TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENTS.[1]
By Canon Barnett.June, 1905.
By Canon Barnett.
June, 1905.
1From “The University Review”. By permission of the Editor.
1From “The University Review”. By permission of the Editor.
Twenty-fiveyears ago many social reformers were set on bringing about a co-operation between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the industrial classes. Arnold Toynbee thought he could study at Oxford during term time and lecture in great cities during the vacation. Professor Stuart thought that University teaching might be extended among working people by means of centres locally established. There were others to whom it seemed that no way could be so effective as the way of residence, and they advocated a plan by which members of the University should during some years live their lives among the poor.
Present social reformers have, however, other business on hand. They think that something practical is of first importance, some alteration in the land laws, which would make good houses more possible—some modification of the relation between labour and capital, which would spread the national wealth over a larger number of people. They see something which Parliament or the municipal bodies could do, which seems to be very good, and they are not disposed to spend time on democratizing the old Universities or on humanizing the working-man.
The present generation of reformers claim to be practical, but one who belongs to the past generation and is not without sympathy with the present, may also claim thatmuch depends on the methods by which good objects are secured. There is truth in the saying that means are more important than ends. Many present evils are due to the means—the force, the flattery, the haste—by which good men of old time achieved their ends. “God forgive all good men” was the prayer of Charles Kingsley.
Reformers may to-day pass laws which would exalt the poor and bring down the rich, but if in the passing of such laws bitterness, anger, and uncharitableness were increased, and if, as the result, the exalted poor proved incapable of using or of enjoying their power—another giant behaving like a giant—where would be the world’s gain? The important thing surely is not that the poor shall be exalted, but that rich and poor shall equally feel the joy of their being and, living together in peace and goodwill, make a society to be a blessing to all nations.
Co-operation between the Universities and working men, between knowledge and industry, might—it seemed to the reformers of old days—make a force which would secure a reform not to be reformed, a repentance not to be repented of, a sort of progress whose means would justify its end.
The Universities have the knowledge of human things. Their professors and teachers have, in some measure, the secret of living, they know that life consists not in possessions, and that society has other bonds than force or selfishness, and they offer in their homes the best example of simple and refined living. They have studied the art of expression, and can put into words the thoughts of many hearts. They look with the eye of science over the fields of history, they appreciate tradition at its proper value, and are familiar with the mistakes which, in old times, broke up great hopes. Their minds are trained to leap from point to point in thought. They have followed the struggles of humanity towards its ideals, they know something ofwhat is in man, and something of what he can possibly achieve.
If these national Universities, with their wealth of knowledge, felt at the same time the pressure of those problems which mean suffering to the workmen, they would be watch-towers from which watchmen would discern the signs of the times, those movements on the horizon now as small as a man’s hand but soon to cover the sky. If by sympathy they felt the unrest, which all over the world is giving cause for disquietude to those in authority, they would give a form to the wants, and show to those who cry, and those who listen, the meaning of the unrest. If they were in touch with the industrial classes, they would adapt their teaching to the needs and understandings of men, struggling to secure their position in a changing industrial system, and better acquainted with facts than with theories about facts. A democratized University would be constrained to give forth the principles which underlie social progress, to show the nation what is alterable and unalterable in the structure of society—what there is for pride or for shame in its past history, what is the expenditure which makes or destroys wealth—it would be driven to help to solve the mystery of the unemployed, why there should be so much unemployment when there must be so great a demand for employment if people are to be fitly clothed and fed and housed. It would, at any rate, guide the nation to remedies which would not be worse than the disease.
“How,” it was once asked of an Oxford professor, “can the University be adapted to take its place in modern progress.” His answer was “By establishing in its neighbourhood a great industrial centre.” The presence, that is to say, of workmen would bring the Universities to face the realities of the day, raise their policy to something more important than that of compulsory Greek, anddirect their teaching to other needs than those felt by the limited class, whose children become undergraduates or listeners to an “extension lecturer”. A committee of the University dons has been described as a meeting where each member is only a critic, where nothing simple or practical has a chance of adoption, and only a paradox gets attention. If labour were heard knocking at its doors, and demanding that the national knowledge, of which the Universities are the trustees, should be put at its service, the same committee would cease criticizing and begin to be practical. Knowledge without industry is often selfishness.
If Oxford and Cambridge need what workmen can give, the workmen have no less need of the Universities. Workmen have the strength of character which comes of daily contact with necessity, the discipline of labour, sympathy with the sorrow and sufferings of neighbours with whose infirmities they themselves are touched. The working classes have on their side the force of sacrifice and the power of numbers. They have the future in their hands. If they had their share of the knowledge stored in the National Universities they would know better at what to aim, what to do, and how to do it. They, as it is, are often blind and unreasoning. Blind to the things which really satisfy human nature while they eagerly follow after their husks, unable to pursue a chain of thought while they readily act on some gaudy dogma, inclined to think food the chief good, selfishness the one motive of action, and force the only remedy. The speeches of candidates for workmen’s constituencies—their promises—their jokes—their appeals are the measure of the industrial mind. How would a Parliament of workmen deal with those elements which make so large a part of the nation’s strength—its traditions—its literature—its natural scenery—its art? What sort of education would it foster? Would it recognize that the imagination is the joyof life and a commercial asset, that unity depends on variety, that respect and not only toleration is due to honest opponents? How would it understand the people of India or deal reverently with the intricate motives, the fears and hopes of other nations? How would workmen themselves fulfil their place in the future if well-fed, well-clothed, and well-housed, they had no other recreation than the spectacle of a football match? Industry without knowledge is often brutality.
Workmen have the energy, the honesty, the fellow feeling, the habit of sacrifice which are probably the best part of the national inheritance, but as a class they have not knowledge of human things, the delicate sense which sees what is in man—the judgment which knows the value of evidence—the feeling which would guide them to distinguish idols from ideals and set them on making a Society in which every human being shall enjoy the fullness of his being. They have not insight nor far-sight and their frequent attitude is that of suspicion. If sometimes I am asked what I desire for East London I think of all the goodness, the struggles, the suffering I have seen—the sorrows of the poor and the many fruitless remedies—and I say “more education,” “higher education”. People cannot really be raised by gifts or food or houses. A healthy body may be used for low as for high objects. People must raise themselves—that which raises a man like that which defiles a man comes from within a man. People therefore must have the education which will reveal to them the powers within themselves and within other men, their capacities for thinking and feeling, for admiration, hope and love. They must be made something more than instruments of production, they must be made capable of enjoying the highest things. They need therefore something more than technical teaching, it is not enough for England to be the workshop of the world, it must export thoughts and hopes as well as machines. TheTower of London would be a better defence for the nation if it were a centre of teaching, than as a barracks for soldiers. The working class movement which is so full of promise for the nation seems to me likely to fail unless it be inspired by the human knowledge which the Universities represent. Working-men without such knowledge will—to say nothing else—be always suspicious as to one another and as to the objects which they seek.
The old Universities and industry must, if this analysis be near the truth, co-operate for social reform. There are many ways to bring them together. The University extension movement might be worked by the hands of the great labour organizations—legislation might adapt the constitution of the Universities to the coming days of labour ascendancy—workmen might be brought up to graduate in colleges, and they might, as an experiment, be allowed to use existing colleges during vacations.
But the subject of this paper is the “way of Settlements”. Members of the Universities, it is claimed, may for a few years settle in industrial centres, and in natural intercourse come into contact with their neighbours. There is nothing like contact for giving or getting understanding. There is no lecture and no book so effective as life. Culture spreads by contact. University men who are known as neighbours, who are met in the streets, in the clubs, and on committees, who can be visited in their own rooms, amid their own books and pictures, commend what the University stands for as it cannot otherwise be commended. On the other hand workmen who are casually and frequently met, whose idle words become familiar, whose homes are known, reveal the workman mind as it is not revealed by clever essayists or by orators of their own class. The friendship of one man of knowledge and one man of industry may go but a small way to bring together the Universities and theworking classes, but it is such friendship which prepares the way for the understanding which underlies co-operation. If misunderstanding is war, understanding is peace. The men who settle may either take rooms by themselves, or they may associate themselves in a Settlement. There is something to be said for each plan. The advantage of Settlement is that a body of University men living together keep up the distinctive characteristics of their training, they better resist the tendency to put on the universal drab, and they bring a variety into their neighbourhood. They are helped, too, by the companionship of their fellows, to take larger views of what is wanted, their enthusiasm for progress is kept alive and at the same time well pruned by friendly and severe criticism.
But whether men live in lodgings or in Settlements, there is one necessary condition besides that of social interest if they are to be successful in uniting knowledge and industry in social reform. They must live their own life. There must be no affectation of asceticism, and no consciousness of superiority. They must show forth the taste, the mind and the faith that is in them. They have not come as “missioners,” they have come to settle, that is, to learn as much as to teach, to receive as much as to give.
Settlements which have been started during the last twenty years have not always fulfilled this condition. Many have become centres of missionary effort. They have often been powerful for good, and their works done by active and devoted men or women have so disturbed the water, that many unknown sick folk have been healed. They, however, are primarily missions. A Settlement in the original idea was not a mission, but a means by which University men and workmen might by natural intercourse get to understand one another, and co-operate in social reform.
There are many instances of such understanding and co-operation.
Twenty years ago primary education was much as it had been left by Mr. Lowe. Some University men living in a Settlement soon became conscious of the loss involved in the system, they talked with neighbours who by themselves were unconscious of the loss till inspired, and inspiring they formed an Education Reform League. There were committees, meetings, and public addresses. The league was a small affair, and seems to be little among the forces of the time. But every one of its proposals have been carried out. Some of its members in high official positions have wielded with effect the principles which were elaborated in the forge at which they and working men sweated together. Others of its members on local authorities or as citizens have never forgotten the inner meaning of education as they learnt it from their University friends.
Another instance may be offered. The relief of the poor is a subject on which the employing and the employed classes naturally incline to take different views. They suspect one another’s remedies. The working men hate both the charity of the rich and the strict administration of the economist, while they themselves talk a somewhat impracticable socialism. University men who assist in such relief, are naturally suspected as members of the employing class. A few men, however, who as residents had become known in other relations, and were recognized as human, induced some workmen to take part in administering relief. Together they faced actual problems, together they made mistakes, together they felt sympathy with sorrow, and saw the break-down of their carefully designed action. The process went on for years, the personnel of the body of fellow-workers has changed, but there has been a gradual approach from the different points of view. The University men have more acutely realized some of the causes of distress, the need of preserving and holding up self-respect,the pressure of the industrial system, and the claim of sufferers from this system to some compensation. They have learnt through their hearts. The workmen, on the other hand, have realized the failure of mere relief to do permanent good, the importance of thought in every case, and the kindness of severity. The result of this co-operation may be traced in the fact that workmen, economists and socialists have been found advocating the same principle of relief, and now more lately in the establishment of Mr. Long’s committee which is carrying those principles into effect. Far be it from me to claim that this committee is the direct outcome of the association of University and working-men, or to assert that this committee has discovered the secret of poverty, but it is certain that this committee represents the approach of two different views of relief, and that among some of its active members are workmen and University men who as neighbours in frequent intercourse learnt to respect and trust one another.
There is one other instance which is also of interest. Local Government is the corner-stone in the English Constitution. The people in their own neighbourhoods learn what self-government means, as their own Councils and Boards make them happy or unhappy. The government in industrial neighbourhoods is often bad, sometimes because the members are self-seekers, more often because they are ignorant or vainglorious. How can it be otherwise? If the industrial neighbourhood is self-contained, as for example in East London, it has few inhabitants with the necessary leisure for study or for frequent attendance at the meetings. If it is part of a larger government—as in county boroughs—it is unknown to the majority of the community. The consequence is that the neighbourhoods wanting most light and most water and most space have the least, and that bodies whose chief concern should be health andeducation waste their time and their rates arranging their contracts so as to support local labour. In a word, industrial neighbourhoods suffer for want of a voice to express their needs and for the want of the knowledge which can distinguish man from man, recognize the relative importance of spending and saving, and encourage mutual self-respect.
University men may and in some measure have met this want. They, by residence, have learnt the wants, and their voice has helped to bring about the more equal treatment which industrial districts are now receiving. They have often, for instance, been instrumental in getting the Libraries’ Act adopted. They have as members of local bodies learnt much and taught something. They have always won the respect of their fellow-members, and if not always successful in preventing the neighbourly kindnesses which seem to them to be “jobs,” or in forwarding expenditure which seems to them the best economy, they have kept up the lights along the course of public honour.
There are other examples in which results cannot be so easily traced. There have been friendships formed at clubs which have for ever changed the respective points of view affecting both taste and opinion. There have been new ideas born in discussion classes, which, beginning in special talk about some one subject, have ended in fireside confidences over the deepest subjects of life and faith. There have been common pleasures, travels, and visits in which every one has felt new interest, seeing things with other eyes, and learning that the best and most lasting amusement comes from mind activity. The University man who has a friend among the poor henceforth sees the whole class differently through that medium, and so it is with the workman who has a University man as his friend. The glory of a Settlement is not that it has spread opinions, or increased temperance, or relieved distress, but that it has promoted peace and goodwill.
But enough has been said to illustrate the point that by the way of residence the forces of knowledge and industry are brought into co-operation. The way, if long, is practicable. More men might live among the poor. The effort to do so involves the sacrifice of much which habits of luxury have marked as necessary. It involves the daring to be peculiar, which is often especially hard for the man who in the public school has learnt to support himself on school tradition.
Nothing has been said as to the effect of Settlements on Oxford and Cambridge. There does not seem to be much change in the attitude of these Universities to social reform, and they are not apparently moved by any impulse which comes from workmen. But judgment in this matter must be cautious as changes may be going on unnoticed. It is certain, at any rate, that the individual members who have lived among the poor are changed. If a greater number would live in the same way that experience could not fail ultimately to influence University life.
Social reform will soon be the all-absorbing interest as the modern realization of the claims of human nature and the growing power of the people, will not tolerate many of the present conditions of industrial life. The well-being of the future depends on the methods by which reform proceeds. Reforms in the past have often been disappointing. They have been made in the name of the rights of one class, and have ended in the assertion of rights over another class. They have been made by force and produced reaction. They have been done for the people not by the people, and have never been assimilated. The method by which knowledge and industry may co-operate has yet to be tried, and one way in which to bring about such co-operation is the way of University Settlements.
Samuel A. Barnett.
Samuel A. Barnett.