In the early years at school, there should be a time set apart for dancing, which is good for the body and a training for the æsthetic sense, besides being a great pleasure to the children. Collective dances should be taught after the elements have been learnt; this is a form of co-operation which young children easily appreciate. Similar remarks apply to singing, though it should begin a little later than dancing, both because it does not afford the same muscular delight, and because its rudiments are more difficult. Most children, though not all, will enjoy singing, and after nursery rhymes they should learn really beautiful songs. There is no reason to corrupt their taste first and try to purify it afterwards. At the best, this makes people precious. Children, like adults, differ enormously in musical capacity, so that the more difficult singing classes would have to be reserved for a selection among the older children. And among them singing ought to be voluntary, not enforced.
The teaching of literature is a matter as to which it is easy to make mistakes. There is not the slightest use, either for young or old, in being well-informed about literature, knowing the dates of the poets, the names of their works, and so on. Everything that can be put into a handbook is worthless. What is valuable is great familiarity with certain examples of good literature—such familiarity as will influence the style, not only of writing, but of thought. In old days the Bible supplied this to English children, certainly with a beneficial effect upon prose style; but few modern children know the Bible intimately. I think the good effect of literature cannot be fully obtained without learning by heart. This practice used to be advocated as a training for the memory, but psychologists have shown that it has little, if any, effect in this way. Modern educationists give it less and less place. But I think they are mistaken, not because of any possible improvement of memory, but on account of the effect upon beauty of language in speech and writing. This should come without effort, as a spontaneous expression of thought; but in order to do so, in a community which has lost the primitive æsthetic impulses, it is necessary to produce a habit of thought which I believe is only to be generated by intimate knowledge of good literature. That is why learning by heart seems to me important.
But mere learning of set pieces, such as “the quality of mercy” and “all the world’s a stage”, seems tedious and artificial to most children, and therefore fails of its purpose. It is much better that learning by heart should be associated with acting, because then it is a necessary means to something which every child loves. From the age of three onwards, children delight in acting a part; they do it spontaneously, but are overjoyed when more elaborate ways of doing it are put in their way. I remember the exquisite amusement with which I acted the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius, and declaimed:
I had rather be a dog and bay the moon
Than such a Roman.
Children who take part in performing Julius Cæsar or The Merchant of Venice or any other suitable play will not only know their own parts, but most of the other parts as well. The play will be in their thoughts for a long time, and all by way of enjoyment. After all, good literature is intended to give pleasure, and if children cannot be got to derive pleasure from it they are hardly likely to derive benefit either. For these reasons, I should confine the teaching of literature, in early years, to the learning of parts for acting. The rest should consist of voluntary reading of well-written stories, obtainable in the school library. People nowadays write silly sentimental stuff for children, which insults them by not taking them seriously. Contrast the intense seriousness of “Robinson Crusoe”. Sentimentality, in dealing with children and elsewhere, is a failure of dramatic sympathy. No child thinks it charming to be childish; he wants, as soon as possible, to learn to behave like a grown-up person. Therefore a book for children ought never to display a patronizing pleasure in childish ways. The artificial silliness of many modern children’s books is disgusting. It must either annoy a child, or puzzle and confuse his impulse towards mental growth. For this reason, the best books for children are those that happen to suit them, though written for grown-up people. The only exceptions are books written for children but delightful also to grown-up people, such as Lear and Lewis Carroll.
The question of modern languages is one which is not altogether easy. In childhood it is possible to learn to speak a modern language perfectly, which can never be achieved in later years; there are therefore strong grounds for teaching languages at an early age, if at all. Some people seem to fear that knowledge of one’s own language suffers if others are learnt too soon. I do not believe this. Tolstoy and Turgenev were quite competent in Russian, though they learnt English, French and German in infancy. Gibbon could write in French as easily as in English, but this did not spoil his English style. All through the eighteenth century, all English aristocrats learnt French in early youth as a matter of course, and many also learnt Italian; yet their English was vastly better than that of their modern descendants. A child’s dramatic instinct prevents it from confusing one language with another, provided it speaks them to different people. I learnt German at the same time as English, and spoke it to nurses and governesses up to the age of ten; then I learnt French, and spoke it to governesses and tutors. Neither language ever confused itself with English, because it had different personal associations. I think that if a modern language is to be taught, it should be taught by a person whose native language it is, not only because it will be better taught, but because children feel less artificiality in talking a foreign language to a foreigner than in talking it to a person whose natural language is the same as their own. I think, therefore, that every school for children ought to have a French mistress, and if possible a German mistress too, who should not formally instruct the children in her language, except quite at first, but should play games with them and talk to them, and make the success of the games depend upon their understanding and answering. She could start with Frère Jacques and Sur le pont d’Avignon, and go on gradually to more complicated games. In this way the language could be acquired without any mental fatigue, and with all the pleasure of play-acting. And it can be acquired then far more perfectly and with less waste of valuable educational time than at any subsequent period.
The teaching of mathematics and science can only be begun towards the end of the years that we are considering in this chapter—say at the age of twelve. Of course I assume that arithmetic has already been taught, and that there have been popular talks about astronomy and geology, about prehistoric animals, famous explorers, and such naturally interesting matters. But I am thinking now of formal teaching—geometry and algebra, physics and chemistry. A few boys and girls like geometry and algebra, but the great majority do not. I doubt if this is wholly due to faulty methods of teaching. A sense for mathematics, like musical capacity, is mainly a gift of the gods, and I believe it to be quite rare, even in a moderate degree. Nevertheless, every boy and girl should have a taste of mathematics, in order to discover those who have a talent for it. Also, even those who learn little profit by the knowledge that there is such a subject. And by good methods almost everybody can be made to understand the elements of geometry. Of algebra I cannot say the same; it is more abstract than geometry, and essentially unintelligible to those whose minds are incapable of detachment from the concrete. A taste for physics and chemistry, properly taught, would probably be found to be less rare than a taste for mathematics, though still existing only in a minority of young people. Both mathematics and science, in the years from twelve to fourteen, ought only to be pursued to the point at which it becomes clear whether a boy or girl has any aptitude for them. This, of course, is not immediately evident. I loathed algebra at first, although afterwards I had some facility in it. In some cases, it would still be doubtful at the age of fourteen whether there was ability or not. In these cases, tentative methods would have to be continued for a while. But in most cases a decision could be made at fourteen. Some would definitely like the subjects and be good at them, others would dislike them and be bad at them. It would very seldom happen that a clever pupil disliked them or a stupid pupil liked them.
What has been said about mathematics and science applies equally to the classics. Between twelve and fourteen, I should give just so much instruction in Latin as would suffice to show which boys and girls had a love of the subject and facility for it. I am assuming that at fourteen education should begin to be more or less specialized, according to the tastes and aptitudes of the pupil. The last years before this moment arrives should be spent in finding out what it will be best to teach in subsequent years.
All through the school years, education in outdoor things should continue. In the case of well-to-do children, this can be left to the parents, but with other children it will have to be partly the business of the school. When I speak of education in outdoor things, I am not thinking of games. They, of course, have their importance, which is sufficiently recognized; but I am thinking of something different: knowledge of agricultural processes, familiarity with animals and plants, gardening, habits of observation in the country, and so on. I have been amazed to discover that town-bred people seldom know the points of the compass, never know which way the sun goes round, cannot find out which side of the house is out of the wind, and are generally destitute of knowledge which every cow or sheep possesses. This is the result of life exclusively in towns. Perhaps I shall be thought fanciful if I say that it is one reason why the labour party cannot win rural constituencies. But it certainly is the reason why town-bred people are so utterly divorced from everything primitive and fundamental. It has to do with something trivial and superficial and frivolous in their attitude to life—not of course always, but very often. The seasons and the weather, sowing and harvest, crops and flocks and herds, have a certain human importance, and ought to be intimate and familiar to everybody if the divorce from mother earth is not to be too complete. All this knowledge can be acquired by children in the course of activities which are of immense value to health, and deserve to be undertaken for that reason alone. And the pleasure of town children in the country shows that a profound need is being satisfied. So long as it is not satisfied, our educational system is incomplete.