Part 5 (1/2)
[Footnote 3: Haines, _The Teaching of Govern of History and Civics in the Elementary and the Secondary School_]
[Footnote 5: Charles Morley, 1897]
II
INDIRECT TRAINING FOR CITIZENshi+P
After all is said and done the ideal training for citizenshi+p in the schools depends endered in the pupil than upon the direct study of civics If the spirits of ht direction they will reach out for knowledge as for hid treasure ”Wisdooeth through all things by reason of her pureness[1]”
It happens also in natural sequence that the spirit developed in a school will lead to the construction of institutions in connection with school life calculated to secure its adequate expression
Elementary schools, however, are much handicapped in this way If it comes about that work other than educational or recreative is forbidden to children during the years of attendance at school, and also that the period of school life is lengthened, there will be opportunity for the develop basis
Elee measure of initiative; all they need is a real chance to exercise it They would willingly make their schools real centres of child life Many children at present have little else than narrow tenements and the streets, out of which influences arise which war continually against the social influences of the school
The opportunity afforded by well-ordered leisure would be accentuated by the ades, boy scouts, girl guides, and Church lads' brigades, which are in their several ways doing much to develop citizenshi+p Such bodies are now in effect educational authorities, and classes are organised by them in connection with the Board of Education
There have beenexperiments into elementary schools and, whilst they have often been defeated by reason of the ireat success The election of eneral election is an instance of success in this direction The ideas which have arisen from the advocacy of the Montessori systereater freedom in connection with many aspects of ele orking-class children in the neighbourhood of St Pancras, has triedexperiments That, however, of the introduction of children's courts of justice had to be abandoned, but not until y had been learnt
Side by side with the eleland experianisations as the School City and the George Junior Republics of A them is the Little Co results through the process of taking delinquent children and allowing theovernment But, hopeful as the prospects are, their ultimate effect will be best estimated when their pupils, restored in youth to the honourable service of the co their full share in life as adult citizens, and naturally every care is taken in the organisation of these institutions to ensure that the transition from their sheltered citizenshi+p to the outside world shall not be of so abrupt a nature as to tend to render unreal and remote the life in which the children have taken part
Nearly all of the ard to the school and its kindred institutions are co-operative in principle and in method, but it is probably Utopian to conceive an educationalincluded within it the ele outside the school it is bound to reproduce itself within it The only possible thing for the school to do is to restrict the influence of competition to the channels where it can be beneficial
The method by which elementary school children pass to the secondary school is by means of competitive scholarshi+ps In common with the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education it is necessary to accept the fact that at present ”the scholarshi+p system is too firmly rooted in the ed, even if it were thrice condemned by theory[2]” But, in the interests of citizenshi+p, scholarshi+ps should be awarded as the result of non-competitive tests, if only to secure that every child shall receive the education for which he or she is fitted
The stress and strain imposed upon many who climb the ladder of education, often occasioned by the inadequacy of the scholarshi+p for the purposes to which it is to be applied, tend to develop characteristics which are so strongly individual as to be distinctly anti-social
It is unfortunate that in many subjects of the curriculuhbour but distinctly a school sin, and this makes it necessary for a balance to be struck by the introduction of subjects at which all can work for the good of the class or the school Manual work and local surveys are subjects of this nature and should be encouraged side by side with games of which there are three essential aspects:--the individual achieveame” In reference to citizenshi+p the last of these is the only one which ultireat public schools are those which areas they do in a splendid tradition, they have always had in addition the opportunity of adapting themselves to new needs Their refor even now for soland, for neill inevitably be Even so, the sense of responsibility they have developed has been translated into the terovernment over half the world
The objective of the public school boy anxious to take a part in government at home has always been parliament, or such local institutions as demand his service in accordance with the tradition of his family The tendency to despise the houardian is, however, passing There are few schools which do not welcome visitors to speak to the boys who have first-hand acquaintance with the life of the poor or who are indeed of that life theet to realise, as far as it is possible through sympathy, what it ry for unattainable learning, what children have to suffer, and, in addition to the practical interest which many boys immediately develop, it cannot be doubted that many ideals for the conduct of social life in the future are conceived, even if di efforts of large-minded head masters, public school boys more and more realise that they are beneficiaries of the spirit of a past day, not only in the sense of the creation of a noble tradition but actually in regard to the s and the financial support of teaching
There is likely to be an extension of university education in the near future The ancient universities of Oxford and Cathened, as will be the universities which were established at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries The de of teachers will result inevitably in the creation of more universities
The inadequate sum which this country has spent upon university education up to the present will be greatly increased
As a direct result of the opportunity which university life gives to undergraduates for the develop institutions, there can be little doubt that the university arded above all other schools and ood citizenshi+p The public school tradition will be carried directly into the older universities and in increasing measure into the new universities as the best spirit of the public schools gradually permeates the whole system of our education even down to the elementary schools themselves When these opportunities so lavishly provided for the develop aspects are realised and when above it all there stand great teachers in the lineage of those described by Cardinal Newy of Athens--”the very presence of Plato” to the student, ”a stay for his ht in his heart, a bond of union with men like himself, ever afterwards”--little else can be desired In every university there must be such teachers, or universities will tend to fall to the level of the life about theress of the Universities of the Ey and patriotism by the tone and atmosphere of your university and your professors”
Frona, Paris, Prague, Oxford, Caarded as definite and conscious protests against the dividing and isolating--the anti-civic--forces of the periods of their institution They represent historically the development of coreat and holy cause of the pursuit of learning, and above all things their story is the story of the growth of European unity and citizenshi+p
The feudal and ecclesiastical order of the old mediaeval world were both alike threatened by the power that had so strangely sprung up in the midst of them Feudalisdodom and barony from barony, on the distinction of blood and race, on the supreiance determined by accidents of place and social position The University, on the other hand, was a protest against this isolation of man from man The smallest school was European and not local[3]
The spirit which is characteristic of a university in its best aspects, linked with the spirit which is inherent in the ranks of working people, has on more occasions than one set on foot movements for the education of the people One of the most notable instances of this unity found expression at the Oxford Co-operative Congress of 1882, when Arnold Toynbee urged co-operators to undertake the education of the citizen By this he ards the relation in which he stands to other individual citizens and to the community as a whole” ”We have abandoned,” he said further, ”and rightly abandoned the atte ourselves from society We will never abandon the belief that it has yet to be won amid the stress and confusion of the ordinary world in which we move” From that day to this co-operators have always had before theanised definite teaching year by year