Chapter XVIII: Conclusion: Relation of School to Home

By DOROTHEA BEALE.

So far we have spoken of the life of the child in the school. I now enter on another branch of the subject no less important, which in a book intended for teachers I shall treat from a teacher’s point of view.

I have spoken of the great change which has taken place during the last fifty years. In the days of Locke, of Rousseau, of Sandford and Merton, and of the Edgeworths, it was only possible to educate a boy by a private tutor at home. Now the sons of the nobility are no longer educated in their own homes, nor sent, as in earlier days, to other families. A similar change has taken place in the education of girls; every year more of those who would formerly have received their education entirely from governesses and masters at home, or at most gone to a very small boarding school, are studying as day-pupils at large schools and colleges, or living in boarding-houses. The question arises then, since the time is in the case of day-girls divided between the school and the home, how shall the relations between the two be adjusted? In the case of the day-girl, about eleven-twelfths of her time are spent at home; in the case of the boarder, nearly a third of the year. Everything must depend upon the harmonious working of the home and the school, if the education is to be profitable, and the problem requires the most careful attention. Teachers full of zeal and devotion are eagerly seeking to deepen their knowledge, to widen their experience, and when they have come to the conclusion that a well-proportioned curriculum is necessary for mental development, that early specialisation is harmful, that daily distractions are wasting the nervous energy of the growing girl, they are aggravated by hearing, “Mother thinks geometry is no good for a girl”; “Please, I am to drop my English lessons, and give nearly all my time to music”; or, “I could not do my lessons because I was at a bazaar”; or, “Friends invited me”; or, “Mother does not approve of my working in the holidays”.

And then they are tempted to do what specialists in all ages have tried to do--to set up a beneficent despotism, to say, “I am Sir Oracle, and when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!” I once heard the Head of a College address a body of teachers, advising them what to say to an opposing mother: “My dear madam, I know what is best for your child”. There are doctors who assume a dictatorial attitude, but what should we say, if a mother let the child go on taking his medicine without expostulation, when it seemed to be injuring the child; or, on the other hand, refused to give the child medicine which was beneficial, because the child did not like it? As the doctor needs to listen to the experience of the mother, and the mother to carry out the advice of the doctor, so do parents need to trust the children’s teacher in matters of which an educational expert can form the best judgment, and teachers, like doctors, need to profit by the experience of the parent, and should be willing to give reasons for their advice, knowing that the more their patient understands, the more intelligently will he carry out the directions given.

But how shall this be? Well, as a quickened sense of the supreme importance of education has been awakened in teachers, so has it in parents. But mothers cannot in these days lead quiet lives, and devote themselves to the home as they once could. The multiform external activity, which we have noticed among women workers, has its good side even as regards family life, for the family that lives for itself alone can no more lead a healthy life than the individual, but it has its dangers too. We all know how great are the claims of society, of culture, of philanthropy, right in themselves, yet sometimes displacing a higher claim. All of us, specially mothers and teachers, want to know how to conciliate the rival duties, lest the words should be said to us, “Thine own vineyard hast thou not kept”.

It is of the very greatest importance for the child’s character, that there should be complete co-operation between home and school. Consider the difference between home and school discipline; I may say that the home government is personal--there is not strict system and unvarying law. A girl comes down late to breakfast; or she is in the drawing-room when she should be in the study. She chooses friends and books that the mother disapproves, and there is irritation: the mother expostulates, the child is provoked. In the school on the other hand there is inexorable law, the consequence of neglect must be borne, there is no scolding, no entreaty. It will be an advantage to the home to have a little more rule, and to the school to have children brought up with some of the freedom which must be theirs one day.

The child who sees the mother yield up her own power to law, bearing inconvenience, denying herself pleasure, and what is harder still, denying it to her child, will learn to respect duty, and impose laws on herself.

Besides this, there are ways by which fuller co-operation may be brought about. All professions find the advantage of meeting together to discuss their special problems. There is the Teachers’ Guild on the one hand, and a Parents’ Educational Union on the other. I have tried in vain to bring these together here. The guild is too professional for the parent; it does seem, however, as if the newly-established Child Study Society might unite both. A fair number have joined the child study evenings and given valuable help. In the _Pedagogical Seminary_ for July, 1897, which is a mine of valuable suggestions for parents and teachers, there is an interesting account of the way in which the school and the home have worked together in solving educational problems.

The movement initiated by the able president of Clarke University, U.S.A., for founding a science of education upon systematised observation is a most important one; it will help to build up a true philosophy upon facts, and so save us from the aimless talk of mere theorisers who want to square circles, or to discover the philosopher’s stone.

A good library, accessible to parents and teachers, which should contain books and periodicals not written exclusively for the profession, would be a great help. A niche in the general school library might perhaps be reserved for parents.

I have found much advantage from throwing open such lectures as I give in our large hall to parents and Heads of Houses. Many come to a scripture lesson given to Division I. collectively, and to literature lessons; some have joined our Plato or Browning readings, and occasionally have been present at lectures given in the training department. It is quite usual for mothers to accompany their daughters to the “Cours” in Paris. Of course parents could not attend schools _ad libitum_, but it need not be quite a _terra incognita_.

The head mistress in many schools sets apart certain hours for seeing parents; could it not be arranged that each class teacher should have some free time for seeing parents of her pupils, especially at the beginning of a new year? There is much to be said against evening visiting, and ordinary social meetings would be useless for the purpose of discussing difficulties. It is a great matter to substitute candid discussion for fault-finding to third parties; we shall not always agree, but we shall learn to respect one another’s opinions, to understand one another’s difficulties, and to work more effectually with one another in the difficult, sacred task committed to us. So far from finding parents generally anxious to interfere, I have difficulty in persuading them that I earnestly desire they should tell me of anything that needs attention.

The essential thing is that there should be co-operation and a sort of concordat between the school and the home. Certain rules agreed on:--

1. There must be a room for study and certain hours fixed for home
work, which must not be altered without grave reason.

2. Late parties, bazaars, theatricals, etc., etc., must generally be
allowed only in the vacation.

3. No absence from school, no coming back late, no excuses for
unprepared lessons should ever be permitted, except for some very
sufficient reason--never because pleasure was preferred to duty.

4. If parents and teachers differ, that difference should be
discussed by neither in the presence of the child.

5. Parents should take interest in the school work; ask to see the
written work; get to know the teachers and friends of their children;
attend lectures, if possible, and supplement school lessons by home
reading; perhaps join some common society, _e.g._, Teachers’ Guild,
Parents’ Educational Union, or Child Study Society.

6. Teachers should invite and welcome any communications from
parents, should try to know something of the home life.

7. Submission should be required in things lawful from the beginning,
and the reins loosened as children grow up: the reverse method is
fatal.

8. Parents should not allow the children to read indiscriminately.
Distaste for intellectual work is created by exciting novels;
irreparable injury is done to the moral nature by letting children
enter into sympathy in imagination with the base and impure.

9. The only safeguard is to provide in the home good literature, and
to read with the children. Especially should holidays be utilised as
a means of learning how to spend time rightly in after-life, and some
regular and independent study undertaken during long holidays.

10. Health should never be sacrificed to fashion. High heels,
tight-lacing, etc., etc., should be absolutely impossible. Woollen
clothing, a carefully studied dietary, regular hours, sufficient
sleep, well-ventilated bedrooms, daily baths, proper artificial
light, suitable seats and tables, all these things which are studied
in boarding-schools should be considered also in the home. Care
should be taken in avoiding infection.

11. In planning the studies and life-work of children, parents and
teachers should be guided, not by the consideration of what they
want the children to be, but of what they are; the special gifts of
God are to be specially cultivated, and both should ask, “Lord, what
wouldst Thou have me to do?” Pascal’s father forbade mathematics.
Some parents insist on music unwisely.

12. Especially should parents use Sunday rightly; the religious
instruction of their children maybe given at school, but the home
reading has much to do with this, and the example.

13. Children should have a regular allowance of money from quite
early years, and be trained to spend it rightly, and to keep accounts.

14. Should it be impossible for the home supervision and training
to be carried out in harmony with the day school, either a private
governess should be engaged, or the children sent from home as
boarders.