SCHOOL HOLIDAYS AT EASTER.
EASTER may be considered more prolific of quarrelling and all uncharitableness than any other of our Christian festivals. We do not propose, however, to disinter the learned arguments of Bishop Aldhelni and his contemporaries, or to discuss the propriety of Easter Dues and " Stations." We wish to divert
attention from the ecclesiastical to the educational, or more exactly, the scholastic phases of the Easter question. This year an early Easter has stimulated the growing disposition of both teachers and pupils to complain of having the season of their holidays dependent on a constantly shifting feast-day. Nor is the complaint unreasonable. The difference between a holiday at the end of March and one in the middle or at the end of April is to tens of thousands a difference between discomfort and pleasure,—nay, to a large number it is the difference between actual injury to health and healthy recreation. The hardworked usher and the heedless schoolboy are alike tempted by bright sunlight to expose themselves to a March weather that " smiles in one's face as it cuts one's throat." Moat of those who have a holiday at Eastertide—and who now-a-days has not ?—prefer, we presume, to spend it in the country. Yet what in the latter days of April might be a leafy paradise, replete with the fresh stir of Spring's awakening life, is in March too often a desert of bare sticks and thorns. The most energetic of pedestrians may well demur to plodding along between two leafless hedges, but in three or four weeks these self-same hedges may give a glimpse of Spenser's vision :—
" First, lusty Spring, all dight in leaves of flowers That freshly budded, and new blooms did bear, In which a thousand birds had built their bowers That sweetly sung to call forth paramours."
The wayfarer may come in for an April shower or two, but if he be a genuine pedestrian, he will care little for such trifles ; or if he should be a careful body, he will provide himself with some de- fences. He will be well compensated for a sprinkling by the fresh scent of newly-moistened earth and flowers, and the brightness of wet leaves glistening in the succeeding sunbeams. And it cannot be said of April that "the rain it raineth every day."
So much for the matter of pleasure. There is, however, a more serious evil in early Easter holidays. According to the old fashion which prevailed throughout the country no long time since, school work was divided into two tolerably equal portions, one lasting from August to December, the other from the end of January to the early part of June. The first or winter half was broken by a short holiday at Michaelmas, as the second was by the Easter vacation. The last quarter, ending as it did early in June, could never extend over more than some ten weeks, even when Eastertide fell in March. All this is now in most parts of the country changed. Most schools begin and end later in the year, their work being distributed in three portions. This change we are far from regretting. It places the long vacation at the best point in the year. Nothing could well be more tantalising, in these holiday-making times, than to go back to the routine of school life at the very moment when father and mother, brother and sister, are starting for their annual migration. But this division of the school year into three terms throws two-thirds of the work, instead of half, after Christmas. Since the beginning of the second and the end of the third terms are fixed points, it follows that early Easter holidays necessitate an almost unbroken third term of some sixteen weeks, the latter portion of which coincides with the hottest and most exhausting season of the year. Martial, pleading for the Roman school-boy in the dog- days, writes,—
"Alba3 ]Done flannneo calont Imes,
Tostamque forvens Julius coquit mossem,"
and we are half-inclined to agree with him in adding,— " /Estate pucri si valent satis discunt."
What is exhausting to the schoolboy is still more so to his master. There have been of late some parents who, goaded to wrath by "Master Jacky's holidays," have branded the school- master as a lazy creature, spending three months of the year in idleness. Such assailants should remember that, while they may generally leave their cares in their counting-houses, and pass the after-dinner hours in sleep or more aesthetic pleasures, the school- master has his responsibility weighing on him without cessation night and day as long as his pupils are beneath his roof. At all events, no one would be the worse for a more systematic arrange- ment of work ; and no time need be sacrificed, what is taken from the third term being added to the second. All that is wanted is to change the moveable holiday into a fixed holiday at some latish date in April. There are two difficulties in the way of the proposed reform. In the first place, if carried out at all, it should be carried out generally throughout the country. In the neighbourhood of large towns it is customary for schools, and especially girls' schools, to depend for a considerable part of their teaching on what are sometimes called " visiting masters," each of whom is engaged in more schools than one. lf, then, these schools do not all have their vacation at the same time, these teachers either lose their holiday, or disturb by their absenee the regular working of the schools. In some countries it would be easy to carry out a general scheme by the decree of the central authority. In France, it has been said, a Minister of Education can look at his watch, and know that every boy on his aide of the frontiers is at that moment engaged upon the same subject. In England, except in the case of primary schools, there is no such central authority. There is a strong feeling against paternal government and "grandmotherly legislation." Our statesmen bid us emulate the spirit of Herodes Atticus, and our National Museum is enriched with antiquarian treasures by the speculative enterprise of newspaper proprietors. The matter might be re- ferred to a joint Committee of the College of Preceptors, repre- senting the private schools both for boys and girls, and of the head masters of first-grade schools. The latter body applied them- selves energetically to the question of the examination of schools by the Universities, but in that case they knew that if they did not provide for this themselves, they would in all pro- bability have to submit to interference from the Government. The second difficulty to be encountered in dealing as we suggest with the Easter Vacation is the supposed desire of Members of Parliament and others to enjoy it in company with their families. We fear that many a paterfamilias would be unable con- scientiously to declare his holiday intolerable through the absence of his offspring. Even without taking account of enfants terribles, we may be sure that a man can make more out of a short spell of leisure without his children than with them. Again, the father may adapt his holiday season to his son's. The legislator who sets to work early in February can hardly want breathing- time in March. We see clearly the advantage of establishing a Spring vacation, fixed and comparatively late ; and we think it would not be difficult to do so, if an influential body could be induced to take the initiative.
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