SCHOOL GOVERNMENT             The playground does invaluable work, and has much to do with the making of what is best and most characteristic in Englishmen; but, indeed, the training of the playground, as that of the schoolroom, is incomplete. The fact is, that the discipline of schoolroom and playground alike is largely carried on by stimulating and balancing, one against another, those desires which … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 3. Chapter 1 (4)

THE PLAYGROUND             This parental duty is the more to be insisted on, because school life is so exigeant that the modern schoolboy or girl is nearly as much given up by parents as was the Spartan child of whom the State took possession. The boys and girls away at school are treated very much as visitors while at home, made much of at … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 3. Chapter 1 (3)

EXAMINATIONS   p.180           The Universities’ Local Examinations, and those of other public examining bodies, have effected a great change in the feeling of middle-class schools, both public and private, in this respect: it is possible for almost any boy or girl to get a distinction worth having, and enough care to make the effort to carry the rest along. Work is the order of … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 3. Chapter 1 (2)

I CONCERNING THE SCHOOLBOY AND SCHOOL GIRL THE RELATIONS BETWEEN SCHOOL LIFE AND HOME LIFE—SCHOOL DISCIPLINE AND HOME TRAINING SCHOOL, A NEW EXPERIENCE WHEN the child goes to school a new life begins for him; not only so, but no change that may come to him afterwards will be in the same sense a new life. And for this reason: socially speaking, two lives are … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 3. Chapter 1 (1)

CHAPTER VII AN ADEQUATE THEORY OF EDUCATION           A Human Being.—I have laid before the reader, as a working hypothesis,—that man is homogeneous, a spiritual being invested with a body—capable of responding to spiritual impulses, the organ by which he expresses himself, the vehicle by which he receives impressions, and the medium by which he establishes relations with what we call the material world;—that will, … Continue reading School Education Volume 3 Chapter 7

VI SOME EDUCATIONAL THEORIES EXAMINED             Theories of Pestalozzi and Froebel.—It  is refreshing to turn to that school of German educational thought which has produced the two great apostles, Pestalozzi and Froebel. What we may call the enthusiasm of childhood, joyous teaching, loving and lovable teachers and happy school hours for the little people, are among the general gains from this source. To look … Continue reading School Education Volume 3 Chapter 6

V A HUNDRED YEARS AFTER   (At the Clough’s dinner-table, Sept. 10, 1990) “IT’S a capital idea! the thing ought to be commemorated. At any rate, we can give a little dinner in honour of it. Whom shall we have?”           “Dr and Mrs Oldcastle, and Harry’s form-master, young Mr Hilyard, and his wife, will represent schoolwork; we shall stand for parents in general; and, … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 2. Chapter 5

CHAPTER V PSYCHOLOGY IN RELATION TO CURRENT THOUGHT           Educational Thought in the Eighteenth Century.—If the end of the eighteenth and the end of the nineteenth centuries have one feature in common more than another, it is, that in both education comes to the front as among the chief ends of man. The eighteenth-century people had the best of it. They had clear oracles in … Continue reading School Education Volume 3 Chapter 5

IV “DIE NEUE ZEIT BEDARF DER NEUEN SCHULE”   A SCHOOLMASTERS REVERIE HOW hard it is to turn your thoughts on! Switzerland was a mistake, so far as that goes; but to have been alive in every pore for a month is something. This night train should help, though: here goes! let us face the situation. I, Michael St. John Harrowby, aged thirty-five, have got, … Continue reading Formation of Character Volume 5 Pt 2. Chapter 4