ecclesiastical windows have something to do with it, but the mental strain is always there, and it takes a particularly robust and cheerful woman to cope successfully, and alone, for years on end, with these fascinating but exacting little schools, that are so much a part of our English village life.
The upkeep of some of these tiny places is, of course, out of all proportion to the number of children taught, which accounts for the transfer of pupils to one nearby, but it seems to me equally improvident to overcrowd one school by bringing busloads of children from others, and this may well happen.
Probably the ideal rural school is the three-teacher one, with a teacher for the infants, one for the younger juniors of seven to nine, and the head teacher taking the rest up to the age of eleven. (Though why the head teacher should not take the infants, I don't know. The longer I teach, the more positive I am that it is the first three years of the child's school life that ready matter most). But village populations are not made to order, and local education authorities are not to be envied as they deal with children, parents, managers, rate-payers, the church and the Ministry of Education.
However, at a time like this, when harassed and nerve-wracked individuals rush to the countryside at every opportunity, there to revive their flagging energies and to find that 'balm of hurt minds,' fresh air and country sounds and scents—it seems decidedly odd to do away with village schools which are the very essence of country education. What a child may learn on his daily walk to school along a country lane will never be forgotten; and to know intimately the changes that come to plants and trees, to birds and insects, as the full cycle of the four seasons turns, is a source of joy and wonder to the child who is the father of the man.
I have seldom had a more exasperating day. I began by smashing a Wedgwood coffee-pot, as I tried to hurry with the washing-up, which I had left in the most slatternly way, from last night, before going over to school.
At play-time Patrick fed heavily, took the skin from both knees, and worse still, a corner off a front tooth—his second, naturally. I was washing his knees in the school-house when the telephone rang, and an underling at the Caxley Education Office peremptorily demanded the return of a form with no delay.' This asinine document was devoted to the number, size, material, age, etc. of the various types of desk in Fairacre School, and as we have a motley collection it took me the rest of the morning, crawling round, ruler in hand, to measure the wretched things.
Mrs Crossley, 'the dinner lady' left two canisters of swedes, which the children abominate, and no gravy. I wonder what Beech Green School thought of two lots of gravy and no swedes! Mrs Pringle, rather more disgruntled than usual, reminded me so often of the combustible nature of her leg—'proper flared up last night, no better today' that I would have welcomed her resignation, and said so. She retaliated by crashing the cutlery about in a deafening manner, all through my geography lesson.
I was thankful to get back to the peace of the school-house at tea-time, and decided to make some grape-fruit marmalade. Just as I was engrossed in a tricky bit of mental arithmetic about pounds of sugar and the weight of three grapefruit, and waiting for my tea-kettle to boil, a knock came at the front door. A strange man stood on the doorstep holding a sheaf of tracts. I could hear the kettle's lid rattling in the kitchen, and knew, from bitter experience, that the floor would be swamped.
The strange man asked me, in a sepulchral tone, if I had found the Lord, thrusting a tract into my hand at the same time.
'Thank you, thank you! Yes indeed!' I answered, backing inside and shutting the door firmly. I returned to my swamped kitchen and began to mop up the floor in a very bad temper.
Really, Fairacre people must have a name for utter
The upkeep of some of these tiny places is, of course, out of all proportion to the number of children taught, which accounts for the transfer of pupils to one nearby, but it seems to me equally improvident to overcrowd one school by bringing busloads of children from others, and this may well happen.
Probably the ideal rural school is the three-teacher one, with a teacher for the infants, one for the younger juniors of seven to nine, and the head teacher taking the rest up to the age of eleven. (Though why the head teacher should not take the infants, I don't know. The longer I teach, the more positive I am that it is the first three years of the child's school life that ready matter most). But village populations are not made to order, and local education authorities are not to be envied as they deal with children, parents, managers, rate-payers, the church and the Ministry of Education.
However, at a time like this, when harassed and nerve-wracked individuals rush to the countryside at every opportunity, there to revive their flagging energies and to find that 'balm of hurt minds,' fresh air and country sounds and scents—it seems decidedly odd to do away with village schools which are the very essence of country education. What a child may learn on his daily walk to school along a country lane will never be forgotten; and to know intimately the changes that come to plants and trees, to birds and insects, as the full cycle of the four seasons turns, is a source of joy and wonder to the child who is the father of the man.
I have seldom had a more exasperating day. I began by smashing a Wedgwood coffee-pot, as I tried to hurry with the washing-up, which I had left in the most slatternly way, from last night, before going over to school.
At play-time Patrick fed heavily, took the skin from both knees, and worse still, a corner off a front tooth—his second, naturally. I was washing his knees in the school-house when the telephone rang, and an underling at the Caxley Education Office peremptorily demanded the return of a form with no delay.' This asinine document was devoted to the number, size, material, age, etc. of the various types of desk in Fairacre School, and as we have a motley collection it took me the rest of the morning, crawling round, ruler in hand, to measure the wretched things.
Mrs Crossley, 'the dinner lady' left two canisters of swedes, which the children abominate, and no gravy. I wonder what Beech Green School thought of two lots of gravy and no swedes! Mrs Pringle, rather more disgruntled than usual, reminded me so often of the combustible nature of her leg—'proper flared up last night, no better today' that I would have welcomed her resignation, and said so. She retaliated by crashing the cutlery about in a deafening manner, all through my geography lesson.
I was thankful to get back to the peace of the school-house at tea-time, and decided to make some grape-fruit marmalade. Just as I was engrossed in a tricky bit of mental arithmetic about pounds of sugar and the weight of three grapefruit, and waiting for my tea-kettle to boil, a knock came at the front door. A strange man stood on the doorstep holding a sheaf of tracts. I could hear the kettle's lid rattling in the kitchen, and knew, from bitter experience, that the floor would be swamped.
The strange man asked me, in a sepulchral tone, if I had found the Lord, thrusting a tract into my hand at the same time.
'Thank you, thank you! Yes indeed!' I answered, backing inside and shutting the door firmly. I returned to my swamped kitchen and began to mop up the floor in a very bad temper.
Really, Fairacre people must have a name for utter
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