Edwardian Teaching

[carpetowl]

I'm researching the various reasons why 2.5 million young men volunteered to fight in WW1. One major influence was how and what they were taught at school in (say) about 1905 thru 1910 - very formative years for young men who'd have been c19 years old in 1914. Does anybody have any primary information on classroom practice, especially for the teaching of history, during those years. Public schools tend to be well-documented - state schools less so. I'm interested in the way ideas of patriotism, nationhood and the military were imparted! So was Grandad an Edwardian schoolteacher?? Thanks in advance.

[carrot99]

I wonder if you would be able to find teaching practice or history books from that period on amazon or ebay? The British Library might be useful as they have a free on-line catalogue which you could search to see if it was worth a visit - if you haven't already done so. Good luck with the research.

[Mosaic]

Depending on where you are located, many museums,archives and local studies collections have examples of this kind of material, but as you rightly point out the evidence is very scattered and haphazard. Ditto, examples of contemporary newspapers and sunday school materials will provide examples of the type of material you are looking for. There are museums of education eg Glasgow and parts of museums that have 'Victorian schoolrooms', and there may be collcted materials attached to these that you could consult.
Lastly, many schools retain a surprising amount of archive material - what about a general query through a forum such as tes online / history?

[Mosaic]

Just had another thought - the North west sound archive at Clitheroe may have interviews that throw light on this.

[boxtops]

Would you think that the sense of Empire might have had something to do with it? There was a lot of the world to defend in those days. It sounds a very interesting piece of research.

[carpetowl]

Thanks everybody - all good ideas. Boxtops - yes absolutely! The ideas of 'Empire' were key to the whole sense of patriotism that youngsters were exposed to. I have been examining a number of history and geography textbooks that promote Empire in a way that seems, today, to be quite remarkable. For example, here's a quote from a work published for school geography use in 1899 but still used throughout Edwardian England: 'but much more important is the larger question of how far it is possible for Great Britain and all her colonies to combine into a single British state. The idea is one which stirs the imagination, for its accomplishment would place the future of the world in the hands of the British race'. Makes you think doesn't it!

[dotty.]

What you need to look at is more what was left for these young men when they left school, which in many parts of the country was tedium and hard graft. It's well documented that lads koined up together wit their mates, they were looking to ffind adventure and get away from the certainty of a dreary future. You could look at the memoirs of the Pals regiments, the idea that lads left school at 14 and then a couple of years later decided to volunteer with their mates to fight te Hun because of their schooling seems wrong, they left school at 14 and went into the pits or into a factory, 3 or 4 years of the drudgery of that and going off with your mates in uniform would seem like the best thing in the world. It did to my granddad, he joined up at 17 and like so many lied about his age cos his mates all went and he didnlt want to be left behind.

[Jemisa]

Thats exactly what I was going to say Dotty.
Yes, they joined up because it was regular pay and 'a job' With 3 meals a day. I don't even think it was for "King and Country" they were desperate days and desperate young men.

jem

[carpetowl]

To Jem and Dotty - thanks for your input. Yes, I'm sure you're right that many young men joined for a myriad of immediate reasons:boredom. steady work and pay, adventure, 'peer pressure' - indeed all the reasons that you mention and a whole lot more. Ultimately, 2.5 million volunteers have 2.5 million personal reasons for joining! But my point is: what did they think they were joining and why was it felt to be such a good idea beyong the short term economic reasons?. I'm not saying that they joined 'because of their schooling' but surely their schooling would have influenced their views on the world and their beliefs.

[dotty.]

I understand what you are trying to get at, but in 1914 lads didn't have tv or radio to get an idea of what was going on, they had newspapers and word of mouth and that was it. Working class lads lived from day to day and just worried about being fed, there wasn't much to do even after working 6 and a half days a week (getting saturday afternoon off to go to football) , Schools taught them reading writing and how to line up and be disciplined, that's probably as muc an influence as it had for most of them. Remember that up until then, any child reaching 13 in a mill town could be put on half days and do school 5 mornings and work in the mills 5 afternoons and saturday morning. That was very common, the wage was vital to keep the family going and education was secondary to that, local councils issued half-time certificates.

[dotty.]

In would look to the Public and Grammar schools for the sort of evidence you need, it was from those establishments that there was a more intense entusiasm for joining the army as a career rather than an escape.

[mike11111]

Until conscription was introduced in 1916 powerful government propaganda was used to encourage recruitment. This was assisted by the "White Feather" campaign, whereby women were encouraged to present white feathers (a symbol of cowardice) to any able-bodied man who had not enlisted to shame him into doing so. These would be presented in the street or sent anonymously through the post.

[Scylax]

All answers correct so far; let me add one more. A strong sense of chivalry existed in Edwardian Britain, and when the news broke that Edith Cavell had been executed by the dreadful Huns for doing what any nurse should have done, the outrage was such that
c. 1m. men went to her aid, belatedly but righteously. The Germans reaped a whirlwind.

[Kromovaracun]

One avenue of research you might fancy trying could be literary/fictional presentations of Edwardian school life in the early/mid C20. I really don't know if there are many around, but just from how similar types of evidence has been used in other areas it might be worth seeing if any products of Edwardian education later portrayed it in fiction.

[carpetowl]

To respond to your comment Dotty: "in 1914 lads didn't have tv or radio to get an idea of what was going on, they had newspapers and word of mouth and that was it" - how about comics, story-books, magazines, vicars and pulpits, scouts, boys' brigades, the early cinema! And don't write off the newspapers as sources of influence - the early 20th centrury saw some of the most jingoistic newspaper material ever printed - and the circulation was huge! And take a look at Horatio Bottomley's John Bull magazine sometime! Even the biscuit tins were smothered in Union flags; boys would collect cigarette cards with pictures of military heroes (Kitchener, Baden Powell, Roberts). Throw in a few patriotic schoolmasters and textbook stories of how Britain beat the Zulus; smashed the Dervishes; stuffed the Boers and there you have a formala for gung-ho 'let-me-at-'em' volunteers to Kitchener's army! Get real - just because there was no telly didn't mean that people were ill-informed - and reading competence was far higher than it is now!

[Kromovaracun]

Dotty: I think there's a lot of truth in what you're saying (economic incentives are as we all know one of the most powerful motivators in history) but it doesn't quite hold the full picture - it may explain a substantial number of working-class volunteers, but it doesn't explain the volume of middle-class volunteers who had brighter futures ahead of them but chose the military.

[boxtops]

Dotty is right also about the work/peer group ethic. I have been/still am reading the Morland Dynasty series by Cynthia Harrold Eagles - they are just reaching the end of the FWW in the next book. It was really interesting to read how whole businesses joined up, and that one chap who felt he couldn't go, he was a family man and needed at home, finally couldn't stand the "not doing my bit for the country" motive and signed up. Worth a look at the appropriate book in the series, carpetowl, for a fictional but fact-based version - the one about the start of the war (and there are 4 more after it, all different years of FWW) is http://www.amazon.co....533459/ref=pd_sim_b_4

[mike11111]

Don't forget that the middle and upper classes would usually be recruited into the officer ranks, with better pay and conditions. That is not to say that they did not suffer equally horrendously in the grim reality of the trenches.

[sandyRoe]

I wonder how many young men Sir Henry Newbolt sent to their untimely deaths with these famous words?
There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night
Ten to make and the match to win
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play, and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat.
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"
The sand of the desert is sodden red -
Red with the wreck of a square that broke
The gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed its banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks -
"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"
This is the word that year by year,
While in her place the school is set,
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind -
"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"

[carpetowl]

Scylax - you make a very good point. Certainly the execution of Edith Cavell stimulated volunteering as did the sinking of the Lusitania and the atrocities in Belgium that the Bryce Commission reported on earlier in the war. So here we have a conundrum: either most young men joined because they were outraged at German 'frightfulness' as you've suggested or they volunteered for economic hardship reasons as Dotty and others believe - so which is it?. The reality is that BOTH (and other) main reasons were true. But what did they believe warfare to be? Before 1914, soldiers were viewed with contempt in Edwardian England - why did they want to become one? What was the average youngster's view on the concepts of "King and Country" and "Empire"? Where did these views arise from? And back to my first question: what was the role of schools in influencing these views and how did they do it?

[mike11111]

You are correct about the disdain with which soldiers were treated before WWI. Rudyard Kipling summed it up nicely:

"For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;"