FREE PLACES VERSUS "TRADITIONS."

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 15 September 1909, Page 1

FREE PLACES VERSUS "TRADITIONS."

THE SECONDARY SCHOOL IN TRANSITION ( From "The Citizen. - 'J Qor the last) generntiou and a-_alt New Zealand has been busily engaged in half-educating anything that wears t-ousers. Laterly it has been going further and endeavouring to educate completely everything and- everybody. In pursuance of this policy all children of normal intelligence have been- given a legal right to at least £wo yearstuition at a secondary school. The inrush of the ofl-spring of Tom, Dick and Harry into the sacred preserves of the well-to-do has horrified many good people, accustomed to look upon, a college education as the next best- thing .to a patent of nobility. ' Without fts exclusiveness the value of a college course from a social point of view immediately vanishes. The English public school spirit is an admirable thing— within its limitations — and if you 'would get to the core of what it means, and what it stands . for in English life, you canot do bett.r than read Mr H. A. Vac-hell's admirable 1 • story of Harrow— The Hill. The .boob is pervaded from cover to cover.with , all that is best in the ■ great public, schools. Here is an extract that goes ' into the heart of the matter : — A HOUSE AT HARROW. "Some men may think. mine _ small ambition. Master- of a house at Har-. row? Nothing big about that. . Perhaps not. . But I think it, big. . -.- I'd isooner be master of tie Manor tKah Prime Minister. . . . Twenty years ago. I sat here in hall, my- last night in the old house, and I .hoped that- one 'day I might come back. Why? This is be-, tween ourselves, a confidence. I came to the Manor from- a- beastly , school, =uch schools are hardly to be found nowadays — a hardened young sinner at 13.The Manor licked me into shape. Speaking generally, I suppose the tone of the house insensibly communicated itself to me. The Manor was codclionse at games arid work. I began by shirking both. But the spirit of the Hill was to much for me. I couldn't shirk that. ... My mother had pinched herself to send me here, because my father had been here before me; and I wondered why she did it. At that tiire I couldn't see why cheaper schools shouldn't be not only as good as' Harrow, but perhaps better. till I ?ot into the Fifth did I get a glimmering of what my mother and the Manor were doing for me. When 1 c;ot into the Sixth and into the Eleven; I knew ... I. tell you, all of you, that happiness, like liberty, must be earned before we canenjoy it. And you are sent hero to earn it. .. . I owe the Manor. a debt which I hope to pay to—^you. Just as you, in turn, will pay. back to boys not yet born the money your pcoplejiavo gladly spent oh you, aiid other greater things besides." " There are no two ways about it that it is tin's admirable spirit which lias . made the English gentleman and tlie. public life of England what they aw.. It is with a view gradually to builditiV up the same honourable traditions that the colleges of New Zealand were endowed. Now the State in order to construct its educational ladder from the street corner to the University has brushed the old ideal on one side. To flood the college with children of anybody and everybody, gratis and for nothing, there to be rammed full of facts and figures as rapidly and economically as possible, is, we are told, completely to destroy all 'that has been built up. Whatever col- i lege spirit and tradition there may havo ; been is swamped by the huge inrush of ; free- hoys, and as these spend only a year or two in the school it is quite'inipossible to build effectively on them. ! Such in brief are the arguments of ' those who oppose the free-place system. , Many people feel very strongly on the subject, and tlie governing bodies of , different secondary colleges, when they ] could not escape the free-place condi- '■ tions, have delayed providing accommo- j dation for as Ion" as possible. In Wel- • lington a litttle while ago when the Ccl- j lege Governors made their final surreu- ! der, the chairman, Mr A. de B. Bran-i don, immediately resigned sooner than | continue to administer the affairs of an , institution which he believed fo be wrecked. THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL. This country, for good or evil, _a3 taken up with the democratic ideal. It wishes to get rid of a classes and class distinctions. But it must always be remembered that the is a real case for tho old conservative system of ranks and degrees. Dr Johnson summed up the Con. servative view when he said to sonicbody, "Sir, you are to remember that you must preserve the subordination of civilised society. Now tha, though one disagrees entirely with it, must oe admitted to be a perfectly reasonable po- ' sition. It is in substance, as Mr Chest. ' ertoit puts it, "One brick must be on top * of another, not beeauses the brick oa top is a better brick, but because that is the way "houses are made. And I be-' lieve that is the way that secure States are made." According to this view there must be obedience, though not necessarily inferiority. There is this perfectly rational argument for a society severely stratified into classes. "There are certain classes of the community," Mr Brandon says, "who havo their own traditions, and no amount of democracy will wipe those conditions out,". Having said so. much for .the secondary schools as it used to be, let us turn to the other side. First of all wo have to recognise that the traditions of the English public school, excellent as. they are, are narrow. Like the old spirit of chivalry 'in the Middle Ages they offer magnificent rules of conduct for numii beings, but human- beings in their purview represent only a, very minute traction of mankind. The London "Spe:ti tor" is a newspaper bred on the b»si public school lines. And to the London "Spectator" the man who works with his hands and sends his children to the Board schools. is not a fellow-being warming himself in the same »un f or a few swift years between the cradle .and the grave, and torn- this .way and that by the same imperious human passions as the editor of that high-class publicaton, but "a mere curiosity whose odd ways ar« occasionally to be written up in -a sort of natural history article. The public school spirit, with all its excellences, is blind and selfish, and it is. one -.of Ine biggest curses of Qur day and generation. It is the solidification of. caste. It is a thing pre-eminently to be broken down, to be torn up by the roots and thrown to the four winds of heaven. It ia atjhe bottom of half of our social troubles Let it go on doing ite' work and .t v.vM

break ever- widening, gulfs between ."one -'- section of the people.-^rid.._n.tTi_ri';;lt.- - is the-epirit of" the d_n;-.the/tribe,..l)ii,-...„ it has taken young, boys, and-in'th.iianie . of civilisation, or progressj-'and ot the" •-. race, and nurtured- .tfrem-'jn the belie--\---that the public school man'/. the 'college.' \ man, is the only thingthat count-./rhis./. is not on its programme fit i. . no pa»- „ of its official scheme; it 'is far and'away.. Z.-. from the ideal perfection- of 'the pubic ..- school spirit; but.it is. the. universal and persistent result of the public. Fyttein wheresr.rjver that system .has been es- ■■ tablished. WHAT WE WANT. . "-■-,-' ' In New Zealand it we are .wise we willkilT this system absolutely, .0 far as giving it State support and encourage. . ment serve to keep it: alive,,, „.'We. Want .- all that, is'- best, :'\%Z the; ; British'.-. . piiblicl .- school but we want', something.:, very much more. "We wahtthe keenest spirit of camaraderie, of loyalty, and-jof; service; but we .want it.-no.t~ for a. clique but for mankind. at large. ..The 'excel--., lences of the English public school need"" to be infused. from' one end of our.-edu- : .- cation system; to the o'therv^At present they : are sadly. lacking...; We ; have : not. sought 'thein, and hava^bejrji bjis'ily , hunting in -the rubbish or _datea '. an'd^'pro^'u'ct-rana^^lasticien-^modelljng' . . that! we havj? no time 'i6*sp%te for the thing that is'reaUy-.wo-th^liHe^iri.edu- ■; cation. Cram the. 'cK-^-uU',-. . Jntelli-. '- ■ gence, and send hint put ;of' port to God knows -where with ail sails 'up and . not a scraps of ballast aboard.: That has been., the ridiculous 1 policy" to- whidh-.we ate of-' '-: ficially committed.' It . 'is radically. un- ; sound, and. a thousand times worse than the purblind. caste ; systenw - It is.; theway. to manufacture a jiation' with-no ; ; respect for either.; God-. or->rnan, and to r its. national Stat9 school System pfdef/ its national. Stat- __chc-l system' of- developing -intelligence .alone" is no doubtdue a large part* of vNew. -Zealand's increasing immorality-. The rt Sfate school child has been giv-tn .enougn -education to enabls him't- 'drjteet;,the. faUacie. of-' • current religion,! but. hot enough for him to perceive the underlying truth. - We have iii New- Zealand .merely -the framework "of an -educational system — a thing vvlinrQ.-barc bones .have, yet to be-.-, given life, vitality,r,and~.streni»ous purpose. — "-tiisticns.."; -Z .; V -.-.- ..' -.', .