FROM

ROM the beginning of the war it has been plain to all students of planning, and from the beginning of concentrated air raids plain to everybody, that the planning of the town and countryside Town and will need far more drastic control and Country guidance than exist at present. We Planning. thought that it was generally agreed that the only satisfactory solution will be to set up a Central Planning Authority charged with the duty of preparing a national plan for the re-arrangement of housing in town and country, of industry including agriculture, of the location of business and necessary changes in transport arrangements. The report of the Commission on the Location of Industry, commonly known as The Barlow Report', and the Interim Report of the Uthwatt Committee, both assume that a National Planning Authority is essential. Instead of this, by what appears to us one of the most unfortunate compromises in English political history-which is not poor in compromises there has been set up a Council of Ministers-i.e. the Minister of Health, as responsible for planning in England, the Secretary of State for Scotland, who is his counterpart there, with Lord Reith as Chairman-not in his capacity as Minister of Works and Buildings but personally'. It is something, as Lord Reith has said, that the Central Planning Authority shall exist in embryo', but it seems to us that the Government have missed a great opportunity at a time when the country was ready for a bold experiment. Education is bound to be affected by any scheme produced by the Central Authority, and we hope that educationists will be as insistent upon drastic action in national planning as in the education reforms which are their more immediate concern.

with a capital 'Y') and attributing to Youth and it all the virtues and contrasting it Its Leaders. with elderly dulness and inefficiency. Young folk in their teens range between the extremes of the highbrow and the hooligan. Most of our young folk are ordinary decent people, like the rest of us, not to be deceived by platform uplift. They are human beings at a very sensitive stage of development, conscious of wonderings and unexplained desires, often rich with promise all too frequently frustrated by ignorance and lack of opportunity. At this time more than ever they need adult experience to organize their activities. Their chief enemies are, as always, ignorance and idleness. The antidotes are education and occupation, and these a service of youth should provide. Let us avoid talking about a youth movement, which implies the imposition of a certain set of ideas and the welding of masses of young people into a unity for particular purposes. None except those with vested interests would incur the danger of allowing the clamour of any one section of the community to dominate any scheme. We have rejected this kind of thing in favour of a Service of Youth whose flexibility fits ill with the enthusiasm of dogmatic specialists. We believe in developing sound characters in sound and informed minds and sound and well-built bodies. Sound character, an attractive personality and a strong sense of vocation are essential needs of youth leaders, but there must be training as well. We do not want well-meaning but uninstructed persons or interfering people who carry above their necks a 'committee face'. In fact 'leader' may not be the right word. 'Mentor' might be better but for its pedantic flavour, meaning as it does a wise counsellor and a good friend. Sir Frederick struck the right note of practical idealism. Even in deprecating too much talk about New Jerusalems he envisaged preparation for a massive forward movement when the end of the war brings time and opportunity.

THE

Nurseries.

'HE long-promised circular on war-time nurseries has at last been issued. It will disappoint many of those who were hoping for some central directing force. There are too many voluntary societies War-Time and officials involved too many people to tread on each other's toes and say "This is my job, not yours", or "Where do I come in?" Further, those who believe that blind-alley training, even in war time, is strenuously to be avoided, will be apprehensive of the forms of quick, cheap-labour training offered to wardens and warden assistants, especially for the two to five year-olds. We must think of after the war'. It would seem to have been possible, with the help of the Training Colleges, to have evolved some form of training in the Colleges for one year (i.e. nine months), which, followed up by war-time experience in a nursery, might have counted, in the case of promising candidates, as the first step to the completion of training after the war. Perhaps, having arranged for immediate demands, authorities may be able to turn their attention to a longer-term policy.

N article entitled

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Official attention is called for the first time in this pamphlet to the vitally important question of the teacher's fitness for his task and to his qualifications as a teacher of Divinity. Accepting this as a basis, the question which first presents itself centres about the definition of particular qualifications in the teacher. In this connexion the writer quotes from the Spens Report. "The first requisite in the teacher is sincerity." No one can dispute that. The report continues: "As to knowledge in proportion to his sincerity and his conviction of the importance of the subject he will continually be improving his equipment in order that on the one hand he may satisfy the critical of his class and on the other deal with the many misrepresentations which may be offered."

Translated into actual practice this amounts to nothing more or less than a qualification of willingness to read and to teach the subject. That is in fact the present position, and it cannot be considered in any way satisfactory; for, if we accept the enunciation that religious knowledge is at least equal in importance to other subjects (a timid and tepid description, it would seem, of the Queen of sciences), then it must follow that the standard of qualification required of the teacher should be at least as rigorous as in other ordinary subjects of the curriculum. No man or woman is permitted to teach mathematics or chemistry simply on the basis of a readiness to do so. Some additional academic qualification is, quite rightly, demanded in these most important subjects.

The same principle must surely hold in the case of the (at least) equally important subject of religious knowledge, more particularly as it has been authoritatively admitted that Divinity has a definable scope demanding particular qualifications. As a thinking animal I may be deeply interested in biology; we all must be to a certain extent; but it would be considered fantastic if I were to attempt to teach this merely on the grounds of interest and willingness. Indeed, if I were to make the attempt, no one would pay the slightest attention to my teaching as lacking all authority: it would be considered, and rightly,' amateurish nonsense

Why then in the name of common sense should the teaching of religion be relegated to this irregular and amateur standard? Objections will be raised against the acceptance of any academic qualifications. It will be said that this will mean the thin edge of the wedge towards religious tests for teachers, but why should it? Those men and women who do not wish to offer this subject will be in no way prevented from continuing to teach the other ordinary subjects. There is no reason why the insistence upon proper qualifications for voluntary teachers of religious

knowledge should affect those who have not volunteered. It will be objected that the prime qualification of sincerity in the teacher is not susceptible to test of any kind but in actual practice in the case of candidates for ordination or for teachers in Sunday-schools means* can be and have been found for ensuring that they are fit and proper persons for this office: the same, mutatis mutandis, could be easily applied to teachers of religious knowledge in schools.

In point of fact at the present time, while lip-service is paid to the importance of religious teaching, when it comes to definite action there is a general tacit refusal on the part of authority to face the difficulties and an inclination to escape behind a smoke-screen of pious platitudes.

The questions which must be faced and answered can be resolved into a comparatively small space.

(1) Is educational authority prepared to exact the same standard of qualification in teachers of religious knowledge as in teachers of other ordinary subjects?

The answer may be found in friendly and sympathetic counsel between the churches, administrators, and teachers. (2) If the answer is in the affirmative, then is educational authority prepared to allow religious knowledge to rank as an optional subject in the teacher's certificate instead of as at present an additional optional subject ? The disadvantage of this position is that most candidates have not the time to spare for an additional optional subject. It takes all their energy and attention to complete their present course: by taking this additional optional subject they jeopardize their chances of qualifying in the others.

(3) Is educational authority prepared to insist that religious knowledge should be, like other subjects, open to inspection by H.M. Inspectors, who are duly qualified?

If these questions can be answered in the affirmative then it will be hard to resist the corollary that the opening period of each day should be devoted to prayer and worship.

The syllabus itself presents few difficulties: the 'agreed syllabus' is a most convenient and satisfactory guide: with the main highway so delimited and sign-posted, both the pupil and teacher will be able to stray for some considerable distance down many attractive and important side roads.

These diversions in reality provide the main themes of teaching: they can be chosen and followed as frequently and as far as individual inclination or specialized interest may dictate and then at their leisure the party may find their way back to the main road which both begins and ends with God.

To this end it is important to avoid the common mistake of supposing that a scripture lesson consists of the analysis of a certain section of the Bible in the Old or New Testament, aided largely by a published commentary in the teacher's hand.

One can no more teach scripture by this method than one can teach English by an analysis of Shakespeare's plays with the aid of Doctor Verity's notes. That the Bible must be the foundation of scripture teaching is obvious. A competent knowledge of certain books is clearly essential, but this detailed knowledge must be preceded or, better still, accompanied by a sufficiently wide and deep theological conspectus. Nothing in these days of secularism can be assumed. Some considerable time can and should be spent

(i) In the case of ordinands:

(a) An interview or interviews by responsible authorities to test vocation.

(b) Some form of preparation, instructional, devotional, practical.

(ii) In the case of Sunday-school teachers :

(a) Weekly preparation classes taken by the clergy

(b) Attendance at annual summer-schools.

first place we have to make sure how far the schools are capable of providing our desirable citizen, and to what extent they are capable of ensuring the characters we require. I think it is a common misfortune of English institutions that they are often criticized and blamed for failing to do something which it is not in their power or province to do. I am uncertain others in this room will know better than I-to what extent any vital change in the character of a nation can be secured solely by the deliberate planning of an educational system. We are often reminded that the community outside contributes to the school, just as the school is expected to contribute to the community outside. Teachers and headmasters have told me that many evils of which we sometimes complain, and for which we criticize the educational system, come from outside the school. They are part of the pattern of the community from which the children come. There is, for example, the question about the influence of the modern home. It is often claimed that the home is not an ally but the enemy of all that is best being attempted by the educational system. If that is so I would submit to you the question-must we, must our educational system just resign itself to that kind of consequence ? Surely, I would say, if there is evil coming in from outside, or if the home influences are a hindrance, that is all the more reason for exercising and developing in school the qualities which are neglected or ignored outside. The educational system cannot be content to serve as a mere acquiescent reflection of both the good and the evil of the community. Now let me pass on to show how, as it appears to me, the system may endeavour-or does endeavour-to meet the requirements of our objective—namely, the fashioning of a kind of citizen well adapted to the life of a Christian community.

I think I would say that the school begins to do this by training children for a larger Christian society in its own smaller Christian society. I believe that more and more the tendency of our schools-of all of them, of all types of school is towards the constitution of a school community. The school thus becomes not merely a place of learning; it becomes a place where children learn how to live. That seems to be the prevailing tendency. It is growing. If this is so, then there are two things to observe :

1. If our object is to create a Christian community outside the school, by first creating a school community inside, then that school community must be directed and controlled not indeed by ecclesiastics, but by a Christian philosophy of life. It must live by standards that are Christian; it must look to ideals that are Christian; it must engage in practices that are Christian.

2. The second thing to be observed in this connexion is that this idea and practice of each school as its own small community needs to be linked up much more closely to the larger community of the world outside. I feel that there is too much isolation between the larger community of the town or nation and the little communities of its schools dotted about within the town and nation. Children when they leave school ought to pass with much greater ease than they do into the life and service of the community outside— a life and a service which they have learnt, so to speak, in the nursery of the school. Let a familiar example drawn from our own domestic history illustrate my meaning. At the moment I feel that the school community is representing in relation to the outside world the very bad practice of a certain class in the nineteenth century, who made sure that they should see as little as possible of their children by confining them to the isolation of the nursery. I feel that to a considerable extent bridges must be built between the larger community, where the child is destined one day to practise the art of living, and the smaller community in which the child is learning how to live. Only so will the transition from the one to the other become a natural process. Only so can the lessons of the school community become to the mind of the child the aims of his adult life. We need these bridges.

All I have said in the above observations has emphasized the importance of what is called 'atmosphere' in the community life of the school. I believe that this is supreme. I believe that in the development of a Christian community the right atmosphere' is as important as, if not more important than, the right curriculum. It is foolish to suppose that we can begin to develop a Christian community without a knowledge of the Christian facts and what they entail; but, if the atmosphere' of a school does not match the specific instruction given there, I think I know which of the two is going to win. It will not be the instruction.

May I close with a word or two about the religious instructional side of the child's life?

1. I am certain-perhaps you would expect me to be certain that the presentation of Christianity to the child, the instruction of the Christian faith, does involve the presentation in some way or another, of the fact of institutional religion. I do not think we can get away from that. If you are going to teach Christianity at all you have got to teach and present the fact of the Christian Society. Whatever limitations may be imposed upon such instruction a child who is expected to go out into the world to aid the development of a Christian community cannot be left in doubt of his need of sharing in the life of the Christian Fellowship. I think that this need requires emphasis at the present time.

2. Secondly, a Christian community involves the belief that in order to build well and soundly a man requires more than his own unaided resources can supply. We cannot build the Kingdom of God without God. The kind of vague diffused Christianity, that counterfeit of the authentic Gospel, which implies that man by his own collective initiative can build the world of heart's desire' is surely, at this time of day, discredited. The true belief that man needs God, if he is to have Christian society at all, will, I think, become most naturally the belief of a child, through the art and craft of Christian worship. As the child is brought to God in worship, there passes gradually into his life, and so ultimately into the life of the community, the recognition of the Christian God as the final authority-the way, the truth, and the life. Only in touch with the supernatural can even the natural survive.

I would end, therefore, by suggesting to you that "the extent to which the educational system is contributing towards the development of the Christian community" is the extent to which it is enabled to teach the citizens of to-morrow to live not merely as the brief inhabitants of an earthly community, but here and now to live in this temporary home as citizens whose destiny belongs to the abiding City of God.

AN important deputation representing the Anglican and Free Churches has been received by the President of the Board of Education, accompanied by the Parliamentary Secretary, Mr. Chuter Ede, and the Permanent Secretary. The object of the deputation, which was introduced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, was to support the five points contained in the Archbishop's letter to the Press of last February. The President said that the proposal that a Christian education should be given to all scholars (subject to a conscience clause), by teachers competent and willing to give it, corresponded with what was the universal or almost universal, practice in the schools, and he certainly hoped that, when the time came for legislation, it would include a provision on the lines which the deputation desired, subject to the necessary safeguards against religious tests for teachers. He said that the remaining proposals required further consideration. The President's refusal to give a specific reply to these proposals until he has had an opportunity of full consultation with his officers, with the representatives of the local education authorities, and of the teachers, can well be understood, but it is to be hoped that action will not be postponed until after the war.

IN peace-time testions is often characterized by a deadly

N peace-time the attitude of the masses toward political

inertia. But good sometimes springs from adversity, and Nazi bombs have had the strange effect of preparing public opinion for that national planning which has long been urged by experts and social reformers. The architects of the new Britain are already busy at their drawing-boards preparing plans for the new order which we all so ardently hope will emerge when the war is over.

Education too has its planners, for a ferment of thought is stirring the educational world. The last war stimulated a demand for educational progress, and, in this war too, farsighted educationists are discussing what improvements in the country's education are necessary in response to the impact of modern events and ideas.

The first essential is to know and obtain agreement as to what we are aiming at in education. Up to now, it is questionable whether we have, as a Nation, evolved a coherent creed in regard to what should be the fundamentals of our national education.

But war is a powerful stimulant to thought. The bombing of our cities has laid bare old sores in our social system, and the public conscience has been stirred and shocked more profoundly than ever before. By aggravating our social problems, the war has hastened the solution of these problems. More and more people are demanding a new social order after the war, and there is a consensus of opinion that this new order should take the form of a more genuine democracy, a democracy based neither on wealth nor on privilege, but on the principle that every man and woman shall have equal opportunities to share the benefits of civilization.

The Prime Minister crystallized these sentiments in an address which he delivered at Harrow, his old school, a short time ago. "When the war is won ", he told the boys, it must be our aim to work to establish a state of society where the advantages which in the past have been enjoyed by the few shall henceforth be enjoyed by the many.'

THE BEACON LIGHT TOWARD WHICH WE MUST SHAPE OUR COURSE

Now, if we accept such a view of the new social order which must be built, the first essential is equal opportunity in education. This phrase is being freely used as the underlying principle of educational reconstruction after the war, for the sort of education we want depends on the sort of society we believe in.

It may be argued that there cannot be educational equality as long as there is social inequality. Yet a great deal can be accomplished, even under present conditions, to reduce the gulf which now exists and to bring about a greater measure of equality.

One has only to cross the Tweed to test the truth of this statement. In Scotland, thanks to a network of scholarships and grants, equality of education is not merely a pious phrase, and 'class' education hardly exists. .

The Dominions too, and the United States of America have a far more democratic system of education than we have in this country. In their schools it is not unusual to see the son of a rich man sit side by side with the son of a clerk or artisan, and the latter has every opportunity of receiving as good an education as his neighbour throughout his scholastic life.

It can be argued too that, as human beings are not equal, you will always find a few outstripping the many. But in reply to this it may be pointed out that in a race it is still customary to line up all the runners level at the start. The existence of equality of opportunity does not

merely depend on an open road; an equal start is just as essential.

When the war is over, taxation and other considerations will have levelled many of the financial and social distinctions which have existed between the various classes of

the population. "The war has so modified relations between class and class", says Cardinal Hinsley, “that fresh insistence on social principles is necessary."

If we keep in view therefore the conception of a social order changing in heart and structure, educational change falls naturally into place as part of the larger movement, for educational institutions follow closely the pattern of society. Viewed in this light the difficulties do not appear insuperable. The important thing is to have an aim, and then to work for it and never lose sight of it. No nobler motto could be emblazoned on our educational banner than the words "To every child an equal chance in Life ". To quote the words of Sir Cyril Norwood, "Let us take this ideal as a beacon-light, toward which we can shape our

OUR TWO SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION

The greatest hindrance to the achievement of equality of opportunity in education is the fact that we have in England and Wales to-day, not one unified system of education, but two systems, determined not by educational but by social considerations, the two systems being separated throughout their whole duration by an unclimbable fence. "The products of the two systems do indeed meet at the universities", writes Sir Cyril Norwood, "they meet but they do not mix". This one short sentence epitomizes the dangers and difficulties arising out of the social stratification of our educational system. The question that arises there'fore is "Should a society which has determined to get rid of its social divisions tolerate a system which tends to perpetuate them ? "'

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Since the publication of Colonel Bingham's notorious letter and its repercussions, the public schools have become front-page news. There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the merits and demerits of this unique feature of English education. A great deal of nonsense has been written concerning the sacerdotal qualities of these institutions by the protagonists of this system, and an equal amount of nonsense written by those who decry the public schools. It is important, however, that an educational issue of such importance should be discussed without malice or political rancour.

It is alleged against the public schools that their very existence promotes a special kind of class-consciousness in their products which is incompatible with a society that aims at a genuine democracy; that they create definite barriers which could not exist if the whole population went to the same schools; that the existence of this system increases the chances of misunderstanding between the classes, since from the earliest years it separates the privileged from the unprivileged, and prevents the experiences of the one class from impenetrating the experiences of the other.

"

Prof. Laski makes the interesting point that the fact of the well-to-do having their own schools is an important factor in slowing down the general educational progress of this country. I am convinced ", he asserts, that many of the schools on the condemned list would not have remained there had the children of the well-to-do had to use them."1

Mr. Aneurin Bevan, too, believes that the presence of the 1 The Journal of Education, February, 1941, p. 45.