THE WAR FROM THE SCHOOL-ROOM WINDOW.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 158, 24 March 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE WAR FROM THE SCHOOL-ROOM WINDOW.

I. A LESSON OF EMPIRE. "... to build within the mind of man The Empire, that abides." This k to prove a war of liberation, if the aim to. which.',the best thought and conscience of Europe aspires is to be of any So far as it is possible for clear truth and justice to emerge from such a period of shock and struggle, of deep anxiety and horror, we hope and .must insistently demand that the result may show a wide discrediting of the whole principle of national dominance withoir. the consent of the dominium, and may leave the way open for the liberation of the peoples, not only from each other's menace, but from their own past selves. We can expect no millennium when the sore and exhausted combatants come first to patch, up a settlement; but we must demand such a settlement as will make possible Ihe further development of a true comity of liberated nations. The settlement will be in the hands of the presort adult public and its spokesmen. The further development will be for the rising generation to evolve: and the teachers of to-day will be largely responsible for the Europe of to-morrow. They arc training a generation not only " for the wise maintenance of the coming peace,'' but also for a true and just application of the manifold lessons of the present time, such as we can hardly hope to see fully consummated in the near future. But those lessons must be taught. Nations forget their ware too easily; the truths so luridly lighted up by the immediate conflagration go unrecorded and fade out of sight, and only the lower passions persist, of vainglory on the one hand and smouldering resentment on the other. We must formulate; and we must formulate in the schools. The truths must be realised, that their realisation may become a moulding force for the future. I

How is this to be done ? And what do we mean by the realisation of a truth It is by no means essential to institute special classes for the study, in simple or in more advanced ways, of the philosophy of a nation at war. Indeed, such teaching would positively suffer in having assigned to it a special and detached place. The realisation of a truth, as distinct from the giving to it of a mere formal, customary assent, means seeing it in vital, organic relation to other truths already realised or in process of realisation. Coordination is essential. War lessons must be corelated with other lessons. It must be realised how deeply and widely rooted are the laws which nations have to learn, and how close die their analogies and correspondences with the laws of all life. We will mention here one or two typical instances of connexions that can be established with the subjects of the ordinary curriculum; but there is no need to attempt an exhaustive treatment. The best work is that which the teacher thinks out and develops for himself, according to the powers of each class and the opportunities furnished by the particular stage of the subject that is in hand. Suppose Old Testament history to be under consideration. Agan and again national dominance is condemned, by precept and by reasoning from hitter experience, more and more explicitly as greater seers and thinkers arise. Assyria, Persia, Macedon in succession illustrate the inevitable collapse of the dominance-ideal. (How does our Empire differ from these? the teacher will ask. How have we erred in the building of it, and how far arc we now realising in it the principle of liberation so as to justify 'its further existence?) Then, at the opening of the New Testament, it can be shown how the reaped, in the Herodian visitation, the fruit of their own effort for dominance. And in the clear and sweet atmosphere of the fundamental Christian ethic, liberation is everywhere the note that rings out. Take the Greek ethic again, and the essential truth and fineness of the attitude of the greatest Greeks towards Persia. A good study, too. can be made of the way in which Rome, becoming more and more exclusively dominant, deteriorated by corresponding stage* into decrepitude. So—to jump to one more salient historical instance—there is the study of England's long-drawn-out attempt to dominate France, and of the lessons which the nation had to le:irn from that mistake. From the very different region of natural science we can draw fresh justification for the now spirit that is creeping into our national consciousness. Biology shows that in the lung run, the fighting types go under; each in turn becomes obsolete, falls into a cul-de-sac of evolution and perishes, while the progress ve types are these that fight when they must but whoso j primary vital aim is toward- peaceful | possession of their needs and free up- j ward development for their kind. The whole trend of the rsing scale of life j iri towards the finding of a modus rivendi and of an escape from the re- | ciirrmg vicious circle oi aggression, do- i fence and counter-aggression; life ri.-en j in proportion to it, power of becoming more and more free for the con-true- | tive struggle to*use its environment to the b'*t advantage. Specialized aggressive types are exfoliated, and in due time shrivel off; while .specialized defensive types ("'.ic'.t as the mollusc, and later in biological history, the crustacean) make of their shells a permanent check upon further advance in the scale of being. Progressive life has to nnd out a more excellent way. This

FOUR POINTS OF VIEW How to explain the war to children and young people' this is an urgent problem in many homes and in every school to-day. On its solution depends, it is not too much to say, the future of our race. We publish below four short articles, in which parents and schoolmasters may find some gul dance in fulfilling their task. The first is an attempt to show how the lessons of the war, in the schools of the Empire, should be reflected in the whole curriculum rather than form the subject of separate instruction. The second article, examines the method of teacliing patriotism to children, and the pitfalls of the subject. In the third will be found an account of the activities of French schoolmasters during the war; and the fourth traces some of the falso, idealism of modern Germany back to the school-room. The third of these articles, readers may be interested to know, is being reprinted by the Commissioners for National Education in Ireland for official distribution to every Irish schoolmaster. (From "London Times.'')

is a rather abstract instance of a point of view which may be applied; but the details of its application, dependent as they will be upon the region of the subject which is being covered, will occur readily to the mind of tho teacher. It should not be thought that these necessarily terse and generalized suggestions of method imply a treatment that is possible only with advanced classes; the task of simplification for children—even for quite young children —is by no means insuperable. The writer of this knows by experience that the reduction of the great issues raised by this war to their s'tnplest human terms is an exercise well repaid by the keen interest and intelligence it evokes from a junior class; and well repaid, also, by the touchstone it supplies for distinguishing the true metal. What one can tell to children of national hopes, and not be ashamed, is what a people can best trust among its aims and aspirations.

11. TEACHING PATRIOTISM. What, then, are children to be taught about the war, not merely what facts, but what principles, so that they may form a right judgment upon it and upon all other wars in which their country may be engaged? The principle is the important thing. Get that right and the teaching will be right. Get that wrong and the teacher, however patriotic he may feel, will be poisoning the minds of his pupils. It is not his duty, as a teacher, to communicate to them his own natural moods —the anger against the Germans which we must all feel at times, the instinctive hatred of enemy for enemy, the instinctive pride in our own victories, which every boy feels in the victories of his own school over another. These things do not need teaching, they come naturally; and the teacher who teaches them is wasting his own time or doing worse. Yet there is a patriotism that can be taught and ought to be taught, a patriotism that leads to duty, not to boasting or hatred; and a teacher can have a clear idea of this patriotism in his mind and can present it to his pupils so that they will be able to distinguish it from the patriotism which may help to ruin their country even through their own heroic deeds. The patriotism which is sane and modest, and not the less passionate for that, is of the same nature as the love which we have for our parents. It is, in fact, a-natural affection; and we owe it, and the duty it imposes upon us, to our country as to our parents. It is our duty to protect our parents from want. But just as we know our parents are imperfect human beings, so we ought to know that our country consists of imperfect human beings. Both may do wrong, and we arc-not then to maintain that they do right because they are our parents or our country. And, as no sensible or wellbred man would go about boasting that his parents surpassed all other parents, so we ought not to boast thus of our country. It is mere vulgar egotism to believe that your country must be the finest in the world because it is yours. That cannot be true of every country, and who are you to judge among them all and give the prize to your own? Patriotism is the desire to make your country, not the belief that it is, the best country in the world. Pure, unse'.fish love does not insist upon excellence in its object; and the more egotism there is in love the lcsg love there is in it. Those who are ready to fight and die for England now are ready because she is their mother, not because they believe that she is the finest country in the world. If that were their reason, every man of clear judgment and detachment would lose his patriotism or be shaken in it. For it is, at least, a very doubtful question whether England is the finest country in all respects; and if teachers are to tell their pupils that it is. they will have to take a great many things for granted. Wt are always being told now that the Germans believe their country to bo in all tilings the finest country in the world. They have a passionate religious patriotism which has urged them to self-sacrifice and heroism, and also to what crimes and follies! 'I herefore the teacher needs to make it clear to his pupils that patriotism is not religion and can be no substitute for it. It is not a virtue to think your country right if it happens to be wrong, or to harbour any delusions about it whatever. It is a virtue only to love your country for what it is and gratitude for what you owe to it, and your duty by it as you would by your parents., with l'.ive'liut not with egotistic pride. Teachers should not tell their pupils that England stands in the war lor all that is holv and good and Germany for all that is' wicked. To say that is to make a relig'on of patriotism and a partisan of (bid. Our business is not to a-sumo that find is with us, but to wage war and to aim at peace according to what we believe to be the will nf God. A country in ibis is like an individual; if it heiioves that it is perfectly wise and good to -tart Willi, it i ri sure to do many things thai are f-ialish and wicked. ' Itr- duty i> to try l„ I,!! \u-e and good ; and the duty of every member of it is to contribute as much wi dolil and goodness a< be call to the whole, not to assume that Ins country is a p-rfoct ab-traetion y.hi-li poeds i'rom him m< rely v. hat little , ntouragoment lis boasting ami flattery can give it. That is what children need to be taught about patriotism, so that wo may not blindly hate our enc-

inics and in doing so fall as blindly into their worst errors. 111. FKEXCH SCHOOLMASTERS TO-DAY. Thirty thousand teachers have been enrolled in the active; forces of France. Of this number 2.057 fell in the first year of the war. Nearly 8.000 have been wounded or taken prisoner. Seven hundred have been mentioned in dispatches, 45 have been decorated with the "Legion of Honour," 52 with the "Medaille Militaire," nine with the "Order of St. George." This in brief is a year's achievement of French school teachers at the front. All ranks and grades are herein represented ; and it is significant that nearly every one of them answering the call to arms elected to join the troops in the field rather than to remain in the rear occupied with administrative duties.

Quite as brilliant is the record of those teachers, overtaken by the tide of war, who for over a year have remained at their posts in the districts still held by the invader. Though no statistics are compiled, it is known that many have been shot by the enemy in endeavouring to protect the interests of France; others have been removed as hostages to Germany, while still others have been killed while performing their humble duties. When, at the approach of the enemy, all civil Authorities have evacuated a town, the French school teacher is expected to remain to safeguard the civil population. To him falls the duty of negoti ating with the German military authorities, of bargaining with them in reI gard to proper payment for goods re- ' quisitioned and of performing all the functions of administrator, at the same time of keeping tip the courage and high sense of patriotic discipline among the stricken inhabitants—and even, if possible, holding classes as usual. Behind the firing line the tasks of the teachers who for reasons of age or infirmity are not mobilized are almost as arduous. At the outbreak of the war the Kchoolhouse in the country districts J at once became the rallying centre of the community. It is the school teacher who twice daily receives the official communiques; and in small, out-of-the-way places ; where newspapers are rare,' he copies them in his own handwriting, to be distributed in the district. More often he reads tbe.n aloud to the assembled villagers, ':omments on the military operations, and keeps the community intelligently informed about the course of the war. He reads and writes the letters for the illiterate, receives notices of the deaths ]' of relatives of the people of his d stri.t j killed in action, arranges the forward-

ing af packages to the front and to prisoners of war. It was under the direction of the school teachers of France that before the end of the winter campaign of last year over 500,000 woollen mufflers, pairs of socks, mittens, etc., were made and forwarded to the troops in the field. Under their initiative many school houses have been turned into "garderieri" (play-rooms), where the smaller children of the community arc kept while their mothers and elder sisters are at work in the field or factory. These children, whose ages range from ten months to six years, are cared for from early morn--1 ing until nightfall. They are given three good meals, and are often provided with clothing collected by the teachers. The work receives no subvention from the State, and is supported entirely by funds which the school teacher is able to collect. They further instituted the "Noel du soldat," to provide Christmas presents for the troops ; n the field, a penny from each child bringing over £20,000; while the teachers themselves all over Prance agreed to give at least 2 per cent, of their monthly salary for Red Cross and similar purposes. Notwithstanding the fact that nearly half the teaching staff ot France war, called to the colours in the first days of the war. and that many of the school houses and over half the more important school buildings in the chief cities were requisitioned by the military authorities for hospital purposes, the schools have been able to carry'on their work. A call for volunteer instructors met with surprising results. Jn one school a Judge gives the Latin lessons. In another a prefect has taken charge of the courses in German, a dentist teaches natural science, and an artist, an hotel-keeper, a chemist, and a book-keeper have joined the teaching staffs. Competent substitutes were everywhere found to carry on the work of the absent instructors, so that with the opening ot the new school-year conditions were again nearly normal as the military authorities have, whenever possible, evacuated the school buildings. If we look for the causes of the sto : c confidence to lie found throughout France and of the firm beliei that victorv will be achieved, the role «t the school teacher in bringing about this point of view cannot be over-esti-mated. The Germans are accustomed to proclaim that their battles are won in the class-room, and that the victories in the field are a logical result of the brilliant and solid foundations of German education. Krance to-day can boast of an even more remarkable achievement. Every school teacher throughout France has become the interpreter of the ideals and amis ot the \llics He has made the people realize the broader issues of the war, and the need for patience in bonis o! oo.ieat am for still greater fort'tude until the final victorv.

IV. WHAT GERMAN CHILDREN ARE TAUGHT. (From a correspondent in Germany.) -War and courage have accomplished greater tilings than love for one s fc-low-moii." Nietzsche's phrase, which had great influence on the thinkers oi the modern Germany, is to-day being handed down to the coming generat:on with a fresh and immediate s:gni-He-mro. War glorified, the one ultimate and vital aim oi life- this is the 1,-soti that millions of German schoolboys are daily listening to; th s is the text of lectures delivered from niiinherb ii platforms and pulpits. "War is the -rent educator.'' "'Without lyav the world would wallow in materialism." '• Peace is a dream, not even a lovely dream.'' '!'!,',.,.. are a few idea- that Gemma iencher* are pulling i" the minds el t|,eir |.u|iK. In the schoolrooms throughout the Empire to-day the true meaning of the Great War i> being interpreted according to th's point ot view. Pupils are being taught thai ties war had to cyme sooner or later.

Germany, it is argued, has developed so rapidly during the past fifty yeare through tho might of German arms,, German industry and German intelligence that she as destined to be surrounded by a circle of enemies jealous of her growing power. German children are being told that fifty years ago Germany began to assert herself by the conquest of Schleswig-Holstein (that old German State) in lb(j4. This beginning of the struggle for German unity was continued in I&GG, and tho first stage completed in 1870 by the creation of the German Empire under the hegemony of Prussia. Even in those days England looked askance on the growing power of Germany. It is being instilled into the minds of young Germany that the hatred of neighbouring States grew apace with the increase of German naval, military and industrial power. Germany did every, thing to keep the peace of the world, but wa<s attacked on all frontiers, and is now lighting a defensive war for the outraged honour of the Fatherland. Theso ideas, current in Germany at large, are being ground into the minds of the next generation with all tho thoroughness of the German method by her leading educators. The Germau schoolboy is being taught by his elders that the peoples of all other nations—not Allied —arc cowardly Tars and slanderers, and that Germany alone standsjor truth and righteousness and relies on the strength of German arms to vindicate German virtues and ideals. Everything foreign must go. Nowhere has this " anti-foreigir' rage been moro virulently in evidence than in the class-room. The " Verdcutsclumgsbewegung" (Germanizing movement) has gone to such limits that many German pedagogues even declare that it is a sign of slavish weakness on the part of Germans to learn to speak-foreign tongues, to act, to think like English or French men. "A German must shave his head in order to remain a German when living abroad, so rapidly docs he assimilate the customs and manner; of other peoples," a wellknown German remarked to me with much bitterness. But the Germans will see to it, so they declare, that their children shall not in the future be the slaves of any foreign race. National unity, according to the German dogma, can be maintained only by the awakening of a feeling of national pride in the hearts of every young child. German schools have become schools of patriotism, where duty to the State, abnegation and sacrifice of the individual will to the need of the States are exalted above all other virtues. The German youth is being taught that the State's right and duty is to control not merely the actions, but even the thoughts of her subjects. The individual shall cease to exist, and in his place rises the mighty "Gcr-

man';!,'* the product of n united people. "We are not on earth to lie happy, hut to fulfil our ohligations''; Bismarck's words are given a new significance. The German instructor is teaching his classes that the Germans are fighting like heroes nganr-t Handier, as warriors against mercenaries. as a people in arms, whom foreigners are wont to call slaves of a militarist regime, against the slaves of Mammon (England), of empty love of prowess (France) and of the knout (Russia). "Doctrines such ;:s these, impressed on the mind of youth, cannot fail to hreed a p.pirit of malice and hatred towards Germany's many enemies of today, which will not only endure hut wiil hinder all plans or permanent peace. In no country has the Government more direct control over education than in Germany. In no country are academic influences .so suhservient to political programmes. And it would appear to he the aim of the German authorities to create a spirit of uncompromising Chauvinism in the hearts of the coming generation.