The aim of this paper is to account for a great change that has taken place in our Catholic Schools in the general method of treating boys, and to justify and, if possible, to suggest in one line at least the further development of the movement. Such a paper must necessarily be confined to generalities and all that is here set down will not apply to any single school. The part played by the individual schools in the movement, though necessarily very different, must perforce remain untouched. Some are naturally more conservative in their adherence to traditionary methods, and one at least from its very initiation has adhered almost entirely to the principles here briefly outlined. Others have done so in a more modified form.
It is now generally recognized that English Catholic boys cannot be brought up on a system that is really continental in origin and in spirit. Quite apart from peculiarities of the English temperament, the changed circumstances of Catholics, no longer standing isolated and apart from their fellow countrymen, would have necessitated a change from the narrower and more restricted outlook which such a system implies. Moreover, the spirit of the age, whether for good or bad, allows to boys at home more freedom than our grandfathers ever contemplated, and Catholic boys are now at home three times a year, as are boys from all other schools. We are so familiar with this fact that we are apt to forget that it was far from being the case fifty or sixty years ago. Still more important is the fact that Catholics are no longer regarded as pariahs by their fellow countrymen, that they now find their way as a matter of course to the universities, into the army and the civil service, and are daily called upon to take up important positions and fill important posts, which demand not only a thorough mental training, but a habit of independence and a capability of making judgements, which to the young Catholic who left school only to retire to his home or to the society almost as restricted as his school life, had perhaps no use for.
This, then, is the important fact that emerges from a study of English Catholic educational methods of the past: they were adapted to a very special set of circumstances. Catholicism was in a state of siege — Catholics had to submit to an abnormal but necessary discipline. We must do that much justice to the methods of our ancestors, we must recognise their wisdom. But at the same time it must be clearly understood that with new conditions must come new methods. There must be adaptation to environment. Now, if there is one characteristic more than another that strikes the mind in studying the old methods, it is the predominant and pervading influence of control. The master was ubiquitous. He presided over every action of the boy's day from morning till night, and the night, too, had its watchman. And it is sometimes added that, besides this drastic supervision, there was as well a secret service, a sort of jcpvirretor — in fact, all that summed up for us in the detested word, espionage.
There never generally existed in our English Catholic schools that system of organized espionage with which they have sometimes been credited, though Catholics may readily admit that their ideas of education in relation to individual freedom have been tempered with some admixture of foreign ideals, and that possibly the Catholic young man loses something by it in self-reliance and independence when he finds himself for the first time in a world which knows no restrictions, save those which the elastic and undeveloped conscience of the community imposes. The tendency now is to extend the field of liberty at school, and a wholesome and healthy tendency it most certainly is, whether it is considered from the standpoint of the boy's intellectual and practical development or the development of his moral sense.
Before attempting to justify this statement, it may be well to say more definitely what is meant and what is not meant by giving boys liberty. By liberty is meant that in the out-of-school hours there is no immediate supervision of boys by masters. No master watches over them in their playing hours, but they are left to themselves, bound by a few necessary and general rules, which ought to become less in number as they grow older, and die observance of which is made a matter of personal honour and trust among the boys themselves. Their duties and employments during every quarter of an hour of recreation are not carefully mapped out for them, nor are they forced to partake in certain forms of recreation, save such public games as are necessary for their proper physical development. No two boys are the same in ability, in accomplishments, in character, or in those things that amuse and recreate, and the system advocated contemplates boys not as a homogeneous mass, but as a collection of individuals each capable of specific self-realization. Under its aegis every boy has time and opportunity to develop his own tastes, to pursue his own hobby, and above all to cultivate his own line of reading and love of literature. It allows scope for that education of 'self' which is often the most valuable part of a boy's school career.
The advantages of a system of liberty from the intellectual standpoint are obviously very great, for a boy who thus learns to use his own time in self cultivation in its best sense, and is not 'cribbed, cabined and confined' on all sides, must develop internally as another can never do. This does not exclude the guidance of masters in intellectual pursuits during the hours of recreation. The inspiration, at least, which is necessary for developing tastes will come from that direction. General guidance in the selection of books and facilities for the development of a hobby must come from the authorities of a school, but the hours are the boy's own, and, though he may be encouraged, helped and guided in this recreative work, its nature and amount is left to his own discrimination and taste. The important thing is that a system of liberty gives boys the time and opportunity for receiving such guidance, should they themselves desire it, and that such work is very often better from the fact that it is not done under compulsion. But a boy is not always to be fed with a spoon, not always to lean on others, even in the acquirement of knowledge, and it is good for him to have the chance to do a little pioneer-work on his own account. Without such work, he will not attain to the full stature of intellectual manhood. If he is never to exercise his own judgement, or cultivate a sense of what is literary and beautifiil for himself, no encyclopaedic knowledge will make him anything but intellectually deficient. The whole end and object of education is to make each man a self-sufficient unit and the only method of doing this is a system which establishes a consciousness of his own individuality. There is no space in which to develop this idea further; but it may be said that, not only from the intellectual standpoint is such liberty good, but also from the practical. There are other means of developing these powers which will be spoken of hereafter, but let it suffice to state here that boys brought up under other systems are notoriously impractical, slow and indecisive in action, and in a crisis impotent. Liberty is a distinct help towards making boys think and act for themselves. When it is said that boys must think and act for themselves, the ideal aimed at is not a disagreeable priggishness, nor a formed and pronounced opinion on the problems of life, but rather a seriousness of mind and a habit of mental independence, which is not inconsistent with the freshness, brightness and aliveness, which are the proper characteristics of youth.
It will rightly be objected that this is only one side of the question of liberty. The intellectual development of a boy must always be strictly subordinated to the formation 'of character and general ethical considerations. But this liberty, it is said, is fatal to nature's weaklings and inevitably leads to the existence of'moral evil in a school. Were this true, no greater misfortune could have overtaken our Catholic schools than that such liberty should be finding its way into them. But surely it is more true to say that the high standard of morality, which has existed and exists in our schools, is not due to any system of supervision, but rather to the powers of the Catholic religion. The confessional, after all, is, and must always remain, the guardian of Catholic morality, and the Sacrament of the Altar its strength. Only those who know what the Sacraments do for the spiritual development of the individual can understand and appreciate this point. It is necessary to be very emphatic here because the point touches the very heart of Catholic education, and it is the writer's firm conviction that the morality of a school does not depend upon any system'of supervision, but mainly on the frequentation of the Sacraments.
In addition to this, there are many safeguards to morality wholly consistent with this view of liberty. In the first place there is the vigilance of the head master, which must be carefully distinguished from espionage or surveillance or any kind of formal supervision, and consists rather in a natural shrewdness of judgement, a knowledge of boys, their psychology, the signs of evil in their midst, and that natural straightforward observation of facts that come under his notice in the daily round of work. Nor does the system of liberty exclude the power of exhortation, example, or general help, that a master can give a boy in out-of-school hours. But it may be said in passing that this can be easily overdone, and a boy can be over-advised by an officious master.
There are some who will object to this theory of education on the grounds that youth ought to be a time of rigid discipline. It is true that every school must have its disciplinary code; there must be regular hours, punctuality, the exercise of certain restraints, enforced though they may be for the greater part by a code of honour, and proper punishments for offences whether against morals or good manners, and that gentle discipline with which the religious spirit unseen and in silence imbues the human soul. Order and discipline are essential to every school, but they must not be so rigid or so martial as to turn the boys into mere automata; rather should they be such as to teach them proper use of their freedom.
In addition to the Sacraments, the vigilance of the 'head', the help of individual masters and the training of the discipline, there is one other safeguard and almost necessary concomitant of liberty, and that is the training of boys in the exercise of responsibility. This can only be brought about by the governance of the school being left largely in the hands of the upper boys. Here it is only mentioned, and the subject is so important that it will be left for special treatment hereafter. One other point, however, may be referred to. The evils that supervision attempts to meet would be largely met by the adoption in our Catholic schools of the House System. The main difficulties of boarding-schools come from the herding of boys, or the barrack system, and this is best remedied by the adoption of the House System, which gives all the advantages of a big school, and allows for the play of all those good influences which come from a small school.
The best argument for the liberty here advocated is the sense of mutual distrust and the consequent habit of evasion which the system of supervision breeds. A habit of evasion is hard to eradicate and is closely akin to dishonesty. Very often a boy, who might have been led to good in an atmosphere of moral fresh air, is repelled by a feeling that he is watched or that force is being used to make him good; but liberty secures a high moral standard without that coercive power which tends to make the idea of excellence in any branch of life so distasteful to the average boy. The distaste thus engendered hides from him much that is beautiful and noble, whether in the social life he is compelled to lead with his fellows, or in the pursuit of virtue.
This system is an attempt to lead boys by the force of [to tes aretes kallos] rather than by the mechanical and monotonous drudgery of reiterated commands or invigilation — to make him do right because he loves right, and not because a contrary train of action involves the displeasure of superiors or possibly bodily pain. An excellence thus acquired is surely more lasting than the gift of any other system which makes a boy in after life associate moral excellence with an elaborate code of prohibitions. A system of honour, on the other hand, teaches that, after all, honesty, straightforwardness, manliness and purity of heart, are for his own benefit, and that all moral excellences are the perfection of his nature. And, again, there is no danger under such a system of a false moral code being evolved in a boy's nature. It may seem strange, but it is feet, that the immediate effect a system of elaborate supervision has on the morally weak boy is to make him believe that he can do anything so long as he is not found out.
Moreover, the contrary system excludes the exercise of the will power of a boy which is only strengthened and made real by such exercise. Man's will does not differ from the rest of his constituent parts in that it can be healthy and vigorous without exercising the function of choice which is its raison d'etre. To expect a boy when he leaves school to be capable of using his will in making a choice between good and bad, when this faculty of his had no opportunity of development, is as absurd as to expect a boy to play cricket who has never held a bat in his hand. The will may be trained from the earliest childhood to choose in things that matter little, and by careful thought on the part of superiors it may be led to choose between those which are more important until, by a system of careful graduation, on leaving school boys find themselves with a vigorous, healthy character, capable of resisting evil and embracing good as occasion demands. A system where all possibility of evil is carefully excluded, or rather one that aims at such theoretical perfection, may produce some beautiful characters, even an occasional exceptional one, but the general level of those so trained will be weaklings incapable of taking their place by the side of stronger natures.
The point, in short, is that a boy, before he is asked to face life, with all its moral difficulties and perplexities, must have learnt to be strong in will and sturdy in character. It is no answer to this demand to say that the hothouse as well as nature produces beautiful plants, or that many a flower has been saved by the hothouse. That is not a fair analogy, because no plant is taken from the conservatory in the depths of winter and then bedded out. But that is precisely what happens to a boy trained on principles which do not allow his power of choice some scope. He finds himself in a world of vice and sensuality, of free thought and general antinomianism, of cunning and intrigue, after five or six years spent under strict rule with all his difficulties anticipated for him, with all the minor problems of life eliminated, and supported on all sides by artificial props and stays. No one who knows human nature would expect him to survive the shock, and, as a matter of fact, he very often does not.
From the question of 'liberty' we pass to the more contentious subject of 'responsibility'. It is certainly true to say that the giving of responsibility to boys has not kept pace with the growth of freedom in education, and yet it is probably true that one is the natural and necessary complement of the other. By responsibility obviously is meant, not merely that responsibility for his own action which belongs to everybody who is allowed freedom, but a certain responsibility for the conduct of fellow boys and, as a consequence, a real share in the government of the school. This, it is contended, is not only a safeguard which will help to ensure a proper use of liberty without removing it, but it is also an excellent training in manliness, in habits of command, in the cultivation of savoirfaire in dealings with our fellow men, and that general practical resourcefulness which are so badly wanted by every boy who has to face the world. Besides cultivating a boy's executive faculty, it creates in a school a fine masculine tone of which more will be said.
There are some who assert that such a system was in origin economic, that the boys were given positions of trust and command to save the salaries of masters, that this system was obviously only a temporary expedient to tide over a difficulty, and that to advocate it seriously would be like suggesting a return to the system of police in Anglo-Saxon England, where men were answerable for the good conduct of their fellows in their own 'tithing'. But this is not a question of origins but of practical utility, and even were this true I should still maintain that the government of boys by boys is a good; it is better not to dispense with it. The English have stumbled across a system of cabinet government which owes it origin to such circumstances as that the head of the executive was incapable of talking the vernacular, but no one would condemn the system by reason of its adventitious origin. But surely a more true account of the origin of this system is that men like Arnold of Rugby saw that the top boys and the athletic heroes of a school will always have authority of one kind or another, whether it is conferred on them authoritatively or not, and that this was a force capable of being utilized for the benefit of such as naturally wield it and for the general promotion of good in a school. Whether or not readers agree with this as a matter of history, no one can deny the fact that no amount of government by masters, and by masters alone, will ever rob the top boys of the hero-worship of the 'smaller-fry', and that no schoolmaster can ignore so potent a truth in any system of government he may design.
In advocating the adoption of this system in all our schools we are not eliminating the master. Such government must always be under the general guidance of the master, who can always interfere, and, in certain cases, when, for example, flagrant miscarriage of justice has taken place, must interfere. The existence of a privileged class in the school is dependent upon their efficient interpretation of their position, and no privilege is irrevocable. At the same time, such guidance must not be overdone, otherwise the boys may become priggish and unnecessarily officious, nor must the trust confided to them be unreal or ungenuine, for they quickly realize this and only use such confidence for abuse. In short, it is not advocated that the master should waive altogether his right of interference, nor his position as final arbiter; and, moreover, his appearance in the school, in an informal and natural way, is necessary and would be so recognized by the boys who exercise authority.
It may be asked, what sort of work in school government can be successfully done by boys. In the first place, the general good order of the school in hours of recreation ought properly to be their province. They will make mistakes, it is true, but so would masters, and the fact that actual mistakes would be perhaps less frequent in the case of masters will be more than compensated for by the 'tone' that it will be the endeavour of the boys possessing real power to cultivate in the school. So much can be done in this respect by boys which no amount of attention from masters can ever do. The atmosphere of the school is created by the boys themselves, and this system creates a masculine and healthy tone among the upper boys, and a habit of prompt obedience and respect among the lower. Then, too, the big boys may be expected to put a stop to such offences of school-boy life as smoking and bad language, in all of which ways, if they are not given authority, they become the worst offenders. For authority gives them an interest in the orderliness and in the tone of the school, which it is otherwise impossible for them to have. The department of sports and games and the officer training corps also offer splendid fields for the exercise of authority by boys, for they are so public as to make any want of efficiency notorious. It will then become a point of honour with them to avoid such unpleasant notoriety by using their authority to secure excellence.
Two difficulties will, no doubt, suggest themselves. First, supposing the sixth form and monitors will not take up such a position in the school as this system demands and, generally speaking, show themselves utterly unworthy of confidence, what, then, is to be done? Should this be the case, it speaks badly for their early training; but in any well-regulated school it will never be found that the head boys as a whole refuse to take their position, though individuals may do. The remedy is then obvious. It is the remedy and the right claimed and exercised by Arnold with such good effect, namely, the removal from the school of boys who show themselves unworthy of their position.
But the real difficulty is the question of punishment, and the possibility of brutality or boyish prejudice making justice impossible. But here it is to be remembered that the modern boy has had cultivated for him, by the refinement of his surroundings and constant home influence, a milder tone of manners which has gone a long way towards the suppression of bullying or undue assertion of physical superiority. But still the question of corporal punishment must always remain a difficulty, which must be solved by each school for itself with reference to its traditions and circumstances. Some coercive power ought, however, to be allowed to the sixth form and monitors, and it should be easy for the school authorities to devise some scheme which shall save this right from the abuse without destroying its reality.
Such is a brief outline of a method of managing a school that appears to be the best preparation for the modern world, but it may be said finally that no system can be divorced from the men who 'run' it, and, however ideal a plan may seem, its working is always dependent upon those in whose hands it is. In a recent review in The Times of a book on the Montessori system of training children, which is one of extreme liberty, almost licence, one would say, the writer makes these observations with which we may fittingly end. 'In any scheme of education it is as a rule the man and not the method that matters. The world is already rich in educational systems. And of nearly all of them it is true in varying degress that if the man or woman who controls and inspires the system is of divine right a true naibaycoyoS, then, no matter of what kind it may be, it will produce right-minded, high-souled, happy, intelligent little men and women fitted to bear a useful part in the state. But, conversely, if the teacher or the teacher's discipline is not so inspired and inspiring, then the system, however admirable in itself, will prove a comparative failure.