THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL PRODUCT

FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A PUBLIC SCHOOLMASTER.

Any attempt adequately to discuss this subject is beset by one serious and almost insurmountable difficulty. Though the term "product" is often used with regard to the results of a system of education, it is obviously liable to mislead unless care is taken to make it clear that the term cannot be employed with any very distinct connotation. In horticulture and mathematics there is no doubt as to the exact meaning of the word; but in all educational observations it is excessively difficult to separate the effects of nature from those of nurture; and this remark is true if the area under observation is no wider than the home. If in the case of an individual boy there is a reason for wishing to diagnose the results of his school life as well as of his home training, the difficulty of attaining accuracy is enormously enhanced. It is well known that if anything goes wrong the school is generally blamed by the parents, and the home is blamed by the schoolmaster; and this kind of recrimination could not exist unless there were considerable difficulty in adjusting the responsibility for the ultimate result. But if anything could increase this difficulty to an almost indefinite extent it would be if the term product were used to cover not one boy and one school, but a multitude of boys from a multitude of schools, and the question were asked as to what estimate could be formed of the effect of the school training on the whole number. It will be at once seen that the question assumes that there is an effect on young boys distinct enough to be observable in a large number, in spite of the fact that the schools through which they have passed are very various in tone, equipment, and aim; only less various than the homes from which they have originally come.

There are, however, two considerations which somewhat mitigate the difficulty mentioned, though they do not by any means wholly remove it. The first is as follows:-If the question is put quite simply, what is the difference between young boys who enter the public schools now, and what they would be if they had never been to any preparatory school at all, any schoolmaster would feel that in spite of the theoretical impossibility of gauging results, yet he is pretty certain that there is a difference, and also that he is prepared to say, approximately, in what features of the schoolboy's character it manifests itself. That is to say, there are some broad general characteristics of English schoolboys of 13 and 14 years of age which a tolerable consensus of opinion attributes to the school training which they have undergone. And thus it becomes possible to indicate what those

characteristics are, and to suggest, however tentatively, some points in which improvement seems desirable. The second is even more practical in character. Instead of hesitating, owing to the difficulty of separating the three different elements of heritage, home training and school life, which combine to make up the boy of 13, it would be advisable to abandon the attempt and indicate broadly what the English boy of that age generally is: how far equipped for what lies before him; how far orderly in his development and capable of progressing satisfactorily through the time of youth. Doubtless any criticism may be met by the objection that the blame lies with the home, and the school is powerless to undo the effects. Still, it may be not unprofitable to approach the subject from this side. Though other husbandmen have had a large share in the product, the preparatory schoolmaster may be interested to learn what others think of his pupils as they leave his hands.

Probably the symptoms which do not require any special insight will provoke least disagreement, and the one we will first select is very easy to verify and highly important. It is that, as compared with those of 30 years ago, the modern boy comes to the public schools prepared to deal with the masters as with human beings and friends. Formerly they were to him neither the one nor the other. High-spirited little boys, accustomed to geniality and kindness at home, were flung into the clutches of a strange assortment of middle-aged men, mostly without any boyish instincts left in them. In the large public schools they were simply scholars in the humbler order of Secondary Schools they must have been in many cases men who had drifted from one obscure means of livelihood to another till they took refuge in the ample harbour of school-teaching, tolerably secure that, whatever their want of fitness for the work may have been, immunity from disturbance was provided for them by the dense lethargy of public opinion which reigned throughout the country. And in those days no widely prevalent system of Preparatory Schools existed at all for the formidable task of getting little boys ready to meet this repellent order of pastors; and the boys were not got ready in any way. Hence, as soon as they found themselves in these strange surroundings they adopted an antagonistic and suspicious attitude towards their teachers. The astonishing change which has taken place is more visible in the modern Preparatory than in the Public Boarding School; but it is very marked in both. The result is an immense increase of confidence between boy and man; in other words, the growth of a true pastoral relation between them. At a large Public School, 35 years ago, a youth looked round on one occasion at the whole staff of masters gathered in chapel and settled in his mind that there was not one to whom he would go in any difficulty. Nowadays this could not happen in any Public School, though it may be admitted that there is room for a vast amount more of wise and sympathetic handling of boys by masters. But the change is a momentous one, and it has been largely assisted by the remarkable care taken of small boys in their first schools,

It is obvious that this important service rendered by the smaller schools to the larger ones is capable of much extension. As the spirit of co-operation between the different orders of schools gains in power, we may expect to hear of the frank communication from one master to another of all that is necessary for him to know about the pupils which are being transferred between them. A great deal more might be done in this way than is done, and for the deficiencies, both sorts of masters are in different ways responsible. Those in the more secure position, free, to a large extent, from the manifold vexations of competition-namely, the public schoolmastershave not always been quick to understand the difficulties and embarrassments which their preparatory school brethren have had to meet. It has not been easy in the past for the latter to speak quite freely about the boys who were leaving their schools. Frankness has seemed not unlikely to involve risk of loss of good name to the preparatory school, which, of course, spells ruin to its owner. And if such letters as have been written have frequently betrayed signs of this misgiving, and have erred on the side of a cautious optimism in the estimate of character transmitted to the public school, there was no need for the latter to conclude that all letters of the kind would be useless, and to throw cold water on the friendly assistance which had been rendered.

A question of much interest and importance presents itself at this point. Granted that the care and supervision nowadays given to the younger boys are still capable of improvement and extension, yet they have been in operation long enough to show in what respects we may look for evidences of their influence. If little boys are now looked after with close and unwearied vigilance as is certainly the case in many Preparatory Schools -what are the results so far?

The intellectual results have already been to some extent considered, but it would not be amiss to point to the greatest defect in the ordinary public school boy's mind, and to inquire whether anything in the preliminary teaching is likely to favour it or to counteract it. It is the same to-day as it has ever been. The enormous majority of boys detest the effort of thought which belongs to the surmounting of a real difficulty. It matters little what the stimulus may be in the shape of prizes for success, or what the threats which await failure. The fact is patent to every schoolmaster that sooner than think consecutively or patiently elaborate and thoroughly subdue a difficult sentence or a mathematical problem, nearly all boys of all ages of boyhood will go through hours of barren, soulless drudgery so long as they can convince themselves that they are covering the ground somehow and doing something praiseworthy. A prominent characteristic of adults in England is to shirk details, to jump to conclusions with as little of laborious effort as possible. It is curious that while we succeed in many parts of the globe by showing intelligence and zeal, but little method, the little boys of the country in their school work show method and

zeal, but little intelligence. It is a strange fact, for instance, that a certain proportion of new boys in their mathematical entrance examination papers will always divide in long division by 2 or 3; and that a paper is now in existence where the process of dividing by 1 in long division was carried on from the top to the bottom of the page, when the paper was shown up; the writer being unvexed with any misgiving as to the ultimate issue of his somewhat monotonous toil. In the same way in Latin and Greek the ideal of nearly all boys is to prepare sufficiently to escape censure or ridicule, and then wait to be told the sense by the form-master. They will then take steps to learn it up for the examination at the end of the term, but their thoughts very rarely indeed rise to the level from which they can contemplate a difficulty surmounted without aid. It is clear that we have here presented to us a problem of very great intricacy, and one which demands the closest attention on the part of the Preparatory schoolmasters. If at 13 years of age a boy shows himself willing to listen to any extent, to write to any amount, and to read up anything set him for reproduction, it points apparently to the fact that his efforts up till then have been mainly mechanical, and that the delight of unaided thinking is strange to him.

This is perhaps not the place for a discussion of the problem in its details, though a few broad considerations may be set out. One of the greatest difficulties connected with it consists in the fact that up to the age of 13 or 14 the rational faculties are so much in abeyance that a premature appeal to them may be mischievous, or at least useless. It is the time of life when the memory may be advantageously employed, but the ratiocinative processes of the brain are very slight, shallow, and discontinuous. Thus an experienced teacher knows that in such a subject as history it would be folly to call upon little boys to reason upon facts of constitutional history. The best that can be done for them is to present the external facts of the life of the country in as vivid a form as possible. Hence the great extension of the use of the magic lantern in history and geography lessons, and to a considerable extent such experiments as these have no doubt succeeded. But where the failure seems to be is in the gradual transition from these processes of imparting information suitable to tender years, to the more complicated problems which insists on reflection, comparison, inference, and imagination. Somehow the eagerness with which the elementary efforts at imbibition were made, continues slightly abated into the early years of adolescence; but in a very large majority of cases teachers have not yet been compensated for the loss of memory and physical vigour which is noticeable often during the period of growth from 14 to 16 years of age, by any increase in the willingness to think. Nature seems to indicate that the period of merely gathering facts should be succeeded by one of growing reflection, or of sorting the facts. But though the zest in acquiring facts seems to diminish, it cannot be said that the power of sorting those already acquired promises well. Indeed it is noticeable

that as late as 20 years of age the notion that training the mind means anything more than acquiring more facts has, generally, hardly begun to be formed.

Now, it may be that the various and successful devices resorted to for the purpose of making knowledge attractive in the early years of school life, have had the undesirable effect of making the initial stages of thought processes more arduous and repulsive than they otherwise would be. And yet the devices are useful

and must not be abandoned. What is to be done?

Briefly speaking, it seems clear that there need be no risk of over-stimulating the thinking faculties, so long as the human power of resistance to suggestion remains what it is. And, moreover, the difficulties that have to be met are really twofold. There is first and foremost the reluctance to hard sustained effort generally necessary to thorough workmanship of any kind, and secondly there is a marked feebleness in the thinking faculties which seems to manifest itself long after the age at which thought ought to be developing has fairly begun. The young Englishman fails often in laboriousness, but still more often in intelligent reflection. If, therefore, the age of the Preparatory School boys is not fitted for the training of the reflective faculties, it follows that the deficiencies noticed will be most safely dealt with if the teachers at these schools devote their best attention to the problem of securing a constant presentation of suitable difficulties to their pupils, and of insisting that these difficulties shall be surmounted with as little help as possible. Of course, every schoolmaster knows the many obstacles that confront any such endeavour as long as boys have to be taught in class. But none the less a good deal could be done if this paramount necessity were by all habitually borne in mind. It can hardly be conceived that the present proportion of youths who cannot bring themselves to grapple in deadly earnest with an intellectual problem, is fixed by any ordinance of nature, and if not, then it is certain that it can and ought to be diminished, and, if it is to be diminished, then it should be judiciously dealt with from the earliest years of school life onwards. It would not be easy to suggest a more fundamental question for the teachers to work out in the light of their special experience. The handling of it must obviously produce a direct effect on the moral as well as the intellectual calibre of the nation. Englishmen are prone to admire their national good qualities, and often self-reliance and grit are spoken of as the outcome of our Boarding School system. Nevertheless, no one can be acquainted with boys in any large number who does not speedily learn that, whatever may be the case with a fairly large minority there is a majority, who through their boyhood and on into adult life give frequent and unmistakable proof of a certain deficiency both in mental and moral robustness, which is far greater than should have been expected, or than we should be prepared to acquiesce in. And it is undoubtedly an obligation resting on all experts to consider carefully wherein the modern systems of teaching tend to foster this weakness and to healthily counteract it.