However, I fear this subject will descend on deaf ears at Westminster at the present crisis, where anything in the nature of sport is likely to be tabooed, if possible, unless the independent party choose to take it up, in defiance of the somewhat elastic consciences of many of their confrères.
It is, nevertheless, a fact which no Government or Parliament can lose sight of, that sport plays an important part in Great Britain’s life as a nation; and that any serious interference with its material interests will be detrimental to the country, and if attempted will be seriously resented by the people in the future. Let us trust, therefore, that although we now deplore the absence from the House of Commons of so many men whose friendship to sport could be reckoned upon, yet that there are sufficient left to ensure an absence of legislation which will be inimical to the true sporting instincts of the people.
Borderer.
Education at the Public Schools.
Perhaps the moment is hardly auspicious for dealing with the present subject, when the very word “education” has the ring of a challenge, but happily the Public Schools remain in a kind of secluded backwater, sheltered from the whirling eddies of political strife. Rightly or wrongly, they hold a sort of privileged position which no Government is likely to assail. In speaking of “education” at the Public Schools we employ the word in its widest significance, being not merely the assimilation by the boy of so many facts and figures, but his mental, moral and physical training. These three branches of a boy’s education are so closely connected together, acting and reacting on each other so continually that it is difficult to deal with them separately.
The first and foremost care of the school—the one in which it takes most pride—is the “tone” of its members. This word serves to describe the general behaviour and opinions of the boys, their religious beliefs, relations to their masters and to one another, the ideals, aspirations and traditions which every school holds dear.
When a boy goes to his Public School for the first time, he is overawed by the mass of customs and unwritten laws which insist upon his doing one thing and forbid him to do another. Although some of them may strike him as absurd, being merely survivals of a practice of which the use no longer exists, he will come to learn that the life of a school is bound up in its traditions, and will cherish them accordingly. He will first discover that the home estimate and school estimate of his capacities are very different, that he is, in fact, a nonentity. When he has recovered from the shock of this discovery, he will set himself to find out—or more probably he will learn instinctively—what is or is not sanctioned by the public opinion of the school, what he may do or say. As the “tone” of the place largely depends upon the discipline, which is shared by the masters with the bigger boys, who—from their position in the school or from their athletic and other qualifications—are chosen as præfects, monitors or præpostere, it is easy to perceive how essentially bound up together are these various branches of school training.
As regards education in its more restricted sense, many would have us believe that too great prominence is given to games, and that the school-boy’s great ambition is to get into the Eleven or Fifteen, whilst success at work is, in his opinion, of very secondary importance. It is argued—with some justification—that it is of no use in the battle of life to be a good cricketer or a good footballer; that education needs to be more practical and scientific; that it must, in fact, move with the times; and although it may be highly edifying to be able to write good Latin verses, or to read Greek plays at sight, such things have little real value in the twentieth century. Shakespeare, indeed, tells us that he had “small Latin and no Greek,” yet his education does not seem to have materially suffered. It may be of more practical use to a boy to have a thorough knowledge of French and German, for example—a knowledge which may be more easily acquired by a sojourn of two or three years in France or Germany—than the somewhat elementary acquaintance with the Classics which frequently represents the sum total of school education; but to say that the British boy—as boy—would be improved by spending the last two or three years of his school-life abroad is something amounting to sacrilege. It must not be forgotten that at all the big Public Schools there is an adequate “Army Side,” where boys are coached for Woolwich or Sandhurst; here, at least, the teaching is eminently practical for the end in view. There is, moreover, a “Modern” or “Civil Side,” where the theoretical work is often supplemented by practical work in the laboratories and workshops. Those parents, therefore, who cavil at the classical education, have only to put their boys on the Modern side, where the time devoted to Classics is more in proportion to the other subjects.
In the matter of education, the Public Schools labour under this disadvantage, that the parents have frequently not decided what their boy is to be, or what particular line his studies are to follow. Most parents are naturally anxious that the boy should choose his own career for himself, whilst the majority of boys are quite unable to do any such thing, never quite knowing their own mind for more than two days together. But in these days of competition it is essential that a boy should specialise, almost from the beginning; and the sooner his mind is made up, either by himself or by those responsible for him, the better it will be for his studies. It is no uncommon thing for a boy to learn Greek for a few terms, then drop it and go on the Modern side, and subsequently take it up again in order to pass Responsions or Little Go, after which he frequently drops it again. The human faculty of forgetting being far more highly developed than the power of remembering, it is obvious that this sort of “see-saw” learning can have little educational value, but it is through no fault of the Public Schools that such things occur. Most parents are convinced that their boy or boys must have a deal of latent talent, which they consider it the duty of the master to discover; hence, the latter are often faced with the problem of making bricks without straw, and the result is that the boy acquires a smattering of endless subjects without attaining a thorough knowledge of anything. If, on the other hand, the course of a boy’s studies has been decided upon, his mind need not be hampered with useless and imperfectly acquired information, and much valuable time can thus be devoted to the subjects which are necessary for his purpose. There are subjects, it is true, which do not seem to be of any practical value, yet which cannot well be dispensed with. Many boys cry out about geometry, for example, forgetful of the fact that this is a form of mental exercise which, in the majority of cases, must have the most beneficial effect, although they are glad enough to waste hours in the laboratories, doing what is euphemistically called “Practical Chemistry,” a branch of study to which the old adage about “a little knowledge” most emphatically applies. If it is intended that a boy shall follow a scientific career, let him, by all means, make a good use of the excellent laboratories which all the big schools possess; but for the ordinary boy it is advisable to limit his subjects as much as possible. There are subjects with which some boys can never grapple. It is useless, for example, for a boy who has no mathematical capacity to struggle with the difficulties of higher mathematics; and whereas one boy may have the “ear” for foreign languages, another is probably wasting his time in attempting to learn them. It is, therefore, advisable that as few subjects as possible should be made compulsory, and that a boy’s whole energy should be concentrated on those subjects for which he shows some aptitude or which are essential to the end he has in view; and that the system of general education—which theoretically develops the mind by a diversity of study, but which practically leaves the boy a “Jack of all trades, master of none”—should, in certain cases, give way to a more special treatment. This is not meant to advocate a system of cramming, which is foreign to the principles of the Public Schools, but is rather a suggestion that the system of education should be adapted to the somewhat limited capabilities of the average school-boy.