The Teaching of Patriotism.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15501, 31 January 1916, Page 6

The Teaching of Patriotism.

One Wednesday, a few weeks ago, the House of Lords spent an afternoon discussing a question much less exciting, but not much Jess important, than most of the questions now occupying Parliament's attention. Lord Sydenham asked tho Government whether steps had been taken to ensure that pupils in the national schools over 10 years of age received instruction in the causes of the war, its principal events, the issues at stake, and tho economic conditions which would follow its conclusion. In tho course of tho discussion it appeared that the local education authority, and not the Board of Education, is responsible for the instruction given . in the elementary schools. It is not, as Lord Selborno put it, "tho business of the Minister ' " of' Education to tcach patriotism to "tho children of England," and unfortunately in most case,; the local education authorities, either out of prejudice, or out of fear of other people's mejudices, have been afraid of trenching on politics. Before the war thero j\yas a largo and influential party in Britain who would have opnesc;i tho spreading of the gospel of Imperialism in the schools. To these people patriotism was as much a matter of il conscience" as religion, and as inapprppriate for teaching in public schools. Everyone knows now that the maintenance of an invincible Navy has been the salvation of Britain and her Allies, and it will be admitted that only good could have con\e of the steady drilling of the children of twenty, thirty, and forty years ago in the belief that nothing was so important to the nation as the Fleet. Yet an attempt to inculcato that belief through the schools would have split Britain in two; the Radicals would have resisted it with the utmost fury. The Earl of Meath. who has done so much to establish the celebration of Empire Day, boldly declared that patriotism was a thing that did not come naturally; it was largely a matter of

education ami environment. Of course. as moro than or.e speaker pointed out. it is idle to suggest that the flame of patriotism did not burn brightly in a nation in which millions of men volunteered for berriee in the field, and another vast army for such other service, as they were capable of rendering. It might appear tliat this fact- tells against juiy argument for the specific, teaching of patriotism in the elementary schools, especially when it is remembered, as the Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out, that the middle-aged working men and women of to-day were taught nothing of the story of the nation's life, and had in many eases no very clear knowledge, of the issues at stake in the present war. Certainly most men in any free British country require no teaching to make them eager to fight for their country simply because it is their country. Love of country is as simple and instinctive a passion as love for one's mother or one's child. It was not really mere love of country that was in the minds of !<ord Sydenham and his brother peers. True, 'patriotism means much more than that: it comprises love of God. love of duty, and love of justice. Lord Selborne, who was speaking as tho representative of the Government, lioped that after the war the Board of Education would realise that the inculcation of "sane "patriotism" is a necessary part of true education. "Wo had already, 1 ho said, "passed from the stage when " knowledge was considered to be the " only thing that mattered. He "thought wo all recognised that " knowledge without character was of " little use to a nation. Another " danger of which we had to beware " was the spirit of materialism which "was now embodied in Germany. " Surely tho one thing to teach our "children was that it was not really " the profits or the wages that mat- '• tered, but the sense of responsibility' " and the power of self-sacrifice." A wise programme of instruction of tho kind suggested by Lord Sydenham— which is less ambitious and abstruse than it may appear—would be of great value. The children now growing tip will in a generation direct tho fortunes of the Empire, and the character of that direction. must be largely dependent upon the knowledge, the memories and the convictions that the children carry with them into manhood and womanhood. In Xew Zealand, thanks to the little "School Journal/' there is at hand the means of instructing the children in all the lessons of the war, and no lessons that can be given are moro important than these —the duty of sacrifice, the duty of preparedness, and the existence in the world of evil forces that are a danger to every country, and that can be averted only by courage and vigilance.