Small Talk at Wreyland. Third Series

by Cecil Torr

Logically one may begin geography with Space, the Solar System, our rotating globe, the oceans and the continents, and so on; but children may do better by beginning at the other end with maps of places where they live. I have sent Lustleigh school a map of Lustleigh, 6 ft. wide and 4 ft. high, Ordnance Survey, 25 inches to the mile, or one square inch for each square acre, with the acreage of all the fields and gardens printed on them. On that map the children see their homes and other things they know; and having seen how these are mapped, they get a better notion of what maps really mean. A map is easily misunderstood. At one point the Bosporos is less than half a mile in width—no wider than the estuary of the Teign—and thus would be invisible on ordinary maps unless its width was much exaggerated. With this exaggeration and different colouring on each side, the maps make people think there is a great gulf fixed between the Europeans and the Asiatics there; whereas, as all Levantines say, Europe really ends at the Balkans.

Another of those school-books says that the beginning of a letter (my dear So-and-so) is to be called the Salutation, and the address is to be called the Superscription. That is a pretty bit of pedantry for a village school. It also says that words of opposite meaning, such as ‘far’ and ‘near,’ are known as Antonyms. That is jargon, and quite wrong. (Antonyms could only be produced by antonomasia, and therefore would be substituted words, like ‘Carthaginis Eversor’ for Scipio and ‘Iron Duke’ for Wellington.) The authors of those books all claim experience in the art of teaching; but that does not make up for their imperfect knowledge of the subjects they have taught. What is the good of teaching children that the reign of George the Third “was marked by disaster and disgrace”? They have heard of Trafalgar and of Waterloo. Yet one of their school-books says this. Another one says that Edward the First gave England “a Parliament in which all classes were represented.” The serfs were far the largest class: they were not represented at all; and very few of the free men had any voice in choosing representatives.

When children are learning about England and its place in Europe and the World, they might as well be taught that English is an Aryan language, and that all Aryan languages have grown from the same roots, whereas Semitic languages are of another growth. ‘What do they know of England who only England know?’ Change ‘England’ into ‘English,’ and the answer is the same. Children could be taught Grimm’s Law which shows how words assume a different shape in different languages. They need not learn the languages: merely a few words on a list to give them mastery of their mother tongue. Time would be better spent on this than on their physical drill, a thing for children in a slummy town but quite superfluous here.

Amongst other useful things, the children have been taught to run along in single file and leap an obstacle; and I scoffed at this, not seeing how very useful it might be. One sunny day a worthy man was lying on the grass, flat on his back, dead drunk; and they ran along and leaped over him in single file in the way they had been taught at school, just clearing his capacious waistcoat which stood up like a dome.

The old school at Lustleigh was founded by Parson Davy in 1825; and he gave land to endow it, and set forth its objects in his deed of gift, 4 August 1825. It was “for the educating and instructing of the poor children, being parishioners of the said parish, on the principles of the established Church of England, in reading and needlework, in learning their catechism, and in such other proper and useful learning for poor children as is hereinafter directed and appointed,” namely, “teaching the boys reading and spelling, and the girls reading and spelling and knitting and needlework, and also instructing such poor children in such other proper and useful learning as the majority of the feoffees shall think proper and direct,” the feoffees being the eight persons whom he thereby enfeoffed of the land as trustees.

Within my recollection there used to be a dozen children at the school, or sometimes a few more. The endowment was not large enough to make it a free school, and there were fees to pay. If parents could not manage it, there were always people who would pay the fees for any promising child; and thus admission to the school was rather like admission to the Navy now that competitive examination has been replaced by interview. It was, of course, a mixed school, boys and girls together. They were taught Scripture by the Rector and other subjects by a Dame; and the Dame enforced her teaching with a stick. And she (or her predecessor) lived in the old school-house itself, a building with four rooms.

Then came the Education Act of 1870, and the old school-room was not thought nearly good enough for elementary teaching then, though it was just about as good as some of those old rooms at Harrow in which much better work was done. A new building was erected a little higher up the hill, and the old Dame and her pupils moved up there at the end of 1876. The old school was shut up, and its endowment is now frittered away in prizes at the new school and a Sunday school. I always wish the old school had been kept alive as a nucleus for a secondary school here. The endowment seemed too small: yet Harrow began with very little more—“our House was built in lowly ways, God brought us to great honour.”

The old school-house has a tablet in the wall, with the date of 1825 and then these words, “Built by subscription | and endowed with Lowton Meadow in Moreton | for supporting a school for ever | by the Rev. William Davy | curate of this parish.” His motives were set forth in his Apology for giving Lowton Meadow to the Parish of Lustleigh, a leaflet that he printed with his own printing-press. “Whereas from my long service in that church I have a strong regard and hearty desire for its present and future welfare, and being from repeated proofs too unhappily convinced of the unœconomical and profligate disposition of my immediate successors, and being willing in my lifetime to do the greatest and most lasting good with the little property I have in fee, I do hereby with the consent of my son (who by good conduct and kind providence is sufficiently provided for) offer to give to the officiating minister and churchwardens of the parish of Lustleigh all that one close or meadow called Morice or Lowton Meadow in Moreton Hampstead to have and to hold the same with the rents and profits thereof from and after the 25th of March 1824 in trust for ever for the support and maintenance of a school for poor children in the parish of Lustleigh aforesaid in the house to be erected in the parish town for that purpose.”

The inscription and the leaflet both have the words ‘for ever,’ and these words are also on two patens that he had given to the church. They are “for the use of the Sacrament for ever”; and there is the same inscription on a chalice given by Edward Basill, who was Rector from 1660 to 1698. No doubt Davy copied Basill here, and hence applied ‘for ever’ to his later gift; and there is no question what ‘for ever’ meant—his gifts were to be kept.

The patens have not yet been sold, but the meadow has. The adjoining owner wanted it, and wanted it very badly, as he had erected a pair of semi-detached residences close up to the hedge. And it was sold him for £300, or £25 less than Davy gave for it a century ago. As a matter of business, the thing seemed indefensible; and as a matter of sentiment, it certainly was vile.