SCHOOLS AND PROGRESS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19970, 3 July 1930, Page 14

SCHOOLS AND PROGRESS.

* RELATION TO SOCIETY. ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR SHELLEY. "The advantages of the open-air school are fairly well known," said Professor J. Shelley at the meeting of the Open-Air Schools ]<eague last evening, "but I want to look at the subject more fundamentally. Wo must realise tho movement as ono which is in line, not only with the educational policy of the world at present, but also with tho changing conditions of modern life. It is necessary to show that because people are advocates of this ideal they are not thereforo losing eight of tho deeper. significance of school life.

"The open-air school not only looks after the body, but also benefits the mirid. It develops the open-air attitude, both to the body and to tho mind, the type of mind which is not shut within four Avails. . "There was a time some centuries ago, when the child's education was carried on quite effectively within the home, but the family then, - together with its circle of dependents, was a large group. The whole of life went on round the children; they saw all tho various work going' on, . and realised the need of it. Under such hdme community conditions the child learned bow to fit into the scheme of social existence, and knew that he was part of something for which with others he was socially responsible Our social depends on the development of this sense, and the world cannot be held together by a little cohesion at the centre, by gigantic conferences, but depends on the individual Tom. Dick, and Harry. 'Factories Cause Change. "With the advent of centralised potver and the factories, during the last century the people who formerly , more or less provided, for themselves, as a complete social unit, gathered round the factories. The parents were dragged in first, then tho children. Later people awakened to the fact that the factory was no place for the children. But they could not bo. left at, home while the; parents worked, so a new social centre has developed, a child social centre. -But here there is a new difficulty: as a member of tho home group the child had his job to do with others - at the factory he had his contribution to make, and in .both of these there was social education, hut there is none in a child sitting alone at a desk A real social sense cannot be developed unless the child does things with others. "Education must supply wliafc the home life has lost. Tn almost every case the home as a centre of social education no longer exists. If the development of the idea of social cohesion is not derived by the child from tho home, then the school must supply it. We see daily letters of complaint about the lack of the sense of responsibility in the children of to-day, and all sorts of suggestions are made about means of curing this lack of discipline. But the whole trend of civilisation since 1870 been against any, success being achieved by the parents. 'The sense of responsibility cannot be gained by the children from workshop or home,'so it must now. come from the school. The failure of the schools to do it has notbeen the' fault of tho teachers: it has been largely the fault of the tvpe of ichooJg

Child Communities Needed. "Schools must be turned into child communities, where children, liyc,<and ' do not merely Btudy books. In ;sucli communities they would sweat for their education, not merely have it spoonfed to .them. First'of all there is'need of physical conditions where the child can live a full and active life; to do things himself, organise things for liimself and his fellows, and Bee that growth of the organisation in which he lives. Open-air schools are, important because they are the breaking out of the now, spirit,.but sunlight is not the only thing needful. "Wo must see rooms jn which it" is the easiest thing for the children to get out to mother . earth. There, will come a time when instead - of, walls there will be an open space, which is the school, and a, shelter at-one side into which they can go if needful, but only then. The trouble is that we think in terms of buildings, of manas living under shelter, instead" of thinking "of man as a creature who sometimes is forced by circumstances to, leave; the open air to crawl into his hovel.. "The breaking down of the walls of the schoolroom is no mere'health fad, but the first step toward an active attitude toward education."