A Practical Experiment in Fraternity—Duke's Successful Camping Scheme.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 44, 22 February 1927, Page 4

A Practical Experiment in Fraternity—Duke's Successful Camping Scheme.

(By E. B. CUMMING.)

i he Duk<> of York's camps were conceived wiih [he deliberate purpose of serving as an ancillary to the work of the Industrial Welfare Society and they are admirably designed to serve that purpose. They are animated by the same spirit and they minister to the same end —the establishment of a better understanding between members of different classes of society. The scheme, which owes much to the encouragement and the financial support of the Duke of York has now been in operation for six years, and the success which has attended it justifies belief in its permanency and hope of its extension. It 33 founded on the theory that while the "brotherhood of man" may be an ideal which can only be attained partially, the brotherhood of youth is a reality which requires nothing more than an opportunity for its manifestation. Some four hundred lads selected, two each from about a. hundred of the leading public schools, and two rach from a similar number of typical industrial establishments, are assembled annually to spend their holiday together under canvas, and to forget for the time being, as they immediately do, that they are drawn from different classes, have had different unbringing, and are likely to have different careers in after life. It is precisely the sort of seneme which the practical man would dismiss as excellent in theory, but bound to be a failure when brought to the test of everyday life and human character. The youth from Eton or Harrow, Winchester or Westminster, the sceptics predicted, would never "mix" with the factory lad from Lancashire or East London, and if they did it would be in a spirit of patronage on the one side and suspicion on the other. No estimate could have proved more thoroughly mistaken. Experience has shown that once the first coolness incidental to all meetings of Englishmen of whatever age or class has passed over, a spirit of boisterous fraternity pervades the camps. The lads judge each, other by what they are and not by what they have been. Clothing worn in camp is so scanty—consisting mainly of "shorts" and a cricket shirt—that it affords no scope for distinction. The difference of speech between, say Eton and Bethnal Green is not greater than between Yorkshire and Devonshire, and after the first day or two the casual visitor would have difficulty in guessing the origin of the camp inhabitants. For purposes of administration and competition they are organised into sections, each with their own leaders, chosen for their abilities as such and not for their social standing or educational attainments. Thus the camps, which have already established a tradition of their own, have a happy blending of rivalry and comradeship. Their tone is something between that of a public school and a military battalion. Just as the school boy is convinced that his own "house" is the best in the school and the soldier that his "company" is the finest in the regiment, so the inhabitant of the Duke of York's camp is jealous for the reputation of his section in cricket, swimming, tug-of-war and the improvised sports "which campers invent. It would be foolish to pretend that all this has been a purely natural growth. It has been skilfully and tactfully encouraged by Mr. R. R. Ityde, the secretary of the Industrial Welfare Society, by Capt. Paterson (formerly of the Gordon Highlanders), the camp commandant, and the other enthusiasts, who year by year, give their services as permanent staff. But their art has been of the skilful sort which conceals itself. Their part in the business has been as little obtruded on the boys as it has been on the general public. They supply the initial stimulus and leave the rest to the boys themselves. So far as possible they are selfdisciplined and self-governed, and the public opinion which rapidly develops within the camp is sufficient for the purpose. Any attempt at snobbishness or boorishness. perishes in an hour in the atmosphere of comradeship. Under Canvas. In his bachelor days the Duße of York generally contrived to spend a few days under canvas with his boys, and if there was any embarrassment it was on his side rather than on theirs. Even now, if he is in this country, he makes a point of going to see them. His visit entails no change in the free-and-easy tone of the place. The camp for 1926 was held near Romney, on the Sussex Coast, an excellent site, providing excellent bathing and abundance of elbow-room. There is no difficulty in finding occupants; the problem is to make a selection from the candidates, so as to keep the enterprise within manageable dimensions to preserve a numerical balance between the public school and the industrial sections, and to ensure' that the boys selected are territorially as representative as possible. But once that choice is made all further distinctions cease. "Liberty, equality and fraternity," in the beat sense of these words, prevail. "The Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady, are sisters under their skins." Mr. Kipling declared, and it is equally true that British lads, from whatever class selected, have more points of resemblance than of difference. Sir Philip Gibbs, the famous war correspondent, who spent a day at the Romney camp this year, found himself in thought "back again with those lads who went out on a great adventure which led to the Cenotaph." These boys had the same spirit, the same sense of humour. Just as their elder brothers, perhaps even the fathers of some of them, called their dug-outs by fancy names and hung up amusing sign-boards outside their billets, so these boys of a younger generation had applied the same sense of humour to their camp. There was a notice to beware of the unlevel crossing. There were three ripe melons hanging as a pawnbrokers' sign over the Bursar's office. There were ribald notices, conveying camp jokes outside the huts. . . Here in the Duke of York's camp was the same stuff of youth, the same Cockney humour, the same sturdy character of Scotland and the North, the same spirit of comradeship and laughter in the ranks. It is not surprising to learn Sir Philip's view that "there ought to be hundreds of such camps, with the same idea and the same spirit. It would establish a League of Youth throughout the land to break down the barriers of caste, suspicion, and social misunderstandings by comradeship and sympathy, and a sense of humour." Even on its present limited scale the experiment has done a great work. No boy who has spent a holiday in one of these camps is ever likely to lend himself in after life to the crude animosities which it is the aim of certain agitators to create between class and class. The mingling on equal terms, the sharing of the menial duties incidental to camp life, the ruthless but friendly rivalry of sport, the rough practical jokes, the boisterous humour of youth and the common participation in the joys and discomforts of an open-air life must be worth manv volumes of sermons on brotherhood. The friendships formed in these camps have not all terminated when the tents were struck. Boys have taken back* with them to school or University happy memories of the hours they spent with their contemporaries from factory and workshop. Working lads have retained kindly thoughts of the youths they met from the great public schools. The son of the Artisan with his earlier contact with practical life Mid the more favoured youth whose formal education is continued till he reaches man's estate have fcwji something to teach the other, and there could echooljo£ both than these annual

camps which owe so much of their success to the Duke of York. In several cases they have had an interesting sequel: groups of public school boys have gone to spend a week in a mining village with the chums they met in camp, and working lads have been invited to country-houses to sample life there. It would be foolish to exaggerate the value of such meetings, but still more foolish to under-rate it.