Primary Education (1959)

(page numbers in brackets)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages (i-xiii)
Foreword, Preface, Contents

Part 1 Historical
Chapter I (1-11)
Recent History of Primary Education

Part 2 The Primary Schools
Chapter II (15-26)
Introduction
Chapter III (27-36)
Nursery Schools and Classes
Chapter IV (37-55)
Infant schools
Chapter V (56-77)
Junior Schools
Chapter VI (78-105)
The Working of the School
Chapter VII (106-110)
Special Educational Treatment

Part 3 The Fields of Learning
Chapter VIII (113-116)
The Curriculum
Chapter IX (117-129)
Religion
Chapter X (130-134)
Physical Education
Chapter XI (135-178)
Language
Chapter XII (179-212)
Mathematics
Chapter XIII (213-246)
Art and Craft and Needlework
Chapter XIV (247-259)
Handwriting
Chapter XV (260-274)
Music
Chapter XVI (275-288)
History
Chapter XVII (289-313)
Geography and Natural History

Part 4 The Special Problems of Wales
Chapter XVIII (317-329)
Wales

Index (331-334)

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1959
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

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Despite the value which has often been placed on history as a school of example and a medium of tradition, its position in English education has never been very secure. When, in the nineteenth century, history was recognised as a separate subject, it had to compete with the claims of the classics in the grammar schools and with the claims of the three Rs in the elementary schools. There, under the Revised Code of 1862, history was an optional subject, which could be begun by children in standard IV. From standard IV to standard VI, that is from about the age of ten to twelve, the children were to study the outlines of English history to the death of George III. But it was in private and out of school education that history played its greatest part. Charlotte Yonge, introduced at 5½ to a standard six-volume Ancient History, John Stuart Mill reading and re-reading Gibbon between the ages of five and seven, Lord Rosebery falling 'under the wand of the enchanter Macaulay' at 11, Miss Wedgwood discovering 'the document' at much the same age and copying all she could see on view in the show cases in the British Museum; these were the childhood conquests of history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With more ordinary children, whether taught at home or at school, there was little need to worry whether what was learnt was understood, since it was learnt by rote, often in catechism form from one or another modification of Miss Mangnall's Questions. Yet there were items in these curious collections of facts which must have struck the imagination of the learners, some of whom may have been no less impressed by the introduction of post-horses and stages in the reign of Richard III than by his 'wading to the throne through the blood of his nearest relations'. The moral

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element was as strong in the Questions as it was in Dr Arnold's teaching. Judgements of good kings and bad kings, of good men and bad men are unhesitating and children memorised a definition of 'true glory' on which to base their own later verdicts and indeed to model their lives.

Towards the close of the nineteenth century and during the twentieth century the difficulties in teaching history to young children were manifestly increasing. It was partly that history was becoming ever wider and more complicated. It was partly that history was looked on less as a story and more as a science; even in the textbook the arbitrary classification of the Questions - 'Name the three most luxurious Romans' - was giving way to cause and effect, and biography was losing ground to movements. It was partly that preoccupation with the rise of democracy, with economic influences and with international relations led to an emphasis on these aspects of history, all of which were outside the grasp of young children. Moreover, as systematised research uncovered facts which seemed in some cases to demand a reversal of earlier judgements and as the new study of psychology threw doubts on man's responsibility for his actions, some teachers became less confident about using history as a basis for moral instruction.

And if the matter of history was becoming more difficult to present, teachers were at the same time becoming more sensitive about what and how young children could learn. Whereas in the past the stress had been placed on finding out what was objectively important and teaching it, now much more attention was being given to children's interests. The belief was becoming widespread that adult generalisations must not be forced too soon on children who would only be stimulated by what they understood and for whom learning must have a 'here and now' value. The words 'here and now' point indeed to another difficulty in the teaching of history, a difficulty of which present day educators have become increasingly aware. Shakespeare when he makes Polixenes in The Winter's Tale describe his childhood as that of one who

'thought there was no more behind
But such a day tomorrow as today
And to be boy eternal'

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before and after. For many children of seven even their own birthday is 'coming' or 'gone' and no greater precision in word or imagination may be possible for them. Their time divides into a present which seems at moments as unending as the Mad Hatter's Tea Party and a past, a 'once upon a time', when mother and father were children and might have fallen into the hands of highwaymen or pirates. In the years between seven and eleven, most children's perception of time deepens and becomes more exact. A year added to their age which they accept proudly but on trust on their eighth birthday has more precise meaning for them by nine or ten, and by ten or eleven most children's memories have lengthened and a few children may be able to get some sense of past time by measuring it against their memories.

But if children in our primary schools profit only from what they, in some measure, understand, and if the younger children have so little sense of time, what place can there be for historical material in their education? In trying to answer this question it may be useful to look for a lead to the writers of children's stories. Difficulties of time have not frightened them away from the past - they know too well the attraction to children of a new world to explore, remote but real, colourful and complete. But they take their readers back into the past, not by a path of logical connections and rarely by the association of past and present; their open sesame is sheer magic, the flight of the carpet, the twist of the ring, the standing within the charmed circle. Are they perhaps wiser in this than we in school who have hoped that, by laborious devices, by a river of time on frieze or in notebook, or by a sequence of pictures, children who cannot compass their own lives may visualise the passing of centuries?

By magic, too, the magic of a well-told story, good teachers can introduce their pupils, if not to history, at least to histories, if not to the panorama, at least to the tableau, if not to the period, at least to the 'timeless moment'. If history in its full sense explains and interprets heritage, these stories are among the most precious parts of that heritage itself. They are at the root of an interest in history and their inspiration sends the archaeologist to his 'dig', the historian to his research. Well chosen and well told, they are self-justified. They stimulate the child's imagination and extend his experience; they can give him for companions and playmates the heroes and geniuses of

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mankind and in such company his knowledge of himself and his own aspirations can grow. They set before him in parable the standards by which men have ruled their lives and the ideals through which they have reached the heights. They can introduce him to a life which, though different from his own, is yet worthy of respect, and in such a way humility and tolerance can develop. They stir the child's emotions and in the imaginative act of putting himself in another's place sympathy is born. Within the narrower circle of historical values, stories in their settings will present children with the idea of change, with a world which is credible and yet other than that they know. At the same time a specialised vocabulary is being built up without which historical knowledge is hardly possible and certainly not communicable.

Amidst the embarrassing wealth of stories from the ancient civilisations of East and West, from Europe and from the New World, how can a selection be made rigorous enough to give the children the detail which they crave? 'In our halls is hung armoury of the invincible knights of old' - and we can, at least at this stage, prefer the story which has a noble element, while taking care to avoid a thin-blooded virtue too sophisticated for children who may be alienated rather than inspired by it. If we are not as bold as the Victorians in condemning the great whose actions and motives appear unworthy, we can at least let history speak to children of the importance of men's choices and of the results which flow from them. If we spend more time today on the lives of the 'mute inglorious Miltons', we must not on this account deny to children the force of great example. All stories worth telling, whether they are legends or historical narratives, will have in common the quality of sincerity, and there can be little place for the trivial, the anecdote which lights up neither the person nor the time. As the children grow older, historical significance will weigh increasingly in the selection of stories. Choices will also be determined by the teacher's own enthusiasms, and even more by his knowledge of his pupils. Only in this light can he be sure when, for example, to tell the kind of story which by its emphasis on childhood will make the deeper impression

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and will encourage his listeners to identify themselves with the character about whom they have been hearing.

Some tentative guidance on the choice of stories may perhaps be found in rough generalisations about the dominant interest of children in primary schools. The last year of the infant school and the early years in the junior school, when fantasy and reality are not always distinguishable and when interest in the fairy tale is at its height, suggest themselves as especially suitable for myth and legend. There might be stories from the Odyssey, stories from Herodotus and Plutarch of the stand of Leonidas or the taming of Bucephalus, and stories from the Old Testament. The BBC have set an example in including in their World History Series stories of ancient India and China; and the legends of our European neighbours and our own country must not be forgotten. Beowulf fighting with Grendel, Roland at Roncevaux, Robin Hood in Sherwood, these are the continuing legacy of the past to childhood. And to balance these heroes of romance, there might be stories of the saints, the friendships of beasts and saints from the writings of The Desert Fathers, the stories of St Christopher and St Elizabeth from The Golden Legend, and the legends of the early Franciscans in The Little Flowers of St Francis. More enterprise might perhaps be shown in selection. If English children should hear of St Augustine, might they not also hear of Paulinus 'tall of stature and a little stooping', of Cuthbert, delighting in childhood 'in mirth and clamour' but later so gentle that the eider-ducks nestled in his garments, and of Boniface, missionary and martyr, whose letters are full of love for his own people and the Germans whom he converted.

At first, there is little point in separating historical from other kinds of stories, though the teacher will try to maintain a reasonable balance of interests. Equally there is no need to labour the distinction between fact and legend but, as children grow older, they will begin to ask whether things really happened, will make their own distinctions and will want their teachers' help in doing so. This does not mean that legend must be eliminated or its didactic uses over-stressed. Some children can however begin to understand that legends may describe truly the time when they were written, if not the facts which they relate. They can become acquainted with Chaucer by hearing some of the stories which he and his contemporaries enjoyed.

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They will see that the legend of the Holy Grail is a story of medieval knights just as Our Lady's Tumbler is a story of the medieval church. A skilful teacher can draw from saga and myth the detailed background which will bring the historical figure to life. In this way, the later Danish invasions can be given reality by the account of the sagas of the building of the Long Serpent, of the way it was manned and the part it played in battle.

Stories of real people have an added appeal for children at the age of eight or nine, whose growing skill is helping them to feel at home in their world and ready to extend their reach. This is the moment for heroic stories, stories of Saladin and St Louis, stories of Hudson and Nansen, stories which show in action the qualities which children esteem, skill, audacity, endurance, courage and loyalty. This is the time for such adventures as the hairbreadth escapes of Charles II after Worcester. The narrative is at once authentic, romantic and significant but its effectiveness will hang on the liberal use of the detail which the king himself has provided. Whether children live the story will depend on their hearing not only of the moments of suspense when the king was in the oak tree or riding in front of Jane Lane but also the homely details, the king's face hastily blackened with soot and later stained with walnut juice, his hair cut round a basin with the shears, and his feet blistered with unaccustomed walking.

As children hear these stories, islands will emerge from the formless and, to them, uncharted ocean of the past. As the children grow older, these stories can be concentrated about a person or a period and in this way some of the islands will become sizeable and populous. If, for example, the principal characters of the time of Elizabeth are well drawn, the children will themselves ask the questions - and sometimes find the answers - from which the crowd and background can be filled in. In this way even juniors can get some intuition of 'period', of the kinds of things which go together, of Elizabeth and her court, of masques and Shakespeare's plays, of discoveries abroad and increasing comfort at home in the great houses 'more glass than wall'. This is as good a foundation as children can have for developing a sense of time which will serve when rote memory fails. On occasion, a concentration of stories can be centred not on a period of time but on a movement such as the Crusades or the Discoveries. The story may then turn into what is almost a

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historical narrative and children may learn how a common impulse has cut across national boundaries. It is important however to avoid the temptation to be exhaustive, to treat a topic in an adult way, to begin at the beginning and go on to the end. Children do not need to learn about the Phoenicians to appreciate Marco Polo's visits to the Great Khan. At the same time, an interest caught by the adventures of Captain John Smith may well be developed by stories of Jesuit encounters with Red Indians in their exploration of the Mississippi and by accounts of nineteenth and twentieth century contacts between missionaries and natives.

In such a way as this, some children discover not only islands but, as it were, archipelagos in the ocean past, and, if the metaphor is static, it is in keeping with children's view of history which is rarely dynamic save on an intimate scale. Children will of course vary widely in their ability to see connections in history and in their sense of time. For the sake of those who are developing an idea of time, a sequence of stories, mainly about our own country and arranged in chronological order, might be provided for the last year in the junior school. A time chart will be useful at this point and may be supported by the learning of key dates associated with the stories which are told. These stories will be a foundation for the history that is to follow; but more than this, they will help the children who are coming to be at home in their material background to share more fully also in the mental and spiritual background of their country. To 'belong' in this way matters the more to children today when the instability of society threatens many of the traditional ways of initiation into the adult world. Lastly, to be familiar with these stories is to enter into the richness of meaning which historical associations give to our speech and to our heritage of prose and poetry.

Stories will therefore play a major part in introducing children to historical material. But if the story is to achieve its end it must be accurate, at least in a general sense, and either it must be well told or, if it is to be read, its language must be worth hearing. Whether the story is told or read, the children lose much if they do not hear the 'very words'. 'Serve God daily, love one another,

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preserve your vituals, beware of fire and keep good company' - in these words of Humphrey Gilbert is caught something of the flavour of Elizabethan seamanship. No better advice can indeed be given than to go to the first-hand source, to the excellent cheap editions of the Iliad and the Odyssey, to the Norse Sagas, to Bede, to Froissart and Joinville, to selections from Hakluyt and other collections of travel stories, and to Pepys and the great diarists. Yet it cannot be pretended that all difficulties are then solved. Much of the Iliad is quite unsuitable for children but the teacher who reads it at first hand and makes a personal selection can hope to be true to its spirit. If the facts recorded by Herodotus or the medieval chroniclers are not always accurate and need to be checked from a standard history, this weakness is more than compensated for by an underlying authenticity and a convincing detail about the very things in which children are interested. Helpful guidance about both first hand sources and good secondary authorities can be found in the pamphlets published by the Historical Association. A selection of source books might well be purchased for the teachers' library; some, at least, in good children's abridgements, might be included in the children's library and with them as good a range as can be found of lively biography, good imaginative stories in a historical setting and simple books of information.

These books will be the more popular if they are well illustrated, and the word pictures in stories, too, need to be supplemented by illustration. Town children, unaided, will see a Roman road and a turnpike in terms of their own back street. Many junior school teachers have been aware of this danger and have made good use of history pictures and of the film strips which are becomingly increasingly available. Sometimes perhaps teachers have been too readily satisfied with simplified modern reconstructions and have overlooked the abundance of first hand material which is available among the publications of museums and art galleries, both local and national. But too much must not be asked of the imagination of children who may be disheartened, after hearing of the beauties of Athens, to see a photograph of what may seem to them to be 'old ruins'.

There will be times when the story will stand alone and to add

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anything would be anticlimax. But in general, when children are invigorated by listening to stories, when they can see and inhabit a new world, they will want to express their feelings and tell what they know. They need to work over the material themselves and make it their own. They talk and ask questions. They re-enact their experiences in movement and drama; for the younger children the easier beginning may be the mime, with perhaps the spoken words of the story breaking in when they are known; later, with their teacher's encouragement, children may find that they can add spontaneous speech; some, before they leave the junior school, are writing and rehearsing their own plays.

Most children want to draw and paint, and certainly at the lower end of the primary school worry little about their pictures 'looking right'. They construct and model in whatever materials are available to them and it is the teachers' responsibility to see that these are as suitable as possible. The durability of the pyramids - or the solidity of a Norman castle - is more readily conveyed by clay than by paper or cardboard. Care is also needed to maintain some proportion between the time spent on models and their historical or other value. Children of this age write words and sentences to supplement their pictures and models; and, as they increase in skill, the written story may come to loom larger than the picture. But what they think worth writing may not be the 'important facts' as seen from Olympian heights; and if we are to avoid the reproach of Alice and her friends, whose history was the driest thing they knew, we must not expect children to docket their stories so soon in textbook points. Notebooks should, rather, be records of the children's impression in pictures and in words, anthologies of the ballad verse, the memorable phrase or curious fact.

All these forms of expression, if they are indeed the children's own, are likely to be full of errors and anachronisms. The king will wear his crown at times other than the Christmas, the Easter and the Pentecost of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A stirring letter from Sir Walter Raleigh in the Tower may end with a twentieth century salutation. The more the children enter into what they are doing the more certainly will they make mistakes. But from the beginning there should be an internal coherence about what they do. The child who rides may harness the horses at Hastings in the manner of today but at least he should harness them for the gallop. All the teacher's skill is

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needed if he is to know when to let errors pass and when the moment has come to add to the child's knowledge and clarify his picture. Skilfully taught, even young children begin to learn what many adults fail to see, that clothes and houses are not simply a matter of arbitrary fashion and changing architectural style but clothe and house the spirit of their time. This kind of teaching, when the children are ready for it, narrows down the field of inaccuracy in picture, in model and in play. It can also be most fruitful in stimulating curiosity about the past, and it is as much a part of good history teaching to stimulate this curiosity as to give an imaginative experience. With older juniors this might be the starting point for the occasional accurate model, for which information would have to be collected and simple reference books or an encyclopaedia would have to be consulted. It might create the demand for a detailed study of the background of a story - or of the groups of stories to which reference has already been made. In its simpler forms, this study of a period is well suited to the older children in the primary school; it offers opportunities for individual and group work, and children of this age enjoy working in groups; topics and duties can be shared out and standards exacted in the measure of the wide range of ability and talent which is to be found in the junior school.

Some teachers have succeeded in awakening curiosity about the remote past by introducing their pupils to the romance of archaeology. Ten and eleven year old children, given to inventing their own codes and symbols, will enter with zest into the present difficulties of deciphering Minoan script or the problems which were set by the Rosetta stone. To relive with Howard Carter his first sight of the tomb of Tutankhamen, or to review with Sir Leonard Woolley the successive layers of Ur, is as stimulating to the imagination as it is to stand with Cortez and gaze at the Pacific. Interest in the evidence, particularly if some of it is local, seems also to be the best approach to prehistory, which might well be postponed until the later part of the junior school course when the non-literary character of the evidence can be explained and when comparisons can be made between

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the way of life it suggests and that of primitive tribes of the present day.

And if children's curiosity can be stimulated by the remote past, it can also be roused by changes in very recent times. Most children have available to them in the memories of their parents and grandparents a direct source of information about the last fifty years. A first hand list of changes in the neighbourhood can be built up on this basis and supplemented and corrected by books. Some teachers, particularly in country schools, have experimented with exhibitions to illustrate the changing life of their districts. A surprising collection of significant relics of the past can be found at home, lent to school, handled, talked over and exhibited. Old photograph and postcard albums depict changes in town and village and the vagaries of fashion, candle snuffers and locking tea caddies, fans and vinaigrettes, snuff boxes and deed boxes speak of passing social and economic customs. The fast recurring births and deaths in the Family Bible and the frequent references to early death in the nineteenth century autograph album may be a starting point for a growing understanding of a major historical change. When relics of the past are found to have meaning, the time has come for a carefully prepared and discriminating visit to the local museum where the children may perhaps be allowed to examine a Roman lamp, a tinder box, old cooking utensils or a nineteenth century doll's house.

The awakening of historical curiosity has also been among the aims of the experiments made by some junior school teachers who have centred their work on the children's environment. This kind of work can be in line with the interest of older juniors in exploration and investigation. It starts with what the children know at first hand and can help them to see the familiar with fresh eyes; it overrides the subject divisions, which are quite artificial to young children; it can break down the barriers between school and the outside world; it offers many opportunities for individual initiative and cooperation. It must however be frankly accepted that areas vary greatly in their suitability for this way of working. Where the pattern of streets and their names reveal the medieval town; where there is an old church, with a knightly effigy, a wool merchant's brass or a Charities' board; where familiar names and local occupations of an earlier age can be found on the tombstones in the village

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churchyard - there you will have material to stimulate curiosity and to quicken the imagination. But children need a great deal of help to get the most out of what they see and teachers are able to give this help only if they too have seeing eyes, a good general background and a sufficient knowledge of where to go for additional information.* Castles must be garrisoned, churches peopled with their congregations, towns thronged with citizens and with country visitors, and, if the battle of Edgehill is to be fought again, it might be well to recall not only the contending armies but also the old knight who knowing nothing of the Civil War was found hunting between the lines. If this is done, some children before they leave the junior school will be recognising the reasons for the defences of the Norman castle, for the big windows and open aisles of the wool church or the recessed window frames of the mid eighteenth century town house. It will help if castle or monastery can be visited repeatedly and if at each visit some learning is planned but much is allowed to come spontaneously from the children's questions and investigation; arrangements recently made by the Ministry of Works should make this possible in buildings under their care. In some areas where there are no major antiquities, the smaller survivals - the holy well, the mounting block, the fire society mark, the Victorian letter-box, the country milestone surviving in the built-up area - can also be powerful in evoking the past. And it is imaginative re-creation of the past, with curiosity as a spur, which is appropriate to junior children rather than a comprehensive account of the evolution of town or village. There is a place in this work for local stories. Wulfstan, building the Cathedral of Worcester, suppressing the Bristol slave trade, reconciling Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, or James Woodforde, carrying out his humbler duties peacefully and charitably, should be remembered in their own districts, at least. Some of these stories could also form part of the sequence of national history which has been suggested as suitable for the older juniors. Local history can often serve in this way to illustrate what is happening in other parts of the country. But, however rich the locality, there are stories which the children should hear which cannot have local associations. There are also some

*Helpful book lists in local history are published by the Historical Association and by the Standing Conference of Local History of the National Council of Social Service.

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places whose history is too overlaid or sophisticated for young children to appreciate. Faced with this difficulty, the sensitive teacher will turn to other talismans, to the improvised museum, to phrases like 'lock, stock and barrel' or 'through fire and water' which children meet in story books, to the nursery rhyme and to the games which children play.

The bridgehead from present to past may often, indeed, be found in the children's hobbies. The boy who collects locomotive numbers and can recognise the types may soon, with the aid of the encyclopaedia or of old magazines, acquire the story of the local railway - and of much else; it could be the same with the enthusiasts for motors, for aeroplanes and for postage stamps. Other children will be interested to learn the history of the writing and measurements which they use. In these ways a study of what are often called 'lines of development' may be followed by primary school children. Undertaken individually or by a group, such work can be genuinely rooted in interest, although, as has already been suggested, care must be taken not to prolong or refine it beyond the capacity of children. This kind of work affords an incentive for children to find out information for themselves within a limited field in which fairly simple books do exist. Opportunities will also arise for the children to narrate and explain the facts they have discovered.

The historical material to which young children respond does not fit tidily into two or three periods in a timetable. Much of what is often described as history might pass equally well for English, religious instruction, art, craft or geography. Yet, before they leave the primary school, the abler children should be getting some idea of the interests covered by the adult fields of knowledge. In schools where the curriculum is organised on a subject basis there needs to be an overflow of enquiries and attitudes from one subject to another rather than a laboured correlation, which may end in suffocating the interest which it was intended to create. In schools where the children are able to have a flexible timetable and their class teacher for most of the day, many occasions for stimulating and for satisfying historical curiosity arise spontaneously from the children's interests. Individually and corporately the children at any one time will

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have not one but many interests, and too close a concentration on a 'centre of interest' may be as cramping as too elaborate a correlation of subjects.

But, whatever the methods used in the school, the teacher's task in the field of history is first to feed his pupils' imaginations with good stories, and secondly to arouse their intellectual curiosity about the past. And, as the children become older, as their collection of stories grows and fresh fields of enquiry are opened up, so alongside should grow the simple illustrated time chart, which represents the temporal framework in which they all dwell.