Cambridge Essays on Education

W. VA

of Wellin

res of peace, and by the quick devouring furnace of war. They seem at first sight to be a verdict of "guilty" against the teachers or the system in which they play a part. That verdict will not be accepted without protest by those incriminated, but even the protesters will feel some compunction, a

he whole of life is often wrestled with at conferences of schoolmasters which do not publish their proceedings, and by little groups of men who feel the need of one another's help. It is certainly always present in the minds, if not in the hearts, of every head master, boarding-house master and tutor in Engla

termination that the teaching of religion at all events should have its full share of their time and thought, find that as their teaching life goes on and fresh duties crowd in to usurp more and more all their energies, that the time they can spare, and the thought they can give, either to the preparation of their divinity lessons, or to the enriching and cul

sson to be well prepared; it should go out into the books that deal with the philosophy and the history of religion-the books of Harnack and Illingworth, Hort and Inge, Bevan and Glover, and of others who make us feel how narrow our outlook on our religion is. It would of course be foolish to drag our pupils with us exactly to the point to which these books may have brought us after many years' experience, but it is essential that we should know of the e

ience and industry and long-suffering and charitableness are virtues that bear the hall mark of Christianity, but they are virtues in which the best men fail continually, are conscious of their own failure and would plead for merciful judgment. If the parish priest is exposed to the criticism of those among whom he lives, a still fiercer light beats upon the pulpit or the desk of the schoolmaster. His consciousness of this sometimes leads him to reduce his teaching to the limits of his practice, instead of extending the former and havi

ife, as of national life, seem founded on a basis opposed to Christ's teaching. It is very hard to go through a day of our lives, or even a short railway journey, and not offend against the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount. Older people have never been able to solve this dilemma: the rulers find it more difficult than the ruled. The whole of school life is stimulated by the principle of competition, and kept together by a healthy and, on the whole, a kindly self-assertion which is hard to reconcile with the ideals that are upheld in the New Testament. Yet at school, quite as much as in the World, competition and self-assertion are tempered by abundant friendliness and generosity; and at school if not in the world, there are an increasing number of individuals who have so much spiritual power that they never need to exercise the more worldly powe

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forgotten everything of a subject and yet may have learnt much from it. Every teacher knows this, if every schoolboy does not. No one shrinks so much from revealing what he knows as the boy who is conscious that he has learnt a thing and is not sure that he can show his knowledge accurately. No subject has been left so free from what is supposed to be the sterilising influence of examinations as divinity. In many schools there have been one or two inspiring teachers of this subject who justify this system, but on the whole the result does not confirm the opini

pparent, and that the victory of science does not mean the defeat of religion. If they have been lucky enough to use Driver's book on Genesis they will have felt on sure ground and any learner who has half understood it will have a shield against some of the weapons that assailed and defe

that makes the profession and even the holding of a religious faith so hard. More and more are the schools trying to prepare those in their charge for the perils that threaten the physical health and the character of the young; but it is tragic that they should be so unwilling to face frankly the perils that will sap the man's faith, and so expose his soul to the assaults of the world and the devil. It is very hard to put oneself in another's place; perhaps harder for the schoolmaster than for

who knows but dare not tell. What idea of the New Testament does the average boy who leaves, say in the fifth form, carry away with him from his public school? He may know that certain facts are told in one Gospel and not in another; that there are certain inconsistencies in the accounts given by the different Synoptic Gospels of the same miracle, or what is

me it has been broken, so decisively too that for a while the riddle seems solved, at all events the old way is abandoned for ever. Arnold's work at Rugby must have involved such a breach. His work has never had to be done all over again and there have been many to keep it in repair, but it needs to be extended now in the light of new problems, scientific, social and international. For this, as for all other extensions, courage is needed. The courage to face the difficulties that modern research and modern thought involve and the courage to point out that our Lord, though in his short career he changed the bias of men's lives, never claimed to leave man a detailed guide for conduct or for happiness. It was

k on much of the beauty and the thrill of the world, bewilderment will seize the chooser and at the best he will dedicate himself to a joyless and unattractive puritanism, or surrender himself to a rudderless voyage across the ocean of life. Religion at school must touch with its refin

accomplish this task the language of the Bible itself gives noble help. All the qualities of great literature shine forth from it and it should put to shame and flight the tawdry and the melodramatic. It is an ill service not to make all familiar

n be quite satisfied that chapel services are as helpful as they might be. The difficulty is how to improve them. The suggestion that they should all be voluntary is at first sight attractive but there are two insuperable difficulties. The one is the power of fashion, for it might well become fashionable in a certain house not to attend chapel. Those who know anything of the inside of schools know how such a fashion would deter many of the best boys from going, and martyrdom ought not to be part of the training of school life.

voluntary, not only in name but in fact. On the whole it is better that a boy who neglects this duty should go

y, binding man to man and man to God, is strengthened, as fresh strands are added. At the least it may be claimed for the chapel services that they rescue from our hours of business some minutes each day in which our thoughts are free to make their way to the throne of God. Christ's promise to bring rest to those who come to him has been fulfilled in many a school chapel. Those of us who have had to pass through the

t exactly goes on in the mind of anyone at such a time there can be no certainty. There is the obvious danger of a reaction, and, guard against it as one may, it exists and sometimes leads to disaster; but there is another danger to which the schoolmaster is the

is eyes should be fixed. It is towards the Lord of all that is good that his heart should be uplifted. Anyone who has had to do with this time knows what it means in a boy's religious life, how reluctant he is to speak of it, how perilous it is to disturb his reluctance by inquisitive

intments and their temptations; but the loss to the masters who share their preparation would be irreparable. They may sometimes blunder

school. Industry and obedience, truthfulness and fidelity to duty, unselfishness and thoroughness, must form the soil without which no religious plant can grow; and these are taught and learnt in the st

our schools would protest against it; perhaps it is equally difficult for us to realise how far

or that is being canvassed, the most venerable traditions are being shaken. It is a time of hope, but a time of danger too. All sorts of plans are being formed for breaking

ich the Son of Man set out for us to follow. The peril now lies, not in the

es for the future, if we are to justify our claims to be the champions of justice and weakness, can never be borne unless we learn ourselves, and teach each generation as it grows up, to face the fierce light that shines from heaven. All sorts of devices, ecc

children of Athens? Just before Joshua led his people over the Jordan, he instructed them how the ark of the covenant was to go before them and a space to be left between them and it, so that they might know the way by which they must go, for they had not passed this way before. Once again a river of decision has to be crossed, a road has to be trodd

s and parents, certainly by the conventions of life. The result is that though there is more true religion in the schools than is acknowledged by those outside and than those within care to boast of, and though the standard of conduct is not ignoble, there is too little fusion; both components are brittle, they cannot stand the strain of sudden temptation, they lack enduring power. No one will forget how in those first months of war, consolation was offered even from pulpits for all the horrors and the sadness and the waste of conflict in the thought that as a natio

s that an awakened State will send to sit at their feet, and unless they can give spiritual food as well as worldly wisdom and paying knowledge, the souls of the new-comers will be starved beyond the remedy of any free meals. How to spiritualise education is the real problem, for it is only by a spiritualised education that we can escape from the avalanche of materialism that is hanging over the European world just now. No syllabus, no act of Parliament can do this. There is no royal road which all can travel. It has been done, to some extent, in the past, and it will have to be done, to a

usiasm, more eager about faith in some particular explanation of the past than about faith in a re-creation of the future, more attentive to the machinery of the organisation of the Church than to the words and commands of its Founder. As the Church has become more powerful in the world, it has lost its power over men's hearts. To some it has seemed an institution for the relief of poverty, to others the support of the "haves" against the "have-nots," but to too few has it been the home of spiritual adventures, the maintainer of spiritual values. Men have escaped from the relentless simplicity of the Master's commands by attenti

he world. What is worth knowing about Christianity is surely first and foremost that it is a leaven that might leaven the whole world; and that until that leaven works in each individual heart, in each society, where two or three are gathered together, Christ's presence cannot be claimed. As this knowledge is gained, it will be possible for the learner to know in his heart, and not merely by heart, what is meant by the great mysterious terms Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection; as this knowledge is tested and proved true by experience of life, the meaning and power of prayer will

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her matters it is assumed. The influence of the home cannot be exaggerated but schoolmasters must