RECONSTRUCTION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 164, 5 April 1919, Page 8

RECONSTRUCTION

SMALLER SCHOOLS A 250, NOT 800, MAXIMUM THE SCHOOL'S CORPORATE LIFE AND THE MANAGEABLE NUMBER {For The.Dominion, by F. L. Combs,. M.A.) No. V. "The rude will scuffle through with ease Great schools suit best the sturdy and the rough." —Cowoer's "Tiif.'iiuum: A tteview of Schools." "Great schools neglected then as those ~that swell Beyond a size that can be managed ' Well '' . -Ibid.

A Natural Limit to Size in Schools. Biologists record that sparrows, much above or below the normal average, are thereby placed at a disadvantage in withstanding the varying stresses of their vagabond existence. There is, they say, a certain size for sparrows, which is The size. This is precisely the writer's contention in regard to our schools. Having regard to their function of menial, moral, and physical development of the yovin? a nntural limitation must be placed upon their numbers, nbove or liolow which our schools will fail to do their best by the pupil, A lower Mm itis generally admitted by educationists. No modern authority would, for instance, concur with the poet Cowper in advocating a reversion to the tutorial system, whose preciosity is more likely to iVvelop prim than vigorous, broad-mind-ed men and women. It is, however, with the .ii'pnnr or maximal limit, a limit much If'Ss discussed, that: this article is intended (o deal. It will here 1"> argued Hint this should approximate 250. Tho School Team and the Football Team. In sunpnrting this contention be it premised that there are two sides to school lif": (1) Its individual aspect, thai, which affcots (ho individual pupil and the development, of his aptitudes. (2) Its corporate asoeet, that in which the school is regarded as a society. There i.i nothing recondite or subtle in tho Reparation of,these two aspects. Every football coach lias tltem in mind ldien, en the one hand, he exercises the individual player, giving strength and precision to his muscular technique, <uj»] t.hon. on the other hand, in team work he stresses and insists iiiinii good combination. Alternately, I hat is. he views the team as 15 individuals or as a group of 15. It is mainly in its group or corporate influence Hint the soliool. lopes by bein? so laree as to become unwieldy, end loss of right influence hero mnv bo little short of disastrous to our civilisation, a civilisation in which co-oneralive efforts and mass movements upon, an enormous scale are weekly beeomimr the most characteristic modes of enlorprisn and progress.

Too Much Rivalry—Not Enough Co-operation.

Our schools, taking, <-.s has beforo b'cen indicated, the imprint vigorous and selfconfident of nineteenth century indivi. dualism, liavo essayed to fit (heir pupils for the purposes of competitive existence, that rivalry of man with man for the prizps of social and commercial life. ■Result? Emulation, either broadening into a generous desire to excel, or narrowing into a jealotis rivalry—emulation, as the examination system, the coping stone of fclio modern educational edifice testifies, has been the dominant motive power alike within and without tho sdiool. The School's Goal and the Nation's—The Common Good, That, contrary to this, fellowship in effort and aspiration, co-operation toward a common goal, 'a desire to seek nno's own advantago in the general progress of mankind should be the prime motive every item of news in to-day's, last week's, or last year's daily paper abundantly affirms. If this is true, it is becoming quite as important to demand n high standard of esprit do corps, of '.ombined loyally toward a, common end, in our schools as it is to maintain drastic tests (vide proficiency certificates) of individual efficiency, Tho sensoof corporate oneness that must underlie staunch esprit do corps is impossible to securo with undulv largo numbers. How small, therefore, should the number be?

Were the school to develop tlio intimate affections of a woll-renrcd family, its pupil numbers would have to bo very nearly as small—say a dozen. No practical reformer would, however, ask for this. Such close intimacy of feeling us exists in the family can never reach more than a email circle of relatives and personal acquaintance's. Beyond that, bur, concentric with it, lies the sphere of tho school's influence. Its aim must bo to develop ties, not so much tender and enduring ns manly, unselfish, and hiffliprincipled—a community of effort and aspiration more akin to lino' public spirit than to personal attachment. Whether those l ties can be developed to their maximum among 250 pupils the writer doubts. They cannot, .ho is certain, be fostered among a number greatly larger. Why 250? His reasons for giving 250 aro as much practical as ideal:— (1) Such a number would permit of ten superimposed clnsscs, Pr. to St. 6, of about 25 apiece. In working away from class instruction . of excessively largo standards towards individual instruction of each particular pupil 2a would Ik> a good stopping point. (2) A headmaster, on an average, bavin? a four years' supervision of each scholar, would liavo a reasonable opportunity of acquiring n fairly intimate and really effective knowledge of overy child in his . school. Given n good man a personal bond between him and the child, based upon a mutual knowledge of each other's characters, could be established.. In schools of seven or eight hundred, so common in our towns, the headmaster exists for a largo number in a caricature, flattering or otherwise. He certainly does not become the guide, philosopher, and friend of each pupil. It is equally certain that he should. Headmaster and Staff. (31 What is true of headmaster and pupils scorns to the writer equally true of headmaster and staff. Ton subordinates is amply sufficient for him to become —acquainted' with?—nny, rather, between whom mid himself to establish that close fellowship which will bring about the complete confidence, tho cncne?s of purpose, needed for the corporate unity and cultural continuity of Hie school and lis work. Por the ten on the stall' to become intimate to a very high degree is equally nocessarv. Such intimacy is impossible with a greatly larger number. The work* be it remembered, of a teacher is not formal or mechanical, permitting of purely official relationships of a sennmilitarv or Government office type. On the contrary, it is vividly, warmly personal, based even more upon emotional reciprocities between all concerned than on intellectual. Good feeling is as essential to if as clear thinking.. The personalities of the teacher of genius-i.e.. Thring and Thomas Arnold suffused and stimulated their punils and staffs in a wav that always did and always will lwffln the analysis of even those who. at sixty as at sixteen, so potently cxpcrlenci'il itFellowship of the Pupils. U) The fellowship of the pupils themselves must be based on frequent contact and intercourse. for 250 pupils within the space of four years each to i ..,„-•. oM 'i-jemllv lewis Willi all. and all with each, is at least possible. If. in •i irny that Hie Bov Seoul: movement has indicated, all sorts'of activities and associations appropriate to tho ago and mental state of the pupils, bud out of, or aro ' engrafted on the school, then nmoug the

250 a lad may seek out, intermix with spirits congenial to himself. Put him among 700 and he is ovcnvhebiied by sheer numbers, confused and distracted

wnong a host of half-gi'aM>.:d aih'inativos. '.I'liD wood prevents him l'rora finding tho trees.

A Company P'neficial, A Crowd Harmful.

(5) General—Among any crowd of gregarious animals (men are very gregarious and children more so) subtle changes in the social atmosphere are observable u-ith increase or decrease of numbers. Does tho herd of humans become unduly large? Then (vide J.o Bon) Iho coarser, cruder, more- ignorant feelings bcconio dominant. If grossly excited, those "crowd" feelings explode into acts of violence and brutality. Masses of children constitute a crowd more untutored, more primitive in thoir instinctive ciisceptiblities than a crowd of adults. As a mass they know less ruth to individuals, particularly poets (vide Lamb, Cowper, Kipling, and a dozen others). They even more tyrannically impose standards, low standards of conduct, upon each particular unit of the herd. They more relentlessly persecute any original or independent member of their number. The difficulty of controlling such masses increases not ii\ arithmetical but in goometrical Tatio to their sizo. Where ten pedagogues might wield effectivo control over 200 pupils, it would take HO to do the same over 400. In the smaller number, the individual is not to an undue extent submerged in the mass. The finer bred, more sensitive youngster is not drowned in the raucous bqisterousnfss of his coarser Shred, companions. Ho can expand and develop the germ of originality always latent in children of fine intelligence. He can, in other words, make a personal gift of inestimable value to a civilisation that demands inventiveness to an even greater extent than it employs it.

Small Schools Near the Home. (C) Mechanical.—lf tho early promiso of the education reform movement is sustained wo are shortly to see a reconstruction of our most obsolete school buildings, an increase in the number and area of playing spaces. The writer submits that such reconstruction al' buildings and enlargement of bounds can be more efl'ebtivelv and economically carried out by seeking now sites for comparatively small schools on the ;,:i!)'ivb:>n outskirts'of our largo towns, than ))••• the resumption of expensive and occupied site in tho vicinity of unduly huge urban schools, such as 'I'e Aro, Clyde Quay, and Newtown. Tlie placing of these small schools, moreover, in the inimodialo neighbourhood of 'ho child's home will entail obvious advantages of a highly desirable kind, ft wi'l bo a means of bringing closer together pau-nt and school. (Is there, on an average, one parent in a hundred iv'io par year in Wellington guts to close ((iinrtors with either the school or tho,teacher of his child?) It will enable the school playing area to ho availed of after school hours. It will mako tho school available for tho communal life of the talc of streets, mean or otherwise, whose ohiidren atlend it. Too Small' for Big Teachers? On one occasion, when the writer unfolded this scheme, he was met by the rejoinder, advanced in perfect good faith and gowl humour, that so small a school was a "tin-pot nlfair," "that," this was tho iniplioatio.n, "such a small llako of youngsters was beneath tho digrfity of a past master of the pedagogic craft." Ho can only reply that Arnold, with 300 boys, did tint liud the need of a still greater number in order to fully extend himself. lie can only suspect that death at J.'i from angina pectoris overtook tho noblest' of schoolmasters not because his cares and charges wero too few, hut because owing to his exacting conception of his mission they wero too many. "Tin pot?" What teacher with a vital and anxious conception of his functions would deem even a school of 20 a "tin-pot affair"? What averngo performer hut would agree with tho writer in placing thq growth possibilities of even 20 nascent minds and characters beyond the scope of his completely effectivo husbandry. This final point was worth adducing, because it is the pivotal one upon which the strategic change of the educational front, must ho based. Education is not a factory process. Its methods aro not wholesale, but detailed. Its culture is intensive. Its true methods are individual. It is not a drill, and an external discipline, but the development of 6elf-con(rolling personalities.

Largo numbers thwart both its finest technique and its noblest intention. That is why small schools and small classes mcnn nioro for rcnl reform than all tho specious novelties of curriculum and building construction put together.