[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—By all means let the inquiry as to the educational ante- cedents of the " Hooligan " which the Dean of St. Paul's sug- gests be made. I shall, however, be very surprised if it does not result in the establishment of the fact that in the great majority of cases his educational antecedents have been prac- tically nil. I believe that the " Hooligan" is what he is in spite of education, not because of any defect in it. I am very far from wishing to say that there are no defects in our present educational system, but I do not believe that the "Hooligan" can in any sense be regarded as the product of it. Either he has not been educated at all, evasion of the School Board visitor being far more possible than is generally believed, or the influence and surroundings of his daily life have been such as more than to counterbalance the good influence of his school-life. As an example of the former alternative, I may mention an instance which came under my own notice a few days ago. I met four boys prowling about the streets whose ages ranged from eleven to thirteen ; as it was the middle of the afternoon, when all well-conducted children should be in school, I asked them why they were not there. I found that they went to no school, they could neither read nor write, they were hardly clothed, they had nc. fixed home, and were in fact embryo " Hooligans." These are the Calibans in the cartoon in last week's Punch of whom Prospero, in the person of John Bull, is made to say,-
" On whose nature
Nurture can never stick : on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost."
What pains John Bull has humanely taken on the upbringing of these poor lads I fail to see ; at least it cannot be said that in such cases as these, and I believe most " Hooligans " are such, education has been responsible for their present deplor- able condition. There are instances doubtless, perhaps more than I am inclined to believe, in which " Hooligans " have been regular attendants at day-sohool and Sunday-school ; if so, I am sure it is in spite of their school antecedents, and because of the counteracting influence of their life out of school. I believe that the two greatest and best influences on the lives of our children are the Board-school and the Church, but we shall still breed " Hooligans " in spite of the school and in spite of the Church unless John ,Bull will " humanely take pains " to combat the great counteracting influences of our daily life in East London—the over- crowding, and the bad housing, and the drink, and the betting and gambling—and to provide more of those influences which have surrounded most of us in our childhood and youth, and without which we too might have been " Hooligans,"—more outlets for those animal spirits which are probably much the same, only differing in their direction, whether in the brave and yet gentle soldier, and in our poor brother the " Hooligan." After all, is not " Hooliganism " a synonym for animal spirits misdirected ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
St. Andrew's Vicarage, Bethnal Green. H. V. S. ECK.
[We have also received a letter from Mr. J. W. Bradley, of Wolverhampton, giving, but at greater length than we have room for, an interesting account of the system of " school workshops" which has been in vogue at Stockholm, and elsewhere in Sweden, for some fourteen years. The work carried on includes chip-work, rafia-work, fret-work, wire- work, wood carving, seam stitching, hand weaving, cleaning and repairing of wearing apparel, joinery, and bootmaking ; and there is one workshop for light metal-work. The ages of the pupils in these institutions are from seven to fourteen years, and they are selected from the scholars at the primary schools by the schoolmasters, who choose " those who are neglected by their parents, or whose parents are too poor to give them proper attention." The time spent at the work- shops ranges from two to six and a half hours per day, one or two meals being given to the pupils according to the length of their spell of occupation. At other times in the day they attend the primary schools. Re managers of the work- shops are women of leisure who give their services. Every effort is made to secure that the workshop time shall be as happy as possible, and the results are said to be very satis- factory in every way. The city of Stockholm pays £800 a year towards the expenses of twelve of these workshops, containing about fifteen hundred pupils, but all the rest of the charges—tuition, food, upkeep, and materials—are defrayed by voluntary gifts or bequests, and by the sale of work done. The only criticism that occurs to us is that it may seem to be rather an advantage in Stockholm to be the child of neglectful or very poor parents.—En. Spectator.]
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