In Memoriam

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Part IV.

The Memorial Conference
[Held at Mortimer Hall, London, March 26th-29th, 1923.]

"For a great door and an effectual is opened unto me."--1Cor. xvi, 9.

"SOME IMPRESSIONS OF THE HOUSE OF EDUCATION."

A summary of the address given by Professor W. G. de Burgh, M.A.

[Professor of Philosophy, University College, Reading.]

It is a privilege, though a sad one, to be here this afternoon. Yet I feel that the dominant thought in our minds should be, not sorrow, but thankfulness. We are thankful for the gift of Miss Mason's personal friendship and personal influence. I do not think that Miss Mason would have altogether liked to have been told that she exercised influence. She would say that she set ideas in people's way and let them work in people's minds. But, however we express it, the fact remains; for three generations of human life she gave herself, her wise and stimulating counsel, and the stores of her rich mind, with lavish generosity to hundreds, thousands, of individuals, both in personal intercourse and in correspondence. I am not thinking mainly of her published writings, books and articles, addressed to a wider and more general public,

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valuable as these are. I was reading only the other day Ourselves, which has been described as "the one manual of practical psychology" for the young. I am thinking rather, as is fitting on this occasion, of the untold gain derived by those who had the privilege of personal relationship with her.

We are thankful again that she was spared so long, so that she could herself see much of her ideal accomplished, and know before she died that her work had taken firm root in an organisation with manifold activities. She would have disliked the term 'organisation';--'confraternity' is a more fitting word. It comprises the House of Education, The Parents' Review, the Parents' Union School and its schemes of teaching now adopted in many Elementary and Secondary Schools, the support of Educational authorities (e.g. of Gloucestershire); she often spoke of this to me, the thousands of children educated privately on her methods (altogether some 40,000) in the Parents' Union School. She lived for her work, and her work is known and its value recognised throughout the Empire. It is truly a wonderful thing that she should have lived to see these fruits and to know that she left those behind her who would carry on the work in the spirit with which she had inspired it.

We are thankful, lastly, for this--that the end when it came was so peaceful--that she kept her astonishing intellectual vitality to the last. The eye of her mind was not dimmed, nor its natural force abated. In my visit late last November, I found Miss Mason with as keen an interest and knowledge of detail as ever. I feel bound to mention too (for she would most certainly have wished it mentioned) that our gratitude is due to those who in the last years surrounded her in her beautiful Westmoreland home with such loving care and devoted service.

I have entitled this address: "Some Impressions of the House of Education." I am conscious how slight a claim I have to speak of her life's work. I only knew her

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by acquaintance in recent years, through my annual visits to the House of Education. We had previously exchanged some correspondence, in reference to certain papers of mine published in the Parents' Review, which showed her that I was likely to be sympathetic to her work and methods. As a result, she asked me to act as Examiner. I felt this to be an exceptional mark of confidence, for she disliked inspections and always kept clear of subjection to officialdom.

I well remember my first visit in 1916; the kindness I received from her, from Miss Williams, and the staff; and the thoroughness of the arrangements that enabled me to see the work and life as a whole. I remember too how I went there with two questions in my mind:--

I wondered, first, whether Miss Mason's very definite convictions and methods in education led to a cut and dried, stereotyped imitation on the students' part, restricting their freedom and individuality. And, secondly, whether the wide range of subjects studied during the two years led to superficiality.

I need not say that my fears were groundless on both counts. In fact, it was the answers I got to these questions that impressed me most on my first visit. For I found (1) liberty of individual development. The very variety of the curriculum enabled students to show their distinctive talent, e.g. in languages, or in craft work, or in physical exercises. Miss Drury is to speak presently on Nature-Study; but I must remark in passing on the high quality and enthusiasm of the students at the House of Education in this field. Their work was always intelligent and individual; they took full advantage of the unique opportunities of the district, and in vacations correlated their observations in their various home localities with the beautiful scenes that they became familiar with at Ambleside.

I found (2) that the wide range of subjects, so far from conducing to superficiality, was the product of a sound and reasoned principle. Of course, no student can be equally proficient all round. Time hampers the teaching of many subjects, but Miss Mason's aim has been avowedly twofold;

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--(a) to equip students with such an interest in and knowledge of the main subjects, that they may be qualified to teach them on leaving, and (b) in regard to auxiliary subjects, to awake interest, so that, while the students are not necessarily qualified to teach them on leaving, they are started on new lines and enabled to pursue these interests afterwards for themselves. This is the case, e.g., with Italian, and with Greek, a subject which I induced Miss Mason to add to the curriculum. Miss Mason ever looked ahead. One of the striking characteristics of teachers trained by her is that they too move forward on their own in after life; realising that they must teach from a flowing stream, not from a stagnant pool.

I must add another impression which has been confirmed on each succeeding visit. The students teach naturally. Even in the unsatisfactory and artificial atmosphere of criticism lessons, there is a notable absence of self-consciousness. Both to the students who give the lessons and to the girls in the Practising School, my presence in the room as Inspector made little difference. I believe that this is due in no small measure to the system of narration, and to the wise insistence by Miss Mason that the teacher must never impose her personality from without upon the child.

Before I close, I must say a few words of a more general nature about Miss Mason's work in education.

In the first place, though no one was more critical of defects in educational theory and practice, her criticism was always constructive. It was based on personal experience (in a Training College and in Schools, as Miss Williams has told us in her all too brief retrospect of Miss Mason's early life in the Parents' Review for March) and on an intense faith that education was a power--a power either for immense good or for disaster. She realised the point of Plato's startling question in the Republic; how can the State foster the study of philosophy without being ruined by it? To the solution of this problem she brought a rare sobriety of judgment and the sense of proportion which

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was one of the most striking qualities of her intellect. She loathed faddists and cranks in education. She united a sane conservatism with a passion for reform and a spirit of bold adventure. She grasped an ideal of education that was veritably democratic; uniting the children of the rich and the poor, the aristrocrat and the labourer, in one comprehensive scheme of training. She brought to bear on her work, both speculative insight into problems of philosophy and a typical North-country sense of what was practical. For instance, by her firm insistence on adequate salaries and conditions of service, she raised single-handed the status of the private governess throughout England.

Miss Mason stood, firm as a rock in the Utilitarian age, for the essentials of a Humanist education. She grew up in an atmosphere of materialism in education; that this is no longer dominant is due largely to her efforts. The fact that she had to fight for her humanist ideal braced her and called forth her full powers. I sometimes wonder how it was that the Victorian age produced women leaders of such distinction compared with their successors of to-day. We recall Miss Buss, Miss Beale, Dr. Garrett Anderson, Dr. Emily Davies, and many others besides Miss Mason, in women's education; Mrs. Fawcett, Miss Octavia Hill, Florence Nightingale in other fields. Was it not that they had to fight for their causes against strong opposition? Miss Mason's life was one long struggle against mechanism. She distrusted organisation and standardisation. For this reason, she would have no truck with government departments or municipal control. Again, she set little store by the results of public examinations. It is noteworthy that these great Victorian reformers had no University degrees. The admission of women to degrees is, assuredly, a great onward step, but we go wrong if we regard them as essential to the good teacher. Many of the best teachers at the House of Education are Miss Mason's own products and show that first-rate teaching by no means depends on University qualifications. I should like all sticklers for such things to hear, as I have often had the pleasure of hearing, Miss Drury take a class in Science, or Miss Millar (if I may call her by her maiden name) in Mathematics.

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I need not dwell at length on what is known to all--how Miss Mason stood for freedom for the child. She held that the teacher must not impress her personality on the child but let the child's personality grow freely. Thus both teacher and child are freed from strain and bondage. This does not mean that the teacher's task is thereby rendered easy; the teacher is no cipher, nor is her personality suppressed. It means that for an external relationship is substituted one of inward sympathy and insight. The result has been that Miss Mason's students learn to love teaching. She taught the teacher to love teaching and the child to love learning. Her students learnt too that education is not, as in some Universities, a departmental subject; rather, that all life is education, and all education that deserves the name is life. Plato taught, in the Republic, that the theory of education is the theory of life (Philosophy) and its message the message of life (Religion). So likewise taught the wise and noble teacher whose life-work we commemorate, in reverence and thankfulness, to-day.

THE NATURE WORK AT THE HOUSE OF EDUCATION.

By A. C. Drury.

The character of the Nature Work at the House of Education is largely determined by Miss Mason's choice of Ambleside as her training centre.

Besides being in the midst of beautiful scenery with literary associations, Ambleside is rich in having a great variety and profusion of flowers within easy walking distance. There are plants of the meadow, mountain, bog, wood and water, northern species, rare and characteristically mountain species--to be climbed for on special occasions.

The extremely complicated but interesting geological formation affects the flora, which is remarkably different from that on a contrasting rock, the mountain limestone, near enough to be reached on half-term holidays. The soil

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of the valleys shows the effect of past glacial action which limits vegetation and farming operations, sheep-farming being the most lucrative on the fells.

Some of the cornfield weeds which are conspicuous by their absence were introduced by war-time cultivation and at least one had established itself.

The climate of the Lakes favours the growth of very beautiful trees, particularly of the Coniferae, and some of these are specially fine in gardens near Ambleside. The autumn colours are often glorious beyond description, and so are the fungi until the frosts begin. To my mind, the English mountains are never more beautiful then when covered with snow, and in winter they are often white when rain alone has been falling on the lower ground. The rain supports a wealth of mosses and liverworts, rare ferns are not unattainable, some of the rarest may be seen by climbers.

Though very seldom detected, such scarce animals as the badger and the pine marten, dwell in the Lake District, and I have heard from visitors that the otter is to be seen by following the hunt in the early morning.

The head of Windermere is a station for migrating birds. They land there for a few hours or days on their journeys north in spring, they come to Rydal for open water from the frozen north in winter, or linger on their way to feast on our beech mast or berries. The redwing and the brambling come to Scale How garden for this purpose.

In founding the House of Education in Ambleside, it was Miss Mason's intention that her students should become familiar with these beauties of Nature; and the Nature Note Book, which she designed, is the symbol of their knowledge: that precious green book with its red title, "House of Education, Students' Nature Note Book," which is the peculiar privilege of the student.

The inside of the book is nothing more than good drawing paper (for painting, without pencil outlines) until the possessor begins to make it the record of her own observations.

Every fine day (except on half-holidays) one or two

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small parties of students go out with members of the staff for Nature Walks and Bird Walks, or the whole number start off occasionally for a Geology Walk to find fossils or ice scratches, or in summer for weekly Geography Walks.

Miss Mason loved to see what "finds" the students brought back from their expeditions and to hear what birds they had seen or to tell what she had seen.

I remember how she talked about the cock-redstart at table and made us eager to notice the patch of intensely white feathers on his head constrasting with his black throat.

Out of doors the students learn to look and to watch they they may know creatures and plants by sight as they know friends; to recognise the birds by their song, flight, feathers and nesting places, and their time of arrival and departure; to observe the flowering seasons of all trees and herbs and the ripening of common spore-bearing plants such as horsetails and large liverworts; to note the reappearance of butterflies and dragonflies, stone,--caddi,--and mayflies, and to know some of their eggs and larvæ.

Each one records in her own Nature Note Book that which has interested her, and takes home something to paint. The effort of attention during the time given to painting the twig, flower or fruit, chrysalis, shell or egg, fixes its form and colour in the memory. This is the way to get to know "its position as it grows, its trick of holding its head, the grace of its profile" (as Ruskin says of a flower in words quoted in the Parents' Review for February, 1923). The Nature Note Book becomes increasingly valuable when the records of one year and one locality can be compared with another; and a student generally feels that she is making more progress in her second year though she was unconsciously storing up first impressions in the early days of her training.

There is a delightfully casual element in Nature Walks. We simply choose which way to go and then "Nature" does the rest because Ambleside is an unrivalled spot to learn in. We like to be teased when the Nature Walk lingers to watch a dipper or a grey wagtail, or the Bird Walk finds the yellow

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Gagea or the marsh Cinquefoil, as if we were poaching on each other's preserves! For the fact is that we take whatever comes, and the unexpected almost always happens.

The Rev. Alfred Thornley, who examines the "Seniors"' Nature Note Books, testifies to the freshness and pleasure which this mode of Nature Study secures, and this spontaneous enjoyment was provided by Miss Mason when she taught us to gather the materials for science by studying Nature out of doors for ourselves and adding to our knowledge year after year.

We get a tremendous stimulus and answers to many of our queries when Mr. Thornley comes for his annual visit. A day spent out of doors with him acquaints us with many kinds of insects, their haunts, their food. We see an astonishing "number of things" in a few hundred yards of wood or of lakeside, and time passes like magic. To arouse wonder and admiration must be one of the teacher's principal aims.

Two years is but a short time to spend in preparing to read intelligently with Parents' Union School pupils. So that Nature Walks are supplemented by lectures, the average time allotted to scientific subjects being three to four hours a week.

There are Natural History lectures on British wild animals, birds and their feathers, British insects, forest trees, spore-bearing plants, seed dispersion, autumn colours and the fall of the leaf.

A course of Human Physiology in the first year gives a knowledge of the skeleton and vital organs, very useful for comparison in studying the animal kingdom, which is the special subject to the second year's Biology class.

Botany is taken by the first and second year students separately and concerns the detailed study and classification of flowering plants. So the Biology hour is chiefly devoted to Miss Arabella Buckley's wonderful books on the animal kingdom: "Life and her children" and "Winners in Life's Race." The books are illustrated in class by as many specimens as possible, fossils or shells from the museum, and such living species as the earthworm, snails, woodlice,

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We note in passing comparisons and contrasts between animals and plants, and attention is drawn to examples of laws common to the two organic kingdoms.

Blackboard summaries and classifications have not yet been dispensed with, although we seek to use the book as the principal part of the lesson and to approach the ideal set in the Parents' Union School. It is impossible to read "Life and her Children" through in two terms when three years is the time taken over it in Form II. Lord Avebury's "Flowers, Fruits and Leaves" is the kind of book that cultivates a scientific spirit of enquiry, but time forbids the Natural History lecturer to use more than a chapter of it. Books we should like to depend on: Scott Elliot's "Nature Studies," for example, go out of print, and in other cases, the right book for our use, has never been written. So we still lecture at the House of Education, and some of the science books of the Parents' Union School are unsatisfactory.

Half-a-dozen lectures on Sound, Light and Electricity with simple experiments are given to introduce the group of books: "The Sciences," "First Year of Scientific Knowledge," "Some Wonders of Matter," and "Scientific Ideas of To-day." The least acquaintance with these mighty mysteries makes us grateful for an occasional scientific lecture from an expert who opens up new lines of thought and subjects for wonder.

I think that the stupendous facts with which Geology and Astronomy deal, educate a scientific habit of mind most effectively. There must be a study of the reasons which lead Geologists and Astronomers to their conclusions, conflicting arguments must be faced, inferences drawn from geological maps or from astronomical diagrams representing the movements of the heavenly bodies. In Astronomy we rely on Sir Robert Ball's "Story of the Heavens," which students who have been in Forms V & VI possess, although we can only take extracts in a course of about 15 lectures. Our object is to lead students to know the stars and to follow the movements of the moon and planets. Odd half-hours are seized on fine nights for learning the names of the stars

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and constellations, the monthly star maps in "The Times" being found useful.

Geology replaces Astronomy in alternate years, and begins with local Geology from the maps and papers of the Geological Survey and from Professor Marr's comprehensive book on "the Geology of the Lake District." As Miss Mason often said of all the science teaching, the most we can do in these lectures is to aim at arousing interest.

The peculiar fitness of Ambleside for the studies which Miss Mason initiated and developed there, is realised best of all in connection with Out-of-Door Geography. On all sides are the mountains, water-sheds, rivers, tributaries and lakes themselves, neither miniatures nor models. Distance is learnt by pacing, and direction, from the sun and the compass, in order to appreciate the making of maps to scale. The height of a tree or spire is measured by triangles, the ordnance map is used, contours explained, and bench marks found on an up-hill road and checked by the aneroid barometer. This occupies six weeks of the summer term one year, and the next year we follow the more delightful of the two courses for Geography Walks worked out by Miss Williams (late Vice-Principal): that on the history of the Lake District, Westmorland, and Ambleside. Boundaries, old routes, places with significant names, old houses or sites of mills, famous remains like the Roman Camp at Waterhead and the Rydal Thing-mound, are visited or viewed from Loughrigg, and from them we learn of the different peoples who entered the country and the traces left of their occupation.

It is frequently said by students that their two years' training opened many windows for them. The windows that open on to Nature Study admit us to endless sources of happiness, explored at Ambleside if not first known to us there. Most of us look back upon this result of our training, together with the practice of taking walks which it implies, as among the greatest of benefits we owe to Miss Mason. And the pages of our old Nature Note Books recall, as nothing else can, the choicest walks we have had and our most cherished memories of birds and flowers.

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THE PARENT'S UNION SCHOOL AND ITS FOUNDER.

[From notes taken of an address to P.U.S. children.]

By the Hon. Mrs. Franklin.

Mrs. Franklin said: I have given myself a difficult task--it is to give the pupils of Miss Mason's School a little idea of what she was and of what she expected of you. You will all feel that you have known Miss Mason since you joined the School: that she has given you ideas and ideals.

Miss Mason has passed on, but her spirit is with us--especially at this moment, because she loved everyone of the children in the School so much. She gave her life and her work to you.

I have had the honour of being her friend for nearly 30 years: the friendship began when I was not much older than some of the members of the P.U.S.A. It has meant more to me that I can express: it was the greatest privilege to be allowed as a young mother to help Miss Mason in her great work. Besides all the great things she taught me she taught me so many little things--for instance to love open windows, to go out in all weathers and she taught me, and you through the P.U.S., though you may not realise that you are learning this lesson, to try and see the best in everyone. It was because she saw the best in us that we did our best, and when you are tempted to dwell on some little thing in anyone which is not the best, remember that in doing so you are not being loyal to Miss Mason.

Another thing that little people, as well as old people, need to learn is that when anyone has done a thing wrongly, don't go and tell them so but wait until they are going to do the thing again and then just remind them to do it right. Perhaps you could remember this when you are dealing with your little brothers and sisters or with school-fellows.

Miss Mason--you can see it in her face (pointing to Mr. Yates' beautiful portrait which was on the platform)--not only saw the best in everyone, but she loved human beings. The consequence was that everyone who came in touch with her felt her influence. Someone who knew her 60 years ago, says he has never

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forgotten the things she told him then, and one of her maids told me she will always remember the few words Miss Mason said to her when she left to be married 14 years ago after only two years in her house. This was because Miss Mason when she talked to us was able to imagine herself in our place and was witty and delightful, but she also made even the shyest person talk, and talk well.

I hope you in the P.U.S. will be good conversationalists: I do not think you will be afraid of hearing your own voices. Some of you little ones will remember that you were at first afraid to narrate; that you did it very softly and slowly. Now I expect it goes quickly and distinctly. We have heard two of the P.U.S.A. speak to-day and judging by how they did it, I think you will all be able to speak and to talk well.

Miss Mason was remarkable for her courteous manners. She always received her dearest, oldest and her newest and youngest friend in the same way. People felt that it was a privilege to meet her and they felt at ease with her.

She worked very hard, but she never appeared rushed; hers was an inward peace. One often hears people say that they can only do this or that "when the spirit moves them." She on the other hand got through her huge amount of work by working to a time-table up to the end of her days. She was a great, good and God-fearing woman and she was allowed to keep her powers until the last and now that she is gone, she leaves us not sad, but full of thankfulness for her and her work and profoundly grateful that she was with us, working for us in the world for so long.

Her work had many sides. She edited a magazine, she wrote books, she founded the House of Education, the P.N.E.U. and the P.U.S. which now has 40,000 pupils. Some of the pupils live at home and work there, but they are in the P. U. S., some go to classes and schools--elementary or secondary schools--and all are in the P.U.S. When we met at the Children's Conference at Winchester and again at Whitby, the children attending the Conference received

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letters from their school-fellows from almost every part of the world; from children who were doing the same lessons and caring for the same things.

Why is the P.U.S. different from other schools? Do you ever ask children from other schools if they like their lessons as you do yours? I fear many say they do not because they have not learnt as you do in the P.U.S. the joy of getting knowledge on which the mind can live. Lewis Carroll, who wrote "Alice in Wonderland," says in a serious essay on knowledge that we are very careful to feed the body on various foods--we do not give it nothing but dry bread or nothing but chocolate, but we are not so careful of the mind. Miss Mason felt that the mind needed food to make it do so. When you feel a joy in working it is because your hungry mind is being fed.

Miss Mason when she was a little girl had a geography book from which she had to learn long lists of towns, rivers, exports, imports, etc., and she did not like it, but she did enjoy reading some little notes at the bottom of the page which were quoted from what people who had lived in the foreign country had to say of it. When she grew up she remembered this and decided that she would make a geography book something like these notes so that children while they were learning about the country might feel as if they were living in it.

I think you know that Miss Mason was very fond of nature and when she went out for her drives she was always looking for the first flower or bird of the season. Then she would come home and compare notes with her students.

She knew too the joy of making things for oneself--not only in handicrafts, but in other ways, too, for instance of making a Nature Note Book or a Book of Centuries--and helped us all to this joy.

She also felt that in order really to enjoy going to a picture gallery one must know something of the pictures beforehand, so she arranged Picture Talk and showed children in the School reproductions of the great pictures so that when they went to a gallery they would understand.

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the artist's message. She did the same with music: through Musical Appreciation she prepared children to understand and enjoy concerts.

She gave each child working in the School a library of his own. All the books you use in the School are worth while--even the books used in IA are worth keeping. I expect you find when you have read Scott and Kingsley, for example, you do not much care for rubbishy books. This is a good thing because rubbish is badly written and spoils our knowledge of English and also it does not give us a true picture of life. Good books on the other hand help us to understand life, as great writers make their characters act as human beings do act and so help us to know something of life from different aspects.

"I am, I can, I ought, I will." Miss Mason chose your inspiring motto. You can say,

"I am the greatest thing in God's creation: a human being with a spark of God's divine spirit in my body. Because I belong to the human family I can do the great things that other human beings have done. I have powers of doing, thinking and loving.

"I can use these powers. I can change my thoughts from things that harm me and that worry me to the beautiful things I have learnt in my School: I can know the ways of activity, I can think kindly thoughts of God's creatures in the past and in the present, in this and other countries, of people who do not think as I do in religion and politics.

I ought to do these things: I owe it to my God, my parents and my School.

I will forget myself, and live up to the ideals of my School.

God is on the side of those who will, and with His help we will all go on working as Miss Mason hoped we would.

Mrs. Franklin at the end of her address quoted from letters written by Miss Mason to children attending the Gatherings at Winchester and Whitby. To those at Winchester Miss Mason wrote;--"It is a delightful thing about this School of yours that the Scholars love their books; I know, because every post brings me a letter from some one

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to say so, and besides, I can tell by the way you answer your examination questions. When all the papers reach me I often say, "this is a very happy week for me"; I am happy because your papers show me that you have had a delightful term's work and that you LOVE KNOWLEDGE.

"I think that is a joyful thing to be said about anybody, that he loves knowledge; there are so many interesting and delightful things to be known and the person who loves knowledge cannot very well be dull; indoors and out of doors there are a thousand interesting things to know and to know better.

"There is a saying of King Alfred's that I like to apply to our School,--"I have found a door," he says. That is just what I hope your School is to you--a door opening into a great palace of art and knowledge in which there are many chambers all opening into gardens or field paths, forest or hills. One chamber, entered through a beautiful Gothic archway, is labeled Bible Knowledge, and there the Scholar finds goodness as well as knowledge, as indeed he does in many others of the fair chambers. You see that doorway with much curious lettering? History is within, and that is, I think, an especially delightful chamber. But it would take too long to investigate all these pleasant places and indeed you could label a good many of the doorways from the headings of your term's programme.

"But you will remember that the School is only a "Door" to let you in to the goodly House of Knowledge, but I hope you will go in and out and live there all your lives--in one pleasant chamber and another; for the really rich people are they who have the entry to this goodly House, and who never let King Alfred's 'Door' rust on its hinges, no, not all through their lives, even when they are very old people.

"I have a great hope for all you dear Scholars of the P.U.S.; other people will be a little the better because you love knowledge, and have learnt to think fair, just thoughts about things, and to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven in which is all that is beautiful, good and happy-making. I must not take up any more of the time in which there are so

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many things to be done, so, wish you the very happiest week in all your happy lives."

To those at Whitby she wrote:--

"My dear Children,

It is eight years since I had an opportunity of writing to each of you and to all of you as a body. Let me repeat the welcome that you received at Winchester in the words of Isaak Walton, that wise fisherman who gathered wisdom while he waited for the trout to rise:--

"'I will tell you, Scholar, I have heard a grave Divine say that God has two dwellings; one in Heaven and the other in a meek and thankful heart. Which Almighty God grant to me, and to my honest Scholar; and so you are welcome.'

"Some of you may still have the card with this motto among your treasures, but all of you, I know, have brought the meek and thankful heart that Isaak Walton desired for himself and his Scholar; meek, because we shall be thinking about great persons in a place touched with the magic of holy and serviceable lives; about the work in stone and on parchment of famous men and women of old, and of the wonders of the sea and sky and earth; of tales told by the very rocks, all uniting in chorus;--"The merciful and gracious Lord hath so done his marvellous work that they ought to be in remembrance'.

"Let us remember that the works of men indirectly, and the work of Nature, directly, are the great and marvellous works of God. Thinking of these things, we shall be meek and very ready to learn, and so we shall find out that 'the meek shall inherit the earth,' for those things that we love and delight in are far more truly ours than the things so easily spoilt, which money can buy.

"A famous schoolmaster was asked by his boys to explain that saying of our Lord's about the meek, and he said--

"'Napoleon thought he inherited the earth by force of arms, and he died on Elba. Wordsworth had no such proud thoughts, but he did inherit the earth; all the Lake country and much of the world besides belongs to him still.'

"Being rich in these great things we shall be gentle and

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generous, and I am very sure you all have thankful hearts, thankful for Whitby and all that it means and will mean for all your lives; very thankful that God has set us in a world so full of beauty and joy; thankful to our kind and hospitable Whitby friends; thankful to the beloved friends who have brought you here, and tenderly thankful, I know, to those other kind friends, who have taken great delight in planning and arranging for this wonderful week.'

"How I wish I could be with you to share all your joys and to see your dear faces!--the more so, because you have made me quite intimate with you in those examination papers which gave me happy weeks, because I can see how happy you were in writing them, and what great joy you have in that knowledge, some of which you pour into your papers.

"I have news to tell you which will, I think, give you a great deal of pleasure. Nobody can enjoy a treat by himself; he wants other boys and girls to share it with him, and the bigger the treat the more friends he would have to share it. I know you think of the P.U.S. work as a treat. I get letters every day to tell me how much So-and-so enjoys his or her lessons, and, though I cannot see you to-day, I know what happy faces you carry. I wonder do you know what gives happy faces to children and grown-ups? Just this, people look happy when they have nice things to think about, and you have so many delightfully interesting things to occupy your minds that I have never seen an unhappy-looking P.U.S. scholar.

"When we are happy we long to make other people so too; therefore I know you will be delighted to know that thousands and thousands of children have joined the school since Winchester days, and what is better than all, many of them are in elementary schools; these dear children, too, wander in the woods with Titania and Oberon, pitch their tents on the plains of Palestine with King Richard, see wonders of the Parthenon, and lift up their eyes to the hills and to the stars. Some of them, with their teachers, are, you know,

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present at this Gathering, sharing in the generous welcome given to us by all our kind friends in Whitby, and all of you together have your thoughts full of great and beautiful things, and mean to learn and be of use in God's wonderful world.

"I wonder, would you like to add to your prayers at night, 'God bless all children, parents and teachers in the P.U.S.' "

THE BEGINNING OF THINGS.

By E. Kitching. [Director of the P.U.S. and Secretary to Miss Mason from 1893.]

We are met here to think of the work that has been done and of the worker who did it in a long life of eighty-one years, and it is a privilege to be allowed to speak of the beginning of that work. Its author spoke little of her early life, less of its difficulties, but of her mind on education she has told us much. Miss Mason was entirely without any thought of herself, she never dwelt upon details that concerned herself alone. When asked if she would not dictate some notes of her life her only reply was,--"My dear, my life does not matter. I have no desire that it should ever be written. It is the work that matters and, I say it with all reverence, it will some day (not in my lifetime) be seen to be one of the greatest things that has happened in the world." It was a startling thing to say, but those who know Miss Mason's quiet confidence in the work that was given her to do, in her resolute patience that could wait, years if need be, till the right moment came, who could plan and wait for the means to come when no means were there, who could say, as she did only last year,--"We do not attempt things, we do them," those, and those only will understand that it was said with no tinge of egoism but with the passion of a great idea. Frail as she was, Miss Mason had faith to live, not ignoring difficulties, not denying pain, but facing both with courage and with a sure and certain hope that workers, strength, and means would come in so far as the work was 'the very

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work God meant for her' for she loved to say to her 'Bairns,' "Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident."

There was another reason why Miss Mason never talked of herself. It was a matter of principle. Her first thought was always for those who were to carry on her work and she practised in her daily life all that she put before their consideration in the ordering of their lives. She never said,--"Do this because I do it," even in thought. It was always--"The laws of life and conduct are laid down for us by our Lord and we do well to ponder every hint that the Gospel story gives us." On this particular point she would, as that part of the Gospel came in its natural sequence, dwell on the words "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true," and she would say to the students,--"My dear friends, think of this. Do not dwell upon yourselves, your belongings, even your families unduly, in talking to others. This saying is literally true. 'If I bear witness of myself my witness is not true.' "

Miss Mason was an only child of only children, a precious child, sharing the sheltered life of a rather delicate and much-loved mother and a devoted father. She learned at home and she once or twice mentioned her earliest recollection, that of her mother lying on a couch with a little brown leather Homer's "Odyssey" in her hand. One other recollection she mentioned in 1916 (in connection with the coming of the Elementary Schools) and this must have been of the time when her vocation came to her. An only child, she was lonely, her mother being too delicate to entertain much and she had no child friends. She was probably about eight when her parents moved and she became aware that children, lots of children, might be watched passing the window every day at certain times. From that time she was always there to watch them go by. She wondered where they went and if she might ever speak to them? There was a tall lady who went by too and how happy the children seemed when they saw her and away they would run after her! How happy the lady must be with those children! Later the opportunity came and the little girl was taken to the school by friends and allowed

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to see the children at work and she wondered what sort of books they had and if they liked them as much as she did the books her father read to her, "Anne of Geirstein" being at the moment the supreme favourite. On page 322 of the first volume of the Parents' Review we read what must be a biographical touch, "We wonder does any little girl in these days of many books experience the joy of the girl of eleven we can recall crouching by the fireside clasping her knees and listening as she has never listened since to the reading of "Anne of Geirstein?" Then came long, long thoughts about those children and then came great sorrow and the cherished little daughter was left alone in the world without means, for the American war had ruined her father and he never recovered the shock of his wife's premature death.

But the thought of the children came to fill her bereaved heart and her one idea was how she could get into touch with children. As Miss Williams has told us in the March REVIEW, an elementary Training College was the only open sesame in those days to the teaching profession and so a short course of training took Miss Mason in 1863 to a church school in Worthing. Here she had some opportunity for finding out what was in children but she had even more intimate intercourse with some Anglo-Indian children who lived with their aunt, a very dear friend. Miss Mason was able to watch these children to see what and how they thought, how they worked, what sort of knowledge appealed to them. She came early to one or two conclusions. First, that children had an unlimited power of attention; secondly, that mere information did not call out that power; thirdly, that they had an unlimited hunger for knowledge; fourthly, that their minds always worked by the question put to themselves,--what next? The years passed and at Bishop Otter College, Chichester, Miss Mason came into touch with the minds of young women and she found them very little different from those of the children except that their powers were not so fresh. Here Miss Mason lectured on Education and Human Physiology. But the teaching of Geography, its possibilities, its life-giving interests, its delights, also took

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hold of her and she tramped county after county, Hampshire especially, visiting every spot of interest, reading local records, going to London and reading in the British Museum books of first-hand travel. Then in order to show how Geography could be made a living study, Miss Mason gave up her work at Chichester and went to Bradford where she gave much time to writing geography books and some to her beloved work of teaching in a school kept by a friend. The first book published was "The Forty Shires: their History, Scenery, Arts and Legends." (1880). Then followed in quick succession "The London Geographical Readers" (now the Ambleside Geography Books) published from 1880 onwards and dedicated to teachers trained at the Otter Memorial College. Another friend of Miss Mason's had a school in Ambleside left to her by Miss Clough when she went to Newnham and here Miss Mason spent many a holiday and learned to know and love the place which was to be her home for the rest of her life. I was talking only the other day to the father of a student who remembers being taught there by Miss Mason sixty years ago.

"The World to Come" (quoted in the March REVIEW) and a number of other poems were written about 1865.

In 1885 a parish room was wanted for the church in Bradford which Miss Mason attended and she offered lectures in lieu of money. These were delivered in the winter of 1885-1886 and "Home Education" was published in the autumn of 1886. In the Preface to "Home Education," Miss Mason says,--"In venturing to speak on the subject of home education I do so with the sincerest deference to mothers, believing that in the words of a wise teacher of men the woman receives from the Spirit of God himself the intuitions into the child's character . . . but just in proportion as a mother has this peculiar insight . . . she will feel the need of a knowledge of the general principles of education . . . and this knowledge not the best of mothers will get from above seeing that we do not often receive as a gift that which we have the means of getting by our own efforts." "Home Education" contains in essence all that Miss Mason

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developed in her further writings and activities. In the first lecture we get the child's estate, a belief in which led to what has been called the Children's Magna Charta, the Parents' Union School; this belief also runs through every detail of the work set in the programmes. Lecture II takes up out-of-door life and this has led to the awakening of the world to the bliss of nature study, a subject now learned in most schools though nowhere with so much simple joy as in the Parents' Union Schoolrooms where an academic or utilitarian aspect does not creep in. The study of nature is a very different thing from the study of science and this fact was brought home to me only the other day in talking to a friend who has taken high scientific honours and done scientific research work in museums but her joy at finding a moss in situ, for she had studied mosses only in cabinets, or finding a beetle and wanting to know its name, of watching a dipper on the beck was good to see. Lecture III takes up moral training and Lecture IV mental training. Miss Mason always dreaded lest the P.N.E.U. should suffer by the repetition of the shibboleths and it is well to consider the position she gives to Attention in mental training lest the method of narration should become a shibboleth whereas it is only the outward and audible sign of that inward and spiritual grace, the power of attention, by which the mind feeds upon the food convenient for it. Lecture V. deals with Lessons, worked out later and more fully in "School Education:" Lection VI., with the moral and spiritual powers of a child. This was worked out later in detail in "Ourselves," while in "Parents and Children" we get moral training from the parents' point of view. In Lection VII. [Now published in Vol. V. "Some Studies in the Formation of Character."] literary evenings are taken up, also the study of pictures, music and poetry. "It is a pity," says Miss Mason, "that we like our music as our pictures and our poetry mixed, so that there are few opportunities of going through as a listener a course of the works of a single composer . . . Let young people study as far as possible under one master until they have received some of this teaching and know its style."

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A class of children ranging in age from 5-7 voted "Industry and Greed" as their favourite out of six pictures by Watts they had been studying and next "The People that sat in Darkness," not 'Una' or "Sir Galahad" as one might have expected. A girl (form III., aged 13) in an Elementary School wrote the following in her Christmas examination paper in answer to a question on Brahms' music.

Brahms made the Inerezzo, (sic)
    A song of slumbe, deep,
That every mother, sweet and low,
   Should sing her babe to sleep.

He also composed the waltzes,
   Of tones both great and small,
And some of Russian dances,
   And some to be danced by all.

And unto Christ, our heavenly king,
   He made a carol light,
That people upon earth should sing,
   To God each Christmas night.

The principles contained in "Home Education" had been further brought home to Miss Mason while lecturing to ladies preparing to teach in Elementary Schools in Bishop Otter College and during the years that followed, years of educational work, literary and other, a single idea was gradually taking shape and forcing itself into prominence, becoming in fact a life-purpose,--how to approach parents without appearance of presumption and offer to them a few principles which seemed a very gospel of education. The interest roused in the lectures in Bradford paved the way, and at the end of 1886 Miss Mason begs that she may have "sea-room amongst all the vessels laden with gifts for the Jubilee for a vessel laden with a gift meet for a queen." Colleagues gathered, among the first and most inspiring the late Mrs. Petrie Steinthal and the late T. G. Rooper, H.M.I., the late Dr. Mrs. Keeling and in the drawing-room of Mrs. Steinthatl, just before the holidays in 1887, a syllabus, which Miss Mason had drawn up for a Parents' Educational Union, was discussed. The central principles and the objects are there almost intact and the syllabus

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contains in germ almost every detail of the work as now carried on.

It is now possible to quote from records for volumes I., II. And III of the Parents' Review, the first Report of the P.N.E.U. (1892) and, above all, the original "Draft-proof" of the Society (1888) give the various steps by which the P.N.E.U. and its activities came into being.

Its "object" was the physical education, the moral training, the mental discipline and instruction, and the spiritual growth, of the child. Its constitution, parents of whatever class, and others interested in education. Its plan of work included arrangements for business meetings, lectures field excursions, the disseminations of literature, occasional lectures by well-known educationists, an examination scheme, a magazine for the Union, a training college, and lectures on education under the headings of the 'Objects."

Later in the year the first meeting of the Parents' Educational Union was held in the hall of the Bradford Grammar School and 80 members were enrolled the first day. I quote a few paragraphs from Miss Mason's address: "Bearing in mind that our object is to bring common thought on the subject of education to the level of scientific research, the question is how to give parents grip of the enormous leverage offered by some half-dozen physiological and psychological truths.

"To this end we propose to hold meetings--say four--during the winter session, with a definite programme of subjects for discussion: if the four parts of education--physical, mental, moral, and religious--can be taken up consecutively, so much the better; the topic for the day to be ventilated by means of an original paper or the other reading to be followed by discussion. And because these are topics, in which every one present will have a vivid personal interest. And upon which every thinking person must at some time have thought. We expect such discussion to be both lively and profitable. Here we have a modest programme of work for the winter meetings of the Union.

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"A little Parents' Educational Union work remains to be done in the summer months. Children under nine should get the more valuable part of their education in the open air. They should be on speaking terms with every sort of natural object to be met within miles of their homes. Scientific knowledge is not wanted at this stage, but what Professor Huxley calls 'common information,' which, by the way, is not too common. It is from his parents the child must get this real knowledge. We all know how eagerly every child takes to the lore of the fields--but how shall we tell what we don't know, and do we not all wish we knew more of this sort of thing? Here is more work for the society, A couple of field excursions every year under the lead of a naturalist, with opportunities for asking questions, and with a note-book, should give us at least a score of two of new acquaintances every year, and, what is more should initiate us into the art of seeing--both communicable possessions, to be passed on to the children. The programme for working men and their wives is the same in principle. We should have two winter schoolroom or cottage meetings. One or two mothers' cottage meetings will be arranged for.

"This is, roughly, our programme for our first year. We may see our way to more work than we pledge ourselves to. For instance, we may set on foot work under an examination scheme, in the case of parents or others being found willing to undertake a definite course of reading in education and its kindred sciences with a view to examination. Further delightful visions look in the distance--hardly yet within measurable distance. We may live as a society to see ourselves possessed of an educational lending library; may see the issue of an educational magazine, which should make our work easy; and who knows but what some mothers amongst us may live to engage ladies from a training college, where women of some cultivation are taught the natural laws in obedience to which a child grows up healthy, happy, intelligent, and good? More, may we hope to see the day when no mother will engage a governess, however 'nice,' or however accomplished, who has not been duly trained in the art and instructed in the science of education.

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That such a society should be of use goes without saying--therefore we believe it will be fostered, for most of us are of Matthew Arnold's mind, that the best thing worth living for is "to be of use." No doubt the working of the society will demand some power, moral and intellectual, as well as good will; but happily, there is no lack of power among us, so that need be no stumbling block.

May I propose to you two ideas to the working out of which it seems to me well worth while that our society should devote itself: (a) That the forming of habits is a great part of education; (b) that body, mind, soul, and spirit, equally, live upon food, and perish of famine; all four require daily bread; all thrive as they work, and degenerate in idleness. That I am using a popular rather than a scientific description of man does not matter; we all know that our needs and our activities are of four sorts, and this is enough for our present purpose.

"Whose we are and Whom we serve. Here we have at once the motive and the safeguard of parents. An attempt to bring up children on scientific principles alone may produce splendid results in literature, science, even in virtue; but by-and-by, there is evidence of a leak somewhere, threatening to sink the ship. Startling illustrations will occur to us all. On the other hand, he who wilfully ignores the laws which regulate activity and development in every part of our being, is like him who puts to sea without rudder or compass, trusting the winds of heaven to carry him where he would go. Whose we are--let us make the most and best of our children: Whom we serve--in order that their service may be of the worthiest."

The Report of the meeting adds "the idea of the establishment of the society has jumped with popular feeling and, though the scope and methods of the Union remain practically as in the original forecast, the society is already deeply indebted to the judgment and earnest efforts of men and women of thought and culture."

In August, 1887, Miss Mason lectured before the British Association and it is a significant fact that there was no Education Section so that she spoke under the Section of Economic Science and Statistics.

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In the second Session of the P.E.U. in Bradford the number of members was more than doubled. There were four meetings of members addressed by Mrs. Boyd Carpenter, The Countess of Aberdeen and others, and the Countess of Aberdeen's question "Where shall I get a governess to carry out the principles of 'Home Education'?" gave impetus to working the scheme for a training College. There were also four mothers' meetings, two mixed parents' meetings, three meetings for nurses. Besides these, various parish mothers' meetings and women's guilds were also addressed on matters connected with moral and religious training and sanitation.

It was then felt that the society had justified itself locally and that it might be brought before a wider public. Before attempting to do this Miss Mason took counsel with a number of leaders of thought such as Dr. Butler (of Trinity) Dr. Temple, Dr. Welldon, Dr. Quick, Dr. Percival (Rugby), Professor Max Muller, Sir Joshua Fitch, Miss Buss, Miss Beale, Miss Clough, Canon Liddon, Professor Sully, Bishop Westcott, (some of whom she went to Cambridge to meet at the invitation of Miss Clough). Opinions and criticisms were freely invited and freely and cordially given and Miss Mason felt it was perhaps to this thorough thrashing out that we owe the fact that the P.N.E.U. has worked ever since with hardly a hitch. In 1888 the pamphlet oddly called the "Draft Proof" was printed, and the following preliminary considerations were sown broadcast. I quote from them,--

"No other part of the world's work is of such supreme difficulty, delicacy and importance, as that of parents in the right bringing up of their children. The first obligation of the present--that of passing forward a generation better than ourselves--rests with parents. As every child belongs to the Commonweal, so his bringing up is the concern of all. Yet parents, with the responsibility of the world's future resting upon them, are left to do their work, each father and mother alone, rarely getting so much as a word of sympathy, counsel, or encouragement. All other bodies of workers, whether of hand or brain, enjoy the help and profit of

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association; commonly, of co-operation. Thus the wisdom, the experience, the information of each is made profitable for all; enthusiasm is generated by the union of many for the advance of a cause, and every member is cheered by the sympathy of his fellow-workers. More, association makes it possible to organise means of instruction--lectures, libraries, classes, journals, etc. It creates ever higher public opinion, which puts down casual, uninstructed work, and sets a premium on good work, and it gives an impetus to steady progress as opposed to spasmodic efforts. But parents are outside of all this. They, who must do the vital part of the world's work, compare at a disadvantage with all other skilled workers, whether of hand or brain. There is a literature of its own for almost every craft and profession; while you may count on the fingers of one hand the scientific works on early training plain and practical enough to be of use to parents. There are no colleges, associations, classes, lectures for parents, or those of an age to become parents; no register of the discoveries--physical or psychological--in child nature, which should make education a light task; no record of successful treatment of the sullen, the heedless, the disobedient child; none of the experience of wise parents; there is hardly a standard of beautiful child-life (reduced to words, that is,) towards which parents can work. There is little means of raising public opinion on the subject of home training, or of bringing such opinion to bear. Every young mother must begin at the beginning to work out for herself the problems of education, with no more than often misleading traditions for her guidance. One reason for this anomaly is, that the home is a sanctuary, where prying and intermeddling from without would be intolerable; and, without doubt, the practices of each home are sacred; but the principles of early training are another matter, there is no more helpful work to be done than to bring these principles to the doors of parents of whatever degree.

"How cordially parents welcome any effort in this direction one has but to try to be convinced. There is a feeling abroad that it does not do to bring up children

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casually; that there are certain natural laws--better named Divine laws--which must be worked out in order to produce humans beings at their best, in body, mind, moral nature and spiritual power. It is no easy matter to get at these laws, and here is where parents demand thorough ventilation, at least, of the questions that concern them. For people are beginning to perceive how lamentable and how universal are the miseries arising from defective education; the over active brain, the narrow chest, the sullen and resentful temper, the sluggish intellect are often, more or less, the results of faulty education: the tendency may have been born with the child, but education is able to deal with tendencies. Most of us are aware of some infirmity of flesh or spirit, a life-long stumbling-block, which might have been easily cured in our childhood. It is not too much to say that, in the light of advance science, many of the infirmities that beset us, whether of heart, intellect, or temper, are the results of defective education.

"This is, shortly, where we are to-day: the principle which underlies the possibility of all education is discovered to us: we are taught that the human frame, brain as well as muscle, grows to the uses it is earliest put to. It is hardly possible to get beyond the ground covered by this simple-sounding axiom: that is, it is hardly open to us to overstate the possibilities of education. Almost anything may be made of a child by those who first get him into their hands. We find that we can work definitely towards the formation of character; that the habits of the good life, of the alert intelligence, which we take pains to form in the child, are, somehow, registered in the very substance of his brain; and that the habits of the child are, as it were, so many little hammers beating out by slow degrees the character of the man. Therefore we set ourselves to form a habit in the same matter-of-fact way that we set about teaching the multiplication table; expecting the thing to be done and be done with for life. But fitful habits after a habit--say, of tidiness, or of obedience,--are of very little use, and are worrying to child and parent."

In 1892 the following was added: "But this doctrine of

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habit, all important as it is, includes no more than a third part of the ground covered by education. Parents are very jealous over the individuality of their children; they mistrust the tendency to develop all on the same plan, and this instinctive jealousy is a right, for supposing that education really did consist in systematized effort to draw out every power that is in children, all must needs develop on the same lines. Some of us have an uneasy sense that things are tending towards this deadly sameness. But, indeed, the fear is groundless. We may rest assured that the personality, the individuality of each of us is too dear to God, and too necessary to a complete humanity, to be left at the mercy of empirics.

"The problem of education is more complex than it seems at first sight, and well for us and the world that it is so. 'Education is a life'; you may stunt, and starve, and kill, or you may cherish and sustain; but the beating of the heart, the movement of the lungs, and the development of the 'faculties' are only indirectly our care.

"Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life" covers the question from the three conceivable points of view. Subjectively, in the child, education is a life; objectively as affecting the child, education is a discipline; relatively, if we may introduce a third term, as regards the environment of the child, education is an atmosphere.

"The whole subject is profound, but as practical as it is profound. We absolutely must disabuse our minds of the theory that the functions of education are, in the main, gymnastic. In the early years of the child's life it makes perhaps, little apparent difference whether his parents start with the notion that to educate is to fill a receptacle, inscribe a tablet, mould plastic matter, or, nourish a life; but in the end we shall find that only those ideas which have fed his life are taken into the being of the child; all else is thrown away, or worse, is an impediment and an injury to the vital processes.

"This is, perhaps, how the educational formula should run; education is a life; all life must have its appropriate nourishment, as the bodily life is sustained on bread, so is

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the spiritual life on ideas; and it is the duty of parents to sustain a child's inner life with ideas as they sustain its body with food. The child is an eclectic; he may choose this or that; therefore, in the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.

"The child has affinities with evil as well as with good; therefore, hedge him about from any chance lodgment of evil suggestion.

"The initial idea begets subsequent ideas; therefore, take care that children get right primary ideas on the great relations and duties of life.

"Every study, every line of thought, has its 'guiding idea'; therefore the study of a child makes for living education as it is quickened by the guiding idea which 'stands at the head.'

"In a word, our much boasted 'infallible reason'--is it not the involuntary thought which follows the initial idea upon necessary, logical lines? Given, the starting idea, and the conclusion may be predicated almost to a certainty. We get into the way of thinking such and such manner of thoughts, and of coming to such and such conclusions, ever further and further removed from the starting-point, but on the same lines."

The "Draft Proof" continues,--"It may be well to face at the outset the imperfectly understood attitude of education towards religion. Are we not claiming too much for education when we say that it can turn out a human being with every part and every function in vigorous play and in just proportion? Are we not trending on the transforming work of the Holy Spirit? This is a difficulty which confronts many earnest Christian parents. Perhaps the perplexity arises from our habit of limiting the operations of the laws of God to the region of man's spiritual nature. But as we cannot drop a pebble nor draw a breath save in conformity with certain divine laws, so every development and activity of body, soul and spirit is fenced about with its own laws. What the laws are,

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along the lines of which the child develops in every part of his most complex nature--that, it is the business of the parent to know that he may obey. There are few more intricate studies, but there are few so interesting in progress, so blessed in result, for these physical and metaphysical laws also are the laws of God in the keeping of which there is great reward. With deep reverence be it said that the Holy Spirit Himself, the Lord and Giver of Life, when He undertakes the education of a human being, operates according to law, works out those very principles of education which are proposed to parents, in fact, plays the part of parent to the willing and obedient soul. Is then education the whole? Does it cover everything? Is even the mystery of the Divine life no more than a result of education? By no means. Education is not creative, it acts upon that which is. For the life of the spirit it does no more than offer two or three helpful suggestions. For instance, reasoning from analogy the science of education teaches that if the spiritual life is to be vigorous it must be daily and duly nourished and daily and duly exercised, but it knows nothing of the "living bread" which is the sustenance of the spirit; nor yet of the spirit's functions of praise, prayer and adoration. Again, it is by revelation and not by education that man may know God; again, education hardly touches the sad mysteries of sin and temptation, nor the mystery of God manifest in the flesh--of the Birth of Bethlehem, the Sacrifice of Calvary. These things are spiritually discerned. Education can only water and dig about the garden of the soul and sow the seeds of the higher life."

"The education the P.N.E.U. exists to further runs on two lines. The formation of habits, bodily, mental, moral and spiritual. The presentation of that Idea which is the all-important step in the formation of every habit. As a corollary to these: the development of the faculties so much insisted upon by the earlier educationists takes a quite subordinate place in the educational thought as promulgated by the P.N.E.U."

The "Draft Proof" concerns itself also with the Objects

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of the Union and the view of recent developments the following are of special interest (2) To bring before parents of all classes the best thought on education; (3) To strengthen the hands of parents by association and co-operation and to stimulate the parental enthusiasm by the sense that many are endeavoring in the same direction. (5) To help to strengthen the social bond which unites parents of all classes and opinions.

In connection with (2) Members of the Union have at different times given addresses on the teaching of the P.N.E.U. to other societies, to mothers' meetings, to teachers' meetings. One Branch of the P.N.E.U. worked through a Welfare Centre; we had also a working mothers' Branch at the Victoria Settlement, Manchester, but the most important development of this part of the work has been the Parents' Associations started recently in connection with the Elementary P.U.S. School by the Hon. Mrs. Franklin, the devoted Hon. Org. Sec. of the P.N.E.U. since 1897. I had the great privilege of being present at one of these meetings in October last when Mrs. Franklin addressed the Association of parents in connection with a P.U.S. County Council School in London. There are seventy members and the parents manage the working themselves. One or two took part in the discussions afterwards and one father enquired how it was that the P.U.S. system was not being carried out also in the boys' school, for he found his little girl was far ahead of her brothers.

To quote another instance, one amongst many: an Ex-student of the College has spoken at mixed meetings in Gloucestershire where the children from her own P.U.S. class have had lessons in public with the children of the P.U.S. village school; she has also had 'picture talks' with working mothers, and has addressed the members of the W.E.A. All this work has brought parents and teachers of all classes and opinions together. The Conference at Ambleside last year was yet another instance of this development.

The Draft Proof which has been so largely quoted, also takes into account the scope of the Union. I quote a few

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of the considerations. "One object of the Union is to insist that a child cannot be so well brought up all round by the best of mothers as by the co-operation of both parents;" and again, "the earnest mother is often hampered in her work by an inefficient governess." "There is a near prospect that the Union will be able to establish a House of Education where young ladies who have left school, ladies proposing to teach in families, shall be taught,--the right ordering of a home-schoolroom, the principles which underlie the moral and mental growth of a child and how to train him according to his nature, the most rapid and rational methods of teaching and how to train a child's senses by means of out of door work, by teaching him to know, name and delight in natural objects."

The possibilities of a Parents' Sunday, Local Education Classes, Branch Libraries, Pamphlets for parents, are also discussed in the Draft Proof. Clause (6) refers to Propaganda articles in Magazines and in that year, 1888, Miss Mason had articles accepted in "Murray's Magazine," the "Quiver," and "Cassell's Magazine" but the Union soon had its own magazine for its members and for propaganda work. From time to time articles on the work are still appearing in other organs. This present year (1923) there will be three in "The XIXth Century," and one in "The Hibbert Journal," all by Mr. Household.

Lastly, the 'Draft Proof' considers the organisation of the Union. These considerations are much as we know them now but two points are of interest. "The P.N.E.U. desires to enter a protest against secular education and so the Council shall keep well to the front the four parts of education--physical, mental, moral and religious." "Each Local Branch is a Parents' Educational Union and pledges itself (1) to a religious basis of work, (2) that the number of addresses shall be equally distributed to the four parts of education: (3) that as much work be done with the parents of the working as with those of the educated class." Finally some valuable remarks sent by Miss Clough are quoted,--"The work should be done locally as much as possible. Different localities have to be approached in

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different ways. The smaller the area, the more quietly and effectually the work can be done."

"On January 18th, 1890 the rules and constitution of the P.N.E.U. were drawn up by the Executive Committee at a meeting held in the Graham Street High School. The central principles and objects as originally drawn up were adopted, and on February 18th were finally discussed in a long and earnest debate in the presence of some leading educationists in the hall of the College of Preceptors, and the result was the principles and objects of the Union in their present and final form."

Of the early days of the Parents' Review Miss Mason writes,--"The Society struggled into birth without its own magazine, but it was felt, in very early days, that such a society, without an inspiring organ, would be a mere tool to the hand of every educational faddist who had a theory to advance. Now the P.N.E.U. owes its vitality to the fact that it is a propagandist society, existing to disseminate certain educational principles. Such a society must obviously have the means of communicating, month by month, with its scattered members, must guide the progress of the movement towards the end in view.

"How to launch a worthy magazine was the question? We had amongst us but very few enthusiasts willing and able to risk capital in a costly and hazardous enterprise. A high-class educational magazine appealing to a public of parents, not in the least 'popular,' limited by the nature of its contents to educated and really earnest readers, would seem fore-doomed to failure. However, obstacles were overcome, personal friends came to the help of educational allies, a sufficient fund was raised to carry the Parents' Review through over four years of its existence, during which the sales did not yet cover the costs of production. In these doubtful days friends made valiant efforts; the Review was spread from hand to hand; a second small fund was raised at a distressful juncture; the publishers wondered at the enthusiasm of the subscribers; and now, the Review is self-supporting and is in a position to help the Society. We take this opportunity of expressing our pro-

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found gratitude to those generous friends who supported what appeared to be a hopeless cause, and to those equally valuable friends among our subscribers who, from the very beginning, have laboured ceaselessly to spread the Parents' Review, and with it the knowledge of our principles and our work."

A few words from the "Dedication" to the first number of the Review, February 1890, will serve to indicate its original aim.

"The Parents' Review is dedicated, with great deference, and with a strong assurance of their warm sympathy and support, to parents. The aim of the Parents' Review is to raise common thought on the subject of education to the level of scientific research, and to give parents grip of some half-dozen principles which should act as enormously powerful levers in the elevation of character."

Miss Mason writes later,--"How one remembers the 'fearful joy' of the first number of P.R., what it was to fetch it from the publishers at the moment of issue, to carry it to the nearest quiet place, to ponder its pages and its cover and the tout ensemble of the (then) greeny-yellow magazine, now with joy, now with anxiety, now with doubt, again with rejoicing! Would it prove to be still born? Was there the least chance in the world that so new a venture in magazine literature would find a public? Those were intense moments, and not less intense were the months of incubation."

The Review went through troublous times but it has maintained its high level for 33 years, and Miss Mason used to say that it was a wonderful thing that the magazine could live without any fund for contributors. But it met a need and contributors have come forward generously to give their services to a cause which they felt to be worth while.

In March, 1890, the first Annual Meeting was announced in the Review, to take place on June 3rd, with the accompanying editorial note--:

"We hope that many of our readers will make a point [[137]

of attending, that they may hear the objects and methods of the Parents' National Educational Union fully set forth, and may learn how simple a matter it is to establish a 'Branch' in any neighborhood.

"The object of the promoters is to overspread the country with a great national educational league of parents of every condition; and thus testify that parents form an educational body, whose regard for the interests of the children is as intelligent as it is profound.

"The strength of our position lies in the word body. The good and great amongst us show what great things individual parents have done and are doing. But the duty of even the best parents does not end with their own children; there are certain duties of fellowship of calling, recognized, perhaps, in every vocation but that of the parent. The clergyman owns responsibilities to his brother clergy; the doctor, the artist, the army man, above all, the teacher profits by free give and take with the members of his profession; the parent, alone, stands aloof, as one who would say, 'I have nothing to give and nothing to get; I am sufficient unto myself.' This aloofness of parents is hardly intentional; it is a mere relic of the sentiment of our barbarian days, the feeling we express in the saying, 'The Englishman's house is his castle.' We are waking up to the fact that, by his exclusion and seclusion we sustain a great national and personal loss; we lose much of the enthusiasm which kindles with the consciousness that many are striving together in a great cause.

"It is no arbitrary reward which is attached to the assembling of two or three together; we warm ourselves at each others' fires, and glow with the heat we get. Let but the heads of two or three families meet together to talk over the bringing up of their children, and the best and wisest parents will go home with new insight, renewed purpose, and warmer zeal.

"We shall learn by degrees that education is, like religion, a social principle as well as an individual duty; and, meeting on this higher ground, we shall find out the best of one another as we never should in the common intercourse of business or society."

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On Tuesday, June 31st, 1890, the First Annual Meeting of the P.N.E.U. was held at London House, Dr. Temple presiding. The speakers included Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Canon Daniel, Dr. Gladstone, and the Rev. E. Wynne (for whose parish room, the Home 'Education' lectures were delivered.) To-day we are holding the 25th Annual Conference arranged, as always, by The Hon. Mrs. Franklin, who initiated the Conferences in 1897.

In September, 1890, arrangements were made by Miss Mason for an organizing tour beginning at Sheffield, working southward through Cambridge to the coast, crossing country by way of Cheltenham and working northwards again by Birmingham and Woverhampton. By December, Branches at Belgravia, Forest Gate, Hampstead, and Bournemouth, Bradford, Cheltenham, Grantham were at work and by February, 1891, Branches at Sheffield, Bowdon and Kendal were added. In September 1890, "suggestions" for Branch Secretaries were published in the Review.

In October 1890, three courses of lectures were given by Miss Mason at Cheltenham to mothers, teachers and nurses.

In June 1891, New South Wales formed the first Dominion Branch, and Australia is still doing excellent P.N.E.U. work.

In November, 1891, Miss Mason gave a course of lectures in London and in Lent 1892, she gave two courses, one at the Polytechnic and another at Hyde Park Court, Albert Gate, by invitation of the late Mrs. Dallas Yorke whose friendship was one of the great happinesses of Miss Mason's life: Mrs. Dallas Yorke later became Visitor to the House of Education where she inspired and encouraged the students by her presence and her talks to them.

During the year 1891 a number of lecturers came forward, one of who, Dr. Helen Webb, has continued for over thirty years to lecture for the Union.

In January 1891 the scheme for a House of Education was brought before the readers of the Parents' Review and the notice says,--We shall invite women of refinement and education to come to us for a year's training and they will

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leave us we hope with what we shall venture to call the 'enthusiasm of childhood.'" In January 1892, the House of Education was started in Ambleside.

In December, 1892, another scheme was brought forward. Of this Miss Mason says:--"The writer of an article in the Review appealed to the students of the Parents' Review. We find that the feeling is gaining ground, that 'Education' demands more than mere reading; many mothers feel that they would be the better in body and mind for the mind for the mental activity that nothing but definite study affords and the time seems ripe for the carrying out of another item of our original programme, and we have made arrangements for a course of study on Education--a three years' course--with questions."

"In June, 1892, the Mothers' Education Course was started. It provided for a definite course of study, covering the principles of, and suggesting good methods for, the physical, mental, moral and religious training of children." There were in (1899) about 80 mothers working in it, but after working for twenty-three years the M.E.C. was given up.

In June, 1891, the Parents' Review School was introduced to the readers of the Parents' Review in an article from which the following is an extract:--"For lack of something analogous to school discipline in their early training children begin school at a disadvantage, they begin life at a disadvantage, and the world never gets the best of them. No school advantages can make up to a child for the scope for individual development he should find at home, under the direction of his parents, for the first eight or ten years of life. Later, sterner discipline, intellectual as well as physical, takes the field. The routine of the schoolroom and the virtues and habits of the communal life, the life of the citizen, are, perhaps, never so thoroughly acquired at home as at school. Exclusive home-training continued too long tends to exaggerated individuality, eccentricity; while school-life, begun too soon, tends to loss of original power and individual character. But, theory apart, this is what actually

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happens. Most children of the educated classes, boys and girls, get their early 'schooling' at home. The children of parents who live in the country, where good day-schools are unattainable, have no alternative. Girls of the professional class, living in the country, commonly get the whole of their 'schooling' at home. Girls of the highest class are rarely sent to school. We have not found ourselves able to give this kind of help to parents through the pages of the Parents' Review, because very mischievous results might follow from prescriptions of work being applied to children for whom they were totally unfitted. But we see a way, at last, to do what we have felt all along to be very important work. We propose to open a Parents' Review School. It shall be a unique school, for the pupils shall go to school and be taught at home at one and the same time and have the two-fold advantages of school discipline and home culture.

"There is no waste more sad than the waste of those early years when the child's curiosity is keen and his memory retentive, and when he might lay up a great store of knowledge of the world he lives in with pure delight to himself."

The Parents' Review School opened on June 15th, 1891. The title was changed in 1907 to The Parents' Union School. We have now issued the Programme of Work for the 96th term.

In July (1891) Miss Mason writes in the Review,--"We have been asked to admit schools as well as families to the P.U.S. and we see no reason why not."

We have now, 1923, some one hundred and seventeen secondary schools and classes at work and one hundred and seventy five Elementary schools, while there are many hundreds of home schoolrooms all over the world.

The aims and objects of the School are set forth in the article entitles "The Parents' Review School" (Vol. III of the Parents' Review) and are just as we know them now. The variety of subjects and the limited times are also as in the original plan though the recent programmes shew much development in the way of books simply because the books wanted had not then been written; though we still use

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a few of the books first set, Mrs. Fisher's for instance, because none have ever been found better, and for other books we are still waiting.

As we started with a vision of the children so let us end with one. I have with me a list of one hundred and three schools in the county of Gloucester doing P.U.S. work (a wonderful tribute to Miss Mason's work raised by Mr. Household) and we must remember that it was Mrs. Petrie Steinthal's knowledge of, and faith in, the Elementary teacher which started the pioneer school at Drighlington and so made possible that vision of thousands of Elementary school children doing P.U.S. work which seemed to Miss Mason like a Nunc Dimittis and which called forth in 1916 her recollections of that vision of the children which so filled her thoughts as a girl.

In conclusion may I read a part of a letter which Miss Mason received from the Head of a Gloucester Elementary school on January 11th. It was almost the last letter read to her and gave her so much pleasure.

     "May I be allowed to express my warm appreciation of your scheme. I have no desire to go back to the old methods, in fact, I do not think that I could teach in the old way now.
      This was a very mediocre school, until we were allowed by Mr. Household to work your scheme, and although it is--the school--far from good, and has not nearly reached the mark which I have aimed at for it, yet I feel that the children are keener, more enthusiastic and interested and certainly decidedly happier in their work.
      Only to-day, some of the upper children asked me if they could come to my house this evening to read with me. Of course, I readily acceded to their request, and we have had a very pleasant evening together.
      Parents too, have told me that they are amazed at the knowledge which their children have acquired during the last 18 months, and also that since we adopted the new method it is impossible for them to persuade their children to stay away, except in cases of real illness or extremely bad weather, for some of the children have to come from a considerable distance to school.
      I felt that I would like to tell you these things to show you in perhaps a very feeble way, how much your work is appreciated in this isolated spot on the Cotswolds."

Here is an extract from a visitor to an Elementary school received just before the Conference,--

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     "Miss --- is working so devotedly and loyally in Essex. She has only been there for a year, but the children love their work and quite understand that it is Miss Masson who had chosen such beautiful books for their study. The parents too are pleased with the children's interest and progress and the Inspectors, both H.M.I. and Diocesan, have made very good reports of the work."

And here are two notes which have also just come from the Heads of Elementary schools. One, in London, writes:

     "The programmes have brought much joy and interest into my school. The children are so encouraging--it is simply wonderful what they bring me. One girl brought me the other day a coloured print of Alexander receiving Darius' women-folk--really a most interesting picture, and the child brought a little framed picture of the Sistine Madonna, the "lodger upstairs" had lent it--wonderful people those lodgers!
      I am more than grateful for the results of one term's work, it has made no end of difference to these girls. I have some very nice Books of Centuries, one is beautiful and the girl simply follows me about for books for drawings. Last Monday week I took thirty-six children to the British Museum.

Another in Warwickshire writes:

     "The director visited our school last week, and was extremely interrested in the progress the girls have made during the three years we have followed the Mason method. He asked for specimens of work to be sent to the Education Office, together with a short account of the introduction of the method into our particular school."

Finally here is a glimpse into a home schoolroom,--

     "On hearing that I was writing to the lady who arranges the books, D--- has sent you a message, this is it, word for word;--"Well, will you ask her please if [Form] IB could have 'Tales from Greece and Rome next term" Because although T--- always tells me what he has read I would like to have the real thing then p'raps I'd know who fought for Greece, and who for Troy." T--- revels in it. Yesterday we spent the whole afternoon selecting suitable sticks for bows and arrows. This was splendid frun because we simply had to notice the difference between oak, ash, beech, and hazel without any learning about it. Ash was finally chosen and the result was most successful. To-day Ulysses (T---) and Hector (D---) have had a fierce fight outside Troy (the Hotel). "And we'll wear our yellow woolly caps, please Miss--, because they are a bit like golden helmets, don't you think?"

In 1899 Miss Mason wrote words which may fitly close this brief survey of "The Beginning of Things."

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"Life is more intense, more difficult, more exhausting for us than it was for our fathers; it will probably be more difficult still for our children than for ourselves. How timely, then, and how truly, as we say, providential, that just at this juncture of difficult living, certin simple, definite clues to the art of living should have been put into our heads. Is it presumptuous to hope that new life has been vouchsafed to us in these days, in response to our more earnest endeavour, our more passionate craving for "more light and fuller"? We look back at our small beginnins and thank God and take courage, for already we number our thousands. We have reason to congratulate ourselves and each other, but let us do so with diffidence. Success has its perils. May we each feel that we have a personal work to accomplish in connection with the Union; that each of us is a propagandist, upon whom rests the duty of spreading the principles which seem to us so full of light."

MISS MASON'S IDEAL: ITS BREADTH AND BALANCE.
By H. E. Wix. [Ex-Student, House of Education.]

Many of us here to-day must have known Miss Mason personally and probably the rest of us knew her so well through correspondence and various branches of her work that they too feel towards her as towards a personal friend. Perhaps there never has lived anyone who more speedily and lastingly won the friendship of persons she never saw. Teachers who had only known of her for a few months felt the blank of her loss with a curious intensity; so did parents whose knowledge of her was confined to gratitude for her teaching in Home Education and Parents and Children.

Breadth and balance are perhaps the main marks of Miss Mason's teaching, so that there are many standpoints from which we may try to study it. Surely few educationists have solved both a theory and a philosophy of education--in its broadest sense--and a practical concrete method of

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teaching as well. There are these two main sides of her ideal, often separated but not really separable. First, the upbringing of the child, the person; the teaching habit, the training of the will, the gradual evolution of character. Founded on this and on much more, is Miss Mason's theory and practice of education in its narrower sense; how to teach children in their school days.

The training of the person is naturally a quieter affair than the imparting of knowledge: we can hold exhibitions of the work done by P.U. School children or give demonstration lessons, but what we cannot do is to exhibit the character training of our children. This would seem to be one reason for the strangely mistaken idea that Miss Mason cared more for knowledge than for character. It is not however the whole reason.

Nowadays we hear much--perhaps too much--about freedom, individuality, sense-training and the importance of baby's earliest habits and so on. But these are no new things to members of the P.N.E.U. In Home Education, written over thirty years ago, Miss Mason taught us that from the earliest days baby should learn the meaning of "must" and "must not," that we cannot too soon teach physical habits of regularity in sleep, food, etc. In her pamphlet "Children as Persons," we read that "liberty is the most sacred and inalienable right" of a child: that "public opinion is an insufferable bondage, depriving a person of his individual right to think for himself"; that "a mind that does not think and think its own thoughts, is as a paralysed arm or a blind eye." Much more could be quoted to show how important a place character, real character, held in Miss Mason's ideal, and how wonderfully this ideal has permeated educated thought. In fact some people have seized this or that part or her teaching, not knowing whose it was, and have let it run away with them, have lost the balance and sane-ness which marks Miss Mason's teaching all through.

Indeed so much of what Miss Mason taught about the upbringing of children has passed into common possession of the thinking half of the nation that we forget to whom

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we owe it, which is just what she herself would have wished, what indeed she seems to have aimed at. And more than that, her teaching harmonises so well with the background of sane living, that when it is most there, we notice it least. Anyone taking up her book "Home Education" and reading it for the first time is struck by the sensibleness of it all. "Of course" we say "that is just how we ought to do it, why didn't we think of it before? This is the help we have been hungering for for years; even what we knew already we probably owe to her too."

The following true story may serve as an illustration of this. There was a young mother who was wishful of joining the P.N.E.U. and so get help in the upbringing of her babies. But an older friend tried to dissuade her: "My dear, don't be silly; all these societies are full of fads. Now just look at Mrs. So and So; do you know of a better or a more sensibly brought up family than hers? I never heard that she belonged to any new-fangled educational society."--"Oh, but," answered the young mother, "It was she who told me of the P.N.E.U. and she says she owes everything to it."

Indeed there could be no one more free from "fads" than Miss Mason. She used to tell us that we were not to try to develop individuality for that was the way cranks were made, we were to allow freedom to the "person," room for him to think his own thoughts.

Thus much of what was so new when Miss Mason first began to teach, is now part and parcel of common educational knowledge, and that being so, probably it no longer seemed necessary to Miss Mason that she should continually re-iterate that which was already learnt. And so some people say: "Miss Mason cared more for knowledge than for character." But she held actually that the one was impossible without the other. Without knowledge there could be no character. Since character comes of thought and thoughts must come of what we know, knowledge makes character. This shows us what a sad fallacy underlies the argument that it does not matter what we learn but only how we learn it.

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But Miss Mason did not mean quite the same as does the man in the street when she spoke of knowledge. In the "Basis of National Strength" she gives us a most illuminating definition of knowledge. She says "it is a state out of which persons may pass and into which they may return, but never a store upon which they may draw." To her knowledge was so bound up with "living" that the two were inseparable. Again, in the same pamphlet, Miss Mason gives us a negative definition of knowledge. "It is not" she says, "instruction, information, scholarship or a well-stored memory." "For too many of us" she says elsewhere "knowledge is a thing of shreds and patches, knowledge of this and of that, with yawning gaps between," And again, "It is perhaps a beautiful whole, a great unity, embracing God and Man and the Universe, but having many parts . . ., all are necessary and each has its functions." "Knowledge is the science of the proportion of things." Yet one more quotation: "Fundamental knowledge is the knowledge of God and while we are ignorant of that principal knowledge, Science, Nature, Literature and History, all remain dumb."

So we see that knowledge to Miss Mason was a tremendous thing--indeed not a thing at all but a state, just as friendship is a state. It is a condition of happy friendship with God, with man and with nature, in which one's mind will grow and expand and blossom as happily as a plant in its native clime; the mind being in direct contact with other minds as a plant is surrounded by air; this the mind drinks in from the Divine, from fellow men and from nature all that is needed for its complete sustenance . . . It is interesting too to remember how Our Lord always taught people who came to Him; he did not criticise or find fault, but He enlightened their understanding; gave them truer knowledge for their guidance.

May I repeat that definition? It makes so clear how in Miss Mason's philosopht character cannot exist without knowledge. "Knowledge is a state out of which people may pass and into which they may return but never a store upon which they may draw." . . . That is, real knowledge

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cannot be used as a servant, a crutch, a vaulting stick, to be thrown aside when we have passed that final examination and have "arrived." When so treated knowledge becomes mere information about some particular subject or subjects--and oh! how dull is a "well-informed" person and how untrustworthy are his opinions on people and on life! It is an obvious result, not because he is a specialist, not because he has passed examinations, but because of his attitude towards knowledge--something acquired solely to be made use of.

In Miss Mason herself we have the most wonderful example of her own teaching. We ourselves are mostly so far "outside knowledge" that we wonder and grope when decisions have to be made, but, as an article in the April Review tells us, "she always knew without a second's hesitation of what was the right thing" and afterwards the rightness of her decision was obvious to others.

But Miss Mason's idea of Education was not only that, it was an atmosphere and a life, but also a discipline. "Without labour there is no profit" she said; but to emphasise this aspect hardly concerns this paper; though it must never be forgotten, since no one believed more strongly than she that knowledge is only for those who have the will to labour earnestly for it; it cannot be freely given by anyone.

Perhaps I have been able to show dimly the amazing breadth of Miss Mason's ideal. But as to balance there are some who seem to think that the scales of her favour were weighted on the side of letters rather than of things. Well, it may be so. She did believe that knowledge of God, of our fellow men, of living nature was more life-giving than knowledge of things. But she did not, as some people imagine, rule science, for example, out of her scheme of education. In fact, she says, "For our generation, science seems to me to be the way of intellectual advance," though, "For the most part science as she is taught leaves us cold. But the fault is not in the science, but in our presentation of it." And again, "Natural Science should be taught through field-work or other immediate channel. Huxley told us long ago that Science should be taught in schools as common information."

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Physical Exercises and handicrafts she considered most important, but rather as adjuncts to education than as an integral part of education. She calls them "excellent training."

And mathematics and music she put together in a class by themselves, two branches of knowledge each with a speech of its own; a speech, as she put it, "of exquisite clarity."

As to methods of teaching these subjects, Miss Mason did not lay claim to any special knowledge. It is for this reason probably that some persons think they are not included in her ideal education, but when we remember, as always did, that "knowledge is truth," we know at once that no part of truth can be omitted without wrecking the whole. And in some wonderful way, P.U. School children do realize that knowledge is a balanced whole; that scripture, history, geography, botany and all the others are actually different facets of the same thing. Indeed it may be that herein lies the chief characteristic of a P.N.E.U. School; for it is merely another way of saying that the children have a wide curriculum and that they get at knowledge for themselves and for its own sake. All this results in a real enjoyment and love of knowledge which is most delightful to witness, and certainly no P.N.E.U. children display boredom or are relieved when school days are over or give up learning or reading when they return home "for good" as we say.

What is the secret of this? I do not know. What we cannot do with Miss Masons's ideal is to reduce it to lowest terms, and just in so far as we try to, so far we misrepresent it and misunderstand it. But some of the secret undoubtedly lies in the Programmes of Work; the longer we work from those wonderful programmes the more we realize how well balanced they are; how satisfying to the hungry mind; how the subjects dovetail; how difficult it is to teach history only in history time, how it will "flow over" into geography, literature, or even into such unexpected channels as arithmetic or botany.

We all know how delicate a matter is balance; such and

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such a change which seems so clearly sensible will sometimes seriously endanger it. Somehow even slight imperfections seem positively to help to maintain the balance; certainly constant little changes in the programme are necessary because otherwise they would stiffen and become rigid and lifeless. And so the programmes grow and change always; looking back through twenty years, it is amazing how they have developed,-the sense of balance perhaps growing even in Miss Mason herself all the while. This may explain why we read in the April Review, Miss Mason so much disliked organization, printed forms, stereotyped letters, card indexes and all the paraphernalia of a systematized business. Where the fulcrum is stiff there cannot be balance.

Looking through these old programmes it is most interesting to watch how subjects disappear and re-appear and are again displaced. Architecture for instance; and astronomy; geology and physiography. With a wonderful sense of fitness Miss Mason arranged and re-arranged; chose this book, rejected that, tried such a one and removed it, either because it had not sufficient weight or because those unerring children refused to "take to it."

That is, they refused to "narrate" it. Narration is, as we all know, of enormous importance, not however because it is the sum total of Miss Mason's Methods, for very much more is included in her ideal, but because it looms so much larger in P.N.E.U. work than some teachers understand; because too its use is spreading to non-P.N.E.U. schools, where however its real significance as "food for the mind" is not yet fully understood.

Of late years, Miss Mason, in her far-seeing wisdom, laid more and more stress on narration, for she had discovered in it the foundation stone of learning, which provides, when the right books are used, the food without which the mind cannot grow or thrive. But we cannot reduce Miss Mason's method to lowest terms; we cannot say "P.N.E.U. teaching is narration"; for though it is not possible to do Miss Mason's work without it, it is eminently possible to practise narration of a sort and yet be far indeed from her ideal.

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Perhaps the root of the matter is that narration includes so much more than mere re-telling of matter read.

We take our children for a Nature Walk. They talk, wonder, discuss, they paint little sketches of their finds, whether fossil, shell, insect or flower. They write notes; they keep lists. Is this narration? Surely. But they have not necessarily read anything, though probably they are now poring over some book to find out the name or habitat of one or other of their finds. But they have got at knowledge direct; no intervening wall of talk is there. Now in a non-P.N.E.U. school, each child, in nine cases out of ten would be made to copy its notes from the black board where teacher had written up what were really her observations, cleverly and quite friendlily imposed on the children. That is one difference.

Take Science. There is a great change coming over the teaching of science. It used to be "If you take so and so and do thus and thus, such and such will happen." But now methods are changing.

In a boy's school not long ago, where there was a jolly Science room, hardly grand enough to be called a "Lab," the boys were learning the habit of things much as our P.U.S. children learn the habits of a bird or flower. That is, through patient observation. Books were there to fill out the knowledge so gained and a teacher who knew both his subject and his place, and was inconspicuously giving help and advice as needed. The boys were very busy. Some were trying experiments, others were writing down exactly what they had done and seen, others were making drawings in their note books--"nature notes" if you like. Wasn't that "narration"? Surely it fulfilled Miss Mason's dictum that we must ourselves perform the labour of learning, the act of knowing; that we do not know a thing until we have ourselves and individually "given back." In fact here, where we might least expect it, we find a change which Miss Mason has helped to bring about. She hoped for more literary books on Science; they too seem to be coming.

As time goes on, we shall probably find it increasingly

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difficult always to remember this "Breadth and Balance" which is the subject of this paper. One might almost sum up Miss Mason's philosophy in those two words "Breadth and Balance"; "a pioneer of sane education" the Times called her. And just in proportion to the greatness and importance of these two characteristics, is the difficulty of carrying them out.

It is such a temptation to us ordinary folks to emphasise some part at the expense of the rest and so turn a strength into a weakness. There is only one way to avoid this danger. That is constantly to read and re-read Miss Mason's books, constantly to remind ourselves of her first principles--for from now onwards Miss Mason's work is in our hands; we dare not leave un-made any effort to keep the truth.

May I take Narration, the corner stone, as an example?

In such a book subject as history, does P.N.E.U. teaching consist merely in reading a set portion once through and then allowing a certain number of children--out of perhaps a class of fifty--to narrate as best they can? Is it not possible that such a lesson, repeated ad infinitum would result in a rigid system?

What is narration? Miss Mason tells us it is "the answer to a question put by the mind to itself." Then might there not be times when narration might be a drawing or even a sketch map?

Are we perhaps in danger of systematising the method by insisting that reading and narration are in themselves for ever all-sufficient? We know we may never omit that part of the lesson in which the child puts to his mind a question and answers it, in which he himself performs the definite act of knowing, in which his mind is fed. But should we, for example, never also set questions for the older children of a thought-provoking type? Let us see what Miss Mason says. In "School Education" after giving an account of narration she adds: "But this is only one way to use books; others are to enumerate the statements in a given chapter, to analyse a chapter, to divide it into paragraphs under proper headings, to tabulate and classify series, to trace cause to consequence and consequence to

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cause, to discern character--and perceive how character and circumstance interact . . . The teacher's part is, among other things, to set such questions and such tasks as shall give full scope to his pupil's mental activity . . . Let the pupil write for himself half a dozen questions which cover the passage studied. These few hints by no means cover the disciplinary uses of a good school book."

So we evidently may require--at least from our older pupils--something more than narration. But, we must never forget that without narration the mind will starve; whatever disciplinary exercises we use, they should be in addition to and never instead of narration. Physical exercises of the mind are admirable, but will not take the place of food. On the other hand, a well fed mind does need a certain amount of disciplinary exercise at times, and the children lose something when they do not have it.

Miss Mason was an idealist; unperceiving persons might even call her a "mere visionary." All of us who try to follow in her steps are idealists too, and yet on every hand we hear that what the world wants is a sound, practical, useful education; it has "no use" for the idealist. But, looking back through history, it is inspiring and immensely cheering to notice who it is who have most greatly influenced the world. Is it not always the idealist? The man who attempts the impossible? What practical man of affairs or politics or war or commerce can stand alongside Plato, Socrates, Dante?

For Spirit is stronger than matter and we who know even but a little of Miss Mason's teaching, know that it rests on eternal truth.

A TRIBUTE.

MR. H. M. RICHARDS, C.B., H.M.I., Chief Inspector, Board of Education, in introducing the next speaker, said:--

"We are to hear the distinguished Headmaster of a great Public School read a paper by one who believed in the reverend Study of great thoughts embodied in great language,

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the very spirit of that Renaissance from which our great Schools got their impulse and inspiration. It may strike us as a curious fact that the Headmaster of Westminster, one of the leaders of a great profession, should become the willing disciple of one who was not a professional teacher at all. The reason is, I think, that Miss Mason from her own powers of head and heart saw some of the obvious truths which we professional people are often so slow to see. The truth she saw was simply this, that all that is great and beautiful in literature, art, music, and nature can make an appeal not only to the well-to-do, but to the very poorest of our people. It seems so extremely easy to say this, but it required great courage and faith to do it, and I would like on behalf of the Board of Education to make this public acknowledgement of the debt we all owe to Miss Mason, who by her courage and faith brought into the poorest schools of the country and to the most neglected children the opportunity of seeing and feeling and believing in beauty and in truth. There are very few people, who, like Miss Mason, can leave behind them such a work and such a message. To those people death has no sting and the grave is only a doorway to continued achievement."

"EDUCATION IS A LIFE."

[Read by the Rev. H. Costley-White, Headmaster of Westminster and Chairman of the P.N.E.U. Executive Committee.]

BY C. M. MASON.

We all know the P.N.E.U. motto,--"Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life,"--especially well in the neat diagrammatic form in which it appears on the covers of our Library books. I am told that we, as a society, are destined to live by our motto. A notable educationalist writes to me, in connection with public education,--"there is more need than ever for such a view of education as that embodied in the memorable words which are the motto of the Parents' Review." An inspiring motto must always be a power, but to live upon the good repute of our motto,

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and to live up to it and in it are two different things, and I am afraid the Parents' Union has much and continual thinking and strenuous living to face, if it proposes to stand before the world as interpreting and illustrating these "memorable words." But we are not a faint-hearted body, we mean and mean intensely; and to those who purpose the best, and endeavour after the best, the best arrives.

Meantime, we sometimes err, I think, in taking a part for the whole, and a part of a part for the whole of that part. Of the three lines of our definition, that which declares that "education is an atmosphere" pleases us most, perhaps because it is the most inviting to the laissez-aller principle of human nature. By the way, we lose something by substituting "environment" (that blessed word, Mesopotamia!) for atmosphere. The latter word is symbolic, it is true, but a symbol means more to us all than the name of the thing signified. We think of fresh air, pure, bracing, tonic,--of the definite act of breathing which must be fully accomplished, and we are incited to do more and mean more in the matter of our children's surroundings if we think of the whole as an atmosphere, than if we accept the more literal "environment."

But, supposing that "education is an atmosphere" brings a fresh and vigorous thought to our minds, suppose that is means for us, for our children, sunshine and green fields, pleasant rooms and good pictures, schools where learning is taken in by the gentle act of inspiration, followed by the expiration of all that which is not wanted, where charming teachers compose the children by a half-mesmeric effluence which inclines them to do as others do, be as others are,--suppose that all this is included in our notion of "education is an atmosphere," may we not sit at our ease and believe that all is well, and that the whole of education has been accomplished? No; because though we cannot live without air, neither can we live upon air, and children brought up upon "environment" soon begin to show signs of inanition; they have little or no healthy curiosity, power of attention, or of effort; what is worse, they lose spontaneity and initiative; they expect life to

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drop into them like water into a rain-tub, without effort or intention on their part.

This notion, that education is included in environment, or, at the best, in atmosphere, has held the ground for a generation or two, and it seems to me that it has left its mark upon our public and our private lives. We are more ready to be done unto than to do; we do not care for the labour of ordering our own lives in this direction or in that; they must be conducted for us; a press of engagements must compel us into what next, and what next after. We crave for spectacular entertainment, whether in the way of pageants in the streets, or spectacles on the boards. Even Shakespeare has come to be so much the occasion for gorgeous spectacles that what the poet says is of little moment compared with the show a play affords. There is nothing intentionally vicious in all this; it is simply our effort to escape from the ennui that results from a one-sided view of education,--that education is an atmosphere only.

A still more consuming ennui set in at the end of the eighteenth century, and that also was the result of a partial view of education. "Education is a life" was the (unconscious) formula then; and a feverish chase after ideas was the outcome. It is pathetic to read how Madame de Stael and her coterie, or that "blue-stocking" coterie which met at the Hotel Rambouillet, for example, went little to bed, because they could not sleep; and spent long nights in making character sketches of each other, enigmas, anagrams, and other futilities of the intellect, and met again (some of them) at early breakfast to compose and sing little airs upon little themes. We may be as much inclined to yawn in each other's faces as they were, but, anyway, if we sin as they did by excess in one direction, there is less wear and tear in a succession of shows than in their restless pursuit of inviting notions. Still, the beginning of the nineteenth century has its lessons for the beginning of the twentieth. They erred, as we do, because they did not understand the science of the proportion of things. We are inclined to say, "education is environment"; they would say "education is ideas"; the truth includes both of these,

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and a third definition introducing another side, a third aspect of education.

The third conceivable view, "education is a discipline," has always had its votaries and has them still. That the discipline of the habits of the good life, both intellectual and moral, forms a good third of education, we all believe. The excess occurs when we imagine that certain qualities of character and conduct run out a prepared product, like carded wool, from this or that educational machine, mathematics or classics, science or athletics; that is, when the notion of the development of the so-called faculties takes the place of the more physiologically true notion of the formation of intellectual habits. The difference does not seem to be great; but two streams that rise within a foot of one another may water different countries and fall into different seas, and a broad divergence in practice often arises from what appears to be a small difference in conception in matters educational. The father of Plutarch had him learn his Homer that he might get heroic ideas of life. Had the boy been put through his Homer as a classical grind, as a machine for the development of faculty, a pedant would have come out, and not a man of the world in touch with life at many points, capable of bringing men and affairs to the touchstone of a sane and generous mind. It seems to me that this notion of the discipline which would develop "faculty" has tended to produce rather one-sided men with the limitations which belong to abnormal development. An artist told me once that the condition of successful art is absorption in art, that the painter must think pictures, paint pictures, nothing but pictures. But when art was great, men were not mere artists. Quentin Matsys wrought in iron and painted pictures and did many things besides. Michael Angelo wrote sonnets, designed buildings, painted pictures; marble was by no means his only vehicle of expression. Leonardo wrote treatises, planned canals, played instruments of music, did a hundred things and all exquisitely. But then, the idea of the development of faculty, and the consequent discipline, had not occurred to these great men or their guardians.

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Having safe-guarded ourselves from the notion that education has only one face, we may go on to consider how "education is life," without the risk of thinking that we are viewing more than one side of the subject.

It has been said that "man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," and the augustness of the occasion on which the words were spoke, has caused us to confine their meaning to what we call the life of the soul; when, indeed, they include a great educational principle which was better understood by the medieval church than by ourselves. May I be allowed once again to describe a painting in which the creed of the House of Education, and, I hope, that of the Parents' Union, is visibly expressed. Many of us are familiar with the frescoes on the walls of the so-called Spanish Chapel of the church of S. Maria Novella. The philosophy of the Middle Ages dealt, as we know, with theology as it subject-matter; and, while there is much ecclesiastical polity with which we have little sympathy pictured on the remaining walls, on one compartment of wall and roof we have a singularly satisfying scheme of educational thought. At the highest point of the picture we see the Holy Ghost descending in the likeness of a dove; immediately below, in the upper chamber are the disciples who first received his inspiration; below, again, is the promiscuous crowd of all nationalities who are brought indirectly under the influence of the first outpouring, and in the foreground are two or three dogs, shewing that the dumb creation was not excluded from benefiting by the new grace. In the lower compartment of the great design are angelic figures of the cardinal virtues, which we all trace more or less to divine inspiration, floating above the seated figures of apostles and prophets, of whom we know that they "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." So far, this medieval scheme of philosophy reveals no new thought to persons instructed in the elements of Christian truth. But, below the prophets and apostles, are a series of pictured niches, those to the right being occupied by the captain figures, the ideal representations of the seven Liberal Arts, figures of singular grace and beauty.

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representing such familiar matters as grammar, rhetoric, logic, music, astronomy, geometry and arithmetic, all of them under the outpouring of the