'I Believe' and other essays Part 10

Another great distinction between the j.a.panese and the English system is, that only picked men are permitted to avail themselves of a University education. Further, before proceeding to the University the undergraduate must have pa.s.sed through a school specially preparing him for one of the University Colleges.

"This type of school," observes Professor Sawayanagi, "is exclusively peculiar to the educational system of j.a.pan, as there is no equivalent either in Europe or America."

In the section of a higher school which instructs candidates for the Law and Literature Colleges of the University, the subjects taught are Morals, j.a.panese and Chinese languages, Foreign languages, History of Logic and Psychology, the elements of Law, the elements of Political Economy and Gymnastics. The foreign languages are English, German, and French, of which two have to be selected.

"Surely," remark the gentlemen who prepared the article on University Education in j.a.pan, "a professional man who aims at a high position could never be satisfied with one language. Certainly it would be impossible for any one to keep up with the rapid progress of the world which takes place in all the higher branches of education with only one European language at his command."

It is pathetic to think how blind are the rulers of secondary education in this country to a truth so self-evident.

Before proceeding to a special school preparing candidates for the University, a j.a.panese boy must have been at a Secondary School, which is an inst.i.tution similar to one of our great Public Schools. Here, again, the j.a.panese lay far more stress on essentials.

At how many of our great Public Schools, if any, are the elements of Law (which may be defined as the rules of the club to which every British citizen belongs) a subject of instruction? The elements of Law are a regular feature in the Secondary Schools of j.a.pan. Sooner or later every Englishman or j.a.panese is brought in contact with the law of his land. For what conceivable reason is Law excluded from our Public School course of education?

Once more, in a j.a.panese Secondary School, boys are taught the elements of Political Economy. What proportion of Etonians, Harrovians, and Wykehamists have opened a book on Political Economy before they have left school? Yet ought not every member of the community who intends to exercise his right of voting at a General Election to be cognizant of the main arguments, for instance, that may be adduced on behalf of Free Trade or Protection?

The appended table will help any Public School boy or his parents to estimate the vast difference between the j.a.panese and the English conceptions of a liberal education.

IN j.a.pAN. IN ENGLAND.

Secondary School (from 12 years Public School (from 12 years and to 17 years of age). later to 19 years of age).

_Subjects taught_-- _Subjects taught_-- (1) Morals. (1) Religious instruction.

(2) j.a.panese language. (2) English language.

(3) (_a_) English, French or (3) French, Latin, Greek.

German.

(_b_) Chinese Cla.s.sics.

(4) History. (4) English History.

Roman "

Greek "

(5) Geography. (5) Geography (a little).

(6) Mathematics. (6) Arithmetic.

Euclid.

Algebra.

(7) Drawing. (7) Drawing.

(8) Gymnastics, Drilling. (8) Gymnastics.

Athletic Sports.

(9) Singing.

(10) Natural History, Physics, Chemistry.

(11) Elements of Law.

(12) Elements of Political Economy.

The aim of the j.a.panese statesmen has been to produce a fine character residing in a strong body, and a memory stored with knowledge having a direct bearing on the problems of modern life. It seems to me that a nation led by men trained according to the method I have indicated must _ceteris paribus_ be more intelligently governed than one like our own, where the conduct of affairs is entrusted to persons like Mr.

Arnold-Forster and Mr. Brodrick, who, after leaving a great Public School, attended Oxford University and obtained their degrees through its Modern History School.

I pa.s.s from Secondary to Primary education. Guardians of children of school age (_i. e._ over six years of age) are under the obligation of sending them to school to complete at least the ordinary Primary School course. The subjects taught to the Board School boys and girls of j.a.pan are:--Morals, the j.a.panese language, arithmetic, and gymnastics, and, according to local circ.u.mstances, one or more subjects such as drawing, singing, or manual work, and for females sewing. The higher Primary Schools complete the education of the average j.a.panese of the lower orders. At the higher Primary Schools, the scholar continues to study Morals, the j.a.panese language and arithmetic, and learns, in addition, j.a.panese history, geography, the elements of science, and, as optional subjects, agriculture, commerce, manual work and the English language. Drawing, singing and manual work, and for females, sewing, are compulsory. There are also special commercial schools.

The scope of this essay does not permit me to contrast in detail the j.a.panese with the English primary education. Both were established about the same time. I am not so rash as to pose as an authority on the education of a country which I have never visited. But one point has greatly impressed me. Tommy Atkins has been educated at the Board School. It is complained of Tommy Atkins that he neglects hygienic precautions against diseases like enteric. The rank and file of the j.a.panese army were remarkable for their scrupulous obedience to the rules of hygiene. My deduction is that the j.a.panese school and the j.a.panese curriculum are, in one essential at least, superior to the English. I may be wrong, but I do not think it is probable.

What are the conclusions to be drawn from the information which I have extracted from _j.a.pan by the j.a.panese_?

"England," signalled Nelson, "expects every man to do his duty." Those words should ring in the ears of each of us. The dons and school-masters of the country should remember that they are Britons first and Oxonians and Cantabs afterwards. The warnings which we have received from Tokyo and Berlin are so impressive that the Anglo-Saxon races will be insane if they do not take them to heart. The masters of the fate of the British Empire are, at a general election, the citizens possessed of the franchise, and between the general elections the King, the members of the two Houses of Parliament and the Civil and Military servants of the nation.

We must educate our masters, the electorate and the officials who obey, or pretend to obey, its mandates. To-day the educational system of Great Britain is, as a whole, an anachronism. If the next generation of Anglo-Saxons is educated like the last, the brown and yellow peril will become acute. To a psychologist, the j.a.panese and the Chinese with their cool, iron nerves, seem more fitted for a world of dynamos and flying machines than the neuropathic Englishman or American. Should, then, the latter be worse educated than the former, the British Empire and the United States may expect to follow the fate of the Spanish and Roman Empires.

THE MENACES OF MODERN SPORT

V

THE MENACES OF MODERN SPORT

"_Imponit finem sapiens et rebus honestis._"

JUVENAL.

I very well remember the morning when the post brought me an advance copy of the first number of Mr. C. B. Fry's _Magazine_.

One saw at once, as the public has since seen, that the periodical struck a new note in regard to matters of sport. It was to be both practical and idealistic, sport in the realm of action was to stand side by side with sport in the sphere of thought. Mr. Begbie sounded the keynote, in his beautiful inaugural poem--when the clean, strong body sings a hymn of praise and thankfulness for its splendour of strength and health; because the joy of physical achievement is so intense, because the currents of the blood run fast and free.

It is a curious fact in life that a fine and n.o.ble thing in itself nearly always harbours or begets an ugly parasite. No plant grows unhampered by the insect world, a filthy mildew--so the curator of a famous picture gallery told me the other day, will appear mysteriously upon the finest canvas.

In particular, certain phases of sport to-day present the observer with a curious spectacle. There is a monstrous liaison, a horrid entanglement between sport and drink!

It is as well to put it quite bluntly at the beginning. If an unpleasant fact is not stated in the frankest way, it loses its appeal to the hearer. The man in the street, gets up and strangles a half-statement with the flippancy of a catch-penny juggler at a country fair. One is not heard.

I say that a grave danger menaces modern sport and that the danger is just this....

The more popular games of England are being disturbed and discredited in a marked manner by the amount of drinking--plain, vulgar _excess_ in alcohol--which surrounds them and follows in their train. A great number of sportsmen know this perfectly well and genuinely deplore it, but I am not aware that the subject has been properly ventilated as yet, save perhaps by "temperance" cranks and prejudiced or ignorant people, who hide a polemic puritanism under the banner of a misused word.

Some time ago I had occasion to spend a night in a large manufacturing district in the North of England. I put up at a local hotel.

It is a large place standing in the four cross roads where electric trams stopped--a definite centre of the town. The landlord is the secretary of a most prosperous local cricket club, he is intimately concerned with the local football--a.s.sociation--and is a prominent swimmer.

At all times of the year the district is intensely interested in sport, and the hotel is a headquarters of it. The walls of bars and smoking-rooms are covered with photographs of this or that local team, the whole talk is redolent of sport--and your Northerner or Midlander is generally the keenest sportsman of all.

It was quite obvious that this hotel was extremely and noticeably prosperous, everything proclaimed it. I was introduced by the landlord, a thoroughly good fellow, to various local football players and swimmers. The talk of the smoke-room was entirely occupied with sport, there was a real knowledge of, and love for games. One heard shrewd and penetrating criticism, one saw fine healthy-looking men who were certainly no mere machines for the decomposing of their lunch and dinner! In fact, the evening was thoroughly congenial.

Next morning after breakfast, I smoked my pipe in the bar parlour. At one side of the place was a counter which formed a barrier between it and the ordinary tap-room. Three young and powerful men came in--it was about 9.30 in the morning. They asked the barmaid for a drink I had never heard of--"three warm sodas, please." The girl opened three bottles of soda, poured some hot water into each gla.s.s and gave it to the customers.

When they had gone, I asked her what was the meaning of this.