AOSA CENTENARY HISTORY 1841 - 1941
page fifty-nine
Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Appendix
In the Meeting House the girls still sit on the North side, the boys on the South, but now the sliding partitions which separate large and small Meeting Houses are always open and part of the junior as well as of the adult congregation sits behind them.
The younger children do not face the full rigours of a Friends’ Meeting, for fifteen or twenty of the youngest girls and boys have a special devotional meeting of their own where, under the guidance of an adult, they receive spiritual food suited to their condition.
After Meeting a general ramble follows about the beckside, over the playing fields, round the lake, along the paths of the depleted wood until the bell goes for dinner. After the meal, the traditional Sunday letters are written and the traditional Sunday walk occupies the afternoon. All but the youngest boys depart on private walks to Roseberry, the Viaduct, Cooks, Ferndeep. Most of the girls have a general walk and the master on duty takes the little boys. The buildings are deserted on a Sunday afternoon.
After tea the upper part of the dining hall is crowded with chairs, for visitors always arrive for hymn singing. The orchestra plays and in addition to the hymns the audience enjoys a vocal solo or the playing of piano or violin. This hymn-singing is a prelude to School Meeting at half-past six.
This service, after a short silence, opens with a hymn. Then a girl and a boy read chosen portions of the Bible. Another hymn introduces the speaker, often a visitor with some special subject in mind and sometimes with lanternslides or a film. Or a member of the staff speaks and then another hymn closes the Meeting and the usual routine of supper, reading and bed brings Sunday to a quiet close.
Since the School jubilee, a change greater than changes in buildings and in physical appearance has gradually altered the life of the school. In 1891 everything was cut to rule. Bells controlled the day; the big bell summoned you to rise and called you into meals; the little bell outside the door of the boys’ schoolroom, marked the collects. These collects directed one’s footsteps to the schoolrooms, to bed, to Meeting. The staff enforced a strict discipline.
But during the twentieth century freedom has gradually accrued. Bells and whistles and regularity must be observed for the sake of the welfare of the community, but these appear less insistent and compelling than of old. The only general collects are for meals and Meeting and from them the fifth form is excused. Classes assemble for their work without formal collects and they assemble punctually and willingly. In the recesses girls and boys mingle on the playgrounds. Bounds are now co-terminous with the extent of the school grounds and village leave is granted regularly except on games’ days. No longer does a teacher ape the vigilant policeman and consequently relations between staff and scholars have become more friendly and human. Each child who comes to school is drafted into a group, supervised by a master and a mistress and, as a member of the group, has a personal interest in the fortunes of the other members as they have in his or hers. The teacher takes a semi-paternal or maternal view of difficulties or delinquencies or achievements and proffers advice, reproof, or encouragement. Thus authority has surrendered some of its insignia and in return has received affection and regard. The need for punishment has lessened and the more mechanical type of punishment is dead. No longer does a rigid scale act as a measuring rod for infractions; children are treated as beings potentially rational.
Such treatment is the more appreciated because of the steady, gradual, inevitable raising of the school-leaving age. This increase in average age and the increasing pressure of local and public secondary school competition and of economic necessity have together improved the standard of intellectual achievement. The curriculum meets modern needs. Public examination figures give an independent and unbiased testimony of the actual work done at the school after nearly a hundred years of life and growth. Figures, however, will never give a true measure of the School’s work. Steadily for a hundred years Committee and staff have kept before them the vision of girls and boys, for whom they have assumed a temporary responsibility, as these press forward into life.
And the School has discharged the greater part of its responsibility when it has accomplished the three tasks it sets out to accomplish: first, when its scholars go forward into the world equipped with healthy bodies trained to self-discipline and self-denial; secondly, when they go forward with minds whose judgment is not affected by bias, which are trained to accept evidence and not assertion in their search for truth; thirdly, when its pupils go forward anxious and willing to serve the community whose life they share; when they temper justice with pity; when they appreciate beauty; when they think on those things which are pure and lovely and honest and of good report. So the testament of the real worth of the School lies in the lives of its scholars and these stand unafraid of the judgment of their fellows.
Return to:
Homepage