COUNTY BADGE PROGRESS
By JULIAN HUXLEY The idea from which the County Badge Scheme sprang was of
German inception. However, not only was it pre-Hitler in its origin, but anti-Hitler when the clash came. Kurt Hahn, at his school at Salem, which was intended as an adaptation of the English Public School to German conditions, first introduced it. One of its essential bases was its autonomous local character. This was in entire opposition to the idea of the Hitlerhvend, which aimed at incorporating the entire youth of the nation into a single organisa- tion and imposing uniform standards upon all its members.
One major aim of the scheme was to provide an incentive and
an outlet for health and physical achievement, which should avoid the uncritical athleticism of English Public Schools. The English system tends to discourage those who are not athletically gifted by nature, while over-glorifying, over-specialising and often over- straining those who ore. For this reason the badge is' given for a standard of achievement which is Within the reach of any physically normal boy who is willing to make the effort. At the same time a special badge, involving higher standards, is given for those who have greater natural aptitude or greater athletic ambitions. It is like the distinction between a Pass and an Honours degree. A single intermediate standard would fall between two stools—it would discourage some and not be sufficient stimulus for others. For either badge the candidate must attain the required standard in all of the five requirements of the physical test—swimming, jumping, throwing, short-distance sprinting, and long-distance running or walking. This is done partly to avoid over- specialisation, but also to satisfy a further aim of the test, the training of -will-power in the surmounting of difficulties.
Experience over nearly two decades has demonstrated two interesting points about these tests of physical achievement. The fact that they do not merely encourage a boy's strength but also help him to overcome his weaknesses, makes them and the sense of mastery which their performance brings a source of natural self- confidence. Physical achievement plays a considerable part in helping the adolescent boy, often quite unconsciously, to self- respect. In the second place, it has been demonstrated that train- ing of the County Badge type can produce the most surprising results in the way of pure athletic achievement. For instance, the Salem team, representing a small school and composed of boys who had been badly under-nourished in the last war, repeatedly achieved high distinction in the English Public Schools Athletics Championship.
The earning of the County Badge demands other tests as well, originally the Expedition was the only further test ; but now a Project and a Service Achievement have been added. All of these are in- tended to be flexible. The Expedition test is in many ways similar to the Scouts' "First Class Journey." It may be undertaken indi- vidually or by pairs, or as a member of a party. My own son was able to join a party which crossed Northern Norway by ski and sledge in the early spring—a wonderful opportunity. Moun- taineering, canoeing, sailing, walking, bird-watching—any might be included. The essentials are that it should demand careful thought and preparation beforehand, and should bring the boy up against the difficulties of the environment and the unpredictable in Nature. The preliminary training should include excursions with a party. The Project test is even more elastic. It may involve manual construction, as in building a boat or an engineering model, or scientific interest, as in a botanical survey or a study of bird- behaviour ; it may mean map-making, the study of historical records, the painting of a picture, or a dozen other things. The candidate is allowed free choice, subject to the judge's approval.
The essential here is that any project should require care, skill, patience and perseverance. It should be carried on for at least a year, but must culminate in some concrete achievement by which it can be judged. The Service tests will need further thinking out, but experience with various war-time service projects, as with the coast-watching activities at Gordonstoun School before the war, has already Shown how valuable and essential it is. Medical super- vision throughout the training is essential ; so is the keeping of a record-book by each candidate, in which is recorded his progress in the various tests, together with medical and training notes.
So much for the tests. A further essential feature is the regional nature of the scheme. The Badge Scheme was originally worked out for Morayshire. Local sports and activities were introduced, and within the county the widest participation of all elements was sought. Gordonstoun School was the main centre, but boys from the neighbouring farms and towns and fishing villages were welcomed as candidates and every possible assistance given for their training. Later, an enthusiast for the Badge idea introduced a variant of it into the Sudan. Here the hunting expedition and the use of the throwing-stick were introduced as local variations. The success of the scheme in these wholly different conditions proves its great flexibility. There is a further important reason for the regional basis: it avoids rigid uniformity, and is a barrier to the creation of a mass Youth Movement of the type aimed at, and only too well achieved, in the totalitarian countries. One of the first acts of the Nazis was to forbid all voluntary and all regional youth organisa- tions and insist upon a single uniform national organisation.
The Badge Scheme is still in process of evolution. Variations are being experimented with at Charterhouse, in Hertfordshire under the Local Education Authority, and elsewhere. Alternative athletic tests for girls and the best methods of adapting the scheme for large towns are among the major problems still awaiting solution. Another is the practicability of introducing a. "training holiday" of at least four weeks into the life of the working boy—an in- dispensable prerequisite for attaining real health and fitness. Still another is the relation of a Badge Scheme to the work of existing voluntary organisations such as the Boy Scouts, the Church Lads' Brigade and so on. Here there should be no basic difficulty. The County Badge is not an organisation : it is a method. If it, or some modification of it, ls shown to possess special merits, it could be adopted by the voluntary organisations as part of their own training, in some cases with the scrapping of some of their existing tests. Already the Boy Scouts are co-operating in the County Badge Scheme at Charterhouse. Once a general Badge Scheme comes into general use, the possession of the Badge will naturally come — to be regarded as a form of diploma, complementary to the purely scholastic diploma Rrovided by passing the School Certificate or other examination.
There is one final aspect of the County Badge Scheme which is, think, of real general importance. It has been deliberately devised to provide (among other things) a basis for self-confidence, both personal and social, for the naturally shy or over-sensitive adolescent. Under our existing system, such boys are often inhibited or frustrated, their sensitiveness is abnormally enhanced instead of being disciplined or overcome, and they too often turn away from the more active forms of career, including public service, towards introversion or sheltered purstrits. The result is an unfortunate preponderance in public life and in big positions generally of the naturally insensitive, the cheery " blimpish " extravert, the ruthless arriviste. the thick-skinned, unreflective types. The sensitives, of course, include a certain number of "shrinking flowers" who are pretty useless anyway, and others who are by nature best qualified for introspective or creative pursuits. But among them are also to be found many whose gifts, including their very sensibility, are urgently needed in public life, both for their own sakes and to counteract the crudities of the insensitives. Those who have seen the County Badge Scheme in operation believe that it does help materially in giving sensitive boys the basis of a self-confidence needed for them to turn their natural temperament from a debit to a social asset.
We have no use in this country for any Schools for Leaders, in the sense of educational factories for the automatic manufacture of bosses: but we have great need for educational machinery which will give the country the maximum, both in quantity and quality, of leadership. Some better scheme than the County Badge may be worked out ; but meanwhile it will have been important in focussing attention upon a problem which has hitherto been either neglected or else quite unsolved—the problem of training character. So-called character-training at present is extremely unsatisfactory. Military methods are useless, over-rigorous discipline defeats its own ends ; the Public School system combines many faults with its undoubted merits. The County Badge Scheme would seem to have demonstrated the impossibility of separating the physical and the mental in education ; the value of the right sort of physical training in generating the right sort of self-confidence ; the desirability of overcoming natural weaknesses instead of only exploiting natural gifts ; and the possibility of enlisting the gifts of the sensitive for public service to a much higher degree than is now the case.
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