Welsh Journals

THE WAR AND EDUCATION CULTURE VERSUS KULTUR By SIR HARRY REICHEL. LL.D. An Address delivered at Barmouth County School on March 28th, 1916. Crisis in Welsh We have reached a critical point educational in the development of our educa- development tional system. Ever since I came into Wales, thirty-two years ago, education has been, one might almost say, the prime object of Welsh enthusiasm and enthusiasm has been a great asset, as those who have suffered from the lack of it in other parts of the country will be the first to acknowledge. But nations, as well as men, have the defects of their qualities, and in this imperfect world enthusiasm is dogged by im- patience. Now, therefore, that our schools have been working for twenty years and our colleges for twice as long, we must not be surprised if the voice of the pessimist is heard in our land, and if we are told that our schools and colleges are in a parlous state. We are idealists in Wales, and idealists can rarely resist the temptation to think that there must be some comparatively simple measure, the adoption of which would bring the ideal quite close and usher in the Golden Age. They forget that the reformer, even if his schemes are sound, is working in the very imperfect material of human nature. A perfect constitution, if there could be such a thing, would have to be worked by politicians, admittedly an imperfect race, and a perfect system of education partly by governing bodies, whose members suffer from the same im- perfection, and partly by school masters and pro- fessors, whose shortcomings are perhaps the most generally recognised of all. Necessity of But while we have no use in educa- growth tion for the pessimist, we must not forget that criticism is as vital to the health of educational institutions as it is to that of the body politic. There is no such thing as finality in human institutions, least of all in those concerned with the growth and training of the human mind and character. In these matters constant change is of the essence of perfection. It is the glory of our own political constitution that it is not a manufactured article like a suit of clothes, to be cast aside and replaced from time to time as it is outgrown, but a living growth, which adapts itself, like the skin of an animal, to the expansion of the body it holds together and protects. We should look for the same elasticity and adaptive- ness in our educational system, and should welcome, therefore, a periodic review of our scholastic activities. Such a process is just on the point of commencing. A Royal Commission will shortly be sitting to review the machinery and work of the University and its Colleges, and after the war the Schools in their turn will be subjected to a similar enquiry. Emphasised by But there is another considera- character of tion, which lends special impor- present war tance to the question how we can improve our schools and what dangers we should specially endeavour to provide against. We are in the midst of the greatest and most terrible war that has ever afflicted mankind. Both in extent and character there has been nothing like it before. Truly we may adopt the words of the great Apostle, and speak of ourselves as those on whom the ends of the world are come." That it is the greatest war on record is obvious it is the first in which combatants are counted by millions. This fact in itself is terrible, but the war is still more terrible by reason of its character. There have been wars before now in which atrocities were committed, and the peaceful inhabitants of whole provinces tortured, outraged, and massacred but hitherto these have been the work either of some great pagan despot, like the Assyrian monarchs, aiming at universal dominion; or of barbarian hordes, like Attila's Huns and the early German tribes, seeking new settlements for themselves or of religious fanaticism, as in the Thirty Years War. Never before has the world witnessed the spectacle of the policy and methods of a Nebuchad- nezzar put into practice by a highly educated and professedly Christian nation, backed by the passion- ate benedictions of its scholars and divines. There were many ih this country who foresaw the German peril before the war, but I doubt if there was one among them who had even remotely conceived the possibility of such a horror as this. Contrast with Such a war must affect the life previous wars of our people far more potently than any we have been engaged in before. It must, therefore, re-act profoundly upon our educational ideals and methods, for educa- tion is but the preparation for life. We have fought great wars before now in order to prevent the domi- nation of Europe by a single power. We were the soul of the alliance that humbled the pride of Louis XIV., and again of that greater alliance that