THE NATION'S DEBT TO THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.
MR. BOLTON KING, Secretary of the Education Com- mittee of the Warwickshire County Council, has published a pamphlet, entitled The Schools and the War (W. H. Smith and Son, High Street, Warwick), which is of quite unusual interest. In it he sets forth the debt which the fighting Services and the nation owe to the Elementary School :— "The number of ex-elementary boys who have obtained commissions include 1 Lieutenant-Colonel, 2 Majors, 10 Captains, 1 Naval Lieutenant, 65 Lieutenants, 75 Sub-Lieutenants. Of these 154, 67 had all their education at the Elementary, and sometimes perhaps the Evening School. One school alone—at Rugby—boasts ten Commissioned Officers ; another—in a mining district—six. I have no complete figures to show the number of Non-Commissioned Officers. There is some evidence that the proportion is much higher among Old Boys of good schools. One such school has 32 N.C.O.'s out of 102 who have joined the colours ; another has 62 out of 300; a small. boys' school counts 20; a country school has 30 out of 116. The Old Boys have a goodly share of honours—no less than 28 D.C.M.'s, 3 Military Medals, 1 Croix de Guerre, 3 Medailles Militaires, 1 Russian Medal. Five have been mentioned in despatches. . .
In the thousands of letters that the Old Boys have written from the front to their teachers, expressions of indebtedness to the old school crop out now and again. As a rule it is a general appreciation, coupled occasionally with a regret that they left school so early or had not made the most of their time there, or with an appeal to the boys to stick to their work and their drill, as it is most useful to us now.' Sometimes, as in this case, they refer particularly to the drill and physical exercises. It is the men who have been promoted, who are most ready to express their gratitude, ascribing their rank (non-commissioned or commissioned) to what they had learnt at school. Several say that they owe their stripes to the school drill, others to having been taught to do sketch-maps. Three from one school got into the Engineers through their knowledge of scale-drawing and sketching ; another was put in charge of a machine gun, because he had been well schooled in drawing and practical geography work ; a boy of 15 in the Navy got his Wireless Certificate thanks to his school lessons in Elementary Science ; another passed top in a signalling test, beating some who had been to a Grammar School, so that,' he writes, 'is one feather in the old school's cap.' But it is the school training of character that has evidently impressed them most. (It was, by the way, as a rule those who had done best at school who were the first to enlist.) More N.C.O.'s attribute their promotion to the discipline learnt at school than to any lessons. One Old Boy writes to his Head Teacher to remind her of her lessons on loyalty and citizenship ; others say that the school prepared them to do their duty to their country. Two write that they owe it to their school that they have learnt to keep cheerful ; another that the school training has been a moral safeguard to him. 'I am proud of my old school and village,' writes one, as so many lads have shown they 'mow the meaning of duty by joining the Army.' At the few schools where. the Prefect System has been long enough at work to have affected men of military age, it is found that the Prefects most readily rise to N.C.O. rank, duo no doubt to the character-training that it gave them. Occa- sionally one gets in the letters from the front a reference to the religious teaching. Two or three boys from a Council School write that they remember the school prayers and Scripture lessons in the trenches. One from another school, who was afterwards killed, wrote about the texts which he had learnt at school. One cannot prove it by statistics, but one can none the less be sure that the schools have played a very big part in the making of the Army, and that the qualities of the present. day British soldier are very largely their handiwork. It was a common- place after 1870 that it was the German schoolmaster who won at Sadowa and Sedan,' and the French set themselves to remodel and in part to create their schools, with the results that we see to-day. It may be said hereafter that the French and English teachers had the foremost share in winning this War. The hundreds of thousands who enlisted 'because it was their duty' learnt that duty at school ; the rapidity with which they have been trained has only been possible because the school had quickened their intelligence. The British soldier of to-day, with his sense of discipline, his straightforwardness, his keen- ness, his humanity-, is the peculiar product of the Elementary School. The 37,000 children in the Schools of Warwickshire have been doing their part, to an extent that is little known. Every department except 27 has sent its contribution to one or other national fund. Pennies whose normal end is toffee have gone to the school collecting box, and some of the little sweet-shops must be having lean times. The total amount contributed is over £900, and though no doubt in some cases the teachers helped, the bulk of the money came from the children's pockets. (At the same time they have often kept up their usual con- tributions to Dr. Barnardo's Homes and other peace funds.) In addi- tion they bought wool for soldiers' stockings to the value of about £125 and material for sandbags to a further value of about £38. They have sent to national funds prize money to the value of £426, they have collected £195 by the sale of flags and door-to-door appeals, and have raised £563 from the proceeds of school concerts. Thus altogether they have given or collected about £2,200 for some national purpo The Rugby children subscribed £85 and raised £122 by concerts ; the boys and old boys of a school at Atherstone raised £100 ; the Glascote Schools raised over £100 from entertainments ; a village school sent £52 from the same source ; Bedworth children subscribed 152 ; several other single schools subscribed or collected about £30. Little village
schools sometimes subscribed their £3, or £4, or £5. The teachers— many of them with salaries under £50—were equally generous. I am unable to give the total of their contributions, as many of them as doubt subscribed individually. The figures I have before me show £200, but this is probably much below the real figure. . . .
Tho war has led to a great quickening of school life. The children, especially the boys, are more alert, more interested ; there is keenness and enthusiasm ; even dull children are stimulated to effort. The children work well, as they do not want to be slackers." After the first period of unrest the children began to realize that by doing their best at school, they were helping their country ; they certainly ase trying hard." Senior boys show a very real desire to prevent the deple- tion of the staff [from enlistment] reacting on tho tone and work of the school, and the result has been extra keenness and the development of a sense of responsibility.' The whole outlook of the smallest child is widened ; the village child, whose thoughts rarely strayed beyond hie parish, has opened his eyes to a big world of exciting interest. Drill, handwork, drawing—all feel the new influence. The children take more pains with their handwriting and composition, so that they may write better letters to relatives at the front. There is more inven- tiveness in playground games. Above all History and Geography have gained ; there is a consensus of opinion that these have become real am they never were before. The teachers have of course given Geography lessons on war areas or the Colonies, and the children finding a place on the map say: "Father is fighting in that country and he must have travelled this way."' There is a lively inquisitiveness about French and Russians and Serbians, and the bonds of human brotherhood become real. The increased tolerance and respect for tho ideas and customs of other people is very marked.' Even latitude and longitude become interesting, when they are seen to affect questions of transport or the climate at the various fronts. At a few schools the children have been encouraged to take their atlases home and help their parents to grasp war geography. History has perhaps not felt the stimulus quite as much, but it toe, even to juniors and infants, has become a live thing. There is keen comparison of past and present, mast of course in methods of fighting, but also, where the teaching is good, in policy and statesmanship. Even foreign history becomes interesting, still more the history of the Colonies and the growth of Empire. 'In talking of Caesar's invasion or the battle of Hastings, where little boys would formerly sit quietly listening, they are now eager to criticize what Britons and English dirt and say what General French or Admiral Jellieoe would have done, had they been there.' It brings things home if your brother is encamped in the land of the Pharaohs or of Joan of Arc.
Possibly the school air is just a little too heavy with War. War subjects absorb Composition and Drawing. Many have been the lettere
to the Kaiser, truculently or regretfully consigning him to Gehenna. Plasticine is used to make models of Gallipoli. Munitions, aeroplanes, submarines are eagerly discussed in class. The boys' games are of
War ; the girls play at Red Cross nurses. The War is followed day by
day from the newspapers, and many of the older children have a sur- prising knowledge of the facts, can sometimes grasp even the economic problems involved. But though the permeation of school work by the War is pushed to an extent that perhaps courts reaction, it at all events reinforces what has always been so strong a mark of elementary school life, the teaching of patriotism, all the more living because it has not
been taught by syllabuses or to order, but as the natural medium of the teacher's moral influence. Patriotism,' writes the Head-Mistress
of a girls' school, has all at once become a living conception. The cal of a country in need and the quick response, the deeds of heroism of women as well as men, the part that non-combatants are called to play—all these have roused the girls as nothing else could, and made them ens-loss to do their share and to sacrifice themselves in some way for the good of tht'ir country.' The War in fact is leaving its mark on the children's characters even more than on their intellect. The older children, at all events, realize its seriousness ; they are more thoughtful, the discipline is more willing. there is an increased sense of duty and responsibility, and they under- stand something of what citizenship is. They want to do their best "like the soldiers in the trenches," and feel that they must make them- selves able to do good work when they leave school ; as one child put it "I should like to do something of some use to the world."' This feeling is more vocal among girls, but is probably as strong among the boys. Rough boys are sobered into steady ways ; their hero worship has shifted from professional footballers to Nurse Cavell and Lieutenant Warneford. Even such restlessness as there is, is often due to a keenness to be doing their bit more theatrically by going to work or to a sympathy that is groping for an outlet. Both boys and girls alike, though perhaps the girls most, show more self-denial and generosity, are eager to do something for the wounded, are kinder to the small children or to those who have lost their fathers. They give their pennies to national funds; at one school a talk on Sir Philip Sidney prompted a spontaneous vote to give their prize money to such a fund. The girls give up their play- time to knitting for the soldiers or stitching sandbags. At school' where the appeal is made they respond to suggestions for economy; more care is taken of food and clothes, more money is put into the Penny Bank. . . .
Such is the record of what Warwickshire Schools have done and are doing to meet the needs of the time. No doubt the same is happening in other parts, and the facts I have mentioned may help to bring home how immense is the debt that the country owes to its school teachers."
This noble record of work needs little comment from us. For facts so moving few words are best. We cannot, how- ever, refrain from pointing out how strongly the Report supports our contention of last week that our children have been quick to learn the great lesson of the war—the lessos that" in quietness and in confidence "shall be our strength. The true spirit is clearly burning in the primary schools of Warwickshire, and, we trust and believe, throughout the land. To us there is no more welcome and gratifying feature in this pamphlet than the proof which it gives of the democra- tization of the commissioned branch of the Army. The war has made the Army a National Army. That is a tradition which must be kept alive at all costs.
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