A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK

THE White Paper issued under Mr. Butler's auspices sent me back to the reports of the mid-nineteenth century commissions on education, and, particularly, to the report of the Taunton Com- mission of 1864-7. This Commission was a very strong body ; it included among its members Dean Hook, W. E. Forster, and Dr. Temple, at that time headmaster of Rugby. Matthew Arnold was one of the assistant commissioners who reported on educational methods in other countries. The whole of the Taunton report s worth reading ; two sentences are of special interest. The Commis- sioners pointed out that social distinctions were reflected in the structure of English education. They considered that "it would be better that such distinctions should disappear ; but an attempt to obliterate them by superior authority might both do. mischief and fail in its object." At the same time the report drew attention to a statement by one of the assistant commissioners that "almost all the educational enterprise of the last few years has originated with private teachers." The Commissioners added: "This is likely to be often the case."

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Taken together these two statements suggest the method by which one ot the greatest problems in our educational system is likely to be solved. The obliteration of social distinctions in English educa- tion is an aim even more desirable today than in the 1860s. This aim cannot be attained automatically by superior authority as a result of reorganising the schools ; success can come only through the "educational enterprise of teachers." A hundred years ago the older public schools were insanitary and understaffed "rough houses" in which boys were perpetually at war with masters. During his Sunday lectures at Eton even Keate, the arch-flogger, could not prevent the older boys from making "almost continuously a humming noise with the lips closed so that the culprits could not be discovered." (The authority for this statement is Mr. Gladstone.) Some time earlier troops had to be called in to put down a mutiny at Winchester. The "educational enterprise" which transformed the relationship between boys and masters was a bold experiment tried at first by a few men—the first of them, a generation before Arnold, was a Butler—who thought out their own methods and risked a good deal in putting them to the test.

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Schoolmasters; as a class, tend to get a bad literary Press, yet they are far more interested in experiment than the members of most established professions. This fact is not surprising ; any one who may find himself left alone for an hour in a class-room with a score or more of high-spirited boys will soon discover that the teaching profession develops initiative. Given a fair chance, and a fair chance means legislative assistance and at the same time freedom from over-regimentation, the schoolmasters can be trusted to do as much for the transformation of English society in the next three generations as they have achieved over the last hundred years. In this matter I make no distinction between the masters in any particular type of school.

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The "Friends of Hansard," having discovered that for years past Hansard has ceased to be the correct designation of the published volumes of Parliamentary Debates, are now proposing that the old term should be restored to the title. Why not go the whole distance and describe the volumes as Ye Olde Hansard? A reference to the Witanagemot would also have its appeal. The "

Friends" might well make one reversion to the past. They might

'ensure that the calendar years, and not the years of the sessions, are printed on the spine of the- cover. It is most irritating to take down a volume marked 1939-40 without knowing whether it refers

to 1939 or to 1940. Another improvement would be an accurate list of ministerial changes falling within the compass of each volume.

Finally, may I put in a word for Dod's Parliamentary Companion?

I am a Friend of Dod as well as of Hansard, since I find that the information contained in the formet often throws considerable light on the speeches reported in the latter work.

* * * * I have beea looking at one of the latest numbers in the excellent series of Oxford Pamphlets on World Affairs ; two maps and thirty-one pages of admirable information about the British Pacific Islands. I have seen only one of the small inhabited islands of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. After seeing it I thought that Stevenson's account of the beauty of the Pacific was a cautious Scottish understatement. The vulgar apparatus associated with the leisure of the rich could not wholly spoil the place.

* * * * • The early record of the white races in this distant paradise is sad reading. Even with the best intentions we have often done immense harm, and the intentions of most of the early traders were very far from good. It it true that we cannot take the blame for all the parasites which we have carried with us involuntarily ; germs of measles and chicken-pox, for exampte, which caused devastation among pure-blooded peoples unused to such enemies.

It would be ungenerous to criticise the work of the missionaries, but In the past their divided and often curious opinions have had unfortunate results. One of these results may be that the -coral

reefs and volcanic heights of the Pacific will form the last strong- holds of fundamentalist protestantism. I wish I had seen Tonga. Here the reigning dynasty perpetuates the names of King George III and Queen Charlotte ;'the regime is a constitutional monarchy, with

a cabinet, privy council, and parliament (I do not know whether there is a Dod or a Hansard). The experiment has worked, and the Sicilians might well envy the peace and progress, under Queen Salote,

the present sovereign, of islanders who have never described the surrounding waters as mare nostro, or repeated in chorus that their leader was always right.

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One of the proVems of these Pacific islands is the absence of a lingua franca not merely between the different large groups, but even in the smaller clusters of islands. From the Oxford Pamphlet it would seem that the Anglican church in its Melanesian diocese is making the interesting experiment of choosing one suitable native dialect as a basic language. Whatever may be the outcome of this experiment, the pidgin English of the Pacific is unlikely to establish itself without considerable change. This ad hoc form of communi- cation is extremely long-winded because it lacks most of the pronouns and prepositions. Nevertheless it has its points. If the Pamphlet is correct, pidgin Pacific English for a violin is "one small bokkis blong whiteman all he scratch ilint belly blong him

he sing out good fella." When I have been taken to concerts I have tried many times to think out a definition on these lines. * * * * Overheard in a first-class railway compartment.—A. "My wile is doing all the cooking and housewprk now." •B.: " Ah yes, it takes a born gentlewoman to do that kind of thing."

NUMA Pohen.ms.