THE POOR AND EDUCATION.
THE new number of the Quarterly Review contains an article of remarkable interest by Mr. Stephen Reynolds. We cannot, indeed, say much for the title, " What the Poor Want." It gives the impression that a negative has somehow been left out, and that what Mr. Reynolds meant to call his paper was " What the Poor do not Want." For the burden of his tale is that the philanthropist and the social reformer have been always and altogether in the wrong. Their efforts to improve the condition of the poor have been vitiated by a comprehensive defect,—the defect of absolute ignorance of those whom they have been seeking to benefit. They have treated them much as a small child treats a pet animal. They have given them what they suppose to be good for them without stopping to inquire in what light the gift is viewed by the receivers. The charity, be it individual or legislative, has failed of its object because it has never been really intelli- gent. Success in social reform means something more than the fulfilment of an intention. It means that this intention itself should be founded in intelligence and sympathy. Whole classes of men and women cannot be legislated for, whether by Societies or by Parliaments, without a clear understanding not only of their circumstances, but of the characters and the ideas, the tastes and the desires, which these circumstances have formed. The various " attitudes " towards the poor which Mr. Reynolds describes differ greatly, but they have one common feature,—ignorance of their subject-matter. There is the general attitude which " makes mischief and damage by rich men's sons a case of boys will be boys,' but by poor men's sons a case for the police- court." There is the " old Tory ideal of the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate,' and its modern equivalent the poor man in his East End and the rich man in his West.' " There is the industrial attitude of the employer :—" I believe my wife takes them things when they're ill, but I tell her she's sure to catch something or other in their wretched hovels. She'd far better pay for another district nurse, if she wants to, or send an inspector." There is the Imperialistic attitude which aims at making the poor efficient., " not so much for the benefit of them- selves as for that of the dominant class." There is the highly practical attitude which, looking upon the poor as defective machines, " tots up the nitrogen and hydro- carbons in their food and measures their home comfort in cubic feet by the amount of air space in their rooms." And besides all these there is the impractical sentimental attitude, which is only less mischievous than the others because its " gullibilities have been sufficiently exposed."
It is a disheartening list, because it hits every one of us somewhere. Which of us has not talked or written on behalf of some Act of Parliament that we now see to have done nothing but mischief ? Who, for example, if he is honest, has not reckoned up the expedients which have been tried to wean people from the public-house, and noted the disastrous results that have followed from them. The grocer's license to sell wine and spirits in single bottles, -for example, is now a favourite object of temperance attack. Ye there was a time when it was welcomed as the sub- stitution of a little wholesome drink with the home meal for the degrading booze at the beershop. The "Children's Charter " is another well-meant effort in the same direc- tion. The working man can no longer send a child to the public-house for his beer, so he either sends his daughter who probably is just not a child, and for that reason far more likely to come to harm, or goes himself to the tavern— and stays there. The fault of all this legislation is that it is heroic in the worst sense—the sense which leaps before it looks—and attempts " to modify lives hardly known with results that cannot be foretold.' And since the benefits it seeks to confer are benefits which are neither understood nor desired by those on whom they are heaped, the working of them must be carefully- watched. " It is observable," says Mr. Reynolds, " that social reformers are demanding more inspection, a system the inherent defects of which are greater than its qualities. It is resented as an imperti- nence by the poor ; it ignores the imponderables ; it judges the lives of one class by standards of another ; and long before it attains efficiency, even within its own narrow limits, the cost has become prohibitive." This is a tremendous indictment, and it hits every one of us more or less. We have all erred in one or other of the ways which Mr. Reynolds describes. If there be any difference between us, it is that sonic of us, we may hope, are more inclined than others to see wherein we have been wrong. One chief source of these errors is the want of any clear understanding of what it is that differentiates the poor from the not-poor. We are too apt to assume that though there are numberless differences among the not- poor—differences of conditions, of habits, of ideals—the poor are all of one kind. We know that we are wrong the moment it is pointed out to us, but unfortunately it is only for the moment. The knowledge is gone before the time comes for turning it to account. Consequently, when we take the problem in hand, we fall back upon the general class name, and set ourselves to do good, not to this or that kind of poor man, but to the poor " in a -loomp." Perhaps one most conspicuous failure in this direction is our system of elementary education. We are learning to some extent to look facts in the face, but unluckily our observations lead to very little because of the tremendous cost of going back. A radical change in the education of the poor might render useless a whole army of examiners, inspectors, and clerks, and, what is worse, some half-million of teachers. " So long," says Mr. Reynolds, " as there are different sorts of work to be done, different types of mind will be required to do it well." This is the need. How do we set to work to meet it ? Our aim " apparently is to produce varying approximations to the clerk or teacher or minor pro- fessional man ; to foster only one type of mind, that which responds readily to the cut-and-dried curricu- luni in vogue." The difference between general and professional education among the educated classes is perfectly well understood. A boy passes from one to the other at various ages according to the real or supposed needs of the career he is going to follow. But with the poiir this distinction is wholly ignored. There is one and the same leaving-age for all children, and the efforts of the educational reformer are for the most part confined to making that age later. " The well-to-do have a large amount of voice in what their children shall be taught and the age at which they shall leave school. Working-class parents have practically none." Has the most sensible working man ever dared to tell the school authorities that his child would be better grounded if he remained a second year in a particular standard ? He might as well ask whether the boy would not get on better if the authorities would add a cubit to his stature. The one change would be almost as much a miracle as the other. Yet the age at which a child should go to work, and how much he should have learned before ho leaves school, ought to vary with the work to which he is to be put. The parents ought not to be absolute judges in this matter, because " they have heard so much about education and reading as panaceas that, against their better sense as at other times expressed, they more than half believe it." But " those who will have the responsibility of putting their children out to work might well be consulted as to the same children's educa- tion." If they were so consulted, there would be a clean sweep of many of the " extra" subjects which now fill so large a space in the time-tables of our elementary schools. Mr. Reynolds tells us that whenever he has asked working men what they would like their children to be taught, " the answer has always been the old-fashioned one, They ought to learn 'em to read and write and reckon well, which they don't do.' " It is these last words that constitute the ultimate condemnation of our present system. If the children left school able to " read and write and reckon well," it would be some compensation for their being kept there when they might have been better employed in other ways. But this is just what they do not. From whatever cause, whether from the absorption of the teachers in " extra " sub- jects, or from the disuse of individual examination, the child has not learned " the three R's " thoroughly before going on to other things. As to the leaving-age, Mr. Reynolds gives us his own experience in an industry of which he has both practical knowledge and abundant opportunities of observation. " There are some sorts of work which must be got at' early. Fishermen, for instance, hold firmly that a man must not only have been trained, but bred to their trade. The finished product of the schoolroom and playground cannot be expected to take to fishing, with its exposure and call for endurance, its periods of trying idleness and of work severe beyond the powers of the average man. They ain't got the heart, they ain't got the guts,' fishermen say. In the fishery I know best there is not now a single youth coming on, though there is still a decent living to be got out of the sea. When they leave school they want softer jobs ' or none."
There is a great deal more in Mr. Reynolds's article that deserves attention, but we shall be well content if the points we have noticed induce our readers to give some serious thought to " what the poor want."
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