CHAPTER XVIIDAY SCHOOLS AND BOARDING SCHOOLS
Whethera boy or girl should be sent to a boarding school or a day school is, to my mind, a question which must be decided in each case according to circumstances and temperament. Each system has its own advantages; in some cases the advantages of one system are greater, in others those of the other. I propose, in this chapter, to set forth the kind of arguments which would weigh with me in deciding about my own children, and which, I imagine, would be likely to weigh with other conscientious parents.
There are first of all considerations of health. Whatever may be true of actual schools, it is clear that schools are capable of being made more scientifically careful in this respect than most homes, because they can employ doctors and dentists and matrons with the latest knowledge, whereas busy parents are likely to be comparatively uninformed medically. Moreover, schools can be put in healthy neighbourhoods. In the case of people who live in big towns, thisargument alone is very powerful in favour of boarding schools. It is obviously better for young people to spend most of their life in the country, so that if their parents have to live in towns it may be desirable to send the children away for their schooling. This argument may perhaps cease, before long, to have much validity: the health of London, for example, is steadily improving, and might be brought up to the standard of the country by the artificial use of ultra-violet light. Nevertheless, even if illness could be brought as low as in the country, a considerable nervous strain would remain. Constant noise is bad for both children and adults; the sights of the country, the smell of damp earth, the wind and the stars, ought to be stored in the memory of every man and woman. I think, therefore, that life in the country for the greater part of the year will remain important for the young whatever improvements may be effected in urban health.
Another argument, though a much smaller one, in favour of boarding schools is that they save the time otherwise spent in going and coming. Most people do not have a really good day school at their doors, and the distance to be traversed may be considerable. This argument is strongest in the country, as the other was strongest for town dwellers.
When it is desired to try any innovation ineducational methods, it is almost inevitable that it should first be tried in a boarding school, because it is unlikely that the parents who believe in it will all live within one small area. This does not apply to infants, because they are not yet wholly in the grip of the education authorities; consequently Madame Montessori and Miss McMillan were able to try their experiment upon the very poor. Within the recognized school years, on the contrary, only the rich are allowed to try experiments with their children’s education. Most of them, naturally, prefer what is old and conventional; the few who desire anything else are geographically widely distributed, and do not anywhere suffice to support a day school. Such experiments as Bedales are only possible for boarding schools.
The arguments on the other side are, however, very considerable. In a school, many aspects of life do not appear: it is an artificial world, whose problems are not those of the world at large. A boy who is only at home during the holidays, when everybody makes a fuss over him, is likely to acquire far less knowledge of life than a boy who is at home every morning and evening. This is, at present, less true of girls, because more is demanded of them in many homes; but in proportion as their education is assimilated to that of boys, their home life also will become similar, and their presentgreater knowledge of domestic affairs will disappear. After fifteen or sixteen, it is good for boys and girls to have a certain share in parental occupations and anxieties—not too much, it is true, since that would interfere with education, but still some, lest they should fail to realize that the old people have their own life, their own interests, and their own importance. In the school, only young people count, and it is for them that everything is done. In holidays, the atmosphere of home is apt to be dominated by the young people. Consequently they tend to become arrogant and hard, ignorant of the problems of adult life, and quite aloof from their parents.
This state of affairs is apt to have a bad effect upon the affections of young people. Their affection for their parents becomes atrophied, and they never have to learn to adjust themselves to people whose tastes and pursuits are different from their own. I think this tends towards a certain selfish completeness, a feeling of one’s own personality as something exclusive. The family is the most natural corrective of this tendency, since it is a unit composed of people of different ages and sexes, with different functions to perform; it is organic, in a way which a collection of homogeneous individuals is not. Parents love their children largely because they give so much trouble; ifparents give no trouble to their children, their children will not take them seriously. But the trouble they give must be legitimate: it must be only such as is necessary if they are to do their work and have any life of their own. Respect for the rights of others is one of the things young people ought to learn, and it is more easily learnt in the family than elsewhere. It is good for boys and girls to know that their father can be harassed by worries and their mother worn out by a multiplicity of details. And it is good that filial affection should remain alive during adolescence. A world without family affection tends to become harsh and mechanical, composed of individuals who try to domineer, but become cringing if they fail. I fear that these bad effects are to a certain extent produced by sending children to boarding schools, and I regard them as sufficiently serious to offset great advantages.
It is of course true, as modern psychologists insist, that the excessive influence of father or mother is a very harmful thing. But I do not believe it is likely to exist where children have gone to school from the age of two or three, as I have suggested that they should. Day school from an early age affords, to my mind, the right compromise between parental domination and parental insignificance. So far as concerns the set of considerations with which wehave just been occupied, this seems clearly the best course, given a good home.
In the case of sensitive boys, there is a certain risk in leaving them to the exclusive society of other boys. Boys of about twelve are, for the most part, at a rather barbarous and insensitive stage. Quite recently, at a leading English school, there was a case of a boy suffering grave bodily injury for being sympathetic to the Labour Party. Boys who differ from the average in their opinions and tastes are likely to suffer seriously. Even at the most modern and progressive boarding schools in existence, pro-Boers had a bad time during the Boer war. Any boy who is fond of reading, or does not dislike his work, is pretty sure to be ill-treated. In France, the cleverest boys go to theEcole Normale Supérieureand do not mix any longer with the average. This plan certainly has advantages. It prevents the intellectuals from having their nerve broken and becoming sycophants of the average Philistine, as happens to many of them in this country. It avoids the strain and misery which an unpopular boy must suffer. It makes it possible to give to clever boys the kind of teaching which suits them, which goes at a much more rapid pace than is possible for the less intelligent. On the other hand, it isolates the intellectuals from the rest of the community in later life, and makes them,perhaps, less able to understand the average man. In spite of this possible disadvantage, I think it on the whole better than the British upper-class practice of torturing all boys who have exceptional brains or exceptional moral qualities, unless they happen also to be good at games.[23]
However, the savagery of boys is not incurable, and is in fact much less than it was. “Tom Brown’s School Days” gives a black picture, which would be exaggerated if applied to the public schools of our own day. It would be still less applicable to boys who had had the kind of early training which we considered in previous chapters. I think also that co-education—which is possible at a boarding school, as Bedales shows—is likely to have a civilizing effect upon boys. I am chary of admitting native differences between the sexes, but I think that girls are less prone than boys to punish oddity by serious physical cruelty. At present, however, there are very few boarding schools to which I should venture to send a boy if he were above the average in intelligence, morals, or sensitiveness, or if he were not conservative in politics and orthodox in theology. For such boys, I am convinced that the existing school system for the sons of rich parents is bad. Andamong such boys are included almost all who have any exceptional merit.
Of the above considerations, both for and against boarding schools, there are only two that are essential and unalterable, and these two are on opposite sides. On the one side there is the benefit of the country and air and space; on the other, the family affections and the education derived from knowledge of family responsibilities. In the case of parents who live in the country, there is a different argument in favour of boarding schools, namely, the improbability of a really good day school in their neighbourhood. I do not think it is possible, in view of these conflicting considerations, to arrive at any general conclusion. Where children are so strong and vigorous that considerations of health need not be taken very seriously, one argument for boarding schools fails. Where they are very devoted to their parents, one argument for day schools fails, since the holidays will suffice to keep family affection alive, and term time may just prevent it from becoming excessive. A sensitive child of exceptional ability had better not go to boarding school, and in extreme cases had better not go to school at all. Of course, a good school is better than a bad home, and a good home is better than a bad school. But where both are good, each case must be decided on its merits.
So far, I have written from the standpoint of a well-to-do parent, to whom individual choice is possible. When the matter is considered politically, from the point of view of the community, other considerations enter in. We have on the one hand the expense of boarding schools, on the other the simplification of the housing problem if children are away from home. I hold strongly that, apart from a few rare cases, every one ought to have a scholastic education up to the age of eighteen, and exclusively vocational training should only begin after that age. Although much might be urged both ways on our present topic, the financial consideration will, for a long time to come, decide the question, in the case of most wage-earners’ sons and daughters, in favour of day schools. Since there is no clear ground for thinking this decision wrong, we may accept it, in spite of the fact that it is not made on educational grounds.