The Story of a Great Schoolmaster

by H. G. Wells

Whitsunday—White Sunday—white, pure, untainted—day of consolation—day of inspiration—perhaps the most joyous time of all the year. Spring in its power, life, Spirit of Peace, joy. Everywhere joy—sanctified, subdued. Joy, and peace, and new life in the music, the harmonies and discords, of Nature—here, in the country. The singing of the birds, their twittering, chattering, calling; their excitement; their restful chirping, abandon of joy, peace without alloy—they are friends of the soul. The atmosphere too—the gentleness of it, the life within it and soft warmth of it: freedom, imagination, inspiration are in the air; the wind bloweth where it listeth. Joy, innocent, white, pure, and happy. Happiness too. Life steeped in the sunshine of happiness. The spring, the elasticity, the eutrophy of life: life-creating life; life-giving life. Happiness on every hand mystic, elusive as the forces of Nature. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth." Happiness! Not freedom from care, or from sorrow, or from sleepless anguish; not freedom from abasement, not even from dark gloom—the accidie of depression—yet nevertheless the increasing sense of the life of love and service, the power of service, the completeness of it. The happiness which breaks ever and again through the clouds of uncertainties, doubts, darknesses of life—revealing it may be, for a moment, the signs of long years of effort—for as life goes on it is given to catch glimpses of the growth of the soul, something of the part the soul has taken in the building of the kingdom. It is in this life of love and service the words of the Master come to us: "I will not leave you desolate, I will come unto you."'

Followed praise of the beauty of work with which his congregation must have been familiar. And then came this concluding passage:—

'And when these days of wrath are passed away, there will be a great battlefield for a new birth. Days of wrath and then a new revelation. When God came down on the first Pentecost on Mount Sinai, He came amid thunders and lightnings, and in a thick dark cloud—and when the Holy Spirit of God came to the waiting disciples there was a sound of a rushing mighty wind. And it must be so. New birth comes through much sorrow. So we may hope that new theories of life which for a century have been growing towards birth will spring forth out of this great contest in all the lands of the earth. Vast work there will be, and the labourers sadly fewer. The nation is now sending of her very best into the battlefield. There will be great call for new recruits to restore the countries which are devastated—great calls, too, for investigators in all branches of knowledge. Pioneers are now leading the way in research, in mathematics, in science, in industry, in the laws of logic and thought, with new ways of expression in language and art.

'There is the great pressing need of revolution in the laws and relationships in the social life. We may have visions of a regenerated social state, in which courtesy, justice, mercy, the spirit of the gentle knight, will show themselves in change of thought, of belief; we may have visions of communities guided by principles which we hope and believe rule in our great school. Care for the weak; clothing, feeding, housing, medical care for all; a crime to be poor; to be diseased, to be underfed; these regenerations controlled by the true and public spirit at the cost of the community. Laws for reform and redemption, and not for punishment. Each member of the state cared for, as it is our hope each boy of this school is. Great changes—essential to the well-being of a state, and to each member of it. We may have visions that the spirit of chivalry, of kindness, of courtesy, of gentleness, of all that goes to make the "gentle soul" will bring this redemption to the people.'

§ 3

The war turned Sanderson from a successful schoolmaster into an amateur statesman. Life had become intolerable for him unless he could interpret all its present disorders as the wreckage and confusion of the house-breakers preparing the site for a far nobler and better building. He shows himself at times by no means certain that this would ever prove to be the case, but he had the brave man's assurance that with luck and courage there was nothing impossible in the hope that a more splendid human order might be built at last upon this troubled and distressful planet. But for that to happen every possible soul must be stirred, no latent will for order but must be roused and brought into active service. He had no belief in hopeless and irremediable vulgarity. People are mean, base, narrow, implacable, unforgiving, contentious, selfish, competitive, because they have still to see the creative light. Let that but shine upon them and seize them and they would come into their places in that creative treatment of life which ennobles the servant and enriches the giver, which is the true salvation of souls.

He became a propagandist. He felt he had now made good sufficiently in his school. He had established a claim as an able and successful man to go out to able men, to business men, to influential men of all sorts, and tell them the significance of this school of his, this hand-specimen, this assay sample, of what could be done with the world. He went to Chambers of Commerce, to Rotary Clubs, to Civic Assemblies, to Luncheon gatherings of business men, to tell them of this idea of organisation for service, instead of for profit and possession. He tried to find industrial magnates who would take up the methods of Oundle in productive organisation. He corresponded extensively with such men as, for example, Lord Weir and Sir Alfred Yarrow and Lord Bledisloe. He wanted to see them doing for industrial and agricultural production what he had done for education, reconstructing it upon a basis of corporate service, aiming primarily at creative achievement, setting aside altogether competitive success or the amassing of private wealth as the ends of human activity. Surely they would see how much finer this new objective was, how much fuller and richer it must make their own lives!

When I tell of this search for a kindred spirit among ironmasters and great landlords and the like I am reminded of Confucius and his search for a duke in China, or of Plato or Machiavelli looking for a prince. There is the same belief in the power of a leader and the need of a personal will; the same utter scepticism in any automatic or crowd achievement of good order; once again the schoolmaster sets out to conquer the world. Perhaps some day that perennial attempt will come to fruition, and the schoolmaster will then indeed conquer the world. Perhaps the seeds that Sanderson has sown will presently be germinating in a crop of masterful business men of a new creative type. Perhaps there are Sandersons yet to come, men of energy; each with his individual difference, but all alight with the new conception of man's creative life. Perhaps Oundle may, after all, prove to be the egg of a new world. Oundle may relapse, probably will relapse, but other, more enduring Oundles may follow in other parts of the world. At present all that I can tell is of the message Sanderson was preaching during the last six years of his life.

Here he is, talking to the textile manufacturers of Bradford. This that follows is from his printed address, restrained and pruned, but for the manner of his delivery, the reader should think rather of that sample sermon and the other descriptions I have given of his personal quality.

'I am very much honoured by your invitation to address this important congress, and I am honoured, too, in being permitted to speak on education in this great city of Bradford. For your city stands out very prominently in the annals of education, and its work is well known by all who have watched educational progress.