THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY
SIR,—When, some time ago, I discussed the Companies of Service plan with Mr. McArthur and a number of other London headmasters I realised he was unsympathetic ; I did not anticipate, however, that my article would arouse his wrath to the extent it appears to have done.
Primarily, it is my fundamental philosophy to which he objects. To him, the idea of creating a more Christian order of society is " anachronistic "; to me, it seems the only hope for our puzzled, distraught world. From certain phrases in his letter it would appear that we probably differ on the nature of the Christian philosophy and in our conception of the meaning of a Christian order of society.
I should like to deal with his criticisms in detail, but would take too much space. I must be content to state that the Declaration of Ideal and Intention was never intended to be a sort of vow to be taken by individuals—since the writing of my article it has been redrafted in a more generalised form —and that, though I believe in a form of education which is definitely Christian, I have no desire to ask a boy, unless there is an absolutely spontaneous urge to do so, to make a definite Christian profession at an age when he is too imma- ture to have thought out its full implications. I, too, believe - a certain freedom of intelligence."
Mr. McArthur, however, raises a crucial issue, with which I feel I must deal, when he writes: "They (schools) prefer to foster an interest in all sound learning and a certain free- dom of intelligence," and later, " We must follow Truth. . . . This involves the pursuit of the intellectual life, now so much out of fashion."
The schemes worked out in several schools, on which the plan I have put forward is based, have had various origins. I can only speak of the one in the school which I serve. It was started in 1935 because the cultivation of " freedom of intelligence " and " the pursuit of the intellectual life " were not, of themselves, producing the type of mind and character which I felt was needed if the world were to find a way out of its present troubles. Like others, I discovered that it was useless to train intelligence if one did not also train conscience and will. Through the Company of Service a better balance has been attained. A zeal for truth and the spirit of free inquiry is now coupled with a much deeper sense of social obligation and constructive thinking ai opposed to destructive criticism.
Mr. McArthur may find the plan I have put forward alien to his particular temperament ; the fact remains that when it is seriously tried out it works. Far from belittling " that stern cultivation of the mind " of which Mr. McArthur speaks, it calls for an even sterner cultivation. It realises, however, that intellect divorced from informed idealism is of little
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