Part 24

“As a landlord the Trust has given the sites for both the Established Church and the Free Church, each standing on the Central Square in equally prominent positions, worthy of the beautiful buildings their respective organizations have erected.

“As a landlord the Trust has given the site for the elementary school, and has spared no pains to obtain a building adapted to the best and most carefully thought-out methods of modern education.

“As a landlord the Trust has built the first section of the Institute, with the conviction that their hope of bringing into friendly relations all classes of their tenants will be furthered by the provision of a centre where residents and neighbours can be drawn together by intellectual interests. Although the Institute is not yet two years old, the Trust has already organized and maintained many activities, a full report of which is to be found in subsequent pages of the ‘Record’.

“As a landlord the Trust has built three groups of buildings which they counted necessary towards the completion of their civic ideal: (_a_) Staff cottages, so that the men employed on the estate should be housed suitably and economically; (_b_) a group of homes where the State-supported children and others needing care and protection should live under suitable and adequate administration, and share the privileges and pleasures of the suburb; (_c_) motor-houses, with dwellings for the drivers, so that the richer people may have their luxury, and the poorer their habitations near their work.

“As a landlord the Trust conceives ideas for the public good and presses them on companies and others in the hope of their achievement. It was thus that the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, Limited, built (from Mr. Baillie Scott’s designs) the beautiful quadrangle of Waterlow Court, where working ladies find the advantages of both privacy and a common life.

“As a landlord the Trust is pushing forward negotiations with a view to obtaining a first-rate Secondary School, the directors believing that the provision of high-class education meets a need not usually considered when an estate is being developed, and that the school site should not be limited to the minimum necessary ground subsequently bought at an inflated price.

“As a landlord the Trust welcomes the public spirit and civic generosity of any of their tenants, taking special pride, perhaps, in the beautiful shops, the ‘Haven of Rest’ for the old and work-weary, and the club house (so admirably planned and alive with social and pleasurable activities), the tennis courts, the bowling greens, the children’s gardens, the skating rink--each and all established and held for co-operative pleasure and joint use by their chief tenants, the co-partners.”

This record of what has already been done prepares the reader to read with new interest the second article, “An Ideal--and After,” by Mr. Raymond Unwin, who now stands at the head of “town-planners”. He shows the great principles which have to be considered in planning town extensions, which principles have generally been forgotten in the growth of London suburbs. He then gives a plan of the 412 acres which lie between the Finchley and the Great North Road, and are about to be incorporated in the Hampstead Garden Suburb. He shows what direction the roads should take so as to secure readiness of access to the railway stations, and at the same time leave the Central Square with its fine buildings dominating and giving beauty to the whole neighbourhood. He shows also how other heights should be occupied by churches or public buildings, and he proposes that another centre (and another will be needed when it is remembered that the estate is nearly four miles long) “should approximate more nearly to the Market Place or Forum, where the main lines of traffic will meet, and to which access from all parts will be made easy”. The articles make fascinating reading and lay hold of that pioneer instinct which has helped to make Englishmen such good Colonists. If the reading arouses some indignation at the lost chances of London, the fact that Mr. Unwin, on behalf of the Trust, and the co-partnership tenants are dealing with this great estate, in conjunction with the Finchley District Council, gives some hope. In years to come our children will see that the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust as a pioneer landlord did notable work in avoiding current mistakes and in pointing the way for other metropolitan districts to follow. Out of eighty-two authorities in Greater London only twenty-seven have so far started to avail themselves of the powers of the Housing and Town-Planning Act, and meanwhile the jerry-builder is at large, uncontrolled, and very actively at work.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

THE CHURCH AND TOWN PLANNING.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

August, 1912.

[1] From “The Guardian”. By permission of the Editor.

Every year we are told that so many churches have been added to London. Every year a volume is published by the Bishop of London’s Fund with pictures of these churches--buildings of conventional character, showing in their mean lines and sterile decoration the trail of the order to limit their cost to £8000 or £9000. Every year we see London extending itself in long straight ranks of small houses, where no tower or spire suggests to men the help which comes of looking up, and no hall or public building calls them to find strength in meeting together.

Town-planning is much discussed, and the discussion has taken shape in an Act of Parliament; but meantime the opportunities are being lost for doing what the discussions and the Act declare to be necessary for health and happiness. Hendon is probably the most highly favoured building land nearest to London. It has undulating ground, where gentle hills offer a wide prospect towards the west; it has fine trees whose preservation might secure grace and dignity to the neighbourhood; and it has also a large sheet of water, the reservoir of the Brent, whose banks offer to young and old recreation for body and for spirit. A few years ago town-planning might have secured all these advantages, and at the same time provided houses and buildings which would have helped to make social life a fair response to the physical surroundings. But while talk is spent on the advantages of variety in buildings, of the importance of securing a vista which street inhabitants may enjoy, and of the value of trees and open spaces, straight roads are being cut at right angles across the hills, trees are being felled, and nothing has been done to prevent what will soon become slum property extending alongside the lake. Willesden, as it may be seen from Dollis Hill--a chess-board of slate roofs--is an object lesson as to the future of London if builders and owners and local authorities go on laying out estates with no thought but for the rights of private owners.

What, however, it may be asked, can the Church do? “Agitate--protest?” Yes, the Church, familiar with the lives of inhabitants of mean streets, can speak with authority. It can tell how minds and souls are dwarfed for want of outlook, how pathetic is the longing for beauty shown in the coloured print on the wall of the little dark tenement, how hard it is to make a home of a dwelling exactly like a hundred other dwellings, how often it is the dullness of the street which encourages carelessness of dirt and resort to excitement--how, in fact, it is the mean house and mean street which prepare the way for poverty and vice. The voice of joy and health is not heard even in the dwellings of the righteous. The Church might help town-planning as it might help every other social reform, by charging the atmosphere of life with unselfish and sympathetic thought. But the question I would raise is whether the Church is not called to take more direct action in the matter of town-building. Its policy at present seems to build a church for every 4,000 or 5,000 persons as they settle on the outskirts of London. The site is generally one given by a landlord whose interests do not always take in those of the whole neighbourhood. The building itself aims primarily at accommodating so many hundreds of people at a low cost per seat, and outside features are regarded as involving expenses too great for present generosity. This policy which has not been changed since Bishop Blomfield set the example of building the East London district churches, is, I believe, prejudicial to Church interests, as it certainly is to the dignity of the neighbourhood in which they stand.

The Church might help much in town-planning if it would change its policy, and, instead of dropping unconsidered and trifling buildings at frequent intervals over a new suburb, build one grand and dominant building on some carefully chosen site to which the roads would lead. The Directors of the Hampstead Garden Suburb as a private company have shown what is possible. They have crowned the hill at the base of which 20,000 people will soon be gathered, with the Church, the Chapel, and the public Institute. This hill dominates the landscape for miles round, and is the obvious centre of a great community of people. The Church by adopting a like policy would at once give a character to a new suburb, the convergence of roads would be marked, and order would be brought into the minds of builders planning out their different properties. The architects would be conscious of the centre of the circle in which they worked, and the houses would fall into some relation with the central building. Every one would feel such a healthy pride in the grandeur of the central church that it would be more difficult for things mean and unsightly to be set up in its neighbourhood. The church buildings in the City of London, or those which are seen towering over some of the newer avenues in Paris, or those familiar in our country towns and in villages, often seem as if they had brought together the inhabitants and were presiding over their lives. They look like leaders and suggest that the world is a world of order. The Bishop of London’s Fund, or the authorities who direct the principal building policy, and spend annually thousands of pounds in its pursuit, have thus a great opportunity of giving direction to the expansion of London. They might by care in the selection of sites, and by generous expenditure at the direction of a large-visioned architect, do for the growing cities or towns of to-day what the builders of the past did for the cities and towns of their time. The Church by its direct action might thus give a great impetus to town planning, the need of which is in the mouths of all reformers.

But it may be asked whether the Church ought to contribute to the making of beauty at the cost of its own efficiency. Has not the State one duty and the Church another? Without answering the question it is I think easy to show that a new policy would cost less money, and be more efficient in promoting worship. It is obviously no more costly to build one magnificent building for £25,000 or £30,000 than to build three ordinary buildings at £8000 or £9000 each, while the maintenance of the three, with the constant expense of repairs, must be considerably greater.

And if it be asked whether one grand and generous and dignified building will attract more worshippers than three of the ordinary type, my answer is “Yes, and the worshippers will be assisted to a reverent mind and attitude”. I speak what I know as a vicar for thirty years of a district church in East London. The building was always requiring repair, its fittings were oppressively cheap, and there were twelve other churches within much less than “a Sabbath day’s journey”. There is no doubt that the people preferred and were more helped by worship in the finer and better served parish churches. I used to feel what an advantage it would have been if the parish church, endowed and glorified with some of the money spent on the district churches, could have been the centre of a large staff of clergy, and have offered freely to all comers the noblest aids to worship. A feeling of patronage is incompatible with a feeling of worship, and the district church, with its constant need of money and its mean appearance, is always calling for the patronage of the people. The grandly built and imposing building, which gives the best and asks for nothing, provokes not patronage but reverence. There is, I believe, great need for such places of worship, as there is also need for meeting halls where in familiar talk and with simple forms of worship the clergy might lead and teach the people; but I do not see the need for the cheap churches, which are not dignified enough to increase habits of reverence, and often pretend to an importance which provokes impertinence.

The Church has been powerful because it has called on its members to put their best thought and their best gifts into the buildings raised for the worship of God. It owes much to the stately churches and sumptuous cathedrals, for the sake of which men of old made themselves poor; and to-day the hearts of many, who are worn by the disease of modern civilization, are comforted and uplifted as in the greatness of these buildings they forget themselves. The Church is as unwise as it is unfaithful when it puts up cheap and mean structures. It is not by making excuses--whether for its members who keep the best for their own dwellings or for itself when it takes an insignificant place in the streets--that the Church will command the respect of the people. It must prove its faith by the boldness of its demand. But I have said enough to show that the Bishop of London’s Fund would serve its own object of providing the best aid to worship, if it would respond to the call of the present and seize the opportunity of taking a lead in town-planning. Church policy--as State policy--is often best guided by the calls which rise for present needs, and if our leaders, distrusting “their own inventions,” would set themselves to assist in town-planning it might be given them to do the best for the Church as well as for the health and wealth of the people.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

SECTION VI.

EDUCATION.

The Teacher’s Equipment--Oxford University and the Working People, _two articles_--Justice to Young Workers--A Race between Education and Ruin.

THE TEACHER’S EQUIPMENT.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

March, 1911.

[1] From “The Westminster Gazette”. By permission of the Editor.

Liberals must be somewhat disappointed that a Liberal Government has done so little for education. The reforms for which they stand--their hopes for the nation--depend on the increase of knowledge and intelligence among the people. The establishment of Free Trade, wise economy and wise expenditure, and the support of the statesmanship which makes for peace, all presuppose an instructed electorate. But the present Government has passed no measure to strengthen the foundation on which Liberalism rests; attempts, indeed, were made to settle the religious difficulty, but ever since those attempts were wrecked by the House of Lords, Ministers have been content to do nothing, although outside the religious controversy they might have launched other attempts laden with important reforms and safe to reach their port. The administration of the law as it stands has doubtless been vigorous; able and public-spirited officials have seen that everything which the law requires has been done, and every possible development effected, but the Liberal Government has done nothing to improve the Law. Minister of Education succeeds Minister of Education, years of opportunity roll by, while children still leave school at an age when their education has hardly begun, while compulsory continuation schools still wait to be started, while great--not to say vast--endowments are absorbed in the objects of the wealthier classes, while the provision for the equipment of teachers is unsatisfactory.

The equipment of the teachers is confessedly the most important item in any programme of education, as it is upon the teacher rather than upon the building or the curriculum that the real progress of education depends. That equipment, as far as elementary schools are concerned, is now given in training colleges, and especially in residential colleges. Young men and women, that is to say, who have been through a secondary school, and also shown some aptitude for teaching, receive, largely at Government expense, two years’ instruction and training in colleges which are managed either by religious denominations or by local educational authorities. In the colleges the staff is mostly occupied in giving the knowledge which forms part of a general education, and very little time is spent in training or in the study of problems of the child life.

TRAINING COLLEGES.

The system is unsatisfactory on many grounds. (1) The rivalry between denominational and undenominational colleges stirs the keenest partisanship. When in his annual statement Mr. Runciman began to talk about the number of students in the different colleges he had, he said with some irony, “to drop the subject, knowing how far the religious controversy is likely to interest this House”. (2) The system is most costly, and every year, including building grants, an amount of something like half a million of money is paid for the training--or, to speak more accurately, for the ordinary education of young men and women who may feel no call for teaching and cannot be really bound to take it up for their life’s work. (3) It breeds a feeling of indignation among those who do not get employment, and there is now an agitation because the State does not find work for those whom it has selected to receive a special training, and bound, even though it be by an ineffective bond, to follow a particular calling. (4) It brings together a body of students whose outlook to the future is identical, it encourages, therefore, narrow views, and breeds the exclusive professional spirit in a profession whose usefulness depends on its power to assimilate the thought of the time and to sacrifice its interest for wider interests. The training college system as a means of equipping teachers for their work is not satisfactory, and the Archbishop of Canterbury was well justified when he said: “The thing which mattered most in the educational work in England to-day was the question of the training colleges”.

THEIR REFORM OR THEIR ABOLITION.

The reforms suggested generally follow the lines of further expenditure on buildings or on staff, but such expenditure would not remove the objections. The money annually spent is very large--equal to the gross income of Oxford University--and if more were spent there is no very effective way of securing that the best among the teachers so trained would remain in the profession; the men would still take up more remunerative work, and the women would still marry. The rivalry between denominational and undenominational would continue, and the protest of conscientious objectors--religious or secular--as each further expense was proposed would increase difficulties. If the number turned out of the training colleges were larger there would be a more widely spread sense of wrong among the unemployed, who would with difficulty recognize that something else was wanting in a teacher than the certificate of a training college. But most fatal of all to the proposed extension or improvement of the system, is the objection that the more and the stronger the colleges become, the more deeply would the professional spirit be entrenched, and the more powerful would be the influence of the teaching class in asserting its rights.

SUBSTITUTION OF A BETTER WAY OF TRAINING.

The reform might, I submit, follow the line of restriction and proceed towards the ultimate abolition of the residential colleges in their present form. The way is comparatively simple. Let the children from elementary schools be helped--as, indeed, they now are--by scholarships to enter secondary schools, and go on to University colleges, or to the Universities. Equal opportunity for getting the best knowledge would thus be open to children of all classes. Let any over the age of nineteen who have passed through a college connected with some University, or otherwise approved as giving an education of a general and liberal character, be eligible to apply for a teachership, and if, after a period of trial in a school--say for three or six months--they, on the report of the inspector and master, have shown an aptitude for teaching, then let them, at the expense of the State, be given a year’s real training in the theory and practice of teaching. Teachers are, it must be remembered, born and not made. One man or woman who, without any experience, is placed over a class will at once command attention, while another with perhaps greater ability will create confusion. Those who are not born to it may indeed learn the tricks of discipline, and, like a drill-sergeant, command obedience and keep order. Many of the complaints which are heard about the unintelligence and the want of interest in children who have come from schools where to the visitor’s eye everything seems right are due, I believe, to the fact that the teachers have not been born to the work. They have trusted to the rules they have learnt and not to the gift of power which is in themselves. They teach as the scribes and not with authority. Let, therefore, the men and women who have this power be those whom the State will train; let it give them not, as at present, a few weeks in a practising school, but experience in a variety of schools in town and in country, and under masters with different systems; let them be made familiar with the last thoughts on child life, and with all the many different theories of education. The State will in this way draw from all classes in the community the men and the women best fitted to teach, and it will give them a training worthy the name. The teachers will have the best equipment for their work.