Mr. Sanderson stopped and smiled in a breathless manner, half panting, half laughing, very characteristic of him. His glasses gleamed at the audience. His smile meant: 'We are going a little too fast, boys. Where are we getting to? Where are we getting to?' He affected to refer to his notes and then broke away upon a new line.
'Out of all these things I have been telling you, out of all these considerations, evolves the modern school. The modern school is not made by the very simple and easy method of abandoning Greek. (Laughter.) Nor is it made by introducing science or engineering. The modern school's business is to impress into the service of man every branch of human knowledge we can get hold of. The modern method in the modern school does not depend on any method of teaching. We hear a great deal about methods of teaching languages, mathematics, science; they are all trivial. The great purpose is to enlist the boys or girls in the service of man to-day and man to-morrow. The method which makes learning easy is waste of time. What boy will succumb to the entreaty: "Come, I will make you clever; it will be so easy for you; you will be able to learn it without an effort"? What they succumb to is service for the community. I have tested that in the workshops. They don't want to make things for themselves; they soon cease to have any longing desire to make anything even for their mothers. What they love to do is to take part in some great work that must be done for the community; some work that goes on beyond them, some great spacious work. You can spread them out into all sorts of spacious things, in all departments, such things as taking part in investigating the truth. The truth, for instance, of the actual condition of the coal-miners or of any miners. An important question which we have been concerned with for at least three years is "What is China? What is it like?" You may say, "Methods of teaching geography." But who ever learned anything from geography—as geography? Who wants to know geography—as geography? Books exist for it, maps, plasticine exists for it. We want to know about China. If we are going to see to it that every one of our working men has the same opportunities that in our school we give to our boys we shall have some difficulty with China. We shall never be able to give our working people these opportunities unless the Chinese give them too. Scientific men must find themselves dominant in the Foreign Office and Colonial Service so as to know what is the nature of the people in these distant places, how we can bring to them what we are able to give to our sons—the opportunity of making the highest and best use of their faculties. We shall not get that sort of thing from geography books. You will have to take the boys and let them find out what men have done who have been in China: to get products from China; to know its geology, and whether, after all, the Chinese do so deeply love rice that they want to live on a very little a day. Do the Chinese love rice? Do they love underselling white labour? Do they want to? That is real geography, but not class-room geography. That extension of interest, until China is brought into the class-room and the boys are finding out about it, is, I claim, one of the deepest and greatest tasks to be undertaken. China—India—the Durham miners—spacious undertakings....
'Schools must be equipped spaciously, spaciously, and they must have a spacious staff. I have the list of our staff here. We have masters for mathematics, physics, chemistry, mechanics, biology, zoology, anthropology, botany, geology, architecture, classics, history, literature, geography, archaeology, economics, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Eastern languages, art, applied art, handicrafts, and music.
'"Impossible," some people say. There is no great school in the land but could quite well afford it....
'We must send out workers imbued with the determination to seek and investigate truth—truth that will make them free—and to take great care that in the search for truth they will never take part in or sympathise with those methods by which the edge of truth is blunted.'
§ 3
The voice beside me stopped. Some one pushed up a chair for Sanderson and he sat down. There was applause. I stood up and then struck by a thought, whispered: 'Would you like to answer a few questions?'
'Yes, yes. Certainly,' he said.
'Not too tired to answer them?'