§ 11

The public schools are not only in name public; they are open to all without distinction of class. The peer’s son will sit on a school bench beside the peasant’s. The only difference being that the richer pay higher fees. All classes pay something for education; what is got for nothing no one values, but the education given is identical. Upon the whole it is desirable that all students live in their homes. Day scholars are encouraged more than boarders; and, as we shall presently see that home life is in every respect more refined than it was. Under the old system, “squalor” was more the rule than the exception; it is so no longer. Home life, if properly conducted, is dignified. Every home should be a miniature State, and it is becoming so here. Wealth is not necessary to make a worthy home; it is the atmosphere of industry, amity, and union there which constitute the best school in which to rear a good citizen. The enormous and unprecedented rise in wages, largely caused by the rapacity of tradesmen as well as Government waste of public money, has indirectly promoted industry (not industrialism). Even the better off folk do not send out work which can be done at home. Tradesmen have defeated themselves in a large measure. The best provided citizens are craftsmen, who can use their hands for any manual work, rough or fine. If a chair is broken, no “gentleman” will send it to be mended, he mends it himself.

Experience is fast teaching everybody that a day is long, not short, and that unlimited specialisation is neither good for soul or body, rich or poor. The close student of art or letters needs recreation. He finds it in the new order in manual work, in craftsmanship which detaches the mind from pursuits necessarily sedentary, and which, if continued for too many hours a day, are detrimental to health and vigour. In my wanderings I noticed that one of the chief changes in or differences from the old life is that every man, woman and child is at work, rich or poor. Hence games and sports of all kinds, while they take a rational place in life, are not now its main object. In the public schools every student has to learn some handicraft. I see the peasant boy sawing away at one end of a log, while the peer’s son is sawing at the other. It is recognised, of course, that equality of power is out of the question. Few are born to rule, but all can serve their country. Endowments are different in quantity and quality. There are fingers so made as to be bad instruments for performing delicate tasks, as there are minds incapable to lead men. A skilled craftsman—skilled, I mean, in the delicate handling of material—is one thing, the doing rougher work (quite as useful) is another, and more easily obtained. Young fellows soon find out what, and what not, they can accomplish. The outcome of this is energy extended, and if the professional tradesman or craftsman find himself boycotted, he has only to thank his greed and his overweening selfishness during hard times for now being hit with the same weapon he employed on his fellows. Not overmuch attention is given to BOOKS. The first principle initiated is “good citizenship,” honest dealing, and the carrying out of the ancient saying, “Whatsoever thou findest to do, do with thy might.”