987 The School World No. 217. A Monthly Magazine of Educational Work and Progress. WAR AND GOVERNMENT. WE JANUARY, 1917. E are entering a new calendar year, and are naturally reviewing the past twelvemonth and asking what the new year may have in store for us. We make no forecasts; all the previous attempts in that direction have proved such miserable failures. We no longer ask, "When will the war end?" but, according to our various temperaments and characters, we look forward with more or less hope to the undatable conclusion. Last January, Bulgaria had but lately declared war on behalf of Germany against her enemy Serbia; this winter, Rumania has at last joined in the war on the opposite side, so that the whole Balkan Peninsula, where the hostilities began, is now involved: Bulgaria and Turkey against us, Serbia, Montenegro, and Rumania for us, while the position of Greece defies the possibility of exact definition. To those of us who watch the course of the fighting, the war becomes more unparalleled than ever as the months go on. At sea, Great Britain maintains her position in spite of submarines, mines, and occasional raids, and, as we have now abundantly learned, “battles at sea occur only when the predominant Power has to a certain extent failed to hold the enemy completely in her grasp. On land, we have On land, we have had in the West battles lasting for months; and in the East, campaigns over large areas in which great tracts of country have been conquered first by one side and then, for some mysterious reason, by the other. Germany and Austria, fighting on central lines, have, on the whole, kept their dominions free from at least permanent hostile occupation, while the ring of their foes still holds them in a blockade. SIXPENCE. own economic position, we cannot but think they must be in a parlous condition. The war, in its international aspects, is therefore without parallel in history, at least in its size and intensity; what can we say of its effects on our daily life at home? The most striking fact, perhaps, is that we realise, in a way that we have never before done so, that we all belong to the State. By that phrase we no longer understand merely that we are members of the Brito-Irish Kingdom and of the Empire thereto attached, but that we are its property, to do with as the State, not as we individually, think best. It has long been a commonplace with us that our Parliament, unlimited by a written constitution, is legally almighty; but we did not know practically that our lives and property are absolutely at its disposal. Now, with a taxation unknown for generations and a conscription law which revives medieval assizes of arms, it is brought home to us, in our own persons and in those of our friends, that all we have and are is "Cæsar's." That, perhaps, is the greatest result of the war on our lives. Others we might name in descending order of importance. Our party system has disappeared, and though there are Cabinet changes, they happen over our heads and turn, not on matters of political party principle, but on personal issues between our various rulers. Parliament still meets for necessary business, maintains the ancient function implied in its name, and talks; but the talkers, especially the askers of questions, are not popular, and ordinary legislation is at a standstill. We understand now why the eighteenth century was so "barren" of lawmaking; it was a prolonged war period. Owing to shortage of ships, men, and money, all required in our struggle for existence against barbarism, our articles of ordinary consumption have risen in price, and civilisation, in the sense of daily comforts, is necessarily going backward-indeed, has gone back already some fifty years. Our streets are What may be the effect on their internal condition of this cutting off of their communications with the rest of the world we do not seem to be in a position to know for certainty, for reports are conflicting; but, judging from the action of the war on our No. 217, VOL. 19.] 1207026 B MAY darkened, and though we do not employ boys tution. Men who are not enslaved by the spirit of political partisanship will regard the list of Ministerial appointments with hopefulness rather than with complacency. A limited acquaintance with committee work reveals the impotence, in an executive capacity, of a body of twenty-three. But, apart from the smaller War Council, chief interest centres in the appointment of men of special knowledge acIt is also of particular interest to observe quired outside of politics to important adminithe results of the war on our national charac- strative offices. The new Presidents of the ter and on education, both moral and intellec- Board of Trade, of the Local Government tual. Our ministers of religion and others who Board, of the Board of Agriculture, and of the are in a position to know say that we are be- Board of Education; the Ministers of Labour coming a more serious nation. They tell us and of Pensions; the Controllers of Food and that, though those outside the churches are of Shipping, are all men who have attained showing no tendency to join them, the church-reputations as able and successful administragoing population are displaying a greater reali-tors in non-Governmental concerns; and it is sation of the religion they profess. Certainly, anticipated that they will bring to bear upon those who are familiar with the Hebrew their tasks the expert knowledge, forcefulness, Psalms are beginning to understand more and power of rapid decision which are so comintensely than was possible before some of the pletely the needs of the hour. The fact that prayers contained therein, and we no longer they are not merely politicians, with political make objection to the verse in our National reputations to make or to maintain, gives Anthem which speaks of "knavish tricks." some hope of boldness and strength where, The Israelite prophets, too, writing under the too often, there have been timidity and instress of attack by fierce Assyrian and Baby- decision. Ionian foes, often voice, to a degree remarkable for its adaptation to our present circumstances, our thoughts with reference to our agony. Our easy-going pre-war habits of thought and action have vanished into what seems a far-away past. Intellectually, too, we are becoming more intelligent; teachers have found that lessons in geography and history have ceased to be, both for themselves and their pupils, merely "something we learn in school," and have become living realities; public lecturers have been told that what the public wants is information as to the past of our foes, especially Prussia, that they may understand this religion of hate and delight in war from which we are suffering. Even the very little ones in our elementary schools are brighter in their work. Is it because into their hitherto dull and monotonous lives something of interest, even of painful interest, has been imported? We know how keen was the intellectual life of ancient Hellas, where the State was everything, the individual nothing, and there was a condition of almost constant war. Which of us would, three years ago, have expected fiveyear-olds to know, much less use, the word "search"? Yet we have heard such "infants" speak familiarly of searchlights, to say nothing of Zeppelins, aircraft, and submarines. Finally, the formation of the new Government, announced on December 11th, is an example of the elasticity of the British Consti So far as the purely business element of the Government is concerned, more reliance must be placed on this quality of forcefulness than upon the other vague, indeterminate qualities with which the business man is frequently supposed to be endowed. Too many factors enter into commercial success to render this alone a qualification for controlling a Government department. But it is essential for the success of the new Ministry that the departments of State should act upon adequate information with courage and resolution; and a Government department is weak and vacillating only when its political head is idle, incompetent, or fearful of his political reputation. In one respect the new Ministers will meet with a fresh experience. Owing to security of tenure, promotion by seniority, a fixed age for retirement, absence of mobility in the Civil Service, and the theory that a man with an Oxford or Cambridge degree is necessarily a sort of Admirable Crichton, they will find men in. responsible positions who, in private businesses, would never have reached their present position or would long ago have been superannuated. And they will have to struggle against a spirit which regards delay as of small consequence, and meticulous accuracy as a fetish. The real test, however, will come after the war. For the present their activities will be subservient to the requirements of the War Council and the exigencies of the moment. But when hostilities cease the still greater problems of reconstruction will have to be faced with equal resolution and without the driving force of necessity or the spirit of national unity which now renders their task one of relative ease. BOARDING-SCHOOLS AND DAY SCHOOLS. By J. E. KING, M.A., D.Litt. IN 1865 Mr. Goldwin Smith said: "We have received by tradition the system of the Middle Ages, when the family was comparatively little regarded, and when the boys were taken from their parents and subjected to a sort of half-monastic system. That I take to be the great root of the boarding-school system. If society were soundly constituted, and if the home was taught its duties, the day-school system would be best." These words can hardly be accepted as they stand. As Mr. A. F. Leach has shown, the medieval grammar-schools were mostly dayschools attached to churches, and the teaching was done by the secular clergy. Charlemagne did try to attach schools to the monasteries, but the plan did not, it seems, last long. The monks educated their own novices, but they did not want outsiders. For instance, soon after Charlemagne's time there was a school at the monastery of St. Gall, and it happened that some of the boys required punishment. The boy who was sent to fetch the rods took a brand from the fire and set the monastery in a blaze. This sort of incident would naturally disturb the peace of a monastery and make the monks anxious to be relieved of secular scholars. Even when in the twelfth century many schools in England were handed over to the control of the monasteries the instruction of the boys was left in the hands of the secular clergy. As to the statement that the boys were taken away from their parents, it should be noted that in the thirteenth century Walter de Merton provided for thirteen grammar scholars of the founder's kin in his house at Oxford, that in the next century William of Wykeham provided for seventy poor scholars to live college-fashion at the grammar-school at Winchester, and that in the fifteenth century the "lady-mother and mistress of grammarschools," in the college at Eton, provided for seventy. But such provision was the exception, not the rule. The bulk of medieval grammar-schools were like Shakespeare's school at Stratford-on-Avon, where first a room and then a house were provided for John Scholemaster "to teach grammar freely to all scolers coming to him to school in the said town." Again, it has been said that it is the Jesuits who are responsible for the practice of herding boys together in barrack-schools so as to mould them more effectively to the attitude of mind. and the beliefs which it is desired to inculcate. This, however, is not the fact. "Day-schools,' to quote from evidence given by Jesuit fathers, 'are more in accordance with our Institute than boarding-schools." In England the Jesuits have had boarding-schools because parents seem generally to prefer them. What was the discipline of monastic schools? We can illustrate this by quoting from the Constitutions of Lanfranc-given by Mr. Leach in his "Educational Charters": No youth is to talk to another except so that the master may hear and understand what is said by both of them; the masters are to sit between or in front of the boys so as to be able to see them; when they go to bed the masters ought to stand in front of them until they lie down and are covered up. We This is not the discipline of English board- Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, Religious piety was a primary object with medieval founders, and with men like Dean Colet and Bishop Oldham at the Renaissance, and with the Puritans after them, but they also wanted liberal discipline and instruction in the duties of life and manners. "Manners makyth man" is the well-known Winchester motto, and training in mores (manners and morals) was a leading aim in the education of the Renaissance, as we can we can see from the "De civilitate morum puerilium" of Erasmus and many other writings of his time. Jumping the ages of educational repose, if not stagnation, let us come to the report of the Schools Inquiry Commission of 1868. The verdict given is that for the upper classes of the community there is a sufficient supply of public boarding-schools and a very small supply of public day-schools; for the upper section of the middle class there is a smaller supply of |