EDUCATION AT RUGBY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3768, 1 June 1926, Page 75

EDUCATION AT RUGBY.

By R. Lawson, utt.d.

Before visiting Rugby recently I had thought of the educational prestige of the town solely in association with tne name of its famous Public School. An agreeable surprise was in etore. The town contains not only the Upper School, or Big School as it is called localy, but also a Bower School affiliated with it, a Day Continuation School (the only one in England carrying out the conditions of the Fisher Act of 1918), and the Percival Guildhouse, which stands for the latest development of adult education, as well as a number of others. -*4 found amongst the people of Rugby, a town about half the size of Dunedin, a genuine interest in educational advance. I saw machinery and tools provided for the Day Continuation School by local employers during the last six years worth £3OOO. Th se same employers have by rewards of merit and 4>v scholarships encouraged young employees to continue their studios, and, furthermore, they have granted to their employees between the ages of 14 and 16 one day off per week to attend this school, thus carrying out of the requirements which the Fisher Act embodies, but has not enforced. Thus all young persons, resident or employed, are, at Rugby, and nowhere else in England, kepi under educational guidance through two wavering years. Amongst these employeepupils 1 was delighted to find a high degree of literary, scientific, and dramatic activity; they edit and publish their own magazine, use the school rooms every even ing as club rooms, study music, hold concerts and debates, and present dramas. The Juvenile Employment Bureau, working also with the most intimate cooperation of employers, is of great value in directing the young students into suitable employment Further still, as the Day. Continuation School fits “end on” to the elementary system, so the Technical School automatically receives most of the pupils without a break at. the age of 16 The inspirer of this movement is Mr P. I. Kitchen, with whom I spent several instructive day 6. He was busy, while I was there, enlisting all educational estab lishments in an “Education Week,” and has since carried his project to a consummation. In the “Education Week” held in March, 34 schools threw open, their doors to the public: several public meetings were held in the Temple Speech Room at- Rugby School, among the speakers being Sir Michael Sadler, Master of University College. Oxford; Lord Eustace Percy, president of the Board of Education: and Dr Winifred Cullis, professor of physiology. London University Rugby offers thus a strange blend o f ancient and modern. One passes through the old school founded by Lawrence Rheriffe in 1567. into the famed Memorial Chapel sacred to the memory of Arnold, greatest of British head masters, and the greatest propagator of the tradition of “playing the game.” past the sculptured Grecian profile of Rupert Brooke (he might have issued from the Parthenon!), past the fine statue of Hughes, author of “Tom Brown’s Schooldavs” (dear for its memory of the groat fight); and then on to the Continuation School One feels in it the continuity of English history—progress rooted in conservatism, conservatism issuing in progress. The Continuation School was not the only educational novelty in the town. Last vear the Percival Guildhouse was opened to assist the cause of adult education. This is a new project. There are already about 10 branches in England, supported fully by a fund of some £4OOO from the University of Cambridge, by donations, and by fees. The object is not to supersede the W.E.A. or other existing activities, but to correlate them The Rugby Guildhouse is a fairly commodious building of two storeys, with rooms for classes and concerts, as well as supper and smoking rooms. Light refreshments are obtainable at a nominal cost. Classes are conducted in any subjects where a sufficient number of students offers. A permanent married retary living on the premises is in charge of the locai movement. The Guildshouse movement, then, seeks to provide not only education, but good conditions for social and educational life. The W.E.A. has been operating in Rugby for.; 14 years, the Adult Schools for 21 yeaifP- There are now 250 adult students doing serious work in various subjects—amongst these I heard of French and Gewnan. The W.EA has rfive university tutorial classes, four of the tutors being from Cambridge, and one from Birmingham University The tutors' fees *Te almost coveted by Board of Education grants Rugby (School has supplied several tutors; also successive head masters have been active workers. The Warwickshire County Further Education Committee (despite the burden of its title) has made grants towards organising expenses and rent of rooms, and some time ago appointed three full-time tutors for adult work in the country.

It ie 2309 years since the greatest seer in the history of education planned a scheme that covered the whole life of man. It has been left for our own age to demonstrate that his plans were not merely the idle fancies of a dreamer’s mind. Perhaps T might digress here to point out that adult schools arose out of Sunday schools mainly connected with the Society of Friends. The present movement began about 1845 in the “Severn Street Adult School.” at Birmingham. th 1892 Severn Street became a university extension centre. In 1914 there were some 1800 schools in this movement with 81.000 members. I heard of *n institution in another town where a bar is conducted with “hard stuff” on sale; hut the barman gets a commission on all “soft stuff,” and so endeavours to push the commissionable beverage rather than its antithesis. Also a savings bank is conducted near by the bar, and its claims are advocated in competition for the coin that might go elsewhere. I was told that the president (a vicar, if I rememlier aright), recognising that many men at the end of a day “like something,” thought it well to provide that “something” in good surroundings. Such a method, it it can succeed, is the ideal one. But I had better avoid the whirlpool of controversy and return to Rugby. T hi* education week referred • to above caused the production of a most i.itor<!«t : ng nnd valuable book of about 100 luges, with articles and messages from V'A i y oducutiona! notabilities. The article, for examp'e, on Public Schools (i.e., Eton, Rugby. etc.) says “Religion has for the public school always been the centre of

organisation. The chapel is the noblest of the buildings . . The sincerest religion of the public school has always been character-training. ... A boy’s going-out and coming-in is no private doing. He works, plays, eats, and sleeps in public. . . . He is ruled bv his fellows, if he is not ruling them When not under a master, he looks for orders in civil matters to a prefect, in athletics to a captain, in the O.T.C. to a boy officer. As a “fag” he learns responsibilities under these rulers. They may punish him. If he has the manly virtues, he is approved; if he lacks them, his only hope is to win them. Those virtues are the true English ones, mainly concerned with action: vigour, courage, endurance, hum our, equity, loyalty honour.” In London a well-known official of the Board of Education told me that this spirit was steadily permeating all secondary schooj life, ihe only complaint I heard against Rugby School was in the town itself: “They work the boys too hard’’—surely » new charge against u school of that type. It is interesting lo note how l his school spirit has gone abroad. Some of the best schools in Australia deliberately attempt to develop it. Foreign countries, too, are watching its effects. Italy, for instance, is a country wide awake now—witness Mussolini, Croce, Gentile, Montessori, d Annunzio, and others, A recent Italian writing on English education points to the public school spirit as the most striking educational fart to be observed; he calls it lo spirito di corpo,” and repeatedly refers with admiration to “la morale sportiva, the spirit of “playing the game, ’ which is so prominent in these old institutionsRugby football is said to be the New Zealander’s religion—nor is it a bad religion when played in the right spirit. Ihe national games of England, so sedulously fostered in its public schools, are spreading throughout the world. Teams of trench, men and Germans played a match while I was in France The French had the better of the play but lost the fame throug.l lack of concerted play at the crisis—which called forth the newspaper headline loujmirs la meme Histoire”—always the same story, over-excitement and lack of combination. The game is said to be gaining a footing in Spain. The League of Nations might do woTse than organise a series of test matches among the snarling nations of Europe. They would then perhaps devote less time to high explosives and poison gases and more ti healthv rivalry on the sporting field. Team games are humanising. Moreover, they provide a harmless outlet for the combative energy of youth. But, again, to return —the technical school mentioned above has courses in English, industrial history, economics, and foreign languages. There are vocational courses for those engaged in building trades, painting and decorating, mechanical engineering, engineering trades, electrical engineering, commerce, and household duties. The mechanical and electrical engineering groups are planned in cooperation with the Institutes of Mechanical and Electrical Engineers. To enable students to pass to university institutions the Warwickshire County Council offers three scholarships worth £IOO per annfcm. The British Electrical and Allied Manufacturers’ Association has also given five scholarships worth £IOO pfer annum, plus tuition fees. Movements of this sort are a happy augury for future good relations between employer and employed. Amongst the articles in the book of the Rugby Education Week one of the best is by a former head master of Rugby Lower School. It concludes with the sound admonition: “Let us get rid of the snobbery ot the black coat, and return to a true sense of the dignity of all honest work.” At the same time, the writer, while recognising the need for better and more specialised technical education, in sists that “the really urgent call before us is for an education which will bring up the rising generation to a comprehension of the ethical and sociological problems upon whose solution depends the will of the people to do honest and unselfish work for a common national cause.” The whole book is full of interest, a credit to the town and to all the workers who have contributed to it. One cannot but feel that the same optimism and goodwill of English educators will help to direct the youth of the .ountrv along paths that lead to national well-being. I cannot better conclude these rather desultory notes than with the closing words of the article by Mr W. W. Vaughan. M.A., M.V.0., the Present heat l master of Rugby Public School:*—“Are not the children of our own land ever in danger of having their souls starved or stained unless wc all. no matter whether we be citizens or only teachers, feel the obligation, as so many have in the oast, of lifting up our eyes unto the hills, and in the strength of our vision making the schools stronger to helo. and the world less full of stumbling blocks?”