III. · Part 3

The Social Reformers who will do most to fit together the jarring joints of Society are, therefore, the man and woman who, without giving up their duties or their business, who without even taking up special philanthropic work are morally thoughtful as to their words and acts. They are, in old language, they who are in the world and not of the world. If any one says that such moral thoughtfulness spells bankruptcy, there are in the examples of business men and manufacturers a thousand answers, but reformers who have it in mind to lead the world right do not begin by asking as to their own reward. It is enough for them that as the ills of society come not from the acts of criminals who design the ills, but from the thousand and million unconsidered acts of men and women who pass as kindly and respectable people, they on their part set themselves to consider every one of their acts in relation to others’ needs.

The real Social Reformer is therefore the business man, the customer, the pleasure-seeker, who in his pursuits thinks first of the effect of those pursuits on the health and wealth of his partners in such pursuits. The spirit of moral thoughtfulness widely spread among rich and poor, employers and employed, better than the power of any leader or of any law, will most surely set right a world which is out of joint.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

WHERE CHARITY FAILS.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

January, 1907.

[1] From “Pearson’s Weekly”. By permission of the Editor.

I do not think that anyone will dispute the fact that our charity, taken as a whole, is administered in a somewhat wasteful and haphazard fashion. At the same time, however, I question whether the public is alive to the full extent of the evil arising from the utter lack of system in our administration of charity.

For it is not merely the question of the waste of the public’s money, though that is bad enough; it is the far graver matter of the depreciation of our greatest national asset, character, by injudicious and indiscriminate philanthropy.

Owing to the absence of any supreme charitable board or authority, and the lack of co-operation between charitable bodies, it is very tempting to a poor man to tell a lie to draw relief from many sources. He gets his food and loses his character.

Indeed, I have no hesitation in saying that the present system directly encourages mendacity and mendicity, and, unless remedied, must inevitably affect the moral fibre of the nation.

The want of co-operation already alluded to is, of course, at the root of the evil, so far as waste of money is concerned, and I am often asked why charitable bodies will not co-operate. My answer is that it is very often a case of pride in results. Officials do not wish to share the credit of their work; they want to be able to claim to their subscribers that they have spent more money or relieved more cases than their rival round the corner, just as hospitals are led to regard the number of patients they treat as the criterion of their usefulness.

However, although I hold that hospitals might well extend their sphere from the cure to the prevention of disease, by taking more part in teaching people the laws of health and influencing them to keep such laws in their homes, I am not concerned with that question here, and mention hospitals only to introduce my first suggestion for charity reform.

The operations for the King’s Hospital Fund have shown what can be done to check waste by bringing about a saving of £20,000 a year in the hospitals’ bills for provisions, etc.

Until the King’s Hospital Fund was instituted there was no general knowledge of the comparative expenditure of hospitals on food, etc., with the result that some paid exorbitant prices for certain articles and some for others. The action of the King’s Fund has equalized expenditure, with the result I have stated.

Now it occurs to me that another board like the King’s Hospital Fund would be able to bring about a similar saving in the administration of other charities which now compete to the loss of money subscribed by the public for the public, and, as I have said, to the detriment of character.

Such a Board would check waste and extravagance engendered by competition, and it could be brought into being as swiftly and effectively as was the King’s Hospital Fund.

So much for an immediate measure, but I suggest as a more certain method that every twenty-five years or so there should be an inquiry by some authority, either national or local, into every philanthropic institution.

The terms of reference of such inquiry might be: firstly, the economic and business-like character of the management; secondly, the way in which co-operation was welcomed, and whether something more could not be done for further co-operation; and lastly, the institution might be tried by the standard of its usefulness to its surroundings. For, remember, every charity which really exists for the public good ought to test itself by this question, “Is our aim that of self-extinction?” The truest charity, that is to say, should aim to remove the causes, not the symptoms of evil.

But many shirk this self-inquisition, and linger on breeding mendicity, after their place has been taken by State or municipal organizations, or after they have ceased to fulfil any useful purpose.

It may be that this public authority I suggest would not at once effect very much, but a public inquiry provides facts for public opinion to work upon, and thus inevitably brings reform.

My final words, however, must again be as to the mischief liable to be done to character by thoughtless charity. People should think most carefully and solemnly before they give, lest they do more harm than good, and until our charity is properly organized and supervised, I fear that much money will be wasted on undeserving cases and in unnecessary and extravagant expenses of administration.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

LANDLORDISM UP TO DATE.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

August, 1912.

[1] From “The Westminster Gazette”. By permission of the Editor.

“The position of landlord and tenant is often one of opposing interests.” This remark from the first number of the “Record” of the Hampstead Garden Suburb must commend itself as true to all readers of the daily Press. The “Record,” however, in two most interesting articles, shows that with landlordism up to date it need no longer be true. The Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust, of which Mr. Alfred Lyttelton is president, and Mrs. S. A. Barnett hon. manager, is the landlord of 263 acres--shortly to be increased by another 400 acres, most of which will be worked in conjunction with the Co-Partnership Tenants. To meet the needs of the 25,000 people who will ultimately be housed on this unique estate the whole has been laid out with a view to the comfort of the people, including in the idea of “comfort” not only well-built houses with gardens, but also the opportunities for the interknowledge of various classes which alike enriches the minds of rich and poor. A visit to the estate suggests the multitudinous interests which have been considered. The houses are grouped around a central square, on which stand the church, the chapel, and the institute, and it is so planned that from the cottages at 5s. 6d. a week, as from the mansions with rentals of from £100 to £250 a year, the inhabitants alike enjoy beauty either of gardens, tree-planted streets, public open spaces, or glimpses over the distant country.

The Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust, as the leading article in the “Record” says, “has done what any other far-seeing and enlightened landlord has done,” with the difference that its pecuniary interest in the financial success of the scheme is limited by a self-obtained Act of Parliament to 5 per cent. In a summary, which it is well to quote, the doings of this up-to-date landlord are gathered together:--

“As a landlord the Trust has laid out and maintains the open spaces, the tennis courts, the wall-less gardens with their brilliant flowers, the restful nooks, the village green, which, with the secluded woods, can be enjoyed in common by rich and poor, simple and learned, young and old, sources of ‘joy in widest commonalty spread’.

“As a landlord the Trust has given the sites for both the Established Church and the Free Church, each standing on the Central Square in equally prominent positions, worthy of the beautiful buildings their respective organizations have erected.

“As a landlord the Trust has given the site for the elementary school, and has spared no pains to obtain a building adapted to the best and most carefully thought-out methods of modern education.

“As a landlord the Trust has built the first section of the Institute, with the conviction that their hope of bringing into friendly relations all classes of their tenants will be furthered by the provision of a centre where residents and neighbours can be drawn together by intellectual interests. Although the Institute is not yet two years old, the Trust has already organized and maintained many activities, a full report of which is to be found in subsequent pages of the ‘Record’.

“As a landlord the Trust has built three groups of buildings which they counted necessary towards the completion of their civic ideal: (_a_) Staff cottages, so that the men employed on the estate should be housed suitably and economically; (_b_) a group of homes where the State-supported children and others needing care and protection should live under suitable and adequate administration, and share the privileges and pleasures of the suburb; (_c_) motor-houses, with dwellings for the drivers, so that the richer people may have their luxury, and the poorer their habitations near their work.

“As a landlord the Trust conceives ideas for the public good and presses them on companies and others in the hope of their achievement. It was thus that the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, Limited, built (from Mr. Baillie Scott’s designs) the beautiful quadrangle of Waterlow Court, where working ladies find the advantages of both privacy and a common life.

“As a landlord the Trust is pushing forward negotiations with a view to obtaining a first-rate Secondary School, the directors believing that the provision of high-class education meets a need not usually considered when an estate is being developed, and that the school site should not be limited to the minimum necessary ground subsequently bought at an inflated price.

“As a landlord the Trust welcomes the public spirit and civic generosity of any of their tenants, taking special pride, perhaps, in the beautiful shops, the ‘Haven of Rest’ for the old and work-weary, and the club house (so admirably planned and alive with social and pleasurable activities), the tennis courts, the bowling greens, the children’s gardens, the skating rink--each and all established and held for co-operative pleasure and joint use by their chief tenants, the co-partners.”

This record of what has already been done prepares the reader to read with new interest the second article, “An Ideal--and After,” by Mr. Raymond Unwin, who now stands at the head of “town-planners”. He shows the great principles which have to be considered in planning town extensions, which principles have generally been forgotten in the growth of London suburbs. He then gives a plan of the 412 acres which lie between the Finchley and the Great North Road, and are about to be incorporated in the Hampstead Garden Suburb. He shows what direction the roads should take so as to secure readiness of access to the railway stations, and at the same time leave the Central Square with its fine buildings dominating and giving beauty to the whole neighbourhood. He shows also how other heights should be occupied by churches or public buildings, and he proposes that another centre (and another will be needed when it is remembered that the estate is nearly four miles long) “should approximate more nearly to the Market Place or Forum, where the main lines of traffic will meet, and to which access from all parts will be made easy”.

The articles make fascinating reading and lay hold of that pioneer instinct which has helped to make Englishmen such good Colonists. If the reading arouses some indignation at the lost chances of London, the fact that Mr. Unwin, on behalf of the Trust, and the co-partnership tenants are dealing with this great estate, in conjunction with the Finchley District Council, gives some hope. In years to come our children will see that the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust as a pioneer landlord did notable work in avoiding current mistakes and in pointing the way for other metropolitan districts to follow. Out of eighty-two authorities in Greater London only twenty-seven have so far started to avail themselves of the powers of the Housing and Town-Planning Act, and meanwhile the jerry-builder is at large, uncontrolled, and very actively at work.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

THE CHURCH AND TOWN PLANNING.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

August, 1912.

[1] From “The Guardian”. By permission of the Editor.

Every year we are told that so many churches have been added to London. Every year a volume is published by the Bishop of London’s Fund with pictures of these churches--buildings of conventional character, showing in their mean lines and sterile decoration the trail of the order to limit their cost to £8000 or £9000. Every year we see London extending itself in long straight ranks of small houses, where no tower or spire suggests to men the help which comes of looking up, and no hall or public building calls them to find strength in meeting together.

Town-planning is much discussed, and the discussion has taken shape in an Act of Parliament; but meantime the opportunities are being lost for doing what the discussions and the Act declare to be necessary for health and happiness. Hendon is probably the most highly favoured building land nearest to London. It has undulating ground, where gentle hills offer a wide prospect towards the west; it has fine trees whose preservation might secure grace and dignity to the neighbourhood; and it has also a large sheet of water, the reservoir of the Brent, whose banks offer to young and old recreation for body and for spirit. A few years ago town-planning might have secured all these advantages, and at the same time provided houses and buildings which would have helped to make social life a fair response to the physical surroundings. But while talk is spent on the advantages of variety in buildings, of the importance of securing a vista which street inhabitants may enjoy, and of the value of trees and open spaces, straight roads are being cut at right angles across the hills, trees are being felled, and nothing has been done to prevent what will soon become slum property extending alongside the lake. Willesden, as it may be seen from Dollis Hill--a chess-board of slate roofs--is an object lesson as to the future of London if builders and owners and local authorities go on laying out estates with no thought but for the rights of private owners.

What, however, it may be asked, can the Church do? “Agitate--protest?” Yes, the Church, familiar with the lives of inhabitants of mean streets, can speak with authority. It can tell how minds and souls are dwarfed for want of outlook, how pathetic is the longing for beauty shown in the coloured print on the wall of the little dark tenement, how hard it is to make a home of a dwelling exactly like a hundred other dwellings, how often it is the dullness of the street which encourages carelessness of dirt and resort to excitement--how, in fact, it is the mean house and mean street which prepare the way for poverty and vice. The voice of joy and health is not heard even in the dwellings of the righteous. The Church might help town-planning as it might help every other social reform, by charging the atmosphere of life with unselfish and sympathetic thought. But the question I would raise is whether the Church is not called to take more direct action in the matter of town-building. Its policy at present seems to build a church for every 4,000 or 5,000 persons as they settle on the outskirts of London. The site is generally one given by a landlord whose interests do not always take in those of the whole neighbourhood. The building itself aims primarily at accommodating so many hundreds of people at a low cost per seat, and outside features are regarded as involving expenses too great for present generosity. This policy which has not been changed since Bishop Blomfield set the example of building the East London district churches, is, I believe, prejudicial to Church interests, as it certainly is to the dignity of the neighbourhood in which they stand.

The Church might help much in town-planning if it would change its policy, and, instead of dropping unconsidered and trifling buildings at frequent intervals over a new suburb, build one grand and dominant building on some carefully chosen site to which the roads would lead. The Directors of the Hampstead Garden Suburb as a private company have shown what is possible. They have crowned the hill at the base of which 20,000 people will soon be gathered, with the Church, the Chapel, and the public Institute. This hill dominates the landscape for miles round, and is the obvious centre of a great community of people. The Church by adopting a like policy would at once give a character to a new suburb, the convergence of roads would be marked, and order would be brought into the minds of builders planning out their different properties. The architects would be conscious of the centre of the circle in which they worked, and the houses would fall into some relation with the central building. Every one would feel such a healthy pride in the grandeur of the central church that it would be more difficult for things mean and unsightly to be set up in its neighbourhood.

The church buildings in the City of London, or those which are seen towering over some of the newer avenues in Paris, or those familiar in our country towns and in villages, often seem as if they had brought together the inhabitants and were presiding over their lives. They look like leaders and suggest that the world is a world of order. The Bishop of London’s Fund, or the authorities who direct the principal building policy, and spend annually thousands of pounds in its pursuit, have thus a great opportunity of giving direction to the expansion of London. They might by care in the selection of sites, and by generous expenditure at the direction of a large-visioned architect, do for the growing cities or towns of to-day what the builders of the past did for the cities and towns of their time. The Church by its direct action might thus give a great impetus to town planning, the need of which is in the mouths of all reformers.

But it may be asked whether the Church ought to contribute to the making of beauty at the cost of its own efficiency. Has not the State one duty and the Church another? Without answering the question it is I think easy to show that a new policy would cost less money, and be more efficient in promoting worship. It is obviously no more costly to build one magnificent building for £25,000 or £30,000 than to build three ordinary buildings at £8000 or £9000 each, while the maintenance of the three, with the constant expense of repairs, must be considerably greater.

And if it be asked whether one grand and generous and dignified building will attract more worshippers than three of the ordinary type, my answer is “Yes, and the worshippers will be assisted to a reverent mind and attitude”. I speak what I know as a vicar for thirty years of a district church in East London. The building was always requiring repair, its fittings were oppressively cheap, and there were twelve other churches within much less than “a Sabbath day’s journey”. There is no doubt that the people preferred and were more helped by worship in the finer and better served parish churches. I used to feel what an advantage it would have been if the parish church, endowed and glorified with some of the money spent on the district churches, could have been the centre of a large staff of clergy, and have offered freely to all comers the noblest aids to worship. A feeling of patronage is incompatible with a feeling of worship, and the district church, with its constant need of money and its mean appearance, is always calling for the patronage of the people. The grandly built and imposing building, which gives the best and asks for nothing, provokes not patronage but reverence. There is, I believe, great need for such places of worship, as there is also need for meeting halls where in familiar talk and with simple forms of worship the clergy might lead and teach the people; but I do not see the need for the cheap churches, which are not dignified enough to increase habits of reverence, and often pretend to an importance which provokes impertinence.

The Church has been powerful because it has called on its members to put their best thought and their best gifts into the buildings raised for the worship of God. It owes much to the stately churches and sumptuous cathedrals, for the sake of which men of old made themselves poor; and to-day the hearts of many, who are worn by the disease of modern civilization, are comforted and uplifted as in the greatness of these buildings they forget themselves. The Church is as unwise as it is unfaithful when it puts up cheap and mean structures. It is not by making excuses--whether for its members who keep the best for their own dwellings or for itself when it takes an insignificant place in the streets--that the Church will command the respect of the people. It must prove its faith by the boldness of its demand. But I have said enough to show that the Bishop of London’s Fund would serve its own object of providing the best aid to worship, if it would respond to the call of the present and seize the opportunity of taking a lead in town-planning. Church policy--as State policy--is often best guided by the calls which rise for present needs, and if our leaders, distrusting “their own inventions,” would set themselves to assist in town-planning it might be given them to do the best for the Church as well as for the health and wealth of the people.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

SECTION VI.

EDUCATION.

The Teacher’s Equipment--Oxford University and the Working People, _two articles_--Justice to Young Workers--A Race between Education and Ruin.

THE TEACHER’S EQUIPMENT.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

March, 1911.

[1] From “The Westminster Gazette”. By permission of the Editor.

Liberals must be somewhat disappointed that a Liberal Government has done so little for education. The reforms for which they stand--their hopes for the nation--depend on the increase of knowledge and intelligence among the people. The establishment of Free Trade, wise economy and wise expenditure, and the support of the statesmanship which makes for peace, all presuppose an instructed electorate. But the present Government has passed no measure to strengthen the foundation on which Liberalism rests; attempts, indeed, were made to settle the religious difficulty, but ever since those attempts were wrecked by the House of Lords, Ministers have been content to do nothing, although outside the religious controversy they might have launched other attempts laden with important reforms and safe to reach their port. The administration of the law as it stands has doubtless been vigorous; able and public-spirited officials have seen that everything which the law requires has been done, and every possible development effected, but the Liberal Government has done nothing to improve the Law. Minister of Education succeeds Minister of Education, years of opportunity roll by, while children still leave school at an age when their education has hardly begun, while compulsory continuation schools still wait to be started, while great--not to say vast--endowments are absorbed in the objects of the wealthier classes, while the provision for the equipment of teachers is unsatisfactory.

The equipment of the teachers is confessedly the most important item in any programme of education, as it is upon the teacher rather than upon the building or the curriculum that the real progress of education depends. That equipment, as far as elementary schools are concerned, is now given in training colleges, and especially in residential colleges. Young men and women, that is to say, who have been through a secondary school, and also shown some aptitude for teaching, receive, largely at Government expense, two years’ instruction and training in colleges which are managed either by religious denominations or by local educational authorities. In the colleges the staff is mostly occupied in giving the knowledge which forms part of a general education, and very little time is spent in training or in the study of problems of the child life.

TRAINING COLLEGES.

The system is unsatisfactory on many grounds. (1) The rivalry between denominational and undenominational colleges stirs the keenest partisanship. When in his annual statement Mr. Runciman began to talk about the number of students in the different colleges he had, he said with some irony, “to drop the subject, knowing how far the religious controversy is likely to interest this House”. (2) The system is most costly, and every year, including building grants, an amount of something like half a million of money is paid for the training--or, to speak more accurately, for the ordinary education of young men and women who may feel no call for teaching and cannot be really bound to take it up for their life’s work. (3) It breeds a feeling of indignation among those who do not get employment, and there is now an agitation because the State does not find work for those whom it has selected to receive a special training, and bound, even though it be by an ineffective bond, to follow a particular calling. (4) It brings together a body of students whose outlook to the future is identical, it encourages, therefore, narrow views, and breeds the exclusive professional spirit in a profession whose usefulness depends on its power to assimilate the thought of the time and to sacrifice its interest for wider interests. The training college system as a means of equipping teachers for their work is not satisfactory, and the Archbishop of Canterbury was well justified when he said: “The thing which mattered most in the educational work in England to-day was the question of the training colleges”.

THEIR REFORM OR THEIR ABOLITION.

The reforms suggested generally follow the lines of further expenditure on buildings or on staff, but such expenditure would not remove the objections. The money annually spent is very large--equal to the gross income of Oxford University--and if more were spent there is no very effective way of securing that the best among the teachers so trained would remain in the profession; the men would still take up more remunerative work, and the women would still marry. The rivalry between denominational and undenominational would continue, and the protest of conscientious objectors--religious or secular--as each further expense was proposed would increase difficulties. If the number turned out of the training colleges were larger there would be a more widely spread sense of wrong among the unemployed, who would with difficulty recognize that something else was wanting in a teacher than the certificate of a training college. But most fatal of all to the proposed extension or improvement of the system, is the objection that the more and the stronger the colleges become, the more deeply would the professional spirit be entrenched, and the more powerful would be the influence of the teaching class in asserting its rights.

SUBSTITUTION OF A BETTER WAY OF TRAINING.

The reform might, I submit, follow the line of restriction and proceed towards the ultimate abolition of the residential colleges in their present form. The way is comparatively simple. Let the children from elementary schools be helped--as, indeed, they now are--by scholarships to enter secondary schools, and go on to University colleges, or to the Universities. Equal opportunity for getting the best knowledge would thus be open to children of all classes. Let any over the age of nineteen who have passed through a college connected with some University, or otherwise approved as giving an education of a general and liberal character, be eligible to apply for a teachership, and if, after a period of trial in a school--say for three or six months--they, on the report of the inspector and master, have shown an aptitude for teaching, then let them, at the expense of the State, be given a year’s real training in the theory and practice of teaching. Teachers are, it must be remembered, born and not made. One man or woman who, without any experience, is placed over a class will at once command attention, while another with perhaps greater ability will create confusion.

Those who are not born to it may indeed learn the tricks of discipline, and, like a drill-sergeant, command obedience and keep order. Many of the complaints which are heard about the unintelligence and the want of interest in children who have come from schools where to the visitor’s eye everything seems right are due, I believe, to the fact that the teachers have not been born to the work. They have trusted to the rules they have learnt and not to the gift of power which is in themselves. They teach as the scribes and not with authority. Let, therefore, the men and women who have this power be those whom the State will train; let it give them not, as at present, a few weeks in a practising school, but experience in a variety of schools in town and in country, and under masters with different systems; let them be made familiar with the last thoughts on child life, and with all the many different theories of education. The State will in this way draw from all classes in the community the men and the women best fitted to teach, and it will give them a training worthy the name. The teachers will have the best equipment for their work.

The advantages of this proposal to get rid of the training colleges as they now are may be summarized: (1) There will be an end of the religious difficulty where at present it is most threatening. The children with scholarships will go to the schools and University colleges they elect just as do the children who are aiming at other careers. The State in the training it provides will have nothing to do with the special training required for giving religious knowledge--as such training would naturally be given by the different denominations at their own expense. (2) The half million of money annually spent on training colleges would not be required for the training now proposed. It cannot, however, be said that the money would be returned to the taxpayers; education--if the nation is to be saved--must become more and more costly, but it may be said that the greater part of this sum and the existing buildings would be used for the general education of persons taken from all classes of the community and preparing to walk in all sorts of careers.

(3) There would be no body of men and women with the grievance that, having been selected at an early age, trained as teachers, and bound to a profession, no work was provided. Every one would have had the best sort of education for any career, and only one year, after a fair time for choice and probation, would have been given to special training. (4) The danger of professionalism would be lessened. Men and women educated in schools and colleges alongside of other students with other aims, would, by their association, gain a wider outlook on life, and would be freed from the influences which tend now to force them into an organization for the defence of their rights. If afterwards they did join such organizations they would do so with a wider consciousness of their relation to a body larger than their own, and to a knowledge greater than they themselves had acquired.

A substantial number of young persons do even under present conditions spend their three years with the Government scholarship at Universities or University colleges, and the experience thus gained illustrates the advantage to intending students of mixing with persons intended for other careers.

Here, then, I submit, is a way of reform in what is confessedly the most important part of our system of education. It might be undertaken at no extra expense, and with small dislocation of existing institutions. The one thing necessary is zeal for education among our political leaders. The best students of the social problem tell us the remedy for the unrest is education, and anyone considering the signs of the times in England will say also that there must be more education if employers and employed, if statesmen and people, if the pulpit and the pew are to understand one another. The chief Minister in any Government, the Minister on whose zeal and ability all the others depend for the ultimate success of their work, is the Minister of Education. If he is zealous he will find a way of equipping the teachers.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY AND THE WORKING PEOPLE.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

FIRST ARTICLE.

February, 1909.

[1] From “The Westminster Gazette”. By permission of the Editor.

Oxford last year invited seven working men to act with seven members of the University on a Committee appointed to consider what the University can do for the education of working people. The step is notable--Oxford and Cambridge have long done something to make it possible for the sons of workmen, by means of scholarships, to enter the colleges, to take degrees, and, as members of the University, to climb to a place among the professional classes. Oxford, in appointing this Committee, has taken a new departure, and aimed to put its resources at the disposal of people who continue to be members of the working classes.

The report of the Committee, of which the Dean of Christ Church was Chairman, and Mr. Shackleton, M. P., Vice-Chairman, forms a most interesting pamphlet, which may be obtained for a shilling from any bookseller or the Clarendon Press. It tells of the purpose, the history, and the endowments of the University, and it also gathers together evidence of the demand which is being raised by working people for something more than education in “bread and butter” subjects. This evidence is summed up in the following report:--

The ideal expressed in John Milton’s definition of education, “that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the duties of all offices,” is one which is, we think, very deeply embedded in the minds of the working classes, and we attribute part of the failure of higher education among them in the past, to the feeling that, by means of it their ablest members were being removed to spheres where they would not be available for the service of their fellows. What they desire is not that men should escape from their class, but that they should remain in it and raise the whole level. The eleven millions who weave our clothes, build our houses, and carry us safely on our journeys demand university education in order that they may face with wisdom the unsolved problems of their present position, not in order that they may escape to another.... To-day in their strivings for a fuller life, they ask that men of their own class should co-operate as students with Oxford in order that, with minds enlarged by impartial study, they in their turn may become the public teachers and leaders, the philosophers and economists of the working classes. The movement, which is thus formulated in a report signed by seven representative workmen, is fraught with incalculable possibilities.

The sum of happiness in the nation might be vastly increased, and politics might be guided by more persistent wisdom. The great sources of happiness which rise within the mind and are nourished by contact with other minds are largely out of reach of the majority of the people. These sources might be brought within their reach. The working classes whose minds are strengthened by the discipline of work, might have the knowledge which would interest them in the things their hands make; they might, in the long monotonies of toil, be illuminated by the thoughts of the great, and inspired by ideals; they might be introduced to the secrets of beauty, and taught the joy of admiration. They might be released from the isolation of ignorance, so that, speaking a common language, and sharing common thoughts, they would have the pleasure of helping and being helped in discussions with members of other classes on all things under the sun.

The workman knows about livelihood; he might know also about life, if the great avenues of art, literature, and history, down which come the thoughts and ideals of ages, were open to him. He might be happy in reading, in thinking, or in admiring, and not be driven to find happiness in the excitement of sport or drink. The mass of the people it is often said are dumb, so that they cannot tell their thoughts; deaf, so that they cannot understand the language of modern truth; and blind, so that they cannot see the beauty of the world.

The speaker, in Mr. Lowes Dickenson’s dialogue, condemns this generation when he says, “their idea of being better off is to eat and drink to excess, to dress absurdly, and to play stupidly and cruelly”.

The majority of the people, it must be admitted, cannot have the best sort of happiness, that which comes from within themselves, from the exercise of their own thoughts, and from the use of their own faculties. For want of knowledge the sum of happiness is decreased, and for want of the same knowledge the dangers of war and social troubles are increased. The working people have now become the governing class in the nation. Up to now, the acting governors--the majority which controls the Government--have cajoled them by party cries, by appeals to passion, and by the familiar blandishments of expert canvassers, to fall in with their policy. But every year working people are forming their own opinions, and making their opinions felt, both in home and foreign policy. They will break in upon the international equilibrium, so delicately poised amid passions and prejudices; they will decide the use of the Dreadnoughts and the armies of the world; they will settle questions of property and of tariff; they will form the authority which will have to control individual action for the good of the whole. How can they possibly carry this responsibility if they have no wider outlook on life, no greater knowledge of men, no more power of foresight, no more respect for tradition than that which they already possess?

How shortsighted is the policy which spends millions on armaments, and leaves them to become destructive in ignorant hands. How important for national security is a knowledge “in widest commonalty spread”. Oxford, to a large extent, possesses this knowledge and the means of its distribution.

“The national Universities, which are the national fountainheads of national culture,” as one workman has said, have been regarded as the legitimate preserves of the leisured class. They have helped the rich to enjoy and defend their possessions, they have given them out of their resources the power to see and to reason; they have made them wise in their own interests; they have given to one class, and to the recruits who have been drawn to that class from the ranks of the workman, the knowledge in which is happiness and power. The question arises, should Oxford, can Oxford, give the same gifts to working people while they remain working people? The answer of the report is an unequivocal “Yes”.

In the first place the University has inherited the duty of educating the poor. Its colleges have in many cases been founded for poor scholars, and its tradition is that poverty shall be no bar to learning.

In the next place its long-established custom, of bringing men into association in pursuit of knowledge, is one which peculiarly fits it to help workmen, whose strength lies in that power of association which has covered some districts of England with a network of institutions--industrial, social, political, and religious. Men who have joined in the discussions of the workshop, been members of the committee of a co-operative store, and acted as officials of a friendly society, have had in some ways a better preparation for absorbing the teaching of the University on life, than is given in the forms and playing field of a public school. The tutor of a class of thirty-nine working people at N---- who read with him, the regular session through, a course of Economic History, reports that the work was excellent, and a visitor from Oxford was impressed “by the high level of the discussion and the remarkable acumen displayed in asking questions”.

In the last place, the University has the money. The total net receipts of the Universities and colleges--apart from a sum of £178,000 collected from the members of the Universities and colleges--is £265,000. Of this sum, £50,000 is given in scholarships and exhibitions to boys who for the most part have been trained in the schools of the richer classes, and of this sum £34,000 is given yearly without reference to the financial means of the recipient. The report does not analyse the expenditure of this large income, except in so far as to suggest that some of the scholarship and fellowship money might be diverted to the more direct service of working people’s education. Common sense, however, suggests that there must be many possible economies in the management of estates, in the overlapping of lecturers, and in the expense on buildings. The experience of the Ecclesiastical Commission has shown how much may be gained if estates are removed from the care of many amateur corporations, and placed under a centralized and efficient management. The knowledge, too, that some colleges have ten times the income of others, without corresponding difference in the educational output, suggests that money may be saved.

Oxford seems to be compelled, both by its traditions, its customs, and its money to do something for the education of the working people. The question whether it can do so, is answered by the scheme which the report recommends; that a committee be formed in Oxford, consisting of working-class representatives, in equal numbers with members of the University; that this Committee should draw up a two years’ curriculum, select the tutors, who must also have work in Oxford, and settle the localities in which classes shall be held; that students at these classes be admitted to the diploma course; that half of the teachers’ salary be paid by the University, and the other half by the Committee of the locality in which the classes are held. The report, with a view to bringing working people under the influence of Oxford itself, further recommends that colleges be asked to set aside a number of scholarships or exhibitions, to enable selected students from the tutorial classes to reside in Oxford, either in Colleges, in University Halls, as non-collegiate students, or at Ruskin Hall.

These recommendations have certain advantages and certain shortcomings, the consideration of which must be deferred to another article.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY AND THE WORKING PEOPLE.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

SECOND ARTICLE.

February, 1909.

[1] From “The Westminster Gazette”. By permission of the Editor.

The points in the scheme which Oxford proposes to adopt for bringing its resources to the services of working people are: The appointment of representative workmen on the Committee responsible for the object. The offer of a working University tutor to a locality where a class of thirty workpeople has been formed, willing to adopt one of the two years’ courses which the committee has approved. The recognition of the students of these classes as eligible for a diploma in Economics, Political Science, etc. The open door, so that students selected from the classes may be able to enter and to reside in the University.

Two questions arise: Will the scheme attract workmen? Will it get the sympathetic, if not the enthusiastic, support of the University?

1. Will it attract workmen? Workmen, apart from the demand that they, as a class, should share in the joy and the power of knowledge, have learnt that they must have educated men of their own class to direct their own organizations. There are 1,153 trade unions, 389 friendly societies, 2,646 co-operative societies, and many other councils or congresses, most of which employ paid officers who are daily discharging duties of the utmost responsibility and delicacy, and which make demands on their judgment of men and knowledge of economic and political principles, as great or greater than those made on the Civil servant in India or in this country. Workmen want officials who, familiar with their point of view, will have the knowledge and experience to convince educated opponents of the justice of their contentions. The education which Oxford can give by broadening a man’s knowledge and strengthening his judgment, would make him a more efficient servant of his own society, and a more potent influence on the side of industrial peace.

Will workmen accept the offer which Oxford makes? Much shyness and prejudice have to be overcome. Oxford is often associated with opinions foreign to the democratic ideal. The manners of University men sometimes suggest that they are superior persons, and a reputation for expensive trifling is widely spread. Workmen are afraid that their young men in the University atmosphere may be alienated from their class, grow ashamed of their belongings, and put on artificial manners. They doubt whether the teaching may not be of a kind directed in the interest of property, and they fear lest there may be too many temptations to idleness and to play. They do not want, as one Labour leader has said, “good democratic stuff spoiled by Oxford lecturers, who may give our people a shoddy notion of respectability, and a superficial idea of things which can be shown by the airs and graces of book learning”.

Oxford is thus suspect; but, on the other hand, the place has immense attraction, as is proved by the fact that so many Trade Unions send their men to study at Ruskin College.

“What,” it was asked of one of their students, “do you get here you could not have got in a college in your own town?”

“I get Oxford,” was his reply; and it is evident in much talk that, even when Oxford is “suspect,” it has a great hold on the workman’s mind. There may be shyness, but it is only shyness that may be overcome by trust.

The place of workmen, therefore, on the University committees must be an assured place, and not one allowed as a favour or on sufferance. Their voices must be heard as to the subjects to be taught, and as to the teachers who are chosen; they must be able to make their influence felt in the University, which, as it is national, is their University. The local centres where classes are given must, in the same way, be locally controlled and independent of University control. The committees of these centres must have full choice of the place and time of their meetings, select from the list the courses of study to be followed, and approve the tutor. They must, indeed, have the same character as club or co-operative classes, while, through the Oxford tutor, the course of studies and the examination, light is let in from the University. The life must be in the local centres, but it must draw its air from Oxford.

The problem as to the admission of working people to residence is more difficult. The proposal is that, by means of scholarships, they should be enabled to live in colleges or in halls, or as non-collegiate students. The difficulty would be got over if enough students could come to be a support to one another. There must always be a fear lest, if they be few in number, they may either lose their independence or else go to the extreme of protest. The University can, however, get over this difficulty by providing sufficient money to bring up a sufficient number of men, who will strengthen one another and influence the corporate life of the place. The question whether students should reside in colleges, in halls, or in lodgings may be left to solve itself. If they are to reside in colleges, the present system of erecting new buildings, with suites of expensive rooms, might well be checked. Simpler buildings, adapted to the needs of workmen students, would save money, bring together types of men in one community, and not detract from the beauty of the city.

The schemes will, I believe, attract workmen if the University takes pain to subordinate itself, and trusts to truth rather than to power. Workmen, if once their suspicion--justified, it must be allowed--be allayed, will find that there is in Oxford more sympathy with their point of view than can possibly be found in any other English community. Oxford men have, as a rule, open minds, and many of their younger Fellows are close and devoted students of social questions. Many working men have already experienced what Mr. Crooks experienced when, at a meeting in a college hall, having hurled some stinging sentences at the superiority which University men assumed, his remarks were received, “not with boot-jacks, but with cheers” Friendships between working men and members of the University are soon formed--both are used to living in associations, both have a love of free discussion, both, to a larger extent than other Englishmen, are believers in equality. The scheme, if the University wishes it, will attract workmen.

2. The other question is, Will the scheme win the support of the University? A statute has already been passed appointing a committee consisting of working-class representatives, and it has been agreed that tutorial-class students may be admitted to the diploma course. The University can hardly do more. It cannot alter its constitution, which to a large extent leaves the government in the hands of college nominees, with an ultimate appeal to members of the University, scattered throughout the country. Its total income is only £24,000 a year, and it has no power to enforce adequate contributions from the colleges, although their total income from endowments is £265,000 a year. The University itself, unless it be reformed by Act of Parliament, or unless the colleges voluntarily endow it with the power and the means, can do very little to carry out the scheme.

Will the Colleges act in the matter? Will they pass over to the control of the University a fair portion of the money they now spend either on scholarships and fellowships confined to boys from a few schools, or on the maintenance of choirs and tutors, or on new buildings? It is not enough that one or two colleges make a grant to support some workmen’s centre. Workmen will resent the patronage of a college. The money must be transferred to the University, the tutors must have a University standing, and the scholarships, which enable men to reside in Oxford, must be both ample and numerous. The University has, so far as it can, acted on the recommendation of the report. Will the Colleges rise to the opportunity, and enable Oxford to give the people the knowledge they need, for the satisfaction of their own lives and the security of the nation?

The Colleges as yet have given little sign of a will to do anything but strengthen their own independence, and make provision for students prepared in the public schools. In one or two instances, fellowships have been given to men who have become lecturers under the University Extension Scheme, but the example has not been followed.

For many years pupil teachers from the elementary schools have come to Oxford for their training; one or two colleges have given scholarships; but again the example has not spread, and the inspector has had to complain of the scant provision which has been made for the men’s advantage.

A plan was once initiated by which parties of teachers and others were accommodated in colleges during the long vacation, and tasted some of the advantages of Oxford life and teaching. The plan worked excellently; it removed the reproach that for six months in the year the greatest educational capital of the nation is allowed to lie idle. But there was little enthusiasm; the energy of the few residents who were responsible was, after a few years, worn out, if not by opposition, by apathy.

The colleges have as yet shown little power of adapting themselves to the education of the new governing class. It may be that they will be roused by this report, and that something adequate may be done.

The point I would urge is that the something be adequate--a few classes scattered about the country, a few men admitted to Oxford, will court a failure, and justify condemnation of the attempt.

The colleges have their opportunity, but beyond the colleges is my friend Bishop Gore, now Bishop of Oxford, with his demand for a Commission, and beyond the Bishop is the rising power of labour, with its tendency, if it be not checked by University influence, to use all national endowments for material rather than spiritual ends.

The Bishop’s case for a commission is broadly based on the impossibility of working the present constitution of the University for its efficient government; on the mischievous waste which spends the resources of fine minds and unique surroundings on boys, many of whom are capable of doing little more than play; on the folly of subsidizing with scholarships and fellowships one set of schools, and one or two types of knowledge; on the expensive habits which the system fostered. The case was not answered, and cannot be answered. The report of the committee is the first response to its call, and, as the Bishop said in a speech at Toynbee Hall, it has given him a hope for which he has long waited.

The next response ought to be an appeal from the University itself for a Commission which will enable it to order the resources of Oxford as a whole, and apply its powers so as to carry out fully the recommendations of the report.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

JUSTICE TO YOUNG WORKERS.

BY CANON BARNETT.

8 November, 1909.

Thirty years ago the “bitter cry” of the poor disturbed the public mind. Housing has since been improved. Technical teaching has since been established. The expenditure on the Poor Law has been greatly increased. General Booth has raised the money for his social scheme. Philanthropy has redoubled its efforts, and taken new forms. But still the “bitter cry” is raised. The number of the unemployed is greater than ever. There is more vagrancy, which the Prison Commissioners complain is adding to the inmates of the prisons, and the amount spent on poor relief goes up by leaps and bounds. Royal Commissions, Departmental Committees, philanthropic conferences, scientific professors have been facing the problem which every year becomes more threatening to the national welfare. Their recommendations are many. The striking fact is that in one recommendation they all concur. The one thing which they agree to be necessary is further training for young people between the ages of thirteen and seventeen.

The report of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education, lately published, gives the final word on the subject. The reports begin by showing that out of the 2,000,000 children in England and Wales who have passed their fourteenth birthday, and are still under seventeen years of age, only one in four receives on week-days any continued education. “The result is a tragic waste of early promise.” The children go out of the elementary schools, which have been built up at immense expense, and before they reach the age of seventeen, when the technical schools may be entered, many have acquired desultory habits, and lost the power of study. Released from school, they become idle and lawless, or they enter “blind alley” employments, and for the sake of high immediate wages, miss the chance of ultimate responsible employment. The Committee agree with the Poor Law Commissioners, “that the results of the large employment of boys in occupations which offer no opportunity of employment as men are disastrous,” and go on to quote the Minority Report: “The nation cannot long persist in ignoring the fact that the unemployed, and particularly the under-employed, are thus being daily created under our eyes out of bright young things, for whose training we make no provision”.

The Committee having brought out this extravagant waste of money and effort and young life, sets itself to consider a remedy. It suggests improvements in the day schools by giving a larger place in the curriculum to subjects which train the hand and eye, and develop the constructive powers. It further suggests that steps should be taken to prolong the school life of children, and it will be a surprise to many readers that under the age of thirteen years 5,300 every year pass out of school, and that the extension of the age to fourteen would involve the addition of 150,000 children to the registers. These numbers do not include the scholars now partially exempted from school attendance by the wisdom or unwisdom of managers, who may be estimated as numbering some 48,000 children, between thirteen and fourteen years of age. The Committee add their opinion that the law which permits half-time in the textile districts should be materially changed, and it goes on to recommend that “no children under sixteen should be allowed to leave the day school unless they could show to the satisfaction of the local education authority that they were going to be suitably occupied, and that such exemptions should only continue so long as they remained in suitable employment”.

This recommendation follows on evidence of how large a proportion of boys and girls enter forms of employment “which discourage the habit of steady work, lessen the power of mental concentration, and are economically injurious to the community, and deteriorating in their effect on individual character”. Employment or apprenticeship Committees have been formed, whose members spare no pains in advising the older scholars, and the parents of such scholars, in the choice of an occupation. They have done enough to show how much more might be done could the advice be driven home with more system and authority. If the recommendation were made the law, no child under sixteen would be allowed to enter upon industrial life without sufficient guidance, both as to the choice of a place, and as to continued education.

“Continued education,” whatever be the improvements in the day school or the laudation of exemption from attendance, comes thus to be regarded as the one thing necessary. “It is clear to the Committee that the lack of continued educational care during the years of adolescence is one of the deeper causes of national unemployment.”

Continuation schools have greatly developed during late years. They are more frequent, they offer teaching which is more attractive and more adapted to the social needs of the neighbourhoods in which they have been opened. Educational authorities and private organizations have taken pains to commend the schools and make them known. Employers have in some cases required attendance at continuation schools as a condition of employment, and in other cases have encouraged attendance by giving off-time, by payment of fees, and by the offer of prizes. Workpeople have taken pleasure in visiting the schools, and when they are represented on the management, get rid of some suspicions, often to become enthusiastic supporters.

Continuation schools may thus be said to have passed the period of experiment, and it is now recognized that the curriculum should neither be that of the old night-school, nor of the modern recreation evening. It should aim rather at providing a good general education, to equip men and women for intelligent citizenship, as well as to supply workers with technical knowledge, and with that adaptability which is one of the most valuable possessions of workpeople under modern conditions. It cannot too often be repeated that the aim of education is not to make machines, but to make men and women. People who know how to think and to reason, who have capacities for enjoyment which do not need the stimulus of excitement, will be more valuable citizens, and when they lose one form of work, will more readily take to another.

The right sort of continuation school is now known. Such schools increase yearly in number, and the attendances also increase, but the Committee has been led to the conclusion that voluntary methods alone will not solve the problem. There must be recourse to compulsory powers. In many districts the authorities are apathetic, in other districts voluntary methods are powerless against the ignorance and indifference of the people. The majority of employers, moreover, are indifferent, failing to recognize that closer care for the educational interest of their young employés would enhance their own profit, and the pupils are often too tired to attend any school. The law at present says, “Children are compelled to attend school till the age of thirteen,” it therefore creates the impression that at the age of thirteen the obligation ceases. The law alone can remove this impression, and it must in the future say: “Young people are compelled to attend continuation schools till the age of seventeen”.

The Committee, in coming to the conclusion that a compulsory system is necessary, has been confirmed in the conclusion by the elaborate organization of day and evening schools (continuation) in Germany and Switzerland, and by the movement in France for the extension of educational opportunities during the years following the conclusion of the day-school course. The Committee has also discovered signs of the growth of opinion in England in favour of such a course, and this Government has already adopted it in the Scotch Act of 1908. Out of eighty-nine witnesses examined on this question sixty declared themselves in favour of this compulsion, and of the twenty-nine who objected, many modified their objections. The Committee felt themselves justified in recommending that the example of the Scotch Act be followed, and that every local education authority should be required to establish suitable continuation classes, and that attendance should be made compulsory for all young persons under seventeen, when the local education authority make by-laws to that effect.

The obligation for the satisfactory working of the compulsion would be thrown primarily on the employer. Every employer would be bound to supply the officer of the education authority with the names of young people in his employ; to arrange the hours of work so as to make it possible for them to attend classes on certain days or nights without causing the overstrain of their bodies; it would be his duty to inspect the attendance cards of pupils at the classes; and he would be forbidden under penalties to keep in his employment anyone not in regular attendance.

The local authority would be called on to draw up its by-laws with due regard to the character of the employment in various districts, so as to cause as little inconvenience as possible to trade, and avoid any physical overstrain to pupils. All street selling by boys and girls under seventeen would be prohibited, except in the case of those who were formerly licensed, and this licence would be forfeited unless the holders’ attendance card proved the necessary attendance at the continuation school.

The Committee make special suggestions as to girls in urban districts, and generally as regards rural districts. Various needs demand various provisions. The point, however, which stands out most clearly is that after all needs have been weighed, and after all objections have been considered, a system of compulsory continuation classes is recommended both in the interests of the young people, who, for want of such classes, miss the fruit of their education, and in the interest of the community, who have to bear the burden of the unemployed.

Germany and Switzerland have established compulsory continuation schools; Scotland has now followed their example. The Consultative Committee has now shown that England is ready, and has suggested a practicable scheme. Will the men and women whose hearts are torn, and whose national pride is wounded by the sight of so many workers unable to earn a living wage, and whose reason tells them that their unemployed are often incompetent, because their training stopped and licence began at thirteen years of age, and whose minds have now been informed by figures that it is for want of care during the most critical period of their lives that loafers and vagrants are made--will the men and women who thus feel and know make the Government understand that this one thing it is necessary shall be taken in hand without further delay?

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

A RACE BETWEEN EDUCATION AND RUIN.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

March, 1912.

[1] From “The Westminster Gazette”. By permission of the Editor.