August Z2, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
15 
Town Child and Country Child 
By Anna de Bary 
' A N'YONE who, like the present writer, has made a 
/% study of village schools in England and on the 
/ % Continent, must read *Mr. Fisher's statements 
JL m. with some joy and some misgivings. Joy, because, 
the work of education seems at last likely to be recognised 
as the highest and most important part of civil service, and 
our children will in time receive as much individual care as 
the criminals in our prisons. 
At present a capti\'e people can put us to shame. Sec 
what Trent and Trieste do for their Italian children. The 
Commune of Trieste cannot bear to leave its children to be 
taught in Government schools, not because the Govemrnent 
schools are not efficient, but because the people of Trieste 
wish their children to have a certain mentality, a certain 
spirit— the Latin rather than the Slav or Teutonic spirit. 
The greatest sacrifices are made for the sake of preserving 
this Italian culture, and made so successfully that Trent, 
where the National League is beneficially busy, or was in 
1914, and Trieste are, in spite of Austrian, Pan-German or 
Slav pressure and aggression, even more Italian than many 
towns of the Italian kingdom . 
The schools at Trieste are built as though each one were a 
promise of future triumph. They have a dignity which is a 
sacredness. The Commune has two great centres of recrea- 
tion for the children for whom running in the streets is undc- 
t.irable. There are at these centres, gardens, libraries managed 
by very small librarians, and children's theatres. Music 
and manual work can be learnt, the children choosing the 
occupation that appeals to their instincts or their home 
habits. After the elementary school has done its best for a 
child, he is passed on to tiie Gymnasium, the Technical 
Institute, the University Association or the University. 
Rather than let a promising pupil leave too early, the Com- 
mune will help the parents to support the child, offering at 
least the amount which thfe child's labour would be likely 
to bring in. 
In the poorer and more isolated parts of " unredeemed 
Italy," the National League keeps schools and libraries 
and clubs for the young Italian, and this in the face of very 
great difficulties. A building may stand empty for tw^ 
years while authorities at Innsbruck or at Vienna consider 
whether they will sanction its use. Lesson books may be 
confiscated, "teachers arrested or parents punished for the 
least outward expression of the racial soul. Yet the schools 
carry on and increase. This is the spirit we want in Eng- 
land, but how can it be had ? 
A Bundle of Negatives 
We are not threatened in England with denationalis&.tion 
in the ordinary meaning of the word. We are too insular to 
become Prussianised or Gallicised, but we may become a 
bundle of negatives, a colourless, characterless folk. . 
Our children hear of their rights as Englishmen, and these 
rights are said to consist ,in certain liberties of the person, 
precious liberties bought with much blood ; also there are 
rights to'living wage, to leisure, to free speech and so on. 
This is all ver>' true, but does the English child know or care 
that he has a right to all that is best in his country's literature, 
in his country's art, in the scenery and air of his native land, 
and in the religious experiences of his forefathers. 
Too many teachers are busy washing away the colour 
from the lads of Yorkshire, or of Sussex, or of Devon. What 
can they possibly give in place of that colour ? Which 
brings me to the misgiving occasioned by Mr. Fisher's scheme. 
He seems to be not yet free from the fatal and fundamental 
misconception that mars so much of our legislature. He 
docs not appear to be quite aware that London is not England 
and still less is it Great Britain. It would be far safer and 
wiser to train all London children in village dame schools 
than to train our village children in London schools or schools 
on the London pattern. 
The London child from the average London County School, 
when he comes into the village, may speak up more rapidly 
in his vowelless tongue, he may move more quickly and 
attract more attention than the native child, but he always 
seems, by contrast with an average child from the village 
school, hopelessly underbred. Your village child may appear 
quaint, slow, loutish and lost when he goes to town, but he 
will not seem vulgar or underbred until he has altogether 
lost touch with his old life. Let us insist then that the 
•Speech delivered by Mr. H. A. L. FUher". Minister of Education 
in the House of Commons on introducing hia Education Bill, August 
joth, I9I7- 
country child shall receive a rural education on which he can, 
if he should want to, always superimpose the urban, lore 
needed by clerks and business men. 
It has often been remarked that while the town child is 
sharper at ten than the country _child, yet his brains do not 
seem to hold out, so that at twenty he is disappointing both 
to himself and his employers, w'hile the youth imported 
from the country improves steadily right up to middle life. 
This superiority of the country child is in danger. He has 
hitherto gained chiefly by the hours not spent in school. 
It is among the sheepfolds that he has learnt responsibility 
for the lives of others, in the farmyard that he learnt the 
rights of the creatures who serve us, in the potato patch he 
has learnt the patient persistence in rather dull work which 
so many lack. He has learnt to face discomfort and hunger 
and thirst when out on long tramps in all weathers. He has 
learnt to enjoy simple pleasures ancl he has, in the better 
type of village, learnt to know something of the manner of 
life in positions differing from his own and has generally 
learned to think of individuals rather than of those terrible 
monsters of town politics, " the classes." 
Such a culture as this is not understood by the town-made 
master into whose hands the child is delivered for so many 
of the brightest hours of so many years. Excellent as many 
masters and mistresses are, they are yet apt to prize only 
that form of culture which brings credit to a possessor much as 
a good coat does. But the culture we want must be considered 
rather in the light of food which is valuable only as it builds 
up and sustains the growth. The quantity of knowledge 
stored in the mind may be the sum of a mind's lumber. To 
know where to find information and how to use it is on the 
other hand a great matter. 
The problem of the \'illage school is how to protect the 
child from undue strain and fatigue while allowing him to 
become familiar at an early age with every form of country 
occupation and work, recognising that such work, when not 
carried to the point of brutalising weariness, is a means of 
culture much too valuable to be relinquished lightly. The 
village child will still have plenty of time in which to learn 
to read and write intelligently, to make use of the school 
library or of reference books, or to carry on his own education 
in any branch which he may desire. If we give up our 
senseless system of measurements and out puzzling coinage, 
if children need not waste time learning to divide land into 
rods, poles and perches, while outside the school, they reckon 
it only in " lugs," there wilt be ample time for all necessary 
clerkly knowledge and also for a matter which seems likely 
to receive attention now for the first time, that is training in 
the spending of leisure. 
At one of our well-known grammar schools there used to 
be a man named, or nick-named, Tingey, whose duty it was 
to keep the cricket pitch in order and attend to the play- 
grounds generally. " What will you do with this tip if I give 
it you ? " a boy would ask. " Why, beer and baccy," Tingey 
would say, " beer and baccy, what else is there ? " "Tingey, 
you're drunk," they would cry. " Vis I vas," was the answer. 
We have too many Tingeys in England, far more in pro- 
portion to our numbers than the Tyrol has or than Holland, 
to take two countries where there is much less reading ol 
papers and books than among us, an equal affection for the 
pipe and the bowl, but a superior knowledge of how to live 
in leisure hours, how to spend the margin of earnings, how to 
obtain enjoyment. The Dutchman would probably buy a 
picture or a flower, the Tyrolese a new musical instrument 
or an increased spending upon his rifle club, or perhaps he 
would buy a fine piece of wood from which to carve the long- 
desired Crucifix. Dutchman or Tyrolese would very likely 
get as dnink as Tingey on convivial occasions, but they would 
at least be capable of other forms of recreation. 
If we are to spend great sums upon education, and we 
ought not to grudge anything, we need to bethink ourselves 
well to decide what the aim of education is, and then how 
best to reach that aim. Looking back on our own childhood 
can we see what helped and what hindered ? What made foi 
joy and health and good temper ? What overtaxed oui 
immature brains ? ' Was it the cleverest teacher or the teachej 
with the highest character who helped most ? How do w« , 
spend our leisure now, and where did we learn to spend 01 
mis-spend it as we do ? 
The education of our children cannot be left to any one 
Minister, however wise. We must all bring our best ex- 
perience and our most painstaking thought to bear upon 
a matter whereon the destiny of our nation and race mast so 
largely depend. 
