ENGLISH WARS AND ENGLISH EDUCATION.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 156, 17 March 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

ENGLISH WARS AND ENGLISH EDUCATION.

(From the London "Times.")

A great war inevitably brings with it investigations into the bases of society, and much reconstruction, -ne necessities of war carried on on a vast scale, the provision of men of physical and mental fitness and their consequent withdrawal from industry, the revelation of social conditions which the selection and training of these men involve, th© war-wastage of these nne spc-imens of humanity, the supplj of war stores and material and the consequent withdrawal of the equivalent er these things from non-belligerent use —all this creates a demand for additional labour and for an investigation into the sources of supply (and into the social conditions which have corrupted such sources), and ultimately creates methods of supply more or less consistent with economic efficiency. Such an economic process, which in some form or another accompanies and follows every war, must have vast educational resultsj and.it is therefore important at the present time to consider the lessons of educational history and to apply them to the great national problems which war is revealing to

us. As to the earlier .periods of our history, it will be sufficient to indicate the broad general results of war. Thus the Roman military occupation of Britain brought in a new economy and laid the bases of a system of education which survives to this day; the important educational period which culminated in the age of Alcuin closed with lamentable swiftness amid the Danish •wars; but it was more than restored by Alfred in the course of his deliberate economic' reconstruction of society. The Norman invasion brought with it not only new economic factors to repair the wastage of war, but the means and the men to crown a living educational system with universities which are to-day after nearly <»ight centuries, in the vigour of perennial youth. An educational system so built up survived the heavy strain of famine, plague, and war in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and gathered new strength from the splendour and fury of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Elizabeth and her Ministers recognised the economic side of education; not only did they reform the administrative abuses which had crept into the grammar schools and the universities, but they strengthened the elementary schools and made apprenticeship in husbandry, arts, occupations crafts, and mysteries a part of the national system of education. At the end of the Elizabethan fige the universities had a greater percentage of the rising manhood of the nation thanjhey have ever since secured; and the seventeenth century saw a new Cambridge rising in the new world which Elizabethan adventurers had thrown open to mankind. The Groat Rebellion can scarcely be said to have had an adverse effect on English education. Both the universities were "disaffected"; yet Cromwell blessed them with a new endowment; and out of tjie turmoil ol the Commonwealth we see dimly emerging new educational ideas which took effect on both sides of the Atlantic. A class of educational enthusiast;, both in the Church and in the rank; of Dissent, kept educational idealism alive and laid the basis of that principle of oducation for the poorest illuminated the dark d;iys of the eighteenth century. Through long periods of war, economic distress, and public indifference the schools fought the battle of national character, and made the intermittent struggle from 1756 to 1815 a period of national giory. Before the close of that period the inseparable economic and education."., needs of the nation had become manifest. The social condition* of London throughout the eighteenth ceuLuty had been terrible. The shock of the French Revolution awakened our best thinkers, and gave a new impetus +o the Sunday school movement and to the efforts of those who saw that no charity school system could cure the discontents of the age. Raikes, Bell, and Lancaster in the closing years of the old and the opening years of the new century initiated a new educational order. The intervol of the Peace of Amiens saw a definite economic :.nd educational effort in the Compulsory Education Act of 1802, entitled "an Act for the preservation of the health and morals of apprentices ond others, employed in cotton and other mills, and cotton and other factories." The Act itself, which imposed a measure of compulsory education upon each apprentice "for the first four years at least of his or her apprenticeship," never became effective; but it was an imperfect mirror in which the future was brokenly reflected. It at least recognised th 0 conjoint relationship of religious, secular and industrial training, and laid down in imperfect fashion the principle that wo have recovered to-day —that sanitary and health-giv-ing conditions are inseparable from efficiency. Th 0 shock - from which Europe suffered a century ago awakened or half-awakened England to the needs of her people, and in particular to the needs of tho next generation. The Crimean War was instantly followed by new and notable educational efforts. To what extent this was due to tho revelations of the war is not whollly clear; but it is certain that not only elementary but midle-dass and university education found new life nt tlitime. It wa? at last fully realised that, if England was to survive, in any moral or in any national sense, the strain of her immetii-o industrial activities, she must set her house in order and I'Kik into the structure of her home life. The struggle for more life in all grades of education, which first became a notable political fact after tho Cr'niean War, rendered possible the farreaching educational legislation which between IPC 3 and touched every grade of society from the factory child to the university Fellow and threw open the widest o ducati >nnl facilities to women. This movement or wave of advance had achieved its full effect by the time of the Soutri African \\ar. It was during and in tho iieraal immediately fol'ow.ntr that war that wo saw the next frre.it advance. During the period of that war statesmen :ind administrators "ore busily at work hi rofOTv.-trect : np o» an jn»»o»---. sea 1 - ill-'

Tiiachinerv and organisation of our schools. The far-renching changes included the abolition of cul-de-sac lr.gher elementary teacning. the substitution for innumerable small nr.- 1 inffcr.tiv.e educational authorities of a

county and borough system, the elaboration of a highly-organised system of secondary schools, and the creation of one authority, the Boord of Education. The close of the war found tho country in possession of machinery that rendered it possible to grapple in 6ome effective degree with the terrible problms disclosed by the recruiting sergeant and the new agencies for social relief.

The problem of childhood was definitely attacked about the yeor 1899, when Sir William Robson's Act raised the age for children m factories and workshops to twelve years. This provision was made effective by the Factory and Workshop Act of 1901, which in many cases made it impossible for a child to be a "full-timer" under fourteen years. The Children Act of 1903 empowered the local authority to declare all employment, not in factories or mines, of children under fourteen years illegal and to forbid all street trading by children under the age of sixteen years. The Act, moreover, absolutely forbade all street trading by children under the age of eleven. These measures were deterrent rather than

'•urativp. In 1904 the Report of the Inter - Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration recommended better school conditions. It was clear that a new departure was essential if tho social conditions revealed i the South African War wero to be cured. The Committee of 1904 recommended "that a system a tised medical inspection of school children should be imposed as a public duty on every school authority," and should be supplemented by some system for the feeding of improperly nourished children. A further Comitteo in 1905 recommended that tho medical officer of health should also be tho school medical officer, and should thus make tho problem of school physique part of the problem of local health. The whole movement was crowned by the Education (Provision of Meals) Act of 1906, enabli the local education authority to provide meals, and the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act of 1907. Tho wide provisions of the latter neee?ritated the creation of a new department in the Board of Education; and one of the most notable facts in th© nistorv of English education during the las*, decade has been the work of tins Department under Sir George Newruvi. In reading lis reports we are in a new educational world a world Liro'y changed from that which mudi'cl through before 1899. In the present war the business of recruiting has proved that the old ovds of over-crowding, with their concomitants, filth and disease, have by mo means disappeared. The country child is handicapped by the home conditions ; and till these conditions are <>H;rcG the education service must be inefficient. The labour of children of school age has not been stopped, and the large percentage of heart disease among schaal children may bo 'taken as a rough and ready measure of the consequences. The length of school >.fo must b-J increased to 15. Our educational s>stom, which is from the teaching point of new very good up to the age of il, e ill si adopt new methods of teaching -..etwecn th e years of 11 .md 15, and must in these years giv e tho child a real preparation for life. And the educational principle of the aftercare of school-children —that is to say, the provision, in some form or another, of suitab'e technical training as well as suitable watchfulness over physical conditions —must be brought into play. New efforts must not undo the benefits of the past. This war has shown, as earlier wars have shown, that with all its faults our educational system has produced humane, heroic, and selfresourceful men and women. In searching for new efficiency we must above nil things preserve that training of character which is the chief end and glory of school life. So, in spito of the great disaster, England wili march forward on the feet of little children; and Away down the river, A hundred miles or more, Other little children Shall bring our boats ashore.