A PIONEER ON EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 146, 21 June 1924, Page 17

A PIONEER ON EDUCATION

"The Story of a Great Schoolmaster." Being a plain account of the life and ideas of Sanderson of Oundlei By H. G. Wells. London: Chattb and Windus. •'. ;■<:■"■■ '

Who was Sanderson of Oundle? How many New Zealander3 could give an answer oShand? This little biography by H. G. "Wells will explain! "Of all the men I have met," he says at the outset, "one only has stirred me to a biographical effort. This one exception is Is" •W. Sanderson, for many years the headmaster of Oundle School. I think him b6yond question the greatest man I have ever known with any degree of intimacy. .." And Wells tells the story of a man who, out of a small country grammar school "created something more suggestive of" those great modern teaching centres of which our world stands in need than anything else that ■-has been yet attempted. By all ordinary ; standards the Ondle School of his later years was a brilliant success. . . but successful as it was, it was mo more ; than, a sketch and demonstration of the great\schools that are yet to be. I saw my own sons get an education there better than I had dared to hope for in England. . . All the educational possibilities that I had hitherto felt to be unattainable dreams. . . I found being -pushed far towards realisation by this • bold, ■ persistent, humorous, and most ■ capable man. ..."

Sanderson was born and brought up .outskle the British, public school system that he was to affect so widely. He was educated at a parish school in Durham' and eventually woii his way by scholarI ships to the universities, first Durham 'ana then Cambridge, where he worked . for the Natural Science Tripos. Then ? he went to Dulwich as senior physics , master. From Dulwich, at the age of j thirty-five he was appointed to the headjnastership of Oundle, one of the old ■English grammar schools,' deriving its .main; revenues from the Grocers' Com\panyof ; the City of London. How Sans derson raised,, an obscnre second-rate ; grammar school with an attendance of ; under a hundred to be one of the great i English public schools, and certainly one ;that was quite unique, is told by Mr. ; Wells in a most interesting account. San- ; derson took over the school in 1892. At the time of his' sudden death by heart t failure during a lecture in London on ithe new education, in the summer of 1922, the attendance was over 600, With a waiting' list five- years ahead. ' So much for the practical success of his : methods, which may best bedescribed in Jiis own language as explaining the basic 'ideas that conditioned them.

. Co-operation, not competition, was the » soul of Sanderson's faith. The school, :• he said, should be no longer an arena jbut a guild. The idea of a guild was a • community of co-workers and no - com- ' petition. . , I'Boys,. we-- believe, ' set forth to do their work as well as they j possibly can—Jbut not to beat one anl 0ther...... .1 dwell upon these things v because we hope that all boys will become workers at last, with interest and s&eal, in some part of the field of creation and, inquiry, which is the true life ,of the world. It is. fronT'such workers. ; investigators, searchers, the soul of the f nation is drawn. We will first of all the life of the school, then the 'boys, grown into men . . will transform the life of tie nation and of the j ■whole world."

,■ In one of a series of addresses dehV .ered after the war, he said:—"Com- < petition holds sway to-day in industrial life with disastrous -results. . . Everyone feels that competition destroys the i creative, inventive life—and this is tie ,;seat of unrest. And yet the spirit of i competition holds sw3y, not in commerce only or diplomacy, but in tie schools. Our public schools are professedly .-schools for training a dominant class; the ; aims, the educational methods, the school subjects, and their relative values, the .'books read, the life led-^re all based on this spirit.' The methods are■largeily competitive, possessive. .. .

■' "The change which I■ am advocating •will demand a new organisation and will call for a new. type of school .buildings/ 'arid new values of subjects. The new- ' comer Science, and with it organised industry, which springs out of it, must take a prominent and inspiriting place ;in school,"and in every part of school work. It is not sufficient to say that science should be taught in schools. ' . We claim that scientific thought should be the inspiration of school: life. . ." The great schoolmaster then describes .the new type of school buildings re-quired-—"large spacious workrooms. Class rooms are places where boys go to be taught. 'They are tool-sharpening rooms—necessary but subsidiary. For research and co-operative work, the larger halls are needed. Spacious engineering and woodworking shops; wellsupplied with all kinds'of machine tools,. a smithy, a foundry, a carpenter's shop,a drawing office—-all carried on for manufacturing purposes. . ."

The; same principles, are applied to research/ in.history,. geography, and literature; and to natural science in regard to an experimental farm, a botanical garden, and a biological laboratory.

The,1 ideas are summarised as follow: "Creativeness, the co-operative spirit and method, the vision, the experimental method of searching for the truth, form the unique gift Science and Industry have to give 'the New Education.' "

It would be possible to go on quoting passage _ after passage showing the Sanderson ideal. . The point is to remember that this man was no mere theorist; he had actually carried into brilliant practice most of the ideas he sets forth in his final addresses before Ills death Says Wells:— . , - . ■

"In matters educational he was before all things a practical artist and education is altogether too much the • prey of theories. He filled me, a mere writer, with envious admiration when I saw how he could control and shape things to Ids will; how he could experiment and learn find Low he could use his boys, his governors, his staff to try out and shape hi 3 creative dreams. He left much of his work in a state so incomplete that I cannot see how his sneeessors can carry it on. Now that he is gone, I do not know where to turn to do an effective stroke for education. It is only schoolmasters and schoolmistresses and educational authorities and school governors. and1 university teachers who can really carry on the work that he began: with }>'■? fundamental ideas of the supersession of competition by co-operation, and of the return of the schools to real service."

For this reason, apart from its general interest to the thinking public, this biography'of a great schoolmaster can be specially recommended to all engaged

in the work of our schools. It opens up new vistas for the teacher.