The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

Education and National Needs.

[Italicized footnotes courtesy of J.J. Liu, 2024.]

A lecture delivered to the Salisbury branch of the Parents' National Educational Union, by the Rev. A. A. David, Headmaster at Clifton College.

[Albert Augustus David (1867-1950) was later Headmaster of Rugby School, Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, and Bishop of Liverpool.]

I suppose we may, for practical purposes, distinguish between two kinds of educational aim. We schoolmasters may regard ourselves now as responsible to parents and as working up to such an equipment of our individual boy as will make him ready to fend for himself in the struggle of life. Or, again, we may regard ourselves as servants of the State, responsible to her for the quality, the national value, of those continually passing through our hands to join in serving her, or to neglect that service and live for themselves alone.

Now, under the first aspect, I claim for my fellow foster-parents very high credit. I have a fairly wide acquaintance among masters, not only public school masters *, but many others also. I know how much toil, how much renunciation, how much self-devotion is asked of them and cheerfully given with very little prospect of reward other than the affection and gratitude of their pupils. Of that they can be sure. We may not yet have discovered the best teaching subjects or devised the best methods of teaching them. We may not even teach them what their parents want (I am not quite prepared to admit that this would always prove us wrong); but one thing we do give them--ourselves, and, in the matter of equipment, that counts for much. I think that when our educational system, especially the public school system, is criticised and compared with the systems of other countries this is a fact which is sometimes very scantily recognised.

* [Public schools in England are the elite, fee-paying, usually boarding schools which predominated then; the equivalent of U.S. 'private schools'.]

I am aware that ideally, the two aims, the individual and national, are one. And indeed, it is true that a good man is a national asset, wherever he is, and whatever he is doing. But practically there are certain definite aspects of life and habits of thought which the good man needs in order to be a good citizen also, and I am rather afraid that we, parents and masters alike, have been inclined to take these very much for granted. What does our country require of her sons? She requires them to possess and cherish a healthy body, she requires their readiness and ability to defend her in time of need, and, what is so much harder for young minds to realise, because it is so much less picturesque, she requires their service at all times. Let me take these three points separately and consider what you and I have to say to each. In the first place I take physical health.

Let me remind you at the outset that health conditions at public schools nowadays are very different from those which prevailed fifty years ago. At the present time the standard of comfort, the multitude of appliances, possibly also the watchfulness of those in charge of boys have developed to such an extent, that boys come to public schools and live the ordinary life there, who would have been considered in the old days far too delicate to come to school at all. This change in our circumstances carries with it two consequences. In the first place we have to be more careful than ever about the health of our boys, if possible without letting them see it. We have not only to look after them when they are ill, but we have also to watch them before they get ill, and we have to be very much on our guard at certain times with certain boys. This is a duty which weighs very heavily upon us sometimes, but we need not shrink from it. There are many boys who grow into physical as well as into intellectual and moral strength at public schools, and no trouble is too great to secure any side of such a development. But in this connection we have a further duty. We have to be very careful that we do not, in deference to our fears for our more delicate boys, soften down what I may call the standard of hardiness. We must see that our stronger boys do not get soft while our weaker boys are getting strong. It is possible to devise special regulations for specially weak boys without injuring the general morale, and I think we are learning how to do it.

Taking health culture as applied to the habits and the spirit of a whole school, weak and strong alike, what I want is this. I want to reinforce private motive by a sense of responsibility to the race. It is to many of us a dark cloud--this national danger that looms ahead of impaired vigour and feeble health. It would be a very good thing if it came natural to boys and girls to grow up wholesome and hardy, but, unhappily, under present conditions of civilisation, with many of them, this cannot be so. Even if it cannot be so, I would rather not assume a matter of such vast importance. I want to see if, without making my purpose too obtrusive, I cannot encourage, and to some extent regulate, habits tending to physical health and vigour. This must inevitably be done upon a system. We know so much about everything nowadays, that we are bund to proceed in matters of this kind on scientific lines. It is not long since we have realised that there is a science and art of teaching. Twenty years ago if anyone had suggested to a young schoolmaster that it might be well for him to study the principles or the history of the profession into which he was entering, he would have been very much surprised. But now most practical men are convinced that no one ought to teach without having first learnt as well as he can, not only what to teach, but how to teach it.

What is true of mental is true also of physical training. We know a great deal more about our bodies than our forefathers did, and we cannot afford to neglect that knowledge. I regard it as a very important national duty that we should acquire and use it. I really think that it imposes upon us a responsibility even beyond our responsibility to parents. We are all patriots, and I am quite aware that the better part of patriotism is the spiritual part. But if the national physique is shrinking, if our hardiness is dwindling, our patriotism cannot come to much. We must have English bodies as good as we can make them to put English spirits into, and that means that we must study the best means of making and keeping our bodies strong. It is not going to be a question only of games as we understand them now. A good many people seem to think that games are enough. I am quite sure that they are wrong. Experts will tell you that the human body contains a number of muscles and organs which are either not touched at all or are exercised in the wrong direction by ordinary school games. I want something systematic which will supplement the usual forms of school exercise. It must surely be possible to select from the Swedish and other systems of physical training certain exercises such as would complete a healthy development in cases where, as in our public schools, you can already take so much air and exercise for granted.

There are a good many health-giving habits of a very commonplace kind to which I refer only because much can be gained if parents and masters were to co-operate in emphasising them. A love of fresh air inside houses as well as outside of them, a love of cold water, and a hatred of eating between meals are humble instances of what I mean. And, alongside of this, I would encourage a sense of a boy's own responsibility in keeping well. A boy ought to be ashamed of catching cold. I am going to venture to say that one reason why many boys are slow to learn this shame is that they have acquired, I will not say from their parents, but certain from their elders, the bad habit of thinking far too much about the condition of their interior economy. I am quite sure that for the sake of our own boys as well as of ourselves we ought to encourage a healthy reticence about our ailments. These nervous diseases which have become so common at the present time are as infectious as any. For the sake of the coming generation of Englishmen we ought to be very watchful concerning them.

I pass now to the second of our three national duties, the duty of defence.

I am one of those who have been very deeply impressed by the recent utterances of Lord Roberts on the subject of our national unreadiness. * I suppose that the South African War did not hit us as a nation hard enough to teach us the lessons that so much effort and suffering ought to have left behind. ** We have not yet realised what I am convinced is true; namely, that a great and terrible disaster waits for us or for our children unless we are definitely prepared to purchase national safety and to pay the price. I admit that there is no sort of agreement yet what that price shall be. I have my own opinion, and I hope that you have yours. It is certainly a subject on which we ought all to make up our minds, using the best light we can get. One thing is quite certain, and I am glad to believe that the nation as a whole is slowly realising it, I mean the duty of every Englishman to acquire at some period or other of his life the elements of military training.

* [Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts (1832-1914) was an accomplished general and staunch advocate for defence buildup. The Reverend was probably referencing a speech of January 1906 (a short précis here) wherein Lord Roberts advocated for, among other things, "a system of universal military training, both in the schools and out of them". Some of these suggestions took shape as the Haldane Reforms to the Army.]
** [Though Britain emerged victorious, the Second Boer War (1899-1902) was surprisingly costly in terms of money and soldiers, which left Britons embarrassed and insecure about its position. A postwar inquiry found many casualties were to disease, reflecting the emaciated conditions of the lower classes, while about 60 percent of volunteers were unfit for service. See Ackroyd, Peter: "The History of England: Innovation" (2021)]

But upon us secondary teachers and you parents of the upper classes there lies a further responsibility. When the next occasion comes upon which we have to draw on our Reserves, there will be a quite definite demand made upon us not only for men, but also for officers.

I have lately had a small share in the consideration of a scheme by which the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge should be used as a training-ground for officers of the Reserve. * We were supplied by the War Office with figures which brought before us in a very alarming form the danger which threatens us is from shortage, not only of officers now engaged in service with the Regular or Auxiliary Forces, but also of a Reserve of officers. The impression made upon us by these figures was painfully increased by certain facts in connection with the South African War told us by officers of high rank and wide experience. One of the achievements we are proudest of in connection with that war, is the success with which we draw so largely upon our Reserves. I am not speaking here of an Army Reserve in the technical sense, but of our national reserve of able-bodied men, disinclined to devote themselves to a military life, but willing to come forward in time of need.

* [The University Officers' Training Corps were formally created in 1908 as part of the Haldane Reforms and still exists today, with units from most UK universities.]

Now, I doubt whether it is sufficiently recognised by the general public that the military value of the officers last drawn from that Reserve was not at all equal to that of the men. I am not here alluding to the absolute failures, but the fact that you cannot make an officer in a hurry. Any man who can shoot can be converted into a private soldier in a very few weeks. But to produce an officer you must give him training and experience which, though slight, must begin early and be long continued. Now, of course, we all know that officers must be drawn from what, for want of a better term short enough, I must call the upper classes. I need not go into the reasons for that, the fact is sufficiently clear. And what certain military authorities are now saying to us is this: "Do not be content to go on producing for us half-trained private soldiers, we have plenty of them in posse if not in esse. We can fill volunteer battalions easily enough when the need comes. What we do want, and what we have not yet got, is a reservoir of officers. We want in the day of need to be able to lay our hands upon gentlemen who can take charge, who are not afraid of responsibility, who are more or less accustomed to command." How to supply this demand I think we are finding out. There are few schools which will not before long include military drill and shooting in their ordinary course of instruction. That will feed the great national reserve with men who have begun their training as private soldiers. That training can be finished when the need comes near, meantime it is of immense importance that every English public school boy shall have once in his life practised shooting, and know what it is to move smartly at the word or command. He will never quite forget either. Then on top of this we must graft some slight modification of existing Cadet Corps by which they will be converted into Corps of Instruction, giving those who wish to take advantage of it the minimum foundation of an officer's training.

That is the machinery for which I hope. But what about the spirit working in it and through it?

Here again we have to appeal to the parent. It is the atmosphere of home life which will ultimately decide this and many other questions. The natural point of view for a boy to start with about politics or religion or any other great department of thought is the point of view of his home circle. The way he begins to talk and think is the way they talk and think at home. The other day while I was pressing this duty at a meeting of parents, I was reproached for "seeking to introduce militarism into the bosom of the family." I could not help thinking of the well-known saying of Lord Melbourne. * He had listened to an earnest and practical sermon from an evangelical curate of what was then a new school. And he said: "Things have come to a pretty pass if religion is to be allowed to invade the sphere of private life!" If by militarism you mean the recognition of individual liability to serve and the individual duty of preparing for this service, then the sooner the bosom of the family accepts it the better. As soon as parents have made up their minds on this question we shall very soon win the hearty adherence of English boys, not to conscription (I hate the word and the thing as much as anybody can) but to the obligation and the readiness to serve in time of need.

* [Ex-Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1779-1848). The following quote comes exactly from G. W. E. Russell's "Collections and Recollections" (1898) to illustrate how "professors of a more spiritual or a more aggressive religion were at once disliked and despised", though the location was recalled to be a church, and not a school.]

And I do not believe that in the provision of this service the advantage will lie all with the State and none with the individual. I do most heartily believe in the moral value of such a piece of military training. I have seen boys gain much by a piece of work in the Rifle Corps, intelligently directed, and keenly carried out, and I am convinced that the more boys pass through their School Corps the better it will be, not only for the nation, but also for the boys.

And if this is true for soldiering, it is equally true of the last subject, with my ideas upon which I have to trouble you--the service of the State at all times.

It was an old English tradition that every gentleman was at the disposal of his country or his county for certain public duties. No doubt these duties were more or less attractive in themselves, and brought him into desirable company. But at any rate the landed gentry recognised this obligation. I am rather inclined to fear that for some reason or other the spirit which animated the best of them in the old days has not spread fast enough at any rate to keep pace with local and municipal needs. I am rather afraid that social service of this, or indeed of any kind, is not appreciated by the upper classes as an obligation incident to their position. Complaints are heard that young public school men with leisure might, if they chose, exercise a very powerful influence on the political and municipal life of this country, are not prepared to devote any part of their leisure to such work. I am not at present concerned to enquire how this has come about, and who is most to blame, but one reason is pretty clear--the woefully little interest that any of us take in the science of local and other government, in the broad facts of the recent social and economic history of England, in our universal responsibility for the conditions at present prevailing. Have you ever considered how curious it is that the average English gentleman should be so ignorant of these things? I have a great horror of the possibility of our young men becoming not only content with such ignorance but proud of it, as if they had been placed in a station of life which relieved them of the necessity of troubling themselves about such matters. I can imagine no graver danger to any country than is contained there. Let me speak of two directions in which I think remedies may be applied.

As long as boys and young men are in ignorance of facts they cannot well be blamed if they fail to appreciate the significance of those facts. When I was at Oxford I had some slight connection with the Christian Social Union. * It was found comparatively easy to interest undergraduates of various kinds and tastes in social duties and social ideals. But we were constantly being brought up against the want of an earlier grounding in these things. Well, I have great hopes that we and others will try before long to give as a definite piece of instruction some opportunity by which boys may become acquainted with the facts and the history of the facts of our existing social condition, with Trade Unions, Co-operation, Condition of Ireland, Poor Law, Municipal Government--a strange mixture, you may think--but every one of them is the concern of every citizen, and to whom should our future citizens look for facts of so much importance sooner than to us?

[Social reform association est. 1889, now the Industrial Christian Fellowship.]

But after all, that we should give them the facts does not come to much unless they are learning in the more intimate atmosphere of home the light in which to look at them. If a boy finds there among his mother and father and brother a careless detached attitude, there is far less hope that he will be touched by these facts and drawn towards his responsibility in respect of them. "I want a boy's imagination to be stirred to these things," said a friend in East London to me the other day. "Why should he not think it as fine a thing to be a Mayor as to get a D.S.O.?" * If he finds that those he knows best are willing to be interested, anxious to know, ambitious to help, eager to watch their opportunity of playing their part on the right side, and above all rooted in this conviction, that there is no cure for our troubles, no hope for our destiny, except in the Gospel of Christ, unless we seek first the Kingdom of God, then indeed we may look forward in confidence and faith.

Personally, I do believe in the time when the conscience of Christian citizens shall be united on this point. Once brought together it needs no awakening. If we were only aware how many seeds of good my blossom into fruit, how many roots of evil might be killed, if our united Christian conscience were guided by real knowledge and would find a voice! One day we shall know these things, and we shall know also how strong we are in regard to them, how, for instance, the consumer, that is the ordinary man, has it in his hands, if he knows and acts with others who know, to insist that our commerce shall be clean, that goodness and happiness shall be possible under all social conditions, that religion is not a thing apart from life, but that all the activity and the business and the government--all the aims and hopes of this country may and ought to be inseparable from the fear of God, and the love of Christ.

[Distinguished Service Order, which is, ironically to the Reverend's first point, a military gallantry award. East London was historically the industrial and therefore poorer part of the city. ]

Typed by J.J. Liu, Dec. 2024