The Cathedral School
ByJAMES NOWELL
IN the Middle Ages the Church was the source of education. Then wealthy traders endowed local grammar schools up and down the country ; and later, in the nineteenth century, the Church again came to the fore in its efforts to educate the growing population. But today, when these Church schools are threatened, how, many realise that most of the mediaeval cathe- dral schools are still at work—and not only at work, but re- organised to meet the modern situation?
These are the schools where the choristers of our cathedrals receive their education, and they vary in size and policy from one to another according to their wealth. There is, however, an interesting tendency for the cathedral schools to remodel them- selves as preparatory schools, taking their boys at about eight and passing them on to their public schools at the age of thirteen. It is a development that deserves all the attention it can get, because it means that these schools now recruit from far and wide, and not only from the district around the city. The main responsibility of a choir school must always be to educate the cathedral choristers, but in the days when the choir was local, academic education ranked second in the parents' minds to the dignity of membership of the cathedral choir. Now a good education is perhaps the decisive attraction. Certainly no cathe- dral choir can be good without a good school today.
In the larger cathedrals the choir school contains only choristers, but where a choir is small it is quite impossible to give a good education without taking non-choral boys as well. And I believe this is the healthiest arrangement, for it means not only that the choristers mix with other boys of different tastes and temperaments, but also that the influence of so admirable an environment is extended to boys who would otherwise never qualify for its advantages.
If it be granted that education is something more than the accumulation of facts, then the value of a good school standing in the shadow of an English cathedral and in daily touch with its life needs no commendation. For whatever the age, whatever the times, there can be few more inspiring surroundings than the buildings and the precincts of our English cathedrals. Who has not visited- them and come away moved by their beauty and dignity, moved by the perfection of human endeavour which they portray?
There is no shadow of doubt that the cathedral chorister at his best—and the leading cathedrals and cathedral schools need only take the best—is the most excellent example of boyhood that Britain produces today, with none of the effeminacy which some may attribute to him. To be in the choir at all he must be alert, resourceful, intelligent and hard-working. He must be fit and energetic ; and it is not mere chance that in a school that has other boys too it is choristers who have most of the places in the cricket, football and boxing teams—though they comprise only one-third of the school and have less time to practise. They live in surroundings that encourage culture, and. by the time they leave to go to their public schools, if anything stands out it is their independence and modesty and a mature generosity of mind. These are rare qualities today.
The life the boys lead varies according to the school, but nowhere is it exactly leisured. In Canterbury, for example, where the boys at the school are all choristers and the choir is large. the time-table and the holidays are different from those at Chichester, where the choir is small and there are non-choristers as well. In Chichester all the choristers are boarders, and their day begins at seven with P.T. Those who learn instruments will have to practise till 8.0 breakfast. Until noon there is school. and the choir at noon go to the cathedral for a practice till lunch. In the afternoon there is one lesson and then games. At 4.30 the choir attend another practice before Evensong at 5.15. They return in time for tea at 6, and prep. follows until 7.30. One day a week is " dumb " day when they do not sing in cathedral.
Their holidays are short—twelve days in January, twelve in April and a month in the summer—but the boys do not mind. Once the others have gone, the choir are probably less restricted than the boys would be at home, and singing only takes up about two hours a day. They are at school for Christmas, but this is certainly more painful to the parents than the boys. The boys have no regrets ; I have even heard them commiserating with those who are going home ; one chorister who had gone home after illness insisted on coming back to school for Christ- mas. They have a good time. They eat well and have their parties, and their friends are there. Any sympathy in this case is misplaced.
Now that choir schools draw their boys from all parts of the country, the scholarships are particularly attractive to cultured .parents whose means would normally preclude a boarding-School for their sons. Today the average prep. school fees are £60 a term at least, but a choral scholar receives all its benefits and more for about £35 a term. Competition at the best cathedral schools is therefore intense at the voice-trials held once or twice a year, and the schools can select whom they will. But what kind of boy is wanted? it may be asked. Not the exam. fiend. Not the little boy who knows everything there is to know of singing. Not the product of a musical " crammer." The boy a choirmaster looks for must have intelligence and assurance ; a voice and a certain knowledge of music, but his voice must not be over-trained. He looks, in short, for a boy who will stand the pace and whom he can train.
The world today is not very sympathetic with the Church and its work. In times that pride themselves on being matter-of-fact. the Church is suspected of being rather sentimental and spineless in its attitude. In all schools religious teaching is still given, but too often the attitude of teachers is either sanctimonious or else utterly detached ; one sees either the piecrust piety of the kill- joy, or the apology of the man talking merely from a brief and not from conviction, far too often. Yet it is in this very climate of today that I believe the cathedral school has something unique to offer, in bringing religion unself-consciously into a boy's life in a way that no other school can quite achieve. In the cathedral school worship is something so normal and so generally accepted that it is an integral part of a boy's life. It is not something unusual, nor is the Christian way of life an experience that the boys associate with irksome restrictions And petty .pinpricks in the name of piety. To the boy in a choir school, whether chorister or not, Christian teaching and worship come as some- thing positive and stimulating as the atmosphere permeates. his mind ; and in later life it will take a great deal more to shake the faith of such a boy than to deflect one to whom Christian teaching has been imparted on the basis of " Do as I say, not as I do." - And the boy in a choir school makes the acquaintance of the clergy. Cathedrals attract to them many personalities of outstanding ability, and even sporadic acquaintance with these *, men of culture must have its influence upon the young. Nothing brings out the warm humanity of the distant and distinguished more than an engaging boy, and the choir schoolboy learns to see the clergy as men, perhaps kindly, perhaps humorous, perhaps eccentric, but still men. They become human beings to him, and if, by the end of his time at the school, he has learnt this and learnt to have a right perspective of his religion, then he has learnt more than most.
The choir school is not the perfect school, for there is no perfect school. It does some things better than Others, as all schools do. But the choir school organised as a preparatory school fills a vital place in the educational system of today, providing a Christian education, with an emphasis on culture, for parents whose means severely limit the choice of school. But these are lean years for Christian institutions, years in which they cannot expect as of right any preferential treatment in their burdens. Choir schools are not run for profit, but every month 0 expenses rise. Fees must go up from time to time, though the schools feel morally bound to keep them as low as humanly possible. But how long will the ends meet? How long will parents be able to afford them? How long can costs be held down? No one knoWs. But if ever the ancient cathedral schools have to close their doors, there will be no institution, however brilliantly run by the State or anyone else, that can ever take their place. They can never be copied exactly.
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