In the words of Baden-Powell, from "Lessons on the 'Varsity of Life."
When I was thirteen
I went up to Edinburgh and tried for a scholarship at Fettes College. I was
lucky enough to get a scholarship as one of the original foundationers. But I
did not after all avail myself of it, for my luck went further. Only a week or
two later I was granted a foundation scholarship at Charterhouse. This I accepted.
I
was not a clever boy, nor, I grieve to say, was I as industrious a boy as I
ought to have been.
According
to the school reports I began fairly well in my conduct but deteriorated as I went
on.
The other day I
wanted to inspire my son, Peter, to work harder at school and win good reports
from his masters, so I pulled out my own old school reports and invited him to
inspect them. “Now look at this” — I said — “um — er — well p’raps not that
one.” (In it Monsieur Buisson had said
of me — “Fair — could behave better.”)
“Well then this — No.” (In it Mr. Doone recorded me as “Unsatisfactory” and my
classical master as “taking very little interest in his work.”)
When, in spite
of these uncomplimentary remarks, I succeeded in getting into the Sixth Form [like our high school], my new classical master,
the well-known Dr. T.E. Page, generously reported that I was “satisfactory in
every respect,” but the mathematical authority countered this by saying that I
“had to all intents given up the study of mathematics,” and it was further
stated that in French I “could do well, had become very lazy, often sleeping in
school,” and in Natural Science that I “paid not the slightest attention.”
Thus my form-masters
generally do not appear to have had a very high opinion of my qualities. The
headmaster, however, that characterful educationist, Dr. Haig-Brown, managed in
spite of their criticisms to see some promise in me, and reported that my
“ability was greater than would appear by the results of my form work, and he
was very well satisfied with my conduct.”
This spark of
encouragement afterwards fanned itself into a flame of energy when later on I
found it really necessary to work.
I have been
comforted to find that greater men than I have also shown that they were no
geniuses in school subjects. Winston Churchill, in his delightful book My Early Life, confesses that he could
not grasp either classics or mathematics when at school.
My classical
knowledge was of no higher order than my mathematical, but I cannot see how or
where it would have benefited me later on in life. I do see, however, where a
real knowledge of a foreign language or two as well as of English, of science,
of book-keeping, and of general history and geography, or at any rate the
method and practice of acquiring these, would have been invaluable.
To impose
both Greek and Latin grammar on young boys not a bit interested in them seems
to me as stupid a waste of time as making unmusical girls spend endless hours
in learning to play scales on the piano.
I know that I am
displaying my ignorance of the science and theory of education by saying this,
but I am merely speaking from results I have seen in the world.
Of course, my
strictures don’t apply to-day. Educational progress and improvement have
developed in the half-century since I was at school, but traditional methods
die hard, and they fail to produce so many able leaders or social servants as
they should out of the thousands of young men that the schools send into the
world each year.
There are too
many drones as yet in our hive, there is too great a waste of that human
material which, especially at the present juncture, would be invaluable to the
country if adequately educated to the joy and adventure of energetic Service.
