Grain and Chaff from an English Manor

by Arthur Herbert Savory

I was present at some amusing incidents in examinations at our village school. A small boy was commanded by an inspector to read aloud, and began in the usual child's high-keyed, expressionless, and unpunctuated monotone: "I-have-six-little-pigs-two-of-them-are-white-two-of-them-are-black-an d-two-of-them-are-spotted." "That's not the way to read," interposed the inspector. "Give me the book." He stood up, striking an attitude, head thrown well back, and reading with great deliberation and emphasis: "I have six LITTLE PIGS; two of them are white! Two of them are black! and (confidentially) two of them are spot_tered_!"

I once picked up an elementary reading book in the school, and read as follows: "Tom said to Jack, 'There is a hayrick down in the meadow; shall we go and set it on fire?'" And so on, with an account of the conflagration, highly coloured. So much for town ideas of the education of country children; the suggestion was enough to bring about the catastrophe, given the opportunity and a box of matches.

Some of the inspectors were very agreeable men; they occasionally came to luncheon at my house, and I once asked where the best-managed schools were to be found. The reply was, "In parishes where the voluntary schools still exist, and the feudal system is mildly administered."

Our villagers, reading of the large sums that we were obliged to expend in response to the requirements of the Education Department, and finding the consequent rates a burden, began to think of economy and nothing but economy, so that though I had expected them to be only too anxious to provide the very best possible education for their own children, it came as a surprise that this was quite a subordinate aim to that of keeping down the cost. And this was the more unexpected, as the main cost fell upon the large ratepayers, like myself and the railway company and the owners of land and cottages rented rate-free. At the next election several of these economists became candidates, with the result that many of the original members including myself were not returned, in spite of the fact that our well-planned and well-built schools were erected at a lower cost per child than any in the neighbourhood. I was not sorry to escape from the monotony of listening to interminable debates as to whether a necessary broom or such-like trifle should be bought at one shilling or one and threepence. For this was the kind of subject that the Board could understand and liked to enlarge upon, while really important proposals were carried with little consideration. As a matter of fact, members of a School Board are no more than dummies in the hands of an inflexible Department, and are appointed to carry out orders and regulations without the power of modification, even when quite unsuitable for a country village school.

There was some little excitement at the election; one of the members of the old Board had been called "an ignoramus," in the stress of battle, and being much concerned and mystified asked a neighbour what the term signified, adding, no doubt thinking of a hippopotamus, that he believed it was some kind of animal! His knowledge of zoology was probably as limited as that disclosed by the following story:

A menagerie was on view at Evesham, to the great joy of many juveniles as well as older people, for such exhibitions were not very common in the town. Very early next morning, a farmer, living about two miles from Aldington, was awakened by a shower of small stones on his bedroom window. Looking out he saw his shepherd in much excitement and alarm. "Oh master, master, there's a beast with two tails, one in front and one behind, a-pullin' up the mangolds, and a-eatin' of 'em!" The farmer hurried to the spot and saw an African elephant which had escaped during the night; he was wondering how to proceed when two keepers appeared and the strange beast was led quietly back to the town.

As chairman of our School Board I early recognized among the members discoverers of mare's-nests, who lost no opportunity of exhibiting their own importance by intruding such matters into the already overflowing agenda, and my method of dealing with them was so successful, though I believe not original, that it may be found useful by those called upon to preside over any of the multitudinous councils now in existence. Whenever the member produced his cherished discovery—generally very shadowy as to detail—I proposed the appointment of a subcommittee, consisting of him and his sympathizers, to inquire into the matter, and report at the next Board meeting. In this way I shunted the bother of the investigation of usually some trifle or unsubstantiated opinion on to his own shoulders, so that, when he realized the time and trouble involved, he became much less interested, and we heard very little more of the subject.

I suppose that everybody living in a country parish, who can look back over the period of fifty years of compulsory education, would agree that the results are insignificant in comparison with the effort, and one cannot help wondering whether, after all, they justify the gigantic cost. We appear to have tried to build too quickly on an insecure foundation. Nature produces no permanent work in a hurry, and Art is a blind leader unless she submits to Nature's laws. The pace has been too great, and the fabric which we have reared is already showing the defects in its construction.

How otherwise can we account for the littleness of the men representing "the people," who have been rushed into the big positions, and for the vulgarity of the present age? Vulgarity in public worship; vulgarity in the manners, the speeches, and the ideals of the House of Commons; vulgarity in "literature," on the stage, in music, in the studio, and in a section of the Press; vulgarity in building and the desecration of beautiful places; vulgarity in form and colour of dress and decoration. We are far behind the design and construction of the domestic furniture of 150 years ago, and we have never equalled the architecture of the earliest periods, for stability and stateliness.

The skim milk seems to have come to the top and the cream has gone to the bottom, as the result of the contravention of the laws of evolution, and the failure to perceive the analogy between the simplest methods of agriculture, and the cultivation of mentality. We have expected fruit and flowers from waste and untilled soil; we sowed the seed of instruction without even ploughing the land, or eradicating the prominent weeds, and we are reaping a crop of thistles where we looked for figs, and thorns where we looked for grapes. The seed scattered so lavishly by the wayside was devoured by the fowls of the air; that which was sown upon the stony places, where there was not much earth, could not withstand the heat of summer; and that which fell among thorns was choked by the unconquered possessors of the field. A little, a very little, which "fell into good ground brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold"; and therein lies our only consolation.