Welsh Journals

Fraternity-has probably had profounder effects on political and social development in the last hundred years than any other ideal. It is an appeal that goes straight to the generous heart. If these three principles were accepted in their full implication, surely the social Millenium would be reached. What is Fraternity but the Law of Love "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy- self"? It breathes the very spirit of Christianity, and stamps with the seal of consecration the two social principles which precede it. Yet this triad has been the occasion of the most ruthless blood- shed that has disgraced modern civilisation up to Sanderson of Oundle. By "X." SEVEN or eight years ago I knew as little of Oundle as Mr. Lloyd George knew then of Teschen. I had to turn to "Bradshaw" to find its whereabouts. Someone had told me that H. G. Wells had sent two sons to a school there, where they learnt engineering and Russian." I was intrigued, and wanted to know more of what explained the choice of a school for his own children by the great critic of modern society. I sent for a prospectus; I read Joan and Peter," and one day last July I made my pilgrimage to the little midland village. A college friend motored me from Leicester, and after passing through Uppingham, with its memories of Thring (and of Borth), we pre- sently reached Oundle (Avondale), set far away in a spacious and silent countryside. I accosted a senior boy in the road, and he volunteered to act as pilot. He himself, we found, was doing engineering, music and French. He had just taken a scholarship at Cambridge. For an hour and a half he led us through one building after another-class-rooms, labora- tories, workshops, libraries, chapel, Temple of Vision ,-everywhere a sense of cleanliness, amplitude, adequacy, with farm and playing fields all around and in between. There specially stands out in my memory a huge chart on a library table, put together by a group of boys, in which the story of the Durham miners was told in summary from the days of the industrial revolution to the critical meeting in the House of Commons in the spring of 1921, addressed by Mr. Frank Hodges during the great coal strike. The chart was not only illuminating in its own Wells-ian way, but it was symbolical of the methods of the great headmaster, whose dramatic death on a London platform had occurred a few days before our visit. A host of his friends and colleagues and pupils have collaborated in placing on record the story of his achievement in the book before us.* "Sanderson of Oundle. A memorial of the life and teaching of a great headmaster." Illustrated. Chatto and Windus, 12s. 6d. the outbreak of the Great War. Instead of the reign of Justice, we have the Revolutionary Terror, with tribunals in the last development of which the accused was not merely refused the aid of counsel, as in our own old High Treason trials, but actually not allowed to speak in his own defence. Instead of Fraternity and Peace, we have twenty years of almost continuous warfare, in the course of which every country in Europe except our own and the Scandinavian Peninsula, was wasted by fire and sword and drenched with blood. (To be continued.) Out of these pages will flow warm currents of inspiration to thousands of teachers and workers. It is a "creative" book, and it is the result of "co-operative" work, thus embodying two of the ideals for which its subject pre- eminently stood. It is not quite a hundred years since Thomas Arnold went to Rugby to fulfil the prophecy made of him, that he would change the face of education all through the public schools of England," and he was only given 14 years in which to do his remarkable work. What Stanley's Life of Arnold was to the teachers of the last century, Sanderson of Oundle will be to the teachers of our time, and later on, who can tell, we may have a Tom Brown's Schooldays to fill in the picture. Frederick William Sanderson was born in Durham in 1857, became a theological student but did not take orders, was a Cambridge Wrangler, lecturer at Girton, and then passed on to Dulwich College as senior physics master, under Dr. Welldon, now Dean of Durham. It was here he discovered the enormous value of applied science in arousing the interest of boys to whom literary studies made little appeal. In September, 1892, he was appointed head of Oundle, one of the lesser public schools. It was under the care of the Grocers' Company, and had a tradition of several centuries behind it. Latterly the school had fallen into rather easy- going ways. The Governors were bent on reform, but were divided between the claims of classics and modern science. The supporters of the latter were in a majority, and Sanderson was appointed. It was virtually a vote of censure on the staff and habits of the school, and the new head met with resistance from all directions. His fate was that of every innovator in any English or Welsh village. He became the butt of half falsehoods and elusive innuen- does circulated by the gossips of the neighbour- hood. He was, of course, declared to be theologically unsound and certain to poison the minds of the innocent boys committed to his care. For seven years he fought on against this hostility. Fortunately the Grocers' Com- pany had in its midst men who recognized the character and value of Sanderson, and gradually