass of people brightly coloured and loudly talking, broken into rapidly
changing groups. There are the nigger singers, the buffoons, the
acrobats; there are the great restaurants and hotels inviting lavish
expenditure on food. There are bookstalls laden with trashy novels.
There are the overridden beasts and the overworked maid-servants; there
is the loafing on the pier, and the sleep after heavy meals. Nothing
especially wicked, much that shows good-nature, but everything so
vulgar--so empty of interest, so far below what thinking men and women
should enjoy, so unworthy the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of
pounds earned by hard work.
Consider again the music hall. Mr. Stead has lent his eyes. “If,” he
says, “I had to sum up the whole performance in a single phrase I should
say, ‘Drivel for dregs’. For three and a half hours I sat patiently
listening to the most insufferable banality and imbecility which ever
fell on human ears. There was neither beauty nor humour, no appeal to
taste or to intelligence, nothing but vulgarity and stupidity to
recreate the heirs of a thousand years of civilization and the citizens
of an empire on which the sun never sets.” And in one year there are
some 70,000,000 admissions to music halls in London! Consider, too, the
football fields or the racecourses. The crowd of spectators is often
100,000 to 200,000 persons. What can they find worthy the interest of a
reasonable creature? Would they be present if it were not for the
excitement of gambling, the mind-destroying pleasure of risking their
money to get their neighbours’ money? “If,” as Sir James Crichton-Browne
says, “you would see the English physiognomy at its worst, go to the
platform of a railway station on the day of a suburban race meeting when
the special trains are starting. On most of the faces you detect the
grin of greed, on many the leer of low cunning, on some the stamp of
positive rascality.”
Consider once more the crowds who go to the country in the summer. “One
of the saddest sights of the Lake District during the tourist season,”
says Canon Rawnsley, “is the aimless wandering of the hard-worked folk
who have waited a whole year for their annual holiday, and, having
obtained it, do not know what to do with it. They stand with Skiddaw,
glorious in its purple mantle of heather, on one side and the blue hills
of Borrowdale and the shining lake on the other, and ask ‘Which is the
way to the scenery?’” The people, according to this observer, are dull
and bored amid the greatest beauty. The excursionist finds nothing in
nature which is his; he reads the handwriting of truth and beauty, but
understands not what he reads.
But enough of impressions of popular recreations. There are brighter
sides to notice. There is, for instance, health in the instinct which
turns to the country for enjoyment. There is hope in the prevalent good
temper, in the untiring energy and curiosity which is always seeking
something new. There are better things than have been mentioned and
there are worse things, but as a general conclusion it may, I think, be
agreed that the recreations of the people are not such as recreate human
nature for further progress. The lavish expenditure of hardly earned
wages on mere bodily comfort does not suggest that the people are
cherishing high political ideals, and the galvanized idleness which
characterizes so much popular pleasure does not promise for the future
an England which will be called blessed or be itself “merrie”.
England in her great days was “Merrie England”. Many of our forefathers’
recreations were, judged by our standard, cruel and horribly brutal.
They had, however, certain notable characteristics. They made greater
demands both on body and mind. When there were neither trains nor trams
nor grand stands people had to take more exertion to get pleasure, and
they themselves joined in the play or in the sport. Their delight, too,
was often in the fellowship they secured, and “fellowship,” as Morris
says, “is life and lack of fellowship is death”. Our fathers’ sports,
even if they were cruel--and the “Book of Sports” shows how many were
not cruel but full of grace--had often this virtue of fellowship. Their
pageants and spectacles--faithfully pictured by Scott in his account of
the revels of Kenilworth, were not just shows to be lazily watched; they
enlisted the interest and ingenuity of the spectators, and stirred their
minds to discover the meaning of some allegory or trace out some
mystery.
The recreations which made England “merrie” were stopped in their
development by the combined influence of puritanism and of the
industrial revolution. Far be it from me to consider as evil either the
one or the other. In all progress there is destruction. The puritan
spirit put down cruel sports such as bull baiting and cock fighting, and
with them many innocent pleasures. The industrial revolution drew the
people from their homes in the fields and valleys, established them in
towns, gave them higher wages and cheaper food. Under the combined
influence work took possession of the nation’s being. It ruled as a
tyrant, and the gospel of work became the gospel for the people.
In the latter part of the nineteenth century signs of reaction are
apparent. Sleary, in Dickens’s “Hard Times,” urges on the economist the
continual refrain: “The people, Squire, must be amused,” and Herbert
Spencer, returning from America in 1882, declares the need of the
“Gospel of Recreation”. Recreation has since increased in pace. The
right to shorter and shorter hours of labour is now admitted, and the
provision of amusement has become a great business. The demand which has
secured shorter hours may safely be left to rescue further leisure from
work; but demand has not, as we have seen, been followed by the
establishment of healthy recreation. A child knows a holiday is good,
but he needs also to know how to enjoy it or he will do mischief to
himself or others. The people also need, as well as leisure, the
knowledge of what constitutes recreation.
The subject is not simple, and Professor Karl Groos, in his book “The
Play of Man,” has with Teutonic thoroughness analysed the subject from
the physiological, the biological, and the psychological standpoints.
The book is worthy of study by students, but it seems to me that
recreation must involve (1) some excitement, (2) some strengthening of
the less used fibres of the mind or body, (3) the activity of the
imagination.
(1) Recreation must involve some excitement, some appeal to an existing
interest, some change, some stirring of the wearied or sleeping
embers of the mind. Routine work, tending to become more and more
routine, wears life. It is “life of which our nerves are scant,” and
recreation should revive the sources of life. Most people, as Mr.
Balfour, look askance at efforts which, under the guise of amusing,
aim to impart useful culture. Recreation must be something other than
repose--something more stirring than sleep or loafing--it must be
something attractive and not something undertaken as a duty.
(2) Recreation must involve the strengthening of the less used fibres of
the mind and the body; the embers which are stirred by excitement need
to be fed with new fuel, or the flames will soon sink into ashes.
Gambling and drink, sensational dramas, and exciting shows stir but do
not strengthen the mind. Mere change--the fresh excursion every day, the
spectacle of a contest--wears out the powers of being. “The crime of
sense is avenged by sense which wears with time.” On the other hand,
games well played fulfil the condition, and there is no more cheering
sight than that of playing-fields where young and old are using their
limbs intent on doing their best. Music, foreign travel, congenial
society, reading, chess, all games of skill, also fulfil the condition,
as they make a claim on the activity of heart or mind, and so strengthen
their fibres. A good drama is recreation if the spectator is called to
give himself to thought and to feeling. He then becomes in a sense a
fellow creator with the author, he has what Professor Groos says
satisfies every one, “the joy of being a cause,” or, as he explains in
another passage, “it is only when emotion is in a measure our own work
do we enjoy the result”. Recreation must call out activity, it fails if
it gives and requires nothing. We only have what we give. He that would
save his life loses it.
(3) The last and most notable mark of recreation is the use of the
imagination. Recreation comes from within and not from without the man.
It depends on that a man _is_ and not upon what a man _has_. A child
grows tired of his toys, a man wearies of his possessions, but there is
no being tired of the imagination which leaps ahead and every day
reveals something new. Sleary was wrong when he said, “People must be
amused”. He should have said, “People must amuse themselves”. Their
recreation must, that is, come from the use of their own faculties of
heart and mind. “The cultivation of the inner life,” it was truly said
in a discussion on the hard lot of the middle classes, “is the only cure
for the commercial tyrannies and class prejudices of that class.” The
Japanese are the best holiday takers I have ever met; they have in
themselves a taste for beauty, and they go to the country to enjoy the
use of that taste. A man who because he is interested in mankind sets
himself on his holiday to observe and study the habits of man; or,
because he cares for Nature, looks deeper into her secrets by the way of
plants or rocks or stars; or, because he is familiar with history, seeks
in buildings and places illustrations of the past; a holiday maker who
in such ways uses his inner powers will come home refreshed. His
pleasure has come from within; he, on the other hand, who has lounged
about a pier, moved from place to place, travelled from sight to sight,
looking always for pleasure from outside himself, will come home bored.
If such be the constituents of recreation one reflection stands out
clearly, and that is the importance of educating or directing the demand
for amusement. Popular demand can only choose what it knows; it could
not choose the pictures for an art gallery or the best machines for the
workshop, neither can it settle the amusements which are recreative.
Children and young people are with great care fitted for work and taught
how to earn a living; there is equal need that the people be fitted for
recreation, and taught how to enjoy their being. They must know before
they can choose. Education, and not the House of Lords, is the safeguard
of democratic government.
Mr. Dill’s “History of Social Life in the Towns of the Roman Empire
during the First and Second Centuries” shows that there is a striking
likeness between the condition of those times to that which prevails in
England. The millionaires made noble benefactions, there were
magnificent spectacles, there were contests which roused lunatic
excitement as one of the combatants succeeded in some brutal strife,
there was lavish provision of games and great enjoyment in feasting. The
amusement was provided by others’ gifts, and, as Mr. Dill remarks, the
people were more and more drawn from “interest in the things of the
mind”. The games of Rome were steps in the decline and fall of Rome.
The lesson which modern and ancient experience offers is that people
must be as thoughtfully and as seriously prepared for their recreation
as for their work.
The first illusion which must, I think, be destroyed is that a holiday
means a vacation or an empty time. It is not enough to close the school
and let the children have no lessons. It is not enough to enact an eight
hours’ day and leave the people without resources. If the spirit of toil
be turned out of men’s lives and they be left swept and garnished, there
are spirits of leisure that will return which may be ten times worse. It
is a pathetic sight often presented in a playground, when after some
aimless running and pushing, the children gradually grow listless,
fractious, and quarrelsome. They came to enjoy themselves and cannot.
Many a boy for want of occupation for his leisure has taken to crime. It
is not always love of evil or even greed which makes him a thief, it is
in the pure spirit of adventure that he stalks his prey on the coster’s
cart, risks his liberty and dodges the police. It is because they have
no more interesting occupation that eager little heads pop out of
windows when the police make a capture, and eager little tongues tell
experiences of arrests which baby eyes have seen. The empty holiday is a
burden to a child, and every one has heard of the bus driver who could
think of nothing better to do on his off day than to ride on a bus
beside a mate. The idea that, given leisure, the people will find
recreation is not justified. A kitten may be satisfied with aimless
play, but a spark disturbs mankind’s clod and his play needs direction.
The other illusion which must be dissipated is that amusement should
call for no effort on the part of those to be amused. It is the common
mistake of benevolence that it tries to remove difficulties, rather than
strengthen people to surmount difficulties. The gift which provides food
is often destructive of the powers which earn food. In the same way the
benevolence which, as among the Romans, provides shows, entertainments,
and feasts, destroys at last the capacity for pleasure. Toys often
stifle children’s imaginations and develop a greed for possession;
children enjoy more truly what they themselves help to create, so that a
bit of wood with inkspots for eyes, which they themselves have made, is
more precious than an expensive doll. Grown people’s amusements to be
satisfying must also call out effort.
The shattering of these two illusions leaves society face to face with
the obligation to teach people to play as well as to work. It is not
enough to give leisure and leave amusement to follow. Neither is it
enough to provide popular amusement. James I was not a great King but he
was a collector of wisdom, and he laid down for his son a guide for his
games as well as for his work. Teachers and parents with greater
experience might, like the King, guide their children.
(1) It is not, I think, waste of time to watch infants when at play, to
encourage their efforts, to welcome their calls to look, and to enter
into their imaginings. This watching, so usual among the children of the
richer classes, is missed by the children of the poorer and often leaves
a gap in their development.
(2) It would not either be wasted expenditure to employ game-teachers in
the elementary schools, who, on Saturdays and out of school hours would
teach children games, indoor and outdoor, conduct small parties to
places of interest, and organize country walks or excursions such as are
common in Swiss schools.
(3) It is, I think, reasonable to ask that the great school buildings
and playgrounds should be more continually at the children’s service.
They have been built at great expense. They are often the most airy and
largest space in a crowded neighbourhood. Why should they be in the
children’s use for only some twenty-five hours a week? Why should they
be closed during two whole months? The experience gained in the vacation
schools advocated by Mrs. Humphry Ward gives an object lesson in what
might be done. During the afternoon hours between five and seven, and in
the summer holidays, the children, with the greatest delight to
themselves, might be drawn to see new things, to use new faculties of
admiration or develop new tastes. Every child might thus be given a
hobby. Recreation means, as we have seen, change. If the children ended
their school days with more interests, with eyes opened to see in the
country not only a nest to be taken but a brood of birds to be watched,
with hands capable not only to make things but to create beauty, the
limits within which they could find change would be greatly enlarged.
If I may now extend my suggestion to parents I would say that those of
all classes might do more in planning holidays for their children. There
is now a strong disposition to leave all responsibility to the teachers,
and parents are in the danger of losing parental authority. In the
holidays is their chance of regaining authority; for every day they
could plan occupation, put aside time to join in some common pursuit,
arrange visits, and make themselves companions of their own children.
The teacher may be held responsible, but his work is often spoiled in
the idle hours of a holiday, when bad books are read, vulgar sights
enjoyed, low companions found, and habits of loafing developed. But it
is not only teachers and parents by whom children are guided. There is a
host of men and women who plan treats, excursions, and country holidays.
Their efforts could, I think, be made more valuable. The monster day
treats, which give excitement and turn the children’s minds in a
direction towards the excitements of crowds and of stimulants from
without, might be exchanged for small treats where ten or twenty
children in close companionship with their guide would enjoy one
another’s company, find new interests, and store up memories of things
seen and heard. Tramps through England might be organized for elder boys
and girls in which visits might be paid to historic fields and scenes of
beauty, and objects of interest sought. Children about to be sent to the
country by a Holiday Fund might, as is now very happily done by a
committee in connexion with the Children’s Country Holiday Fund, by
means of pictures and talk be taught what to look for and be encouraged
to tell of their discoveries. Habits of singing might be developed, as
among the Welsh or the Swiss. And in a thousand ways thought might be
drawn to the observation of nature. Good people might, if I may say so,
give up the provision of those entertainments which now, absorbing so
much of the energy of curates and laywomen, seem only to prepare the
children to look for the entertainment of the music halls. They might
instead teach children one by one to find amusement, each one in his own
being.
The hope of the future lies obviously in the training of the children,
but the elder members of the community might also have more chances of
growth. Employers, for instance, might more generally substitute
holidays of weeks for holidays of days, and so encourage the workpeople
to plan their reasonable use. They might also enlarge their minds by
informing them about the material on which they work, whence it comes
and whither it goes. Miss Addams tells of a firm in Ohio where the hands
are gathered to hear the reports of the travellers as they return from
Constantinople, Italy, or China, and learn how the goods they have made
are used by strange people. In the same firm lantern lectures are given
on the countries with which the firm has dealings, and generally the
hands are made partners in the thoughts of the heads. “This,” as Miss
Addams says, “is a crude example of the way in which a larger framework
may be given to the worker’s mind,” and she adds, “as a poet bathes the
outer world for us in the hues of human feeling, so the workman needs
some one to bathe his surrounding with a human significance.” Employers
also, following the example of Messrs. Cadbury, might require their
young people not only to attend evening classes to make them fitter for
work, but also to attend one class which will fit them to ride hobbies,
which will carry them from the strain and routine of work into other and
recreating surroundings. Municipal bodies have in these latter days done
much in the right direction by opening playing fields, picture
galleries, and libraries, and by giving free performances of high-class
music. They might perhaps do more to break up the monotony of the
streets, introducing more of the country into town, and requiring
dignity as well as healthiness in the great buildings. Such variety adds
greatly to the joy of living, diverts the minds of weary workers, and
stimulates the admiration which is one-third of life.
But, after all, improvement starts from individuals, and it is the
action of individual men and women which will reform popular reaction.
They must, each one as if the reform depended on him alone, be morally
thoughtful about the amusements they encourage or patronize, and be
considerate in preparing for their own pleasure. Each one must develop
his own being, and stir up the faculties of his own mind. Each one must
practise the muscles of his mind as a racer practises the muscles of his
legs.
The most completely satisfying recreation is possibly in the intercourse
of friends, and it is a sad feature in English holidays that men and
their wives, who are naturally the closest friends, seem to find so
little pleasure in one another’s company. They walk one behind the other
in the country, they are rarely found together at places of
entertainment, and they are seldom seen talking with any vivacity. The
fault lies in the fact that they have not developed their own being,
they have neither interests nor hobbies nor ideas, and so have nothing
to talk about save wages, household difficulties, and the shortest way
home.
Enough, however, in the way of suggestion as to what may be done in
guiding people towards recreation. Under guidance recreations would take
another than their present character. People, having a wider range of
interests, would find change within those interests, and cease to turn
from sensation to sleep and from sleep to sensation. People having
active minds would look to exercise their minds in a game of skill, in
searching Nature’s secrets, in spirited talk, in some creative activity,
in following a thought-provoking drama, in the use, that is, of their
highest human faculties. The forms of recreation would be changed. Much
of the difficulty about what seems Sunday desecration would then vanish.
The play of the people would no longer be fatal to the quiet of the day,
or inconsistent with the worship which demands the consecration of the
whole being. It is not recreation so much as the form of recreation
which desecrates Sunday. This, however, is part of another subject.
As a conclusion of the whole matter I would say how it seems to me that
Merrie England need be not only in the past. The present time is the
best of times. There are to-day resources for men’s enjoyment such as
never existed in any other age or country. There are fresh and pure
capacities in human nature which are evident in many signs of energy, of
admiration, and of good will. If the resources were used, if the
capacities were developed, there would soon be popular recreations to
attract human longings, and encourage the hope of a future when the
glory of England shall not be in its possessions of gold and territory,
but in a people happy in the full use of their powers of heart and of
head.
SAMUEL A. BARNETT.
THE HOPES OF THE HOSTS.[1]
BY MRS. S. A. BARNETT.
January, 1886.
[1] From “The Toynbee Journal”.
Certainly a great deal of entertaining goes on in Toynbee Hall. From the
half-hours spent in the little room, where its Entertainment Committee
meets, there issue some prominent if not exactly big results, and,
perhaps, its members are not without a hope that deep consequences as
well may follow. This method of helping people has not been without its
critics, one of whom uttered the opinion, “that the Toynbee Hall plan
was to save the people’s souls alive by pictures, pianos, and parties,”
and though the remark was made derisively, there may be some doubt if it
was altogether without truth: only the speaker should have added that it
was _one_ of the Toynbee Hall plans, instead of using only the definite
article.
If the Toynbee Hall aim is to help to make it possible that men should
carry out the command given long ago of “Be ye perfect,” and if, as a
modern lover of righteousness has put it, “the power of social life and
manners is one of the great elements in our humanization, and unless we
cultivate it we are incomplete”; then it is not an error that “pictures,
pianos, and parties” should be pressed into service to fill up some of
the incompleteness in the East London dweller’s life, and to help him to
“save his soul alive”.
It is one of the saddest facts of life in this crowded, busy, tiring,
and hurried part of London that it is more difficult to keep one’s soul
(like one’s plants) alive than it is in gentler places, where folk get
the aid of some of nature’s beauties, and some moments of that outside
quiet which help to make it possible to fancy “the peace which passeth
all understanding”. But because Whitechapel is Whitechapel and Toynbee
Hall is in its midst, more artificial methods for gaining and keeping
life must be adopted.
It is true that the Entertainment Committee prefer those gatherings
which can take place out of doors in the country, where the guests gain
all that comes from the charm of being graciously entertained under “the
wider sky”; but still town parties are not to be despised, and, judging
from the glad acceptance of those many who “cannot bid again,” they are
generally enjoyed.
The method of food entertainment is very simple, so simple that it
sometimes wars against the generous instincts of the hosts; but, after
careful thought, it has been decided that the object of Toynbee Hall
entertainments and parties will be more surely gained if “plain living
and high thinking” can be maintained--not to mention the more mundane
consideration that more friends can be welcomed as guests, if each is
not so expensive. So the pleasure to be gained from rich or dainty food
is neglected, and the guests are summoned in order to give them
pleasures by increasing their interests. And among the means of doing
this may be reckoned the fine thoughts of the great dumb teachers, the
artists, of which those who care can learn as they turn over the
portfolios, look at the photograph books, or study the gift pictures on
the walls. The great in the musical world are called upon for offerings
as the musically generous among the friends of Toynbee Hall pass on the
plaintive ideas of Schumann, or the grand soul-stirring aspirations of
Beethoven and Mozart.
To give pleasure is now almost universally considered to be a righteous
duty, and when it is taken into consideration that the homes of most
East Londoners are too narrow, their daily labour too great, and their
resources too limited to permit them taking pleasure by entertaining in
their own houses, it cannot but be considered as a gladdening sight when
the Toynbee reception rooms are full of a happy, an amused, and an
enjoying company.
To increase interests is not perhaps as yet recognized as so deep a
human need, but it may be so, none the less for this; and to the young
or to the much tempted, this opportunity of increasing their interests
is of untold value.
Most young folk are better educated than their parents, and, with a keen
sense of enjoyment, a belief in their own powers of self-guidance, and a
happy blank on their page of disappointments, they are eager for “fuller
life,” and will take its pleasure in some guise, warn their elders never
so wisely. To give it them free from temptation, and in such a form that
when the first novelty is worn off, it will still be true that “the best
is yet to be”; to increase interests, until a self-centred and
self-seeking existence shows itself in its true and despicable colours;
to increase scientific interests with microscopes, magic lanterns, and
experiments; literary interests with talks on books, recitations from
the poets, scenes from Shakespeare; to increase musical interests with
the aid of glee clubs, string quartettes, and solo and chorus songs; to
increase interests on all sides is the aim of the Entertainment
Committee, hoping that thus for some “all earth will seem aglow where
’twas but plain earth before”.
“The cultivation of social life and manners is equal to a moral impulse,
for it works to the same end.... It brings men together, makes them feel
the need of one another, be considerate of one another, understand one
another.” So teaches Matthew Arnold. And the introduction of the guests
to each other is no neglected feature in the Toynbee Hall gatherings. It
is for this reason that guests of all classes are summoned together,
that the hand-worker may have sympathy with the head-labourer, that the
eager reformer may gather hints from the clear-visioned thoughts of the
untried lad, or that the boy living a club life far removed from women’s
power, may be introduced to a “ladye faire,” who may (if she will)
become to him a “sheltering cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night,”
guiding him safely through stonier wastes than ever the old Israelites
weathered. It is no slight duty this, to introduce one human being to
another--to help them to pass quickly along the dull road of
acquaintanceship and out into the sweet valley of knowledge and
friendship, and there gain, the comfort, refreshment, and inspiration,
without which it almost seems impossible to believe in and hold on to an
ideal good.
The highest and noblest thing yet revealed to man is the human
creature’s soul, “the very pulse of the machine,” and if Toynbee Hall
parties do something to reveal the depths of one creature to another; if
they do a little to keep alive and weld into solidarity the floating
hopes and aspirations, which idly live in every human heart, but, alas!
so often die from loneliness; if they do something to help people to
care for one another and to see the higher vision; and if those thus
caring are stirred to take thought for the growth and development of the
larger, sadder world, then, perhaps, the “pictures, pianos, and parties”
will not so ill have played their part in the work of Toynbee Hall.
HENRIETTA O. BARNETT.
EASTER MONDAY ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH.[1]
BY CANON BARNETT.
April, 1905.
[1] From “The Westminster Gazette”. By permission of the Editor.
Bank Holiday on Hampstead Heath sets moving many thoughts. No
drunkenness, no bad temper, no brutal rowdiness--but where are the
family parties? Three-quarters of the people seem to be under twenty
years of age. Where are the family groups such as are found in France
or in the colder Denmark making pleasure by talk, or by gaiety,
singing, or dancing, or acting--finding interest in things beautiful or
new? There were, indeed, some families at Hampstead, and perambulators
were driven through the thickest crowd, every one making room for the
baby. But the father often looked bored and the mother worried. They
were doing their duty, giving the children pleasure, and getting fresh
air. The crowd was a young persons’ crowd--boys by themselves, girls by
themselves, and a smaller number paired. They had come to be amused,
and the caterers of amusement had established by the roadside the shows
and shooting-galleries and swings such as are to be found within the
reach of most crowded neighbourhoods. Organ-grinders played, sweets
were exposed for sale, and the Heath Road was as packed with people as
Petticoat Lane on a Sunday morning. The people wandered over the Heath,
but while they wandered they seemed listless, or on the watch for
anything to occupy their attention. A few children dancing as every day
they dance in Whitechapel at once drew together a crowd. Golder’s Hill
Park, which was never more radiant in its beauty, was comparatively
empty. The road outside, where public-houses had provided various
attractions, was packed, not by people who were customers but by people
watching one another and waiting for something to happen. But inside
the park, where the County Council’s restaurant had spread its tables
for tea, where from the Terrace there is a view of unequalled beauty,
where the gardens are rich in flowers, there were only a few scattered
groups.
The holiday is not a feast of brutality or drunkenness. No one need have
been offended by sight or sound. The Shows, thanks to the County Council
regulations, were all decent, and there was everywhere the courtesy of
good temper. An observer, thinking of twenty years ago, would say, “What
an improvement!” but his next thought would be, “How much better things
are possible!” In the first place, the arrangements for the supply of
food might be different. In Golder’s Hill itself the regulation that no
teas should be served on the grass for fear of its injury shows a
curious ignorance of relative values when, for the want of very slight
protection, boys are allowed to tear away the banks on the side of
Spaniard’s Road. The injured grass would revive in a month; the torn
banks are irreparably damaged. There is no reason why the London County
Council’s restaurants both on Golder’s Hill and in other parts of the
Heath should not attract people by the daintiness of their display, and
why the people should not be held by music and singing. Family parties
would be more likely to frequent the place if the elders could be
assured of pleasant resting-places. How differently, how very much
better, they manage feeding abroad! People are always hungry and thirsty
on holidays, and from the public-house to the whelk-stall, from the
tea-gardens to the coffee-stand, there was evidence of English
incapacity to supply the most persistent of holiday needs. The first
improvement possible is, therefore, more dainty and more frequent
provision of refreshment. The next improvement, which especially applies
to Golder’s Hill, is the addition of objects of interest. There might be
an aviary, the greenhouses might be filled with flowers and opened,
rooms in the house might be decorated with pictures of the neighbourhood
or with a collection of local objects. People who are unconsciously
taking in memories through their eyes need some illusion; they must
think they are going to see something they understand, if they are to be
led to see the better things beyond their understanding. Then, surely,
some more care might be taken of the tender places on the Heath--there
are acres of grass on which boys may play, who might thereby be kept
from scouring the surface of the light sand soil, making highways
through the gorse, opening waterways to starve the trees.
These improvements are possible at once. There are others longer in the
doing which are also necessary. People must be educated not only to be
wage-earners but to enjoy their being. They too much depend on
stimulants, on some outside excitement always liable to excess. They
might find pleasure in themselves, in the use of their own faculties, in
their powers of observation or activity, in their own intelligence and
curiosity. They might with better education be “good company” for
themselves and for one another. The people possess in Hampstead Heath a
property a king might envy, but they only partially enjoy its
opportunities.
SAMUEL A. BARNETT.
HOLIDAYS AND SCHOOLDAYS.[1]
BY CANON BARNETT.
July, 1911.
[1] From “The Daily Telegraph”. By permission of the Editor.
Holidays, as well as schooldays, help to form the minds of the citizens.
Habits, tastes, friendships, are fixed in the hours when restraints are
relaxed, and the Will takes its shape when it is most free. Our school
holidays, when in play we commanded or obeyed, when we learnt to know
the country sights and objects, when, with different companions, we
travelled to new places, have been largely responsible for such
satisfaction as we have found in life.
Men and women are what their holidays have made them, and a nation’s use
of its holidays may almost be said to determine its position in the
world’s order of greatness. A nation whose pleasures are coarse and
brutal, whose people delight in the excitement of their senses by
actions in which their minds take no part, and where solitude is
unendurable, can hardly do great things. It is not likely that it will
be remembered, as the poets are remembered, by its care for any
principle of action. It will hardly be generous in its foreign policy or
happy in its homes.
The use of holidays is thus most important, and everywhere there are
signs of their increase. The schools for the richer classes lengthen the
period of their vacations till they extend, in some cases, to a quarter
of the year. The King asked that his Coronation year may be marked by an
extra week of exemption from school. Business people shorten hours of
business, and workmen’s organizations demand more time for holidays.
Seaside resorts grow up which live mainly by the pleasures of the
people, and a vast and increasing body of workers find employment in the
provision of amusement.
More time and more money are being given to holidays. Their use or
misuse is a matter of importance, and it is reasonable to demand that
more thought should also be given to this subject. People--this fact is
often forgotten--need to be taught to play as they need to be taught to
earn or to love. Leisure is as likely to produce weariness as joy, and
the Devil still finds most of his occupation among the idlers.
The public schoolboy who has eight weeks’ vacation, and this year an
extra week, will hardly be happy if he acquires habits of loafing at the
seaside shows or picks up acquaintance with despisers of knowledge, or
comes to think that learning is a “grind,” and he certainly will not in
after years bless his holiday givers. The workman who obtains holidays
and shorter hours will hardly be the better if he spends them in eating
and sleeping, or in exciting himself over a match or race where he does
not even understand the skill, or in watching an entertainment which
calls for no effort of his mind.
Rich people, who can do what they like in the time they themselves
choose, add excitement to excitement; they invent new methods of
expenditure; they go at increasing speed from place to place; they come
nearer and nearer to the brinks of vice; they have what they like; and
yet, like the millionaire in the American tale, they are not happy.
People need to be taught the use of leisure. The question is, how is
such teaching practicable?... I would offer two suggestions: one which
may be applied to the schools of the rich and of the poor, and the other
to the free provision of means of recreation:--
1. As to schools. The authorities may, it seems to me, keep in mind the
fact that the children are meant to enjoy life as well as to make a
living. Enjoyment comes largely by the use of the power of imagination.
We enjoy ourselves before the beauty of nature, before a work of art, in
listening to music, and in imagining the life of other climes and
countries. How little is done in any school to develop this power of
imagination! The great public schools, though often they are established
in buildings of much beauty, rarely do anything to develop in the boys
any understanding of the beauty. There is but little art in the
schoolrooms and little attempt to teach the value of pictures. There are
few flowers about the windows and very often the time given to music is
grudged by the chief authorities.
The elementary schools have not even the advantage of beauty in their
buildings, and although the children may be taught art, they have their
lessons in rooms made ugly by decorations, or wearying by untidiness.
What wonder is it that boys and girls become destructive of the beauty
in the admiration of which they and others might have found pleasure?
The authorities might thus do something by the curriculum to make
leisure time a happy time, but they might do more by making holiday
arrangements. Richer parents may justly be expected to care for their
own children, and many seize the opportunity of becoming their
playmates, so that holiday times develop the memories that bind together
old and young. But few parents can take themselves from business for
eight or nine weeks together, and not all parents have the knowledge or
the sympathy to lead the young in their pleasures. A solution might be
the arrangement by the school authorities of travelling parties--such as
those organized at Manchester Grammar School; or of walking tours with
some object, such as the collection of specimens or the investigation of
places of interest,--or of holiday homes in the school houses or
elsewhere, where, under the guidance of sympathetic teachers, the
children could enjoy freer life and more varied interests than are
possible in school, or of the interchange of visits between the children
of English and foreign homes. Once let it be realized that the long
holiday period--if necessary for the teachers--is full of danger for the
children, and something will be done to make that period healthy as well
as happy.
For the children in elementary schools it is easy to make arrangements.
During the three summer months the curriculum might be like that of the
Vacation Schools. The buildings, often the only pleasant place in a
crowded neighbourhood--would thus be in continuous use, while the
children and teachers could get away for their country or foreign
holiday, without breaking into any school routine. The children would
then go into the country prepared to see and enjoy its interests, not
only in the month of August, but at times when they might play in the
hayfields, pick the spring flowers, and hear the birds sing. The
teachers could have, not four, but six weeks’ vacation, in which there
would be time for a foreign visit when the hotels were less crowded. The
children, at the end of their fortnight in the country, would return,
not just to loaf about the streets amid the dirt and the noise and
degrading temptation, but to take their places in the open and pleasant
surroundings of the school, with its manifold interests.
The end of the summer would, if this arrangement could be carried out,
find teachers and children alike refreshed and ready for the hard work
of the ordinary school routine; and, greatest gain of all, the children
would have learned how to enjoy their leisure. They would have planted
memories which would call for refreshment; they would have developed
powers of admiration which would need to be used; they would have found
interests to occupy their thoughts, and they would look forward to
holidays in which to go to the country--not to play “Aunt Sally,” or
even to find fresh air from town pursuits, but to visit old haunts,
discover more secrets of nature and taste its quiet. They would, as men
and women, make “good company” for one another, and learn to require
some distinction of quiet or beauty to make a British holiday. They
would find, in the appreciation of English scenery, new reasons for
being patriots.
Satisfying pleasure, it must always be remembered, comes from within,
and not from without a man. Outside stimulants always fail at last,
whether they be drink, shows, sensational tales, or games of chance; but
the pleasures which come from the activity of head, or heart, or of
limbs last as long as strength and life last.
This leads to the other practicable suggestion which I would offer. The
Community might provide freely the means which would give the people the
pleasures which come from culture. Much has been done in this direction.
Open spaces in our great towns have been made more common, but their use
has not been developed as has been done in American cities, where
superintendents teach the children how to play, and the playgrounds
become centres of common enjoyments. Museums and picture galleries are
sometimes provided, but they are still rare and often dull. Personal
guidance is necessary if the objects in a museum are to have any meaning
for the ordinary visitor, and the pictures in a gallery need to be
changed frequently if attention is to be held. The Japanese wisely, even
in their private rooms, have a succession of pictures, relegating those
not hung to the seclusion of the “Godown”. Music is given in the parks
and sometimes in the town halls, but the best is not made common, and
much is so poor that it fails to reach or express the thoughts which, if
deeply buried, are to be found in the hearts of common people.
No attempts are made to open dull ears, to listen to good music, though
teachers in public schools report how it is possible by a few talks to
make athletes enthusiastic for Beethoven. The total amount of good free
music is very small and certainly not enough to raise the common taste
and attract minds capable of thought and admiration.
The duty of the Community to provide means of recreation is recognized,
but too often it has seemed enough if it provides amusement which can be
measured by popular applause. The duty should, I submit, have for its
aim the provision of such recreation as would gradually lead the people
in the way of enjoyment, and raise the character of all holidays by
making them more satisfying to the higher demands of human nature.
SAMUEL A. BARNETT.
THE FAILURE OF HOLIDAYS.[1]
BY CANON BARNETT.
May, 1912.
[1] From “The Daily Telegraph,” May, 1912. By permission of the
Editor.
Eight hundred thousand children are every August turned out of the airy
and spacious Schools which London has built for their use, and for
four weeks they can do what they like. To the people whose opinions
form public opinion, “to do what one likes” seems the very essence of
a holiday. The forgotten fact is that the majority of these children
do not know what they like. All children, indeed, need to be taught
to enjoy themselves, just as they are taught to earn for themselves;
and children whose parents are without money to take them to the
country or the seaside, where nature would give them playmates, and
without leisure to be referees in their first attempts at games, miss
the necessary teaching. They get tired of trying to find out what they
like, tired of waiting for the sensation of a street fight or accident,
tired of aimless play in the parks, tired even of doing what they had
been told not to do. A few--40,000 of the 800,000--are sent by the
Children’s Country Holiday Fund to spend a fortnight of the month in
country cottages; a few others go to stay with friends or accompany
their parents, but the greater number--it is said that 480,000 children
never sleep one night out of London during the year--have no other
break than a day treat, which, with its intoxicating excitements and
its distracting noises, can hardly claim to be a lesson in the art of
enjoyment or to be a fair introduction to country pleasures. The August
holiday under present conditions, cannot be described as a time in
which working-class children store up memories of childhood’s joys, nor
does it prepare them as men and women to make good use of the leisure
gained by shorter hours of labour.
The use of leisure has not, I think, been sufficiently considered from a
National point of view. It concerns the happiness, the health, and also
the wealth of the nation. If their leisure dissipates the strength of
men’s minds, leaves them the prey to stimulants, and at the same time
absorbs the wages of work, there is a continual loss, which must at last
be fatal. The children’s August holiday, with its dullness and its
dependence on chance excitements, prepares the way for Beanfeasts where
parties of men find nothing better to do amid the beauty of the country
than to throw stones at bottles, or for the vulgar futilities of Margate
sands, Hampstead Heath and the music hall, or for the soul-numbing
variety of sport.
The recent report issued by the London County Council tells the result
of an experiment in a better use of the holiday by means of Vacation
Schools. The word “School” may suggest restraint, and put off some of my
readers, who are apt to think of “heaven as a place where there are no
masters”. They will say, “Let the children alone”. But they do not
realize what “letting alone” means for children whose homes have no
resources in space or interests. They do not remember that the
schoolhouse is the Mansion of the neighbourhood, and that the Vacation
School curriculum includes visits to the parks and to London sights,
such as the Zoological Gardens, Hampton Court, and the Natural History
Museum; manual occupations in which really useful things are made,
painting and cardboard modelling, by which the children’s own
imaginations have play; lessons on nature, illustrated by plants and by
pictures, readings from interesting books, about which the teachers are
ready to talk, and organized games. When relieved from the trouble of
having to choose at what to play, the children find untroubled
enjoyment. Vacation Schools thus understood have no terror, but let the
children themselves give evidence whether they prefer to be let alone.
In a Battersea Vacation School there was an average attendance of 91·6
per cent, and on one day 153 children out of 154 on the roll voluntarily
attended. “The high rate of actual attendance at the Vacation Schools,
which compares not unfavourably with that of the ordinary day schools,
in spite of the fact that compulsion is completely absent from the
former, may be taken as an indication that the London child does not
know what to do during the long vacation, and is anxious and ready to
take advantage of any opportunity that may be afforded for work and play
under conditions more healthy and congenial than the street or his home
can offer.” In another school the teachers report: “We had been asked to
do our best to keep up the numbers. Our difficulty was to keep them
down.” “The discipline of the boys specially surprised the staff; a hint
of possible expulsion was quite sufficient in dealing with two or three
boys reported during the month.”
The children, by their attendance, give the best evidence that the
Vacation School is in their opinion a good way of spending a holiday and
the report gives greater detail as to the reason. The teachers tell how
“listless manners give place to animation and energy, and how the
tendency prevalent among the boys to loaf or aimlessly to idle away
their holidays was checked by the introduction of an objective, the
absence of which is chiefly responsible for the loafing tendency.... The
absence of restraint appears to lead to more honourable and more
thoughtful conduct, and little acts of courtesy and politeness increased
in frequency as the holidays drew to an end.... Educationally the
children benefit in increased manual dexterity, by the creation of
motive, the training of the powers of observation, and the development
of memory and imagination.... In many cases ... new capabilities were
discovered, and talents awakened by the more congenial surroundings.
Some children, who at first appeared dull and inattentive, brightened up
and became most interested in one or more of their varied
occupations.... Little chats on the Excursions revealed a marked
widening of outlook.”
In such testimony as this it is quite easy to find the reason why the
children so greatly enjoyed themselves. They had a variety of new
interests and they had the sense of “life” which comes in the exercise
of new capacities. They were never bored and they felt well. The
parents, whose burden during holidays is often forgotten, seem to have
expressed great appreciation at the provision for the children’s care,
and as for the teachers, one goes so far as to say that “the kind of
experience gained is a teacher’s liberal education and training”.
The Report as a result of such testimony, naturally recommends an
extension of the plan of Vacation Schools, so that this summer a greater
number may be provided. I would, however, submit that the testimony
justifies something more thorough.
The proposals of the Report assume that holidays must fall in the month
of August. Now there are many parents whose occupation keeps them in
town during that month, and who cannot therefore take their children
to the country. August too, is the period when all health resorts are
most crowded and expensive. And lastly, if holidays are taken only
in this autumn season the country of the spring and summer, with its
haymaking, its flowers and its birds, remains unknown to the children.
The obvious change--so obvious that one wonders why it has not long
ago been adopted--is to let some schools take their holidays in the
months of June and July. But I would myself suggest the best plan
would be to keep all, or most, of the school in session during the
whole summer, establishing for the three months a summer curriculum
on the lines of those adopted in the Vacation Schools. The children
would then be able to go with their friends, or through the Children’s
Country Holiday Fund for their Country Holiday without any interference
with the regular school regime; and all, while they were at home,
would have those resources in the school hours which have proved to
be powerful to attract them from the streets. The teachers, free at
last to take some of their holidays in June or July, would be able to
benefit by the lower charges, to get, perhaps, a recreative holiday in
the Alps instead of one at the English seaside in the somewhat stale
companionship of a party of fellow-teachers.
This more thorough plan would do for all London children everything
which Vacation Schools attempt, and it has the further advantage that it
would put refreshing country visits within the reach of more children
and teachers.
Middle-class families recognize the necessity of an annual visit to the
sea or country, as a consequence of which great towns exist almost
wholly as holiday resorts. The necessity of the middle class is much
more the necessity of the working class, whose children have less room
in their houses and fewer interests for their leisure. A pressure which
cannot be resisted will insist that for their health’s sake and for the
child’s sake, who is the father of the man, the children shall have each
year the opportunity of breathing for at least a fortnight country air,
and of learning to be Nature’s playmates. The only practicable way in
which such holidays may be provided is by the extension of the holiday
period to include other than the month of August.
The plan I have suggested would make such extension practicable with the
least possible interference with school work, while it would secure for
all children some guidance in the use and enjoyment of the leisure,
which the experiment of Vacation Schools has proved to be so acceptable.
That guidance, by widening children’s minds and awakening their powers
of taking notice, would make the country visits more full of interests,
and develop a love of Nature, to be a valuable resource in later life.
If the Council’s Report succeeds in moving London opinion it may mark a
new departure in the use and enjoyment of holidays.
It almost seems as if the education given at such cost ran to waste
during the holidays. There is a call for another Charles Booth, to make
an inquiry into “the life and leisure of the people” which might be as
epoch-making as that into “the life and labour of the people”. Such an
inquiry would show, I believe, the need of energetic effort if leisure
is to be a source of strength and not of weakness to national life, a
way to recreation and not to demoralization.
SAMUEL A. BARNETT.
RECREATION IN TOWN AND COUNTRY.[1]
RECREATION AND CHARACTER.
BY MRS. S. A. BARNETT.
October, 1906.
[1] A paper written for the Church Congress, and read at its meeting
at Barrow-in-Furness by the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Truro, the
late C. W. Stubbs.
A people’s play is a fair test of a people’s character. Men and women in
their hours of leisure show their real admiration and their inner faith.
Their “idle words,” in more than one sense, are those by which they are
judged.
No one who has reached an age from which he can overlook fifteen or
twenty years can doubt but that pleasure-seeking has greatly increased.
The railway statistics show that during the last year more people have
been taken to seaside and pleasure resorts than ever before. On Bank
Holidays a larger number travel, and more and more facilities are
annually offered for day trips and evening entertainments.
The newspapers give many pages to recording games, pages which are
eagerly scanned even when, as in the case of the “Daily News,” the
betting on their results is omitted.
Face to face with these facts we need some principles to enable us to
advise this pleasure-seeking generation what to seek and what to avoid.
To arrive at principles one has to probe below the surface, to seek the
cause of the pleasure given by various amusements. Briefly, what persons
of all ages seek in pleasure is (1) excitement, (2) interest, (3)
memories. These are natural desires; no amount of preaching or scolding,
or hiding them away will abolish them. It is the part of wisdom to
recognize facts and use them for the uplifting of human nature.
May I offer two principles for your consideration?
1. Pleasure, while offering excitement, should not depend on excitement;
it should not involve a fellow-creature’s loss or pain, nor lay its
foundation on greed or gain.
2. Pleasure should not only give enjoyment, it should also increase
capacities for enjoyment. It should strengthen a man’s whole being,
enrich memory and call forth effort.
THE QUALITY OF ENGLISH PLAYING.
If these principles have a basis of truth, the questions arise, “Are the
common recreations of the people such as to encourage our hope of
English progress? Do they make us proud of the growth of national
character, and give us a ground of security for the high place we all
long that England shall hold in the future?” The country may be lost as
well as won on her playing fields.
Recreation means the refreshment of the sources of life. Routine wears
life, and “It is life of which our nerves are scant”. The excitement
which stirs the worn or sleeping centres of a man’s body, mind or
spirit, is the first step in such refreshment, but followed by nothing
else it defeats its own ends. It uses strength and creates nothing, and
if unmixed with what endures it can but leave the partaker the poorer.
The fire must be stirred, but unless fuel be supplied the flames will
soon sink in ashes.
It behoves us then to accept excitement as a necessary part of
recreation, and to seek to add to it those things which lead to
increased resources and leave purer memories. Such an addition is skill.
A wise manager of a boys’ refuge once said to me that it was the first
step upwards to induce a lad to play a game of skill instead of a game
of chance. Another such addition is co-operation, that is a call on the
receiver to give something. It is better for instance to play a game
than to watch a game. It may, perhaps, be helpful to recall the
principle, and let it test some of the popular pleasures.
POPULAR PLEASURES.
Pleasure, while offering excitement, should not depend on excitement; it
should not involve a fellow-creature’s loss or pain, nor lay its
foundation on greed or gain.
This principle excludes the recreations which, like drink or gambling,
stir without feeding, or the pleasures which are blended with the
sorrows of the meanest thing that feels. It excludes also the dull
Museum which feeds without stirring, and makes no provision for
excitement. Tried by this standard, what is to be said of Margate,
Blackpool, and such popular resorts, with their ribald gaiety and inane
beach shows? Of music halls, where the entertainment was described by
Mr. Stead as the “most insufferable banality and imbecility that ever
fell upon human ears,” disgusting him not so much for its immorality as
by the vulgar stupidity of it all. Of racing, the acknowledged interest
of which is in the betting, a method of self-enrichment by another’s
impoverishment, which tends to sap the very foundations of honesty and
integrity; of football matches, which thousands watch, often ignorant of
the science of the game, but captivated by the hope of winning a bet or
by the spectacle of brutal conflict; of monster school-treats or
excursions, when numbers engender such monopolizing excitement that all
else which the energetic curate or the good ladies have provided is
ruthlessly swallowed up; shooting battues, where skill and effort give
place to organization and cruelty; of plays, where the interest centres
round the breaking of the commandments and “fools make a mock of sin”.
Such pleasures may amuse for the time, but they fail to be recreative in
so far as they do not make life fuller, do not increase the powers of
admiration, hope and love; do not store the memory to be “the bliss of
solitude”. Of most of them it can be easily foretold that the “crime of
sense will be avenged by sense which wears with time”. Such pleasures
cannot lay the foundation for a glad old age.
Does this sound as if all popular pleasures are to be condemned? No!
brought to the test of our second principle, there are whole realms of
pleasure-lands which the Christian can explore and introduce to others,
to the gladdening, deepening, and strengthening of their lives. May I
read the principle again?
Pleasure should not only give enjoyment, it should also increase the
capacity for enjoyment. It should strengthen a man’s whole being, enrich
memory and call forth effort and co-operation.
Music, games of skill, books, athletics, foreign travel, cycling,
walking tours, sailing, photography, picture galleries, botanical
rambles, antiquarian researches, and many other recreations too numerous
to mention call out the growth of the powers, as well as feed what
exists; they excite active as well as passive emotions; they enlist the
receiver as a co-operator; they allow the pleasure-seekers to feel the
joy of being the creating children of a creating God.
As we consider the subject, the chasm between right and wrong pleasures,
worthy and unworthy recreations, seems to become deeper and broader,
often though crossed by bridges of human effort, triumphs of dexterity,
evidences of skill wrought by patient practice, which, though calling
for no thought in the spectator, yet rouses his admiration and provides
standards of executive excellence, albeit directed in regrettable
channels.
Still, broadly, recreations may be divided between those which call
for effort, and therefore make towards progress, and those which
breed idleness and its litter of evils; but (and this is the inherent
difficulty for reformers) the mass of the people, rich and poor alike,
will not make efforts, and as the “Times” once so admirably put
it--“They preach to each other the gospel of idleness and call it the
gospel of recreation”.
The mass, however, is our concern. Those idle rich, who seek their
stimulus in competitive expenditure; those ignorant poor, who turn to
the examples of brute force for their pleasure; those destructive
classes, whose delight is in slaying or eliminating space; they are all
alike in being content to be “Vacant of our glorious gains, like a beast
with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains”.
OUR CHURCH AND RECREATION.
What can the clergymen and the clergy women do? It is not easy to reply,
but there are some things they need not do. They need not promote
monster treats, they need not mistake excitement for pleasure, and call
their day’s outing a “huge success,” because it was accompanied by much
noise and the running hither and thither of excited children; they need
not use their Institutes and Schoolrooms to compete with the
professional entertainer, and feel a glow of satisfaction because a low
programme and a low price resulted in a full room; they need not accept
the people’s standard for songs and recitations, and think they have
“had a capital evening,” when the third-rate song is clapped, or the
comic reading or dramatic scene appreciated by vulgar minds. Oh! the
waste of curates’ time and brain in such “parish work”. How often it has
left me mourning.
What the clergymen and women can do is to show the people that they have
other powers within them for enjoyment, that effort promotes pleasure,
and that the use of limbs, with (not instead of) brains, and of
imagination, can be made sources of joy for themselves and refreshment
for others. Too often, toys, playthings, or appliances of one sort or
another are considered necessary for pleasure both of the young and the
mature. Might we not concentrate efforts to provide recreation on those
methods which show how people can enjoy _themselves_, their own powers
and capacities? Such powers need cultivation as much as the powers of
bread-winning, and they include observation and criticism. “What did you
think of it?” should be asked more frequently than “How did you like
it?” The curiosity of children (so often wearying to their elders) is a
natural quality which might be directed to observation of the wonders of
Nature, and to the conclusion of a story other than its author
conceived.
“From change to change unceasingly, the soul’s wings never furled,”
wrote Browning; and change brings food and growth to the soul; but the
limits of interest must be extended to allow of the flight of the soul,
and interests are often, in all classes, woefully restricted. It is no
change for a blind man to be taken to a new view. Christ had to open the
eyes of the blind before they could see God’s fair world, and in a
lesser degree we may open the eyes of the born blind to see the hidden
glories lying unimagined in man and Nature. In friendship also there are
sources of recreation which the clergy could do much to foster and
strengthen, and the introduction and opportunities which allow of the
cultivation of friendship between persons of all classes with a common
interest, is peculiarly one which parsons have opportunities to develop.
And last but not least, there are the joys which come from the
cultivation of a garden--joys which continue all the year round, and
which can be shared by every member of the family of every age. These
might be more widely spread in town as well as country. Municipalities,
Boards of Guardians, School Managers, and private owners often have
both the control of people and land. If the Church would influence
them, more children and more grown-ups might get health and pleasure
on the land. I must not entrench on the subject of Garden Cities and
Garden Suburbs--but the two subjects can be linked together, inasmuch
as the purest, deepest, and most recreative of pleasures can be found
in the gardens which are the distinctive feature of the new cities and
suburbs.
THE CLERGY AND THE PRESS.
If the clergy knew more of the people’s pleasures they would yearn more
over their erring flocks and talk more on present-day subjects. Take
horse-racing for instance, who can defend it? Who can find one good
result of it, and its incalculable evils of betting, lying, cheating,
drinking? Yet the clergy are strangely loth to condemn it! Is it because
King Edward VII (God bless him for his love of peace) encourages the
Turf? The King has again and again shown his care for his people’s good,
and maybe he would modify his actions--and the world would follow his
lead--if the Church would speak out and condemn this baneful national
pleasure.
It is not for me to preach to the clergy, but they have so often
preached to me to my edification, that I would in gratitude give them in
return an exhortation; and so I beg you good men to give more thought to
the people’s pleasures; and then give guidance from the Pulpit and the
Press concerning them.
HENRIETTA O. BARNETT.