Perplexed thoughts on rural education

'Heard about Springbourne?' asked Mr. Willet, the school caretaker. He was sheltering in the school doorway from a sharp spattering of hail.

'What about it?' I said, peering out to see if I could make a dash for the kettle. Hailstones danced on the asphalt, so thick and fast that it seemed as though a mist were rising. I leant against the stone sink in the lobby, ready to gossip.

'They say the school's closing down,' said Mr. Willet. 'You heard that?'

I said I had.

'Well, the people over Springbourne are quite wild about it. After all, it's been there almost as long as this one.'

'But it's so expensive to keep up. Only fifteen children, I believe, and the building in need of repair.'

'What about it? Got to go to school somewhere, ain't they? Can't walk this far, some of 'em only babies; now, can they? Besides every village wants its own school. Stands to reason* you want your own children to run round the corner to where you went yourself'.

He blew out his nose with vexation.

'And another thing,' he said, nodding like a man­darin, 'the bus'll cost a pretty penny to cart 'em over here.* And what about poor old Miss Davis? Been there so many years. She and Miss Clare was pupil teachers* together as girls. Where's she to go? To some old school in Caxley, I've heard, with great classes that'll shout her down,* I shouldn't wonder!' He paused for breath. 'Mark my words,* Miss Read,' he continued, wagging a finger, 'this’ll be the death of that poor soul. She's given her life up to Springbourne — and the people there won't let her go without tussle. Oh! Oh! I reckons it's cruel!'

I agreed that it was.

'And where's the poor old gel to live? There's a rumour going that she'll be turned out of the school-house where she's lived all these years. Look at the garden she's made! A real picture — and took her all her life! And that's another thing!' Mr. Willet moved closer to me to emphasize his point.

'Suppose these school people up at the office ever wants to open that school again?* Who's coming there, if they've sold the house? Tell me that?' he demanded. 'You know, miss, we've seen it time and time again — no house, no schoolteacher! And in the end it's the kids and the village that suffer. "Push 'em all into one big school* — it's economy we've got to think of!"'

I laughed, and was immediately sorry, for Mr. Willet was so burning with indignation that I could not explain that I was laughing at his impersonations and not at his sentiments.

'Economy!' Mr. Willet spat out with disgust. 'I don't call that economy! And if shutting up the village schools for the sake of a bit of hard cash* is what the high-ups* call economy, that's the least of it.'

The hail stopped with dramatic suddenness, and with Mr. Willet's words ringing in my ears I ran across to the kettle.

*

While Mrs. Pringle was dusting the schoolroom the next morning, Miss Gray beckoned to me into her empty room to show me a very beautiful sapphire ring in its little satin-lined box.

'I can't tell you how pleased I am!' I said, kissing her heartily, 'you'll suit each other so well — 'A thought struck me. 'It is Mr. Annett, I suppose?'

Miss Gray laughed. 'Yes, indeed, who else would it be?'

'I'm so glad. He deserves to be happy at last.'

'Poor man!' agreed Miss Gray, with a sigh full of sympathy and pity.

*

On Tuesday the Caxley Chronicle carried the announcement of the engagement and all the village was agog.*

'It was plain to see for weeks,' was the gener­al verdict. 'Let's hope they'll be happy.'

Mrs. Pringle was at the top of her form* when she heard the news.

'That poor girl!' she said. 'He's got through one wife and now he's setting about another!'*

'Oh, come!' I protested, 'you make him sound a Blue-beard!* It wasn't Mr. Annett's fault, merely his misfortune, that his first wife was killed in an air-raid!'

'That's his story,' replied Mrs. Pringle darkly, 'and anyway who's to say we shan't get more air-raids?'

*

'Delightful news,' said the vicar, beaming, 'so very suitable — a most charming pair! But, my dear Miss Read, Annett's gain must, of course, be Fairacre's loss, I fear. Has she mentioned anything to you? Whether she is willing to con­tinue here I mean? At any rate for a few months, shall we say? In any case — does she want to go on teaching?'

I said that I had no idea.

I must draft another advertisement* if she decides to leave us, I suppose. Such a short time since our last interviews. I wonder now if Mrs. Finch-Edwards would help us out again?'

I pointed out that Mrs. Finch-Edwards would be busy looking after a young baby by that time.

'Of course, of course,' nodded the vicar. 'More good news! I never can quite decide which I find the pleasanter — news of a wedding or a birth. Well, who can we think of?'

'Let's find out if Miss Gray is planning to leave or stay first,' I suggested. At the back of the class I could see a picture, drawn by Ernest, displayed secretly to his neighbour, under the desk. From a distance it looked remarkably like a carica­ture of the vicar and I felt the matter should be investigated immediately. I did my best to catch the eye of the naughty boy, but he was too busy with his handiwork to bother about me.

'I'll call again,' said the vicar, setting off for the door, so preoccupied that he forgot his farewells to the children. At the door he paused:

'Perhaps Miss Clare?' he suggested. With a sigh, he vanished round the door.

*

The warm weather had returned. On the window-sills, pinks* sent down warm waves of perfume to mingle with the scent of roses on my desk.

The elm trees in the corner of the playground cast comforting cool shadows, and beyond them, in the lower field that stretched away to the foot of the downs, the hay was being cut.

The pace of school work inevitably slowed down. The children were languid, their thoughts outside in the sunshine. It was the right time for day-dreaming, and I took as many lessons as possible in the open air.

One afternoon of summer heat we were disposed at the edge of the half-cut field under the elm trees' shade. The air was murmurous with the noise of the distant cutter* and with myriads of small insects. Little blue butterflies hovered about us.

The lesson on the time-table was 'Silent Reading' and in various attitudes, some graceful and some not, the children sat or lay in the grass with their books propped before them.

With so little encouragement to read at home, in overcrowded cottages and with young brothers and sisters shouting round them until bedtime and after, these schoolchildren at Fairacre need peace and an opportunity to read desperately.

But on this particular afternoon I wondered how much reading was being done and how much day-dreaming. My marking pencil* slowed to a standstill and the geography test papers lay neglected in my lap. What an afternoon, I thought! When these boys and girls are old and look back to their childhood, it is the brightest hours that they will remember. This is one of those golden days to lay up as treasure for the future, I told myself, excusing our general idleness.

There were footsteps on the high playground behind us and one of the infants came to the edge and looked down upon us. He spoke im­portantly:

'Miss Gray says to tell you a man's come.'

'Oh, then I'll come and see him,' I said, putting down my papers reluctantly. The children hardly noticed my going, but lay docile and languorous as though a spell were upon them.*

The child and I crossed the playground. The sun beat here unmercifully and I spread my hand over the child's head.

'Do you know the man?' I asked him.

'It's not exactly a man,' he answered thoughtfully, and paused. I began to wonder what sort of monster had called.

'It's just John Burton's dad,' he added.

*

Alan Burton had called to discuss his son's future schooling. He was very disappointed that John had not been accepted for the Grammar School at Caxley, and did not want the boy to go on to Beech Green next term.

'Not that I've anything against Mr. Annett. He's all right — but there's not the stuff there for training a boy like John who wants to do something with his hands. There's no woodwork shop* and no metalwork place,* and as far as I can see the building's just the same as it was years ago. Where's this technical school we were promised when young John was a baby in arms?'

I agreed that there was no sign of it.

'A man like me can't afford to send a boy away to school even if he wanted to. I could have managed the Grammar School in the old days and John would have been a credit to the place.* He's good at games and he can make anything. I want something better than Beech Green for him now. Mr. Annett has to take all sorts of pupils, and there are some among them downright vicious. And some thick-headed ones that are bound to hold the others back.'

All this was sound good sense and I felt very sorry for Alan Burton. It certainly was a calamity that the Caxley area had no technical school for boys of John's calibre. I could only suggest that he should let his son go to Beech Green where he would get a certain amount of handicraft training and then apprentice him at fifteen to a trade* that he would enjoy.

'I suppose that's what it'll be,' he sighed and picked up his hat, 'but I'd have liked him to go to the Grammar School.* I didn't go, because I was the youngest and my father had just died, but all my brothers went there. I know John's not overbright, but he's a good lad. He'd have done well there.'*

I said John would do well at Beech Green and wherever he went afterwards, but he was not to be comforted.*

'There's something wrong somewhere,' he said preparing to go. 'The Grammar School suffers in the end, as I see it; for it isn't always the cleverest boys that have most to give, is it? I don't know much about schooling these days, but what I do know I don't feel happy about.'

Sadly he departed through the school gate, and I returned to collect my children from the elm trees' shade.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16