Hirgen at 07:20, 19 September 2008

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Hirgen at 20:33, 7 September 2008

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<CENTER>XI 

THE ARMY AND THE UNIVERSITIES: 
A STUDY OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES</CENTER>

 AN undergraduate once received a simultaneous visit from a
subaltern and a High Church Socialist curate. Unfortunately he
was unable to entertain them in the afternoon, so he sent them
out together in a canoe on the "Char." The canoe returned
in safety. As soon as he had a chance, the host asked the curate
privately how he liked the subaltern. "Oh," said the
curate., "a very nice chap; but awfully young, and knows
very little about life." A little later the host asked the
subaltern how he got on with the curate. "Quite a decent
little man," said the subaltern; "but it would do him
a lot of good to mix more in society and broaden his views; and,
of course, he is very young!" Probably they were both right.
Both were good fellows; but they had looked at life from an utterly
different angle, and their views on what they saw were diametrically
opposite. Neither was old enough to be very tolerant, and so it
is rather a wonder that the canoe did return in safety.

 Of course the curate was a University man, and the subaltern
had been at "the Shop" or Sandhurst, and the implication
is that each was typical of his schooling. That is as unfair as
most generalizations. All University men are not Socialist curates,
and all soldiers are not Tories; but at the same time the lack
of sympathy between these two individuals is paralleled in most
cases where representatives of the two types meet. In some outlandish
Colony you will sometimes find a soldier and a University man
collaborating in the government of a district. If you ask the
soldier how he likes his assistant, he will probably answer: "A
damned good chap when you know him"; and then he will add,
with a somewhat rueful smile: "but, by Jove, that Oxford
manner of his took a bit of getting over at the start!" If
you ask the University man how he gets on with his chief, he will
answer: "A 1 now; but, by gad, his manner was a bit
sticky at first!" You will also find the same state of affairs
in many battalions of the New Army. The fact is that the University,
or Sandhurst, or "the Shop" receives a boy at his most
plastic age, and sets its mark on him indelibly; and the mark
of each is wholly different. Two boys may come from the same public
school and the same home; but if one goes to Oxford and the other
to Woolwich, they will be utterly different men. As one who has
been to both, I think I understand just why it is.

 It is twelve years since I was at "the Shop"; but
from all I hear and see the place has not altered so very much.
It was run on Spartan lines. The motto was, and is, "Unhasting
yet unresting work," and the curriculum was almost exclusively
utilitarian. The chief subjects were mathematics, gunnery, fortification,
mechanics , electricity, physical training, riding, and drill.
None of these is calculated to widen the sympathies or cultivate
the imagination. They are calculated to produce competent gunners
and sappers. Our day was fully occupied, and in the two hours
of leisure between dinner and lights out, one had no inclination
to embark on fresh subjects of study. The discipline was strict,
and ethically the value of the life was that it inculcated the
ideas of alertness, duty, and honor. To do one's job thoroughly
and quickly, and to be quite straightforward about it if one had
omitted any duty, was the code to which we were expected to conform.
Religion was represented by a parade-service on Sundays. In so
far as it meant anything, it was the recognition that God was
King of kings, and, as such, deserved His weekly meed of homage.
Here is a story which illustrates rather well the military view
of religion. A certain devout major had promised to attend a prayer
meeting, and on that account refused an invitation to dine with
a member of the Army Council. When someone expressed astonishment
at his refusal, he replied shortly that he had an engagement with
the Lord God, Who was senior to the member of the Army Council!
If there was little opportunity for the study of the "humanities,"
and little inducement to mysticism in religion, there was no encouragement
at all to the development of the æsthetic faculties. Our
rooms were hopelessly bare and hideous. My first room I shared
with three others. The walls were of whitewashed brick. The floor
was bare. The beds folded up against the wall, under print curtains
of an uncompromising pattern. The furniture consisted of a deal
table, four Windsor chairs, a shelf with four basins, and a locker
divided into four compartments and painted khaki. One could do
nothing with such a room. It crushed individuality of taste most
effectually. Finally, one learnt not to show physical fear or
nervousness. The plank bridge across the roof of the "gym."
ensured an appearance of courage, while the "snookers' concert,"
where one had to sing a song in front of a hall full of yelling
seniors, was the cure for a display of nerves.

 The result of such a schooling is distinctive. The average
officer is a man with a good deal of simplicity. His code is simple.
He sees life as a series of incidents with which he has to deal
practically. It is not his job to ask why. He has to get on and
do something about it. If he does his work well, that is all that
is required of him. His interests are practical. They relate to
his profession, his men, and his recreations. His pleasures are
simple. They are the pleasures of the. body rather than the mind---sport,
games, sex. His relations with his fellow men are simple and defined.
To his superiors in rank he must be respectful, at all events
outwardly. He must support them even when he thinks they are mistaken.
To his equals he must be a good comrade. To his men he must be
a sort of father, encouraging, correcting, stimulating, restraining,
as the occasion demands. They are quite definitely his inferiors.
It is not surprising if he lacks sympathy with Socialism, Idealism,
Mysticism, and all the other "isms." Like everyone else,
he has the limitations of his virtues.

 The life at Oxford, which I experienced some four years later,
was the most complete contrast imaginable to what I have been
trying to describe, and, as is only natural, the product is absolutely
different from the product of "the Shop." At Oxford
we were the masters of our time. We read what we liked and when
we liked. We went to bed when we liked, and, in the main, got
up when we liked. We had beautiful rooms, which offered every
inducement to the exercise of individual taste. Our reading was
the reverse of utilitarian; it was calculated not to make us competent
craftsmen, but to widen our sympathies and stimulate our imaginations.
We read history, philosophy, theology, literature, psychology---all
subjects which incite one to dream rather than to act. Our religion
tended to be mystical. In creed and ethics we were inclined to
be critical, to take nothing for granted. In politics our sympathies
were too wide and our skepticism too pronounced to be compatible
with definite views. Socially we were theoretically democratic;
but our inherited and æsthetic prejudices kept most of us
from putting our theories into practice. When we left our Alma
Mater we were full of vague ideals, unpractical dreams, and
ineffective good-will. Those of us who then went to work took
little practical enthusiasm with them at the first; and it was
many months before they were able to relegate to its proper place
in the dim background the land of dreams which was their kingdom
of the mind.

 All stories end in the same way now: "then came the war."
Most University men took commissions, and found themselves working
side by side with their opposites---the men from Sandhurst and
Woolwich. In the end both types found that they had something
to learn from the other. In the routine of the barrack and the
trench the University man learnt the value of punctuality and
a high sense of duty. He found it very hard to work when he felt
inclined to meditate, to perform punctiliously duties of which
he did not see the necessity but only the inconvenience. Yet time
showed that the military code was not simply arbitrary and irritating,
as it appeared at first, but essential to efficiency. So, too,
the professional soldier saw that the psychological interests
and broad human sympathies of the University man had their uses
in helping to maintain a good spirit, and to get the best work
out of men who were experiencing hardships of a kind that they
had never known before. And in the days of danger and death a
good many officers felt the need of an articulate philosophy of
life and death, and recognized that Oxford and Cambridge had given
their sons the power to evolve one, while Sandhurst and Woolwich
had not,

 Other University men there are who have preferred to remain
in the ranks of the Army. Who shall say that they are shirking
their responsibilities? The men also need the wisdom that they
have gathered, for they, too, have to face death and wounds with
the poorest mental equipment for doing so. And in the ranks the
student will find that his philosophy is becoming practical, that
his dreams are being fulfilled, and that he is the interpreter
of a wider experience of life than even he ever imagined.

XI THE ARMY AND THE UNIVERSITIES: A STUDY OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES - Revision history

Hirgen at 07:20, 19 September 2008

Hirgen at 20:33, 7 September 2008