A SCHOOL ON THE COMMON.
So the children were taught on the Common. They had their old teachers, who taught as a labour of love and without fee. They received in return a few eggs, a little milk, butter, cheese, in fact, anything which poor people share with each other, not forgetting Burston smiles.
However, trouble was a-brewing. The Law Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold. The parents were summoned for not sending their children to school. On the 14th of May, 1914, thirty parents appeared before the magistrates at Diss, three miles away, to show cause whereby, inasmuch, as aforesaid, likewise hereinafter. Why not! Oh, Law! Lor! Perhaps you have had experience of engaging a lawyer to defend you from another lawyer?
The Burston Braves appeared before the Diss Solons for not sending their children to school.
I pause here to blame the children. Had the children been intelligent enough to choose rich parents they could have been taught in their own homes, including Windsor, Knowsley, Welbeck, or anywhere else. Rich parents have this slight advantage over Burston village bairns. Let this be a warning to the bairns.
The solicitor for the defence questioned the School Attendance Officer, who admitted that he had made no inquiries to ascertain whether the children were attending another school.
By the way, what did that well-known writer say, whose name I do not know? “Man is an animal that looks above, behind, but never beneath his nose.”
The attendance officer had nothing to say on behalf of the Education Committee as to the efficiency of the old teachers.
The magistrates heard one case. The Burston Brave proved that her little son had regularly attended a school conducted by the late mistress and master, so the bench inflicted a fine of five shillings upon her and 29 more women. These are hard wooden benches, aren’t they? I wonder what fine would have been inflicted if the children had not attended school!
But, knowing their antipathy to blacklegging, they could not do otherwise than stick to their old teachers.
In the certificate of membership, issued by the National Union of Teachers, is the following:
Professional Conduct.
The following is a list of the actions already declared to be unprofessional:
1. For any member to take an appointment from which, in the judgment of the N.U.T. Executive, another member has been unjustly dismissed.
How could the children attend the Council School then, when the N.U.T.E. had allowed this case to go by default? However, the Braves and Babes of Burston marched back to the school, pondering on Diss Law.
Speaking without bias, as the bowler said, I am thoroughly in favour of magistrates being chosen by the shape of their heads, instead of by the size of their wallets. Fancy mulcting poor labourers’ wives (to some of whom one sovereign is a princely week’s salary) of 5s. each.
FINED BUT UNDISMAYED.
They were fined again and again. But they held indignation meetings on Burston Green. Lovers of fair play and freedom flocked in, the money was collected, and the fines paid. They refused to crook the pregnant hinges of the knee. Their children should not return to Council Block, whilst old England stands upon a rock, unless proper inquiry was held, and the teachers re-instated. The opposition has simply strengthened their resolves. A little kindness, a little Christian charity, a little of the spirit of give and take in the early stages, and all would have been better than well. To-day, however, to deny men and women who, out of their daily toil, pay for education, etc., a voice in the management of what concerns them nearly and dearly is simply autocratic presumption. Harassed by law, denied the right to choose those whom they loved to teach their children, they determined not to be coerced. They refused to attend the churches or chapels. They held huge demonstrations upon the village green. The surrounding villagers and townsfolk came to hear and see. So the revolt spreads. “Those who came to scoff oft remained to pray.” Real, live addresses were given by friends, who reanimated the hopes of the past, crystallised the spirit of the dead Christ, and made hearts throb and eyes fill as they vividly brought before others the poor, persecuted, maligned, crucified friend of fishermen, Magdalen, and poor folks. The village green blossomed; the dream of brotherhood, fellowship, and fraternity, as prophesied by murdered John Ball—the so-called mad priest of Kent—became reality.
John Sutton, sheep dipper, baptised the children. John was also christened. Christened after his Christian name, he became John the Baptist.
Higdon and his wife and the villagers hunted around to find some lowly shelter for the little mites, some of whom had come from miles away to be taught. They found one at last. A blind man took pity on them. He let a carpenter’s shop to them.
A carpenter’s shop! And where on earth may we discover a school for budding humanity so pregnant with meaning as a humble carpenter’s shop?
Surely no palace grand, no poplar-dwarfing sun-kissed steeple, no Moslem mosque gold glittering in Eastern city, contains such deep meanings to reverent minds as a carpenter’s shop. No ancient mausoleum, no Egyptian pyramid, containing swathed mummy bones of ancient Pharoah, who scuttled through life’s short day, may call forth such sentiments, or inspiration to die if need be on behalf of the poor and the needy, the homeless and friendless. So to this humble shop came the children. Here came the boys and girls who had struck against Council Syntax and Burston Junkerism.
They were helped by their mothers. If the lot of the agricultural labourer, the Lazarus of civilisation, is hard, the lot of the labourers’ labourer is harder still. Little joy in life has she. Divorced from the beauties of science and art, no electric lights, no hot and cold water on the slopstone, no airy, fairy, decorated bedrooms, no well paved and lighted streets, no quick transit, no musical evenings, scientific lectures, melodious operas, sweet string bands, no cinema, no long cycle. No! Grinding toil. Dark, slushy, snowy lanes in winter, grime and poverty, poor wages, daily struggles, patching and mending, sewing and knitting, washing and baking, sometimes toiling and moiling in rain-swept fields for bare pittance, wearing sodden shoddy, or soaking on wind-swept wastes. Go to Burston and meet your sisters, keeping up their hearts on miserable wages, and even giving out of their scant doles a little offering to their beloved strike school.
With scarce a copper to bless themselves with, they rented the carpenter’s shop at £3 per year. Out o’ poorly furnished homes they gave their chairs, their tables, stools, lamps, knick-knacks, of little value perhaps, but potent as widows’ mite. They cleaned, scrubbed, scoured, and mothered that school, as they are doing it to-day.
Lucky scholars to have so much mother-love enveloping them! To have such mem’ries clustering round. To think that the world’s toiler, sweet son o’ Mary, spent His early college days in the carpenter’s shop. Was He not apprenticed to manual labour? Did He not sanctify it? May He not have rehearsed future discourses and similar surroundings, whilst sawing and planing, mending, making, and creating in His self-chosen University of Adversity, so that He might humanise the world, the world which to-day is deaf to His teachings. Had His parables, His philosophy of honest poverty, His contempt of lordship and riches been laid to heart, Europe would not be in flames to-day.
And, as my labour of love draws to a close, I grieve to say that trouble is coming to Burston village once more. The rector has given notice to three of the glebe tenants. The blind man, who let the carpenter’s shop, is one. This means the closing down of the school. Two other parents are also in similar plight, and this is a presage of further victimisation perchance in the future.
Shall all the anxieties, the struggles, and the hopes of the past sixteen months end in this clearance of the Higdons and their friends, the closing of the carpenter’s shop, shall it end like this? If so, I do not envy the rector his victory. Nay, rather do I think it will not only be a barren one, but a distinct blow against the religion he is supposed to represent. What Christianity is this?