BARNETT OF TOYNBEE HALL

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 127, 22 February 1919, Page 7

BARNETT OF TOYNBEE HALL

THE MAN AND HIS WORK ST. Clemeuceau, after a visit'to England in 1884, said: "I have met but three really great men in England, and one was a little pale clergyman in AVhitechapel." That clergyman was-. Canon Barnett, whoso "Life," written by his wife, has just been published by Mr. Murray. ... Canon Bamett said himself that in Ins early curate days he had been very like the hero of the "Private Secretary." "He dressed very badly, generally obtaining his clothes by employing out-of-work tailors in the. district.. He always wore a tall silk hat, which, as he had purchased by post, , never ®ted, aud was usually tilted over his' forehead or rammed on at the back of his head. His umbrella was a byword, and ho always 'bought his black cotton gloves two or three sizes too large. .... Ho carried his. money in a cheap purso, doled out stamps as if they were priceless, and was punctilious almost to parsimony on petty matters." His Greatness. Canon Barnett, says. "The Times Literary Supplement," was not a man that most people would have called great at first sight. "Degas said that anyone can have talent at twenty; the difficulty is to have it at fifty. Canon Barnett had talent- at fifty and 6eemed not to have it at twenty; lie hlul it. moro and luoro to the end of his life, and that was hie greatness. Ho had an animal ' sense of tlio points of the compass without any outward help. Professor Gultun tested "this power,' and'said ho had met only one another man _wlio possessed it. Canon Barnett could give no account of it, but said that 'ho always kiiew by day or night which ,was north, south, east or west, and that ho guided his ways by that conviction.' This power lie also possessed in his mind and spirit., , "His greatness lay in his eeuse of direction; ha himself was like a compass, oxcept that ho was not stationary ; and those who know hiiu well- knew that they could steer by him, as if ho wero not a mail of human capricfes, but a spiritual instrument pointing towards the Kingdom of Heaven. In little things lie was mediocre, in great things great. "Tho book, of course, gives an account of Baniett's many great • enterprises: Toynbee Hall, tho Art Gallery and its exhibitions, tho East London Dwellings Company, and the Garden Suburb, which was moro tho wife's idea than tho liusband's. It docs, not describe, but enables us to understand, his method. Just as he gt'ew, his plans grew, because he was not a doctrinaire. He made people, ricli and poor, do much, because lie expectcU much of them; he got hold of the best rich, just because ho did not J'ke. tlio rich and so never attraoted the fools among them. Comic Herbert Spencer. "That Canon Barnett has a sense of humour and a sense of fun is show 11 especially in tho letters in which 110 describes his travels m Egypt with tliat most ludicrous of philosophers, Herbert Spencer. It is Spencer who gives most of tho comic relief to Mrs. Barnetts book. He had no eye either for beauty or for antiquity. As tho party wandered from one fascinating sceno to anotfter Spencer kept grumbling: 'I tlunk there should be somo punishment for people who lead one to these places by lalse representations.' -'His chief concern, wo aro told in 0110 of the letters, is with diet, and modes of cooking, with-special reference to his own stomach. His trouble to-day is tho size of the coffee-grounds. '"But they did not dislike lum. Spencer tries to be nice and ho is always a"gentleman." Privately wo call him a mummy.' He was the prey of his nerves, I and his formulas wero his' escape from them. If. he was followed by Arab boys ho would pursue them; with coat-tails iflvinfaad umbrella lifted, shouting, ['Confound you, I say.' At the end he said to Mrs. Barnett, "Good-bye, you are the most irrational woman I ever met ;- but his intimate friends sum: Ho was 00 attached to Mr. Burnett that had lie asked Mm the jpfcijoacplier would have . suns in the choir.'"' . "It is beyond doubt that Barnett did a renr great work," rays Claudius Clear in the "British Weekly" lie helped bv his quiet, effectual mu thousands and j thousands of thosn who -.vere ins u ilenii». and in need. But lie did more than this In a manner it may bo said that 0 I f'oi-ed the attention of. the Church .to the social problem. He saw far sooner than almost anyone dul the pen. and the „ui t of neglect, tho possibilities that lay 111 | concerted action. |