THE FAILURE OF HOLIDAYS.[1]

By Canon Barnett.May, 1912.

By Canon Barnett.

May, 1912.

1From “The Daily Telegraph,” May, 1912. By permission of the Editor.

Eighthundred thousand children are every August turned out of the airy and spacious Schools which London has built for their use, and for four weeks they can do what they like. To the people whose opinions form public opinion, “to do what one likes” seems the very essence of a holiday. The forgotten fact is that the majority of these children do not know what they like. All children, indeed, need to be taught to enjoy themselves, just as they are taught to earn for themselves; and children whose parents are without money to take them to the country or the seaside, where nature would give them playmates, and without leisure to be referees in their first attempts at games, miss the necessary teaching. They get tired of trying to find out what they like, tired of waiting for the sensation of a street fight or accident, tired of aimless play in the parks, tired even of doing what they had been told not to do. A few—40,000 of the 800,000—are sent by the Children’s Country Holiday Fund to spend a fortnight of the month in country cottages; a few others go to stay with friends or accompany their parents, but the greater number—it is said that 480,000 children never sleep one night out of London during the year—haveno other break than a day treat, which, with its intoxicating excitements and its distracting noises, can hardly claim to be a lesson in the art of enjoyment or to be a fair introduction to country pleasures. The August holiday under present conditions, cannot be described as a time in which working-class children store up memories of childhood’s joys, nor does it prepare them as men and women to make good use of the leisure gained by shorter hours of labour.

The use of leisure has not, I think, been sufficiently considered from a National point of view. It concerns the happiness, the health, and also the wealth of the nation. If their leisure dissipates the strength of men’s minds, leaves them the prey to stimulants, and at the same time absorbs the wages of work, there is a continual loss, which must at last be fatal. The children’s August holiday, with its dullness and its dependence on chance excitements, prepares the way for Beanfeasts where parties of men find nothing better to do amid the beauty of the country than to throw stones at bottles, or for the vulgar futilities of Margate sands, Hampstead Heath and the music hall, or for the soul-numbing variety of sport.

The recent report issued by the London County Council tells the result of an experiment in a better use of the holiday by means of Vacation Schools. The word “School” may suggest restraint, and put off some of my readers, who are apt to think of “heaven as a place where there are no masters”. They will say, “Let the children alone”. But they do not realize what “letting alone” means for children whose homes have no resources in space or interests. They do not remember that the schoolhouse is the Mansion of the neighbourhood, and that the Vacation School curriculum includes visits to the parks and to London sights, such as the Zoological Gardens, Hampton Court, and the Natural History Museum; manual occupations in which really usefulthings are made, painting and cardboard modelling, by which the children’s own imaginations have play; lessons on nature, illustrated by plants and by pictures, readings from interesting books, about which the teachers are ready to talk, and organized games. When relieved from the trouble of having to choose at what to play, the children find untroubled enjoyment. Vacation Schools thus understood have no terror, but let the children themselves give evidence whether they prefer to be let alone.

In a Battersea Vacation School there was an average attendance of 91·6 per cent, and on one day 153 children out of 154 on the roll voluntarily attended. “The high rate of actual attendance at the Vacation Schools, which compares not unfavourably with that of the ordinary day schools, in spite of the fact that compulsion is completely absent from the former, may be taken as an indication that the London child does not know what to do during the long vacation, and is anxious and ready to take advantage of any opportunity that may be afforded for work and play under conditions more healthy and congenial than the street or his home can offer.” In another school the teachers report: “We had been asked to do our best to keep up the numbers. Our difficulty was to keep them down.” “The discipline of the boys specially surprised the staff; a hint of possible expulsion was quite sufficient in dealing with two or three boys reported during the month.”

The children, by their attendance, give the best evidence that the Vacation School is in their opinion a good way of spending a holiday and the report gives greater detail as to the reason. The teachers tell how “listless manners give place to animation and energy, and how the tendency prevalent among the boys to loaf or aimlessly to idle away their holidays was checked by the introduction of an objective, the absence of which is chiefly responsible for the loafingtendency.... The absence of restraint appears to lead to more honourable and more thoughtful conduct, and little acts of courtesy and politeness increased in frequency as the holidays drew to an end.... Educationally the children benefit in increased manual dexterity, by the creation of motive, the training of the powers of observation, and the development of memory and imagination.... In many cases... new capabilities were discovered, and talents awakened by the more congenial surroundings. Some children, who at first appeared dull and inattentive, brightened up and became most interested in one or more of their varied occupations.... Little chats on the Excursions revealed a marked widening of outlook.”

In such testimony as this it is quite easy to find the reason why the children so greatly enjoyed themselves. They had a variety of new interests and they had the sense of “life” which comes in the exercise of new capacities. They were never bored and they felt well. The parents, whose burden during holidays is often forgotten, seem to have expressed great appreciation at the provision for the children’s care, and as for the teachers, one goes so far as to say that “the kind of experience gained is a teacher’s liberal education and training”.

The Report as a result of such testimony, naturally recommends an extension of the plan of Vacation Schools, so that this summer a greater number may be provided. I would, however, submit that the testimony justifies something more thorough.

The proposals of the Report assume that holidays must fall in the month of August. Now there are many parents whose occupation keeps them in town during that month, and who cannot therefore take their children to the country. August too, is the period when all health resorts are most crowded and expensive. And lastly, if holidays are takenonly in this autumn season the country of the spring and summer, with its haymaking, its flowers and its birds, remains unknown to the children. The obvious change—so obvious that one wonders why it has not long ago been adopted—is to let some schools take their holidays in the months of June and July. But I would myself suggest the best plan would be to keep all, or most, of the school in session during the whole summer, establishing for the three months a summer curriculum on the lines of those adopted in the Vacation Schools. The children would then be able to go with their friends, or through the Children’s Country Holiday Fund for their Country Holiday without any interference with the regular school regime; and all, while they were at home, would have those resources in the school hours which have proved to be powerful to attract them from the streets. The teachers, free at last to take some of their holidays in June or July, would be able to benefit by the lower charges, to get, perhaps, a recreative holiday in the Alps instead of one at the English seaside in the somewhat stale companionship of a party of fellow-teachers.

This more thorough plan would do for all London children everything which Vacation Schools attempt, and it has the further advantage that it would put refreshing country visits within the reach of more children and teachers.

Middle-class families recognize the necessity of an annual visit to the sea or country, as a consequence of which great towns exist almost wholly as holiday resorts. The necessity of the middle class is much more the necessity of the working class, whose children have less room in their houses and fewer interests for their leisure. A pressure which cannot be resisted will insist that for their health’s sake and for the child’s sake, who is the father of the man, the children shall have each year the opportunity of breathing for at least afortnight country air, and of learning to be Nature’s playmates. The only practicable way in which such holidays may be provided is by the extension of the holiday period to include other than the month of August.

The plan I have suggested would make such extension practicable with the least possible interference with school work, while it would secure for all children some guidance in the use and enjoyment of the leisure, which the experiment of Vacation Schools has proved to be so acceptable. That guidance, by widening children’s minds and awakening their powers of taking notice, would make the country visits more full of interests, and develop a love of Nature, to be a valuable resource in later life. If the Council’s Report succeeds in moving London opinion it may mark a new departure in the use and enjoyment of holidays.

It almost seems as if the education given at such cost ran to waste during the holidays. There is a call for another Charles Booth, to make an inquiry into “the life and leisure of the people” which might be as epoch-making as that into “the life and labour of the people”. Such an inquiry would show, I believe, the need of energetic effort if leisure is to be a source of strength and not of weakness to national life, a way to recreation and not to demoralization.

Samuel A. Barnett.

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