Presented to the
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
by the
ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE LIBRARY
n
1980
EDUCATION AND THE ARMY AN ESSAY IN RECONSTRUCTION
o
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
TRAVEL
Babes in the African Wood.
FICTION
Out of the Blue. In the Night.
POETRY
Love Triumphant. Days of Destiny. Pilgrimage.
^ '
43018
EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
^n Sssay in ^Reconstruction
BY
COLONEL LORD GORELL, C.B.E., M.C,
DEPUTY- DIRECTOR OF STAFF DUTIES (EDUCATION),
AUGUST 29, I918 — MAY 39, I920 ;
CHAIRMAN, IMPERIAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE
<.
48018
* There is in the Army's clamour for knowledge a sense of aristocracy and independence which should fill Englishmen with a proper pride. That such an adventure into the realm of learning should be made in the midst of a great war proves the vitality of our race.'' — * Musings without Method ' : Blackwood's Magazine, July, 19 19.
* When sufficient time has elapsed to enable the events of the war to be seen in their true perspective, the rise and development of the educational movement among the armed forces will stand out as one of the most striking and unpredictable.'' — Final Report, Adult Education Committee, Ministry of Reconstruction, November, 1919.
HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW COPENHAGEN NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS SHANGHAI PEKING
1921
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. EARLY DAYS IN ENGLAND . . 7
IL BEGINNINGS IN FRANCE .
III. WITHIN THE WAR OFFICE
IV. THE FIRST PHASE .
V. THE COMING OF THE ARMISTICE
VI. THE CLOSE OF 1918 .
VII. END OF THE SECOND PHASE .
VIII. DISABLEMENT AND RESETTLEMENT 121
IX. THE ARMIES OF OCCUPATION . ^
X. IMPERIAL CO-OPERATION
XL THE REGULAR ARMY
XIL ARMY SCHOOLMASTERS AND MIS TRESSES . .
XIII. THE ECONOMY CAMPAIGN
XIV. SCHOOLS AND CERTIFICATES . XV. THE MANUAL AND THE CORPS
XVI. RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT .
INDEX . . . . . .
18 32
51
69 84 99
140 161 182
199 215 234 253 269
283
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CHAPTER I
EARLY DAYS IN ENGLAND
It is with considerable diffidence that I set myself to try and give some account of the origins, development, and purpose of the great adult education movement in the Army which it fell to my lot to organize and direct. Such account must of necessity be rather of a personal character, and it seemed better, therefore, if it was thought to be necessary at all, that it should be written by an observer rather than by a participator. But it has been very strongly represented to me by men of much distinction, and acquainted both with what was attempted and with what was achieved, that there is no one else whose experience was sufficiently comprehensive to enable him to undertake the task, and that it is a task which definitely ought to be undertaken. Directly and indirectly, it is pointed out, the movement influenced to a greater or less degree many hundreds of thousands of our citizen-soldiers ; it played no inconsiderable part in the resettlement in civil life of the youth of the Empire — a matter for which there is no precedent in history, save only the infinitely smaller remerging of Cromwell's invincible army into the life of England at the Restora- tion ; it has left its mark permanently upon military thought, causing the Army to take, in the words of Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, * a very vast step forward ' ; in addition to the changes it has brought within the Army itself (and not within the British Army alone), it has affected, and must in the future still more affect, the attitude, of
8 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
the rest of the nation towards the Army ; and finally, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, President of the Board of Educa- tion, has said, ' I do not think there has ever been in the whole history of the education of this world an educational experiment conducted on so large a scale/ Adult education is still in its early stages, and from the shortcomings and failures no less than from the achieve- ments and successes of this experiment there are lessons to be learnt which can hardly fail to be of importance to the democracies of the future. Men well qualified to give an opinion have felt it to be desirable, therefore, that I should place its story on record. Having bowed to their persuasion, it only remains for me to attempt the task with as great an avoidance of personality as is compatible with accuracy.
To avoid personality to any great degree is, however, impossible. The movement, depending entirely in its origins, and very largely in its development, upon the enthusiasm and labours of individuals, is a record of personality. At the very outset, the prelude as it were, we find the respective personalities of Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, and Sir Robert Blair, Education Officer to the London County Council. In the first months of the war, the autumn of 1914, the idea arose spontaneously to meet the new conditions ; it occurred to a number of people whose chief interest had laid in the training of youth, among whom Sir Robert Blair was one of the foremost, that the gathering together of large bodies of young men into camps brought not merely duties but also opportunities. A definite attempt was made in what is known to the few to whom it is known at all as the ' White City experiment ' to arrange lectures, interesting and recreational, to occupy profit- ably the spare evenings of the soldiers stationed at that place. The attempt failed owing to the view taken by
EARLY DAYS IN ENGLAND 9
the military authorities, who were of the opinion that there was no leisure for anything of the kind when the time for turning civilians into soldiers was already cur- tailed beyond all precedent. It is easy now to appreciate how short-sighted such a view was ; but it would be ungenerous to blame any soldier for its adoption. Harassed by the heaviest responsibilities and anxieties and over- burdened by the prodigious volume of absolutely essential organization, it is not to be wondered at that soldiers in 19 14 turned cold shoulders to any who proposed some- thing not essential or that they viewed with distrust the diversion of minds, even in leisure moments, from the one grim duty of preparation for war. But it is infinitely to be regretted that a far-sighted acquiescence was not given. The lectures arranged for might themselves have been on subjects on which it was all-important that right judgements should be formed and true understanding reached : but of greater value still would have been the gradual development from the very beginning of the war of an organization designed to meet the mental needs of the soldiers as those were felt and expressed. There would then have been none of the tremendous, and in part unavailing, race to overtake lost time which marked the closing months of 1918 ; there would then have been no grounds for the complaints, not infrequently made with justice by commanders in France in January and February 1 919, that they were being asked to make bricks without straw, to organize classes without a sufficiency of books or other necessary supplies. Many of the difficulties were inherent in the situation then prevailing ; but many were the inevitable result of long-continued failure to foresee.
The * White City experiment ' sank down to nothing- ness : but the idea which had given it birth, though it slept, could not die since the conditions from which it had arisen were not removed but on the contrary accen-
10 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
tuated by the prolongation of the war. The occasional lecturer was still to be found, but apart from such there was — as far, at least, as my knowledge goes — for two and a half years an almost complete absence of recognition that the young men entering the Army were possessed of minds, interests, and prospects which neither preparation for war nor war itself could wholly divert or destroy. By the beginning of 1917, however, the special require- ments of the youngest recruits were attracting military attention, and on February 22 an Army Council Instruc- tion (322 of 1917) was issued, laying down that the period of training for recruits under the age of 18 years and six months would be six months and giving a syllabus of training as a guide to Commanding Officers. In this sufficient time was set aside for the only type of education known at that time to the Army, namely, the old Army School system of elementary education, to make further developments immediately possible.
By March 1917 an educational endeavour of a wholly new kind was found to have broken out at Brocton Camp, Cannock Chase Reserve Centre, in answer, no doubt half unconsciously, to the question vaguely taking shape in the national mind and definitely asked by the first sentence of an article descriptive of the work at Cannock Chase which appeared a little later in The Times, namely, * Now that we have a citizen Army, is anything being done towards training the men in the duties of citizen- ship ? ' For this endeavour, which was the first in all the Armies to take definite shape, credit must principally be given to three men ; one of these it is both interesting and satisfactory to note was a regular soldier of many years' service, one of the few who had taken a keen interest in educational affairs before the war. Major (now Lt .-Colonel) E. ff. W. Lascelles, 3rd Dragoon Guards, then a Staff Officer at Cannock Chase and so in the best
EARLY DAYS IN ENGLAND ii
of positions greatly to befriend the work. The other two were A. L. Smith, Master of Balhol College, Oxford, whose capacious mind quickly grasped the enormous potentiali- ties of a real educational movement amongst the troops and whose unsatisfied zeal for education led him to throw himself warmly into the work, and the Rev. R. Brook, then a Chaplain and now Principal of Liverpool College, who had a great influence with the young soldiers. The conjunction of these three men was happy, and through their agency a scheme of educational work was drawn up and put into operation which had for its expressed objects :
1. The development of intelligence, initiative, self-
control, and discipline.
2. The widening of outlook and the fostering of imagina-
tion.
3. An increased power of co-ordination between mind
and body.
4. The foundation of a faculty of reasonable self-
expression, and an ability (a) to grasp ideas and situations rapidly and fully ; (b) to reason logically.
' Obviously ', as the enthusiastic writer of the article in The Times remarks, ' these aims have more than a direct military value. If they can be attained, the nation as a whole will benefit enormously thereby.' There was this same ' if ' in Army education from then onwards to June 15, 1920, the date of the Royal Warrant constituting the Army Educational Corps, nor perhaps can it wisely be claimed that even then this entirely disappeared.
The soldiers to whom the Army Council Instruction of February 22 applied and for whom the Brocton scheme was designed were the class of recruits known militarily as A.iv. boys, namely, lads who entered the Army at
12 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
i8 but were not sent overseas (except, indeed, during the stress of the great German offensive in the spring of 1918) until they reached 19, so that it was possible to keep them under training for a considerably longer period than the exigencies of the war made possible for the older recruit. This differentiation of treatment must be borne in mind if the growth of the movement as a whole in the Army in Great Britain is properly to be understood. The military authorities at the Horse Guards could not only appreciate the benefits of continued education for A.iv. boys, but conceded that these boys were sufficiently long ^ under training to make such education worth while and practicable. Adult, as distinct from continued, education stood for very many months in a wholly different position : its power was not understood, and it was also asserted, with very real force, that with an intensive syllabus of military training to be crammed into a few weeks and followed by the drafting of the men so trained overseas, to attempt any form of education was useless. It was not really until the Armistice was at hand that the movement in England spread beyond the A.iv. boys, if such individual efforts as the organization of a large voluntary technical institute among the R. E. more or less permanently employed at the shipyards at Richborough be excepted. A further distinction resulted : throughout the movement education was adopted as part of the training of A.iv. boys and was, very largely at least, given in parade hours : at Brocton and later at Brentwood ten hours a fortnight were allotted in the training programme to education : with the older men it remained as a purely voluntary adjunct to their military life until all the conditions had totally changed.
The Brocton scheme met with considerable success and attracted widespread interest, both amongst soldiers and educationists. Had it begun and ended in itself, or
EARLY DAYS IN ENGLAND 13
conversely had it originated the whole movement, it would probably be of value to describe its operation in detail ; but its fate lay between these two. There are two fallacies concerning* the growth of adult education in the Army which it is necessary in the interests both of accuracy and of justice to refute positively and which it will be convenient to refute together at this point. The first is that the work was begun by civil voluntary associations — the credit is frequently assigned, for example, to the Young Men's Christian Association and their occasional lecturers — and the second that the Armies in France were in this respect the copyists of the Armies in Great Britain. The truth is that both in England and in France the work was begun by the military authorities for the benefit, and in many cases at the request, of the men, and though England began in March 191 7 and France not until many months later, the beginnings in France were wholly unconnected with the beginnings in England, and were originated by soldiers ignorant of the English experiments and actuated only by ideas derived from the common experience of close contact with men on whom the fact of war was beginning to press with serious monotony. No one likes to be deprived of credit to which he or his institution is justly entitled ; I remem- ber well the irritation caused in France by the oft- repeated suggestion that the pioneers there had borrowed their ideas from Cannock Chase or Brentwood ; and I have been appealed to by soldiers to vindicate their claim to having been the first themselves to organize educational classes for the men whose welfare was their unceasing care. As witness a letter received from a Genered in France who had every opportunity of knowing, who hoped that it would be acknowledged of the Education Scheme ' that one of its progenitors, 50 per cent, of the accoucheurs and midwives, and nearly all the godparents
14 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
were regular soldiers. ... I think it of importance that no bushel should be allowed to obscure such light as the Army may shed '. As far as England is concerned, the facts related in this chapter seem to establish this con- tention ; the beginnings in France will be described from first-hand knowledge in the succeeding chapter.
Interesting as the scheme at Cannock Chase was, and still remains, as the first work of a definitely educational character attempted amongst the troops, it is probable that its achievements have been over-estimated. The standard of education amongst the young soldier-students was low, and, wholly admirable as were the aims, it is to be doubted whether much of the work was not rather over their heads : this certainly was the criticism made by more than one visitor, whose opinion could not be viewed as based upon educational indifference. It was also the opinion subsequently arrived at by the Northern Com- mand, in which from this time onwards vocational train- ing as distinct from general education began to receive almost exclusive approbation. Pressure was brought to bear upon the Cannock Chase authorities to modify their rather idealistic lines of instruction in a more practical direction, and the whole conception underwent a change accordingly. Much discouragement was felt by the pioneers, among whom must now be numbered Major- General R. H. Davies, Commanding at Cannock Chase, who had heartily supported the original scheme ; and the Master of Balliol raised his powerful voice in protest — but without avail. Lt. -Colonel Lascelles had now left the Northern Command to take up, at Lord Selborne's request, the administration of the very valuable Overseas Sailor and Soldier Scholarships Scheme, by which scholar- ships were awarded at English Universities and Colleges to invalided officers and men from the Dominions Forces, and for a considerable further period the Northern Com-
EARLY DAYS IN ENGLAND 15
mand, though carrying on and widely developing educa- tional classes amongst their A.iv. boys, ran them with a bias predominantly towards vocational and technical work.
But the ideas of general education which had prevailed at Cannock Chase did not perish, but were transplanted to the South through the energetic instrumentality of Captain (afterwards Lt. -Colonel) F. C. C. Egerton, who had been a battalion instructor at Cannock Chase before going to the 23rd Army Corps, the headquarters of which were then at Brentwood. Here in the late autumn of 19 1 7 under the warm encouragement of the liberal- minded military authorities of the 23rd Army Corps, Captain Egerton instituted a scheme on similar lines to that in which he had been assisting at Cannock Chase in the spring : he was fortunate in securing the enthusiastic co-operation of 2nd Lieut, (afterwards Major) James Shelley, in civil life Professor of Education at University College, Southampton, and of Captain (now Major) Russell Jones, who brought to the work invaluable previous experience with tutorial classes of the Workers' Educational Association. Thus early the different streams of educational experience were beginning to make their first contributions, and it is of value on that account to particularize. The classes at Brentwood, having through- out the essential element of support from the higher military authorities and conducted with the amazing zeal of untrammelled enthusiasts, flourished apace. The general public were aroused for the first time to a con- sciousness that something novel was afoot by a visit paid by the King, accompanied by Mr. Fisher, to see similar classes at Colchester actually at work. The body of troops known as the Independent Force, the head- quarters of which were at Canterbury, was now also including general education — eight hours a fortnight —
i6 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
in its programme of training for A.iv. soldiers and, further, endeavouring to provide for one lecture a week, in parade hours, to the older men.
By the beginning of 1918 it had become obvious to the military authorities at the Horse Guards that an attempt should be made to regularize these various endeavours so that systematization of the training programmes might be ensured. When one remembers the prodigious strain upon these military authorities, whose supreme task it then was to convert civilians with the utmost possible dispatch into soldiers sufficiently skilled to take their places in the fighting line, and when one reflects also upon the man-power situation in 1918, it might well be a matter of surprise that the responsible staff officers and the higher commanders, almost without exception, encouraged instead of repressing this addition of education, as affect- ing both the time and the personnel at their disposal. They conceded time in their programmes of training ; still more, they permitted officers, non-commissioned officers, and men — as far as possible — to engage volun- tarily in organization and instruction : at Cannock Chase, for example, sixteen instructors, supplied mainly from the existing personnel, were found for each battalion. It must be remembered that at the beginning of 1918 and for many months afterwards the whole of the work was entirely unofficial ; apart from the Army school- masters, who were carrying on their old work and assisting the new development to the very limited extent possible, not an officer, not a man, not a penny was officially authorized for educational purposes until August 29, 1918.
In February and March 1918, then, the problem before General Headquarters, Great Britain, was to secure some uniformity of training programmes and to make the best use of such educational volunteers as could be spared
EARLY DAYS IN ENGLAND 17
from work more essential militarily. Two systems of educational endeavour amongst A.iv. boys were in progress, in the North mainly vocational, in the South mainly general, the exclusive merits of each of which were being warmly advocated by its own organizers. To suppress both or to choose one was within the power of General Headquarters, Great Britain, but with consider- able— and it may be added, rather unusual — appreciation of their own lack of acquaintance with educational problems the military authorities, whose own leanings were, perhaps inevitably, in favour of practical rather than cultural activities, called in the Board of Education. A conference was held at the War Office in March 1918 between Major-General Sir A. L. Lynden-Bell, Director of Staff Duties, who was responsible for all training, Major- General H. C. Lowther, General Staff, General Head- quarters, Great Britain, and Mr. A. R. Ainsworth, private secretary to Sir L. A. Selby-Bigge, Permanent Secretary, Board of Education. At this the whole question — the whole, that is, as affecting A.iv. boys in Great Britain — was discussed, but without any definite decision being arrived at. Mr. Ainsworth was naturally unacquainted with the military exigencies ; and both General Lynden- Bell and General Lowther recognized the difficulties of dealing officially with a wholly unofficial development. Both were, however, entirely favourable to its encourage- ment as far as practicable, and it was agreed that an endeavour should first be made to secure official authoriza- tion for its continuance and co-ordination.
It is now necessary to turn to the Armies in France, the ideas of which, starting independently and based upon rather different necessities, were in the same month arriving at a similar conclusion.
\
CHAPTER II BEGINNINGS IN FRANCE
The prolonged struggles in the Flanders morass which marked the later stages of the third Battle of Ypres had left their mark on the Armies in France ; the casualities had been heavy, the physical trials almost incredible. The war had entered upon its fourth year, and, apart from the hectic hours of actually * going over the top ', nothing in the history of arms has ever been comparable to the drab monotony and weary labour of trench life. Moreover, it was obvious even to the least initiated that, relieved of the Russian menace on their eastern flank, the Germans would be in a position, in spite of the allied blows in 1917, to utilize a large number of fresh divisions on the Western Front in 1918. Whether these were utilized for offence or defence, the prospect before the minds of the troops was little to their en- couragement. To those who were responsible for their training and who were therefore of necessity concerned with the future, the situation at the beginning of the winter of 1917-18 seemed to be one which could not be completely met by purely military means. At all times it was the duty of Commanding and other officers to arrange for, encourage, and co-operate in the recreational side of regimental life ; but something beyond recreation, something which made appeal more directly to the mental interests was now demanded.
It is to the lasting credit of Brigadier-General (now Colonel) C. Bonham-Carter, then in charge of the Training Branch of the General Staff at General Headquarters,
BEGINNINGS IN FRANCE ig
that he first foresaw the nature of this demand and afterwards was indefatigible in his endeavours to satisfy it. In the autumn of 1917 — before it had become at all apparent — he attached to the Training Branch, an officer. Captain (afterwards Lt .-Colonel) D. Borden-Turner, whose allotted task it was to go wherever asked and deliver lectures to the troops. Lectures were in themselves no novelty ; they had always been recognized along with divisional concert parties and other entertainments as part of the recreational activity ; but they had been confined — perhaps naturally — to the back areas and to miscellaneous subjects. Turner's role was different ; his lectures were delivered to the fighting troops and were directed definitely to the imparting of such information on the current topics of the time as could be accurately gathered and safely given. No one better fitted for this difficult and important task could possibly have been found. To wide and unprejudiced knowledge of public problems, social, economic, and educational, he united an extraordinary power of capturing the attention of his audience. So successful were his lectures that before many weeks had passed it became impossible for him to meet single-handed the calls upon his time ; whilst still continuing, whenever possible, to lecture himself, he changed by irresistible pressure into an organizer of lectures.
The co-operation of the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion, which had done great service in its recreational work, was sought and willingly given in this new venture. Special lecturers or lecturers on special subjects were asked for and sent out from home and tours arranged in accordance with the demands and military situation to all the five Armies. Turner, working in close co- operation with the Association's authorities in Boulogne and they with their headquarters in London, was able
B 2
20 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
for the first time to secure some degree of system in the tours and to send to the various Corps the individual lecturer for whom they had asked or a lecturer on the subject in which they had expressed a special interest. It was his practice either himself to go to Boulogne and have a talk with each succeeding batch and explain the conditions generally or to ask some member of the Training Branch to do so. Such talks were of much value, as personal touch must always be ; moreover, lecturers frequently had special reasons for wishing their tours to include certain places or certain troops — wishes which could only be met if they had been expressed when the tour was arranged, that is, weeks beforehand — and these and other points could be discussed. It is interest- ing to me to recall that on one occasion when under- taking this duty for Turner, I renewed acquaintance with a lecturer from whom I had learnt history at Oxford, namely, Mr. C. Grant Robertson, then of All Souls, with whom I was nine months later to be in intimate association over the Army School of Education at Oxford.
Thd success of this initial organization of lectures, inc5mplete as it necessarily was, proved the existence of a demand greater even than had been suspected. The intellectual stagnation of the trenches, operating month after month on minds vivified and broadened by the fortuitous casting together into the cauldron of war of men of all ages, types, and experiences, produced a yearning after knowledge often as inarticulate as it was intense. Men often did not realize how much they lacked mentally until opportunity was afforded them to attend a class or take up necessarily neglected study. On the other hand, the longer the war lasted, the more difficult and the more arresting loomed the problems of the return to civil life. It was not merely Unnecessary
BEGINNINGS IN FRANCE 21
but injudicious to attempt to keep these problems for ever in the background ; the Armies were national, and even at this very early stage information as to resettle- ment could not be kept wholly distinct from educational activity. Yet obviously, with the sternest crisis of the war drawing near and the end veiled utterly from sight, it would have been the gravest folly to have turned men's thoughts consciously to the days after the war ; it was therefore felt to be wise to do no more than recognize that there would be, some day, an after- the- war existence and that that must to some extent be governed by the conditions in process of being called into being. Military policy and educational ideals fortunately went hand-in- hand ; on both grounds propaganda was rigidly eschewed, and lecturers on current topics were specifically asked to devote themselves exclusively to the imparting of un- biassed information. At a later date a perusal of German documents showed that, in so far as the enemy organized an army educational system at all, it was directed expressly — as one would have expected-#-to the exact converse, the forming of a desired (and usually erroneous) opinion.^
^ Cf. ' The importance of patriotic instruction, or, as we first called it, " the work of enlightenment among the troops," was summed up in the following sentences : " The German Army, owing to the spirit which animates it, is superior to its enemies and a powerful support to its Allies. At the beginning of the war the foundations of this spirit were enthusiasm and the discipline which had been inculcated during prolonged peace training. The three years of war have changed and enlarged these foundations. A comprehensible longing for home, family, and calling, may weaken its war resolution and take the edge off the will to hold out till the final victory is gained. The long duration of the war has also brought with it want and sacrifice in increasing measure, both at home and in the Army. The more these burdens oppress the spirit of the Army, the more must the foundations of fighting power be laid on conviction, sense of duty and definite resolve.
22 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
Valuable and popular as the lectures proved, they were far from satisfying the increasing demand for intellectual outlet. Men mentally starved could not rest content with merely listening ; nor can lectures ever be more than an adjunct to individual application. The stor}^ of the first definite system of classes in France (apart from the Dominions Forces, to which reference will be made in a moment) has one point of similarity with the first in England, but only one. Just as the work at Brocton originated in the opportunity for continued education by the A.iv. boys, so that at the 3rd Army Infantry School at Auxi-le-Chateau was at first designed for those known as the * immatures ' . There were many lads who had increased their ages for enlistment purposes, showing a valorous zeal of which the nation may justly be proud, and had then been drafted overseas in the normal military turn. Some of these were discovered and sent down from the front line, protesting ; others could not stand a strain, physical and mental, the like of which no generation of men has ever previously been called upon to\indergo. The lads were kept out of the line until they were 19, and in the meanwhile were formed into companies and attached to the Army Infantry Schools for drill and demonstration purposes. Each company was inevitably a difficult little command, for the most part either sullenly resentful of the drudgery without danger or nerve-impaired from premature experience, in almost every instance educationally neglected. The company at the 3rd Army Infantry School in the winter of 1917-18 was under the command of Major J. H. Bowe, a man of energy and ideas. He was a barrister in civil life and had had no professional teaching experience.
To supply this need is the task of patriotic instruction in the Army ".' {My War Memories, by General von Ludendorfi : Hutchinson, 1919 ; p. 460.)
BEGINNINGS IN FRANCE 23
but, concerned at the evidences of discontent and bore- dom and consequent low moral, he hit on the idea of starting an afternoon class for his 120 lads. He had no text-books, no equipment of any kind except that which lay naturally at hand ; a stable was used as a classroom and the door as a blackboard. The staff had similarly to be improvised ; he was lucky enough to find an elementary schoolmaster amongst the surrounding per- sonnel, a padre and an interpreter were gathered in, and he found a friendly R.E. Sergeant willing to give the lads some instruction in handicraft in the school buildings. The lads were excused attendance at parade to come, which was a very strong inducement, and the little school flourished amazingly. It proved three things, each of which was an essential factor in the whole move- ment, first, how much could be done with very slight material under the personal direction of an enthusiast, secondly, how greatly mental occupation improved the moral and soldierly efficiency of the students — a very powerful military argument in favour of its encourage- ment— and thirdly, the correlative of the second, how genuine was the need.
The idea had taken root in France as earlier in England '- the same happy expedient for interesting and occupying their men's leisure occurred to other officers of sympathetic imagination. Letters .began to be written home asking relations or friends to search forgotten shelves for old school-books ; requests to Turner for assistance in various ways began and steadily increased ; the Young Men's Christian Association began to systematize and develop educational work in its huts and canteens at the big Base Depots. By February 1918 a heterogeneous collection of little individual efforts, as different one from another as the conditions and characters of the places and people amongst whom they were instituted.
24 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
were in precarious and popular existence, and Turner was being inundated by letters, semi-official and purely personal, asking both for educational books and equip- ment and for the various Government publications on resettlement and social questions. He was also gathering together and registering information essential to the inauguration of any system, such as, primarily, the names of officers able and eager to lend a hand.
Rumours of what was in operation amongst the Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand Forces, more- over, were now crystallizing into fact. It is a matter of dispute which was the very first ; certain it is that the same idea was occurring independently to many in and throughout 1917. Dr. H. M. Tory, President of Alberta University and Director of Education for the Canadian Expeditionary Force, remarked to me many months later when we were discussing this question of origins, that ' it was in the air ' ; no one person, no one body of troops can claim the credit. All that can be said is that the Dominions authorities were far quicker than thgse of Great Britain to give the idea effect, and schemes for the New Zealanders and for the Canadians at all events were taking rapid, though still unsteady, strides whilst ours was kicking in the cradle. Turner accordingly wrote for information as to the Canadian work ; by an unusual but happy postal mischance the reply came to the personal attention of Sir Douglas Haig, who, sur- prised at the extent of the new developments and keenly appreciative of their possibilities, sent a direction forth- with to the General Staff to draw up a scheme of education for the troops, the objects of which should be ' {a) to give men a wider view of their duties as citizens of ihe British Empire, (b) to help men in their work after the war*. Thus at the very first opportunity presented to him and at a date when his mind must have been engaged
BEGINNINGS IN FRANCE 25
in absorbing anxiety as to the imminent launching of th^ great German onslaught, the generous- hearted, broad-minded Field-Marshal could spare time to extend his authoritative support to work outside the directly military sphere because it was obviously for the durable good of the men, and to grasp instinctively the dual nature of that work. It is a remarkable and characteristic incident which deserves to be long remembered.
Accident had thus smiled upon the young endeavour, and such a direction from the Commander-in-Chief enormously facilitated expansion : yet at the same time there was an almost comic side. The direction showed a confidence in the ability of the General Staff to tackle successfully any problem set it which was a little embar- rassing, and it was even referred to — and not by a critic — as a ' supreme joke *. However, through the hearty co-operation of Major-General G. P. Dawnay, then Deputy for the Chief of the General Staff in all matters of training and organization, Brigadier-General Bonham- Carter, who had watched the winter's progress with pride, was able to take action immediately ; an order was issued on March 8, 1918, informing the Armies and the Lines of Communication that Sir Douglas had directed a system of education to be organized, that officers were to be attached to formations for the purpose, and that a conference would assemble at General Headquarters on March 14. To this came not only those officers who had already shown ability and zeal in the work, such as Major Bowe, but also representatives of the Dominions Forces and officers who could speak as to developments in the back areas. I attended at General Bonham- Carter's request, for though my work then as a General Staff Officer was concerned officially only with training, I was led naturally to take the deepest interest in Turner's work and was constantly called into the discussions of its
26 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
problems and possibilities with him and General Bonham- Carter, our common chief.
The general ideas as to the kind of scheme which should be attempted were clarified by this conference, and progress was immediate. A sum of money was allotted from a private source to the purchase of books, &c. ; courses in various subjects were prepared with the assistance of any qualified person available, and the main task of finding suitable officers for attachment at any rate to Armies and Corps was energetically pursued. Without particularizing invidiously, the young institution was fortunate in securing for the principal places several very able officers who had had considerable educational experience before the war and now threw themselves whole-heartedly into their new tasks. The military situa- tion and the sudden extension of the demand for educa- tional facilities made the establishment of any organization other than makeshift practically impossible ; but it was the best makeshift which could be scraped together, and itxarried into effect its main purposes.
To look back, it is little short of astonishing that the German offensive, which began exactly a week after this conference, did not utterly sweep away all educational endeavour : that progress continued by fits and starts instead of evenly was inevitable ; that it continued at all was proof of the inherent vitality. In those moments of the sternest struggles of the whole war when the tension was locally relaxed, classes flickered into uncertain life : the very greatness of the crisis made mental relief a real necessity ; there was, for instance, the case, by no means unique, of a battery sending an eager request for books the day after it was withdrawn temporarily from being in action. Difficulties and delays were every- where, however, and if they got them at all, they almost certainly did not until after their return to the battle.
BEGINNINGS IN FRANCE 27
With infantry, some attempts were made to anticipate the needs of Divisions coming out of the Hne so as to have them suppUed for the longest period possible, but it is not pretended that this could often be arranged. The weeks immediately following the conference saw no more than the beginnings of many activities, broken ends, unfinished efforts. The ebb and flow of men through casualties made the work like building on sand, but almost the most serious difficulty of all was the finding of officers to act as educational organizers and, when found, to prevent their being diverted to military neces- sities— it was not until much later that education was ranked amongst these. But in spite of all the circum- stances, which could not have been more adverse, the young endeavour persisted in maintaining and strengthen- ing its hold.
The attachment of officers to formations for educational purposes, charged with the duty of arranging for lectures and organizing such classes as the circumstances made possible (however vague these directions it was hardly possible then to be more precise), did at any rate remove the work from its first purely arbitrary and local begin- nings and made possible an arrangement which was formally entered into in May. The Young Men's Christian Association was asked through its officials at Boulogne, Mr. O. H. McCowen and Mr. Z. F. Willis, with whom relations over lectures all the winter had been most cordial, whether, in view of the facilities the Association now possessed owing to the formation of its Universities Committee, it would be willing to develop its educational work at the Bases on the lines of the scheme prepared by General Headquarters. To this the Association gave a prompt assent, and it was accordingly recognized on May 17, 1918, as * the agent for carrying out the Army Education Scheme on the Lines of Communication',
28 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
The authorities of the Association undertook to appoint directors of education and instructors at its own head- quarters and at each Base, and to provide the places, books, &c., for classes : the military authorities undertook to facilitate, as far as it could be done without detriment to work, the attendance at classes of men desiring to take advantage of them, to endeavour to arrange for the partial relieving from ordinary duties of officers and other ranks able and willing to help with the instruction, and to do their best to meet any demands the Association might - make on them for the efficient conduct of the educational work : the attachment of education officers at the Bases for this duty was allowed. This arrangement, which was concurred in by the General Officer Command- ing, Lines of Communication, remained in operation until April 1919, when the work had admittedly passed beyond the scope of any voluntary association, and by the mutual consent of all concerned the Army undertook undivided responsibility for the education of soldiers everywhere. The willing and generous assistance given by the Young Men's Christian Association at its own expense throughout the early period was characteristically sustained, and in the two Directors appointed successively to its Head- quarters in France, Sir Henry Hadow and Sir Graham Balfour, both the soldiers and the Association found un- tiring and devoted friends.
The very heavy casualties and the consequent flow of drafts from Great Britain now forced to the front a new and even more important consideration. It was known by this time that educational work was proceeding also in England ; it was seen to be essential to the develop- ment of a genuine system, without which no recognition of the work done could be expected from educational authori- ties at home, that some co-ordination should be attempted between the Forces in Great Britain and the Armies in
BEGINNINGS IN FRANCE 29
France. Confessedly empirical as the start in France was, it was always planned with a view to the expansion into a real and adequate scheme for the period following the cessation of hostilities : it was, according to the order of March 8, to develop gradually to that end. It became important therefore to approach the War Office and make an effort to have the work in the Army viewed as a whole, just as the terms of the arrangement with the Young Men's Christian Association had expressly included a paragraph to secure general uniformity of method between the Lines of Communication and the Army Areas. It was also increasingly urgent to obtain official authorization for the appointment of education officers : without this, though they could be, and were, ' attached to the General Staff ', their position was entirely irregular and unsatisfactory.
I was in London on duty for a few days early in May and took the opportunity of discussing the situation generally with Mr. Fisher and Sir L. A. Selby-Bigge, and with various friends such as Professor John Adams, Principal of the London Day Training College, and Mr. Frank Roscoe, Secretary of the Teachers* Registration Council ; it was encouraging to find how much interest the idea of education in the Army instantly aroused amongst such men as soon as the general scheme was grasped. This visit was followed almost immediately by a second, directly educational. It was strongly felt that little could possibly be done until there was some one at the War Office definitely charged with the task of obtaining sanction for an authorized scheme, and it was urged upon me as a duty that if the War Office could be so persuaded I should be the one to undertake it. It was pointed out to me by General Bonham-Carter that I was now familiar with all the ideas of General Headquarters, France, upon the subject, that my time as a platoon
30 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
commander and an adjutant of a battalion in the trenches had made me cognizant of what was practicable in the infantry and what was not, and my time as a General Staff Officer at General Headquarters of Army organiza- tion as a whole, and finally that I had gained at least some definite knowledge of educational affairs and of educationists before the war. The dual experience of staff work and of education was rare — and so a staff officer among educationists, an educationist among staff officers, the most I could reasonably claim to be, was chosen for the task, which even then seemed capable of the most important growth. Turner obviously had the prior claim since, as far as it belonged to any one individual, the educational growth of the winter was due to him, but with characteristic self-abnegation he agreed decisively with General Bonham-Carter.
A second conference was accordingly held at the War Office on the afternoon of May 27, at which for the first time the two streams of Great Britain and France met together. Those present were the same as at the War Office conference in March, namely. General Lynden-Bell, General Lowther, and Mr. Ainsworth, with the addition of myself as representative of General Headquarters, France. I had had a long talk in the morning with Mr. Ainsworth and was secured of the support of the Board of Education for the views I was instructed to press. The real point was conceded ; General Lynden- Bell agreed to the appointment of a Central Committee, representative not only of the Armies in Great Britain and in France but also of the Board of Education and the Ministries of Labour and Reconstruction, according to the suggestion I had come to put forward, and also to obtaining my transference to the War Office to take charge. This was my first meeting with General Lynden- Bell, to whom education in the Army was to owe so great
BEGINNINGS IN FRANCE 31
a debt ; though it was not possible in a brief interview to appreciate, as I came to appreciate, his kindness, his chivalry, and his extraordinary perseverance, that inter- view was enough to teach me his immediate grasp of essentials, even in matters previously unfamiliar to him, and the generous breadth of his mind. General Bonham- Carter and Turner were both highly satisfied with my report on my return, and only one further obstacle remained. The financial authorities at the War Office, on being applied to, declined positively to sanction, or to ask the Treasury to sanction, the addition to the Staff Duties Directorate of a staff officer to run a scheme which was not officially in being : the retort that it would continue not officially in being until there was a staff officer to run it left them cold. They agreed, however, to the attachment — that happy way of evasion — of a regimental officer, a vastly cheaper affair. I was then asked if I were willing to drop my majority as a General Staff Officer, 2nd Grade, and come as an attached Captain — and no one acquainted with the Army will fail to appreciate the gulf between the two. The unofficial is so loose, the official so rigid that to convert the one into the other is always difficult ; in the case of the Education Scheme it was obvious that the obstacles would be enormous and to drop status so considerably was an ominous beginning for the Scheme, if not for the officer concerned. But there was no help for it ; both General Dawnay and General Bonham-Carter were anxious that I should be placed in charge, and so after a good deal of correspondence and a brief period of leave, doubly precious before undertaking so novel and arduous a task, I began work at the War Office, as an attached Captain and the. co-ordinating link between the educational schemes of Great Britain and France, on July 10, 1918.
CHAPTER III
WITHIN THE WAR OFFICE
The situation in which I found myself in those first days at the War Office was a pecuUar one. General Lynden- Bell, alone of those with whom my work now lay, had penetration sufficient to realize the potentialities of the new development, but he was always overburdened with work ; and it was immediately apparent that an attached Captain was not nearly important enough either to have direct access to him or even to sign any official documents. Everything therefore that needed to be done had either to be dealt with by the Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of the Training Section of the Staff Duties Directorate (S. D. 4), to which I was attached, or, if of real importance, to be taken by him to the Director of Staff Duties or his Deputy. This was the first thing that struck me about the War Office, the much greater formality that prevailed there than at General Headquarters : obviously in so huge an organization decentralization was absolutely necessary to prevent the Directors from being swamped with detail, but it was a serious disadvantage then to me. My Lieutenant-Colonel was entirely genial personally, but he was not impressed with the importance of education. He was delighted to have some one to take off from him the burden of the questions, increasingly numerous, con- cerning it, but his one idea was to impress upon me that I was there only to act as the secretary of the Central Committee which had been agreed upon and nominated, and that the sooner it was called together the sooner
WITHIN THE WAR OFFICE 33
these questions would be out of his way. A table was brought in for my use into the large room in which six other officers were working, in three pairs, on training matters, each pair using one of the three telephones : I had neither telephone nor clerk of my own, and it did not take long to discover that in the War Office short- hand-typists were difficult to obtain and, when obtained by a junior and attached officer, inefficient. The other six officers became rapidly pleasant friends, but they neither understood nor were concerned with the task before me : it was of an entirely different character from theirs, and for a good many days there was a significant solitude at my table in the midst of all the telephone rings and training interviews of the other six.
The first thing clearly to be done was to find out exactly what had transpired up to date as far as the War Office was concerned : the files were obtained after the usual requisitions and delays, and I was then able to learn that the one barrier which to soldiers has from long experience been the most impenetrable had already been set across the path of educational progress. The decision of the March conference at the War Office, namely, to seek for authorization for the continuance of the work amongst A.iv. boys in Great Britain, had been submitted in due course to the financial authorities at the War Office, one of the highest of whom had himself, so it was now revealed, rejected the idea with emphasis, writing that in all this educational work he * saw nothing but a device for creating more Staff Officers '. It was impossible then to guess 'that this particular economist would change from opponent to critic and from critic to supporter, that in the final engagements in the spring of 1920 education in the Army would owe much to his courageous expression of his belief in its benefits — and a more discouraging beginning could hardly be imagined.
c
34 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
So emphatic, however, was the rejection that it was not without its merits : it afforded conclusive confirmation of the opinion to which I had already come that it would be merely courting delay to approach the matter through purely official channels. Officially, my Lieutenant- Colonel was perfectly right ; I was at the War Office merely as secretary to the Central Committee which was to draw up an educational scheme co-ordinating the work at home and in France ; this scheme thus drafted was to be submitted to the War Office financial authorities, and, if approved by them, to the Treasury. It did not require much experience of Committees and Government Departments to realize that by such a procedure the coming into existence of an authorized scheme would be post- poned to the Greek Kalends : it was equally apparent that without authority educational work, however quickly it might spring up in locally favourable soil, would always wither at the first adversity ; authoriza- tion was the one demand which both Great Britain and France made not only with unanimity but also with urgency.
A careful consideration of all the circumstances con- vinced me that every effort should be directed towards the securing of three objects : first, to avoid summoning the Central Committee until it had at least a definite scheme on which to sit in criticism. From a practical point of view it was a hopeless Committee for the only duty with which it was specifically charged. Of the three military representatives. General Lynden-Bell and General Lowther were in London, but far too busy to give much time, and General Dawnay was in France and equally busy — none of the three naturally had any special knowledge of education ; of the four civil repre- sentatives, only those of the Board of Education and of the Ministry of Reconstruction (Mr. E. K. Chambers and
WITHIN THE WAR OFFICE 35
Mr. Arthur Greenwood) were then concerned with educa- tional affairs, and none of the four could be expected to make proposals of value on a matter necessarily inter- woven with Army life and administration. It seemed that the only possible path of progress to tread was to attempt the draft myself. Secondly, it was most desirable to have the Committee relieved of their responsibility for drafting and converted into an advisory body which from the varied experience of the members it was highly qualified to be. Thirdly, a road had to be discovered round the financial rejection. These three objects were ambitious ; an attached Captain had no right to pursue them, but the circumstances were unprecedented, the need was imperative, and the disparity between authority and task ludicrous ; in the official list of duties my description was * Captain, attached S. D. 4, in charge of the direction and co-ordination of the educational scheme of the Army '.
The week which followed was arduous in the extreme, but encouraging. I had been given, before coming to the War Office, a copy of the proposals of General Head- quarters, Great Britain ; I had also had valuable talks with the Education Officers attached to each of the Armies in France, and after these Turner and I had spent some profitable hours before my departure from France in discussing and reducing to paper the proposals of General Headquarters, France. The immediate task was to collate the two sets of proposals, and draft one scheme elastic enough to contain both and to apply to the Army as a whole. The differences between the two were marked, but simple : Great Britain was dominated by the exigencies of training, France by those of fighting. Great Britain accordingly confined its attention to such continued education for A.iv. boys as could be made an essential part of their training as soldiers ; France,
C2
36 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
surveying the needs of grown men, proposed that all its soldiers should, if they so desired, have facilities for improving their general knowledge or preparing them- selves for their return to civil life. Whilst I was engaged in drafting a unified scheme to give effect to these two sets of proposals the report of France for June arrived, showing a toted, as far as could be gathered — for 5 Corps and 7 Divisions had no time to make returns — of 6,046 students in classes (of which, 2,500 were on the Lines of Communication), 6,194 enrolments for classes in prospect, and 15,957 attendances at general lectures (the last two figures exclusive of work on the Lines of Communication) ; I therefore attached the report to my draft so as to convince any sceptics of the present reality and extent of the unofficial movement. Exactly a week after work was started at the War Office the scheme was completely drafted, and, as the Committee had not yet been sum- moned, the first object at least had been gained.
The second and third objects, to have the scheme ap- proved and put in operation, were — unless endless delays were to be endured — dependent upon the supreme authority at the War Office, namely, the Secretary of State for War. There was evidence in the files of Lord Milner's interest in the early English experiments : but he was, so far as I knew, little acquainted with the later developments. He had, however, been privately informed of my coming to the War Office in connexion with them and had expressed a desire to see me : and I had not been in S. D. 4 many hours before Lt. -Colonel Lord Stanhope, then his Parliamentary Secretary, came there. Principally Lord Stanhope wished to discuss the question of the training of the disabled, in which, from what he had seen of work in the New Zealand Hospital at Hornchurch, he was not only specially interested but had interested Lord Milner ; but as this was addi-
WITHIN THE WAR OFFICE 37
tional to a scheme not yet officially born — what was accomplished in military hospitals later is described in Chapter VIII — I had a general talk with him, and his kind co-operation on this and immediately succeeding occasions had a value which far outweighed his change of attitude in 1919. The next day, July 11, Lord Milner happened to meet me in the House of Lords and kindly spoke to me, affirming his wish to discuss the question of education in the Army as soon as he could find a moment. By great good fortune — though I was warned more than once that he might send for me, so that he had evidently not forgotten — that moment did not come until July 22, when everything was ready for submission to him, including a memorandum explanatory of the scheme.
It is exciting to be told that one can have a few minutes to offer that explanation of a large and intricate scheme on which its whole future may depend ; it is disagreeable to have to ask an overwhelmed Minister to read a fairly lengthy document himself. But Lord Milner is unlike ordinary men both in courtesy and resolution : I had twenty minutes with him, and it was enough. He was keenly appreciative and promised to take up the question personally — and the Committee changed then and there into an Advisory Body. It was a notable little interview and one with which General Lynden-Bell, whom under the access of importance acquired by an interview with the Secretary of State I was allowed to see, expressed himself entirely satisfied — greatly to my relief, for it had been difficult to avoid the pressure to call the Com- mittee together, and, not knowing him well then, I could not be sure that he would approve of the circumvention of the ordinary channels : but his desire to get something done was very real, and he realized at once that the only direct route had been taken.
It was also an interview, the hour of which had its
38 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
importance. It was essential that whatever was done for the Army should be done as a whole, and later on the same afternoon Lord Milner, who told me he had had little idea of the extent to which the movement had spread, had arranged to see the Rev. Basil Yeaxlee, Secretary of the Educational Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association, and Sir Henry Hadow, who was on the eve of departing for France to take up the appoint- ment as Director of Education for the Association on the Lines of Communication, in accordance with the agree- ment with General Headquarters of May 17. The terms of this agreement had, however, been to some extent misinterpreted by the authorities of the Association in London : at the farewell luncheon given to Hadow at their headquarters in Bloomsbury on July 17 it had been obvious that an entirely separate scheme for the Lines of Communication was in contemplation : and it had been necessary to mention that there was work proceed- ing in the Army areas and that all must be viewed as an educational unit, the incessant changing of men from one to the other alone making this essential. Moreover, the governing words ' agent for carrying out the Army Education Scheme on the Lines of Communication ' had been not infrequently omitted by the Association in giving publicity to its work, and the public were gathering the impression — keenly objected to by the Army — that the Association had initiated and was operating a scheme of its own everywhere. In England, it may be here noted, the Association at no time had any official connexion with the education of the Army. The two interviews of July 22 greatly assisted in clearing up a situation in which, it must be conceded, the position of the Association was inevitably very difficult. Its belief in the benefits to the men of an extended movement was whole-hearted, and as long as the movement remained unauthorized it might be
WITHIN THE WAR OFFICE 39
checked or even shut down : the Association was bound to press on without waiting on the uncertainties of the War Office. Mr. Yeaxlee, however, wrote to me the same evening to tell me that Lord Milner had expressed himself to him as anxious to set up a department at the War Office for the co-ordination of all the educational work and that I should be at the head of it. This, which was much more definite than Lord Milner had allowed himself to be to me in that hurried twenty minutes, not only was the highest encouragement as to the prospects of the movement but also greatly strengthened my personal authority in connexion with it.
There was now nothing further to be done within the War Office until Lord Milner should take action, but there was endless work of other kinds. There were the many needs of General Headquarters, France, to be met by such means as were available. Three in especial may be named : first, to negotiate with Major Lord Kerry's department of Military Intelligence (M. I. 7b) for the ex- perts working under him to write various brief and simple pamphlets on topics on which accurate information was eagerly sought by the men — the germ of the later Army Education Circulars : secondly, to make arrangements with the Stationery Office for the purchase and dispatch of text-books which were urgently required and for which France had a limited sum of money privately placed at its disposal : and thirdly, to begin to interest examining and other bodies with a view to securing recognition of studies undertaken. Correspondence had in all ways proved a devourer of time ; the presence in London of even one officer who knew the situation made all the difference. There were, moreover, innumerable people whom it was desirable or imperative to see. Under the first head came public men and prominentjedticationists of many kinds (and many at this date combined the two
40 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
characters) and I was fortunate in having many old friends among these. Under the second — to give but a few in illustration — were callers from the Navy, anxious to institute work to interest and occupy their sailors in the long winter evenings ahead ; representatives of various Government Departments who would be at least in- directly concerned, such as those of National Service, Munitions, Information, and Pensions ; Brigadier-General (now Major-General) B. F. Burnett-Hitchcock, Director- General of Mobilization, who was drawing up the plans for demobilization and with whom it was vital to act in co-operation ; Major-General Sir J. Seymour-Lloyd, Director-General of Recruiting ; Colonel H. S. Fleming, then responsible under the Director of Personal Services for the Corps of Army Schoolmasters ; Dr. H. M. Tory, the Bishop of Bathurst, and Captain E. C. Kirk, then engaged in organizing the educational schemes of the Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand Forces respec- tively. Even already the work had begun to concern, or interest, a wide circle : it was to spread unceasingly until it had come into relations, direct or indirect, with most sides of the national life. During these days too, the Education Bill was passing through the House of Lords, and it was desirable that the interest of the Army in that great measure should not go quite unrecorded.
During these days, again, the educational scheme was implanted in the Forces both in Italy and in Ireland and by action of the greatest simplicity. On July 17 Lt .-Colonel R. E. Crichton reported at the War Office on his way to take up the appointment of General Staff Officer in charge of training at General Headquarters, British Forces in Italy. I had studied under him at the Staff Course at Clare College, Cambridge, and later met him again at General Headquarters, France, and as he passed through the room he stopped to speak and ask
WITHIN THE WAR OFFICE 41
what I was doing back as a regimental officer. Only an hour or two before I had received from the typist copies of the complete scheme just drawn up ; I gave him one, warning him of course that it was only my draft and had been neither seen nor approved. He was deeply interested, having heard nothing of the movement, and promised to study it on his journey down to Italy and, if possible, to act upon it : he was as good as his word, called an educational conference soon after his arrival in Italy, and made a start immediately, so much so that it was possible to include an official educational establish- ment for the British Forces in Italy in the very first Army Order. The initiation into Ireland was due to an incident exactly similar. The carrier of the idea in this case was Major E. W. S. Balfour, who reported on his way through to be General Staff Officer, 2nd Grade, General Headquarters, Ireland : he had worked with me under General Bonham-Carter for a short time just previously and stopped to speak and inquire likewise. The Forces in Ireland, though not specifically included in the very first Army Order, demanded, and received, an educational establishment immediately that was issued, and have ever since, even in spite of the very adverse conditions prevailing in that country, taken an ex- ceptionally keen interest in the work. These two incidents serve to show, first, that Mr. Fisher's later description of the movement, namely, as ' an invention ' was well- chosen — it had the basic characteristic of an invention in that it was the idea which was everything, and as soon as that had been communicated to receptive minds the rest followed almost automatically — and, secondly, that at this stage it was all wholly informal and unofficial.
Notwithstanding, however, all this varied labour of indirect activity, together with the duty of giving such replies and assistance to the constant inquiries from
42 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
France as was possible, there could be no real progress apart from Lord Milner : Lord Stanhope, who had direct access to him, was a keen intermediary, but the days went on and nothing definite happened. I saw Lord Milner with Lord Stanhope again on August 9, but Lord Milner was obviously weighed down physically by the number and immensity of the responsibilities then resting upon him, and, though he was again entirely courteous and interested, it seemed too much to hope that he could find time or energy for this additional task. He asked a number of questions and repeated that he would try and arrange the matter. This was as before, and I came away a little disheartened, fearing that the regular channel, however tortuous and impeded, alone remained. Mr. Fisher had very kindly promised me that he would put in a word when I asked him to, and accordingly I had a talk with him on August 14 and told him the position ; on August 15 he went to see Lord Milner, but, invaluable as such a proof of co-operation was, in fact there was no real need. That great man had taken time to reflect and to decide, and when he had decided he acted : I should have been under no anxiety had I had a longer experience of his personality. He sent for me that after- noon, and in a long and memorable interview everything was settled and put in train. He had had a talk with Mr. Bonar Law, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, as to the financial aspect of the proposals, and had secured a general concurrence : that given, the rest lay within the power of his own authority.
At the first interview on July 22 I had been able to assure him that, though I alone bore responsibility for the scheme as drafted and submitted to him, that was in the main an embodiment of the two sets of proposals put forward by the two General Headquarters concerned : with the exception of certain extensions, to which of
WITHIN THE WAR OFFICE 43
course I drew his attention, it represented agreement and not controversy. Satisfied as to this, Lord Milner now accepted the draft as it stood and made it his own. Secondly, on July 22 I had stated that, though General Headquarters, France, had very kindly asked that when a scheme was sanctioned I should be replaced in the grading I had relinquished, the actual organization at the War Office had not been so much as discussed and that therefore one General Staff Officer, 2nd Grade, was all that could be put down as agreed upon ; I had ventured to observe that that seemed totally inadequate and, as Lord Milner had agreed, I had left with him a chart showing a suggested department under a Director of Education with the allocation of duties worked out in detail for a total of six officers and one civilian (who was to be an educationist of high standing), but added of course that this was entirely a personal suggestion. On August 15 Lord Milner accepted this also.
General Lynden-Bell was then summoned and told of the position reached ; his first question was to ask who was to be this new Director, and Lord Milner with a smile waved his hand towards me and said 'He is '. General Lynden-Bell had one criticism to make and made it with characteristic •clearness and energy, namely, that a small Directorate of Education would be, in his ex- pressive phrase, * frozen out * amongst the big and purely military Directorates, that the work hitherto had been associated with the respective Training Branches, and that in his opinion it would be in all respects better that it should still remain part of the Directorate of Staff Duties. After he had gone Lord Milner did me the honour of asking my opinion : that entailed the taking of a quick decision the consequences of which might have been very far-reaching. Not only the argument but also the personality of General Lynden-Bell, however, led me to
44 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
suggest that his advice should be followed : I had by this time seen enough of him to feel assured that he would never be a reactionary or oppressive chief. This one change was therefore made, and the head of the new department received instead of the sinjple title * Director of Education ' the rather cumbrous (and to civilian ears unintelligible) title of * Deputy-Director of Staff Duties (Education) '. This nomenclature was the single dis- advantage : never for one instant have I regretted the answer I gave to Lord Milner's question. Throughout the long battles in the War Office which lay ahead the great authority and wide experience of General Lynden- Bell were absolutely essential to the work of his new department (S.D.8): he left me unfettered liberty educationally, he let me take my stand behind him militarily : no superior could possibly have given greater trust and support to a Deputy than he gave to me, and not only the movement publicly but I myself privately owe him a debt of gratitude which can never be for- gotten.
This matter settled, Lord Milner sent for Sir Charles Harris, Assistant Financial Secretary to the War Office, explained the proposals, stating that he had spoken to Mr. Bonar Law who had been favourable, informed Sir Charles that he accepted them and instructed him to go into the necessary details of expenditure, &c., with me, and to write officially to the Treasury with as little delay as possible. It only remains to be said that these instructions were promptly, courteously, and efficiently carried out ; and, after the inevitable first Treasury suggestion, which for a few hundred pounds would have greatly weakened the whole organization and was success- fully resisted, full sanction was given. Exactly a fort- night after Lord Milner's action, on August 29, 1918, the educational scheme of the Army was officially inaugurated
WITHIN THE WAR OFFICE 45
and a new department set up at the War Office charged with its organization and control.
Official letters announcing sanction and laying down the establishments of officer and other ranks were of course dispatched without delay : an Army Order takes time, because every branch in the War Office which may be in any way concerned must be consulted before it can be issued, and in spite of the intervention of the Secretary of State on this occasion the rule could not be ignored or great confusion might later have resulted. But the Army Order 295 of 1918, issued on September 24, was directly consequent upon the above narrated proceedings and should therefore be described in this chapter. On September 7 and 8 I had advantage of spending a week- end at Sheffield with Mr. Fisher and the pleasure of receiving his warm commendation of the Scheme as set forth in the Army Order, then in proof ; on September 9 the Central Committee, now Advisory, held the first of its two brief sittings and, with General Lynden-Bell as its chairman, rapidly approved the proof-copy ; on September 17 it was submitted by Major-General (now Lieut .-General Sir) C. H. Harington, then Deputy-Chief of the Imperial General Staff, to Sir Henry Wilson with the brief minute ' For your approval. It is good ', where- upon Sir Henry, who had been kept informed of progress throughout at his special request, promptly wrote on it * Yes, this seems very good ', and returned it the same day for issue. So it came about, simply but strangely, that with hardly the alteration of a ,word the original draft of July 16 became the Army Order of September 24. I should perhaps add that it was not until July 23, the day after the draft had been left with Lord Milner, that I was given an opportunity of seeing the proposed recom- mendations of the Adult Education Committee of the Ministry of Reconstruction in their 2nd Interim Report :
46 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
all, it was satisfactory to note, had been covered, and it was not necessary therefore to make any alterations on their account.
The story of exactly seven weeks in the War Ofhce, July 10 to August 28, has been narrated in some detail, but it forms a rather remarkable chapter in the history of that institution, and the great part played by Lord Milner has never been sufficiently appreciated. It is but just that this should be known and acknowledged, for without him in all probability sanction would never have been obtained at all.
The Army Order of September 24 was the basis of all subsequent development, and it is necessary therefore to summarize its main provisions. In the first place it considered education within the Army in its effect both on the present and on the future — the present being mainly concerned with military efficiency and moral, the future with the needs of resettlement. Two distinct periods were therefore to be considered : {a) during the continuance of hostilities, [h) immediately after the suspension of hostilities and during demobilization. It was laid down that during [a) the primary function of the organization now created would be preparation for if)) * so that as soon as that period is reached a compre- hensive scheme of educational training may be put into operation without delay, based upon the general scheme of demobilization and the policy and requirements of reconstruction *. The objects during [a) were described as follows :
' (a) To raise moral, both indirectly by providing mental stimulus and change and directly by means of lectures on German methods, aims, &c. (6) To broaden and quicken intelligence, both by stimulating the desire for study and by giving men a wider realization of their duties as citizens of the British Empire.
WITHIN THE WAR OFFICE 47
(c) To help men in their work after the war by practical
instruction, as far as may be possible, in their
professions or trades.
With regard to (c) it must be borne in mind, first that
practical instruction is dependent to a far greater extent
than general education on the facilities locally available
and the continuance of classes, and, secondly, that
without a groundwork of general education its value is
limited. General and practical education should therefore
be regarded as complementary/
Five classes of soldiers were specified as needing separate consideration :
* (a) The convalescent.
(b) A.iv. men in Young Soldier and Graduated Bat-
talions.
(c) Command Depots.
(d) Special camps in Great Britain.
(e) Armies in the Field.'
It will be apparent that {a), (c), and (d) were additional to the proposals of Great Britain and of France : (a) was the beginning of educational work in military hospitals ; by (c) and {d) endeavour was made to hasten Great Britain on a general adult educational progress ' as soon as the military exigencies permit '. For (6) it was stated, ' it must be remembered that A.iv. soldiers are boys, and that the primary need of many is for a foundation of elementary education.' Education for them was made a definite part of their training, the hours taken out of parade hours to be a maximum of six per week and a minimum of 4 : one officer and 16 non-commissioned officers were allowed as a maximum for instructional purposes with A.iv. boys, * and such employment will be considered as part of their military duty.' For (e) the joining of classes was voluntary, but when men were relieved of duty in order to attend absence was to be treated as a breach of discipline.
48 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
Libraries, technical stores, educational text-books, and stationery were authorized on scales to be laid down ; special emphasis was laid on the need for exercising care in the appointment of officers as organizers and super- visers, and a caution was inserted as to the early demobi- lization of those for whom civilian posts as professional teachers were being kept open — this latter a point to which further reference will be necessary. The function of all lecturers and instructors was specifically described as being * to state facts and not to express opinions '. Educa- tional facilities were, whenever practicable, to be extended to Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps. The Scheme was to be brought to the attention of General Officers Com- manding-in-Chief in other theatres * so that its pro- visions may be put into operation generally as far as applicable to the differing conditions '. This paragraph concluded with these important words :
* It is considered most desirable that educational facilities on the principles laid down in the preceding paragraphs should be extended so far as military exi- gencies permit to all ranks wherever serving, so that there may be no greater inequality of educational oppor- tunity than the conditions of military service necessitate.'
Finally, the Scheme was to be put into operation in Great Britain, France, and Italy with the least delay possible, so as not only to take advantage of the work then being done but to enable experience to be gained on which future expansion could be securely based. Schedules were attached showing in detail the official establishments authorized. To state these very briefly, in France and Italy organizing officers and clerks were authorized for each General Headquarters, Army, Corps, Division, and principal Base area ; in Great Britain, where troops were differently disposed, one for General Headquarters, one for the Northern and Scottish Com-
WITHIN THE WAR OFFICE 49
mands, one for the Aldershot, Southern, Eastern, and Western Commands, one for the 23rd Army Corps, which had a great number of A.iv. battalions, one for each Division, and (when the work was extended to these) one for each Command Depot, each of which was the home of some thousands of men recovering from wounds and preparing to be sent overseas again, and for each special camp (such as Richborough) of 5,000 men or over.
It is obvious that all that was authorized therefore was. first and principally the idea, secondly, a handful of organizers, and thirdly, the supply of books, &c. : special Treasury grants had in fact been obtained for these last and for lecture arrangements on a greatly extended basis. No syllabuses were yet laid down ; all was left to indi- vidual initiative, and it was no more than the skeleton of an organization, but it was official, and all the senior organizers were General Staff Officers with all the power attached to that status described with such truth and humour in * the Great Tab Dope '. If you have an eg§ you can with perseverance hatch a chicken ; if you have nothing, perseverance is of no avail. By this Order came into being the official egg, and one of the most hopeful features was the series of delighted letters from many in Great Britain and France who had anxiously watched the process of laying, amongst the most cordial being warm expressions of satisfaction from the three Generals, Dawnay, Bonham-Carter, and Burnett -Hitchcock. The possibilities now opened up were thus summed up by a commentator in The Times :
* It is the narrowest view to assume that this work will merely be the means of breaking the monotony of war ; it is that, but it will be infinitely more. It is the basis on which all reconstruction must rest, for it will give the soldier, whilst he is still a soldier, the chance to prepare himself, mentally, and as far as is possible in the difficult conditions of active service, manually in
D
50 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
some cases too, for his return to that life of peace which must one day surely dawn. It will help those who were boys and are now men with information and advice as to their future ; it will provide the link between all the many schemes of resettlement and the minds of our virile youth. Above all, it will make the Army what every national Army should be, a living educational force in the life of the Nation. ... It is hardly too much to say that this Order marks a turning-point in the history of the Army ; for the first time it has been officially conceded that it is not enough for a Commander to ensure, as far as he can, the physical fitness and efficiency of his officers and men, but that he is responsible for providing them with mental facilities also ; it is, moreover, officially recognized, also for the first time, that the more intelligent a man is the more easily and quickly he can be trained to be a soldier. " It is difficult to train illiterate and ill-educated men quickly", says the Order. That is the military bearing of this great scheme, and that side naturally has paramount importance, to-day ; but the wider aspects have an importance for to-morrow which, if they are wisely developed, must receive fuller and fuller recognition, and will play an increasingly large part in the return of the young millions now at war back to the destinies of that greater national life which must emerge from the present cataclysm.'
It is to be seen to what extent these avenues of useful- ness, at the moment hardly more than ambitious aspira- tions, were explored and developed in the eventful months which followed.
CHAPTER IV THE FIRST PHASE
Not a day could be lost in getting the new Department (S. D. 8) into full working order if the many necessary arrangements and negotiations were to be concluded in time for the increased educational work which was certain to be a need of the winter. In spite of the extraordinary change in the military situation since the end of June, it hardly seemed possible at the end of August that there would be no more than a bare ten weeks before the cessation of hostilities ; but, even so, time was terribly limited if all preparations for later expansion were adequately to be made.
The two first needs were to secure office accommodation and to make the new appointments. As regards the first, the War Office itself was crowded beyond hope, but in a few days the little Department was installed in two flats at No. 2 Whitehall Court, which was convenient enough, until its expansion forced a migration early in December to Adastral House ; from this again we were moved in August 1919 to Cornwall House, finally to win lodgement as a permanency within the War Office itself on May 7, 1920. At Adastral and Cornwall Houses we had the advantages of adequate space and proximity to the Army Medical Departments, with which a later section (S. D. 8 c) had much to do, but in all other respects the locations with their distances from the War Office were a serious handicap : time was always an enemy in our work, and files often took days in transit. Further, the distances added greatly to the physical
D2
52 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
labours of organization ; for many months there was hardly a day on which it was not necessary to go once or several times to the War Oihce, either to obtain General Lynden-Bell's signature to letters of importance or to argue the necessity for some sanction or other with the financial authorities. The first was obviated to a con- siderable extent by the degree of confidence with which General Lynden-Bell honoured his Deputy ; but there was much he had inevitably to sign himself and there was constant need of his support or advice in dealing with military difficulties. The second was inherent in a Scheme in which there was not only incessant growth but no financial precedent for anything ; every point had to be argued and either conceded or rejected as a new affair. Writing minutes, however necessary, is always slow and never impressive : with every succeeding minute each side becomes more and more caustic and hardened to their view, and the days pass. It was far quicker, and far more yielding of result, to argue the case personally and to record only the result. In justice to a very able and indefatigable public servant it ought to be said that, in 21 months of almost daily argument, I never knew Mr. R. Paterson, chief of the financial department with which the educational organization had most to do, either give way on a bad case or refuse sanction to a good one. We came by degrees to a mutual understanding and a personal friendship which greatly facilitated our work and which it will always be a pleasure to recall.
With regard to the new appointments. Lord Milner had specifically expressed himself as anxious that they should be carefully made with a view to qualifications for this special work : ofiicers with purely military experience could not have pulled their weight at this stage. He gave me a free hand, asking only that I should show him the names of those selected. Under this per-
THE FIRST PHASE 53
mission and with the generous approval of General Lyn- den-Bell, upon whose shoulders everything done in his Directorate would be laid in military circles, some appointments without precedent were quickly put through. Even before the interview of August 15 I had begun to select, very provisionally, officers for the staff appointments in contemplation, and, favoured both by fortune and friendship, was able to submit the names to Lord Milner forthwith so that on the same day as Treasury sanction was received the Department was formally established in its two sections, the one to deal with educational and administrative questions under the immediate authority of the expert civilian, and the other with those of resettlement and reconstruction and the issuing to the troops of the information acquired by liaison with the various Government Departments con- cerned and the demobilization authorities. By a happy accident Sir Theodore Morison had just returned to England after service in East Africa, and. on the suggestion of Mr. Fisher, whose kind thoughtfulness was constant, had come to see me on August 10. Morison's interest in and knowledge of education, his long experience of departmental ways, and his wide personal acquaintance with prominent civil servants, made him an ideal head of this resettlement section, the work of which rapidly became of the very highest value.
The expert civilian, an absolute essential, was not so conveniently at hand. That appointment could not be filled by any ordinary expert ; it demanded rare qualities of tact and adaptability in addition to educational experience if the holder was to work in with an organiza- tion which was of necessity military and governed in all its operations by Army conditions. On July 17, after the luncheon to Sir Henry Hadow already mentioned, I had had a talk with him as to the work as a whole,
54
EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
mainly then with reference to the need of co-operating, and would have been blind not to have recognized at once not merely the breadth of his educational knowledge but also the charm of his mind. In forming the Depart- ment I thought immediately and only of him for the civilian post ; and it seemed also that the one circum- stance which rendered his coming difficult made it, if that difficulty could be overcome, the more to be desired, namely, the fact that he was now in France as Director of Education for the Young Men's Christian Association on the Lines of Communication. He had been there hardly a month and might feel a natural reluctance to leave so soon, but, if he came, his presence at the War Office, in addition to his outstanding distinction as an educationist, would go far towards ensuring that the work of the Young Men's Christian Association was unified with that of the Army as a whole — a matter of increasing importance and difficulty. On August 22, therefore, I wrote confidentially to him, explaining all that had transpired since July 17 and inviting him to join the Department. Hadow could not immediately drop the work on which he was engaged : it was im- portant in all respects that the threads he had been gathering together into a system should be taken up by an adequate successor. But owing to the generous attitude of Mr. McCowen, the Association's Secretary in France, Hadow was shortly afterwards able to write that he accepted the proposal with great pleasure. His release by the Association's Universities Committee, which had appointed him to the Lines of Communication, and the choice of his successor had to be arranged, but here Dr. D. H. S. Cranage, Chairman of the Universities Committee, met me with the same courtesy as he ex- tended on a number of other occasions ; Sir Graham Balfour, Director of Education for Staffordshire, was
THE FIRST PHASE 55
appointed in Hadow's place, and Hadow became Assistant Director of Staff Duties (Education).
Mr. Fisher had earher expressed the opinion that if I succeeded in persuading Hadow and Morison to come and serve under ipe, the Department would be ' a strong team '. This had now been accomplished owing to the remarkable willingness with which such men sank them- selves, their experience and seniority, in a zeal for the work : the original team was at any rate strong in the unity of its enthusiasm. Early in 1918 General Bonham- Carter had remarked that the real interest of this Army educational work was that it alone dealt with construction in a world where all men's minds were chained to the labour of destruction. To this, and to the influence of co-operating together in arduous pursuit of an ideal, must be attributed the wonderful spirit of harmony and good fellowship which, it is a pride to remember, from first to last marked the new Department. Without it little enough could ever have been achieved, for the work was inordinately strenuous and, until the authoriza- tion of the permanent Corps in June 1920, was a perpetual wrestle with the forces of disintegration. But throughout all laboured singly to an end and with a freedom of suggestion and an absence of rigidity which added greatly to the value of each officer's work and to the effectiveness of the whole. I cannot forbear here to thank those who spent themselves so whole-heartedly, both for the enthusiasm and for the friendship with which they laboured. All, not the few original members only but all who served in the Department, to the total number of 36 officers, between August 29, 1918, and May 29, 1920, pulled together in a singularly loyal unity of mind. There were many problems crying out to be tackled energetically, which ought to have been taken in hand months before had there been any organization to do it.
56 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
First, there was the task of providing the very limited machinery allowed, the selection, that is, of the best officers available for the staff and organizing appoint- ments now for the first time authorized — the administra- tive side of the work of organization. Secondly, there was the task for which the educational experience of such a man as Hadow was essentially required, namely, the drawing up and grouping of the subjects of instruction, the selection and ordering of the best text-books and books of reference in relation to these, and the establish- ment of standards and certificates of knowledge — in brief, the conversion of the local, go-as-you-please, do-the- best-you-can diversities of the past eighteen months into an educational system which should yet have in it sufficient elasticity to be adaptable to all the varied opportunities and circumstances of life on active service. That may be described as the purely educational side of the work of organization. Thirdly, there was the establishment of a definite system of information as to all the educational, social, economic, and industrial conditions which were arising out of the war — the resettlement side. These three principal tasks by no means exhausted the field : there was the very pressing need to expound to military and public alike the purpose and general principles of the new organization — a need which Lord Milner had himself impressed upon me, entrusting me with per- mission to give such publicity to the work as I could,, a permission which enabled me to address audiences either of soldiers or civilians without having to obtain further sanction. There was also the necessity for calling into existence a much more extended lecture system than had yet prevailed ; and, finally — of big questions — there was the task of linking together by all means possible the education of the Army with that of the nation at large.
THE FIRST PHASE 57
The Central Committee^ was still in existence and did meet again once for twenty minutes on October 24 ; there was also now called into being a large body of distinguished advisers, who never met. It was obvious that, even if they had consisted of people able to give time to meet constantly, no Committees or other similar bodies could possibly control an organization, responsi- bility for which had necessarily to devolve on the military authorities. But it would be wrong to suppose that the usefulness of these two bodies was purely illusory : as bodies they were ineffectual, but the individual members were often of great assistance. The nominal existence of the Central Committee gave us accredited friends in the four Ministries represented, with which our work was from now onwards increasingly concerned, and meant that Morison or myself could go with a claim for advice or help to a definite and interested person and not generally to an uninstructed Ministry. The four repre- sentatives, Mr. Henry Clay (Labour), Mr. Arthur Green- wood (Reconstruction), Mr. E. K. Chambers (Education), and Major R. Mitchell (Pensions), were frequently applied to and never in vain. The advisory body of educationists was admittedly more nebulous, but similarly we were enabled, when occasion arose, to write to or see a member — as an institution introduced, so to speak, and not as a stranger ; and from several members, notably Sir Robert Blair and Mr. Albert Mansbridge, the latter of whom was a little later able for a time to give actual and most valuable assistance as a civilian instructor, we were secured of important co-operation. There was one amusing epilogue to the nomination of this advisory body : after it had been in being some time it was felt by a certain society that the claims of science to repre- sentation had been insufficiently heard, and we were asked if two scientists might be added. Neither Mr. Fisher,
58 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
who with Sir John Struthers, Secretary of the Scottish Education Department, had made the nominations, nor the Department had the sHghtest objection : two scientists were accordingly nominated and after nomination invited to confer with Hadow. They came, spoke generally awhile and departed with satisfaction, but just before departing each called Hadow aside a moment and warned him in an undertone against the scientific principles of the other. They neither helped nor hindered us any more.
The first of the main tasks, the selection of personnel, was at the first initiation a matter of no great difficulty. General Headquarters, France, had under Turner's care already unofficially proceeded far in * attachments for edu- cational duties ' ; and all that had to be done for France was to convert all who had given proof of their abilities and zeal for so many months into officially appointed persons. One of the earliest visual signs of authorization came when those Education Officers who had striven hard in anomalous capacities began to call in at S. D.8, either on liaison visits or on leave, dressed in the insignia of the General Staff — a slight enough change outwardly but one of deep significance militarily. For the troops in Italy we were able, at their request and by Turner's hearty co-operation, to send to their General Head- quarters to be Lt .-Colonel Crichton's educational deputy a very capable officer. Captain D. H. McGregor, who had been acting as Education Officer to a Corps in France and knew therefore the general lines and possibilities of the work : it was satisfactory many months later to find Lord Cavan himself writing to beg that the demobilization of an officer who had proved so valuable to him should be deferred as long as possible. The remainder of the educational personnel in Italy were found by Lt .-Colonel Crichton and Captain McGregor from qualified and keen officers already with units there.
THE FIRST PHASE 59
In Great Britain the situation was similar to that in France, with one important exception : much work had been proceeding and many officers had, as it were, selected themselves ; there had been no one at General Head- quarters to correspond with Turnen Great Britain therefore lay still in its two halves, proceeding dissimilarly, and the first need was to place a suitable officer under General Lowther at the Horse Guards to co-ordinate the two one with another and both with the theatres of war. I had been on the look-out as far as possible throughout the weeks at the War Office, but the post demanded a variety of qualifications it was not easy to find combined : the officer needed to be well acquainted with military conditions in Great Britain or he would be unwelcome at the Horse Guards, and he needed also to be well acquainted with civil educational conditions and institu- tions in Great Britain if the co-operation of the latter was to be secured. I was fortunate at last in finding in Major S. G. Cook not only a Territorial officer of consider- able service whose degree of fitness had occasioned his retention in a battalion in England, but also one who in civil life was Director of Education for Huntingdonshire. The dual qualification made him thoroughly acceptable to General Lowther, and the industry with which he worked until demobilized in the middle of 191 9 in every other way fully justified his selection. For the rest, officers were in the main confirmed as in France : Captain (now Major) H. J. Stibbard, an officer of much energy, took the North, Captain Egerton the South ; the first with two Commands to organize and the second with four had each obviously to attempt the impossible, but it was a beginning, a skeleton round which growth was soon to form.
The second task, the educational side, was unavoidably delayed awhile : it was the beginning of October before
6o EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
Hadow could be freed from the Lines of Communication, and he had thrown himself into his difficult work there with such voracity as to make some rest imperative. Pending his arrival, the decks were cleared as far as possible for immediate action : much preliminary negotia- tions as to books and suggestions of grouping of subjects were put in hand, but until reinforced by an eminent educationist acquainted with the limitations under which Army work had to be done I did not feel justified, in spite of the urgency, in placing the largest orders with the Stationery Office, through which as a Government Department it was obligatory upon us to work. The scale upon which action, when decided upon, had to be taken necessitated careful decision, for at least 50,000 copies were needed as a first edition of any book to be in general use. This meant special printing, conferences with publishers, arrangements with the Paper Controller, much additional work for the Stationery Office which throughout the ensuing year laboured loyally to supply the new needs but with inadequate means, entailing constant delays. The tremendous urgency, as the Armistice loomed suddenly large, was obvious ; but our financial means were still too limited for our needs and it seemed wiser to spend a few essential weeks in building a structure educationally sound than to rush into hetero- geneous ill-considered (and probably uneconomical) orders. The fault lay further back, in delaying the creation of any organization until the last ten weeks of the war. That, however, was irremediable : all that could be done now was to expedite the building to the utmost extent possible.
By the end of October all was in train : the Stationery Office was entrusted with such orders for books and stationery as our finances allowed ; the supply depart- ments with corresponding orders for such technical
THE FIRST PHASE 6i
equipment as seemed feasible. Scales of issue were drawn up — the real spur lay in the knowledge that in the then prevailing conditions of labour orders took weeks and. even months to mature ; and the need was necessarily- greatest in the three months immediately following the Armistice. It was not until January and February 1919 that supplies began to be adequate, and then transport conditions added several weeks at least before they actually reached the units by which they were insistently demanded. This belongs to the period of the second phase, to be described, but it cannot be understood without explanation here. In all our work from first to last we were compelled by circumstances to run a losing race against time. Had the authorization of August 29, 1918, been given in January, then there could and would have been created an adult educational system as sound in structure as it was unparalleled in extent : as it was, much was indubitably done to bring benefit, definite and indefinite, to hundreds of thousands of men ; it was the knowledge of how much more might have been done which checked all satisfactory contemplation.
Books and stationery were ordered ; supplies were obtained in response to a generously answered request to schools for gifts and in a hundred other ways, limited only by the insistence of the Treasury of our dealing always through the Stationery Office — a limitation which could only partially be evaded — ^so that of instructional books alone either delivered to the troops or then in transit the figures up to January 22, 1919, were : France 137,089, Great Britain (including hospitals) 55,934, Italy 11,095, Ireland 16,774, various special camps, schools, &c., 24,584 ; total 245,476 — and as later figures will show this was but the first trickling supply. This is to anti- cipate, but the books, divided into instructional books and books for reference and library purposes, were
62 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
naturally chosen with close regard to the grouping of subjects, which, together with the negotiations with the Universities and other learned and professional bodies, were almost entirely in Hadow's sole charge. It will be necessary to dwell in more detail later upon this educa- tional side of the organization ; but the foundations laid by Hadow in the autumn of 1918 proved first to be durable, and finally, "with amendment and addition but no alteration of general plan, to be those on which the permanent building could best be erected. To him the educational credit must chiefly be ascribed, and Major A. F. Basil Williams, Captain H. N. Davey, and Captain F. W. Goldstone, then M.P. for Sunderland, toiled away devotedly over all the administrative details.
The third task, the resettlement side, belonged to Morison and his invaluable assistant. Captain R. H. Gretton : their functions were primarily, Morison's to collect information, Gretton's to collate and issue it. The first Army Education Circular, issued on October 18, 1918, opened with this explanatory paragraph :
*The object of the Army Education Circular will be to convey to Education Ofiicers information of a general kind bearing upon their work. It will be issued, not at regular intervals, but as frequently as may be necessary. It will be divided usually into two parts. Part I containing announcements of arrangements made by the War Office in regard to Army Education with other Departments, with educational authorities at home, &c. ; Part II will take the form of a memorandum upon some branch of the work of Education Officers, or some question likely to arise in their relations with the troops, including adequate summaries of official reports on matters of reconstruction and resettlement, together with such in- formation as is available to supplement the official reports.'
This Circular, which was in fact issued about every three weeks, was distributed very widely from the first
THE FIRST PHASE 63
and, as the demand continually increased, to every unit in the Army at home and overseas. It was very soon found that it filled a big gap : it supplied officers with the means to answer — as far as answer was at all possible — the innumerable questions which they were increasingly being asked by their men : it provided almost the sole means, other than by special orders or proclamations, of reaching the minds of the men in the Army. As early as September 19 Dr. C. Addison, then Minister of Reconstruc- tion, had expressed to me his warm appreciation of the assistance the Department could be to his Ministry in this direction ; and, as soon as the Circular began to be known, applications were constant from the various Ministries and other institutions to insert in it the information they wished known to the troops. For example. Sir Robert Kindersley saw in it a means of bringing the War Savings Association to their notice : it was constantly used by the Ministry of Labour in particular ; Sir Robert Home contributed to it himself and one Circular (No. 19) was, according to an official of that Ministry, ' the only docu- ment he had seen which gave an idea of the work which had been done by it '. (Sir Henry Wilson, told of this, laughed and said ' the chit ought to be framed '.)
Furthermore, the Circular enabled us to some extent to avoid the slowness of the ordinary permeation down the chain of command : orders could not be included in it, 'but it was possible to let all know simultaneously certain desired information. Thus Circular No.- 3 con- tained as a section of Part I the two messages to Educa- tion Officers which the King and the Queen were graciously pleased to give me to send, and as Part II a long memo- randum on ' the Probable State of Various Industries after the War ',• being information obtained, as it was stated, ' with two objects in view (i) It will be useful matter for lectures on resettlement, (ii) It will indicate to
64 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
Education Officers certain broad divisions of industry to which men's minds may usefully be turned, and certain others from which men undecided as to their future should be diverted ' . It is perhaps desirable to emphasize the fact that the only point of view taken was the pros- perity and employment, or the reverse, likely to be experienced : it was not easy to keep such memoranda to the unbiassed truth, as far as that could be ascertained, but that this was successfully accomplished is, I venture to think, proved by the great demand for the various Circulars and the entire absence of all complaint as to any partiality ever exhibited towards any trade, pro- fession, or school of opinion. Circular No. 4 followed this up by issuing information on * Trade openings as related to Army Education Classes ', and by an account of the part to be played in resettlement by Local Advisory Committees, contributed by the Ministry of Labour. Circular No. 13 took the form of a complete catalogue, arranged under subjects, of all books obtainable under the Army Education Scheme. Such then was the main work of the resettlement section (S. D. 8b), though the time of both Morison and Gretton was also taken up with answering countless questions of insufficient general interest to win place in a Circular,^ and of beginning the important investigation into the best avenues of employ- ment for the soldier on discharge, work in which they afterwards found truly admirable successors in Turner, Major W. de B. Wood, and Major J. Q. Henriques.
Of the other tasks, the need of explaining the purpose and general principles of the organization fell of necessity almost entirely upon my shoulders. I was fortunate in having as personal friends Brigadier- General R. W. Hare
1 I remember once finding Morison replying to an inquiry as to appointments to the Chinese Salt Commission, and wondering what he was to be asked next.
THE FIRST PHASE 65
and Brigadier-General Hugo Watson, Commandants then of the Staff School, Cambridge, and the Senior Officers' School, Aldershot, respectively, and the warm apprecia- tion of both enabled me to address the students at each — an all-important matter since to secure the co-operation of Commanding and Staff Officers was vital, but difficult since in each audience were soldiers with whom I had worked in a junior capacity. I found in these addresses and many others of a similar character a uniform apprecia- tion by officers of the purpose and principles of the Scheme when explained, though often an unnecessarily grave estimate of the difficulties, and I hardly ever found an instance — and it is really remarkable for its absence — of the smallest jealousy on the part of any senior regular officer of the suddenly elevated Colonel : they seemed to realize that he was no rival, his field different, his reign temporary ; they endured, they were even exceedingly cordial to him ; and I am entirely grateful for their many encouragements.
The most arduous of these early addresses to soldiers was on October 18 ; we had been endeavouring to urge General Headquarters, Great Britain, to start educa- tional work for the very large numbers of recuperating men in Command Depots, as the Army Order authorized them to do ; and to make a beginning I obtained leave to go down to Shoreham where there were two Command Depots close together and to address the men. I had an audience of about 50 officers and 6,500 men assembled in a chalk-pit, and shall not readily forget seeing the apparently endless files of men marching from their various hutments towards it. Fortunately the day was dry and clear, and the huge assembly managed to hear and be keenly interested. From the Senior Officers' School really originated an idea which was speedily developed : an appreciative officer said to, me after my
E
66 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
address that most officers would gladly lecture to their men if given any material on which to base their remarks. To meet this a series of what we called ' Outline Lectures * was instituted : a great variety of subjects were eventually included in the notes, suggestions, or sometimes complete precis, written by many people, and were in fact used on a considerable scale by regimental officers.
The extension of the lecture arrangements and the bringing of them, as far as was practicable, into definite relation to the educational system was also undertaken at this date. A committee was established on which for the first time all those primarily interested in supplying either the lecturer or the audience were represented, namely, the War Office, the Admiralty, the Royal Air Force, the several Dominions Forces, the Young Men's Christian Association, and the Victoria League. It took time before arrangements could be perfected to suit all the above, with their respective and sometimes confficting claims and interests, but in these weeks the foundations here also were laid on which a broadly based system was to continue with increasing success throughout the greater part of 1919. It became a good example of one kind of co-operation which has always seemed to be specially desirable, that of the three Services of the sea, land, and air. It became also a good example of co- operation equally desirable, that of the forces of the Empire, and that it was of real value in this latter respect was shown by the letter sent to us by the Australian Educational Service at the conclusion, owing to repatria- tion, of our dispatch of lecturers to the Australian Forces ; this ran :
* I desire to thank you warmly for the kindness shown by your Department in introducing to our Education Service so many learned and eloquent men whose lectures to the Australian troops have been of vast interest to
THE FIRST PHASE 67
them and will, without doubt, be of great benefit to them in their future careers.'
To Major Frank Fox, of the Morning Post, and later to Major H. M. Holland, is due the great success, after many difficulties, of the lecture system, which gradually drew in the very large number of public men, speakers, and lecturers of all sorts, who were eager to help in the work of interesting the troops at home and overseas.
One further beginning must be mentioned as belonging to this time of feverish activity, during which the actual work in units, camps, and bases continued under the interrupted and various conditions necessitated by the closing stages of the great battles — and that is the linking up of education in the Army with that of the civil educa- tional authorities. Paragraph 11 of the Army Order had spoken of the co-operation of these as to be cordially invited ; and several conferences had taken place between the Board of Education, the Scottish Education Depart- ment, where Sir Jojm Struthers was a warm sympathizer, and ourselves as to the best means of converting this desirability into fact. In many parts of Great Britain Local Education Authorities had shown a patriotic desire to assist troops stationed in their areas ; but their power was seriously limited by considerations as to what they could spend on such migratory visitors. The conclusion to which conferences brought us was that, provided the financial difficulty could be overcome, real co-operation could be established. A financial need meant a further appeal to the Treasury, but events had been moving so rapidly in the general policy of the organization that that was in any case inevitable. These events belong in their consequences to the opening of the second phase of the Scheme and are therefore treated in the succeeding chapter. Of the first phase, the period succeeding authori- zation and preceding the Armistice, little further can be
E2
68 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
said than that it was the period in the War Office of foundation-laying, done necessarily in a hurry and with resources limited at every turn, in the Field of the same broken starts and continuing desires as before, but now animated throughout by a consequence and a degree of ensured stability which enabled the fragmentary organiza- tion to feel its way forward with steady perseverance and high hope.
CHAPTER V THE COMING OF THE ARMISTICE
At the beginning of October 1918, though few could foretell how quickly the enemy was in fact to crumble, it was apparent that the end of the war was in sight. The following are extracts from a letter received from Turner on October 5, just after Hadow had left France to join the Department :
* I have had very satisfactory conferences within the last few days with education officers of ist and 2nd Armies. Yesterday I met about 300 officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and men who were all helping more or less in different formations in First Army. We had an enthusi- astic meeting.
The one great need they feel is a permanent staff of instructors — they all press for that. Hadow will tell you of his experience with C.-in-C. and A. G. Now can you get W. O. to move in the matter ? It is really very important as the next stage in the show. . . . People keep asking when they are to get more motor-cars. I wish you could give me some idea when these books may be expected in quantities. ... A most important thing is an early statement in regard to the question of emigration.*
On the same day, crossing this letter, I had written to Turner :
' There have been two rather important developments just recently. In the first place I have had two talks to Lieutenant-General Goodwin [Director-General, Army Medical Services] who is very anxious to encourage the work and to recommend to the A. G. that we be allowed to put officers in Convalescent Camps, General Hospitals, and Orthopaedic hospitals : secondly, I happened to meet the Military Secretary [then Lieutenant-General Sir F. J.
70 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
Davies] this morning — and the opportunity was so favour- able that I suggested to him that one of our greatest needs at present was for some officer Instructors under our Organizing Officers. He expressed himself very favourably inclined to the idea in view of the great number of surplus officers at the present time, and I hope to fix up some arrangement with him next week. If we can get this it will be an immense boon to the continuity of teaching. I do not think there is much chance of our getting N.C.Os. but officers will be better still. Part of my activities just lately has been concerned in drawing up a memorandum for the Home Committee of the War Cabinet on the question of apprentices, and this morning I saw Sir R. H. Brade [then Secretary to the War Office] for the second time on this point, and I think it will be left very largely in our hands to arrange what we can. . . .'
These two letters are good examples of the corre- spondence passing continually between Turner and myself : between us — even in spite of the inveterate tendency of General Headquarters to be exasperated at the stupidity of the War Office and of the War Office to be annoyed at the super-intelligence of General Headquarters, a tendency inevitable and transferred as one is transferred — there remained throughout the happiest of mutual confidence, enormously facilitating progress. The letters are also good examples of the variety of important questions always on hand. Turner's reference to Hadow relates to the latter's entertainment at dinner before departure by Sir Douglas Haig, who listened and spoke with the same appreciation as he had shown in March. The reference to motor-cars relates to the difficulty Education Officers were experiencing in visiting the units for whose educa- tional organization they were responsible ; they had no cars and had to make their visits fit in with those of Staff Officers who had — this deficiency was supplied : ' a very great achievement ', wrote Turner on October 17. The reference to emigration shows the interest of the
THE COMING OF THE ARMISTICE 71
troops in resettlement matters and also our difficulties since we had been specially asked by the Colonial Office to avoid the subject of emigration, on which there was then no policy. The two references in my letter to General Goodwin and to the apprentice question relate to questions which grew to such importance that they will require separate description later.
These extracts are quoted, however, principally because they deal with the need paramount at this period. The Army Order of September 24 had authorized a frame- work of organization ; except for A.iv. soldiers it had authorized no instructors anywhere. The Education Officers had to take classes themselves, engaging thus in work which, however valuable, limited their time for organization and for visits to any and all officers for the purpose of persuading them to do likewise in their own units. Successful as they had been, such a plan could never be more than a makeshift. Furthermore, a great extension of the work was gradually taking place in Great Britain owing to the wording of the Army Order which had said under {e) namely. Armies in the Field : * All officers and men on active service may apply for educational training '. This had been so inserted in accordance with the proposals of General Headquarters, France, but as soon as the Army Order was out, officers and men in Great Britain began to say * Surely we too are in the field on active service ' : the War Office was applied to for a ruling and gave it in agreement with that view. Thus rather unexpectedly General Head- quarters, Great Britain, whose representative had ap- proved the Army Order in proof, found the whole adult movement, and not that with A.iv. soldiers only, officially extended to them. General Lowther used to state, now and later, that its fate would be that of the frog who wished to be as large as the ox, and theoretically he was
72 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
absolutely right. It would have been far better if exten- sion could have come gradually ; but practically there was no alternative between invidious discrimination and universality. It was impossible to say — especially after the Armistice — to men in Great Britain that they were not to be allowed the same educational advantages as were open to their brothers in France, Italy, Salonika, and Egypt — the two latter having taken advantage, as hoped, of the invitation contained in paragraph 14 of the Army Order as to ' equality of opportunity '.
From every point of view, from the state of the war and from the progress of the movement, by October the framework of organization, a minimum even at the in- auguration, was becoming ludicrously inadequate for its task. * Now can you get W.O. to move in the matter ? ' was the question. The mountain had been moved by the mouse — through the instrumentality of the lion — in August ; would it be easier or more difficult to move it a second time two months later ? But for the renewed instrumentality of the lion, though the War Office would undoubtedly have yielded to the unanswerable case which could have been presented, it would have yielded slowly, and time was now not merely racing but scattering all prophecies like a whirlwind. On October 8 I was able to write again to Turner :
* . . .'Yesterday I had nearly three-quarters of an hour with Lord Milner, in which he decided that the time has now come for us to extend beyond the framework which has been organized, and he asked me to put up to him direct, so that he could take it up to the Treasury, what I considered was really needed to turn it from a frame- work into an organization. I shall probably be able to get authority to attach a body of Instructors to each Organizer, and also to get whole-time N.C.O. Instructors for the Young Soldier Battalions in England. In addition I propose to try and establish schools for Instructors.
THE COMING OF THE ARMISTICE 73
At any rate one has come to a point when it is wise to open one's mouth wide and ask for what one really thinks is necessary. We discussed a good many subjects connected with the very important period immediately following hostilities, and I think attention will be directed to the solving of some of the questions which must be solved before we can make any satisfactory plans for the demobilization period. . . . Lord Milner told me that he thought there would be no difficulty about money now. . . .'
With regard to planning for the demobilization period, our insuperable difficulty was that it was impossible to obtain any accurate estimate of its length : at one time we were told that it * may last not more than three months ' — but no one could make any prophecy which could be regarded as sufficiently definite to be a basis for plans.
The memorandum which in accordance with his in- structions I submitted direct to Lord Milner on October 10, with the warm support of General Lynden-Bell, whose position as my official chief I had neither reason nor wish to forget, contained ten proposals, w^hich may be summarized as follows :
1. A slight enlargement of the framework already authorized, namely, the appointment, first, of Education Officers (organizers) to the important Bases of Trouville, Dieppe, and Marseilles, which had been previously omitted, and, secondly, of six Staff Officers for the six Commands in Great Britain instead of the utterl}^ inadequate two.
2. Authority to increase the establishment of the Department (S. D. 8). We original eight members were all being worked to the point of exhaustion and being
, compelled to forgo or postpone important tasks.
3. The appointment of Education Officers to Hospitals and Convalescent Camps — as previously discussed and agreed with General Goodwin and the Ministry of Pensions.
74 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
4. The formation of an instructional establishment, namely, the giving to each Education Officer of 10 officer-instructors to be utilized by him according to the circumstances ; and the definite appointment for educational purposes only of i officer and 6 non- commissioned officers to each Young Soldier and Graduated Battalion. Each Company of A.iv. soldiers in other units (and there were a number, at the moment educationally neglected) to have i non-commissioned officer for educational purposes.
5. The establishment of two Schools of Education whose function should be the holding of * short intensive courses in the methods and means of giving instruction '.
6. Authority for the expenditure of an additional sum not exceeding £50,000 on technical apparatus and technical books.
7. Authority for the expenditure of an additional sum not exceeding £100,000 on books and stationery.
8. Authority for the expenditure of a sum not exceeding £150,000, to be allocated to the various military areas in Great Britain (Ireland was later included in this grant), in accordance with the facilities afforded by the Local Education Authority concerned : no sum to be payable to an Authority for furtherance of the scheme of the Army until the expenditure had been scrutinized and approved by the Board of Educa- tion (or the Scottish Education Department or Depart- ment of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in Ireland, as the case might be).
9. Authority for the establishment of at least one education hut in each divisional area in France and Italy.
10. Formation of an educational establishment for Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps * which, mutatis mutandis, should be similar to that of the Army '.
These proposals were wide, but during the foundation- laying in September they had almost all been discussed and provisionally agreed with the War Office Departments or the Ministries concerned. Of (9) on October 15 I had to write * You can't get them : non sunt ' which epitomizes the hutment position after the losses of the spring with-
THE COMING OF THE ARMISTICE 75
drawals ; the only thing that could be, and was, done was to arrange for the placing of Church Army Huts at certain times at the disposal of Education Officers — a matter in which Prebendary Carlile acted with the greatest generosity. And a long discussion of (10) on October 12 with the Chief Controller of the Q.M.A.A.C., Mrs. Leach, showed that, though sympathetic, that Corps was too overwhelmed with work to take action — to be regretted, I cannot help thinking, for I felt deeply what I had written in the memorandum to Lord Milner, that ' the future of the country lies in the hands of its women as much as in those of its men ', and a Q.M.A.A.C. educational organization should have been productive of equal benefit — but it was impossible to do more.
A meeting of the Central Committee, called on October 24 to enable the representatives of the four Ministries to meet General Dawnay, who was over from France on duty for a few days, ran through and approved the proposals in twenty minutes — General Lynden-Bell never wasted time unnecessarily, and decision did not rest with any Committee — and on October 26 I could write to Turner :
* Immediately after the conference which General Daw- nay attended I had an opportunity of a few minutes' discussion with Lord Milner, who accepted all my pro- posals, will smooth a way with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and did give directions to Sir Charles Harris that they were to be put through as quickly as possible.'
So promptly were these directions acted upon that the 26th also saw the letter to the Treasury dispatched, and so successfully was a way smoothed — or so patent was now the necessity — that sanction was given with un- precedented speed ; there was neither quibbling over details nor withholding of any reply. On November 5 the framework became an organization — on paper.
76 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
For all the expedition it was hopelessly late. I was down at Cambridge, addressing the first of the two courses the Australians instituted at Cheshunt College for their educational instructors, when the news came through of the final breaking down of the Austrian resistance — the obvious herald of the end ; and I remem- ber thinking with wry amusement that I had certainly never contemplated being in a position in which I would view that end almost with dismay. The Armistice, coming on November ii, found us with authorization just conceded — an organization on paper, not in fact. To convert paper into fact, and with the least possible delay, was from now onwards throughout the second phase of the Education Scheme's history our unceasing endeavour. Again, as in September, the announcement of sanction was dispatched to all the Armies immediately ; again the issue of the necessary Army Order followed with lagging steps ; hawked round, as it was by personal energy, to every Department in the War Office concerned — and most were concerned — it could not be got out, approved in all its details, until December 9.
There is no need to dwell at any length upon its pro- visions ; they followed the first eight proposals of the memorandum to Lord Milner with the exception of two substantial additions : first. Education Officers were allowed not only 10 officer-instructors but also 15 non- commissioned officer-instructors as well, and, secondly, I was given a considerably larger staff than the memo- randum had proposed. It was under this sanction that I was able before the year closed — in addition to getting Brigadier-General (now Lt .-Colonel) A. C. Johnston, in charge of S. D. 8 a. Major R. H. Thornton, soon in charge of a new section (S. D. 8 c) dealing with military hospitals, and Captain C. H. Jenkinson, of the Public Record Office, who organized and ran the huge book
THE COMING OF THE ARMISTICE 77
supplies— to secure the services of Lt .-Colonel Lascelles, the pioneer of Brocton and a New Zealander by birth, and of Captain (now Major) W. MacLean, of the South African Forces, who were both to be of inestimable value over those questions of co-operation with the Dominions Forces which the institution of the Imperial Education Committee about this time was to render of living im- portance.
The Army Order of December 9, 1918, had four features which deserve special mention : in the first place the Army Council, under whose authority of course all Army Orders are issued, specifically stated that educational training * can no longer be regarded as a secondary con- sideration, and as much time as can be made available from the necessities of military service should now be devoted to it '. Secondly, an Appendix was included, defining the grouping of subjects (to * be taken rather as indications than as prescriptions ') and giving a list of the principal text-books recommended for each group. The main group. Group A, consisted of (i) English, (ii) Arithmetic or Elementary Mathematics, (iii) Civics, History, and Geography. Thirdly, in another Appendix were full notes for the guidance of Education Officers appointed to hospitals, which gave special information as to the provisions of the Ministries of Labour and of Pensions in relation to the disabled and the discharged. Fourthly, the Army Order instituted what were called — to distinguish them from the old Army Certificates of Education — Active Service Army School Certificates (the name first posted up, I believe, by Turner on the door of an improvised classroom in Montreuil in March 1918, and later widely adopted). This institution was the result of long negotiations, conducted principally by Hadow and 2nd Lieut. A. L. Hetherington, whose * attachment ' we were fortunate enough to arrange, with
78 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
the Board of Education, Universities, and other bodies as far as they were then advanced : the difficulties were wittily expressed by Mr. Chambers, who once said ' You speak of hoping to get men up to a certain standard : what you mean is an uncertain standard '. It was for that reason that it was thought better to institute new Certificates than to try and work for the old.
The days immediately following the giving of Treasury consent, the days, that is, just before and after Armistice Day, were perhaps the most strenuous of all the time. There was the need of finding and setting at work in each Command an organizer — in place of the two for the whole of Great Britain : there was, still more important and much more difficult, the establishing of the two newly sanctioned Schools of Education. As soon as the letter to the Treasury had actually gone, action was taken on the assumption that sanction would be forthcoming : the enthusiastic speech of a very prominent official of the Ministry of National Service, who stopped dead in the street when walking along discussing the work with me on July i8 and exclaimed dramatically, ' There is not a day, not an hour to be lost ! ' — and next wrote on December 4 to suggest the name of a possible Education Officer — was now a literal truth. Every hour was precious ; and before the Treasury reply was even received Oxford and Cambridge had both been visited and arrangements well advanced for the starting of the two Schools.
The first course at the School established in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, began on November 23 ; the first at the School established in Trinity and Hertford Colleges, Oxford, on November 30. In the intervening time the College authorities were interviewed, the Cadets in occupation of the Colleges withdrawn, the administra- tive and instructional staffs of both Schools chosen, the
THE COMING OF THE ARMISTICE 79
students gathered from Great Britain, Ireland; and France. It is difficult now to say how it was done, but it was, and on November 24 and December i I was able to address each School and try to explain their place in the Scheme. It could not have been done but for the fact that the 23rd Army Corps had already found them- selves short of instructors for A.iv. battalions and had started unofficially a school in a house in Cambridge — which could be transplanted more or less bodily, with Captain Egerton, its originator, as first Commandant ; and also for the fact that at the head of S. D. 3, the Department responsible for the Cadet Battalions, was a regular Guardsman of forceful character, liberal mind, and warm friendliness to the educational work we were attempting, namely. Colonel Max Earle, whom I came very early to regard as my most fitting successor. Earle on this occasion viewed the task before S. D. 8 as almost impossible and, saying with a laugh that he would do anything in his power to assist * because he was so sorry for me ', gave me a free hand as to the Cadets then stationed in most of the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. The military representatives, Lt .-Colonel J. Stenning at Oxford, and Colonel H.J. Edwards at Cambridge, assisted whole-heartedly, the College authorities showed a natural preference for Schools of Education over Cadet Battalions and made no difficulties — at Cambridge, Dr. Cranage kindly lent the aid of his influence — and in all the quick arrangements there was only one objector, the Command- ing Officer of one of the Cadet Battalions affected, who found a difficult}^ in believing that a day could have come when it was of greater importance to try and train officers to be educational instructors than to try and train cadets to be officers. His objections were decisively overruled by General Lynden-Bell, however, and would be unworthy of notice if they did not form the one and only instance
8o EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
met with of definite jealousy. Every one else, soldiers and civilians alike, gave all possible help and encouragement : at Cambridge we were already provided with a Chief Instructor in Shelley, whose work at Brentwood has been mentioned, a man who possessed the power of inspiring his hearers with a zeal for education and had a charm which disarmed criticism : at Oxford Mr. Grant Robertson threw himself into an appointment wholly new with extraordinary energy : the Master of Balliol, Sir Robert Blair, Mr. Chambers, and others sent valuable suggestions ; a little later Mr. Fisher visited and addressed both Schools. The work of the Schools, attempting a task without precedent in educational endeavour, the training of instructors of adults in short intensive courses, and the dominant part in the Scheme as a whole played by them and their successors deserve separate treatment : their establishment was the labour of these few hectic weeks.
In every direction the coming of the Armistice brought a great change, which can be summed up in the words of the Army Order already quoted, words first used in a minute which Lord Milner and Mr. Ian Macpherson, then Under Secretary of State for War, signed and sent to every member of the Army Council on November i8, namely, that educational training could ' no longer be regarded as a secondary consideration '. In this minute the two political chiefs of the War Office requested the Army Council to make available, as far as possible, for training the troops for their return to civil life, the tools, workshops, schools, &c., hitherto used for the purposes of war : the staffs and administrative services were to be directed to assist and supplement the educational organization in every way possible — in brief, the Army which had proved how successfully it could train rapidly for war was now to devote itself to train rapidly for peace.
THE COMING OF THE ARMISTICE 8i
It was hardly to be expected that such a momentous instruction would take effect immediately : there were many difficulties and delays within the War Office before the main substance of it could be translated into an Army Council letter and dispatched to all Armies, but translated and dispatched it was eventually. In France at any rate the spirit of it was acted upon independently of War Office suggestion almost directly the Armistice was a settled fact ; and though it took long to make available work- shops and tools — which were still so largely required for purely military purposes — the conversion of the many schools, at which drill, bombing, machine-gunnery, Lewis- gunnery, signalling, gas, and other military arts had for so long been taught, into schools of training for civil employment was effected, not universally but generally, with both dispatch and efficiency — and on the War Office Department fell the task of wrestling with the financial authorities over all the details of such conversions, the ranks, pay, &c., &c., of the Commandants and staffs,
A corresponding conversion took place at General Headquarters, France, but with a difference. No one supposed that when an infantry school, for example, was converted into an educational school it could be done successfully without any change but that of curri- culum, that the expert instructor in drill could auto- matically become the expert instructor in history : but this supposition was made as regards the Training Branch at General Headquarters. By a stroke of the pen instead of military training it took on as its task educational training. General Bonham-Carter had left it by this time, and the result was that Turner, who had been both the brain and the heart of the movement in France since its beginnings, now had several officers senior to himself — he was then a Major — whose duties were suddenly educational also. Fresh allocation of duties were made
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82 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
out, but the personnel underwent no change. One of the senior officers remarked to me with a laugh, ' We are all educationists now ', but that did not invest him with any knowledge he did not previously possess ; and though the whole Training Branch set to with a will and laboured with devoted energy, difficulties were inevitably created by the failure to strengthen it by the appointment of officers who had previously studied the specific problems and practice of education. This description could be fitted to Turner alone and in a less degree to Bowe, who had been added to the Branch in October : neither the knowledge of the former nor the energy of the latter were utilized to the best advantage, and as time went on the value of Turner became so little understood that when Morison was demobilized at the end of March 1919 I joyfully invited him to my Department with promotion to General Staff Officer, ist Grade, and as such he was again able to give the fullness of his experience to the work he had so much at heart.
Not in France alone did the cessation of hostilities bring about an immense turn-over. What happened everywhere — and suddenly — can best be illustrated by an individual example. For weeks past we had been endeavouring to persuade the great Machine-Gun Training Centre at Grantham to allow itself to be treated as a Special Camp and have an Education Officer : but the Commanding Officer had replied, reasonably enough, that the personnel ^were there only for intensive courses and as soon as through were drafted away : they had no time, an Education Officer would have no students. On November 12 — the day after the Armistice — this same Commanding Officer sent one of his instructors down to London specially to see me and to represent that there were at his Training Centre some 8,000 men, that it was obviously impossible to expect these to devote themselves
THE COMING OF THE ARMISTICE 83
to the acquisition of the art of machine-gunnery with the same interest or for the same length of hours as before fighting ceased, and to ask for educational instructors, books, and stationery to be sent to Grantham forthwith. Not from one centre or one unit, but from most centres and innumerable units came with more or less distinctness the same appeal. The second phase, the largest and least satisfactory period of activity, had begun.
F2
^ ^ -P
^ -1^:^^ ^
CHAPTER VI THE CLOSE OF 1918
Up to the day of the Armistice the difficulties con- fronting the educational organization were great, but definite — scarcity of qualified organizers and often impossibility of having them made available when dis- covered, stress and strain, and, still more, movement of the great and swiftly succeeding battles, rapid change of classes and audiences owing to the heavy drain of constant casualties so that continuity of instruction was quite beyond achievement — in brief, all the conditions which necessarily relegated education to a secondary place in the midst of the victorious conclusion of a supreme war. * Great times these ! ' wrote a distinguished General from France on September 28 at the end of a letter of congratulation on the appearance of the first Army Order (' a striking monument to Bonham-Carter and Turner, who conceived the idea '), ' Argonne — Cambrai — Flanders — blows to parry everywhere and perhaps more to come. To say nothing of Macedonia and Palestine. Great times.' It is a letter which strikingly illustrates the duality of the days — the present by the very magnitude of its historic achievements forcing the future forward for active consideration.
After the coming of the Armistice the difficulties under which education laboured were even greater, but in- definite— of a character entirel^^ different except that as the weeks passed the effects of demobilization bore some similarity to those of casualties. With this exception the difficulties were in the main the converse of the con-
THE CLOSE OF 1918 85
ditions during hostilities. Then, large though the total numbers had gradually become, only a small proportion of the masses under arms had found time or inclination to avail themselves of such educational facilities as could be offered them. After November 11 the scales were reversed " almost all had an abundance of time, and the great majority had strong inclination. A noteworthy proof was afforded early in December, when discontent was found to be smouldering dangerously among certain units of the Royal Army Service Corps stationed in England : the officer of the Adjutant-General's staff at the War Office, who went down to address them and investigate, himself told me on his return that in the forefront of their grievances they had put the omission to provide their camp with educational facilities. The Royal Army Service Corps had, in fact, been to some extent omitted because it had been the impression of those responsible for them that the personnel of this Corps, having to keep the Army fed and supplied during the Armistice as during hostilities, had no more time than formerly, and would have no inclination. This erroneous impression somewhat abruptly dispelled, we were called upon to make good the omission as speedily as possible at a time when all our resources were already taxed beyond their strength. The whole occurrence shows clearly that, however wiser in theory it was to be content to expand slowly — as General Lowther had wished — it was in practice impossible to deny to one unit what any other was enjoying.
It was at this precise juncture, when demands were being urgently made for the educational assistance of every officer, and most non-commissioned officers and men, who had either had experience of teaching in civil life or by reason of intellectual attainment seemed able and willing now to gain some, that there swept over the
86
EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
whole organization one of those crises, those threats to the continuance of its bare existence, which from now onwards were recurrent, and made its direction, difficult enough in any circumstances, comparable only to steering a ship not merely over a stormy sea but through destruc- tive rocks on either hand. These added, no doubt, vastly to the interest and often to the humour of the work of direction, but they did not assist its efficiency. At times Dr. Johnson's comment on women preachers seemed most fitly to describe it. (' Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind-legs. It is not done well ; but you are surprised to find it done at all.')
The crisis of December 1918 burst upon us v^dth unexpected suddenness and severity, but in its nature had long been anticipated. It will be remembered that the Army Order of September 24 had included a warning as to the selection of officers who were members of the teaching profession in civil life. The sentence ran :
' It must be borne in mind in making appointments that those officers and men for whom civilian posts as professional teachers are being kept open may be with- drawn from the Army at an early stage in the demobiliza- tion period (unless special arrangements can be made for their retention) and thus become unavailable for the purposes of this scheme at the very time when it is imperative for the future of the State to develop educa- tional training to its fullest extent.'
The need for such a warning had been impressed upon me by Mr. Fisher himself, and it was obviously very necessary. At the same time it was impossible to in- augurate a big educational movement and leave on one side those very persons whose knowledge and experience made them best qualified for its needs. In September their appointment was inevitable and not prejudicial to the future : only a small body of organizers was really in question, and in every case those amongst them who
THE CLOSE OF 1918 87
would be called with early insistence back to their old places at the Board of Education or their schools under- stood the position, and, whilst lending their educational value zealously to getting the new organization started on proper principles, were looking around for and often training some adequate successor who was not under the same liability of accelerated demobilization. But in the A.iv. battalions early and in every formation latterly the gathering together of instructors placed the problem on a much more extended and difficult basis.
The wisest course undoubtedly would have been to utilize the professional teacher to train educated and intelligent instructors : a beginning had, in fact, been made at Cambridge by the 23rd Army Corps which, through the number of A.iv. soldiers in it, needed an exceptionally large body of instructors, and it was upon this principle that the two Army Schools of Education had just been established. But such a course demanded time, and time was denied. Further, to have met the demand it should have been everywhere pursued ; but human nature weighed heavily against it. Very little experience of regimental life is necessary to understand what inevitably happened in units when classes began to be general : the Commanding Officer either wished, or found he was expected, to encourage the movement ; his natural procedure was to direct the Adjutant to call for a return from Company Commanders of any officers or men they had who had taught or could teach. As I wrote to General Bonham-Carter's successor, Colonel H. F. Baillie, on January 10, 1919 :
' There probably has been a certain tendency among C.Os. in Battalions, at any rate, to pick on a man who has been a Schoolmaster, who may have been a third- rate Schoolmaster, and neglect an intelligent man who has much more initiative and go. I mention this just for what it is worth.'
88 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
The professional teacher was too often earmarked at once under the impression that it was his job and that, if he could not do it, obviously no one else could. One is glad to know that, though there were undeniably instances of schoolmasters being pressed into the work in this way against their will by Commanding Officers either over- zealous or else indifferent, in the huge majority of cases the schoolmaster-soldier took up the work of instruction with the same generous enthusiasm as he had taken up arms — with greater, often enough, for to many it must have been the returning of round pegs to round holes : the setting was strange, but the personal element was all the greater by reason both of the absence of much formerly deemed essential to a satisfactory class and of the quickened mind of the adult student.
The value of the services of the professional teacher, however, itself placed a limit upon the period for which they could be spared to the Army. In educational affairs the future must always be of greater importance than the present : the teacher is working for and through the citizens of to-morrow. Greatly enhanced as the benefits of adult education are recognized now to be, they can never challenge comparison with educational advantages bestowed upon the infant and the adolescent. However pressing the need of the Army, however deep the indebtedness to the citizen-soldiers who had endured to the victorious conclusion, the education of the children of the nation came without question first. It was inevitable, and right, that the professional teacher should be released from the Army, and return to the schools which had carried on so stoutly with greatly lessened staffs throughout hostilities, as soon as the military necessity for his retention should have passed away.
Recognizing this, and aware how large a proportion of instructors was inevitably drawn from the professional
THE CLOSE OF 1918 89
teachers, I had for some time past been casting about in my mind for a remedy. The Schools of Education would eventually provide this, but quite inadequately for the present extent of the need. The demobilization authori- ties in France had thrown out the informal suggestion that, when the time came, educational instructors should be retained, even against their will, but this savoured rather of ' the plain, blunt soldier ' than of the practical administrator ; as I wrote to Turner on October 21 : * However desirable education may be, no one can plead that it is a " military necessity ", which is the only ground on which men can by law be retained. I have discussed this fully with General Hitchcock.' It seemed reasonable, however — to look at the need of the Army without unduly ignoring the need of the children at home — that an attempt should be made to retain the services of such professional teachers as were desirous of remaining, as had not, for example, definite posts kept open for them, and felt themselves of value where they were ; and in the memorandum to Lord Milner of October 11 the paragraph proposing an instructional establishment had concluded : * It will further be necessary later to have authority to re-enlist the educational personnel of the Army on special temporary terms in a very important way in order that it may carry on the work of instruction without being dispersed during demobilization.' The word * later ', though accurate, was fatal ; the need was not then immediate and the remedy controversial : it was not until December 20 that it was partially admitted, not until May 13, 1919, that it was adopted.
On December 10, the day after the issue of the Army Order converting the framework into an organization, I heard, quite casually, that the War Cabinet had decided that the whole of Class 43, which consisted of * students and teachers ', could claim to be demobilized forthwith.
90 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
No one told the Department officially ; it was presumably left to learn the fact by discovering one morning that the organization for which it was responsible had practi- cally disappeared. The decision of the War Cabinet, if left to stand untouched, spelt annihilation : we were faced with the disappearance not of teachers only but of students also — the term * students ' covering all those who had been engaged before enlistment in preparing for degrees, diplomas, &c., in many cases those who were now instructing in units with great zeal and success. Here again the Army rightly came second : a youth could obviously pursue his studies much more satisfactorily back at College. But many still belonging to the class labelled * student ' were in effect no longer students, and had no intention of reverting to that status ; and, though their ultimate value to the nation would be higher if they did — and large numbers were persuaded so to revert in 1919 — the Universities and Colleges wanted their teachers back first and their students afterwards, and viewed with some dismay having both thrown back at them together. The result was in fact much as they anticipated — for months a few teachers wrestled with a mass of students. In every way the decision of the Cabinet seemed, and still seems, to have been taken on the most superficial survey of Classes to be released and without consulting either the Board of Education or the War Office. The first recognized the needs of the Army most generously by issuing a circular to Local Education Authorities asking them not to press unduly for the return of their teachers ; the second took such remediary action as was possible, influenced not only on educational but also on military grounds. The Cabinet do not seem to have considered the serious consequences which must have followed their unimpeded decision, namely, the sudden deprivation to the millions under arms of the
THE CLOSE OF 1918 91
educational facilities which were now playing a con- spicuous part in rendering endurable their essential retention under arms.
Throughout November Lord Milner's interest in the work had continued unabated ; he had directed me to see him every day and keep him informed of its progress and needs. To have obeyed him literally would have been unnecessary importunacy, but I had seen him on a number of occasions, during which the resettlement side, now of immediate import, had been mainly under discussion. On hearing of the Cabinet decision I went to him immediately, and very few words were sufficient to establish the extreme urgency of the situation. The Adjutant-General, Lieutenant-General Sir G. M. W. Macdonogh, and the Director-General of Mobilization, General Hitchcock, were sent for ; and they confirmed the truth of the report. The telegrams to the demobiliza- tion staffs had already been dispatched ; and there seemed to be but one remedy, to offer immediately some inducement to our instructors to waive their claims to demobilization. Those who had posts waiting for them would go ; those who had not might stay. Lord Milner spoke then and there on the telephone to Sir Robert (now Lord) Chalmers at the Treasury, impressed him with the gravity of the need and induced him — strongly as he expressed his dislike to such remedies on principle — to concede a financial inducement. In the course of the next few days the details of this were hurriedly worked out and authorized, and the third of our Army Orders was actually issued on December 20,
By this Order approval was given to detailed
* provisions for the payment of extra-duty pay to Educa- tion Officers and Educational Instructors, who have not received, or do not receive, promotion on appointment ; and for increases in the Army educational establishment ;
92 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
and for the continuation in the Service of Education Of&cers and Instructors for the period of demobilization/
It will be apparent that this opportunity was taken to kill several birds with one stone.
The increases in establishment were two in number and important. First, every Cavalry and Infantry Brigade in the Army could now for the first time have an Education Officer (Organizer) — a need which had become pressing. Secondly, in place of the pool of lo officers and 15 non-commissioned officers given to each Education Officer to use as seemed best, instructors were now authorized on the scale of 4 officers and 12 non- commissioned officers per 1,000 men, the non-commis- sioned officers or men employed among these 12 being given * the acting rank of Sergeant, with pay '. The extra-duty pay for officers, unpromoted, was 2s. a day ; for non-commissioned officers, unpromoted, is. a day. A second paragraph recounted in some detail the arrange- ments to come into force * from the date of demobiHza- tion \ Officers might
* agree to continue in the Service for a period of 12 months, or such less period as their services may be required while the Education Scheme is in force, retaining the sub- stantive or temporary rank, pay and^ emoluments which they enjoy at the date of general demobilization, with * extra-duty pay at the rate of 2s. per diem, if not already in receipt thereof.'
Non-Commissioned Officer Instructors might agree to continue similarly,
* and if they do so, will be given the acting rank of Warrant Officers, Class I (if not already holding it), with the pay and allowances, including separation allow- ance, of that rank.'
It has been necessary not only to recount precisely the urgency and origin of this Army Order but also to
THE CLOSE OF 1918 93
give the exact words of its principal sub-sections, for, though its issue saved the situation as far as it could be saved, it sowed the future with very real difficulties of another kind. It was produced hastily to meet a desperate need, and it did act as an inducement to many professional teachers to stay who would otherwise have gone. A great many did go ; large numbers returned to the appoint- ments left open for them where they were deeply needed — and no one could grudge these their release from the Army ; many more went through weariness of life on active service and a natural desire to be at home, and of these the majority were re-absorbed into the teaching profession, whilst a minority, either finding substitutes with unexpired contracts filling their old posts or unable to settle down satisfactorily, presently regretted their acceptance of demobilization and in not a few cases desired to re-engage — a desire which could not be fulfilled, for having once paid off a temporary soldier nothing would persuade the financial authorities to add him to their liabilities again. Still, enough remained, the best inspired by a continually growing appreciation of the real value to the nation of their work, others by the financial inducement, to enable the educational organization of the Army, reel as it might under its losses, to pull itself gradually together again, create, discover, invent fresh instructors, and hold upon its destined pathway to permanence.
For this the Army Order of December 20 may be pardoned much. Necessity is rarely a good foster- mother ; she certainly was not in this case. In the first place the wording of the Order was found to contain an ambiguity. ' The date of general demobilization ' sounded clear enough in December when according to the demobili- zation authorities they would in due course be given the word ' go ' and straightway their machinery would run
94 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
and, if unhindered, keep running until the last soldier was home : it was far from clear in March, when the Armies of Occupation were being formed from the still undemobilized. A ruling was eventually given as to the date to be accepted, but it was all provocative of mis- understanding and discontent. Secondly, and worse, the sub-section above quoted as to non-commissioned officer instructors being given the acting rank of Warrant Officer Class I from this date proved to be undoubtedly an error of judgement. It was inserted because it was quite impossible to secure a temporary commission for any instructor from the moment the Armistice began, and we were therefore faced with the problem of what to do to keep qualified educationists who were serving in the ranks on November ii : a headmaster might be a Corporal and content to be no more whilst engaged in fighting ; but, asked to help educationally, he at once was a headmaster duly insistent on his status as such. But it was an error ; it deeply offended the Corps of Army Schoolmasters, all of whom were Warrant Officers, placing any chance instructor on a level with that highly efficient, well-trained body of men, while their other great and real grievances, which will be dealt with in Chapter XII, did not make their sense of injury over this the easier. It also offended the Regimental and Company Sergeant- Ma jors and upset the Army ideas as to warrant rank generally. ' The prospect of some of my present instruc- tors as Warrant Officers,' wrote a candid and valuable friend, then commanding a battalion in France, ' is laugh- able— and you can't have a laughable Warrant Officer without diminishing the prestige of all Warrant Officers.' But, once issued, the Army Order contained a promise made by the Army Council, and as such could not be rescinded without breach of faith : to avoid any charge So odious it was necessary to make strong representations.
THE CLOSE OF 1918 95
The sub-section continued to create difficulties of an invidious and exacting character until May 13, 1919 : the Army Order of that date did rescind it, but all who had continued in the Service on the faith of its promise were before that given a choice, namely, to be released from their agreement to continue or to make a fresh contract. It is not pretended that this was in all cases considered satisfactory, but it made the best end possible to a complex situation.
In two other respects also the Army Order worked badly — many ofhcer-instructors never received the extra pay to which they were entitled, because paymasters naturally required evidence of the dates between which they were so employed, and in the rather haphazard way in which at this time many of the appointments in units were made no evidence was forthcoming : again, a number of officer-instructors received the extra pay when they were doing less work than colleagues engaged on purely military duties. There can be little doubt that Sir Robert Chalmers was right in objecting to such financial induce- ments on principle. But, when all is admitted, the Army Order did enable one of the greatest dangers which threatened the existence of the educational organization to be warded off, and that must remain its justification.
Such, then, was the general educational situation in the Armies at the close of 1918. On the credit side of the balance lay the kindled enthusiasm of many believers and the clamour for instruction of some nature or other by millions of men, due in part to absence of military occupation, in part to the practical desire to re-equip themselves for civil employment, in part to a stirring, often vague and unsubstantial, of the springs of know- ledge. This last cause must not be over-estimated in its influence on the unemotional British mind, but neverthe- less was there as the outcome of the experiences, mental
96 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
and physical, of the great conflict. It has visited Europe but once before : the spirit which rode abroad at the beginning of the sixteenth century fluttered again the imaginations of men. In many units and among large sections of the men, especially the older men, there was apathy, but also there is ftbundant evidence that great numbers were awakened to a sense of the stores that lie within the treasure-house of learning. The purest pleasure the work at the War Office afforded was the occasional glimpse of this awakening which was given by chance but well-authenticated stories, such as that of a man near Lille who walked eight miles in and eight miles out every day to attend a class, or by letters from any friend whose frankness was refreshing and whose intimacy with regimental life was present : the letter from the Battalion Commander who wrote about ' laugh- able Warrant Officers ', for example, begins :
* I thought you might like a grouse about your old Education Scheme from one of the poor fellows who has to work it (as Harington liked to confer with platoon commanders to find out what the troops really were
thinking). I am commanding a battalion in Divn.
We are in the mining town of , which you no
doubt know well. The education goes pretty well I think, though text-books, maps, and note-books are a bit of a difficulty. Subalterns have written home for old school-books. I've got classes going in English, History, Geography, Arithmetic, French, Shorthand, Physics, Electricity, Wireless Telegraphy, Farming, Market-Gardening, Carpentry, Shoe-Making, Tailoring, Cooking, and others. Now, about the Army Order of Dec. 20th. . . .'
When one received such letters from * the poor fellows who had to work it ' it was impossible to be discouraged about the Scheme. In addition, on the credit side, lay the unexpected success with which many intelligent and interested officers, who had not been professional teachers
THE CLOSE OF 1918 97
in civil life, were holding adult classes — a good augury for the future. The arrangements had now definitely been entered into by which Great Britain had allocated to it j^ioo,ooo, and the Scottish and Irish Commands jf 25,000 each, for reimbursing the civil education authori- ties for * expenditure actually and necessarily incurred on account of the Army Scheme ' — arrangements from which the greatest benefit resulted and which to some extent, as teachers were demobilized, enabled the Army to recover at one end what it was compelled to lose at the other. There was also the foundations of a genuine educational system well and truly laid by Hadow, and negotiations with most Universities were prospering. Further, there was the definite establish- ment of the Imperial Education Committee by the agency of which and by the lecture system co-operation in education and resettlement was made a reality between all the armed forces of the Empire. There was the growing organization of work for the wounded and disabled — hitherto very greatly neglected on the mental side ; there were the two Schools of Education launched to their new labour with a quite astonishing enthusiasm ; and finally, of general assets as it were, there was the solid establishment of cordial working relations with almost every Government Department.
On the debit side lay the uncertainties surrounding general demobilization, on which plans had to be based, the slipping away of professional teachers at the time when the need for them was deepest, the slowness with which the great orders for books, stationery, &c., were maturing — My Lords Commissioners of the Treasury had expressed themselves on November 5 as * doubtful whether it is sound policy to place contracts far in ad- vance ', without doing which we should never have had any books at all — in brief, the size of the demands every-
G
98 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
where arising and the inadequacy of the answers which had to be made.
At this time too the educational organization lost its most powerful supporter, without whom a few days earlier it could hardly have been preserved. I had one further interview with Lord Milner on December i6, but on a private matter : a short while afterwards, and he was gone. What the Army lost the Dominions gained : in his place at the War Office reigned Mr. Winston Churchill. With him I was only permitted to have personal speech on two occasions, at and after a meeting of the Cabinet on May 6, 1919, and at a meeting of the Army Council on April 22, 1920. For better or worse, the educational organization had henceforward to take its chance with the rest in the pitched battles which lay before it.
CHAPTER VII
END OF THE SECOND PHASE
It is difficult to exaggerate either the heterogeneous character or the vast extent and ramifications of the work in the first months of 1919. As regards the first of these, the letter quoted on p. 96 shows the variety of the classes which any sympathetic Commanding Officer could * get going ' in a single battalion : * education goes pretty well, I think,' this officer had written in that characteristic half-tone of the British, and had then enumerated classes in fifteen miscellaneous subjects * and others ', before beginning the real object of his letter, a ' grouse * about the Army Order of December 20. An even more striking example is to be found in a letter dated February 2, 1919, sent me by a General (* You have become the hell of a swell these times', he added parenthetically) who had once been my chief in France and was now commanding a Division :
* The enclosed may interest you. The scheme has worked well and we had an enormous number of students. Our style was rather cramped because all our best teachers were taken away to teach elsewhere, however we struggled on and I think helped a lot of officers and men. Now of course as demobilization proceeds the Education gradually subsides.'
The ' enclosed ' was a large notice, which gives so clear an idea of the different ways in. which Army organization could be, and in this case was, adapted to educational purposes and the variety of initiative with which the work was carried on, that it merits reproduction in full —
G2
100
EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
the identity of the particular division alone being omitted, so that no invidious comparisons need be instituted :
TO BE POSTED ON BATTERY AND COMPANY NOTICE BOARDS
DIVISION EDUCATION SCHEME
Education within the Division will be organized on the following lines :
A. INSTRUCTION IN THE FOLLOWING SUBJECTS WILL BE GIVEN WITHIN THE BATTALIONS, BATTERIES, FIELD COYS. R. E., ETC.
I. |
Reading, Writing, and |
9. |
Shorthand. |
|
Arithmetic. |
10. |
Typewriting. |
||
2. |
English Language and |
II. |
Hygiene and First Aid |
|
Literature. |
12. |
Shoemaking. |
||
3. |
Elementary Mathematics, |
13- |
Tailoring. |
|
Higher Commercial |
14. |
Haircutting. |
||
Arithmetic. |
15. |
Cookery. |
||
4- |
English History since 1688. |
16. |
Horseshoeing. |
|
Political, Military, and |
17- |
Carpentry. |
||
Industrial. |
18. |
Gardening. |
||
5- |
Geography, Political and |
19. |
Butchering. |
|
Commercial. |
20. |
Gunsmith and C |
ycle |
|
6. |
The Privileges and duties |
Repairs. |
||
of Citizenship. |
21. |
Painting and Sign- |
||
7- |
Foreign Languages, French, |
writing. |
||
Spanish, and German. |
22. |
Bricklaying. |
||
8. |
Book-keeping. |
23. |
Music and Singing. |
B.
I.
2.
INSTRUCTION WILL BE PROVIDED WITHIN EDU- CATIONAL GROUPS IN THE FOLLOWING SUBJECTS :
Any subjects mentioned in paragraph ' A ' for which too few applications have been received to form a class.
Foreign Languages such as Latin, Flemish, Arabic, Hindustani, Italian and modern Greek.
Economics and Industrial History.
END OF THE SECOND PHASE ' loi
4. Pure Science, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Botany, Geology,
Magnetism, and Electricity.
5. Pure and Applied Mathematics. •
6. Technical and Applied Science, Mechanics Internal Com-
bustion, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Machine Drawing, Building Construction.
7. Drawing, Art, and Design (including Commercial Art).
8. Farming, Poultry and Bee Keeping, Forestry.
C. INSTRUCTION WILL BE PROVIDED UNDER AR- RANGEMENTS MADE BY D. H. Q. IN THE FOLLOW- ING SUBJECTS :
1. Any subject mentioned in paragraph ' B ' for which too few
appHcations have been received to justify local classes.
2. Practical instruction for Fitters, Wheelers, Glaziers, Smiths,
Coppersmiths, Masons, Plumbers, Motor Mechanics and Motor Drivers.
3 . Lectures in French by members of the French Mission on :
European History. French Literature. Commercial French.
4. Veterinary Science.
5. Telephony and Telegraphy.
6. Electric Lighting and Power.
MEN WISHING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF INSTRUC- TION IN ANY OF THE SUBJECTS MENTIONED ABOVE, WILL HAND IN THEIR NAMES TO THEIR COMPANY, ETC., COMMANDER AT ONCE, STATING THE SUBJECT OR SUBJECTS IN WHICH THEY REQUIRE INSTRUCTION.
Imprimerie Seghin, Charleroi.
In such a spirit was the work tackled both at home and abroad — not indeed by all Commanding Officers, which it would have been over sanguine to expect, but by every Commanding Officer who had the welfare of the men really at heart : it was but a handful, happily, in those great years of trial and achievement of whom the contrary could be said. They had trained and led their
102 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
men to victory in war : as soon as it dawned upon them that this work was not educational in any narrow sense but vividly and essentially bound up with resettlement, they set themselves, each according to his own abilities and proclivities, to train and lead their men to success in peace. It did not dawn upon all equally or simul- taneously, but neither did it upon the general public : and it was necessary to redouble those efforts at explaining the purpose and principles upon which the organization was based which had been an important part of the work since the end of August, and which it was necessary to continue for a number of months more, each phase, though directed to the same general ideals, having a pri- mary objective of its own. Thus in the first phase the military objective, namely, the alleviation of war's monotony and the maintenance of mental contentment, was predominant ; in the second, the national objective, namely, resettlement ; in the third, the carrying on of interrupted apprenticeships was probably the most important of the many purposes ; in the fourth and final phase, the equipment of the regular soldier during his service for civil employment after discharge. The first and second were kaleidoscopic, the one through movement and casualties, the other through movement and demobilization : in the third increasingly and in the fourth definitely genuine organization was alone possible. In the third, the nations were still at war, but, though in the tension over the actual signing of the Peace Treaty with Germany it at one moment seemed possible that hostilities might in some measure be renewed, the Armies were everywhere in a considerable degree of stability. In the second, the nations were not only still at war, but the Armies were shifting, sHding, disintegrating, and we were * a body of enthusiasts building up a snow man in blazing sunshine : as fast as
END OF THE SECOND PHASE 103
it was built up it melted away bit by bit in the process of demobilization '. These were the conditions early in 1919, summed up by Mr. Fisher later in a public speech in the following words, as accurate in their facts as they were generous in their praise :
' I would like to acknowledge the great resource which has been shown by officers of the Regular Army and their Educational Officers in meeting the tremendous practical difficulties of carrying out an educational scheme in time of war. It seems to me that we have here a really great piece of organization. Think what the difficulties are ! The war is going on, men are being constantly drafted off to the front line or others are being demobi- lized : there is a constant inflow and outflow. Teachers just as they have hold of their classes disappear ; new teachers are wanted. Teachers have to be trained. The difficulties are enormous, but, nevertheless, by dint of energy, resource, and faith, they have to a very large extent been overcome.'
In addition, there was the book and stationery diffi- culty. The figures of issue up to January 22 have been given on p. 61, but, large as these were, they were totally inadequate. Hardly a letter, official or private, was received from abroad — Great Britain was slightly better off, both because the Young Soldier Battalions were given preferential treatment and also because at home books were easier to procure — which did not complain, more or less emphatically, about the deficiency of these essential supplies. The steps taken to remedy this deficiency have been briefly related; had we been allowed a few more weeks the story would have been different. By March 25, 432,518 had been sent to France alone, about 64,000 of these in the first three weeks of March — a number which does not include books sent out at the request of the Department by private persons and schools, an addition of about 12,000. The total for all
104 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
Armies by March 25 was 728,886. But the greatest need was in December and January, and theYe was reason in the appeals which battered upon us by every post. In spite of urgent and repeated representations the Treasury would not sanction our dealing with the problem except through the medium of the Stationery Office. For normal times their insistence was undoubtedly sound financially — there could be no check on the purchases made by any other procedure — but the times were abnormal, and Divisions were imploring us either to give them a grant {' they all say that they can get books if they could get the money ' wrote Baillie on January 18) or to send them books. We sent every book we could lay our hands on, by past orders now maturing, by begging and borrowing, by arrangement with the Central Library for Students, which we were enabled to subsidize, and in every other way within our power. But ^£500 was all the money the Treasury would allow us to spend ourselves out of our last £100,000 — that we at once placed at the disposal of General Headquarters, France, a veritable case of five loaves and two fishes — and it was heartbreaking to have to keep on explaining to officers on leave and officers on duty that though there were great quantities of books which any one with cash in hand could hunt up among the bookshops of Great Britain, we had no money wherewith to procure them. The Treasury was stirred enough to put pressure upon the Stationery Ofiice to expedite supply, but that Ofiice, greatly over- worked, was already doing its official best.
To be in the seat of control at the War Office these days was to be on no bed of roses ; I recall particularly the visit of a furious fighting Brigadier on a day in December already sufficiently harassing with the crisis related in the last chapter just developed. This Brigadier walked up and down my room vowing by all the gods
END OF THE SECOND PHASE 105
that if only he was in charge he could get books — why, the shops were full of them ! He knew how to run education in the Army : the day after the Armistice he had had a parade of his whole Brigade, told it education was now the thing, and ended by ordering any man who had no wish for it to fall out. * Only two men fell out,' he concluded complacently — one can imagine on what unpleasant fatigues these two courageous souls could afterwards be employed. Fortunately, this Brigadier was known as a law unto himself and the bark of his contempt for officialdom was infinitely worse than the bite of his energetic mind. The picture of the paraded Brigade is delicious, but so great and so beneficial was his influence over his men that the idea of military tyranny which inevitably starts up is in actual fact fallacious.
In several ways, however, the comfort of the seat of control at the War Office had been most materially increased ; a greatly expanded staff was now accommo- dated at Adastral House, where there was room not only for officers and clerks to work but also for a library to be housed ; a Deputy-Director could secure what was denied to an attached Captain, and the Department was fortunate enough to obtain the undivided services of the best shorthand-typist in the whole War Office — of very real importance where correspondence so heavy and so urgent was in question ; and in Captain MacLean, not only the Imperial Education Committee but also I per- sonally had a secretary whose devotion was equalled only by his industry. These were no small alleviations to days of ceaseless strain and labour, and also personal sorrow.
It is only when all the foregoing facts are borne in mind that it is possible to have a true appreciation of the strength and the weakness of the educational move- ment at this period. Figures could in no event be exact.
io6 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
varying as the classes varied literally from day to day : nor could there be any precise facts as to courses of study or isolated acts of instruction. Moreover, no one was anxious to bother staffs more than was absolutely neces- sary with that curse of military (and civil) administration, the making of returns : even a war-adjutancy could inspire a fellow-feeling there. Accordingly it is with the knowledge that figures of classes and students must be viewed only as general indications that such are here presented. In some cases the returns that were made erred no doubt on the side of exaggeration ; the human tendency not to be behind other formations — on paper — must always be reckoned with. But it is reasonable to believe that in the main the returns received erred rather in the other direction : apart from the admitted gaps, evidence was abundant that over and over again educa- tional work ' bloomed to blush unseen, wasting its sweetness * not in the sense of being unprofitable to those who engaged in it, but in the sense of being unknown to, or at least not taken into account by, the higher Commands and staffs.
One of the best instances of this came to my notice, as such developments only could, through a chance meeting with a friend who had been on my stair at the Staff Course at Cambridge in February 1917 ; and, though the story he told relates to a period a month or two later, it illustrates the individual ways in which the movement spread not only throughout the Armies in France, but also in the far distant theatres : from these last came few reports but from time to time urgent telegrams for the authorization or dispatch of this, that, and the other need. My friend prefaced his story by declaring, in our first words of meeting, that he was going to write a pam- phlet entitled ' A by-product of the Army Education Scheme ', and having thus dramatically aroused interest,
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entered gaily into his experience. After the Armistice he had been made Area Staff Officer on the eastern border of France and, when the idea of educational activity became prevalent, was associated with his Brigadier in giving it effect. Of the troops stationed in the area the majority had been in civil life small tenant-farmers or crofters : it was therefore decided to start an agricultural school. A few men were found of sufficient experience to be qualified to act as instructors ; a portion of land was obtained and set aside ; a sufficiency of stock of various kinds was begged, borrowed, * scrounged ' or ' wangled ' — the two war-honoured ways of getting anything — and, with wise recognition of limitations, only those students were accepted who were able by previous knowledge and future hope to profit by the instruction. The Brigadier was keenly interested, the area became imbued with a proper pride in its own institution, and the school, kept intentionally on a moderate scale, was both highly popular and educationally successful.
Whilst its courses were in progress my friend had occasion to visit General Headquarters, probably in expectation of being able to arrange for some further requirement. On entering the room in which the educa- tional staff was working he saw on the wall one of those imposing maps, tortured like St. Sebastian, beloved of the General Staff ; and a closer inspection revealed a flag stuck jauntily into the location of his headquarters. An inquiry as to the meaning thereof brought the answer, casually given, * Oh, education going on there.' My friend was highly indignant and burst forth with, ' Yes, I know there is, but that 's our show ; youVe nothing to do with it. You have never been near us or sent us any help : we've done it all on our own.' In that last half- sentence he was uttering, quite unconsciously, the secret of the greater part of the success of the whole movement :
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it was possible under the wide elasticity of the organiza- tion for Commanding and other officers to institute work * all on their own ', and it was for that reason that they took so great an interest in it. Again and again work was started in this way, each set of originators often beUeving firmly that they were absolute pioneers, doing what no one had ever thought of doing before.
A pointed illustration of this was afforded also in England when Turner and I and Major C. G. Maude, successor to Major Cook at General Headquarters, Great Britain, visited an area school near London which had been instituted over, or rather out of, the fixed establish- ment by the resource and interest of the Area Commander in pooling instructors and * wangling ' the rest. As we were being proudly taken round, the officer in charge took occasion to remark that this was the only school of the kind in existence, whereupon Turner whispered in my ear a laughing reminder of the set of tools I had brought over privately to France at his request from one of my brief visits to London in May 1918 for the first institution in France of classes exactly similar to those we were then having explained to us. This latitude of original action was, is, and, it is to be hoped, always will be a special feature of educational work in the units of the Army ; each differ not only in their Commanders but in their requirements and opportunities, and each can have, within the general limits of the work as a whole, its * own show ', in the development of which to take individual pride.
These illustrations show further the nature of the spirit which was now so manifesting itself ; the words used by Ranke to describe the diffusion of the doctrines of the Reformation throughout Germany in 1522-4 apply with singular appositeness to the growth of the educational movement in 1919 :
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* No new arrangement needed to be made, no plan to be concerted, no mission to be sent : like the seed which shoots up on the ploughed field at the first genial rays of the sun in spring, the new opinions, the way for which had been prepared by all the events and discussions we have endeavoured to trace, now spread abroad through the whole land where the German language was spoken.'
Substitute * ideas ' for * opinions ' and ' English ' for ' German ', and the passage exactly describes the situation now recorded — from Baghdad to Scapa Flow the British Forces were influenced to educational endeavour, and the American Armies were following in a similar course. It is allowable now to give some figures ; they will not be misinterpreted either as exact statistics of the extent of the movement or as an attempt to magnify its actual influence. To take first the Armies in France, which formed not only the largest mass of troops but also that most in the public attention, the figures for the month of January 1919 are as follows : apprentices and novices, 5,453 ; students attending classes in Group A subjects, 102,819 ; students attending classes in the remaining Groups, B-M, 96,198 ; students attending classes at General Headquarters Schools, Base Workshops, &c., 5,642 ; students attending classes on the Lines of Com- munication (in co-operation with the Young Men's Christian Association), 12,200 ; making a total of students regularly under instruction of 222,312, as far as is ascer- tainable (no figures were returned by the Cavalry Corps and one Division), for the troops directly under the War Oflice — the volume of work done in the Canadian Corps, Australian Corps, and New Zealand Division and also that under the Royal Air Force is not included. It was estimated that irregular students amounted to 150,000. So much for students : in addition, General Headquarters reported * the monthly attendance of officers and men at lectures organized by all formations
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down to divisions may be estimated from 900,000 to 1,000,000 ' : and, finally, a large number of lectures had been given by regimental officers and other ranks within battalions and smaller units about which no numerical data are forthcoming.
All the work above enumerated was under the direct responsibility of the military authorities, except that on the Lines of Communication, on which, in accordance with the agreement of May 17, 1918, previously referred to, the Young Men's Christian Association acted in co- operation with them by means of the organization generally supervised by its Universities Committee and, since Hadow's departure from France at the beginning of October 1918, personally directed by Sir Graham Balfour. It would not be fitting to pass from the British Armies in France without expressing the gratitude of the War Office for the admirable degree of co-operation thus secured or without testifying to the value of the wide experience and great administrative ability thus placed at the disposal of the soldiers in and around the Bases by Sir Graham Balfour. This continued throughout the whole of the second phase and ended only when conditions were materially changed by the formation on the Lines of Communication of the British Army of France and Flanders.
As regards the Forces in Great Britain, about which less is generally known, reporting progress on December 31, 1918, General (now Field-Marshal) Sir William Robertson, who had succeeded Field-Marshal Lord French as Commander-in-Chief, wrote :
* . . . The sudden change of conditions brought about by the Armistice, as also the prospects of early demobiliza- tion, have been very great obstacles, which the sympathy and help of General Officers Commanding-in-Chief and other Commanders, and the energy and devotion of the Staff Officers for Education have been unable entirely to
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overcome. The ideals set by the War Office have inspired all who have worked in the scheme, and the progress which has been made, considering the many disadvantages under which all laboured, may be regarded as highly satisfactory. . . .
The Reports from Commands bear evidence of the very serious blow dealt to Army Education by the decision to demobilize teachers serving in the forces before general demobilization is even in sight. The point is so evident that it need not be laboured. . . . The difficulties en- countered have been great, but they are being surmounted, and education in the Army in Great Britain is a living and growing force, and its results should have a permanent effect on the life of the nation. . . .'
The reports from the Commanders referred to give a detailed account of the work as then proceeding : each states the many difficulties fully and frankly, but each is a record of initiative and success. No numbers, even approximate, can be given : * the total number of officers and men who have fallen within the scope of the Scheme in Great Britain ', wrote General Robertson, * has exceeded one and a half milUons, but as will be seen below it has not been practicable to apply it to more than a proportion of this number.* Figures given by the Western Command for one week in December are 46 officers and 5,941 other ranks ; other Commands felt no figures could be satis- factorily given. As to this the concluding remarks of Lieut. -General Sir F. W. N. McCracken, then Commanding- in-Chief, Scottish Command, are very much to the point :
* The principal difficulty is a general one — inherent in the circumstances of the Army at the present transitional stage — the general state of flux, and the impossibility of taking long views or making arrangements to cover a definite period of time. These conditions must be accepted. In the nature of the case, systematic and continuous study on thorough lines cannot be looked for. Activity must be sporadic and opportunist, and directed to making the best of things under the conditions imposed
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by the circumstances. Taking this view of the Educa- tional Training Scheme, there is no lack of conviction in this Command, among all concerned, that such work is well worth doing.'
In all Commands work with the A.iv. battalions was , general. In this the 23rd Army Corps had been foremost, and their report says of it, * The present systematic instruction for A.iv. soldiers has been in full operation for at least nine months. There are no gaps in any part of the Scheme and the proportion of students in each graduated battalion is 100 per cent.', but to counterbalance this the 23rd Army Corps had for the most patt employed trained teachers and were most severely hit by the decision as to their accelerated demobilization.
Two further features of the work in Great Britain deserve mention, namely, the amount of co-operation with Local Education Authorities, and the way in which the organization was serving as a channel between the soldiers and the schemes of resettlement and recon- struction. As to the first, the arrangements which had been concluded and the sums of ^^100,000 and ^^25,000 for England and Scotland respectively which had been allocated enabled great advantage to be taken of the willing co-operation of the local authorities, in many directions. Both features are brought out in the following interesting passages taken from the report of the Northern Command, the birth-place of the movement, where under the warm interest of General the Hon. Sir John Maxwell, the forcible personality of Captain Stibbard had made itself felt for nearly two years :
* The following extract concerning a typical formation in the Northern Command is indicative of the general activities of Education Officers in advising students as to their courses of study and their future careers, during the process of demobilization : " Information Bureaux have been opened in the Central Education Institute for
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the purpose of assisting officers and other ranks requiring information, regarding demobiHzation and resettlement in civil life. All Army Orders, Regulations, and Special Instructions are added to the Bureau immediately they are issued. A specially selected officer is in daily atten- dance at stated hours at each Bureau to give every possible assistance to inquirers.'. . .
The General Staff Officer 3 (Education) will commence a tour of the Command on January ist, 1919, to visit every locality where troops are quartered. His Majesty's Inspector of Education for the particular district under review at the time has been asked to accompany the General Staff Officer 3 and conferences are being arranged with the Local Education Authorities, Commanding Officers, and Education Officers on the spot to deal with suggestions. The chief objects of this survey are : (a) To ensure that every possible facility is being used for the benefit of the men. (b) To ascertain how, by arrangements of relay classes for periods when schools, colleges, &c. are not being used by civilian students, they may be made available for soldier students, (c) To supplement staffs of Local Education Authorities by Army Instructo;:s in order that available buildings and equipment may be used to the fullest possible advantage, {d) To advise regarding any further development possible, (e) To ensure that all education is being carried out in such a manner as to bring out the best effort of the individuals attending classes, and to ensure the contentment and stabilizing effect so necessary during the present difficult period.'
Two other sentences from the same report may be quoted : the first, ' Co-education of the sexes has now been established in most camps,' which shows that men were able, even in the man-governed world which the Army at any rate must be, to bring some benefit to women which the women's organization would not undertake to do for itself ; and the second, * It has not been sufficiently realized in Formations that the Army Educational Scheme refers equally to officers and men ' — a point the general public also failed to grasp. That
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the general public might be informed of this and all they desired to learn, these reports were published in full with General Robertson's covering letter and a brief foreword by Sir Henry Wilson, at the end of which he said :
' It is only due to the hearty co-operation of General Officers Commanding, Staff Officers and Commanding Officers, and to the enthusiastic and self-sacrificing work of Education Officers and Instructors that the Scheme has achieved its present great measure of success in the all-important national task of resettlement and recon- struction ',
and they form a mine of information for all interested in the details' and difficulties through which it worked its way. To analyse them further here, however, would be to give the Forces in Great Britain an importance disproportionate to their numbers.
The Forces in Ireland did not actually begin educational work until October 25, 1918, when as a result of the Army Order of September 24 and full consideration thereof it was officially announced from General Head- quarters, Ireland, that the Scheme would apply to the Forces under that Command. By the end of the year education was in full swing ; and on February 10, 1919, it was estimated by General Headquarters that 16,200 A.iv. soldiers and 19,800 older men had received instruc- tion whilst approximately 800 lectures on subjects of general interest had been delivered by civilian and Army lecturers ; there had also been a number of connected courses. A report dated February 3, 1919, gives the following for one of the four districts into which the Command was divided : A.iv. soldiers, 870 (all those in the district) ; average attendance other students, 6,531 ; students in classes being arranged by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (where Mr. G. F.
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Fletcher gave every possible assistance), 1,394 ; attend- ances at general lectures, 21,704 — ' in addition to these, in all battalions, lectures are given by officers \ It was stated that in all * about 9,000 men are available in the district for educational purposes and of these 55 per cent, have come under the Scheme. When arrangements have been completed for Technical Instruction, this percentage will be largely increased. Generally, the men show keenness for the work, and in several units evening classes are voluntarily attended.' In spite of the peculiar difficulties with which education in the Forces in Ireland had (and still has) to contend, owing to the state of the country, which compelled them to remain as much on a war footing as before the Armistice, one of my Staff who paid the Command a touring visit in February 1919 was greatly struck by the resource with which these were being overcome, largely through the energetic enthusiasm of Captain (now Major) A. H. Brockhurst.
* One of the most peculiar and successful characteristics of educational organization in Ireland ', he wrote in his report, ' is the great extent to which educational resources are pooled. Officers and men are readily detached from units and formations, where they cannot obtain the form of education they require, to other units or formations where this is available. For example, if a man in the south or west of Ireland wishes to study the processes of the linen or cotton industries he is sent to a unit in Ulster where he can study them on the spot. . . . The great success of this method of detaching officers and men for educational purposes is an indication of the enthusiasm of General Officers Commanding and Officers Commanding for education, since without their con- currence it would be almost impossible, as well as of the good staff work at General Headquarters, in arranging these transfers without friction.'
Further, an elaborate procedure was experimentally
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devised and successfully adopted for officers and men of university standard, who were likely to make suitable candidates for the Government Higher Education Grants to ex-soldiers. * In order that the period prior to the allocation of scholarships should not be wasted from the educational point of view \ wrote General Headquarters, * preliminary intensive science and agricultural courses are being conducted, mainly by the personnel of the Anti-Gas Schools in Ireland ' ; about a quarter of the students, who were not demobilized, went on at Trinity College, Dublin, under instructors provided by the University, and in February 1919 were doing * work which is the same as the University's second term course in Natural Science or Engineering '.
The Forces in Italy enjoyed demobilization early, and the time during which the Scheme was working there was short, but under the impetus of the interest shown by General Headquarters and the combined ability and knowledge of Captain McGregor, in civil life Professor of Economics at Leeds, who was sent from France, much was done in that time ; nearly 13,500 men attended classes and 26,800 attended lectures in the month of December 1918.
Of the far distant theatres it is still more difficult to give facts : a private letter I received from a Brigade- Major in Egypt in February 1919 contained the passage :
' Life here is not dreadfully exciting, waiting, like other theatres of war, for demobilization. In the interim we are making great strides in education. The men are very keen and there are at least seven classes going on in each battalion of this Brigade.'
Owing to Eastern instability many had to wait a long time for demobilization and found in education an un- expected resource. At first the Educational Advisory Committee appointed by General Headquarters acted
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without educational assistance, but Mr. Harries and the Rev. F. L. H. Millard, who went out to Egypt for the Young Men's Christian Association, soon were recognized as of great value in a country where educationists were few. Mr. Harries went to Kantara and Mr. Millard organized a successful divisional school in the desert and was made Chief Adviser to the Committee and later sent on a tour of inspection, in the course of which he visited all formations, travelling to Alexandria, Kantara and the Canal Zone, Ludd, Lydda, Jerusalem, Haifa, Damascus, Beyrout, and Tripoli, and addressing meetings of in- structors and students. A Central School for the training of instructors — on lines similar to the Schools of Education in England — was started at Zeitun and achieved an important measure of success. Mr. Millard added to the obligations under which he had placed education in the Eastern Armies by going on a second tour all through Palestine, Syria, and Cilicia, explaining to all formations the purpose of the School and the educational organization, visiting not only all the places to which he had previously been in Palestine but going from Damascus to Ryak, Baalbek, Hama, Homs, Aleppo, Adana, Mersina, Cyprus, Tripoli, Beyrout, and Port Said. Of the officers and men in the more remote places he told me on his return that there were few who would not attend classes, if given the chance, and that where these had been started there was a unanimous testimony to the extraordinary progress made by the students. Much of this was effectively carried on when the Armies in the East came to be reckoned and treated educationally as Armies of Occu- pation.
Of work in Mesopotamia no particulars reached the Department, only telegraphic proof that some at least was undertaken. There remains, apart from India, to which later reference will be made, one theatre in which,
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as in Egypt and Palestine, great assistance was afforded by the Young Men's Christian Association, through the medium of their Director of Education, Professor J. J. Findlay, Professor of Education at Manchester Univer- sitv — and that is Salonika. Professor Findlav was an old friend of mine, and I was fortunate in having the opportunity of obtaining the comments of his shrewd and individual mind on September ii and 12, 1918 (just before he sailed for Salonika), not only upon the section of the work to which he was going, but upon education in the Army generally. Co-operation was thus assured and was maintained between us until his return to England in Ma}' 1919. On October 21 he was writing as to the Army Order of September 24, copies of which had just been received at Salonika, * as you may imagine it is being carefully studied by the military authorities at General Headquarters and I am being called in for consultation.' He had already held meetings of soldiers to explain what was proposed and wrote that every one had received him * with the greatest cordiality, in spite of the strain caused b}' the turn which events have taken at the front '. He found a remarkable demand, especially in a field in which he had worked for many years, namely, modern language teaching — the influence of environment on Army Classes was always strong ; French prospered in France, Italian in Italy, and so forth. On December i he wrote again saying ' The Army here is taking up education with such earnestness that we are certain to use every book you can send us. Your difficulty may be to get the books ; but if they are to be had at all, please let Macedonia have a fair supph' ', and asking me to use the Army influence to expedite the books ordered for his use by the Young Men's Christian Association. His encQuraging, friendly letter concluded * My best wishes for your Educational Scheme in the New Year ; it
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promises to do the best kind of work for the British soldier '.
It is needless to particularize further ; not merely Professor Findlay's ability and zeal but his engaging personality also were firm assurances of success. Some 5,000 students were enrolled before Christmas and at least 25,000 in attendance at lectures, and though the fine start was hampered by unavoidable conditions of movement, the work took root and carried on. Professor Findlay was personally so popular that at the request of General Headquarters, Salonika, he was specifically named in the Army Order of December 9 as their Civilian Adviser : in his modesty he records his opinion in the notes he submitted on May 6, 1919, before returning to England, that ' the civilian element is certainly a great help and I trust it will always have a place, but in all matters of Army organization the civilian can only in the nature of things offer a small supplementary aid ' ; and it is pleasant to note his conclusion :
' I cannot relinguish this work without expressing my gratitude for the kindness with which my colleagues and myself have been received. It is a privilege for any civilian to be associated with the society of a British Army, and what we have learnt from this experience far outweighs the value of any services which we have rendered.'
The foregoing figures, inexact and incomplete as they must necessarily be, are perhaps sufficient, even omitting those for miUtary hospitals, to prove that, starthng though the estimate might seem, there was no exaggeration in giving as the number coming under the influence of the Education Scheme of the Army the round figure of 3,000,000 men : this I mentioned as a rough guess in an address to the Teachers' Guild at the Conference of Educational Associations on January 2, 1919, and not
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unnaturally it aroused the attention of the public. This was the greatest time of extension ; from then onwards with the advance of demobilization the work changed gradually to the smaller and more amenable numbers of the Armies of Occupation. By the beginning of March the movement had definitely entered on its third phase.
CHAPTER VIII
DISABLEMENT AND RESETTLEMENT
The main thread of the educational movement in the Army has hitherto been strictly followed and its course chronologically traced from its earliest forerunner in the late autumn of 1914 to its vast ramifications in the months immediately succeeding the Armistice. Before passing to the story of the third phase, primarily that of the Armies of Occupation, it will be well for us to turn to a considera- tion of one of the two principal side-issues of the organiza- tion, namely, work for the wounded and disabled soldiers in military hospitals in Great Britain, which naturally was linked through the special needs of such soldiers to the vocational and professional training now coming to play a definite part in the Government schemes for resettlement. In all of these schemes, concerned with the welfare of the soldier after demobilization, the pre- liminary work was undertaken by the War Office for the soldier before demobilization : our part, as we alone had opportunity with those for whom the Government schemes were designed, was to lay foundation-stones and to use every effort to ensure not only that these were in accord with the plans of the Ministerial architects but also that the Ministerial builders erected their later work upon them. To start a man's training whilst in the Army on lines different from those on which it would be continued when he was demobilized would hardly have been better as an insurance against unemployment than to have given him no training at all. All vocational and professional training, therefore, organized by the Department had to be
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closely and continually correlated to the training sub- sequently to be organized by the Ministries of Labour, Pensions, Education, and Agriculture. It is this aspect of the Army endeavour, one of the most difficult, as all who have ever been engaged in arranging co-operation between different large organizations, whether Army formations or Civil departments, will readily appreciate, which will be uppermost in the present chapter. The Imperial aspect, the second of the two principal side-issues, will be con- sidered in Chapter X.
The first recognition both of the unpayable debt owed by the nation to its wounded officers and men and of the educational opportunity afforded by their periods of con- valescence was very limited in its scope, and by an unjusti- fiable error of judgement was given to officers alone. By Army Council Instruction 517 of 1918 (an Army Council Instruction was in effect equivalent to an Army Order) a number of convalescent officers could be lent temporarily to the Appointments Department, Ministry of Labour, for educational purposes : by a War Office letter of June 29, 1918, lectures were authorized to be given in officer's convalescent hospitals, and small libraries were also instituted in these. This was sanction for work such as the Victoria League had nobly been carrying on within its limited power. For non-commissioned officers and men a certain amount of * bedside and occupational work ' alone had been allowed, and with a singular inability to appreciate the calibre and needs of the soldiers who had fought with such valour and virility, official interpretation confined this to such things as woolwork — a placing of young, wounded men on a parallel with invalid octogenarians. With the appoint- ment of a man so liberal of mind and humane in character as Lieutenant-General Sir T. H. J. Goodwin to be Director-General, Army Medical Services, a different
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spirit began to prevail ; and the inauguration of the educational organization not long afterwards gave this its opportunity.
As recorded on page 69, General Goodwin was prompt to consider favourably the extension of the organization to military hospitals, and a beginning was made in the Army Order of September 24, 1918. By this, the dis- tinction of treatment between officers and men was abolished, the Army Order stating : * The educational standards of many men now serving in the ranks are little, if at all, inferior to those of officers, and it is considered undesirable that such facilities [as those above] should be confined to officers only.' Accordingly, lectures and classes were to be arranged ' in convalescent hospitals and depots, both for officers and men, with the object of reviving mental interest and accelerating the return of patients to military duty ' — it will be noticed how before the Armistice education was always the natural assistant of the military needs. Libraries were to be established in all convalescent hospitals and depots in which they were desired ; and endeavour was made to extend Army Council Instruction 517 of 1918 to enable temporarily unfit warrant officers, non-commissioned officers, and men as well as officers ' to attend short courses of instruction at certain centres of University, Technical, Business, or Workshop Training ' .
This convalescent section of the Army Order of September 24 necessitated close liaison between the Department and the Appointments Department of the Ministry of Labour, then under the control of Mr. C. Home McCall, and satisfactory arrangements were by no means easy to make. But Mr. McCall's energy, Morison's ability, and the co-operation of Mr. H. B. Butler, then of the Ministry of Labour, and now Deputy-Director, Inter- national Labour Office, who happened to be an old college
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friend of mine, overcame the many difficulties, and the spheres of influence of and relation between the War Olhce and the Ministry of Labour on this work were harmoniously defined. The Appointments Department retained responsibility for educational work in officers' convalescent hospitals and depots, where its officials had now established a footing, and for the extension of Army Council Instruction 517 : we took up work for the non- commissioned officers and men in all hospitals under the Army Medical Services.
The next step was to rescind the decision as to the nature of * bedside and occupational work ' ; and with General Goodwin's co-operation this was readily taken : by Army Council Instruction 1293 of 1918, issued on November 19, not only were Education Officers to be appointed ' to all central hospitals in which the number of beds justifies such appointments ' — a very useful vagueness of expression — but it was laid down that :
* Under the direction of the Commandant, the education officer will be responsible for general education and for the organization of occupational training and technical education ; it must be clearly understood that he may in no way interfere with the organized system of curative workshops already established in special military surgical (orthopaedic) or other hospitals.'
These words are interesting as showing, first, the greatly extended scope, and, secondly, the natural distrust by the medical authorities of supplementary methods of cure. It took long before all Commandants came to appreciate that, if certain physical movements were necessary for curing certain disabilities, they could often be linked with both medical and mental advantage to interesting manual work. A man who to recover the use of his fingers had to use a machine might better use one to creative purpose than as a mere physical exercise in a treadmill way. The
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passage above quoted greatly assisted those Commandants who had of their own initiative instituted practical occupational work — and these were not a few — and enabled pressure to be put upon obstructionists, which was firmly but tactfully applied by the Medical Depart- ments under General Goodwin's instructions. The way was now clear for the definite inclusion of work in hospitals as a section of the whole educational organization, unified in its broad principles with that proceeding in units ; and this inclusion was made authoritative in the Army Order of December 9, which increased the number of Education Officers and gave them officers ,and non- commissioned officers as instructors.
The principles and the organization of educational work in hospitals were henceforward the same as those for the rest of the Army ; but work with wounded and disabled men differed in several material respects from that with the fit and active. In the first place it was much more difficult to get a sufficiency of instructors : the fit can instruct the fit ; there is a decided limitation upon the power of the unfit to instruct the unfit. In other words, in units it was possible to find amongst the existing personnel men competent and willing to take up in- structional duties, not in the numbers required but at any rate in fair numbers : in hospitals it was almost impossible, not only because the existing personnel were wounded but also because as soon as they regained strength they left the hospitals. To post instructors from elsewhere was possible after December 9, but as almost every place was short of its full numbers as soon as the demobilization of trained teachers set in — that is almost immediately afterwards — it remained in the region rather of the possible than of the practical until with the reduction in size of the Armies instructors from units began to be set free. Wounded men of competence
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acted for a time and often stayed on after their own recovery ; civil and voluntary help was used as fully as the resources of the locality concerned permitted — the difficulty was combated energetically, but never wholly overcome.
Secondly, in units it was normally a case of men anxiously eager to recover their skill or revive their knowledge : in hospitals, the greatest obstacle too often was the lessened energy of mind which resulted not merely from the physical effects of severe wounds but from the devitalizing atmos- phere of existence in a ward. In the ' Notes for Education Officers appointed to Hospitals', issued as Appendix IV of the Army Order of December 9, special attention was drawn to this obstacle in these words, addressed as much to the medical as to the educational staffs :
* The Director-General, Army Medical Services, attaches great importance to educational work in Hospitals because the awakening of mental interest accelerates recovery, and because, unless their minds are occupied, patients are in danger of being enervated by Hospital life and of sinking into a condition of apathy in which they are incapable of exerting themselves to earn a living.*
There is nothing sadder than to see a gallant soldier become what was known as * hospitalized \ and few states are harder to remedy when once established : Education Officers, in most cases men who had them- selves been severely wounded, addressed themselves to this fundamental difficulty with both warm, human sympathy and keen, professional interest. They had prejudices also to overcome, principal among which was the rooted conviction of the disabled that if they learnt a trade or occupation their pension would be correspondingly diminished. To eradicate this fallacy, to remove the fear that in this hospital development of educational endeavour there was some trap, some plan of
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' getting at ' the men, was one of the first and most difficult of all the duties of hospital Education Officers. They did not succeed all at once or all equally, and the degree of encouragement they received from the medical officers varied in every hospital, but to a great measure of success they did gradually attain. Probably the most striking individual instance of success was the curing, through the arousing of educational interest, of a shell-shock patient whose recovery had been pronounced hopeless by the doctors — a case which was a most effectual means of securing their increased co-operation.
A third difficulty was the lack of accommodation. Every bed and ward were full and, as beds emptied, hospitals were diminished in number, and those retained remained full. Here again General Goodwin did his utmost by directing Commandants, wherever possible, to set aside a place for educational purposes : nothing could have been more genuine than his desire to further the w^ork, nothing more cordial than his personal attitude towards the Department, and it was a high privilege to be associated with him.
A further difficulty was that, whilst fit men can walk to schools and classes, severely wounded men usually cannot . The pressure for ordinary military needs upon the transport facilities was very heavy in the early part of 1919, but nevertheless we were able to arrange in many cases for men well enough to be moved to be driven to the work. This met the needs of a very small proportion, however ; to the rest, as far as possible, the work had to be brought. Finally, amongst the main difficulties, was the fluctuating nature of the hospital population : 80 per cent, of the patients were changed each month, making systema- tized courses for all but a few impossible.
On March 19, 1919, the hospital section of Army Education came in for hostile criticism in the House of
128 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
Lords from Lord Stanhope, who had left the War Office some months before ; and it is easy to understand the mind of any warm-hearted man who longed to bring adequate educational facilities within the reach of every wounded soldier. Lord Stanhope, however, attached no importance to any of the above-mentioned difficulties, spoke of the * lip service ' of the Royal Army Medical Corps, a phrase that ill-described General Goodwin^s efforts or the initiative and support of many medical Commandants, and saw in the scheme adopted by the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, which in January claimed to have educated 6,000 men and in March 1,000, the onty panacea for all War Office deficiencies. The New Zealand Scheme, which had been drawn up by Captain Kirk and a copy of which had been long in my possession, was admirable and was most efficiently in execution, but it was related to the needs of a small force which was fortunate in having to face very few of the difficulties above enumerated, and since it involved compulsory education was utterly impossible so far as our hospitals were then concerned. Yet in the essence of the contention — apart from the arguments by which it was supported — that far too little was being done for our wounded and disabled soldiers. Lord Stanhope was .entirely right. Educational work in the hospitals could not conceivably be put rapidly upon a wide or satisfactory basis : there it was necessarily a plant of slow growth and should have been a feature of all curative endeavour from the first. The wounded men so needed help ; it was not only national economy but national justice to offer it them in that form which enabled them to help themselves. The War Office was late : the Ministries of Labour and of Pensions were later still — and the country is paying the heavy penalties to-day. If there ever should again be war on a national scale — which God and the League of
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Nations forbid — or on a small scale, this problem of the resettlement of the broken servants of the nation must be energetically tackled from the first days on which they are carried helpless into the wards. It is not enough to mend their bodies ; it is a national obligation to do all possible to mend their minds and their later lives as well. The payment of a pension is the smallest part, least satisfactory, both because it helps the disabled to live without making life worth while and because it by itself acts as a salve to the national conscience.
We did what we could in the time and with the means at our disposal : at any rate we spared no efforts. At the beginning of November the Department developed complete proposals for taking over factories no longer required by the Ministry of Munitions whenever these were within easy reach of big hospitals : on November 19 Lord Milner wrote personally to Mr. Winston Churchill, then Minister of Munitions. The latter Ministry, however, was only then negotiating with the Ministries of Labour, Pensions, and Education ' with a view to working out a satisfactory scheme for the training of disabled soldiers ', and Mr. Churchill, replying on November 26, could promise no more than that his Ministry would gladly assist in the carrying out of any scheme that might * eventually be agreed upon by the Government Depart- ments concerned'. This a fortnight after the Armistice. Only a few days later the Department was urgently asked if a hospital Education Officer could not take possession of a Ministry of Munitions factory l5^ng idle : instructors were available and he was ready to utilize it forthwith for the benefit of the wounded men under his charge. Nothing could be done : it was months before ' the Government Departments concerned ' were ready to take action ; and over and over again the War Office received complaints from wounded men who had gladly availed themselves of
I
130 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
educational facilities whilst in the Army and then found on discharge and demobilization that they would have to wait indefinitely before their training could be carried on. It was not the fault of the individual Ministers. I had talks with Sir Robert Home, then Minister of Labour, and with Sir L. Worthington Evans, then Minister of Pensions (to which last interview General Goodwin also came) and found them entirely zealous ; but organization of training which necessarily involves long and difficult negotiations with trades unions cannot be undertaken quickly, and the problem — one of the greatest complexity — had never been taken comprehensively in hand in time.
The War Office can reasonably claim to have acted, in a sphere in which its only interest was its parental concern for the continued welfare of those who had been its soldiers, as a definite goad to the rest of the Govern- ment. It established not only Committees in every Command consisting of the Education Officer and repre- sentatives of the medical authorities. Ministries of Labour and Pensions, and of the various local authorities and organizations concerned, but also a Headquarters Com- mittee, of which I was Chairman, of the same character. This held its first meeting on January 31, 1919, and in the succeeding weeks, by meetings and by means of a small sub-Committee, thrashed out the intricate arrange- ments by which the War Office and the Ministries of Labour and Pensions co-ordinated all the vocational training given. On April 30, 1919, a pamphlet, ' Army Education Scheme in Military Hospitals ', was issued by the Department, embodying such part of the former * Notes ' as had stood the test of experience, and giving detailed instructions as to the co-operation which was essential. The Local Education Authority arrangements held good and were of invaluable utility for technical
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training ; the Victoria League was subsidized and assisted to develop its lecture work ; the assistance of the (i) Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, Art Workers' Guild, and Women's Guild of Art, (2) Association of Headmistresses, (3) Central Joint V.A.D. Committee, and (4) Territorial Force Associations had all been enlisted ; transport for conveying patients to classes was extended ; information bureaux were established and all Hospital Education Officers were supplied with a number of journals and pamphlets covering * The Openings in Industries suitable for disabled Soldiers and Sailors '.
Both the Ministries of Labour and of Pensions were concerned with disabled soldiers, Labour with general in- dustrial training and Pensions with institutional training, spheres ill defined and overlapping, and the duality was a constant source of delay, for the two sets of representa- tives seldom or never met except at the Headquarters Committee ; but by July 9, 1919, it had been found possible so far to advance negotiations that the final pamphlet was issued dealing with the ' Provision of Technical Instruction in Workshops attached to Special Military Surgical Hospitals '. The British Red Cross Society, which in November 1918 had given the Depart- ment a special generous grant for educational work in hospitals, installed many curative workshops, and in these instruction was now to be given * by fully qualified civilian instructors paid at recognized local rates '. As each hospital was given up by the War Office these passed under the control of the Ministry of Pensions, usually, it must be said, to the sad falling off of the work. This pamphlet laid down in detail all the arrangements as to the continued training of apprentices and gave a list of the trades in which co-ordination of training was being arranged, under the negotiations with the National Trade Advisory Committee. The War Office by this document
I 2
132 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
even included pensioners who returned after discharge for further treatment, though its actual responsibility had of course to end when a soldier was demobilized.
This ended the work of the Department in this sphere ; education and technical training carried on until by gradual degrees the hospitals passed out of the control of the military authorities. It ought to be said that the actual hospital organization and the conduct of these difficult negotiations were the splendid work of Major R. H. Thornton, assisted by Captain J. Y. T. Greig : thousands of wounded soldiers, did they but know it, are lastingly indebted to these two temporary Staff Officers.
Not all the difficulties were ever overcome ; but some were insurmountable — far more was accomplished than any one had thought possible in November 1918, and more than any one (except Lord Stanhope) had ever thought lay within the responsibilities of the War Office. Reports show that 16,407 patients, that is, about i in 10 of the total number in military hospitals, had received in- struction in the month of March 191 9, and in an extra- ordinary variety of subjects, 84 in all, ranging from the purely vocational to the purely cultural, from linotype, pig-keeping, and trout-breeding to Malay and English literature : men in 117 central and 333 auxiliary hospitals were then under the influence of the work. In April the number of students was 17,337, and in several hospitals as many as 75 per cent, of the patients were under instruction : in addition to the officers and non-commissioned officers at work, 287 civilians had voluntarily given their services. On April 15, 1919, Lord Stanhope returned to the charge in the House of Lords, and asked why patients should not be given ' educational training sheets ' to accompany them when they were moved : he had forgotten that the Army Order of September 24, 1918, issued with his approval, made such a sheet obligatory on every soldier, and that
DISABLEMENT AND RESETTLEMENT 133
this was to be inserted in his pay book and was set out in full in Appendix I to the Order. Lord Burnham on that occasion stated that to the best of his knowledge nothing was known of co-ordination of training at the Ministry of Labour and added :
' It is a strange thing that no information has been imparted to the joint pension sub-committees throughout the country who have recommended men for training as they have been passed to them and have come to agree- ments in respect of each case with the technical com- mittees who are at work either in London or in other centres of population.'
The Ministry of Labour and these joint pension sub- committees were in every case represented on the Command Committees, and a special Army Form W. 5091 was in existence applying to disabled men and to be * sent to the Local War Pensions Committee of the locality in which the man normally resides * .
It is pleasant to be able to record that throughout th,ese months the Army established in this work cordial relations with the trade associations, receiving in particular the greatest help dating back to August 1918 from Mr. W. A. Appleton, Secretary, General Federation of Trade Unions, more especially because it is impossible to exonerate trades unions from the charge of placing almost impassable obstacles later in the way of recognition of the training of disabled soldiers. Even as late as the close of 1920 the position was described by one who was working devotedly in their interests as * heart-breaking ', The truth seems to be that, always difficult as such negotiations must be, the difficulties deepened as the war receded ; what could have been arranged, if taken in hand during the war and as part of the war, could not be many months later, when before the eyes of trades unionists was arising for ordinary members the spectre of unemployment. It is easy for the
134 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
prejudiced to rail savagely at the lack of patriotism of some of the trades unions — ignoring often enough the record of their members in the war : it is far less easy to condemn men, among whom there was already much unemployment, for reluctance to add the partially dis- abled to their numbers.
In May 1919, 17,815 patients, or 15 per cent, of the total in hospital, received instruction : in June, 17,661, or 21 per cent. By September, out of a greatly lessened total of patients, 14,493 were students ; and the monthly report states :
* Satisfactory progress has been made and there are many signs that the Army Education Scheme is being appreciated on all sides. The endeavours which have been made to popularize the educational libraries have met with considerable success. In some hospitals nearly every man has a book by his bedside and does an appreci- able amount of reading under the advice of the Education Officer or Officer Instructors. . . . Education Officers are in touch with the officials of the Ministries of Labour and Pensions, and satisfactory arrangements have been made for passing on patients on discharge to their Local War Pensions Committees for further training in trades, or to Education Authorities for purposes of enrolment in Con- tinuation Classes. The lectures on the Pensions scheme delivered by Mr. A. J. Theodosius, M.A., of the Ministry of Pensions, have been of great value, and very much appreciated. Visits to factories and workshops continue a great success, and are very popular with the men. Music Classes have proved most popular and Choral Societies have been formed in many hospitals. As evidence of the genuine educational value of the work now being done, the following results, recently obtained in one hospital in the Woolwich District in examinations held by the Royal Society of Arts, are noted : 19 candi- dates successful in 23 subjects, 2 gained ist Class certifi- cates, 5 gained 2nd Class certificates.'
The work in hospitals has been dealt with at some
DISABLEMENT AND RESETTLEMENT 135
length, first, because the wounded in our midst naturally aroused the warmest public sympathy — the personal interest of the Queen, extended to the whole work, was especially directed to this part of it — and, secondly, because it shows how intimately the work of the War Office Department had to be linked to that of the other Government Departments. Nominally an Education Department only, we had to accept responsibility for a great share in the negotiations of all kinds and with innumerable bodies and persons necessitated by the resettling into civil employment of the War Armies. This had become an obvious necessity as soon as the Department settled down to work ; and in October 1918 — not without very considerable opposition and misgivings- permission was obtained for Education Officers
* I. To tell officers and men that demobilization will necessarily take a considerable time and that in view of the largeness of the operation the War Office has already worked out a Scheme which will be com- municated to officers and men in due course.
2. To tell the men that the War Office in conjunction with the Government Departments, on whom the responsibility rests, is earnestly considering the re- settlement of officers and men in civil life and that to do this effectively it is essential to have early information of the callings they intend to follow after the war.
3. To discuss with officers and men the callings they intend to follow and as far as possible to adapt the instruction to their needs. With regard to the above, in giving such information or in entering upon such discussions. Educational officers must impress upon officers and men that the consideration of the problems of resettlement is a task which it is essential to under- take well in advance ; and that it is being undertaken now solely that when the time arrives for the actual solving of the problems, plans may have been duly made/
136 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
The caution with which the permission was hedged was a Httle superfluous, and to undertake consideration of the problems of resettlement in the ver}^ last weeks of the war can hardly be said to be dealing with them * well in advance ' — but the important thing was that the permis- sion was given. Without it there coiild have been no linking of educational work on to the practical needs of the men and no planning ahead at all. The natural result was to quadruple the number of inquiries addressed to the Department, and, as the Army included every section of the nation, there was hardly a trade or occupation in which we were not, at one time or other, asked to train men. The men themselves asked, and, conversely, the institutions, societies, and bodies concerned asked : those interested in the provision of more clergy and those interested in the provision of more chemists — to name but two — put their needs before us and asked for the Army's assistance.
Adult education must always be related more closely to practical life than juvenile : the practical problems of future existence pressed more and more heavily upon demobilizable soldiers, and the educational organization afforded in this aspect the one link between war and peace. To go into this in detail would fill many volumes : it is the story of resettlement, and it is not practicable to tell it here. The problem of apprenticeships broken by enlistment came up as early as October 7, 1918, on which day we were authorized by Lord Milner to negotiate with the trades unions, provided we kept the Ministry of Labour informed of what we were doing — a course fully discussed and agreed with that Ministry. This was too big and intricate a question for any War Office Depart- ment actually to arrange, but we were able to make a beginning which was not without value when the needs of the Army of Occupation on the Rhine were definitely
DISABLEMENT AND RESETTLEMENT 137
taken up and met by Mr. (now Sir) James Currie, Director of Training, Ministry of Labour, and as firm a friend to the Department as it could possibly have had. Proposals for wide schemes of technical, agricultural, and other voca- tional training began to be made by interested officers — detailed plans, for instance, being submitted by Lieut.- General Sir W. P. Pulteney, who as Commander of the 23rd Army Corps had done an infinite deal to encourage education in the Army, and by General Maxwell, of whom the same could be said as regards the Northern Command. Full proposals for the development of agricultural training were drawn up by the Department in discussion with the Ministry of Agriculture, which was specially anxious that the Army should help their plans for the future of land settlement and gave every support : Army Schools of Farming, at which courses of twelve weeks' duration should be held, were proposed for suitable students. The cost, however, of their establishment was judged to be too great, and the proposals fell through : with two exceptions, one just recorded and one to be recorded in Chapter XIL this was the only set of proposals made by the Department which did not — sooner or later — attain fruition.
A series of inquiries was set on foot all over the country as to the attitude of employers to the acceptance of men trained under the Army Education Scheme, and— -with an eye to the permanent Army — as to the extent to which employers would be likely to look upon the Army as a source of supply of personnel for their respective undertakings. A great number of employers were inter- viewed and their interest aroused both in the immediate future of the men of the War Armies and in the ultimate possibilities of an Army which retained educational training as part of its normal life ; and much good resulted. In many cases it was possible to secure promise of employ- ment for men then under training : in others new avenues
138 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
for future exploration were opened up. Most interesting information was obtained as to the normal sources from which the personnel of certain employments were re- cruited : it was seen more and more clearly in what a haphazard fashion men too often drifted into them and how much national benefit as well as benefit to the in- dividual could be achieved by guidance and assisted training. This subject, the employment of ex-soldiers, had been under consideration before the war by Sir Edward Ward's Committee in 1912 and by Sir Matthew Nathan's Committee in 1914 : but no effective conclu- sions could be reached without the establishment of some system of training the soldier for civil employment whilst he was still a soldier. The war had now not only brought that system into existence, but greatly affected the national knowledge of and feeling towards the Army. A memorandum drawn up within the Department as a result of the investigations and interviews above mentioned contains this passage :
* It has been discovered in the first place that there is an extraordinary change in the point of view of the average employer towards the ex-soldier. Not only is there very much greater desire to help the man who has served, but there is a genuine appreciation of the ^ qualities which are developed by Army training. In the second place, the idea that men in the Army should receive definite vocational training related to industrial needs has met with a most enthusiastic response. It is not too much to say that if the Army could give a definite guarantee in respect to character and training a very large number of employers would be prepared to give a definite guarantee of employment.'
There were many fields for further inquiry. The pressure of the work immediately in hand, the giving of every assistance to the demobilizing Armies, prevented our entering upon more at this period, but all information
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bearing upon the ultimate goal, the permanent benefit to the Regular Army, was carefully considered and stored for the coming need.
The resettlement activities of the Department were of deep interest and, it is to be believed, of considerable value. The work, in the first instance of Morison and Gretton, and afterwards of Turner, Wood, and Henriques, assisted, where it did not actually underlie, the operations of the demobilization authorities and of all the Govern- ment Departments in so far as these were concerned with the home-coming soldiers : it established the arrange- ments for the vocational side of the work on the Rhine, and, finally, it laid the foundations for the future develop- ment of a definite system of employment for regular soldiers on discharge.
CHAPTER IX
THE ARMIES OF OCCUPATION
Hardly had the needs oi the Annies after the Armistice begun to be in the least degree adequately met than fresh needs and different Armies arose : yet in these there were opportunities of more definite systematization than had hitherto proved possible. Writing to a Brigadier-General, General Staff, as early as January 31, 1919, I said :
* We are in a most transitional stage at present, but I do feel that with the Army of Occupation more or less stabilized for 9 or more months we ought to be able to run a very good show indeed, and our hand is being much fortified by the Ministry of Labour who recognize that we are going to have the young men of the country in that Army and by the Board of Agriculture who are anxious for us to carry out the Government's pledge as to training soldiers for settlement on the land.'
The Armies which had fought became from now onwards subject to greater and greater disintegration, with the exception of the troops on the Lines of Communication, which suffered gradual transformation into the Army of France and Flanders, and of the 2nd Army which under- went conversion into the Army of Occupation on the Rhine. This Army, partly at least owing to the presence at its Headquarters of Lt.-Colonel F. C. Tanner as a General Staff Officer, ist Grade, had advanced its educa- tional organization with considerable success since the Armistice, so that notwithstanding all the changes consequent upon its conversion there was a measure of continuity preserved. By the end of January attempts
THE ARMIES OF OCCUPATION 141
were already being made to rescind the hard-won induce- ment of extra-duty pay to educational instructors on the plea that all conditions (including pay) would be different in an Army of Occupation ; fortunately for the prosperity of Army education these failed. At the same period the future plans were under discussion, and the Depart- ment was pressing upon the attention of General Head- quarters, France, the desirability of treating the personnel of the Army of the Rhine, who were to be the lads of under 20 (so as to let the older men be demobilized), on the same educational basis as the A.iv. soldiers had been treated, namely, to make education a definite part of such training as needed to be given. By February 3 I was writing to Colonel Earle :
* I am now faced with the need of putting up a definite scheme for the Army of Occupation which really will be in the nature of a trial ground for a scheme for the Army of the future. I am firmly convinced that we must work upon the principle that every Commanding Officer is responsible for the training both military and educational of the unit under his command, and that for the higher branches only schools should be established.*
It was satisfactory that this principle commended itself without discussion to General Headquarters, France, from which on February 11 General Dawnay wrote * The general education should be on a unit basis '. But, as far as the future was concerned. General Headquarters was now yielding pride of place as the 2nd Army gradually emerged into its new form.
Early in February we began to direct the supply of books, &c., consciously towards the Rhine, and to seek for the views of General Plumer and his staff as to the future organization they required. Hadow and Morison went out to confer with them, the first as to education, the second as to arrangements for the advisory boards dispatched by the Ministry of Labour — it may here be
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noted parenthetically that these did most valuable work, so much so that the Forces in Ireland asked us specially to arrange for a similar visit to be paid to them also. On receipt of the official detailed proposals for the continuance of educational training on the Rhine from General Plumer, who was an entirely warm supporter and asked that they might be treated as very urgent and authorized with the least delay possible, I sent Lt. -Colonel Lascelles to Cologne to discuss all points at issue. These were of some substance because it had been laid down by the Government that 900,000 men in all should be retained, and, whilst every one agreed that educational training must be carried on, no one was willing to weaken units militarily, to provide the necessary instructors out of the number allowed them. What in fact was entailed was an entirely fresh authorization financially and in every other way of the whole educational organization. Mean- while, until that was accorded, the greatest uncertainty prevailed as to pay and every possible part of the work : instructors accepted demobilization daily rather than stay under anything so insecure, and by March i the position was becoming impossible. On that day it was thus summed up for the information of Sir Henry Wilson :
* Many teachers are willing to volunteer provided they can be employed upon the Scheme : at present they can only be told that if they volunteer they will be liable for any military duty — in consequence practically no one will volunteer. General Headquarters, 2nd Army, state that the keenness of the men for education is simply tremendous, that the Scheme can undoubtedly be made a great success on the Rhine, and that if it is scrapped or restricted now the consequences to moral will be very serious. In the circumstances to carry it on is imperative, but the power to do so will be lost unless a decision can be taken promptly. Detailed proposals, which include the supplementary employment of civilian teachers, where urgently required, have been submitted. But no pro-
THE ARMIES OF OCCUPATION 143
posals can be made effective unless the general principle is decided upon and announced immediately.'
The action of Sir Henry Wilson alone saved the situation ; he took up the matter personally and immediately. On March 5 the address of Mr. Churchill to the 69 Young Soldier Battalions which were about to depart for the Rhine included the words ' your education will be con- tinued ' ; on March 7 he approved the proposals, and telegrams were immediately dispatched to Commands at home and to Armies abroad announcing that the Scheme would continue in the Armies of Occupation, that Instruc- tors might be employed to the scale already authorized and specifically upon educational duties, and that teachers could volunteer for temporary service up to July 15, with the ordinary bonus for service with Armies of Occupation. On March 13 the official letter went to the Treasury asking for authorization of the organization proposed, full details of which were set forth. By March 27 the Army Order was in proof awaiting only the sanction from the Treasury which should release it, this sanction being represented by the Army of the Rhine to be then ex- tremely urgent. It was not forthcoming. The Treasury insisted that all the instructors must come within the normal war establishments laid down. Meanwhile, mis- understanding continued to exist as to the position of these instructors, and on April 11, in the absence of Sir Henry Wilson in Paris, General Lynden-Bell had to take energetic action to prevent them from being demobi- lized wholesale, owing to the publication of an Army Order on March 26 dealing with the composition of tl^e Armies of Occupation but making no reference whatever to them. The issue of this Order was one of a number of instances in which other War Office Departments failed to remember the existence of the Education Depart- ment and quite unintentionally cut the ground from
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under its feet — the more vexatious because of their own insistence on being fully consulted on all occasions.
Before narrating the story of the ensuing deadlock between the War Office and the Treasury, it will be well finally to close the account of the work in the War Armies ; there was of course no hard and fast line between the conclusion of the second phase and the beginning of the third : they overlapped, the Armies of Occupation taking form and the others passing gradually out of existence contemporaneously. The difficulties of such a transi- tional period are brought out pointedly in the following
letter, typical of many :
[A humble London address] Feb. 24th, 1919. ' My Lord,
My son, who is serving with the colours in France, and unfortunately is being detained for the Army of Occupa- tion, writes me to-day : Unfortunately the classes have finished here some few days, the Instructors having been demobolized, so we are at a standstill. If this is so, should not the Instructors have been pivotal men to the Army, or is this another case of one law for the rich and another for the poor as I lately read an account of how the Universities at Oxford and Cambridge were filling up. with young men who had been serving with the Colours and I take it were Public School boys in 1917. I think the least that might be done for boys who are sacrificing good berths would be to keep their studies up, at least those that were anxious to take instructions.
Yours faithfully.
A reply was sent stating that the son would be able once again to carry on his studies as soon as the Armies of Occupation were fully formed and pointing out that whilst all in the ranks who enlisted before January i, 19 16, could return to civil employment, this was not nearly so definitely the case for officers. As a matter of truth the young officers, in England at any rate, were
THE ARMIES OF OCCUPATION 145
worse off than the men : there were multitudes kicking their heels idly in over-officered battahons without adequate educational opportunities, and it was to meet their needs that at this date Schools of Instruction were estabHshed at Bedford and Catterick to give courses in , professional and technical subjects for officers awaiting demobilization.
- In addition, at this time, to strengthen the link between education in the Army and at home, after full discussion with Mr. Fisher and Sir L. A. Selby-Bigge and with the Master of Balliol, to whom the idea specially appealed, and the Adult Education Committee of the Ministry of Reconstruction, a Central Register was instituted, giving (a) name, [h) permanent home address, (c) trade or civil occupation, [d) hobby or subject in which particularly interested. Many thousands of soldier-students were indexed in this manner, and at a later date were followed up and told of the civil opportunities for continuing the studies they had begun in the Army, Mr. A. C. Coffin, Director of Education for Bradford, for example, extract- ing the names of all Bradford men on the Register and bringing his continuation and evening classes to their attention. Indirect evidence is all that can ever be truly obtained of the success of educational endeavour : it is at least permissible to hope that the unprecedented numbers which flooded the evening continuation classes of the London County Council in January 1920, largely ex-service men, had been stimulated to study by the Army Education Scheme.
The institution of the Register was among the last of the important tasks on which the original eight members of the Department worked in co-operation ; by April i all but one had been compelled to return to civil life through the value placed on their high qualifications ; it is notable that, dispersed as they became, Hadow to be
K
146 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University, Morison to succeed him as Principal of Armstrong College, Newcastle — to name but the two foremost — they continued closely to watch and cordially to help the Department whose measure of success was so largely due to their unstinted labour. For all the value and friendship of those who since December had been added to the strength of the Department and of those who now succeeded the depart- ing seven, and for all the continuing spirit which brought into being the sentence * Once a member of S. D. 8, always a member ', it was a sad occasion, the breaking up of a memorable band.
The unavoidable breaking up came, moreover, at a serious hour when there was the greatest danger that not the Department alone but the whole organization would break up. It was of supreme urgency to have continued sanction for the Scheme in the Armies of Occupation, and the deadlock was complete. In view of the uncertainty as to Germany's attitude, the military authorities declined to take the responsibility of weaken- ing by a single man the forces allowed for purely military purposes : the Treasury declined to sanction the educa- tional establishment additional to those forces. The trouble was that there was great reason on both sides. The first duty of the military authorities was to ensure that the Armies were efficient militarily ; moreover, a decision in April that educational instructors were part of the normal establishment would have entailed a breach of faith with all those who had volunteered to stay on on the explicit understanding that they were for educational duties only, unless each was given a fresh choice — and that would undoubtedly have meant the election of most to be demobilized forthwith. The Treasury contended that educational instructors should take a part of the ordinary mihtary duties and, further, that thev should
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no longer receive the extra-duty pay given them by the Army Order of December 20, 1918. Both contentions were doubtless desirable of realization, but impossible at a period when instructors had to be persuaded and could not be compelled to continue in the Army. So with argument and counter-argument the matter stood and continued to stand. It was obvious that where the War Ofhce and the Treasury differed the War Cabinet must decide ; and so at length, on May 6, 1919, to the War Cabinet it came. In the meanwhile the Armies carried on provisionally, and every one, soldiers and the general public alike, being naturally unacquainted with the position, raged at the delays of the War Office and the inertia of its Education Department. It was not an easy time.
It would no doubt be improper to give an account of the proceedings on the morning of May 6, 1919, on which I was called upon to attend Mr. Churchill at the Cabinet meeting. I brought to Mr. Churchill that evening, as instructed, proposals which were accepted by him forth- with and on the day following by Mr. Austen Chamberlain, who had throughout expressed the warmest appreciation of the necessity for the continuance of an educational establishment and confined objection to the cost as at first proposed. On May 13 the Army Order, so long ready, was issued.
By this the pay and allowances of the educational personnel remained as before, and instructors were sanctioned as follows : for the Army of the Rhine (where education was an obligatory part of the training) Instruc- tors, supernumerary to the normal war establishment, on the maximum scale of 4 officers and 8 non-commis- sioned officers per battalion, and smaller units in propor- tion : for the Forces in Great Britain and Ireland and in Armies other than the Army of the Rhine Instructors,
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also supernumerary, on the maximum scale of 2 officers and 4 non-commissioned officers per battalion, and smaller units in proportion. It was roughly estimated that on the above scales the total number would not exceed i,6oo officers and 3,200 non-commissioned officers, a great saving — on paper — on the original proposals. As it was impracticable to attain even to these numbers for a long time (by June 30 we had in fact 1,066 officers and 1,607 non-commissioned officers at work in Great Britain, Ireland, France, and on the Rhine), the saving was on paper only, and there need never have been the long pitched battle if the financial authorities at the War Office had not calculated with such deadly mathe- matical logic and insisted on asking for a suiti on the assumption that the establishment proposed would be filled everywhere and at once. I had pointed out the fallacy of such insistence repeatedly, but logic prevailed. On the afternoon of May 6, however, I was able to do sums and figures by myself, armed with Mr. Churchill's instructions to bring him fresh proposals personally in the evening ; and the difficulty disappeared. The Army obtained sanction not for all the instructors it needed, but for all it could possibly hope to secure ; and for just three further months education could proceed until the need for new sanction to meet newly arising conditions once again threatened its existence. It was difficult to avoid acquiring in S. D. 8 an intimate appreciation of the feelings of poor old Sisyphus.
The opportunity of the issue of the Army Order of May 13, 1919, was seized to cover a good deal of ground. (The three Army Orders of September 24, 1918, Decem- ber 9, 1918, and May 13, 1919, each consisted of a short paragraph of introduction and authorization, the Army Order proper, and a pamphlet giving all the details : for convenience this has been referred to as the Army Order.)
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The pamphlet ' issued with Army Order VII dated 13th May, 1919 ', entitled ' Educational Training — Armies of Occupation ' was divided into four sections : (I) Principles, (II) Organization, (III) System and Curricula, (IV) Notes on Methods of Teaching. Section II had alone con- tained the paragraphs for which Treasury sanction had been necessary, and this now set forth the authorized staffs, instructors, schools, supply of books and technical apparatus, arrangements with Local Education Au- thorities, &c. The scale of instructors, as above mentioned, applied everywhere, and staffs were specified for (A) the Home Armies, including Ireland, (B) the Troops in France and Flanders, (C) The Army of the Rhine, (D) The Force in Italy, (E) The Armies of the Middle East, Egypt, and Murmansk, (F) the Garrisons of Crown Colonies and India — as to these last it was merely stated that the extension of the Scheme to them was under considera- tion ; vague but not without utility. The other three main sections, which were passed within the War Office without opposition and almost without comment (the financial authorities had said they were all right but from their point of view ' all talk ', and the Adjutant- General had said he did not see how he was concerned in the Order), were a putting together of all previous instruc- tions and notes : the Army Order was in fact made a consolidating Act. A good deal of Section IV, * Notes on Methods of Teaching *, was an adaptation of a pamphlet, 'The Education of A.iv. soldiers', which the Department had issued in December 1918 — mainly then the work of Captain Goldstone, who brought his long experience of the teaching profession to bear. Section III, ' System and Curricula', was an exposition of Hadow's grouping of the subjects of instruction and the Education Certificates ; the Special Certificate had now been accepted as exempt- ing from the matriculation or other entrance examinations
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EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
of all the Universities and a large number of learned and professional bodies which were enumerated.
But it was Section I, ' Principles', which was really of the deepest importance — apart from the authorization of the organization to give it effect ; and it was the follow- ing, paragraph 2, which in his speech at the Imperial Education Conference a month later was quoted by Mr. Fisher with the comment * that is a very remarkable statement and it marks a great development in the history of the Army * :
* Educational training is not to be regarded as a secondary consideration, nor for spare hours as a form of recreation ; but as an essential element in the making of a soldier and an Army. This principle is based upon three main considerations :
(a) The variety and the real difficulty of the battle training of the modern soldier render it necessary that he should be quick, intelligent, and, as far as possible, of a ready understanding. It is a waste both of time and of energy to have to impart military and battle training to men whose minds, in the great majority of cases, have lain almost idle since the elementary school years. Educational training will produce a more or less cultivated soil in which the advanced stages of the military training will take root more quickly and more easily. Further, it is demanded nowadays that a man should understand what he is being taught, and the reasons for his instruction ; he must not merely learn by rule of thumb. Unless his general intelligence is being developed, specialized instruction must remain largely a learning by rote, and the mental self-confidence that any crisis may demand will never be created.
(b) Together with its bearing upon military efficiency, the bearing of educational training upon morale has from the first been kept in view. Diversion and occupation of the mind are to be found at their best in systematic classes, wherein men feel that they have, for their spare time, something well worth doing.
(c) Closely connected with the foregoing is the
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consideration that educational training provides a link with civil life and with the nation at large, which, both from the point of view of the individual man and from that of the Army generally, is of vital importance. In Armies constituted as modern Armies must be, it is inevitable that men should be concerned about their re-entry into civil life. It is of incalculable value that they should feel that their term of service has not handicapped them, but has given them opportunities of education which in the long hours of a factory or a shop they might never have found.'
Paragraph 4 opened with the sentence * Educational training is a proved requirement of the modern soldier ', and paragraph 5 ran as follows :
* The Scheme answers also to national requirements of to-day. The Education Act of 1918 has established, for the nation as a whole, the principle that training of the mind shall not cease, as for the great majority it has ceased hitherto, in comparatively early boyhood, but shall be continued to an age at which every one shall have had his chance to develop his abilities to their highest degree. With the Educational Training Scheme the Army takes its proper place alongside this movement. No man need, in the Army, fall behind his civilian fellows, or be debarred from his own advancement by lack of education.'
It is obvious that, though in the financial sense this might be ' all talk ', nevertheless, issued as it was with the full authority of the Army Council it was talk to a purpose. It went far beyond consideration of the education of the Armies of Occupation, and the definite statement that education was * an essential element in the making of a soldier and an Army ' meant the adoption mentally of a position from which it would be exceedingly difficult later to withdraw.
One further paragraph, 10, should be quoted because it is essential to the understanding of a great change
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brought about by general demobilization : until the spring of 1919, whenever a regular officer was found qualified and willing to undertake instructional duties, the reply from the War Office Departments concerned with his release invariably came back in the form of ' This is a regular officer and therefore cannot be spared '. As soon as demobilization advanced, we were continually being asked, * Why keep all these temporary officers ? why not employ regulars now available ? ' and we had to reply that we could to some extent if only we had been allowed to have them before to train for the work. The paragraph referred to ran :
* Employment of Regular Officers and N.C.Os. Wherever properly qualified officers of the Regular Army, or properly qualified non-commissioned officers or men, suitable for Instructors, serving on a pre-war attestation or having taken service for the Army after the war, are available for employment under this Scheme, they should be so employed. The objects must be :
{a) To secure that officers holding temporary Com- missions and other ranks as they become demobilizable are not unduly retained at the public expense.
{h) To secure that, in the passage of the Army to a permanent footing, experience in the organization and working of the Scheme is not entirely lost/
The Army Order of May 13, 1919, makes interesting reading from many points of view ; when studied closely it throws light not only on the difficulties but also on the hopes of the organization. Its primary and only official purpose, however, was to secure the continuance of educational training in the Armies of Occupation — and this it did effectually, in spite of the troubles caused by its being so long delayed.
It is now necessary to turn from the battles in and around the War Office to the Armies themselves, ' the business end ' as it was once described — intelligibly and
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yet with a certain overlooking of the fact that it was upon the fate of these battles that all work in the Armies had to depend. It would no doubt be possible to write whole volumes from * the business end ' alone, from each of ' the business ends ' rather, for work continued prosper- ously both at home and abroad in places where it was already implanted and began in places to which parts of the British Army now newly went, as at Murmansk. Each Army, each Force had its own story to tell of initiative, labour, and varying success ; probably, though its educational work attracted little or no public atten- tion, the Army of France and Flanders, very largely consisting of the elderly personnel of labour battalions hard at work on the great clearing up process, had as good reason to be proud of its endeavour as any : there is at least little doubt that it was the twin forces of education and recreation alone which held that mis- cellaneous Army contentedly together.
Public attention concentrated itself on the work on the Rhine, however, and some account must be briefly given of the rather remarkable educational organization which grew up there under the forceful control and character of Colonel F. W. Gosset, in spite of many very unfavourable circumstances. A visiting officer wrote from General Headquarters on July 15 :
* I have been impressed here with the difficulties they have had in organizing the classes. No arrangement holds good here for any length of time. Before the signing of peace. Education stood aside for training for the possible advance. After the signing Education was practically the chief aim but the advance being off the troops were and still are being reshuffled. ... I have had an absorbingly interesting time. The most striking point is what has been done in face of almost overwhelming difficulties.'
That passage is quoted at the outset because the writer
^
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was a very shrewd and capable senior officer, versed in men and affairs, and because the work on the Rhine came under severely hostile criticism from some of the small body of civilian instructors employed there. It was from only a few, but they were qualified instructors and acquainted with civil education ; unacquainted, how- ever, with Army life and unable to appreciate the con- . ditions militarily unavoidable in the summer of 1919, they no doubt hoped for an educational organization such as they were accustomed to at home where the classes were not fluctuating and the system was exact. In truth, though most of the civilian instructors were zealous and individually admirable, the experiment — for it was no less — of incorporating them temporarily into the organi- zation proved that in any future and permanent scheme the work in the Army — at any rate in the Army abroad — must be done by the Army. But it was an interesting experiment, especially the employment of a number of lady instructors, who were personally most successful, and one that in the great need of the Army was well worth making : it was of assistance also to individuals since the educational co-operation of the Young Men's Christian Association on the Lines of Communication ended in April, and a number of its workers stayed on with the Army under arrangements worked out principally between Hadow, Sir Graham Balfour, and Colonel Gosset. It should be added that in this transfer of work, which left the Army solely responsible for the education of all soldiers everywhere, the authorities of the Young Men's Christian Association met the War Office with the greatest readiness and courtesy : it is a pleasure to be able to record that the transfer was effected with a harmony and, on the part of the Army, with a gratitude befitting the conclusion of so long and so valuable a co-operation. In April, before the great General Headquarters
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Colleges had really started, and again in September, when their work could be seen and judged, a Committee con- sisting of Mr. R. H. Hutchinson, Technical Adviser to the Engineering and National Employers* Federation, Mr. A. German, Amalgamated Society of Engineers, and Mr. H. M. Purdy, Ministry of Labour, visited General Headquarters — ^in the first instance to advise and in the second to see how far it had been possible to carry out their advice in respect of these Colleges. Nothing stronger in praise of the arrangements, first planned and then executed at Cologne, Bonn, and Siegburg, could have been written than their two reports, amply confirmed by Sir James Currie when he too visited Cologne. There were also admirable Corps and Divisional Schools established in well-equipped German gymnasia or schools. In units education proceeded variously : in one Brigade, for example, 1,800 men sat for 3rd Class Certificates in July ; in another comparatively little was attempted. The work in units suffered not only from the difficulties above mentioned, but also from the uncertainty neces- sarily weighing on instructors as to their future : it was not enough that they were then being employed, they were continually asking themselves whether they were wise in staying on on a scheme officially tenjporary : and though the Rhine Army Order issued on June 23 by Major-General A. A. Montgomery, Chief of its General Staff, stated :
* The War Office is giving the Army of the Rhine priority in educational facilities because it looks to this Army to provide the model upon which will be based the educational training of the British Army of the future/
that was in itself no guarantee that there would be any educational training in the future Army or that any tem- porary officers would be employed upon it, if there was. This was a difficulty it was to take almost a year to solve.
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At the same time reports continued to dwell upon the demand : as one succinctly put it * The men throughout are very keen realizing that they are getting " something " for '* nothing " '. The education of the Young Soldiers in units undeniably faltered, was less satisfactory than had been the case when these units were A.iv. battalions in England : and in this connexion it seemed a pity that General Headquarters found themselves unable to take on their educational staff the one officer who best knew the work and needs of the Young Soldier Battalions, namely, Major Russell Jones, who had been Education Officer to the 23rd Army Corps since September 1918. This Corps now practically disappeared, and I pressed his transfer to the Rhine, therefore, upon General Head- quarters, but, as they were not able to include him, I gladly took him myself as a General Staff Officer, 2nd Grade, in which capacity he proved quite invaluable. Arrangements were made by which the Young Soldier Battalions took with them their libraries, &c., and every effort was made to secure continuity, but the transfer abroad necessarily broke off the assistance of civil education authorities on which they had much relied, and in face of all the circumstances what was accomplished, though far from all that could be hoped, was probably as much as could be expected. To go into it at length — apart from the General Headquarters Colleges which formed the special features and the outstanding merits of the Rhine organization — would be to repeat much that has previously been described. In March, students (as far as returns showed them) numbered 39,777 ; in April, as reorganization took hold, the numbers rose to 62,920 ; in May, they reached 75,278, falling again slightly in June, owing principally to the reshuffling on account of the military situation, to 74,370, of whom 1,295 were apprentices. It was the youth and consequent
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number of apprentices (5,800 in all) which differentiated the Army of Occupation on the Rhine from other Armies past or contemporary, and their needs, both viewed as individuals and as national assets, which were of primary importance.
Recognizing not only that units must for a long time be subject to movement and educational disorganization but also that real technical training could never be given in units. General Headquarters had from the first pro- ceeded with the establishment of three big central colleges. Probably the General Headquarters Technical College, under the exceedingly able direction of Lt. -Colonel W. J. Home, in civil life organizer for technical education in the Transvaal, was the most successful individual institution established in any Army. Situated in the Geschossfabrik, Siegburg, and in close proximity to other large engineering works, the College was opened on June 21 for 175 students, expanding later to 300 students each course of forty-three hours a week for six weeks. In addition to these courses, between February i and September 6, 1,700 skilled tradesmen and apprentices were attached to technical units for ' refresher ' courses. It was agreed, as a result of the Ministry of Labour's Committee and subsequent negotiations, (a) that time in the Rhine Army should count towards apprenticeship in accordance with the terms of the Ministry of Labour's scheme (A.T.S.3) and that time spent on a course at the Technical College should be counted by the apprentice as time spent working at his trade ; (b) that apprentices were to be given priority as regards vacancies at the College, though a certain number might be reserved for * novices ' ; and (c) that in the workshops * novices ' might be trained as machine operators at any power tool, except the centre lathe.
The General Headquarters General and Commercial
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College had been started in a part of the Handels-real- schule, Hansa Ring, Cologne, on January 17 : it soon spread over the whole of the Handels-real-schule and came to include not only a very popular Commercial Wing, an Art Branch, and Music classes, but also classes for Ordinands through which forty-eight students had passed by August 25. The most notable features are recorded to have been the very great enthusiasm shown, particularly but not exclusively by non-commissioned officers and private soldiers, an enthusiasm growing and deepening in purpose with each course, the larger proportion of these who attended the second and third courses, and the great difference in standard shown in the different subjects.
The General Headquarters Science College was an amalgamation, made on March 26, of the 2nd Army Agricultural College, which had been started on January 13, in the Landwirtscheftliche Akademie, Bonn, with No. 5 General Headquarters School of Chemistry, started on January 20 in the Chemical Institute, Bonn University. An excellent commentary on the difficulties caused by the delays in authorization for all the work, related earlier in this chapter, is to be found in the fact that it was not until May 14 that a Commandant could be appointed. Of the Science Wing, though much admirable work was done, the record is that the general standard was not high. The Agricultural Wing was very successful, and it is recorded, for example, that the income from the produce during August was 25,861 marks. Agriculture was always a very popular subject in the Army, and on the Rhine it flourished. Permission for each battalion or equivalent unit to requisition land up to 5 acres for educational purposes was obtained on April 12, and Divisional Schools were also formed, one of ]the most successful being at Berg Gladbach, * a thoroughly good one ', wrote Sir Thomas Middleton in the full 'and highly complimentary report
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he drew up for the Ministry of Agriculture on August 22 after a three weeks' tour round the Army.
In order to carry on the effect of the courses at all these Colleges, a General Headquarters Correspondence School was instituted in June. There was recognition of the fact that the Colleges * could not hope to do more, in six weeks, than to revive forgotten knowledge, put the student on the right lines for further study, and instil a certain amount of learning which could be digested at leisure later \ and the idea of correspondence courses was excellent, but of the work of this College it must be frankly stated that the civilians who were employed upon it were wholly dissatisfied with the execution. If, how- ever, the work in the Army of Occupation on the Rhine is looked at as a whole,^ the inevitable criticisms balanced against the equally inevitable championings — and it was sometimes a case of * save me from my friends ' — the shortcomings against the successes, there can be little doubt that in adverse and altering conditions an astonish- ing amount of most valuable work was accomplished. It must not be forgotten that, as was invariably the case with Army education in 1917, 1918, and 1919, just as the whole organization was really settling down to system the conditions began to change. There will be few who will fail both to sympathize and to agree with Colonel Gosset, who had laboured with great ability and extra- ordinary zeal in his task of organization, when he wrote to me on August 5, 'It is rather heart-breaking that the whole show out here is breaking up just as one was beginning to get it to function, but I think there is no doubt that good has been done.' It is at least certain that the editor of one small educational paper who wrote, * We are unable to comprehend how the scheme is working,
1 See also Report on Educational Training in the British Army (Cmd. 568), May 1920, paragraphs 10-17.
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and we have still to meet anybody who believes in it/ can neither have studied the published documents nor have met either Mr. Fisher or Sir Robert Home, the latter of whom, in forwarding Sir James Currie's report on his visit to Cologne and Bonn in September personally to Mr. Churchill on October 29, testified in the warmest terms not merely to the value of the work as a whole but also to the help which it was being on its industrial side to the Ministry of Labour, over which he then presided.
CHAPTER X IMPERIAL CO-OPERATION
All organization of educational work for the troops directly under the War Office involved, as preceding chapters will have shown, constant difficulties in connexion with financial and official authorizations : it was a relief to be engaged also in work which was for so many months based upon personal cordiality and willing co-operation. This, the second of the main side-issues, had an interest and importance all its own ; and it was in June 1919 that it attained to the summit of its influence. An account of it, therefore, now becomes a chronological necessity, more especially as it powerfully affected the immediate future of the Army Scheme.
From earliest days at the War Office in July and August 1918 I had been brought into close touch with representatives both of the Admiralty and the Air Ministry. Individual naval officers, having heard rumours of Army educational work, called in at the War Office to make inquiries, the first on July 25, and as soon as the names of the personnel of the new Department were announced, Lord Beatty telegraphed from the Grand Fleet asking the Admiralty to get into communication with me personally — the desirability of combating the monotony of long winter evenings on board ship being obvious as soon as suggested. On September 5 I had the honour of having to dinner the two Directors of Staff Duties of the War Office and Admiralty respectively, General Lynden-Bell and Captain (now Rear-Admiral) II. W. Richmond, R.N., when we discussed measures of
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interchange and co-operation. Captain Richmond's keen appreciation and delightful personality made these a pleasure : he attended the meeting of the Central Committee on September 9, when the Army Order of September 24 was approved in proof, and was kept informed of all developments. The result was that as soon as the lecture committee was formed, the Admiralty was represented and the needs of the Navy fully con- sidered, and as far as possible, supplied from then onwards in all arrangements for lecturers. By May 1919 it was possible to publish a * List of Lecturers who have ex- pressed their willingness to assist the Army Education Scheme ' ; this included the names, addresses, and subjects of 593 lecturers, men and women of the very highest distinction, together with the titles of a large variety of lantern slides and, later, educational cinematograph films — of which, according to an eminent scientist, the War Ofhce gathered together much the best collection in existence — so that this co-ordination and pooling of reso\irces was no small measure of co-operation : in addition, interchange of military and naval officers was arranged. The Army knew little, and could never hear enough, of the work of the Navy, and the converse was equally true : each was told of the other. The develop- ment of a Navy education scheme stopped short, partly no doubt because Captain Richmond left the Admiralty not long after the inauguration of the Army Scheme, and partly because the able-bodied seaman does not face as great difficulties of employment on discharge as does the trained soldier. At all events, educational classes in the Navy did not emerge into a system.
With the Air Ministry co-operation was more con- tinuous. Units of the Royal Flying Corps had begun work under the unofficial influences of the Army ; and when they became units of the Royal Air Force they
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determined to continue. Both before and after August 29, 1918, I had frequent visits from airmen asking for the Army's assistance ; but, though this could be given to some extent wherever units of the Royal Air Force were stationed with or close to Army troops, without mutual arrangements officially sanctioned War Office money could not legitimately be spent on Air Force personnel. The appointment of Colonel Ivor Curtis to the Air Ministry as Deputy-Director of Education was of much assistance as far as lecture arrangements and discussion of further co-operation went ; but the Air Ministry was slow in adopting an official educational scheme, and there were many difficulties. It seemed possible that the appointment of one Secretary of State for War and for Air might be of value for the development of joint work, and some attempt was made in this direction, but without any substantial success. Colonel Curtis and I, however, consulted together frequently, and there is hope that real co-operation between the two Services may still be realized — ^at any rate in India, where it would be both effective and economical. The report on the educational work of the Royal Air Force during the demobilization period which was supplied to the Adult Education Com- mittee of the Ministry of Reconstruction for inclusion in their Final Report contained the following graceful passage as to the co-operation it was found possible to achieve :
* Especially fruitful was the liaison set up with the War Office (S. D. 8) and the Appointments Department. The former department has throughout given unstinted and invaluable help, whilst every request for assistance or advice has met with a most cordial response. The Air Force has had the benefit of the spade work done by the officials of this department (S. D. 8) in the preparation of a series of pamphlets covering a wide range of useful information in regard to books, courses of instruction, examinations, syllabuses, and kindred matters. Airmen
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have been made free to sit for the Army Education Certificate, recognized for the purpose of matriculation by every university within the United Kingdom, as well as by the great majority of the great professional institu- tions. Vacancies have been placed at the disposal of the Air Force in the intensive courses of educational training which have been held under the War Office at Oxford, Cambridge, and Catterick. Arrangements have also been made for the interchange of facilities, as, for instance, where soldiers or airmen are detached from their units or need some special form of instruction. Here the Air Force has been able to make some return for the benefits received, by taking considerable numbers of Army students for "refresher" courses in technical training, especially in France and in Egypt.'
Before turning to the main subject of this chapter, namely, co-operation with the Educational Services of the Dominions Forces, it is fitting briefly to mention that which was established with the American Army. Foreign nations, the French and Roumanian in particular, made inquiries and were kept informed, through their Military Attaches, of our progress and plans, the Rou- manian Military Attache expressing to me his special interest in the agricultural training being given ; but with the Americans alone was a real bond possible. They had developed an Educational Service on lines assimilated to our own ; and early in 1919 were planning also to send several thousand soldier-students for short courses at our Universities. I had met Dr. E. W. Pahlow, a member of the American Army Educational Commission, soon after arrival at the War Office ; he became a member of the lecture committee and was kept supplied throughout with our publications ; and as soon as Colonel F. F. Longley was sent to London to take charge of the arrangements for the American students coming to England, Dr. Pahlow brought him to see me. Cordial relations developed, and it is hoped that the War Office
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was able to give some slight assistance : by Colonel Long- ley's courtesy, one of his officers who had been a Rhodes Scholar, Major W. M. Rogers, was attached for several months to the Department, where he acted with the greatest success as a liaison officer between us. The American Ambassador, Mr. J. W. Davis, had early ex- pressed to me his warm appreciation of the co-operation found possible over lectures, and Lt. -Colonel R. I. Rees, now Chief, Education and Recreation Branch, War Depart- ment, Washington, called and asked to be kept constantly posted in the developments in our educational policy as they arose. After the return home of the American Armies the American Military Attache, Colonel O. N. Solbert, and his staff, kept in touch with the Department and came with many questions which were answered as fully as possible ; finally, at his request, I drew up in December 1919 a voluminous report on the ' Educational Training in the British Army ' to which all necessary documents were annexed. This was sent through the American Embassy to the War Department at Washington and, incidentally, was used later, shortened and brought up to date, for the Report (Cmd. 568) presented to Parliament in May 1920. The extensive development of educational training which is now such a notable feature of the reconstitution of the American Regular Army has at any rate not taken shape without full and courteous consideration being given to the development which was to take place in 1920 in the reconstitution of our own.
It has been already stated, in Chapter II, that repre- sentatives of the several Dominions Forces attended the Educational Conference held at General Headquarters, British Armies in France, on March 14, 1918 ; and when I came to the War Office on July 10, I immediately endeavoured to establish satisfactory inter-communica- tion with the Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders,
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all of whom, though considerably ahead of the War Office, were at that date still in the stage of experiments and plans. Lt.-Colonel Lascelles, whom I saw on July 13, was -well acquainted, both as a New Zealander and also as Secretary to the Overseas Sailor and Soldier Scholarships Scheme, with the New Zealand Scheme, and also with the plans for the Canadian Forces formulated by Dr. H. M. Tory, President of Alberta University ; and it was possible quickly to form a working alliance, based upon personal friendship and mutual interest, with Bishop Long and his deputy Captain H. Thomson (a Rhodes Scholar, like Major Rogers) of the Australian Forces. This was of high value from the start, especially over some rather difficult arrangements with Mr. Yeaxlee ; and the happy interchange of confidence which led Bishop Long to write on August 24, 1918, ' I think we shall generally find our points of view in harmony ' continued until (and beyond) the return of both himself and Captain Thomson to Australia. By the end of August I was in close personal touch with Dr. Tory also, and he is a man with whom it must ever be a pride to have been in any way associated. The very fact of the official inauguration on August 29, 1918, of the Army Scheme and of the War Office Depart- ment was in itself of some assistance to the Educational Services of the Dominions ; the lecture committee, soon afterwards at work, was much more. The bulk of lecturers available for troops in Great Britain or France had neces- sarily to be drawn from the British Isles, and there can be little doubt that much benefit was derived from the centrali- zation of resources in this respect, administered by the War Office in accordance with the requirements of the Admiralty, Air Ministry, the Dominions Forces, and the Americans, as agreed and co-ordinated at the committee meetings. All of course were free to make their own arrangements, but all could draw in addition on the central
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body of lecturers built up in the succeeding months : the testimony of the Australians to the value of the help thus afforded has been already quoted on p. 66.
A further development of Imperial co-operation, destined to play an even more important part than the supply and interchange of lecturers, soon followed. On November 26, 1918, at the request of the Chairman, I attended the second meeting of the sub-committee of the Empire Military Demobilization Committee ; this sub- committee had been set up to consider what steps should be taken with regard to affording help in the United Kingdom to the troops of the several Dominions Forces whilst they awaited repatriation, in the way of providing them with educational facilities, with special regard to industrial training. At the first meeting it had naturally been asked what the War Office was doing for the troops under its immediate control. No one knew, and the question stood adjourned until that could be made known. On November 26 a very few minutes showed that, if anything at all was to be done in this extremely important matter, the Education Department of the War Office must be prepared to shoulder the responsibility ; there was no other Department which could, and the representa- tives of the Dominions pressed me to take on the work. I expressed readiness to help in every way possible, and the sub-committee thereupon passed not only the following resolution but also out of existence :
' That a small Working Committee should be formed, under the Chairmanship of Colonel Lord Gorell, the members being the Dominion educational representatives or their deputies, to co-ordinate with the Home Authorities all. arrangements desired by the representatives of the Dominions in connexion with their educational schemes. This Committee is in no sense to restrict the independent activities of the Dominions Educational Services con- cerned, but to be auxiliary only/
i68 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
It was perfectly obvious that such a body would either be entirely useless or invaluable ; hesitation had arisen only from the fear lest in the overwhelming pressure of the work for which my little Department of eight people had been constituted the great opportunity would be impossible to seize. Fortunately, this was just at the time when the expansion of the Department was in any event imperative and had been decided upon ; and the addition in December of Lt. -Colonel Lascelles, who became Vice-Chairman, and of Captain MacLean, who became Secretary, effectually dispelled this fear. To these two officers, and especially to the latter — for a year later Lt. -Colonel Lascelles left for India — is due the filling of a gap, which had been left unfilled so long only because it took years of war to fix men's attention fully both on the needs and the opportunities of Empire. So came into being the Imperial Education Committee.^
The Committee met for the first time on December 19, 1918, constituted according to the above-quoted recom- mendation, the War Office, the Canadian, Australian, and South African Forces, and the Newfoundland Contingent being all represented — the New Zealand representative, Colonel H. Stewart, who had succeeded Captain Kirk as Director of Education, alone being unable to be present on this occasion. The question of students from the Overseas Forces desirous of going to United Kingdom Universities was fully discussed, and the suggestion was made by the Canadian representative that organized tours through the factories of Great Britain should be arranged for specially selected men ; this was accepted with the addition that agricultural tours were also to be included. The second meeting on January 2, 1919, showed, first, that the expected crowding of the United Kingdom Uni-
^ See also Report of Imperial Education Conference, June 11 and 12, 1919 (H.M. Stationery Office, 6d,), Appendix I.-
IMPERIAL CO-OPERATION 169
versities, both as the result of the accelerated demobiliza- tion of students and of the sending of American soldier- students, was going to make it very difficult for each Dominion to arrange satisfactorily for the acceptance of its own men, and that the Committee, acting on behalf of all, could be of the greatest assistance ; secondly, that tours to industries, educational institutions, farms, and fisheries, on which men from the several Dominions could be sent together as a mixed body to exchange views en route, would be of the highest utility and could only be arranged by a Committee acting for all ; and, thirdly, that innumerable points would arise on which the assis- tance of the War Office would be invited by the Dominions, if only it proved itself efficient. It is perhaps significant that a certain amount of distrust in the efficiency of the War Office was manifest at these early meetings : that it w^as entirely dispelled is proved by the fact that the Committee had not been long in existence before each Dominion found that it could not afford to be unrepre- sented at the meetings. Dr. Tory, who had at first been doubtful whether there was anything in which a War Office Department could help the extremely efficient Canadian Educational Service, gradually became the warmest of the Committee's supporters, attended himself as regularly as possible, and took the encouraging and useful step of attaching Captain J. M. MacEachran, in civil life Professor of Philosophy, Alberta University, to the Department in order that liaison might be continuous. With Captain MacEachran (Canada), Major Rogers (U.S.A.), Lt.-Colonel Lascelles (New Zealand) and Captain MacLean (South Africa) there was therefore a really widely extended interchange of ideas within the new section (S. D. 8d).
Very early it was found that reference would be necessitated to many Government Departments : the
170 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
fifth meeting on February 20 was attended by Sir L. A. Selby-Bigge, Permanent Secretary, Board of Education, and Commander E. Hilton Young, M.P., Private Par- liamentary Secretary. These courteously came and explained to the Committee the position in regard to the United Kingdom Universities, and a frank and valuable interchange both of opinion and information took place. The sixth meeting, on March 5, was attended by Lt.-Colonel L. C. M. S. Amery, M.P., Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, who explained to the Committee the position, as it then stood, of the proposed extension of the Govern- ment Grant for Higher Education to officers and to men who were of similar educational standards to officers. In its first form the grant would not have enabled these to go overseas to study. Lt.-Colonel Amery expressed the hope that the Committee would undertake the work of investigation and decision on all applications in connexion with the Government Grant from those domiciled over- seas. It is unnecessary now to go into the details of the extremely complicated Government Grant, which had been the subject of discussions and correspondence between Sir L. A. Selby-Bigge, Lt.-Colonel Amery, and myself from February 11 onwards : mainly owing to Lt.-Colonel Amery the grant was extended, and the co-operation of the Committee became essential to its administration in so far as the Empire Overseas was concerned. It is a strange commentary upon our lack of organization as an Empire that there was absolutely no other body or Department which could undertake the task than the little nucleus of Imperial machinery so newly brought into being. On April 28, 1919, after full discussion in the Committee and with the Board of Education and Appoint- ments Department, Ministry of Labour, Army Council Instruction 280 of 1919 was issued, of which the first and most important paragraph ran :
IMPERIAL CO-OPERATION 171
' It has been decided that ex-officers and men of similar educational qualifications and of British nationality whether ordinarily domiciled in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, if they have served during the war in the Naval, Military, or Air Forces of the Crown for which payment is made out of monies provided by the Parlia- ment of the United Kingdom shall be eligible for financial assistance to pursue courses of higher education at Universities or other approved Institutions, in agriculture, and in offices and works :
{a) In the United Kingdom.
(b) In the British Empire overseas or in foreign
countries elsewhere than in the Dominion or country
of a candidate's own domicile.'
Briefly, as far as those overseas were concerned, this meant first that whilst a Canadian who had served in the Canadian Forces was not eligible for a grant payable by the United Kingdom, a Canadian who had served in, for example, the Royal Air Force — as a large number had done — was eligible ; secondly, that a Canadian eligible for the grant might go to a University of the United King- dom or of Australia or of America, but not to a Canadian University. The reason for this was in part the position of men in the South African Force which was paid by the Parliament of the United Kingdom ; but principally it was because the Governments of the various Dominions had schemes of their own, which admitted on an equal footing both men who had belonged to the Force of the Dominion concerned and men from that Dominion who had served in a Force paid by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It must be remembered that the admission into the United Kingdom Scheme of any men domiciled overseas was a concession ; the original purpose of the grant had been the resettlement of students of the United Kingdom only. The first consequence of the terms of the Government Grant was that it was necessary to add to the Committee representatives of the Admiralty,
172 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
the Royal Air Force, the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Board of Education, the Colonial Office, and the Ministry of Labour. The second consequence was that the Committee became definitely and officially the channel for sifting the claims of applicants from overseas and recommending them at its discretion for grants and, if they were accepted, for helping to place them in Univer- sities and Colleges (work successfully accomplished in numerous cases, though the Universities Bureau of the British Empire declared it to be impossible in any) ; and, conversely, for helping applicants desirous of going over- seas for courses in a similar way. The third consequence was that from continually dealing with very intricate questions of domicile (than which, as every lawyer knows, there is no legal matter more difficult often to decide) the Committee, or rather its special sub-committee, became gradually recognized as the authoritative judge as to eligibility. Not occasionally, but constantly, the other Government Departments concerned sought and are still (November 1920) seeking the opinion of the Secretary on such points ; it is probable that Captain MacLean has become the only person who can pronounce with any degree of certainty as to whether an applicant is or is not eligible, the question depending on most difficult questions of domicile and war-service ; and to the value of the services he has rendered in respect of educational inter- change within the Empire in this and other respects testimony has been borne by all the four Ministries above named. The return home of the Dominions Forces in the summer and autumn of 1919, though it broke up actual meetings of the full Committee, gave the Officers a repre- sentative in each Dominion, and a web of interchange and mutual assistance was woven on which constant reliance has been placed. Applications from repatriated soldiers can be scrutinized before being forwarded ; and the post
IMPERIAL CO-OPERATION 173
bag of the Secretary is filled from every corner of the Empire.
The tours arranged whilst Dominion soldiers remained awaiting repatriation covered a wide field of instructional interest : they varied in size according to the nature of the tour, from 30, mostly men of the Newfoundland Contingent, who visited our fisheries, to 300 from all the Dominions who attended the Suffolk Agricultural Show at Ipswich, and 1,000 for whose attendance at the Royal Agricultural Show at Cardiff a special temporary camp had to be arranged. Visits for overseas members of the teaching profession to our schools, for surveyors and architects to our Garden Cities, for professional and technical members to our factories and industries, and others of various kinds to meet the desires of different Dominions were also arranged. In connexion with the visit to the Agricultural Show at Norwich His Majesty was graciously pleased not only to allow the tour to include a visit to his Sandringham Estate, but directed that the soldier-farmers from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa who went on this tour should be personally conducted round and entertained. A visit was also paid, by gracious permission, to the Royal Farm, Windsor. It is deserving of record that, though the arrangement of these tours threw a great deal of work not only on the Executive of the Committee but also on the officers of the different Dominions Educational Services, who supplied each their quota, this work was enormously facilitated by the courtesy and ready co-operation with which the secretaries of the various Agricultural Shows and the local Mayors, officials, and other interested persons of the various districts or institutions concerned met the suggestions of the Committee, and gave hospitality to the overseas soldier-students. In all a considerable number of the latter were enabled to carry back with them, each
174 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
to his own part of the Empire, memories both of interest- ing study and of warm welcome from their experiences on these tours.
At the eighth meeting of the Committee, held on April 30, Captain E. R. Holme, Chairman, Administrative Com- mittee, Australian Universities, and the Australian repre- sentative on the Committee, raised the difficult and important question of the acceptance by United Kingdom Universities of Overseas Universities' matriculation certi- ficates, and after discussion it was suggested by Colonel Tory that advantage should be taken of the presence in England of so many distinguished educationists serving in the Dominions Forces to hold an Imperial Education Conference early in June for the discussion of all the problems which had presented themselves to the Committee. The suggestion met with unanimous approval, and it was left in my hands, as Chairman, to endeavour to carry it into effect. It was a big undertaking to be thrust upon me suddenly at so busy a date ; for again, like the Committee itself, such a conference could either be futile or memorable — it was important it should not be the former. On the evening of May 6 I took advantage of my one personal interview with Mr. Churchill, described in the previous chapter, to tell him of the proposal and ask him to take the chair at the first of the four sessions. Mr. Churchill, however, felt himself unable to accept the invitation, and I was therefore free to approach Sir Henry Wilson through General Lynden-Bell : Sir Henry Wilson not only accepted with cordiality but allowed the Con- ference to be convened in his name. The Conference, which was held on June 11 and 12, 1919, in the Library, Australia House, was attended from first to last by a total of 131 people, every one of whom was a specialist in some branch of education : not quantity but quality was aimed at in the invitations, and there were almost no refusals.
IMPERIAL CO-OPERATION 175
Practically every University in the Empire was repre- sented, and in addition there were men eminent in business and in agriculture. Sir Henry Wilson came over specially from the Peace Conference, and in the course of his opening address said :
' This meeting represents the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force. It represents more than that — it represents all of us here at home and all of you over the salt Water. It represents more than that — it represents the Universi- ties and Educational Establishments of that small place called the British Empire. It represents all these things. Why have we gathered ourselves here in this room this morning ? To solve a problem raised by the bloodiest war the world has ever seen, to try (during the war almost) to solve some of the problems of peace, just as we soldiers, during peace time have to try and solve some of the problems of war.
In so far as I am concerned and if I may for the moment represent the Navy and the Air Force, what are these problems ? I think they can be put under three heads. Fir.st of all we have to weave into the life of the soldier education. Secondly, we have to make a profession of arms and bring it close up to education, to modem thought, and to modern science. If we have succeeded in doing that, we shall have solved the last of the three problems — that when we soldiers and sailors and airmen hand you back our men into civil life, we will hand you back not only good soldiers, sailors, and airmen, but will hand you back good citizens. If we can as a result of this war solve these problems in that sense, this meeting will have gone a long way to justify its calling.'
He was followed by Mr. Fisher, who after quoting the Army Order of May 13 in terms already given in the preceding chapter went on to eulogize the educational work of the Armies, and referring particularly to the Imperial aspect of it presented by the Conference used these words :
* Do not let us allow this great movement to fizzle out ;
176 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
s
we must keep it going. There are, of course, some melancholy indications that many of the great moral advantages which have been gained by this period of sacrifice are being lost, but here we have a movement of incredible promise. I hope that the men of the Empire will make it one of their objects to maintain an interest in the educational unity of the Empire. After all, if the Empire is to be helped, it must be held together by the force of ideals and aspirations inculcated and diftused through education. An old Greek philosopher told us that the unity of the State was founded in education, and if the unity of the State is founded in education, so must also be the unity of the Empire. I should like to see equality of educational opportunities all through the Empire. . . . Here in this great Empire scheme, to which, as I said, every part of the Empire has independently contributed, we have the germ of an Empire Educational Organization.'
Mr. Fisher concluded his address by these valuable words :
' The mere recognition of the fact by our brilliant Chief of the General Staff, that education is henceforward to be an essential part of Army training, is one of those great steps forward in the social progress of the world for which the war has been responsible.'
The above passages from the speeches of Sir Henry Wilson and Mr. Fisher have been quoted because of their direct practical bearing on events to be related. It would be outside the scope of this history to dwell at length upon the striking speeches of subsequent speakers.^ Following the two opening addresses. Colonel Tory opened a discus- sion upon the function of an Imperial Education Bureau, and Sir Donald MacAlister, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Glasgow University and Chairman of the Universities Bureau, Professor Ramsay Muir, Professor of Modern History, Manchester University, and Dr. A. Hill, Principal
^ See Report of the Imperial Education Conference, published with a foreword by Sir Henry Wilson.
IMPERIAL CO-OPERATION 177
of University College, Southampton, and honorary secretary of the Universities Bureau, carried it on. In the afternoon of June 11 the chair was taken by Lt. -Colonel Amery, representing Lord Milner, who had hoped to come himself, and the vexed question of matriculation standards and interchangeability of students was frankly discussed by representatives of United Kingdom and Overseas Universities. At the third session on the morning of June 12, when Sir Henry Hadow presided, technical and commercial education and the co-ordination of research was discussed, and valuable speeches were made full of suggestiveness by such men as Sir Frank Heath, Secretary, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Mr. A. P. M. Fleming, Manager, Research and Education Departments, British Westinghouse Electric and Manu- facturing Company, Manchester, and others at home and, from overseas. The final session, in the afternoon of June 12, was perhaps the most interesting of all : it was con- cerned with ' organized study to meet specific needs with special reference to the development of agricultural resources within the Empire ' and with the ' co-ordination of research and distribution of information in respect of the agricultural resources of the Empire '. Lord Bledisloe presided, and the Dominions representatives took a leading part in the discussions. One of the most strikingindividual contributions was made towards the end by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, Member of the Legislative Assembly, Union of South Africa, who summed up the proceedings in the following words :
' Just recall how we have progressed in this matter of Imperial Education in the course of these two days. There was first of all a scheme of Army Education, which, I presume, would have diminished just as the Army diminished on the coming of peace. That was not the idea of the moving spirits behind this Conference, but that was the opening. I should have liked to have
M
178 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
had the opening discussion at the end, so to speak, because now a number of us at any rate must have got a pretty clear reaUzation that this is part of a big thing — much bigger than educating a certain number of soldiers and returning them as quaUfied and capable citizens, good as that is ; this is a scheme to educate the whole Empire/
Sir Percy Fitzpatrick then moved a resolution which was adopted by the chair, put at the conclusion of the pro- ceedings and carried unanimously with loud applause : in this, after expressing the warmest appreciation of the work * and of the far-sighted patriotism shown in initiating a movement of such urgent importance to the strength and well-being of the Empire \ the Conference desired the Imperial Education Committee to submit to the Prime Minister a report of the proceedings
' with the request that it be brought to the notice of all the Prime Ministers of the Empire, either at the Imperial Conference or in such other manner as may be deemed appropriate, to ensure early and practical results.'
So closed a Conference of which Lord Bledisloe said in his concluding words, * I cannot help thinking that it will prove an important landmark in the history and develop- ment of the British Empire.'
A full report was sent, as directed, to the Prime Minister ; this was not so much as acknowledged. Copies sent privately to Lord Curzon, then Lord President of the Council and so the one Imperial Minister, and to Lord Milner, Secretary of State for the Colonies, were personally acknowledged with warmth and courtesy. One practical result at least ensued : in his address Lord Bledisloe had said :
* in order to " get a move on " it seems to me the first essential is to institute, at the earliest possible date, an Imperial Bureau of iVgricultural Information ; and I am
IMPERIAL CO-OPERATION 179
authorized to say that the English Board of Agriculture is prepared to participate in, or, even, if required, to organize such a Bureau of Information in London/
Action was taken upon this ; Lt. -Colonel Lascelles and myself both had the honour in the latter part of 1919 of being called into consultation by Sir Daniel Hall, Per- manent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, as to the draft of the Royal Charter for an Imperial Agricultural Bureau.
It may here be said that the work of the Imperial Education Committee in connexion with agricultural education overseas has throughout been of special im- portance. In addition to placing students from the United Kingdom in the Universities of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, the Committee has, at the request of the Ministries of Agriculture and of Pensions^ placed 200 ex-officers and men, the majority being ex- officers, in agricultural colleges and on trainings farms in the Dominions. An organization in close touch with the Departments of Agriculture in the different Dominions has been built up, and in every instance these Depart- ments have shown the greatest willingness to co-operate with the Committee in the work. At the end of 1920 the whole of this work is proceeding with smoothness, and the Committee is in regular correspondence with the Depart- ments of Agriculture in each Dominion and in nearly every Colony and Dependency within the Empire.
On July 23, 1919, the Imperial Education Committee met finally to consider the results of the Conference before its Dominions representatives returned home. Resolutions were passed unanimously urging the establish- ment in London without delay of an Imperial Education Bureau * to collect, co-ordinate, and disseminate informa- tion as to the educational requirements and resources of the Empire ', and suggesting its constitution. These
M2
i8o EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
resolutions and others consequent upon them were conveyed by direction of the Committee to Mr. Fisher and Lord Curzon. It is disappointing that no action has since been taken to profit by an opportunity which can hardly recur.
On March 27, 1920, the Army Council wrote to the Colonial Office to say that after the demobilization of Captain MacLean and myself they would have no facilities for carrying on work which had become Imperial and was no longer for those serving in the Army, and to ask if the Colonial Office would not be prepared to throw its mantle now over the Committee. On April 29, a confer- ence was held at the Colonial Office with Lt. -Colonel Amery in the chair to discuss the future of the Committee : the Ministries of Labour, Pensions, Agriculture, and Education (for all of whom the Committee was still con- tinually acting) were represented, and the Privy Council in addition, and it was unanimously agreed that, subject to Treasury assent, the Committee should be continued, attached for working purposes to the Overseas Settlement Committee, and that the question of transfering it to the Privy Council should be reserved for later consideration. In spite of representations, nothing more happened until September 18, when the Treasury returned the singular reply that they sanctioned the transference of Captain MacLean for temporary employment in the Department of Special Inquiries and Reports of the Board of Education * as the Officer specially concerned with the Imperial Education Conference '. It is not difficult to guess at the reason for such a reply. In any event it was wholl}^ unsatisfactory. The Board of Education, being concerned with England alone, cannot, as Mr. Fisher had himself stated in April, deal adequately with an Imperial matter — nor could the temporary employment of an officer in such |a sphere be in any way regarded as a continuance
IMPERIAL CO-OPERATION i8i
of the Committee. Since my demobilization on May 29, 1920, the Committee has existed in the air and has managed to carry on its widespread activity and useful- ness only because of the self-sacrificing labours of its Secretary. Its representatives overseas are still (Novem- ber 1920) acting, still writing, still hoping, but only through the personal channels and confidences which we were enabled to establish. It would seem therefore that, however regrettable, Mr. Fisher's words, ' Do not let us allow this great movement to fizzle out ; we must keep it going,' will merely remain as the expression of a sympa- thetic aspiration. It is so easy to blow out a little torch — especially when it is held up only by the voluntary co-operation of a few individuals : it is so hard to rekindle it when once that act has been ruthlessly or carelessly performed. When next the distinguished educationists of the Empire meet together, it seems almost inevitable now that it will be to look back with mortification on the throwing away by the United Kingdom Government of a great opportunity, the ending for the sake of a few hundred pounds of a nucleus of Imperial machinery which the Dominions regarded with such pride and hopefulness, the extinction of what Mr. Fisher recognized on June 11, 1919, to be ' the germ of an Empire Educa- tional Organization \^
1 Since the above was written, a last effort has been made and has met with a measure of success. On January 3, 192 1, the Board of Education agreed to adopt the Committee, still on a temporary basis : and, until its existence is actually terminated, experience justifies a refusal to believe that it will fail to struggle eventually into permanent usefulness as a much-needed agent of Imperial co-operation.
i
4
CHAPTER XI THE REGULAR ARMY
By the beginning of July 1919 new considerations of policy were forcing themselves insistently to the attention. Peace with the principal enemy was signed, and in spite of the uneasy heavings of Central Europe and the chaotic conditions of the Near East the centre of interest was swinging definitely away from the Armies of War. Much was to remain as the legacy of the great struggle ; many troops in excess of the peace establishment of the Army were long to be retained — a monthly return from the Army of the Rhine, dated October 22, gives a total of 31,130 students, of whom 1,024 were apprentices, and admirable work was done throughout the summer at the Repatriation Camp at Winchester, to say nothing of the continued development of educational work in Egypt and also in Ireland — but the last transitional period was now upon us. Just as the Army of Occupation on the Rhine had gradually resolved itself into form out of the 2nd Army, British Armies in France, so under cover of the temporary Armies of the Armistice was re-forming once again the permanent Regular Army. The question to be determined was, would it be enabled to profit by the educational experience of the past two years or would it be re-formed on precisely the same uninspired lines as had governed its previous existence ? Eleven further months of endeavour were to pass before a final answer could be given to that question.
From July onwards all units were undergoing change :
THE REGULAR ARMY 183
many dwindled and disappeared finally from the Army List ; others, outwardly much the same, were transformed from temporary elusive ness back to permanent fragments of the Army. Officers of high degree and many decorations , began to return to old regimental duties, to command companies instead of battalions, and battalions (if fortunate enough to be commanding anything) instead of brigades. Battery commanders sought employment hopelessly. Hospitals closed one by one or passed out of military control : on July 31 the organized work in them of the Victoria League came to an end, with cordial thanks on our part for their generous and efficient help and on the part of the League with the following words from the Secretary :
* I am also asked to take this opportunity of expressing the appreciation with which the Victoria League Com- mittee have welcomed the opportunity which has been allowed them of co-operating with the work of Education in the Army in which they take the deepest interest. The extremely pleasant relations which have subsisted between your department and the League during the whole of our co-operation with the War Office have been a source of very great satisfaction to my Committee. They desire me to express their warm gratitude for the courtesy and consideration with which they have been treated through the whole period of this connexion.'
The constant negotiations and arrangements necessitated by the demand for lecturers, carried out for so many months by Major H. M. Holland, received in the above a valued recognition.
The change which was now creeping over the Army was one of much deeper significance than the change from Armies of War to Armies of Occupation which had taken place in February and March. That had been in the main a change in size only : this was a change in character. The stages by which the third phase passed into the fourth
i84 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
and final phase were necessarily gradual, but throughout the whole movement it had been necessary to lay plans as far as possible ahead, and this was especially true of the final phase. It was seldom possible to act ahead ; it was always necessary not merely to think ahead but to prepare the thoughts of others for a future advance. From the very first it had seemed probable that what was beneficial to the War Armies would be beneficial also to the Regular Army, and investigation into the problem of the employment, after their discharge, of soldiers, whether temporary or regular, made this probability a conviction. The two factors which in 1918 were little known were, first, the degree of pressure which con- siderations of economy would exert, and, secondly, the degree of support which would be forthcoming from the military authorities: a scheme linked with the war emergency as a profitable occupation for demobilizable men was obviously less to be scrutinized by these than the permanent inclusion of educational activity within the sphere of the regular soldier.
In July 1919 the first factor, the economic, was still to some extent veiled ; it was certain that there would be great need for retrenchment ; it was not known what sums would be obtainable. The second factor had to a very great degree revealed itself. Though there were to be continuing examples to the contrary, the military authorities as a whole had given a volume of support to the movement, which was as necessary as it was sur- prising. Not the higher commanders alone, but officers who could not reasonably be expected to take so compre- hensive a view of the Army welcomed the work for the soldiers they then commanded, and began to wonder why its benefits should not be extended to those who embraced soldiering as a profession. This thought began to take shape at a much earlier date than is commonly realized,
THE REGULAR ARMY 185
as witness this passage written by a Brigadier-General, a regular soldier, on January 28, 1919 :
' What is wanted is not only to remove from the Army the old reproach of " Blind Alley " employment, but also to convert the man in the street to the opinion that the Army of the future will be an avenue of progress and opportunity to qualify for civil employment, so that he may put his sons into it. ... If you succeed in organizing the methods by which this can be attained, it will be a great work and worth doing. There are snags ahead, of course, and one of the most dangerous is the mental attitude of a certain type of officer. You will want probably officers of some standing to educate the average Commanding and Regimental Officer to the fact that education for civil employment is one of the future rights of the soldier, that time is to be allotted to it, that the principle is not only to be admitted but encouraged, and that it is not to be in competition with purely military training, but superimposed, as a necessity of modern life . . . the whole thing can be done in the time which, in the old and bad days, was wasted in unproductive idleness.'
Such words, however little typical they might be, showed that there were regular soldiers who had no intention of closing their eyes to the lessons of the war and the changes it had brought to the world : men of this mental calibre, moreover, are not so rare in the Army of to-day as is often supposed. Throughout the early months of 1919 the idea of the permanence of the educational organization grew ; the Rhine Army came definitely to look upon itself as a trial ground, as its Order of June 23, quoted on p. 155, shows ; a letter written on July 8, 1919, from the reconstituted Staff College, Camberley — once said to be the place where people went to learn how to combine the necessary arrogance with their ignorance — contains these words, ' People here enthuse on the Scheme and realize it is IT. Hope you are insisting on keeping the Scheme in its entirety for the future Army.' Evidence
i86
EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
of many kinds and from many sources proved con- clusively that by the middle of 1919 military opinion had ripened sufficiently to make the inclusion of educa- tional facilities in the Regular Army a practical possibility. The speeches of Sir Henry Wilson and Mr. Fisher at the Imperial Education Conference were not merely a recog- nition of this fact but a great lever towards fulfilment. Sir Henry Wilson did more : on June 27 he commended ' to the special attention of the Army ' the published verbatim report of the Conference, preceding that com- mendation with these words :
* The war has shown us the Empire in arms ; it has revealed new strengths, new necessities and new oppor- tunities. It is essential, in the interests both of the Army and of the Empire, that to the fullest extent possible these new strengths should be maintained, these new necessities realized and these new opportunities seized in the immediate future. It is essential also that that close co-operation between the Army and the rest of the nation which has played so great a part in the victory of our arms during these years of war should be established on a permanent educational basis in peace.'
The opinion of a civilian, however distinguished, might be brushed aside by soldiers as prejudiced : there could be no such brushing aside of the opinion of so eminent and so thorough a soldier as the present Chief of the Imperial General Staff.
Hardly had his words had time to become generally known when it became clear that action was imperative. It would be some months at least before the Regular Army was definitely re-formed, some months at least before its size and all the details of its re-established life would be settled ; an attempt at this stage to convert the educa- tional organization into a permanency would have been foredoomed to failure. But it could never be done, the opportunity would pass finally, unless it could be decided
THE REGULAR ARMY 187
without postponement that this conversion would be effected later, unless in fact a decision on principle could be obtained and announced. This was essential, first, because without it it was becoming increasingly difficult to retain good men for educational employment in the Army : no one, except the unusually enthusiastic, was inclined to remain in an organization whose existence was so precarious, if their talents were of an order high enough to be an insurance against unemployment after demobi- lization. The tendency of a position in which a temporary organization was continued indefinitely was to leave it to continue, in part with those who believed in its future or its influence for good too whole-heartedly to leave it, and in part with those who found in it a means of livelihood they were not sure of obtaining in civilian employment. This will account in large measure for the unevenness of Army Education during its passage to permanency. The instructors were uneven in enthusiasm and in knowledge ; and, though as the size of the Armies shrank it was possible to demobilize many and to replace the inefficient by better material, the cloud of uncertainty governing the organization could not be removed, and letters came daily from individual officers (and from parents) asking for information as to the future or for advice. Again and again men invaluable to us had to make the difficult choice of leaving the work they had grown so to appreciate or of burning their boats and trusting to the chances of the future. These conditions militated in some degree against successful continuity right up to the issue of the Royal Warrant in June 1920, but they were infinitely more serious in June 1919, when no decision as to an}^ kind of continuance had been given. The second reason which made a decision imperative was the impending departure of a number of battalions overseas to relieve garrisons abroad : the first step to
i88 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
re-establish the Regular Army was naturally to send regular troops to relieve Territorial and temporary troops still retained abroad. The Armies of Occupation were not fully up to the establishment of educational instructors allowed under the Army Order of May 13 and as a memorandum prepared for my information in the Department as early as June 7 states :
' * It is therefore probable that the regular units at present being formed find great difficulties in providing themselves with the necessary educational establishment before proceeding overseas. One of the conditions of good educational work is continuity of instruction, and it therefore appears to be very necessary that all these battalions should have a complete establishment of educational instructors before they leave England, especially as their absence from England will be pro- longed.'
This throws into relief the three main difficulties, (i) a shortage of instructors in any event, (2) the need of special enlistment if they were to be induced to go over- seas for a prolonged absence, (3) no certainty that regular units should really be included at all : the Army Order of May 13 was headed ' Educational Training — Armies of Occupation ' ; its application to regular units was assumed but not proven. One thing was perfectly certain, namely, that if these regular battalions went overseas in the early autumn without instructors and without the knowledge that educational training was to be part of their life as it had been in units on the Rhine, in a very short while the educational movement, for all the vigour of- its impulses, would be only a memory of the war. This point was, therefore, pressed with all force, but unavailingly : on July 14, in consequence of an apparently final decision given on July 11, Sir Henry Wilson and General Harington received General Lynden-Bell and myself, and we were able to explain the gravity of the
THE REGULAR ARMY 189
situation. Sir Henry Wilson listened most attentively and remarked more than once, ' It is obvious that it must go on,' and promised to make fresh representations. Nothing further transpired, however, and it seemed as if the educational ship could no longer be kept from the rocks which had so constantly threatened it.
The following is a description of the situation taken from a letter written to a friend on July 23 :
* The opportunity is with us for the next few weeks and probably no more. Every day I am losing men who have been valuable to the work because one can give them no guarantee whatever of permanence. Again in the autumn regular battalions are proceeding overseas. I have been asked by G.H.Q., Great Britain and even by the G.O.C., Baghdad, whether this Army Order 7 of May 13 is meant to apply to regular battalions, and whether all units going out may not be supplied with Educational Instructors the same as units in the Army of Occupation are, and I can give no answer. We put up this particular question two or three weeks ago to the Secretary of State, but got no decision other than what I cannot help describing as an official reply, namely, that the scheme is worth consideration, preparing esti- mates and so forth and will have later to compete with other desirable items of expenditure. That is all very well ; no definite scheme or estimate can possibly be prepared until the future Army is definitely settled ; but unless it is decided and announced very soon that, to some extent or other at any rate, this educational work is to go on, the chances of carrying it on later will have passed for ever ; what in fact we need is a definite formal announcement of the principle and at a very early date if we are to keep the thing alive at all ; if once it is dropped, if once the breath of life actually goes out of it, nothing is more certain than that it will be utterly im- possible to revive it later. You will see in the pamphlet recently issued by the Army of the Rhine, which I enclose, tha^t they have taken it for granted that the organization is going on. In fact I think everybody has. Things can drift no longer and yet live.'
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On July 24 two Parliamentary questions concerning the future of education in the Army, to be asked on July 29 by Lt. -Colonel the Hon. A. C. Murray, were sent me in the usual official way, so that the head of the Department concerned might suggest the Ministerial reply. These, however, were questions, the first, as to policy which no soldier could answer, and the second dependent on the answer to the first ; the most I could do was to draw up a short memorandum explanatory of the position and pass that to my superiors for action. On July 28 I learnt, first, that a prominent permanent official of the War Office had written that he had in his time seen several earlier attempts at educating the soldier and they had always ended in failure — that is to say, that as things were, so they always would be, war or no war, B.C. or A.D. — and, secondly, that a final decision had been given that the continuance of educational facilities was all part of the scheme for the post-helium Army and * must wait for the basic decisions \ This seemed to end everything, but on the next day three things happened : first. Sir Henry Wilson asked for a further memorandum ; secondly, Mr. Churchill asked Lt. -Colonel Murray to postpone both his questions for a few days — a good sign ; it was clearly better to reply at once if a vague reply was intended ; and, thirdly, I received a kind little note from Lord Haldane, always most keenly interested in the movement, telling me he had happened to meet Mr. Churchill and had found him keen to go on with the education system in principle : a talk I had with Mr. Fisher the same day also afforded encouragement. All was by no means lost, therefore, and two more days ended anxiety ; Mr. Churchill and Sir Henry Wilson had a further discussion, and on July 31 the decision that education would be continued in the Regular Army was definitely taken. On August 5, 1919, the following
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questions were asked and the following answers given in the House of Commons :
Lt. -Colonel Arthur Murray asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the statement made in the pamphlet issued with Army Order No. 7, of May 13, 1919, that educational training is not to be regarded as a secondary consideration, but as an essential element in the making of a soldier and an Army, and provides a link with civil life and the nation at large, he could say whether some such educational system as had proved so successful in the British Army of the Rhine will be a definite organization of the future Army?
Mr. Churchill : I am glad to be in a position to say that it has been decided that education is henceforward to be regarded as an integral part of Army training. Hon. Members will, however, realize that the establish- ment necessary to give effect to this principle cannot be laid down in detail until the composition and conditions of service of the future Army are finally decided.
Lt. -Colonel Arthur Murray asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the statement made on nth June by the President of the Board of Education that the fact that education was henceforward to be an essential part of Army training was one of the great steps forward in social progress, he would say what arrangements had been made to afford to Regular units proceeding overseas the advantages of the present Army educational scheme ?
Mr. Churchill : Arrangements are being made, as far as possible in the present circumstances, to ensure that Regular units proceeding overseas shall not suffer a break in the continuity of their present educational training, but shall be enabled to carry into effect the decision I have announced in answer to the previous question.
This announcement has been set out in full because it marks a turning point in the history of the movement. Grave doubts and uncertainties were still to prevail.
192 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
great difficulties were still to arise before the princ^Ie could be clothed with reality ; but the whole position was substantially changed by so definite and so public a statement. It was welcomed by the Army, the public and the press, The Times in a leading article headed ' The New Model ' writing, ' It is strange indeed, in view of the experiences of the war and the certainty that trained minds must supplement courage in all future military operations, that there should have been any doubt or any delay in making this decision/
The wording of the first sentence of Mr. Churchill's first answer by itself is indicative of a changed concep- tion : education ceased to be a * scheme ', and became ' an integral part of Army training ' — the profound significance of this is hardly even yet fully realized. It vitally affected the detailed proposals and is discussed in connexion with them in Chapter XIII. The immediate effects of the decision were great : in the first place it gave definite assistance to many instructors in making up their minds whether to stay with the organization or accept demobilization, and, secondly, it enabled the Department at once to make official arrangements for supplying regular units with instructors, books, and other equipment : by August 7 a provisional establishment for regular battalions proceeding overseas had been agreed to by the Finance Member and the Adjutant-General. Thirdly, also by August 7, a pamphlet, ' Educational Training in the Regular Army ', setting forth the reasons for the decision and the benefits which should accrue to the soldier from an adequate system of education, was approved by Sir Henry Wilson and issued forthwith. It was based upon a memorandum which had been drawn up by the Department months before and dealt specially with the question of the civil employment of ex-soldiers : it is unnecessary to quote here more than two sentences,
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the first from a paragraph at the beginning and the second from one at the end : ' It has long been a principle that Commanding Officers are responsible for the training of their units ; education will now be part of that train- ing/ and * There, is no reason why the Army should not come to be regarded as the people's university course '.
The fourth effect of the decision was its influence upon the India Office. Throughout the war the British troops in India, mostly Territorial, had done very little to develop the ideas of education which had borne such fruit in much less favourable circumstances in Great Britain and France ; nor did the coming of the Armistice stir them to activity. Yet from the first it had been clear that any educational system instituted for the troops under the War Office must in normal times be linked with a similar system for the troops in India unless it were to be truncated and ineffectual. In the war, when there had been few comings and goings once the Territorial troops had been substituted for the regular, it had merely been an opportunity neglected that little educational activity manifested itself in India ; only the troops then in India were affected. After the war the old system of linked battalions began naturally to be resumed : and no educational organization could flourish in the Army if troops ceased their work or restarted on entirely divergent lines as soon as they landed in India. The Department, therefore, which had from very early days suggested the adoption of educational endeavour to the India Office without much success, had begun, as soon as it turned its mind consciously to planning the per- manent future, to press forward urgently the desirability and indeed the necessity of such adoption. The words in the Army Order of May 13, * the extension of the scheme to India is under consideration by the India Office,' were in recognition of an actual fact which was new and
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hopeful. Late as the India Office might be in accepting a novel idea, it did not refuse it because it was novel, but after its long survey finally swallowed it whole. The decision announced on August 5 enabled the Department to negotiate with some confidence ; on August 8, after consultation with India Office officials, an official letter, was dispatched bringing the position to their attention and informing them that regular units proceeding to India would be accompanied by educational instructors. On August 26 Turner had an interview with Mr. E. S. Montagu, Secretary of State for India, w^hich was eminently satis- factory ; Mr. Montagu showed himself keenly appreciative, accepted the dispatch of instructors, books, and educational equipment as on the charge of India in the usual course and agreed to our suggestion of sending out to be in control of the movement in India a General Staff Officer, 1st Grade, who had had experience of its working and knew the mind of the War Office. Shortly after Mr. Churchill's announcement of the decision I had gone to Devon for some very badly needed leave, but received intelligence from the Department almost daily : on August 27 Lascelles, who was left in charge, wrote informing me of the result of the interview and added these words, which were distinctly encouraging :
* Isacke, Director of Training, India, who was in the same division as you — I understood him to say so — was in this morning. India as yet knows nothing of Army Education as we know it. He was very pleased when I told him of the proposal that had been made to send them out some one who knew what we had done and have in view. I think you may safely reckon that India will not prove to be an obstacle. Where your fight will come will be at this end.'
This, it may be briefly said, was a just estimate. A memo- randum drawn up at Simla, dated September 10, after the receipt of Mr. Montagu's telegram to the Commander-in-
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Chief, shows that, while very much in the dark as to the new educational system, the mihtary authorities in India were open-minded and anxious to assist : the relation of the new system to the old, that is, to the Army Schoolmasters, was the chief puzzle to them, a subject which will receive separate consideration in the next chapter. :
Negotiations entered upon in this spirit proceeded to accomplishment with a refreshing absence of either friction or delay. Lascelles was himself the obvious officer to be sent to India ; he was a regular soldier, whose regiment moreover was proceeding to India, and he was not only thoroughly familiar with the past actions and future plans of the Department but also personally known to many of the higher staff officers at Simla. In the course of the autumn the details of the interim establishment for the British Army in India were worked out, fully discussed with the India Office, and agreed. On December 6 Lascelles wrote his first letter from Delhi, a week after his arrival, speaking of the most fascinating problem presented by the Indian Army and the oppor- tunity to do really good work. He had sailed in the same ship with Lieut. -General Sir C. W. Jacob, Chief of the General Staff in India, and had several talks with him on the voyage : General Jacob had told him . he might * count on his full support '. General Isacke was a warm and able friend, but was near the end of his tenure of appointment : however, his successor was Brigadier-General (now Colonel) F. J. Marshall, who in addition to having been for months in close touch with the Department as Brigadier-General, General Staff, at the Horse Guards, in succession to General Lowther, had honoured me for two years and more with his personal friendship. By the middle of April 1920 Lascelles was still writing not only of the fascination of his work but
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196 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
also of the splendid support afforded him by all the cliie military authorities, a team ' just about as good as the world could produce '.
This history will have proved lamentably deficient in the quality of accuracy which it is its principal object to achieve if it has not brought out clearly the conspicuous part played from first to last by regular soldiers. Breadth of mind and imaginative intelligence are not common quahties in the personnel of any profession : they are popularly believed to be singularly rare in the soldier. It is less a matter of surprise that there were certain types who consistently opposed educational progress than that there were so many, and these the most influential and the best in their chosen profession of arms, who favoured and encouraged it by every means in their power. There are instances of both still to be related : but the develop- ment of an educational system amongst the troops in India, native as well as British, is perhaps the most striking example of the decisive predominance of the latter. By March 31, 1920, the extraordinary difficulties of initiation had been so far overcome that General Jacob could issue from Army Headquarters a General Order in the opening paragraph of which it was stated :
* The objects of educational training in both the British and Indian armies are identical, i. e. firstly, the increase of military efficiency, and, secondly, the preparation of the soldier for return to civil life as an efficient citizen, but the factors conditioning the problem of how best to conduct this training in British and Indian units re- spectively, differ widely. Uniformity of system and of standards is, however, essential in each Army.'
A minimum of four hours per week was to be devoted to education, and all ranks were also to be encouraged to devote a portion of their leisure time to it. As regards the native troops — a development of the very greatest
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importance for the future of India — the General Order of March 31 was wise in its restraint :
* It is recognized that the development of a complete system of educational training within the Indian Army- must be a matter of time ; the following paragraphs may, therefore, be considered as projecting the intended lines of advance : they outline the principles that must be kept in view and worked up to as much as possible with a view to their progressive realization as organization is developed and increased facilities become available.'
The progress of the system thus inaugurated belongs to the Esher Commission and to the future, and the future can only be looked to and not narrated. There will probably be few who will not agree with the words written by Lascelles on March 4, 1920 :
' Of course development is not going to be rapid — this being the East — but I think our lines are sound and that we shall progress. On the whole this is a mountainous undertaking — but one is inspired by the thought that the work one can do here is likely to be even more far reaching in its effect than the w^ork to be done in the Army at home — which is saying much. I think you ought to be satisfied with the growth from your mustard seed ! '
It should be recorded in addition that after full dis- cussion between Lascelles, Colonel Curtis, and myself, the Air Council wrote on December 9, 1919, to the Army Council expressing their sense of the educational advan- tages which had accrued from the co-operation of the Army and the Air Force during the demobilization period and their opinion that the continuance of such co-operation in India, in view of the relatively small numbers of Air Force personnel, would be conducive alike to efficiency and economy. On December 19 the Army Council agreed that the proposal was both eminently practicable and economical ; and an officer of the Royal Air Force was to be attached to Army Headquarters,
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India, to assist in working out a suitable scheme of co-operation.
One thing more : the planter of a mustard seed — and in this case it was no single person — is of infinitely less importance than the gardener. When in later days the history of the movement in India and its effect upon the progress of democratic understanding is related, the name of Lt.-Colonel E. ff. W. Lascelles, already notable as that of the first regular officer to originate educational classes at Cannock Chase in March 1917, will always be deserving of the most honourable mention. It is a source of the deepest pleasure that his departure from the Department he had served so well for almost a year brought no diminution to the mutual confidence which had been the growth of that time. Throughout the succeeding months each of us kept the other closely informed of the progress of the respective undertakings and gave freely such advice and assistance as were possible. The going away to different conditions and difficulties did not in this case mean, as it so often does, increasing failure to comprehend the situation and limitations left behind ; and in the last letter received at the time of writing this chapter, sent from Simla on October 14, 1920 — long after my demobilization — the same recognition of work attempted is still undeservedly paid to his old chief by the principal actor in India. It is by such fine instruments, wielded with such generous self-effacement, that education in the Army has picked out its rocky path to realization.
CHAPTER XII
ARMY SCHOOLMASTERS AND MISTRESSES
Before it is possible to describe the situation as it presented itself in the autumn of 1919 and to explain the proposals for the creation of a permanent organization to give effect to the principle that education was hence- forward to be regarded as an integral part of Army training, it is necessary to turn back and endeavour to throw light upon the puzzle referred to at the end of the previous chapter. The military authorities in India, viewing the arrival with units of educational officer and non-commissioned officer instructors, said in effect, ' Inspectors of Army Schools we know ; Army School- masters we know ; but who are ye ? ' Soldiers elsewhere, who had seen the Education Scheme in operation, did not ask quite this question ; but they did ask, and more and more frequently as the Regular Army re-emerged, * What is the relation of this new body of instructors to the old Corps of Army Schoolmasters ? * Some attempt must now be made to show not only what these questions really meant, but also the only means by which they could be satisfactorily answered.
Even as all great upheavals must do — as the war of 1914-18 had done to a degree almost commensurate with its vastness — the Napoleonic wars on a smaller scale had brought to men's minds a recognition of the importance of education. The Duke of York's Royal Military School was opened, at Chelsea, in October 1803 (this was transferred to Guston, Dover, in 1909) ; in 1806
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the Royal Hibernian Military School, Phoenix Park, Dublin, originally founded by the Church of Ireland in 1765, was taken over by the War Office ; and in 181 1 the Army accepted general responsibility for the primary education not only of young recruits but also of the children of soldiers. Scotland received its school for the sons of Scottish sailors and soldiers in the Oueen Victoria School, Dunblane, founded as a result of the South African war and taken over by the War Office in 1909 ; and the three Military Schools to-day provide education for 1,195 boys. It is not necessary now to travel over the 109 years of Army history which separate 1811 from 1920 : it will be sufficient to state that the grievances of the Corps of Army Schoolmasters and of the Army Schoolmistresses' Department did not begin with the outbreak of war in August 1914 ; that only sharply accentuated old grievances and added new ones. For years past they had suffered from lack of recognition ; whilst almost all regimental officers spoke in the highest terms of them as individuals, as a body they were much overlooked. Education at the close of the Victorian era did not stand in the public estimation as it does to-day : it was at a particularly low ebb in the Army. It is recorded that in 1892 only i'4 per cent, of the troops had ist Class Certificates of Education and 19-8 per cent. 2nd Class Certificates ; in 1896 2 per cent, ist Class Certificates and 21-2 per cent. 2nd Class — and that the ist Class Certificate
* represents the education of a boy clerk ' and the 2nd Class
* the education of a child of 10 to 12 \ Yet in March 1898 Lord Wolseley, then Commander-in-Chief, had written, ' The day will come when we shall be able to dispense with Army Schoolmasters and Schoolmistresses altogether,* and Lord Lansdowne, then Secretary of State for War, had agreed with him. The courageous protest of the officer principally concerned. Colonel Douglas Jones,
ARMY SCHOOLMASTERS AND MISTRESSES 201
Director of Army Schools, has bn jthe 'other hand 'a decided ring of 1919 about it :
' Much has been said of late years both in and out of Parliament about providing soldiers with suitable employ- ment in civil life when they leave the colours. Nothing conduces more to meet this desired end than the good education soldiers now receive in Army Schools, as some education is exacted from employers of labour for any position above that of the mere labourer. Several Secretaries of State have engaged to further this object, but to deprive soldiers of the advantages of a good education while with the colours would inevitably lead to an opposite result, and would prove very unpopular both in the Army and in the country.'
In August 1914 Army Schoolmasters and Mistresses were working under Army School Regulations, 191 1, an arid publication, in charge of the education at the three Military Schools, and in the Garrison and Detachment Schools at home and abroad where they took classes of infants, of boys and girls, and of recruits and other soldiers working for the 3rd, 2nd, or ist Class Army Certificates of Education : these were part of the military system, and promotion to non-commissioned or warrant rank depended upon their acquisition. Considerably improved from the standards of 1896, they had lagged none the less far behind the progress of ideas in civil education ; and those whose work it was to prepare and examine in them were — and in the majority of cases were conscious that they were — mentally cribbed, cabined, and confined. The great proportion of Army Schoolmasters were recruited from the three Military Schools, at each of which was a small training class for those students who wished and were able to enter the Corps. An Army Schoolmaster was a Warrant Officer, at first Class II and in no long period Class I : that he became, that he re- mained—unless he was one of the few fortunate enough
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to become an Inspector many years later. In 1919 there were 323 Army Schoolmasters (Warrant Officers) and 27 Inspectors of Army Schools (Commissioned Officers).
The Corps of Army Schoolmasters and the Army Schoolmistresses' Department were administered by a small sub-section (A. G. 4 b) of one of the departments of the Directorate of Personal Services, one of the Adjutant- General's Directorates ; and this, when I came to the War Office, consisted of a retired officer-clerk, an Army Schoolmaster, and two clerks. This sub-section for all questions of policy was under the direction of Brigadier- General (now Colonel) H. E. B. Leach, Deputy-Director of Personal Services, an officer whose duties in the war were not merely onerous but incessant ; it was not to be w^ondered at that when war broke out the retired officer- clerk was left to carry on as best he could and that generally the sleeping dogs were left to lie. The war, however, really brought conditions which required authori- tative handling. It was decided that Armxy Schoolmasters were wanted most where they were ; if they had been allowed to go abroad with fighting units, the Garrison Schools must in large numbers have been closed. This decision was undeniably a wise one ; but it naturally galled the Army Schoolmasters : they had to stay at their routine education whilst all their friends went to France. It galled them doubly : they were no less courageous than their friends and were not allowed to prove their courage ; and, secondly, those friends, who were spared by the caprice of war from death or disable- ment, gained both commissions and decorations. Even as early as June 1915, a brother officer of mine was an elementary schoolmaster in civil life, and as the war went on hundreds of schoolmasters rose to commissioned rank and on to Captaincies and higher. The Army School* master found himself not only deprived of the distinction
ARMY SCHOOLMASTERS AND MISTRESSES 203
of fighting for his country but relatively penalized in a particularly aggravating way for having joined the Army in the days of peace. Something undoubtedly should have been done to lighten the conditions under which he found himself ; but there was no one to press his claims/ Colonel H. S. Fleming, the retired officer- clerk, could not by himself achieve a remedy, though he knew the state of affairs and sympathized : it was not a matter to which he could successfully draw attention in times when so much directly concerned with the prosecu- tion of the war was laid upon the shoulders of his superior officers.
Such then briefly was the position in the summer of 1918. No Army Schoolmasters — as such — were in France (a few had gone with units by accident or by a fortunate evasion of instructions) : in Great Britain they had noticed with natural interest the awakenings of educa- tional endeavour at Cannock Chase and Brentwood, and had lent their assistance ; but, tied with their regular duties to the children, they had been unable to pla}^ any dominating part. Painfully ignorant of the old Regular Army as I was, as most temporary soldiers must have felt themselves to be on coming to the War Office, I knew enough to make it one of my very first tasks on starting work on July 10, 1918, to see Colonel Fleming and discuss the new proposals with him. I found him perfectly willing and absolutely powerless to assist. He was cordially glad of the revival of interest in education, anxious to oppose no obstacle to its realization — but unable to accept any responsibility or to take any direct part in it. It was all quite beyond the scope of his little sub-section. In the first Army Order of September 24, therefore, only one reference to his personnel was made : ' The services of Army Schoolmasters are to be employed wherever they can be made available.* In July and
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August 1918 it was utterly impossible to adopt any other policy, for two main reasons. First, the Corps of Army Schoolmasters was under the Adjutant-General : to have utilized it could not possibly have been effected without long negotiation and delay and endless arrangements on behalf of the children's schools in England and abroad. The Education Scheme was accepted by Lord Milner as in the main non-controversial : to have included personnel of another branch of the Staff would have made such acceptance out of the question. Further, to put new wine into old bottles has been known to be stupidity for nearly 2,000 years : the converse, the putting of old wine into the new bottle just designed, would have been characterized as quite impracticable. The utilization of the Armv Schoolmasters, in short, meant either that the old sub-section (A. G. 4 b) would have to organize and direct a big adult educational movement, or that it should sink itself into the proposed new Department (S. D. 8) — neither course could possibly have been adopted in August 1918. Secondly — and still more decisively — the new was a temporary war organization and the old was a permanent part of the Regular Army which had been, was, and would again be — and to mix temporary and permanent was even more impossible than to gain the incorporation of A. G. 4b in S. D.8. This latter was achieved in March 1919 ; but it took four months of incessant effort to achieve it.
With the actual inauguration of an official Education Scheme a change was at once to be noticed : on Septem- ber 23, 1918, Colonel Fleming came to see me to ask if it would not be possible for some few of his Inspectors to go to France in connexion with it. I wrote to Turner the same day :
' I think it would be very advisable from the larger and future view of educational work in the Army if you
ARMY SCHOOLMASTERS AND MISTRESSES 205
found it possible to take these, or perhaps one or two of these, for appointments with Divisions. It is for you to say whether you can do this, but if you could it would help to link on the old Army Schoolmaster work with this new and larger organization, and what I have in mind is that when the post bellum Army comes to be organized something like S. D. 8 must always I hope go on, and one wants to link up its work with that of A. G. 4 b. and so create permanently an Educational Service in the Army as much a part of the Army as the Medical Service.'
A long road was to be travelled before that hope was realized. This particular plan fell through because Colonel Fleming felt himself bound to choose by seniority alone and Divisions wanted men of energy : but the need of linking the old and the new together was recognized as vital to the future. On November 9 General Lynden- Bell, General Leach, and myself held a conference as to the transference of A. G. 4 b to S. D. 8. It was then recognized that it would be much more satisfactory if one Department controlled both old and new, permanent and temporary, but decision was a matter for principals. Repeated representations were made from that time * onwards, and in the middle of February 1919 the Adjutant-General gave his assent. Addressing the Royal Colonial Institute on February 25, 1919, 1 was able to say :
' There is one other very recent and, as I think, very important development, which I ought to mention here before passing to a consideration of the future. The Army Schoolmasters' Department, known as A. G. 4 b., for so many years a permanent part of another branch of the Staff, has just been transferred to the Staff Duties Directorate and will be incorporated in S. D. 8— the branch for which I am responsible — that is to say, all educational training in the Army is now in process of unification as one organism under the General Staff, the branch responsible in any event for military training. This transference is, as far as it goes, an acceptance of
2o6 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
the principle that mihtary training and educational training can be, and should be, viewed together/
It was more than * very important ' ; it was fundamental to future progress, the first real step towards the per- manence of the whole educational movement. Before the transference S. D. 8 could at any time have been abolished as a war organization no longer needed ; after March 3, when Colonel Fleming, his Army Schoolmaster, and two clerks brought the records of the Corps of Army Schoolmasters to Adastral House and started work as a part of S. D. 8 a, that could not happen without dis- organizing the Regular Army. It meant far more than the transference of a few people and documents ; it meant the transference of the entire Army School system, a hundred years old, with the responsibility for the three Military Schools, the Garrison Schools all over the world, the Corps of Army Schoolmasters, and the Army School- mistresses' Department. It meant that when the time came proposals for the permanent future could be properly put forward by the one Education Department of the War Office. That was much, and time was to show how much — at the moment it meant no more.
All those who rejoiced at coming at last under a Depart- ment, whose only claim to existence was an interest in educational affairs, and hoped for a speedy removal of their grievances were doomed to disappointment. The public and those writers in the smaller educational press, who either had no knowledge of the realities of the situation or chose to ignore them, were inclined to suppose that it meant the immediate utilization on the wider organization of the highly trained and admirable Army Schoolmasters. That was impossible. The mixing of temporary and permanent remained precisely the same difficulty as before. The Department came under such a running fire of criticism in respect of the Army School-
ARMY SCHOOLMASTERS AND MISTRESSES 207
masters that this difficulty must be explained. To have obtained regular commissions for Army Schoolmasters for the Education Scheme was clearly out of the question as long as the future of that Scheme was undecided : to have obtained temporary commissions for them would have been more practicable but would have been to do them a great disservice ; at the end, if the Scheme were abandoned, all would have been demobilized or, if it were curtailed, many would have been. By taking up tem- porar}^ commissions they would have forfeited the rights they would otherwise have gained of earning a Warrant Officer's pension, and would afterwards have found them- selves out of employment with only a gratuity based on a short war service as an officer to help them. To have obtained temporary commissions temporarily for them, that is, on the promise of reinstating them as Warrant Officers — one suggestion made to me — would not only have been inacceptable to most but from a military point of view impracticable. It was a dilemma the only satisfactory solution to which lay in the fusion of old and new into one permanent educational system : until the future of the movement was not only decided in principle but settled in detail, the old and new remained side by side like oil and water — except that there was no hope of quieting the water with the oil. Army School- masters (Warrant Officers) saw Education Officers and Officer Instructors appointed whose qualifications were in some instances less than their own : they were permanent, the officers were temporary ; no one ever suggested any means by which the anomaly could possibly be remedied — but the grievance remained, and the fear was constant in the minds of Army Schoolmasters that when at last the day dawned and a permanent educational system was created all the temporary officers would be automatically confirmed in their temporary appointments and they
2o8 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
themselves would be left unrecognized as before. This fear was natural, possibly inevitable, though pains were taken to dispel it as far as possible ; but it is to be feared that at that period, when it was a matter of great difficulty to secure a sufficiency of instructors, some ill-qualified officers aggravated the difficulties inherent in the position by an assumption of superiority based upon accidental rank and not upon educational knowledge. Upon the accomplishment of the transference these facts were carefully and earnestly considered within the Depart- ment. The grievances of the Army Schoolmasters, long and silently endured, were appreciated : it must have been a source of hope at first and perhaps of faith later that they had passed under the direct supervision of the one man who for years both in Parliament and out of it had fought battles on their behalf, namely. Captain F. W. Goldstone, M.P., and that he had the benefit of the years of educational knowledge and special experience possessed by Mr, P. A. Barnett, who succeeded Sir Henry Hadow in April 1919 with the title of Civil Adviser. Hadow was as much beloved personally as respected educationally, and the calamity of his departure seemed irretrievable — until we came to know Barnett. Singularly fortunate as we were in each, it was almost unbelievable fortune to have such a succession, to have the mantle of Hadow fall upon Barnett, who found time, even in the tremendous press of work which unalteringly surrounded us, to pass round inimitable squibs and to show by his references to ' the brutal and licentious soldiery ' how entirely those so described had received him into the depths of their affection. This is a digression, but a natural, indeed, an inevitable one. Right up to and through the sittings of the Board of Selection for the Army Educational Corps, the interests of the Army Schoolmasters were watched by one of their oldest friends. Goldstone was demobilized
ARMY SCHOOLMASTERS AND MISTRESSES 209
soon after the transference, but took back the eye of a lynx and the heart of a comrade to his old post in the office of the National Union of Teachers : in his place, first. Captain A. J. Jones, also a schoolmaster of many years' experience, and later Captain D. P. J. Kelly, worked out plans for the Army Schoolmasters under Barnett's direction.
A consideration of all the circumstances showed that it was quite impracticable materially to benefit the Corps of Army Schoolmasters until they could be merged into a real Educational Corps, except by continuing to treat them as quite distinct. So impressed was I, however, by their situation and so inevitable was the delay in the wider plans that I determined to put forward proposals for the raising of their status even if these, being part only of the educational building, to some extent cut across and jeopardized the later acceptance of the whole. This needed the most careful investigation : no hasty architecture was conceivable, for the alteration of an old house is a very different matter from the erection of a new. But on May 3, 1919, I wrote to Sir James Yoxall, General Secretary, National Union of Teachers, who had both been to see me and written to me to press the need :
* We have been hard at work on the proposals con- cerning the future status, &c., of Army Schoolmasters, and have taken advantage of Goldstone's kind offer to continue as far as possible to help us by getting him to scrutinize the draft, so that he has be^n kept fully informed of all that we are doing. I have not yet myself seen the final draft and it has not yet, therefore, been officially passed on to the financial authorities, but I hope to do it this week. ... As I think you are aware I am absolutely convinced that we must improve the status, &c., of Army Schoolmasters, and I, personally, shall not rest content until the proposals to effect that are authorized.*
The great difficulty lay in making proposals which, while operating to the immediate benefit of the Army School-
o
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masters, should not be at variance with the future needs of the educational organization as a whole. It was permissible to risk being told later, * we did a great deal in May ; we are not going to do any more yet awhile ' ; it would have been idiocy to put forward and carry proposals which would — to use a golfing metaphor — ' stymie ' our autumn ball. The general plan of the future Army Educational Corps, therefore, had to be borne in mind as far as possible in making proposals in May for the Corps of Army Schoolmasters. It is not necessary now to go into these proposals, except to say that they had two main features ; the first, to improve and broaden the training of Army Schoolmasters by ending the narrow system of a few students at each of the Military Schools — that is to say, in the same atmosphere all their lives — and by creating a proper Training College on lines similar to those of the Board of Education ; and the second, to provide a plan whereby every Army Schoolmaster would after five years' service attain automatically to commissioned rank. Section III of the proposals was devoted also to Army Schoolmistresses whose training was to be improved and pay raised. Section IV proposed the establishment of a secondary branch at each three Military Schools, in lieu of the students' training branch. These proposals were not accepted, in part because the cost was judged to be prohibitive and in part because of the natural reluctance of the financial authorities to consider what was admittedly only a part of the educa- tional policy of the Army. The time spent on elaborating them, however, was by no means wasted : not only was it possible to revive and carry a modified version when the old and the new systems were blended into one, but they remain in the archives of the War Office and will one day be studied and utilized. That is as certain as it is that the doctor is no longer the apothecary nor the lawyer
ARMY SCHOOLMASTERS AND MISTRESSES 211
the attorney. Professions rise as their importance is the more truly appreciated : in a hundred years — or less — it will be thought surprising that the profession responsible for the mind was not always at least equally regarded with that responsible for the body or that responsible for the estate. That day is not yet, but it will, it must be in the future. The nett result of the summer's work in this respect was the carrying out of an invaluable recon- naissance of the position, not only of our own, but — if the expression may be pardoned — of the enemy's also. The whole art of campaigning would seem to be never voluntarily to attempt the impossible ; moreover, apart from attempts, it is always better to advance slowly, consolidating and, if need be, * mopping up,' than to rush an objective which afterwards cannot be held. In a sense, these proposals attempted the impossible ; but every soldier will appreciate the difference between a recon- naissance in strength and a pitched battle. The proposals for the Corps of Army Schoolmasters, viewed inde- pendently of the rest of the educational system, had to be laid aside, but round them on the shelf was now wrapped knowledge of the degree to which they could be taken up again with prospects of success in the final and general plan.
It was possible, however, still to consider and to press home Section III, the proposals for the Army School- mistresses, as a separate affair : their department was a sister organization and, though regarded administra- tively as a unity with the Corps of Army Schoolmasters, had a necessarily independent existence as far as all questions of pay, &c., were concerned. The Army School- mistresses were and still are anomalies — neither civilian nor military but suffering under the disabilities of both ; governed by War Office regulations, liable to be sent each in their turn to Garrison Schools in India and abroad,
02
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but still women and therefore no official part of an Army of men, not so much even as the personnel of Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps had been, for these had uniforms and the Army Schoolmistress had (and have) none. One result was that when the pay of the Army was raised, theirs was left unchanged : an Army Schoolmistress at the end of 1919 was paid about the same as a Lance- Corporal. An unregarded, uncertificated body of very hardworking and devoted servants to the children of soldiers, the Army Schoolmistresses, like other people, needed to live, and by the end of 1919 life was becoming impossible. The necessity for reconsidering their position was recognized by all ; the degree to which and the means by which it should be improved were matters of long and intricate negotiation.
The policy of the Department was to endeavour to raise not only the pay, but also the status of Army Schoolmistresses. As regard their pay, the first Burnham Report had, it will be remembered, laid down provisional minimum scales of salaries for civilian certificated and uncertificated teachers. Why it should be so it is difficult to say, but to some people minimum and maximum as applied to salaries (other than their own) seem to be regarded as interchangeable terms ; and the first Burnham provisional minimum was at once read by those with whom negotiation was necessary as equivalent to a positive maximum. As late as January 28, 1920, it was necessary to point out most strongly that in place of * the present civilian scale ', the mild and misleading words which were being used when comparing the first Burnham scale to the scale proposed for Army Schoolmistresses, the words * the minimum scale at present suggested for civilian teachers which already is not accepted as adequate in many places ' should be substituted. As regards the status, it seemed most desirable, if soldiers' children were
ARMY SCHOOLMASTERS AND MISTRESSES 213
to receive as least as good an education as those of the civil population, that the gradings of Army School- mistresses should be based primarily upon educational qualifications and that as many as possible should be induced to gain the Board of Education's certificate. After much argument the percentage of certificated to uncertificated mistresses to be allowed in future was provisionally fixed at one half: it was impossible then to secure a higher proportion. The number of regulations to be considered and details to be settled was large, and discussions and negotiations were long drawn out ; it was not until April 7, 1920, that the Royal Warrant to give them effect was issued.
By this Royal Warrant certificated mistresses without quarters were to begin at £170 per annum and rise to £270 ; uncertificated without quarters to begin at £120 and rise to £165. The second Burnham Report has since had the effect of making provisions, none too satisfactory in April, quite illusory in November. Schoolmistresses will not serve the Army with the obligation to go to garrisons overseas if they are paid less than they can obtain in civil employment in England, and what will happen inevitably — on the supposition, that is, that nothing more is done — is that young Army School- mistresses will resign immediately they gain their certi- ficates : the very Order which was designed to ensure that in the future at least 50 per cent, of the mistresses would be certificated will result in their all being un- certificated. This, however, is not a point which has escaped the attention of the War Office, and it may be assumed that the supposition that nothing more will be done is fallacious. The whole episode shows clearly that the game of leap-frog has its disadvantages : what is needed for the servant of the Army is not the fixing of a figure, impossible of adjustment except by the cumbrous
?I4 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
procedure of a Royal Warrant, but the establishment of a principle, namely, that the education of soldiers' children should be the work of those not less qualified and consequently not less well paid than those educating the children of civilians, together with an allowance to the Army Schoolmistress to compensate her for her liability to be sent on service abroad and her expenses connected therewith. And she should be given uniform : addressing a meeting of Army Schoolmistresses at Aldershot on February 25, 1920, 1 found an overwhelming strength of opinion among them on this point, but could not at that time complicate an already most complicated Warrant by pressing for its inclusion.
It is not necessary and, now that responsibility for education in the Army has passed to others, it would not be fitting for me to say more. What has been done since 1919 to meet the claims and to remove the grievances of the Army Schoolmasters will be apparent from the concluding chapters of this book. The Corps of Army Schoolmasters is no longer in existence and is therefore a subject for historical analysis. The Army School- mistresses' Department is in the present, and it is in able and sympathetic hands.
CHAPTER XIII THE ECONOMY CAMPAIGN
As early as the end of August 1919 the future was beginning to assume definite shape. It was certain that the final proposals would involve considerable negotiation and discussion and that their acceptance would in con- sequence be delayed — though no one guessed how lengthy that delay would be — and it was therefore necessary to settle an interim establishment of Education Officers and officer and non-commissioned officer instructors to tide over the intervening period. Since it could not be known at that stage what sum would eventually be allotted to the War Office in the next Budget, at the same time that the principle of continuance was accepted an instruction was given that it would be well not to budget for more than 50 per cent, of the personnel required. It was clear that during such a transitional period as was now before us, a transition of character as well as of size, as has been pointed out, the utmost that could be expected was the maintenance in the newly re-arising Regular Army of the same educational impulses as had borne successful fruit in the disappearing Armies of War and of Occupa- tion : to maintain an unbroken continuity of classes was to hope beyond chance of fulfilment.
The precautionary limitation gave all that was im- mediately necessary to keep the spirit of life within the organization. Regular units proceeding overseas were being furnished with instructors on the tentative scale of one officer and two non-commissioned officers ; and immediately after Mr. Churchill's announcement of
2i6 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
August 5, 1919, the question arose, whether in view of the 50 per cent, precaution regular units at home ought not to be restricted to the same tentative scale. At the moment they were acting upon the provision of the Army Order of May 13, which, viewing the needs of the occupa- tional period, allowed double that scale at home and four times that on the Rhine. It seemed, however, that it would be not only injudicious but also undisciplined to have answered this question in the sense of allowing the larger scale — injudicious, because if later we had been compelled to reduce it, it might have involved breaking contracts or at least promises of employment with a number of those engaging to continue on educational duties ; undisciplined, because it might have been held to be a tacit ignoring of the instruction transmitted to the Department by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. At all events I felt it to be clear that we ought to answer in the spirit, if not absolutely in the letter, of our instruction : a great concession had been made in deciding, and announcing, the principle of permanent continuance, and, even though reduction in the scale of instructors was a policy little consistent at that period with real efficiency, it was, in my view, the only policy consistent with depart- mental honesty. Much therefore to the perturbation of many, the provisional interim scale for the whole Regular Army was fixed in accordance with the lower scale. Since my leave was still young and I had had so little since arrival at the War Office, Lascelles kindly obviated the necessity for my cutting it short by bringing down all the necessary papers to Devon, where we spent some very profitable hours peacefully by the sea in discussing, analysing, and deciding upon the details of this interim establishment : on September 10, the day after my return to work, this was officially notified to all concerned by the dispatch of an Army Council letter : temporary officers and
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non-commissioned officers could extend their service for twelve months.
We were fortunate to have been able to achieve so much : I had found the previous day one pointed instance of the difficulty with which any new organization coming into permanent life after the war would have to cope, namely, the need for economy, in a peremptory instruction to reduce the staff of the Department to ten officers as from October i. No one could reasonably raise the slightest objection to careful, even stringent, economy. But such an instruction proceeded not from considered motives of economy but from sudden motives of political panic. The newspapers had become full of Whitehall and * the road to ruin ' and Parliament would be meeting on October 22 : the sudden order to cut by one half and to cut by October i was obviously due to the desire to have reduced figures to present to Parliament : this order, which ignored the careful estimates already sent in, should have been given months previously, and departmental chiefs should never have been put into the position of giving officers exactly three weeks' notice. It is not every officer who can carry on financially when turned so suddenly adrift.
On September 9 also I was fortunate enough to meet Hadow, who happened to be up in London from Sheffield, and was able to have a long discussion with him as to the future of the educational organization, which was of the greatest value in clarifying all the ideas which had gradually been taking form throughout the summer. During the two succeeding days I worked much as I had done during that week in July 1918 ; by September 11 the initial draft of the full proposals for giving permanent effect to the principle announced on August 5 was com- pleted. It was amusing to find that every one was firmly convinced I had spent my leave thinking them out — which
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is not what a leave is for. To some extent history repeated itself : upon the draft of September ii were eventually based, with only minor alterations, the principles and constitution of the Army Educational Corps.
It has already been recorded in Chapter XI that the idea of some permanent educational organization emerging as a result of the experience gained since the Armistice had begun to take root in many regular soldiers' minds much earlier than is commonly supposed : and through- out the first half of 1919 endeavour had been made both by General Lynden-Bell and myself to obtain the views of able and interested soldiers as to the form which such an organization should take. It was not the idea by itself, but its feasibility which was new ; and the suggestions which had been made had been many and valuable. Upon two main points there was a substantial measure of agreement ; first, that there should be a Corps of trained and qualified educationists, and, secondly, that education should be viewed as part of a soldier's training and not, as it had hitherto been, merely as an adjunct to it. This latter, as has been said, was a changed conception which had first found public expression in the Army Order of May 13 with its pronouncement that educational training was to be regarded * as an essential element in the making of a soldier and an Army ' ; had been re-emphasized by Sir Henry Wilson on June 11 in his words that one of the main problems of peace before the Army was * to weave into the life of the soldier education ', and cordially hailed by Mr. Fisher immediately following him as * one of those great steps forward in the social progress of the world for which the war has been responsible ' ; and now became an authoritative decision by Mr. Churchill's announcement on August 5 that education was ' henceforward to be regarded as an integral part of Army training '.
This changed conception has an importance which
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cannot adequately be estimated until a considerable time has elapsed : it is fundamental and need not here be elaborated, except in so far as it directly affected the final proposals. In July an experienced regular soldier who had just enjoyed a special opportunity of seeing the Education Scheme in operation had written :
* The success of the Educational Scheme of the Army of the future is obviously entirely dependent on the attitude of the officers. If the Army Council lay down that education is to go hand in hand with the various branches of training, military and moral, which we recognized before the war, then pressure must be brought to bear on those who do not make education a success. I have the impression that there are some who appear to think, and even say openly, that education is non- sense. These must be dealt with as if they were unbelievers in the efficacy of musketry training, and an officer must be judged by his educational work in the unit in the same way as the discipline and military efficiency of his troops brought him kudos, or the contrary, in pre-war days.*
It was obvious that before this could come about much time must elapse : but it was significant that constant conversations with regular officers deepened the conviction that the conclusions stated in the above passage were not mere ideals but future practicalities.
There was in the Army at this period what may be described as a middle layer of apathetic or adverse opinion, sandwiched in between an upper and a lower layer of keen support. The great Generals, together with the successful leaders of men in the field. Brigadiers and Commanding Officers, represented the upper layer, those in whose hands the present control of the Army lay ; the Brigadiers, Commanding Officers and, most in evidence, the elderly Majors, all those whose minds had grown inelastic, the laudatores temp oris acti, represented the middle layer, those in whose hands a little of the present and none of the future of the Army lay ; the young
220 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
Captains, war-experienced and able, represented the lower layer, in whose hands the future of the Army would lie. There were no exceptions to the support of the first, many exceptions to the apathy or worse of the second, and few exceptions, in theory at any rate, to the interest of the third. In brief, amongst those who had proved in the actual test of the war not merely their ability and courage but also their power of leadership and human sympathy there was an astonishing unanimity : no single instance came to light of a soldier really successful in his profession of arms and personally acquainted with the troops he led who was not a cordial supporter of educational activity. One eminent general was hostile throughout ; but his eminence was based on paper work and not on leadership, and in consequence his personal acquaintance with troops was far from recent and had at no time been exten- sive. Without the cordial support of the risen and rising leaders it would have been like ploughing the sands to have attempted to give effect to the changed conception of the place of education in the life of the Army ; but without it that changed conception could never have been formed. The conclusion followed as a matter of logic and is summed up in the sentence already quoted from the pamphlet, * Educational Training in the Regular Army ', namely, * It has long been a principle that Commanding Officers are responsible for the training of their units ; education will now be a part of that training '.
There was a second consequence, also following logically, indeed inevitably on the accepted military principle that all officers are responsible for training the men they lead, namely, that all officers became responsible for the educational training of their men as they were for their other forms of training. It is entirely to misunderstand the progress of the educational movement to suppose that this consequence was in any way forced upon the soldiers ;
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it was adopted by them, by all the best of them, for the benefit of the men they led and the profession they loved. In August 1919 the War Office did no more than give authoritative effect to the principle which large sections of the Army had already been working out for themselves, in some cases for months past. The War Office would have stultified progress if it had not been content to follow in this matter ; and official instructions only made general what had been previously put into successful operation over wide areas. A paragraph from the Rhine Army Order issued by General Montgomery on June 23 will perhaps prove this :
* 5. Officers and N.C.Os. from Great Britain and France, who are recommended as instructors, are being posted to units as they arrive, but, with the change to peace-time conditions, it should be practicable for every platoon commander to know the circumstances and the educa- tional requirements of each man under his command. Although the pamphlet issued with Army Order VII of May 13, 1 9 19, lays down a scale of instructors, for whom extra duty pay may be drawn, it is intended that all officers and qualified N.C.Os. shall be responsible for the educational training of the men under their command, as they are for other forms of training. They must, therefore, be prepared to undertake the instruction of their men in the elementary stages of one or more subjects themselves as is already being done with good results in at least one Division. To enable officers to fit themselves for their responsibilities in this respect, schools of instruction in the art of teaching have been formed in England, and it is essential that the vacancies allotted to the British Army of the Rhine at these schools should be filled by men who have qualified themselves by previous study of their subject, to benefit by the instruction given there. Commanding officers must ensure that, on returning to their units, after such a course, the services of these officers and N.C.Os. are utilized to the fullest extent/
In this very important paragraph, therefore, the main
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principle on which the Army Educational Corps was to be constituted in June 1920 was laid down in June 1919 by regular soldiers for themselves without any previous suggestion either from the War Office or from any temporary officer serving in it.
To any unprejudiced and intelligent mind some such principle, if not obvious from the first, became so after August 5 ; there were two methods, and only two, by which education could be satisfactorily carried on, the first, to add to the Army a body of instructors large enough to enable these to do all the educational work, the second, to give the officers and non-commissioned officers responsible for Army training both some training them- selves in educational method and also qualified educa- tional advisers. The second, which alone could make education * an integral part of Army training ' and alone was consistent with the military principle that every commander is in his degree responsible for the training of the men under his command, had already been adopted on the Rhine and elsewhere ; moreover, it alone could be instituted without great additional expenditure. The number of instructors authorized on the Rhine, namely, 4 officers and 8 non-commissioned officers per 1,000 men, had proved insufficient ; no proposals advocating an adequate number for the whole Army could conceivably have been entertained for a moment.
As far as the regimental officer was concerned, therefore, the draft proposals of September 11 were a working out of the principle laid down in paragraph 5 of the Rhine Order of June 23, with provision, first, for the introduction of some instruction in educational method both at Sandhurst and Woolwich, and, secondly, for the provision of a four months* course for officers at an Army School of Educa- tion as a necessary qualification for their promotion to Captain. It was realized that such training would, apart
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from its direct bearing upon education, ultimately produce a type of officer far better qualified to train his men in purely military subjects ; and training must necessarily be so great a part of every officer's work that this aspect was one to which naturally the highest importance was attached. The promotion and military training of officers was not directly the concern of my Department (S. D. 8) but of Colonel Earle's (S. D. 3) : that Department was arriving simultaneously from its own allied point of view at an identically similar conclusion. In this part of the proposals therefore I took no further part except to express readiness to carry out, as far as possible, any demands made on the educational organization ; and they were taken up and approved as a separate affair.
The Army Order re-establishing promotion examina- tions was issued on January 27, 1920, months before the authorization of the Army Educational Corps, but it made some such Corps a virtual necessity. Its regulations passed permanently into the Army system by their being substituted, with Army Orders for March, for the relevant paragraphs (854 to 895) and appendices (XI to XV) of King's Regulations, and three depended upon the existence of an Army educational system. In the first place it was laid down that arrangements were to be made in Commands for passing ' through an educational course ending with a test conducted by a board of officers ' of those officers commissioned since the outbreak of war ' who have not the qualifications in educational subjects to fit them to train men to the necessary standard '. Secondly it laid down that in addition to passing the specified military examina- tions, * a Lieutenant before promotion to Captain will be required to undergo a course at an Army School of Educa- tion and obtain a satisfactory certificate ', and, thirdly, one of the five papers prescribed as to be taken for promotion from Captain to Major was to be on the subject of ' Educa-
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tional Training '. It was a curious instance of the working of the human mind that there were to be found in May 1920 men who had accepted these provisions in January with little question, but criticized the proposed creation of an educational organization as unnecessary and indeed absurd : they were few naturally, but such men did exist. The part of the regimental oihcer passed into authoriza- tion as a separate affair ; the remainder of the paragraphs of the draft of September 11 dealt with the merging of the old Corps of Army Schoolmasters and the temporary personnel of the Education Scheme into one body forming an Army Educational Corps. An initial stage was pre- scribed, to last from the date of creation until September i, 1923, a period which it was thought would not only cover the position of students in training to become Army Schoolmasters, but also the general difficulties of inaugura- tion. During this first period Army Schoolmasters would be automatically transferred to the new Corps and would be eligible for promotion to commissioned rank ; no further students would be accepted for training under the old regulations : in addition the following three classes were to be eligible for appointments in the new Corps :
(a) Qualified Regular Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Men : stress was laid on the word ' qualified ' by the addition of these words : * to appoint regular officers and N.C.Os. who have no educational qualifications will doom the organization to futility ; the size of the establishment, moreover, is entirely dependent upon quality : Authority is therefore requested to appoint
(b) Officers and N.C.Os. now serving on a temporary basis who have shown themselves qualified by educa- tional experience and service during the war.
(c) Qualified University Graduates, or qualified specialist instructors.'
Classes (b) and (c) were to be appointed on probation for
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a year. After September i, 1923, candidates for com- missioned rank in the Corps were to be selected from {a) Commissioned Officers of not less than one year's service who held a University Honours Degree, though officers of not less than two years' service might also be appointed if exceptionally fitted for educational work, and {b) Warrant Officers of the Corps who passed a qualifying examination. In both cases, after selection, candidates (except Army Schoolmasters) were to undergo a year's training at an Army School of Education and take a diploma : ' this will be that given by a University for a year's work or at any rate one of equal standard.' Candidates for non- commissioned rank in the Corps were required to hold the Special Army Certificate, if in the Army, or the equiva- lent, if not, and after selection to undergo a course of eight months' training at an Army School of Education. The Board .of Selection after September i, 1923, was to consist of the Deputy-Director of Staff Duties (Education) or equivalent as Chairman and four others, two nominated by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff and two by the President of the Board of Education. Other paragraphs dealt with the position of Army Schoolmistresses, already described, and with the establishment of secondary branches at each of the three Military Schools. Emphasis was laid on the fact that these proposals were concerned with the re-organization as one unified body of what already existed as two discordant parts rather than with the creation of a new organization. A note was also attached proposing a redistribution on a unit, instead of a garrison, basis of Army Schoolmasters abroad, so as to remedy waste of effort and overlap : and finally in a full appendix the detailed numbers of Education Officers, officer, warrant officer, and non-commissioned officer instructors were set out for all units, schools, &c.
It had been obvious that in order to secure acceptance
p
226 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
the very strictest regard to economy must be paid : for that reason alone a Corps large enough to undertake all instruction was out of the question, and that reason also was decisive as to the principle upon which schools should be asked for. On the Rhine the great * residential ' General Headquarters Colleges had achieved the most important results : for the Regular Army reversion was necessarily made to the principle established in France during the war that Schools trained instructors who were utilized by Commanding Officers in their turn to train men . Economy forbade the chance of success for proposals instituting numbers of schools — one would be needed in every large garrison at least, if the unit principle were once departed from — and in this economy coincided with the necessities of military life. Men occupying a territory or awaiting demobilization could spend weeks in a General Headquarters Science or Technical College ; professional soldiers could not. On the ground of economy the principle of the responsibility of the Commanding Officer was strictly adhered to in these proposals ; and the only Schools asked for were the two Army Schools of Education. This was extreme, and it is certain that the Army of the future will need a few central schools for specialist and higher work to which, it may be suggested, men within a few months of their discharge might most profitably be sent. In the autumn of 1919 their inclusion would have entailed the rejection of the whole plan. In spite of the Prime Minister's words to the House of Commons on October 30, ' I hope you will not become unreasonable through sheer fear and cut down education. There is nothing that this war has demonstrated more clearly than the value of education, especially on the technical side/ it was only because it was possible truthfully to say that what was asked for was absolutely the least in every way on which educational training could conceivably be
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efficient that the plan weathered the gales of true economy (and of opposition disguised as economy) : it was necessary to repeat over and over again the argument concealed in the sentence originally uttered, I believe, by John Redmond, * Half a loaf may be better than no bread, but what's the use of half a watch ? ' The organization pro- posed was an instrument which would work, the only one which any one devised which would without much greater expense : the strength of the position adopted was that nothing material could be cut away, and it became a straight issue of acceptance or rejection.
By September 17 every detail of the establishment had been worked out, and the draft was as complete as the two Departments principally concerned (S. D. 8 and S. D. 3) could make it. General Lynden-Bell was on leave, but willing to be troubled with a matter so important and, in view of the great difficulty of inducing the best in- structors to stay unless there was reasonable prospect of their eligibility for permanent employment, so urgent ; and the complete scheme went down to him next day. Three days later it was returned with the most hearty congratulations and fullest promise of support ; on September 24 General Lynden-Bell passed through town, and it was sped on its way to the higher authorities, the immediate one of whom, General Harington, I saw next day and found convinced that the educational organiza- tion at any rate was one of the absolutely essential things of the future Regular Army.
Meanwhile a new crisis had developed, as such things did, quite suddenly. On September 13 I received warning that in all probability instructions were about to be issued for the demobilization of all temporary personnel, which, if rigidly carried out, would of course have ended the educational organization. The new rates of pay for the Army, which were published in a Royal Warrant on
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228 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
September 15 and made retrospective to July i, obviously made it economically desirable that no unnecessary temporary personnel should be retained, but economy is one thing and stupidity another. The Air Ministry demobilized their educational personnel suddenly in just this way at the very same time as they approved an educational future, and it was necessary to act energetically to prevent the War Office from imitating such conduct. The threatened instructions were issued, and without reference to our needs (one more instance of the ability to forget the existence of a Department which was only a little more than a year old), but an addendum was sent on their heels to the effect that temporary personnel employed on educational duties were not to be demo- bilized without reference to the War Office. Many were demobilized against their wishes on the strength of the general instructions, but the addendum enabled us with great trouble and constant application to save the great majority. Sorely buffeted, the educational ship still kept the seas : the whole question was whether it could reach port before it foundered under such successive blows, and every effort was now made to hasten acceptance.
October 14 advanced hope considerably : the proposals had by that date been referred to the financial authorities for scrutiny, and scrutinized they were in a conference lasting several hours. The result was highly satisfactory ; beyond a little inevitable paring of certain ranks and details, the proposals were admitted as the most economical possible if the organization was to continue to exist at all. As the fact of continued existence had been decided, it now seemed as if we were nearing the end of the long voyage.
That was too sanguine. Three weeks passed without any further progress. Real interest was meanwhile shown by the House of Commons, Colonel F. B. Mildmay and
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Mr. Arthur Hendersoi^ both putting questions and re- ceiving answers that the organization would be placed on a permanent basis, but that details could not be announced in advance of the consideration of Army expenditure as a whole : in fact, though principle and details had both been accepted, all that was intended was inclusion with the rest of the Army Estimates which would not receive sanction as a whole for months. It seemed at that time impossible to maintain life upon an indefinite basis for such a further period ; and on November 5 Sir Henry Wilson saw General Harington, General Lynden-Bell, and myself upon the question, * another deputation ' as he said humorously as we entered, and after listening to our statement promised to see what could be done. It was just at this date that Sir Robert Home had forwarded Sir James Currie's report of his visit to the Rhine to Mr. Churchill with his cordial words of endorsement, so that the educational work was in high favour. Two days later Mr. Churchill decided that he would in any event from the sum later given for the Army allocate the sum necessary for the putting into effect of the educational proposals. This gratifying decision enabled Mr. (now Lord) Forster, then Finance Member of the Army Council, to answer further questioners in the House of Commons, which could not understand the delay, in a more definite manner, as, for example, on November 11, in the following duologue : j
Major McKenzie Wood asked the Prime Minister whether, with a view to the prevention of waste arising out of the existence of both the old Army school system and the new Army educational training scheme side by side, he will expedite the decision regarding the permanent personnel for Army educa- tion ?
Mr. Forster : It is recognized that the existence of the old Army school system and the new educational training
230 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
system for the Army side by side is unsatisfactory and must be terminated as soon as possible by the formation of a single body, unifying and retaining the best features of both, and I hope to be in a position to make a statement shortly.
Major Wood : Have we not had the same answer for six months ? When shall we get a definite answer on this point ?
Mr, Forster : I have .just said I hope to be able to make a statement shortly. I am afraid I cannot name a precise date.
This was at any rate a statement of method and so in advance of the former statements of principle. On the same day Mr. Montagu was able to inform Colonel (now Sir) C. E. Yate that the Government of India was considering the application of the ' Army Education system both to the British Garrison of India and to the Indian Army ', and that a British Staff Officer with practical experience of the work had recently sailed for India. Lascelles had in fact sailed four days before.
A further period of delay ensued, during which the official letter to the Treasury was discussed anew and drafted by the financial authorities. All was now out of the hands of the Department, and the intervening time was largely devoted to constant interviews, discussion with regular soldiers, and addressing meetings, such as a gathering of Commanding Officers and Adjutants at Aldershot on November 17, the cadets at Sandhurst on November 25, and the students at the Staff College, Camberley, on December 8. I found everwhere a real appreciation of the purposes and benefits of an Army educational organization, and at Aldershot — which was even more important — an acceptance both of the per- manence of the organization and of the fact that regimental officers would be required to fit themselves for and take part in instructional duties. The two streams of opinion.
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the adverse and the cordial, minds which looked back and minds which looked forward, can best be illustrated by three quotations. The first is from a letter, written in September 1919 by a Brigade Commander to his Divisional General :
* This sanguinary " Education " scheme I'm hopelessly in the dark over. When I left work it had not been made applicable to Regular Army : has it now ? We are short of all the masses of literature on the subject. Could you send your Education Officer to see me with any or all of the necessary printed muck that S. D. 8 send out or preferably a little easily read document like those you used to compile explaining the muck. Any time Tuesday or Wednesday would suit me. Don't bother to reply, send the bally fellow over like a good chap.'
One cannot envy * the bally fellow ' his task of explaining * the muck ' to such a refined and sympathetic soul ; but it is at least significant that even this Commander realized as early as September that it behoved him to gain en- lightenment ; and in justice to the Regular Army it ought to be said that his letter is characteristic only of that quite small and rapidly disappearing type of Army officer whose mind, resembling that of the Bourbons, had for- gotten and learnt nothing in a war in which his defects as a soldier came to light. The second quotation is taken from a Brigade Order issued in Ireland on November 21, 1919:
* 5. Commanding Officers are, in working out their Programmes, to look upon some part of the morning as available for compulsory education for each individual, and, although it has been laid down that 4 hours per week is the minimum and six hours the maximum, they are to endeavour to attain a standard of six hours per week.
6. Although a certain Educational Staff has been laid down for a Battalion, the Brigade Commander has no objection to the employment of other N.C.Os. or men
232 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
for instructional purposes, but it must be clearly under- stood that such men will not receive any extra emolu- ments.
7. Finally he wishes to impress on Commanding Officers his very strong opinion of the importance of education, not only for the making of a really efficient soldier, but for his welfare when he has left the Army, and for the prosperity of the Nation.*
The third quotation, which must suffice, is taken from the Command Order issued on December 5, 1919, at Aldershot, where General Lord Rawlinson was then Commanding and Brigadier-General (now Colonel) S. E. HoUond was his • Brigadier-General, General Staff :
* 2. Duties of Regimental Officers and Specialists.
(a) As general education is a part of a soldier's military training, the Commander who is responsible for his train- ing must be responsible for his education. No musketry instructor is expected to train the whole unit. Similarly the specialist staff for educational duties cannot deal with every man in the unit. The Commander of the platoon and corresponding unit must actually instruct his men up to the standard required.
It is recognized that it is not possible to introduce this system at once throughout the Command, but the principle must be kept in view in organizing general education.
Formations which have not already done so should arrange to instruct subordinate commanders in the duties which will be required of them. Certain vacancies are also available at schools at Bedford and Newmarket, and all units will thus shortly have a number of regimental officers who can take part in the education of their men.'
At the beginning of December scrutiny of the proposals within the War Office seemed to have come at last to an exhaustive finality ; and the letter was dispatched to the Treasury asking for early sanction for the proposals, for the necessity of which the Army Council declared itself convinced. The year 1919 drew to its arduous conclusion,
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first, with the defeat of a design to withdraw authorization for the Education Officers at the various Commands in Great Britain, secondly, with the abandonment of the instruction that the staff of the Department was to be still further reduced — a matter over which the Appoint- ments Department of the Ministry of Labour had expressed dismay — and, thirdly, with a debate in the House of Commons on December 16 as to Army policy and expendi- ture at the end of which Mr. Churchill undertook that details of the educational organization should be laid before Parliament, if not during the Recess, at any rate before the Army Estimates were presented. It should perhaps be stated that the total amount involved in the proposals, over and above that which would in any case be necessitated by the continuance of the old Army School system, was estimated at £280,000, a sum far below that for which the financial authorities had at one time stoutly maintained we should need to ask. It was not really the size of the sum, not really the argument of economy, which was still to delay authorization for five further and most difficult months.
CHAPTER XIV SCHOOLS AND CERTIFICATES
The very important part which the Schools of Educa- tion were to play in the Army educational system will have become sufficiently apparent in the preceding chapter. In order that it may be understood in what degree they were qualified to play such a part and also to what degree they had attracted and were to attract attention, favourable and the reverse, it is necessary to turn back chronologically awhile. The Schools and the Army Education Certificates with which to some extent the instruction in them was necessarily related had, however, a direct bearing upon the events of early 1920, and to give an account of them at this stage is not really to depart from strict chronology.
The necessity for Schools of Education and the rapidity with which immediately after the Armistice one in Trinity and Hertford Colleges, Oxford, and another in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, were established and settled to work has already been briefly described in Chapter V. One of the most vivid of my personal memories in con- nexion with the whole movement is standing in the Broad on the afternoon of Saturday, November 30, 1918, watching subalterns tumbling out of cabs in front of Trinity — subalterns from Great Britain, Ireland, and France gathered together post-haste, many with the very vaguest idea of the reason which had led them to be dumped down at Oxford. The next day I addressed them all in the Union, which I had not entered since my first year as an undergraduate, having beside me on the way
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there — such was the whirligig of war — the proctor of that time, Mr. Grant Robertson, now as Chief Instructor to Hsten to and laugh at the story of an undiscovered escapade of 1904. I did my best to explain, as I had tried to do at Cambridge just a week before, the ideals and basic principles of the movement and the place of the School in it ; and was able to secure comprehension of the one essential fact that there was no thought of putting the audience to school again but rather of trying to help them to help their men.
The whole thing was an experiment : the instructors who had been selected — at short notice but with all the care possible — were not merely thoroughly well qualified educationally but also imbued with enthusiasm, but they were attempting an entirely new task, the training of educational instructors of adults and by means of short intensive courses. Hadow and I had discussed the system to be adopted at length both with Mr. Robert- son for the Oxford School, which took 200 officers only, and with Major (as he then became) Egerton and Captain Shelley, Commandant and Chief Instructor respectively of the Cambridge School, which took non-commissioned officers also. It had been generally agreed that it would be educationally absurd, in a month, which was all the length the urgency of the situation made possible for the courses at first, to attempt to give instruction in subjects with which the student was unacquainted ; but that it would be possible to give such instruction as should help him to impart to others knowledge he already possessed. In a long account of the Schools which appeared in The Times on January 18, 1919, written by * An Oxford correspondent ', occur the following passages which are interesting and correct upon this point :
* The University and College authorities have done everything in their power to promote the organization
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and success of the School. As was anticipated, the establishment of the school at Oxford in the atmosphere of great traditions and high ideals has contributed, in a way that can hardly be exaggerated, to the success of the scheme. The officers from the first felt a subtle inspiration.
Emphasis must be laid on the principle that the Oxford School is a school of and for instructors, and not of and for instruction' — i. e. it is not proposed to teach officers in three or four weeks subjects of which they w^ere previously ignorant. That would be impossible. What has been and is being attempted is to train an officer who already knows a fair amount about a subject, or group of subjects, how best to teach it, and also to enable officers to revive knowledge. . . .
. . . The instruction in all subjects is not limited to formal lectures. Every group every day meets the instructors concerned for informal conferences, practical exercises in teaching, with criticism both from the instructor and the officers of the class, help in the drawing up of syllabuses, discussion as to text-books, apparatus, and aids to teaching, and the varying conditions in which education in the Army can be carried on successfully. . . . That the scheme has succeeded may perhaps be inferred from the wish of a large number of officers who attended the first course that it should be extended for another three weeks, and from the fact that a larger number were ready to enter for the second course had this been possible. . . . Officers have rapidly grasped the idea and ideals of the school, and have co-operated with infectious zeal in making the scheme " go ". . . . The school is a signal proof that in education the impossible can be achieved when instructors are determined to teach and learn at the same time.'
A great deal was learnt from this first course, and much of the programme and many of the methods were carefully revised as experience was gained, but the chief thing learnt was that the aim could be substantially realized. The students, many of whom had arrived with little educational intention, grew keen and determined to do all
SCHOOLS AND CERTIFICATES 237
they could to help : it was no uncommon thing for the instructors to receive letters from old students back in their units asking for advice or saying how they were getting on ; not a few said that they had been to many so-called Army Schools but never to one before from which they had really derived both pleasure and profit. Grant Robertson at Oxford, Shelley at Cambridge, each in their widely differing ways, were inspirational forces of the utmost value, kindling in many, who endeavoured to the best of their abilities to bear it on, the torch of genuine educational fervour ; and under these two laboured devotedly an enthusiastic body of instructors, free within the wide limits of the Education Scheme to work out their educational problems unimpeded. It was this freedom from a superimposed curriculum, this power of initiative, which so encouraged the zeal of the instructors, a feature so noticeable that months later it caused Barnett, who in the course of his long official life had inspected hundreds of schools, to come back from a visit to Newmarket and amuse all the older members of the Department by eulogizing as the school of his dreams the institution the growth of which they had closely watched and fostered.
The mention of Newmarket is anticipatory : for some months yet the Schools remained at Oxford and Cam- bridge, though at each course it was more difiicult to arrange accommodation as undergraduates began to return, and the Oxford school was driven to Keble and Wycliffe Hall before Oxford became everywhere too full. The experience of the second courses confirmed that of the first : ' 90 per cent, of the officers', wrote Robertson on January 10, * are very keen and very much appreciate both the hard work and this help.' On January 22 Mr. Fisher paid a visit of inspection to the Oxford School and gave an address to the students, in which, in addition
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to emphasizing his personal interest and the importance attached by the Government to the work, he spoke of the giving of education to the soldier whilst with the colours as the only means by which the reproach of being a ' blind alley ' profession could be removed from the Army : he ended by telling the students that they had it-in their power to help the country to an extent hardly then realized. Three days later Mr. Fisher visited and addressed the Cambridge School, saying he hoped that the effect of the educational work in the Army would be to lead up to better things in the country generally. These two examples of Mr. Fisher's support were invalu- able, and he expressed to me his vital interest in the creation of a new body of men whose sjmipathies were being turned towards the teaching profession and who would gain some experience of adult work. Many of these, he hoped, would ultimately take up work in the Continuation Schools : at any rate a new source of supply was indicated. By February 5 sanction was secured for doubling the size of the Cambridge School, and the two continued with unabated spirit but growing congestedness throughout the spring. They were visited, Oxford on March 19 and 20 and Cambridge on April i and 2, by an Inspector of the Board of Education, who, after stating in his report that ' the task which the organizers of these schools have set themselves is one of the most difficult in the whole range of educational experience ', commended highly the manner in which it had been attacked. At any rate both Schools prospered :
* I thought I would drop you a line to let you know how much I am enjoying this course (wrote a subaltern to a friend in May). It is so unlike those awful courses one got used to during the war. . . . One can't help learning in a place like this.'
They had their detractors, as all things must have, but
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from December 1918 to July 1919, from all who gained experience of them at first hand came with little variation genuine and whole-hearted appreciation of most valuable work : and airmen, New Zealanders, and Americans, gladly availed themselves of the invitation we extended to them to fill a few vacancies at each course. The close and inspiring connexion with the two ancient Universities, however, was inevitably forced to an end : the Cambridge School was driven in the late spring from Corpus Christi by the return of undergraduates and was established in the much less satisfactory atmosphere and inferior comfort of the hutments near Newmarket, and a like pressure made it impossible to continue at Oxford after the end of the summer term. This pressure coincided practically with the re-emerging of the Regular Army, and brought into being a different set of conditions.
Two other Schools had been instituted early in 1919 for a special, and temporary, purpose. On October 14, 1918, General Lowther had shown himself more generous- minded than consistent, for he had written to General Lynden-Bell, as a result of a conversation he had recently had with Lord Burnham, suggesting that something should be done specially to help the many young officers who would at the end of the war be turned loose on the country, those who in General Lowther's sympathetic and understanding words
' have joined the Army at 18 or 19, schoolboys without a profession ; and now at 23 or 24, have still no know- ledge of any calling but the Army.
The fact of having been officers will prevent most of them from taking up the modest calling of their fathers, and these unemployable lads will be a hindrance to national prosperity.'
It was difficult to act immediately. In the first place General Lowther was at this time justly drawing attention
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to the huge extensions forced upon us, and to start, a suggested, a number of officers' schools would have been greatly to add to an already overwhelming burden. Secondly and more important — for we could, and did, act, burden or no burden, after the Armistice — if an officer could be sent away to a school for training for civil employment he could gain better facilities by quitting altogether an Army which obviously did not need his services. The suggestion, however, showed that we could count on General Lowther's support in this matter, and I talked also to Lord Burnham about the very vital truth underlying it.
By the beginning of 1919 the situation had changed. The Army still could not retain officers in order to train them for civil employment, but hostilities were over, large numbers of young officers were kicking their hecils in units in Great Britain awaiting demobilization — ^and the Appointments Department of the Ministry of Labour was inundated. It seemed clear that the Army must do what it could to help : officers could take advantage of such educational facilities as then existed in units equally with men, but there was little inducement to them to do so, especially when instructors and apparatus fell far short of the need. Two Schools, one at Elstow near Bedford and one at Catterick Camp, were brought into being and staffed and equipped for the purpose of giving young officers, who were awaiting demobilization, instruction principally in commercial, scientific, and technical subjects. Roughly 200 students could be taken at each ; and that the courses were successful was proved by the number who wished to return for a second and even for a third course : this, however, could be allowed only when all vacancies for the next course were not filled. The one drawback was that, as soon as an officer's demobilization came through, the Army had no power to keep him even
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if he asked, as many did, to be allowed to remain. Some, despairing of civil assistance, remained on at their own charges ; the majority could not afford to do so. At any rate, the 1,500 or 2,000 officers who passed through these Schools between their institution and July could and did feel that the Army had helped them to a future to the utmost of its power. These two Schools up to IJuly were Schools of Instruction, the counterpart of those established in Ireland and to some extent of the larger ones on the Rhine : they were not Schools of Education, and their students studied on their own exclusive behalf and not to become instructors of others. At the same time they were not confined to vocational subjects, and the theatri- cal performances given at Bedford were close rivals to those at Newmarket ; in fact there were in embryo two admirable Army Schools of Dramatic Art.
By July 1919 not only was it no longer possible to find a home for the Oxford School in, or even near, Oxford, but also the original purpose of the Bedford and Catterick Schools was fulfilled as far as it ever would be. There were no longer masses of young officers awaiting demobilization, and the character of the Schools had gradually approximated to that of the Schools of Educa- tion, retaining, however, their predominance of interest in technical and vocational subjects. The shrinking of the Army everywhere, moreover, made the existence of four schools unnecessary : it was therefore .decided to amalga- mate the Oxford School with that which had been at Cambridge and was then at Newmarket, to form the School of Education for general education ; and to amalgamate the Bedford and Catterick Schools to form the School of Education for vocational education : this distribution was not of course absolute but nevertheless marked. By the beginning of the autumn the rather difficult arrangements necessary to effect these amalgama-
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242 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
tions had been completed, and two Schools at Newmarket and Bedford respectively continued, each with an exceptionally strong team of instructors, the former under Lt.-Colonel A. A. Sharland, a regular soldier who had administered the Oxford School since its beginning with tact and judgement as Commandant, and Major Shelley as Chief Instructor, the latter under Lt.-Colonel A. E. Coningham, a regular R.E. of great ability and educational interest, as Commandant, and Major J. McElwain, a Scottish educationist, as Chief Instructor. Continuity was as far as possible preserved, and the two Schools now set to work with an increasing proportion of regular officers as students.
Schools of such a character, quite unknown to the old Regular Army system, indeed unknown to any system — for they were, and, as far as I am aware, still are, the only schools in existence for training instructors in adult education — naturally aroused considerable attention. The length of the courses was extended now that time was not knocking quite so insistently at the gates, and short visits were also arranged for Commanding and other senior officers to enable them to see and hear everything they wished to and to ask questions. Not only from men grown gray in the study of education, but also from soldiers whose military record was notable, came the strongest testimony of the efficiency and merits of the Schools : thus on February i6, 1920, I had a letter from a friend who had commanded first a Brigade and then a Division in France with conspicuous success, which began
* I have just been spending a week at Newmarket with . . . and may I say without presumption how much I have appreciated your School there, and how highly I think of the nature of the instruction given. Your School appears to me to be in good hands, the teaching
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given there is most interesting, and should have the effect at least of opening men's minds, and making them think. All good luck to it ! '
This entirely unsolicited commendation was the more valuable because words used by Grant Robertson a month before, in reply to my having passed on to him a state- ment that the students were said to be doing little work, proved to be prophetic : * There is bound to be a good deal of criticism and perhaps complaint. The disgruntled are always with us ; and a casual remark is magnified into a statement of fact and passed on with embroidery/ This last happened often : and the severest critics were invariably those who had never been to see either School for themselves. The very qualities which were of out- standing value, namely, the educational initiative and variety of method with which the work was tackled, made the Schools objects of dislike to those few officers who disliked the whole idea of education in the Army and wisely but hardly honourably preferred to * pass on with embroidery ' casual remarks rather than accept the invitation extended to them to visit and inspect the Schools. Thus second-hand complaints as to laxity of discipline were made at the same time as I received this note from a distinguished regular officer of many years' service : ' I am just back from Newmarket where I was much [struck by Shelley, but I was very pleased also as an old soldier to see that the School which I knew in war was just as smart and soldier-like in peace.' The truth seemed to be that to a certain type of officer any stick was good enough to beat an unfavoured dog with. This is not to say that the Schools were beyond criticism : on so new an educational venture that would have been too much to expect, and many and valuable were the criticisms made by visitors who |came |with interested minds. Were it , permissible to quote them, the words wntten by
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certain well-known generals who went down specially to report upon the Newmarket School in February 1920, at the request of Sir Henry Wilson, whose interest was unwavering and who in consequence was anxious that no vestige of hostile criticism should be justified, would to the impartial be decisive ; they must, however, pre- sumably be regarded as confidential, and no more can be said here than that there was unanimous agreement in the benefits not only to the individual officer-students but also to the Army.
One further word must be said before passing to the educational fabric into which the work of the Schools had necessarily to be woven : it can best be given by an extract from a letter I wrote to Lascelles a week after his departure for India and dated December 12, 1919 :
' The day before yesterday I went down to Newmarket and allowed the senior officers there on a short course to ask such questions as they liked for well over an hour and a half. General Marshall was there, and you will find in him the very warmest of supporters. At the moment, entirely agreed as he is with the necessity for the organiza- tion, he is without views as to the methods best suited to Indian needs, but I told him that probably by the time he got out you would be ready with answers to any questions he had to put. He has been tremendously impressed with the value of such a School as Newmarket, and thinks it probable that it will be necessary to establish a similar one in India, but that can well be seen to in due course.'
It should be added that it has been seen to — ^together with a second School to carry out for Indian students the same duties for the Indian wing of the Army Educa- tional Corps.
It was undesirable, having selected the very best instructors available for these Schools — and we were not limited to soldiers |in the early |days, as the appointments
• SCHOOLS AND CERTIFICATES 245
of such men as Grant Robertson and Albert Mansbridge showed — to circumscribe their work within the set limits of a superimposed curriculum. The result was that the instructors were able to invest their instruction with their own zeal and personality, always of paramount importance in adult educational work, and that so shrewd and so soldierly a critic as General Hollond could write on March 4, 1920, * The instruction is good. It helps to break up the somewhat narrow public-school mentality of the students, it widens their outlook, and it begins to teach them how to teach.' But for the Army as a whole the educational problem was entirely different. Reference has already been made to the work of Hadow and his assistants at the end of 1918, when the grouping of the subjects of instruction was drawn up and the Active Service Army School Certificates instituted. In the early months of 1919 syllabuses and specimen papers were prepared and issued, and the grouping of subjects was confirmed in the Army Order of May 13, 1919, as follows :
' 16. Subjects of Instruction. For general convenience subjects have been grouped as set out below. It is not intended that the Scheme should be unduly rigid or determinate, but such a grouping is necessary for clear- ness in certain respects.
Group A . This group consists of the following : (i) English, (ii) Arithmetic or Elementary Mathe- matics, (iii) Civics, History, and Geography. Group B. Languages and History. English Language and Literature, with special reference to either (a) Shakespeare,^ or {b) typical authors of the nine-
^ ' For the most part, the soldier was incHned to take a utili- tarian view of the educational scheme. His choice lay rather towards practical subjects, but through the pages of Shakespeare he was allured into the kingdom of pure literature. The spell worked even upon the unwilling, for often in a crowded hut those who were not regular members of the Shakespeare class in progress at one end would lay down pens and newspapers to
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teenth century ; English History, European History, Imperial History, Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, German.
Group C. Political Economy. Economics and Indus- trial History.
Group D. Pure Science. Chemistry, Physics, Botany, Zoology, Physical Geography, Geology.
Group E. Mathematics. Higher Mathematics, Prac- tical Mathematics.
Group F. Engineering Course. General Physics and Mechanics ; Sound, Light, and Heat ; Electricity and Magnetism ; Civil Engineering ; Mechanical Engineering ; Electrical Engineering.
Group G. Commercial Subjects, Commercial Arith- metic, Shorthand, Typewriting, Theory and Practice of Commerce, Commercial Geography, Accountancy, Commercial Law, Secretarial Practice.
Group H. Agricultural Science. Elementary Theory of Agriculture, Gardening and Cultivation of Allot- ments, Veterinary Science, Bee-keeping, Poultry Farming.
Group I. Music. Including the practice of Choral Singing.
Group J. Drawing, Art, and Design.
Group K. Hygiene, First Aid.
Group L. Handyman Training : Shoemaking, Tailor- ing, Cookery, Hair-cutting, Horse-shoeing, Simple Carpentry, Simple Repairs to Motor Cycles and Internal-combustion Engines, &c.
Group M. Practical Trades: Electricity, Telephony and Telegraphy, Electric Lighting and Power, Fitters, Carpenters, Wheelers, Painters and Glaziers, Textiles, Smiths, Coppersmiths, Bricklayers, Masons, Plumbers, Building Construction, Motor Mechanism, Motor Driving, &c.
listen, at first casually, but at length with growing interest. Before the hour was up, the whole assembly would have forgotten private pursuits and had been transformed in imagination to the Forest of Arden or to the platform before the Castle of Elsinore.' — From an article entitled ' Shakespeare and Modern Soldiers ', The Times, Shakespeare's Day, 19 19.
SCHOOLS AND CERTIFICATES 247
Syllabuses and Specimen Examination Papers in the subjects of Groups A to G inclusive are published for the guidance of Education Officers and Instructors as to the lines of the course to be pursued and the standard to be attained.'
Group A was made the base on which all other instruction could rest, and it was satisfactory to find that the emphasis thereby laid upon the teaching of citizenship commended itself to all from the start. The following passage in an article in the Daily Express of January 6, 19 19, at any rate expressed a feeling which there is reason to believe was fairly general :
* Never before has any single Government department had such an opportunity of influencing for good or bad the destiny of its country. Upwards of five million men, the pick of the Empire, are to be moulded into useful or useless citizens, as that department rises to or fails in its opportunities. The War Office fortimately is rising to the occasion, if the maxim be true that to have a clear idea of the goal is half the battle. They know the goal to aim at — citizenship.'
It was rather a comedy that after the issue of these groupings of subjects, when * civics ' has passed into a definite, popular, and pre-eminently important place in the educational system, and Army Education Circulars were being widely distributed giving the latest information on resettlement and social questions, there should still be found a few people to say publicly that civic education and questions of reconstruction were * very largely banned in the Army ' — but severity in criticism of the Education Scheme usually varied in inverse ratio to knowledge of its operation. There was always so much justly to criticize that the perversions and misstatements were surprisingly unnecessary.
The dual existence of the old Army Certificates of Education and the Active Service Army School Certifi-
248 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
cates which had been instituted to meet the conditions of the war period could not, however, be regarded as other than a temporary arrangement. The old Certificates were educationally archaic; the new were 'indeterminate'. One of the first essentials of the passage of the educational organization to a permanence which should include the Corps of Army Schoolmasters was to revise and unify the two on a durable basis. This was not a task to be lightly or hastily undertaken ; and accordingly, on July 7, 1919, I instituted, at Barnett's suggestion, a small departmental committee, the duties of which were to be
(a) The scrutiny of all available documents of examina-
tions held under S. D. 8.
(b) The consideration of the possibility of equation with
the Board of Education's examinations.
(c) The consideration of the regular co-operation of the
Board of Education.
(d) The consideration of the equation of the old
1st Class Certificate of Education with the Special Army Schools Certificate.
(e) Negotiations with Universities and other learned
bodies for converting their war concession of acceptance of the Special Army Schools Certifi- cate into a permanent recognition.
This Examinations Committee was fortunate enough to secure the assistance of Mr. H. E. Mann, not only an official of the Board of Education but also one of the four original Education Officers to an Army in France in 1918, and also of Mr. G. F. Goodchild, External Registrar of the University of London : the warmest thanks are due to these two most valuable co-operators for their cordial and entirely voluntary attendance. ' The University *, wrote Sir E. Cooper Perry, then Vice-Chancellor and now Principal of the University of London, in reply to my letter asking for official permission to be accorded to Mr. Goodchild to
SCHOOLS AND CERTIFICATES 249
attend, ' is glad to take part in carrying out and developing the Army Education Scheme of last year.'
The Examinations Committee started work without delay and held regular sittings from July 1919 onwards : by the beginning of 1920 its principal task was completed, and the revised and unified Certificates were formally submitted to higher authority by the Department on January 9. On January 25 Sir Henry Wilson, after General Lynden-Bell and General Harington had each in their turn studied them carefully and endorsed them warmly, expressed himself as anxious to get on at once to the next step, namely, their issue, adding with his usual keen and kind appreciation : ' It is of great impor- tance to pass at once from our temporary and somewhat precarious educational system to our permanent and solid proposals. All the work done here — and a vast deal of quiet, unobtrusive but excellent work has been carried out — reflects the greatest credit,' &c. On January 27 Mr. Churchill gave authority to proceed, and * Regula- tions for Army Certificates of Education ' were officially issued with Army Orders for February 1920.
Certificates and examinations are not education, any more than a number of bones is a warm and sentient human being — a fact by no means fully appreciated even yet. But just as a skeleton is structurally necessary to a human being, so are ordered and arranged certificates and examinations structurally necessary to an educational system. They are, however, inevitably technical and often intricate* and possess an interest primarily for the expert, and it is unnecessary, especially as these Certifi- cates have been issued in all their details and with the syllabuses, to analyse all their provisions here. It will be sufficient to recapitulate the general explanation which I drew up at the time :
* The principle upon which the Certificates have been
250 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
worked out has been to make the best ladder possible from the 3rd Class to the Special, as follows :
jrd Class Certificate. It is possible that when the effects of the Education Act, 1918, begin to make themselves felt the 3rd Class Certificate as laid down in these regulations will be one which can be made into the recruit's educational test ; but since it is clearly premature to attempt that at present, it has been drawn up now in such a way as to place it within the power of every platoon commander to ensure that every man in his platoon reaches this standard at any rate. All the evidence goes to show that it is not practicable at present to fix a higher standard for this Certificate.
2nd Class Certificate. In this a wide range of optional practical subjects has been included with a view to the encouragement of handicrafts and vocational training, the introduction of which will be of the greatest assistance to the future employment of the ex-soldier. Considerable experience has been gained in units and a large amount of opinion of Commanding and other officers taken ; it is clearly inadvisable to include vocational subjects in the 3rd Class, indeed that would be fatal, but it is very necessary to include them in the 2nd Class.
1st Class Certificate. The standard of this is roughly the standard of the matriculation examination of a University with this important exception — that the number of subjects is 3 only as compared with 5 in the matriculation examination ; it is obvious that this Certificate must not be made unduly burdensome to the average N.C.O. An optional subject is included in the shape of a language, leading on to the Special Certificate.
Special Certificate. The addition of two subjects to
• the 1st Class Certificate makes this the equivalent of a University matriculation pass. It is of the utmost importance to retain this, which was first introduced at the end of 1918, so as to link up the Army with the educational life of the country. The standards of the three last — 2nd, ist, and Special
SCHOOLS AND CERTIFICATES 251
Certificates — are carefully balanced so as to form a co-ordinated graduation, the 3rd Class being rather in the nature of a preliminary test/
These regulations were issued at once, but, in view of the necessity for giving adequate notice to those working under the existing Certificates and syllabuses, it was laid down that with the exception of the Special Certifi- cate they would not come into operation until July i, 1921.
It is possible that some modifications of the 2nd Class Certificate may be found advisable in the early years of the Army Educational Corps, to meet conditions which may confidently be expected to pass away. It is necessary for a soldier to hold this Certificate before he can draw proficiency pay, and after the issue of these regulations it was represented that with the educational standard of recruits at present so extremely low — lower, many Commanding officers declared, than before the war — the mathematics would in all probability prove a serious stumbling-block for a number of years. Be this as it may, it was almost universally recognized that in place of the old rigidity a system had been instituted which gave greater latitude to the student and encouraged initiative in the instructor ; and that the introduction of vocational subjects, optional and not compulsory, was a notable advance. It is sincerely to be hoped that any modification found advisable as a concession to educa- tional backwardness in 192 1 and 1922 will be regarded as definitely of a temporary character, and, further, will be so devised as to avoid upsetting the carefully balanced graduations of a considered educational system.
One change had been noticeable in the attitude of Commanding and other officers : in the autumn of 1918 and beginning of 1919 their partiality had been pre- dominantly towards * practical ' subjects ; from July 1 9 19 onwards they were universally desirous of post-
252 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
poning these until they had laid at least a foundation of general education. They had discovered the enormous difference between the average intelligence of the tem- porary soldier and the average ignorance of the regular recruit : by the autumn of 1919 many battalions had numerous cases of illiterates, and it began to be realized that education in such cases had at any rate to go hand in hand with purely military instruction, even where it did not have actually to precede it. As a result of the low standard of recruits for those branches of the Service for which as many were forthcoming as were needed, the Department was asked to institute, and did institute, educational tests. The effect upon recruiting of a real educational system in an army was visible ; there were definite instances of lads joining on the strength of its permanent adoption. Moreover, the whole pre-war arrangements and the annual grant by which a certain number of regular officers received training in foreign languages to enable them to qualify as interpreters had been handed over with relief to the one War Office Depart- ment which could treat such arrangements as kindred to its normal activities. By February 1920 the rather singular position had been reached that the educational organization, temporary as it officially was and uncertain as every detail of its future continued to be, was inex- tricably woven into the fabric of the Regular Army.
CHAPTER XV THE MANUAL AND THE CORPS
Although no answer whatever had been forthcoming from the Treasury, which had just been internally re- organized, it seemed at least certain, after the publication of the Army Order of January 27, 1920, dealing with officers' promotions, and after the acceptance of the new Certificates of Education, that the Army could |never go back merely to the pre-war educational conditions. It was therefore of very great importance to begin at once the preparation, in an authoritative form, of the principles on which the new system, when instituted, should work. A Corps without principles is like a man without character, and a hurried publication was not to be thought of. All the old Training Manuals were being rewritten in the light of the experience gained in the war by various Committees of distinguished soldiers ; Army School Regulations, 191 1, applied to nothing but the pre-war educational system and was a singularly uninspiring publication. The writing was doubly necessary, therefore ; and, further, it was desirable that this rewriting should be undertaken forthwith, so that when authorization of the Army Educational Corps was at last given, a new Manual, based upon its needs and inspired by its ideals, should be issued without delay in order to secure the continued development of those educational principles which had been tested and pursued throughout the movement.
As soon therefore as the new Certificates had been worked out and passed on from the Department, and
254 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
even before acceptance of these had been secured, work was begun on ' Educational Training, Part I, General Principles \ which was to correspond in outward form to the official manuals of purely military training. The first chapter was begun on January 22, 1920, and the draft of the remaining chapters was practically complete by April i ; I then spent the succeeding Easter days when there was an inevitable, and very welcome, break in office work in putting them all together and going carefully through the whole : the Manual was sent to the printers for a proof on April 6. It was no single man's work, though the Committee system was not adopted : we held one or two small conferences at which the general lines on which it should be written and the division of chapters were discussed, and various chajDters, or pieces of chapters, were allotted to those different writers who had made a special study of the particular part of the work concerned. Unlike other Training Manuals and unlike other educational publications, the Manual of Educational Training had no precursors, except only the several Army Orders, notably that of May 13, 1919, which had been issued in connexion with the Education Scheme of the past. No book — within the knowledge of any of us, at least — dealt with the principles and actual practice of adult education, and we had there- fore all the advantages and suffered under all the dis- advantages of breaking new educational ground.
A very considerable amount of the experience gained in the past eighteen months was naturally applicable ; but the deep difference in character between, on the one band, a number of Armies made up almost entirely of demobilizable citizen-soldiers and, on the other, the Regular Army made it necessary carefully to scrutinize all previous experience, and in many respects this was found to be inapplicable. Regular soldiers took their
THE MANUAL AND THE CORPS 255
share in the writing and in the consideration of the chapters as written, but as soon as proof-copies were received it was judged essential that regular soldiers unconnected with the actual working of the educational system should see and freely criticize the principles drafted. The Manual was accordingly sent in proof not only to certain generals of special distinction but also to Commanding Officers of Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, and Engineer Units respectively, so that an expression of opinion from representatives of the four principal branches of the Service might be obtained. The criticisms received were of great interest, and surprisingly few, though the Infantryman and Cavalryman approved much more warmly than the Gunner and Sapper. All criticisms were carefully considered and, as far as possible, adopted ; and it could fairly be claimed that the final copy embodied the amendments of men thoroughly acquainted with all the different aspects of the Regular Army.
The immediate authorization of these ' General Prin- ciples * was now pressed, both because of the lack of guidance which was inevitable until their publication and because the Manual was included as a subject in the examinations for promotion to be held in October. Moreover, General Lynden-Bell had told me, speaking with the greatness kindness, that he was beginning con- stantly to be urged to fix a date by which he could replace the temporary soldier, who happened to be holding high office under him in the War Office, by a regular who had passed through the Staff College in the ordinary military way. We had discussed this together more than once ; I had always recognized not only that a time would come but that it was right that a time should come when the administration of the educational system of the Regular Army should become the task of the regular officer. A temporary officer could have no real knowledge of the
"m
256 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
conditions of the Regular Army in peace ; moreover, no Army system could conceivably endure successfully unless it was in all ways part of the Army and administered by those whose profession was the Army. I was able to reassure General Lynden-Bell, therefore, in all sincerity that I cordially agreed that a date must be fixed and that Colonel Earle should begin to take over from me gradually. My demobilization had accordingly been fixed for May 29, 1920, which in January seemed easily far enough ahead to enable the Corps and the principles governing it to be established during my tenure of appointment. But, though no time had been lost in the preparation of the Manual, delays had occurred over the inauguration of the Corps. The proposals had been drafted in September, accepted within the War Office in October, and the Treasury had been written to early in December : long discussions as to the details of the establishment had been taking place since October and these, harmoniously agreed at last with Major-General I. L. B. Vesey, Director of Organization, had been included in the Adjutant- GeneraFs schedule for the Estimates for the succeeding year. No answer, however, was received from the Treasury, though Mr. Austen Chamberlain, privately spoken to, had expressed himself as quite favourable, provided the War Office was willing to pay for the Corps with, and not as a supplement to, the sum allo- cated for the Army, and this reasonable stipulation the Army Council in their letter of December 10 expressly accepted.
On January 23 the Treasury broke their seven weeks' silence but only to ask questions and put suppositions, all of which had been disposed of months previously : a reply was drafted and dispatched with promptitude, and once more the curtain of silence descended for another seven weeks. Impatience and dissatisfaction
THE MANUAL AND THE CORPS 257
began seriously to affect the work of the educational personnel ; and this was only partially relieved by the inclusion in the White Paper (Cmd. 565) giving details of Army reconstruction and described as * issued in amplifica- tion of the speech of the Secretary of State introducing the Army Estimates for 1920-21 ', of the definite statement on the first page that an Education Corps would be formed, and of various statements on later pages showing by implication how essential to an Army that had now become. ' We are endeavouring ', said Sir Archibald Williamson, successor to Lord Forster as Parliamentary Secretary to the War Office, in his speech in the House of Commons on the Army Estimates on February 23, ' to make the Army an avenue to success in civil life '.
It was not until March 6 that General Lynden-Bell told me that he had just seen, in the ordinary War Office list of important letters received, one from the Treasury summarized as giving unconditional sanction to the educational proposals. On receipt of the actual letter, this summary was seen to be exact : in one short paragraph sanction was given. To allay the widespread impatience an Army Council letter was dispatched on March 10 to all Commanders-in-Chief, informing them that sanction had been given and that a Royal Warrant establishing the Army Educational Corps would be issued as soon as possible. It was permissible to believe that the educational ship, for all the batterings it had received and the barnacles which it had gathered as it lay to for so long just outside, had at last reached the still waters of the port for which it was bound. That belief was erroneous ; a severe storm was still to spring up between it and the quay.
Before the narration of the three months fated to elapse before the issue of the Royal Warrant — seldom can there have, been a more conspicuous instance of hope
R
258 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
deferred — one reform may be mentioned as brought about at this time. It was beyond any one's power to benefit the Army Schoolmasters fundamentally until the inaugura- tion of the new system on a permanent basis, but it was possible to broaden some of the old narrow Regulations by which their work was governed. Some of the educa- tional chains, from which their comrades in civil life had long been freed, still hung about their necks. One of these was the principle of the external examination, which was finally ended on April lo, 1920, when the procedure laid down in Army School Regulations (191 1), paragraphs 171, 177, 182, 183, and 185, for the conduct of examina- tions for the 2nd and 3rd Class Certificates, was modified in favour of internal examination, that is to say,, examina- tions were in future to be conducted by those who had been responsible for the teaching and not by Inspectors from outside. One senior Commander wrote at once to inquire the reason for this change, saying that * it would appear that the educational tests in future will deteriorate and be used as " eye-wash ". The incentive to energy and efficiency of the old Army Schoolmasters was the need of satisfying the Inspector, at his examination, by the proportion of students who qualified for certificates.' It may be doubted whether a stronger condemnation of the old system could well have been framed than is to be found in these words : the narrowness of a regime which required attention always to be directed to the obtaining of results as measured by out-of-date Certificates was freely recognized by practically every Army Schoolmaster, when these came before the Board of Selection in the summer. It was obvious that they welcomed heartily the opportunity for educational initiative which was substituted, and that they had been narrowed by regula- tion and not by deficiency of interest in their work. The senior Commander was quite unconscious of the
THE MANUAL AND THE CORPS 259
implication of his words. In replying to him the reasons given for the change were explained as follows :
I' I. The desirability of giving the Instructor an effective part in taking his own men, and rewarding diligent atten- tion to his own teaching. An entirely external examina- tion is rarely a fair test of teaching, especially in elemen- tary schools. That an instructor should, in fact, take a share in " branding his own herrings " is in these days taken as a sound educational doctrine.
2. The necessity for relieving Inspectors of a very burdensome task, and for keeping them free for real inspecting work, and for examinations in more advanced subjects (ist Class Certificate and Special Army Cer- tificate) in respect of which authorities outside the Army have entered into relations with the Army, requiring as much careful and detailed work as is essential in Univer- sity Examinations.
3. There will be no " eye-wash " if the new body of Inspectors satisfy themselves that instruction is properly given ; and proper arrangements have been made for the scrutiny of the worked papers. The Education Officer, who will be familiar with the teaching of the Instructor concerned, will make the awards on the recommendation of the examining Instructor ; and if the awards recom- mended seem to him out of proper proportion, or made on insufficient grounds, he will be required to go into the case with the Instructor before confirming the award, and to take special steps to inspect^ — and, if need be, test — ^the Instructor's subsequent work.'
The incident revealed, first, that the educational changes were being watched with close attention by senior Com- manders and, secondly, that these were occasionally inclined to make pronouncements ex cathedra on tem- porary grounds about technical matters to which they had devoted no special study. The change was described by this particular senior Commander as * contrary to the first principles of educational tests * — and, whilst it was perfectly true that in April 1920 the instructors were not in all cases satisfactory and required a closer super-
R2
26o EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
vision than would be necessary later in a well-established Educational Corps, modern experience has fortunately exposed the fallacy of such a description. The explanation given, however, was accepted without further question.
A much less pleasant and more comprehensive example was shortly afterwards forthcoming of the attitude of mind in a man which, while confident through the possession of high military rank that its possessor knew all about education and how to conduct studies, would quickly brand as absurd any suggestion by a headmaster that because he was a headmaster he therefore knew all about war and how to command a Division. As soon as the Treasury assent had been obtained, steps were taken to draft and settle the Royal Warrant for bringing into being the Army Educational Corps on the lines proposed in the memorandum of September ii, which had under- gone no material alteration in the six months' criticism. It was necessa^ry to go into a great many details, some of which were highly technical and very difficult, and it was not until April that these were agreed — all but one, the question of voluntary retirement after 15 years' service, that is, on terms similar to those for infantry officers.
This question, however, was highly controversial. On the one hand, the personnel of no Corps in the Army, whether educational or other, could possibly have a real influence with their fellows and go with the units to which they were attached wherever the exigencies of the Service, in war and in peace, made the presence of those units necessary, if the officers were allowed to remain on to an age much beyond that of those with whom they worked. On the other hand, it was not possible to say that an officer was beyond educational work at an age when he was far beyond that of the average junior officer. T had been particularly anxious that all the conditions of service for the personnel of the Army Educational Corps
THE MANUAL AND THE CORPS 261
should be the same as those for infantry. According to the Manual (Chapter III, Section 9, paragraph i) the Corps ' is not to be regarded in any other light than as a combatant corps of the Army ' — an essential status if education was really to become an integral part of Army training ; its personnel would be soldiers as well as educationists, or else they would fail to exercise a full influence upon soldiers ; as the paragraph in the Manual continues :
' Its duties are exclusively educational, but its members are distributed through units and accompany the units to which they are attached wherever and upon whatever duty the units may be dispatched. Members of the Corps should bear continually in mind that their influence, their ability to stimulate and assist the soldier will, to a large extent, depend upon the degree to which and the manner in which they identify themselves with- the interests and responsibilities of military life.'
In the absence of Sir Henry Wilson, who was too greatly needed as the Military Adviser of the Government to be uninterruptedly at the War Oflice, this question of voluntary retirement was referred to another member of the Army Council — the one eminent General who had been hostile to educational activity throughout. This was his opportunity ; all but this question had been settled, the principle of the continuance of the educational organization decided and announced eight months previously, the method by which it was to be continued also decided and announced, the details of that method discussed with one of his principal Directors since October and settled, and last but most essential, the Treasury sanction obtained — but this eminent General now, in- stead of replying to the one point unsettled, reopened the whole question even back to the principle. This meant reference to Mr. Churchill, who directed that it should be laid before a meeting of the Army Council.
262 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
On April 22, 1920, this direction was carried out, and the meeting was a full one, except for the unavoidable absence of Sir Henry Wilson, who was at the San Remo Conference. After the case for the Corps had been stated, the eminent General in opposition said, first, that in his opinion the proposals were * fantastic and impracticable ' and, secondly, that this was the first time he had heard of them — an inconsistency which was not allowed to pass unnoticed. A second General, asked his opinion, expressed himself unfavourably as to vocational training and also said that this was the first time he had heard of the proposals. It would, no doubt, have been to lack discipline then to have reminded the first General that he had written minutes in his own handwriting con- cerning them stretching back over a considerable period of time, that all details as to personnel had been settled in discussion with his Staff and that on March 15 he had himself nominated a representative to serve on the Board of Selection ; or to have reminded the second that there was in existence a file in which, after asking various questions and being answered, he had written on March 2 in his own handwritting, * of course I'll give every assis- tance/ and had directed that the details as effecting his side of Army affairs were to be (as they had been) dis- cussed and agreed with his Staff. I was present only to answer questions when asked to do so ; and these were directed only to minor details of the new Certificates. Moreover, the proposals had been included, as Mr. Churchill drily remarked, in his White Paper to the House of Commons as part of the Estimates, had been publicly discussed for months, and were ' the only thing for which the Army had been praised '. I was then asked to with- draw and only heard later from General Harington that there had been a long discussion in which no one had spoken against the proposals, apart from the two
THE MANUAL AND THE CORPS 263
gentlemen referred to, and that Mr. Churchill had been especially emphatic in their favour : the decisions had been reached that the proposals were to be accepted and that they were to be brought up for final and formal authorization at a second meeting, pending which, on the one side, all financial details were to be reviewed in conference between Sir Charles Harris, General Harington, General Lynden-Bell, and myself to see if there was any means by which any further economies could be effected without impairing efficiency, and, on the other, those whose memories had proved so lacking in tenacity would be able to call for any files or documents they desired. Of one of these two last it was then remarked by a certain person who had long acquaintance with his subject, ' The trouble is that he thinks he knows everything and forgets that the little he does know is wrong/
Happily there was abundant evidence that opponents of the proposals were singularly few ; and one occur- rence had a frank flavour all the more refreshing by contrast. On the afternoon of the Army Council meeting, Lieut. -General Sir J. P. du Cane sent for me, and after saying that, though of course he was generally acquainted with the proposals, in his capacity as Master- General of the Ordnance there had been no occasion for them to come officially before him, desired me to tell him anything about them I wished. We had nearly an hour's most valuable discussion, at the end of which he expressed himself as fully in support and very courteously thanked me for the explanations I had been able to give as to the various points on which he had sought fuller information. After studying the documents I left with him, he in fact wrote and circulated a supporting memorandum.
On April 23 and succeeding days, conferences with Sir Charles Harris and Mr. Paterson on all the technical questions of retirement, promotion, &c., were held.
264 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
Sir Charles causing me some trepidation by saying that, when settled, these questions would require to be sub- mitted afresh to the Treasury — which seemed to spell a still further period of indefinite delay — but adding that he would take them up personally and do everything in his power to obtain a quick assent. When these questions were settled — and settlement was not difficult when all round the table were anxious to co-operate in the most amicable spirit — ^there was nothing further to be done but to possess one's soul with such patience as lay within one's power until the Army Council met again. This it showed no signs of doing, and the days passed : but Sir Henry Wilson returned from San Remo and Mr. Churchill, re- plying to Captain W. E. Elliot in the House of Commons on May II, stated that he hoped to submit the Royal Warrant to the King ' in a few days '. At last, on May 14, the Army Council met at 4.30 p.m. : I was warned to stand by in case it was desired to ask further questions and was still anxiously standing by at 6.30. But anxiety was in this instance groundless : the meeting broke up, and General Harington, who with his invariable kindness always remembered junior officers, at once let me know that both the Royal Warrant and the Manual had received formal authorization and without further opposition : the length of the meeting had been due to other items on the agenda paper.
The Manual, * Educational Training, Part I, General Principles, 1920 ', which was issued early in June, is public property, and, though there are, it is to be hoped, many principles in it which will repay study, it need not be dwelt upon in detail here. It was based in form on the well-known lines of Field Service Regulations, Part I, and the preliminary note of Sir Herbert Creedy, a very warm friend to the movement throughout, who had succeeded Sir Reginald Brade as Secretary of the War
THE MANUAL AND THE CORPS 265
Office, stated that it ' should be read in conjunction with the training manuals of the various arms '. It will be sufficient here to quote four passages, the last three of which were selected as illustrative of the spirit of the publication by a reviewer in The Highway, the journal of the Workers' Educational Association :
' Education is the systematic endeavour of intelligent people to enable others to make the best of themselves. Every process to this end has two elements, the creation of freedom and the provision of guidance. (Chapter H, Section 5, paragraph i.)
Freedom is made possible by furnishing those under instruction with the atmosphere and conditions favourable to development, by creating for them such circumstances as will allow their capabilities for goodness and usefulness to grow freely unrestricted by hostile or retarding in- fluences. (Chapter II, Section 5, paragraph 2.)
Guidance is necessary to the purposeful building up of character, mind, and proficiency. The knowledge, necessarily imperfect and limited, which the recruit has previously assimilated must be developed on such liberal and informed lines as will give him the intelligence, the wide outlook, and the power to go on by himself and discover for himself, which will lead eventually to the supreme object of a good education — the ability to choose rightly.' (Chapter II, Section 5, paragraph 3.)
Moral is a spiritual state derived from instinct, fortified by habit, controlled by will, and inspired by an ideal.' (Chapter I, Section 3, part of paragraph 5.)
Even after this formal authorization by a full meeting of the Army Council, there still remained the obtaining of Treasury assent to the numbers of each rank in the new Corps and the conditions of service, and exactly a fortnight was left during which I could still call myself a soldier. This was really immaterial, except that there had been so many slips betwixt the cup and the lip, and one had grown diffident of believing that there could not be another ; moreover, the desire to see the actual
266 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
consummation of one's work is strong in every human being. * No one can end and very few begin/ I had once written : the issue of the Royal Warrant and the publica- tion of the Manual would be no end, rather the beginning of the new, but that beginning one at least hoped one's own eyes would be permitted to see definitely accom- plished. The Department had moved in from Corn- wall House to the War Office itself on May 7, and I to Colonel Earle's room there : he was gradually taking up the reins and the old order was changing : all was in readiness for this definitely to jdeld place to new.
Whitsuntide came and went, and May 28, my last day in office, seemed to be upon us with a rush. In life events seldom happen dramatically ; but fate does occa- sionally dance a brief measure upon the boards, and it was kind enough to do so upon this occasion. The final revise of the Manual came from the printer just after the farewell luncheon with which General Lynden-Bell honoured his Deputy, and there was time to check it carefully through and finally pass it for issue. An hour later I heard that the Treasury were going to raise no further difficulties, and that meant the release of the Royal Warrant, which after certain formal delays was issued on June 15. I had just made the round of sad good-byes — though my friends and colleagues declared in kindness that it was no case of real good-bye — ^when General Lynden-Bell, from whom I had just parted, told me that Sir Henry Wilson wanted to see me. I found General Harington with him, and both added to their long record of great kindness to the temporary soldier who had been so strangely blown into the hierarchy of the War Office. As I left, I was given a letter from Sir Henry Wilson which more than atoned for every difficulty and strain. Its words were too appreciative of such participation in the progress of the movement as
THE MANUAL AND THE CORPS 267
had fallen to my lot for me to set them down in full : two extracts it may, however, be permissible to quote on account of their testimony to the value attached to the movement itself and to the lines on which it was proceed- ing by the great Chief of the Imperial General Staff :
'-I feel that under you the Army has taken a very vast step forward, it is probably the biggest step the Army has ever taken. , . . The Army has now got to try and carry on the progressive movement. I am sure we shall be able to rub along, provided you will let us consult you, for I know your work is based on sound lines.'
It was with feelings of very real sadness that I left the War Office that evening. I was fated to enter it again many times more in the summer and autumn of 1920, and it was in truth no real good-bye to all the friends with whom I had striven, because Sir Henry Wilson had nominated me as Chairman of the Board of Selection for the applicants for permanent appointments in the new Army Educational Corps, in order that continuity might be preserved and due consideration paid to all who had worked under my organization. This meant continued work of a peculiarly difficult character ; there were nearly 5,000 applicants for some 450 commissioned places, and it was not until November 24 that the heading ' Army Educational Corps ' appeared for the first time in the London Gazette. Nevertheless, the evening of May 28 was the last time on which I should be in the well-known building of the War Office as an officer ; no further connexion with the Regular Army could be claimed. And there could be no one who had chanced to see the Regular Army from such an intimate angle and to have been so concerned with its character and its future, whilst not being of it, without conceiving for it a respect and indeed an affection which would endure to the end of life. The keen appreciation of the work attempted.
268
EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
the generous friendships extended — these remain as lasting memories. I carried away into civiHan life a deep sense of soldiers who were also ideal comrades, men of whom it could justly be said that they were ' steel-true and blade-straight ', and a humble pride that it had been given to me in any degree to influence so great an institution as the British Army. Last, and of a value hardly to be expressed, when all was said and done and the curtain had fallen on that act of the eternal comedy, came a letter from General Lynden-Bell, the vigorous- minded, chivalrous-hearted chief with whom I had been in daily and often enough hourly personal association for more than twenty-one months of constant endeavour. That letter attributed far too much to the Deputy and claimed nothing at all for the Director without whom no result could ever have been attained, and it would not be fitting to set down more than this, characteristic of the writer and true of all our time : ' I cannot conceive a more happy partnership than that which existed between us two.'
CHAPTER XVI
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT
The story of the educational movement in the British Army has now been traced from its earliest manifesta- tions until its passing into permanence; its 'invention', according to Mr. Fisher's witty sentence 'an invention hardly second in importance to the invention of fire arms ', the seas through which it ploughed its way, and the successive gales which it encountered have been described with as strict a regard as possible to accuracy. If the movement had begun and ended within the Army, it might well have been thought that the knowledge of its origins and development, important as those still would have been to historians of the war and students of military affairs, was sufficiently established in the series of Army publications, but those who desired me to undertake the telHng of its story were persuaded that it has had an influence far beyond the range of its immediate activities, and this though very few realized how varied its activities were. As late as October 1920 one of the most experienced of all workers in the field of adult education wrote :
' The record of this experiment has yet to be written. At present the literature deaUng with it is confined to official documents, but even from the officially worded War Office Report it is possible to glean something of the romance surrounding the origin of a movement which is destined to have a profound effect upon the life of the whole nation.'
It is possible now to look back upon it as a whole and to
270 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
indicate certain directions in which it has influenced, or may yet influence, institutions other than the Army.
In July 1918, when it fell to my lot to enter the War Office, there were few, if any, to whose minds the idea of an Army educational organization had any greater significance than an attempt, first, to cheer the soldiers along the last tremendous stages of their five years' climb to victory, and, secondly, to keep them usefully and contentedly occupied during the period which, whether long or short, had inevitably to ensue between the end of hostilities and their return home. The human mind, especially the British, is apt unconsciously to steer by precedent ; for the resettlement of the national Armies of the war of 1914-18 there was no precedent, and in the striking out into the unknown it was well to be provided with unknown remedies. The desire to help the soldier in his immediate labours and future difliculties by whatever means could in any way be devised called forth the educational movement : * out of the eater came forth meat and out of the Army education,' as the Master of Balliol said. Authorization was given to it as an emergency measure and as nothing more. In July and August 1918, though the light of dawn was struggling through the banked clouds, the darkness of war was still burdening the earth and chained all men's attention. The gradual emergence of a broader conception of the purposes and possibilities of adult education, the slow change from the status of a ' scheme ' to that of * an integral part of Army training ', was coincident with those ideals of individual liberty, national prosperity, and world peace with which no one now is unfamiliar. The allied nations had fought, consciously and unconsciously, for great ideals. We have seen since November 11, 1918, a heaving, troubled world, like an ocean after a hurricane, and everywhere there are readjustments of values, waves
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 271
leaping and falling and leaping again. Ideals have frail bodies but unconquerable souls : bruised as they may be in the still- turbulent ocean, they live on, and will outride the storms. If we look at the world to-day with an honest endeavour to separate the clashings and diffi- culties, which were inevitable after the whole of civilization had been armed for destruction and counter-destruction and are founded upon the shifting sands, from the marks left permanently on the body politic, with an honest endeavour to separate the ephemeral from the enduring and the material from the spiritual, it is possible to understand with some clearness the direction in which certain of the great future pathways of mankind are tending. It is by many years too soon to estimate in any degree the effect of the war, but two powers have emerged, and they are bound up inextricably together : these are the two great ideals, variously understood and very differently regarded, expressed in the two words, De- mocracy and Education.
Many fought in the late war with scant understanding of the fundamental issues ; seldom did a British soldier, one of the most inarticulate of souls, know himself, and still more seldom did he express himself, conscious of the ideals for which the nation went to war. Few perhaps, surveying the world to-day as a result of all the bloodshed and self-sacrifice, feel that these ideals have been achieved. And yet it was no idle phrase, laughed at though it may have been, which characterized the war a,s one ' to make the world safe for democracy *. The peoples of the world took arms, and that has given them a glory, an understanding, and a power which nothing can ever take away. Throughout the world they are conscious of their destiny, and conscious also that this destiny would be ill-fulfilled were it not for their increased knowledge of the power of education. Go where one will to-day, the
272 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
power of education is recognized as never before : in that recognition alone lies the upward movement of mankind. In a world where values were shifting and thought emerging in new forms it was impossible for the Army to remain stationary. There were a few who, looking back to the early months of 1914, when the British Army, small as it was in contrast with the great Continental Armies, was a weapon of incomparable temper and finish, wondered why it should be necessary to reconstitute it in 1919 on lines in the least degree different. They over- looked the fact that the world had moved on, and that to produce efficiency in 1920 equal to that of 19 14 modifica- tion in accordance with new conditions was essential. The Education Act of 1918 was alone enough to make this clear to discerning eyes : by a paradox, to be the same it was needful for the Army to be different. That this was no phenomenon peculiar to the British nation has been abundantly proved by the action of the American Army to which reference has already been made. The lesson learnt in the British Army is slowly permeating the Armies of all the nations ; words written on Feb- ruary 15, 1920, by the military correspondent of a news- paper in comment upon the then forthcoming Army Estimates expressed a recognition which is winning its way through the world :
* We have now recognized the fallacy of possessing an Army which is a purely professional conception, and consequently the cost of Army education — the creation of a good citizen as well as a good soldier — will, in future years, be a growing item of expense. . . . The best hope for our future Army lies in the provision which is being made for the adequate development of the private soldier's mind. Without Lord GorelFs scheme our future Army may be professional and efficient but it would stand condemned as not having learned the greatest lessons of the greatest war.'
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 273
Except that it was not my scheme but the soldiers' own, which I had strangely been called upon to direct, the truth expressed in these words was felt in England to be just and in the Armies of foreign countries to be deserving of full consideration. It is to be hoped that the day is not far distant when an Army without an educational organization as its foundation-stone will be as extinct as the mastodon.
So much then for Armies, but soldiers are not the only bodies of men among whom the idea of adult educa- tion has sprung into being as a result of the war activities. For nine months in 1919 I had the interesting labour of serving as a member of Lord Desborough's Committee on the Police Service of England, Wales, and Scotland : Lord Desborough and the five other members, who were members of the House of Commons, were keenly interested in the Army movement, and in the second part of the Committee's Report (Cmd. 574), which, like the first part, was unanimous and was issued in January 1920, after saying ' we desire to draw special attention to the bene- ficial effects, both physical and mental, which can be derived from a short period of service in the Army, provided that advantage is also taken of the present Army educational system ', the Committee went on to deal specifically with the twin subjects. Training and Education, the latter of which is the subject of the following important recommendations :
' 117. With regard to general education, the necessity for a good standard of education throughout the Police Service has been repeatedly brought to our attention in the course of the evidence, and, as already pointed out, there appears to have been some falling off in the educa- tional standard of the men coming forward as recruits for some years before the war. The position will no doubt be improved by the greater attractiveness of the Police Service since the pay has been raised and by the
s
274 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
establishment of continuation schools as part of the regular course of education under the Education Act, 1918. The increasing responsibilities, however, now thrown upon the police, to which we called attention in paragraph 29 of the First Part of our Report, render it, in our opinion, essential that general education should be recognized as an integral part in the training of all constables and that during the probationary period all constables who are not fully up to the required educational standard should receive at least an hour's educational instruction each day in their duty hours. Special atten- tion should be paid to the writing of reports, and the course should also include some instruction in the history of local government and the growth and functions of our municipal and civic authorities. Further, we recom- mend that, after the probationary period, educational facilities should be afforded to all constables who desire to take advantage of them. Various local experiments in this direction have already been made with good results, and we consider that, wherever possible, arrange- ments should be made with local education authorities or other educational organizations for the holding of special classes for constables, and in rural districts a scheme of education within the Police Force should be organized on lines similar to those at present obtaining in the Army.
118. It may be necessary in rural districts that the instructional courses which we recommend should be carried out, at any rate in the later part of a constable's probationary period, by means of prescribed courses of reading and written papers, but we think it very desirable that where circumstances permit the recruits should be brought together for at least an occasional course of classes, to be held, say, for a week at a time, in duty hours. We also recommend that in each Police Force, or at any rate in each of the larger forces, one or more police officers who are best qualified for the work should be appointed to be definitely responsible to the Chief Officer for the direction and supervision of the training arrangements and, in particular, for the organization and supervision of the educational classes and instruction by correspondence.'
. RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 275
These recommendations attracted little public attention, and it has not yet been found possible to adopt them universally throughout the Police Service, but they mark an important extension of the recognition of the place of adult education in the life of the State, and in several of the larger Forces, notably in Birmingham, excellent arrangements are now made for the continued education of constables. Moreover, in December 1920 a Com- mittee of the Police Council met specially to report upon educational standards and examinations for entrance into the Police Service and for promotion : on this I had the honour of being invited to serve in an advisory capacity, and the emphatic testimony given by every member to the need for increasing education was very remarkable. The consequent recommendations, which were unanimously made, should go far towards giving due effect to this need.
The ideas whose germination had been hastened by the ferment of war ripened and bore fruit in another and yet more important direction. It had always seemed to be a matter of vital concern that such educational impulses as the Army movement had been able to arouse should not wither as the War Armies dwindled ; the co-operation with Local Education Authorities and more especially the institution of the Central Register were instruments of prevention, but in no degree adequate or universal. It was, therefore, with particular satisfaction that I found late in 1918 that Mr. Albert Mansbridge, founder of the Workers' Educational Association, was turning his attention to this problem viewed in its widest aspect. His work with the Australian Educational Service and later at the Oxford School of Education brought him into personal touch with the Army move- ment and enabled me to renew a friendship begun years before. He was good enough first to discuss his ideas with
S2
276 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
me and later to invite me definitely to co-operate with him. He founded and became first Chairman of the World Association for Adult Education and I have been proud to serve under him as Treasurer. The inaugural meeting of this new international body was held on March 29, 1919, and proved conclusively that, ambitious as the endeavour was and slow as its growth must certainly be if it is to endure, it was not only a practical possibility but the filling of a real need. How far it was made possible by the growth of adult educational move- ments in the British, the Dominions, and the American Armies it is not possible definitely to say. In a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute on May 7, 191 9, Mansbridge used these words :
' The Army Educational Services are the greatest adult educational institutions which have yet been created. The British Army set itself the impossible task of educating five million men. The aim was high and the results have been magnificent. The test is not, and cannot be, whether a perfect machine was equipped, but whether a reasonable number of men were helped. Of that there is no doubt. I have seen enough myself to rejoice that Army education began as quite a natural growth. The world would have been poorer at this moment if it had not done so. Adult education has received an impulse from the work done in the Army which will carry existing movements and institutions far beyond their present limits. As for the World Association, it will do its best to secure that this impulse is not allowed to run to waste.'
Beginning at first, as was natural, with adherents pre- dominantly Imperial, the Association has in its short existence already extended its membership far beyond the British Empire : by the time it had completed its first year of life it had representatives in twenty-three countries, and it is growing steadily. One of its tasks is to publish quarterly bulletins giving information as to adult education in different parts of the world, and these
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 277
have dealt successively with the University Tutorial Class Movement, Norway, France, Spain, and Czecho- slovakia, the President of which last, Thomas G. Masaryk, is the first President of the Association. Only two aspects of its work call for mention here ; the first, its bearing upon the international life of the world, and the second, its work for the merchant seamen on lines similar to those adopted for the work in the Army.
As regards the first, on October 2, 1919, I was invited by Mr. Raymond B. Fosdick, then United States Under- Secretary-General of the League of Nations, to draw up for submission to Sir Eric Drummond, Secretary-General, a memorandum on the place of education in the work of the League, and in consultation with Mansbridge and with the approval of the Council of the Association this was done. Vague articles on this subject were abundant ; the memorandum therefore included concrete proposals for the creation, when the time should come, of an Educational Section of the Secretariat of the League. That time has not yet come : the League is too young and too delicate an organization to undertake at the •outset any such endeavour, but that it will come, that, if the League is adequately to fulfil its mission, it must come, can hardly be doubted by any student of the power of education.^ The creation of that will to peace, that
^ ' Germany has given the world an obvious example, which it would do well never to forget, of the power of the State to form the character of its citizens. That it has turned that power to an evil and most destructive use is in itself no proof that it could not have been turned to a good use. On the contrary, its success in fostering unlimited devotion on the part of its members to the exclusive good of the German Empire — a good conceived in terms of military force and aggressive domination — suggests that a State which is itself inspired by nobler, that is, by moral ends, or ends which are as universal as rational life, broad and deep as humanity, could lead its citizens to adopt these ends as
278 EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
desire for mutual understanding and good-fellowship which lies at the root of the ideals and purpose of the League of Nations, can be achieved only by education, only by broadening the foundations of knowledge through- out the world. Just as Germany was organized educa- tionally for war, so must all nations now be organized educationally for peace. In such work the World Associa- tion is now assisting, directing its attention to adults who in this sense are the most important in that they have gained political consciousness and are in enjoyment of the privileges of citizenship. As a result of the memo- randum, cordial relations were established with the Secretariat of the League and the work of the Association encouraged.
The second aspect bears a definite relation to the Army movement. Of all professions that of the merchant seaman is the most restless : he is concerned with the world as a whole and carries his influence to ever}^ corner of it. Moreover, though the British nation owes and freely acknowledges a vast indebtedness to the unpro- claimed valour of the merchant service throughout the war, it is a profession which is necessarily deprived of many of the ameliorations of life ashore. It seemed therefore that it was doubly due to the seaman to do what was possible to bring to him also educational facilities. Actuated by this feeling, the Association started in 1919 to consider whether at least as much could not be attempted for the seaman as had been attempted for the soldier ; and a week-end conference took place on • December 13 and 14, 1919, at which some fifteen people
their dominant motives. The method which Germany employed proved successful to a supreme degree. It did reach the national character, and thereby go far to determine the national destiny.' {The Principles of Citizenship, by Sir Henry Jones : Macmillan, 1919, p. 122.)
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 279
attended, including the officials of the principal trades unions for seamen and of the other seafarers' associations. At this the suggestion of developing adult education on board ship and later in the ports was propounded and in the first instance pronounced to be a good but unworkable idea. That pronouncement broke down at once in view of what had been accomplished in far more adverse conditions in military units in France ; and, as discussion continued, gradually the idea of adult education began, like a newly lit fire, to kindle the imagination of those present to whom it was then presented for the first time. One who had been sent to sea at the age of fourteen began to say, ' I wish this had been thought of in my time \ until, suddenly as it were, enthusiasm was where scepticism had just been. No one who was present will readily forget how the representative of one of the most powerful of seamen's unions rose abruptly to his feet and, speaking with unfeigned emotion, declared that he had heard many remarks like that of Mr. Lloyd George that we must make this country * fit for heroes to live in ', but that this was the first time he had come across any means which would carry that aspiration into effect. Doubt was still expressed by some as to whether the seamen would read good books, even if these were put in their way, and whether, if they did, they would ever return them to the library, at least in a condition fit to be used again. But the idea was cordially approved as worth the attempt.
In 1920 the attempt by the hearty co-operation of both owners and the seamen's unions was made on a vessel which sailed for Australia on May 29, and was away 4 J months : several lists of books had been drawn up, one by the Central Library for Students, one as a result of experience with the soldiers, and from these lists a sub- committee of the Seafarers' Joint Council made its selection. A library of 154 books was placed on board
28o EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
S.S.Aeneas under the direction of a librarian, sailing under the rating of master's clerk, who presented a report on the conclusion of the voyage : on November 6 and 7, 1920, this was laid before a second week-end conference of the Commission appointed by the Association to direct these educational experiments. The results recorded came as a surprise only to those who had not had previous experience of the strength of the educational movements. 30 per cent, of the crew were regular readers : every book issued was returned in good condition, the men taking the greatest possible care of them and even making covers for them. The experiment, which aroused considerable interest in Australia, proved conclusively that the educa- tion of adult merchant seamen was possible, was desirable, and was zealously supported by the men themselves. Similar experiments in progress on other vessels were meeting with similar results, and at this second week-end conference it was unanimously resolved that a Seafarers' Educational Service should now be formally inaugurated. The whole of this work is as yet in its infancy, but it is hardly too much to believe that, if its growth is not permitted to outstrip its strength, more especially its financial strength, this Educational Service will continue to expand until adult education is a part of the life of every seaman who cares to profit by it. New light is thrown by such developments not only on educational method but on the characteristic inclinations of men. On the first voyage of the Aeneas an endeavour was made to start study-circles, and the librarian, bearing in mind the experience of tutorial classes, instituted one on Economic History. On that subject, so generally demanded on land, the sea-circle flagged, changed by re- quest of its members to a study-circle on Natural History, and prospered accordingly. The seaman is less interested in problems of industry than in gardens — a fact which
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 281
was mentioned in 1919 by one well acquainted with the sea and which now received proof. In concluding this brief account of a development of adult education, which is destined to play a notable part in the life of the seas and the ports and from these to re-act inevitably upon the life of the dwellers in the countries of those ports, it should be said with what ready appreciation and generous support every shipowner who has been approached has met the needs of the Seamen's Commission of the World Associa- tion.
The soldier, the police constable, and the merchant seaman lead lives of infinite variety : what has been and is being accomplished for and by them in the educational field is capable of indefinite expansion. * I do not think ', said Mr. Fisher of the Army work, ' that in our time there has been any movement more promising than this. We, who are old educationists, have learnt a great deal from it.' The demand which has arisen in many countries as a feature of these times for higher wages and shorter hours of labour is one which will be of little value to the progress of the world unless there has been in this movement a great deal to be learnt — and not by educationists alone. In the second paragraph of that section of the Manual of Educational Training, which deals with the general principles on which instructional methods should be based, occur these words :
* Adult education has developed greatly in civil life during recent years in answer to a persistent demand from men and women for fuller opportunities both of self-realization and of sharing in the national movements. It may be regarded as one of the great highways to national prosperity, though still one of the least trodden ; no stereotyped conventions have had time to settle themselves upon it, and there is ample scope for con- tinual exploration and experiment.'
It is certain that the true enjoyment of the leisure in-
282
EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
creasingly afforded by the diminution of the hours of labour depends upon the manner in which and the degree to which this great highway is trodden. There is hope for all but the pessimist in the persistency of the demand. Those of us who have each in our several degrees laboured to pass on to others the keys of the treasure-house of learning are no pessimists ; had we not been inspired by enthusiasm and fortified by faith the movement which was an attempted answer to this demand must have succumbed to the difficulties with which it was unceasingly surrounded. It survived and will endure. It is of the fabric of the temple raised beyond the ravages of time by those who gave their lives for freedom. The world has witnessed in the last si-x years of war the greatest test of citizenship it has ever known, proudly answered and patiently endured. That era closes in its glory and its pain, and a new day dawns wherein there is still struggle and sacrifice and we are far from the promised land, but the mists of ignorance are lifting, slowly lifting, and Faith will at the last be justified in her children.
INDEX
A. iv. boys: at Brocton, ii ; question of work amongst, 17, 33,47', systematized work with, 112; transfer to Rhine, 143, 156,
Adams, Professor John, 29.
Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. C, 63.
Adjutant-General, see Macdonogh.
Admiralty, co-operation with the, 66, 161-2, 166, 171.
Adult Education Committee, Ministry of Reconstruction : Second Interim Report, 45 ; discussion with, 145 ; report on Royal Air Force, 163.
Advisory Boards, Ministry of Labour, 141.
Aeneas, S.S., voyage of, 280.
Agricultural education : example of, 106-8; proposals concerning, 137 ; report on, from Rhine, 158; Imperial co-operation in, 168, 173, 177. 179.
Ainsworth, Mr. A. R., 17, 30,
Air Ministry, co-operation with the, 66, 162-4,166, 172, 197, 239; strange conduct, 228.
Aldershot : Senior Officers' School at, 65 ; meeting at, 214, 230; Command Order at, 232.
American Army : adoption of education by, 109 ; co-opera- tion with, 164-5, 239; lesson learnt by, 272.
American Embassy, report pre- pared for, 165.
Amery, Lt.-Col. L. C. M. S., M.P. : extension of Government grant, 170 ; presides at session. Im- perial Education Conference, 177 ; presides at conference, Colonial Office, 180.
Appleton, Mr. W. A., 133.
Appointments Department, Min- istry of Labour, 122, 123, 163, 170. 233, 240.
Apprenticeships, broken, 70, 136,
157-
Army Council Instruction : No. 322 of 1917, 10; No. 517 of 1918, 122 ; No. 1293 of 1918, 124; No. 280 of 1919, 171.
Army Council, meeting of the, 98, 262, 264.
Army Educational Corps : Board of Selection, 208, 225, 258, 262, 267 ; draft proposals, 2 17, 224, et seq. ; financial acceptance, 228 ; cost, 233 ; status, 261 ; Army Council meeting, 262, 264 ; authorization, 264.
Army Order : of September 24, 1918, 45, etseq.,71, 86, 114, 118, 123, 132, 162, 203 ; of Decem- ber 9, 1918, 76, et seq., 119, 125-6; of December 20, 19 18, 91. et seq. ; of March 26^ 1919, 143 ; of May 13, 1919. 143, i47. et seq., 188, 193, 216, 221, 245, 254; of January 27, 1920, 223,
253-
Army Schoolmasters : grievances, 94, 2GO, et seq. ; relation to new system, 195, 199 ; Depart- ment transferred, 204, et seq. ; proposals concerning, 209-11 ; abolition of Corps, 214; eligi- bility for commissioned rank, 224 ; narrowness of Regula- tions, 258-9.
Army Schoolmistresses : admini- stration, 202 ; proposals con- cerning, 210, et seq.
Army School Regulations, 191 1, 201, 253, 258.
284
EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
Australian Educational Service : beginnings, 24, 40, 165 ; co- operation over lectures, 66, 97, 166 ; address to instructors, 76 ; co-operation over tours, 168, 173.
Auxi-le-Chateau, first school in France at, 22.
Baghdad, work at, 109, 189.
Baillie, Col. H. F., 87, 104.
Balfour, Major E. W. S.. 41.
Balfour, Sir Graham : appoint- ment in France, 28, 54 ; co- operation, no, 154.
Balliol, Master of, see A. L. Smith.
Barnett, Mr. P. A. : appointment to War Office, 208 ; eulogy of Newmarket School, 237 ; sug- gestion of Examinations Com- mittee, 248.
Bathurst, Bishop of, see Long.
Beatty, Admiral of the Fleet Lord, 161.
Bedford, School of Instruction at, 145, 240-2.
'Bedside' work, 122, 124.
Blair, Sir Robert : early attempt, 8 ; co-operation, 57, 80.
Bledisloe, Lord, 177-8.
' Blind alley ' profession, Army as a, 185, 238.
Board of Selection, Army Educa- tional Corps, 208, 225, 258, 262, 267.
Bonham-Carter, Col. C. : early endeavours, 18 ; action taken, 25 ; satisfaction, 49 ; view of interest of educational work, 55 ; departure from General Headquarters, 81 ; testimony to, 84.
Books, early arrangements as to, 60 ; catalogue, 64 ; figures by March 25, 1919, 103-4.
Borden-Turner, Lt.-Col. D. : first work, 19, et seq. ; self-abnega- tion, 30 ; recognition of essen- tial need, 69 ; transference to
War Office, 82 ; testimony to, 84 ; institution of technical class, 108 ; work on resettle- ment, 1 39 ; letter as to Army Schoolmasters to, 204.
Bowe, Major J. H., 22, 25, 82.
Brade, Sir Reginald, 70, 264.
Brigadier : visit of angry, 104 ; letter of, 231.
Brockhurst, Major A. H., 115.
Brocton Camp Scheme, 10-14.
Brook, Rev. R., 11.
Burnett-Hitchcock, Major-Gen. B. F. : interview with, 40, 89 ; satisfaction of, 49 ; sent for by Lord Milne r, 91.
Burnham, Lord, 133, 239-40.
Burnham scale of teachers' salaries, 212-13.
Butler, Mr. H. B., 123.
Cabinet, the : decision as to ' students and teachers ', 89-90 ; meeting of, 98, 147.
Cambridge School of Education : institution, 78-80, 234 ; visit of Mr. Fisher, 238 ; transfer- ence to Newmarket, 239.
Canadian Educational Service : beginnings, 24, 40, 165 ; co- operation over lectures, 66, 97, 166 ; co-operation over tours, 168, 173.
Cardiff, Royal Agricultural Show at, 173.
Carlile, Prebendary, 75.
Catterick, School of Instruction at, 145, 240-2.
Cavan, Lt.-Gen. Lord, 58.
Central Library for Students, 104, 279.
Certificates of Education, Army : institution of new, yy, 149, 245 ; Royal Air Force appre- ciation, 164 ; old Army system, 200, 247 ; committee of revi- sion, 248 ; explanation of revised, 249-51.
Chalmers, Lord, 91, 95.
INDEX
285
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Austen, 147. 256.
Chambers, Mr. E. K. : represent tative of Board of Education, 34. 57 ; witticism, 78 ; assist- ance, 80.
Chinese Salt Commission, 64, n.
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston : appointment to War Office, 98 ; as to scheme for training disabled soldiers, 129 ; address to Young Soldier Battalions, 143 ; interview with, 147 ; inability to take chair at Con- ference, 174 ; decision, July 31, 1919, 190; allocation of Army funds, 229 ; in debate, December 16, 19 19, 233 ; au- thorization of revised Certi- ficates, 249 ; in amplification of speech, 257 ; at Army Council meeting, 262 ; reply as to Royal Warrant, 264.
Cinematograph films, educational, 162.
Circulars, Army Education, 39, 62-4, 247.
Citizenship, 10, 175, 196, 247, 282.
Clay, Mr. Henry, 57.
Co-education, 113.
Coffin, Mr. A. C, 145.
Conception of Army Education, changed, 192, 218, 220, 270.
Coningham, Lt.-Col. A. E., 242.
Cook, Major S. G., 59, 108.
Cranage, Rev. Dr. D. H. S., 54,
79- Creed}^ Sir Herbert, 264. Crichton, Lt.-Col. R. E., 40. Curative Workshops, 131. Currie, Sir James : work, 1 37 ;
visit to Rhine, 155, 160, 229. Curtis, Col. Ivor, 163, 197. Curzon, Lord, 178, 180.
D
Davey, Capt. H. N., 62. Davies, Lt.-Gen. Sir. F. J., 69. . Davies, Major-Gen. R. H., 14. Dawnay, Major-Gen. G, P. : co-
operation, 25 ; satisfaction, 49 ; attendance at Central Commit- tee, 75 ; as to a unit basis for general education, 141.
Demobilization : of ' students and teachers ', 89, et seq. ; date of general, 93 ; of temporary per- sonnel, 227-8.
Democracy, power of, 271.
Desborough, Lord, Committee on Police Service of,- 273.
Division, poster of a, loo-i.
Drummond, Hon. Sir Eric, 277.
du Cane, Lt.-Gen. Sir J. P., 263.
Duke of York's Royal Military School, 199.
Earle, Col. M. : assistance, 79 : letter to, 141 ; responsibility of department, 223 ; succession to Lord Gorell, 256, 266.
Education Act, 191 8, 40, 250, 272.
Education, power of, 271, 277.
Edwards, Col. H. J., 79.
Egerton, Lt.-Col. F. C. C. : at Brocton and Brentwood, 15 ; appointment to South of Eng- land, 59 ; Commandant at Cambridge School, 79, 235.
Egypt, work in, 72, 1 16-17, 164, 182.
Elliot, Capt. W. E., 264.
Emigration, question as to, 69,
71- Empire Military Demobilization
Committee, 167. Employers, attitude of, 137-8. Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L. Worthing-
ton, 130. Examinations : for promotion,
223, 255 ; Committee on, 248;
internal and external, 258-9 ;
police, 275.
Figures : for France, June 19 18, 36 ; for France, January 1919, 109 ; for Great Britain, ab- sence of. III ; for Ireland,
286
EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
February 1919, 114; for Italy, December 191 8, 116 ; for Salonika, December 1918, 119 ; total estimated, December 1918, 119; for hospitals, March- vSeptember 191 9, 132-4; for the Rhine, March-June 19 19, 156; for the Rhine, October 1919, 182.
Findlay, Professor J. J., 1 18-19.
Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. L. : on size of experiment, 8 ; visit to Colchester, 15 ; discussion with, 29 ; talk to Lord Milner, 42 ; week-end at Sheffield with, 45 ; suggestion, 53 ; on demobili- zation of teachers, 86 ; praise of organization, 103, 150, 281 ; discussion of Central Register, 145 ; at Imperial Education Conference, 175-6 ; view of Imperial education, 180-1 ; in- terview with, 190 ; visit to Schools of Education, 237-8 ; description of Army movement, 269.
Fisheries, visit of overseas soldiers to, 173.
Fitzpatrick, Sir Percy, 177-8.
Fleming, Col. H. S., 40, 203-6.
Fleming, Mr. A. P. M., 177.
Fletcher, Mr. G. F., 114.
Forster, Lord, 192, 229, 257.
Fosdick, Mr. Rajonond B., 277.
Fox, Major Frank, 67.
France and Flanders, Army of,
140, 153- French, Field-Marshal Lord, 1 10,
Garden Cities, visit of overseas soldiers to, 173.
German, Mr. A., 155.
German : system of patriotic in- struction, 2i,n. ; offensive, 19 18, 26.
Goldstone, Capt. F. W., 62, 149, 208.
Goodchild, Mr. G. F., 248.
Goodwin, Lt.-Gen. Sir T. H. J., 69, 122, et seq.
Gosset, Col. F. W., 153-4, 159.
Grantham, Machine-Gun Training Centre at, 82.
Greenwood, Mr. Arthur, 35, 57.
Greig, Capt. J. Y. T., 132.
Gretton, Capt. R. H., 62, 139.
Grouping of subjects of instruc- tion, 60, 62, yy, 245.
H
Hadow, Sir Henry : work in France, 28 ; interview with Lord Milner, 38 ; appointment at War Office, 53-5 ; dinner with Sir Douglas Haig, 69-70 ; nego- tiations with Universities, 62, 77 > 97 f 164 ; visit to Rhine, 141 ; appointment to Sheffield University, 145 ; choice of civilian instructors, 154 ; pre- sides at session. Imperial Educa- tion Conference, 177; successor, 208; discussion of future with, 217 ; discussion of Schools of Education with, 235.
Haig, Field-Marshal Lord : direc- tion to General Staff, 24 ; dinner to Sir Henry Hadow, 69-70,
Haldane, Lord, 190.
Hall, Sir Daniel, 179.
Hare, Col. R. W., 64.
Harington, Lt.-Gen. Sir C. H. : approval of Scheme, 45 ; con- ferences with platoon com- manders, 96 ; interview with, 188 ; conviction, 227 ; second interview with, 229 ; approval of revised Certificates, 249 ; report of Army Council meeting,
262 ; discussion of Corps with,
263 ; kindness, 264 ; last inter- view with, 266.
Harries, Mr., 117.
Harris, Sir Charles : Lord Milner's instructions to, 44, 75 ; finan- cial discussion with, 263.
Heath, Sir Frank, 177.
Henderson, Rt. Hon. Arthur, 229,
Henriques, Major J. Q., 64, 139.
INDEX
287
Hetherington, 2nd Lt. A. L., jj.
Hill, Dr. Alex., 176.
Hitchcock, Major-Gen. B. F. B., see Burnett-Hitchcock.
Holland, Major H. M., 67, 183.
Hollond, Col. S. E., 232, 245.
Holme, Professor E. R., 174.
Hornchurch, New Zealand Hos- pital at, 36.
Home, Lt.-Col. W. J., 157.
Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert : contribution to Circular, 63 ; interview with, 1 30 ; letter to Mr. Churchill, 160, 229.
' Hospitalized ' soldiers, 126.
Hospitals : beginning of work, 47,
' 69, JZ* 77 't work authorized in officers', 122 ; extension of work, 123, et seq. ; Head- quarters Committee, 1 30 ; curative workshops, 131 ; clos- ing. 132, 183.
Hutchinson, Mr. R, H., 155.
Huts, losses of, 74.
Ideals of the war, 270-1.
* Immatures ', 22.
Imperial Agricultural Bureau, Royal Charter for, 179.
Imperial Education Bureau, pro- posals for, 176, 179.
Imperial Education Committee : institution, 77, 97, 105, 167 ; work, 168, e^se^. ; future, 180-1.
Imperial Education Conference, June II and 12, 1919, 174-8.
India : co-operation with Royal Air Force, 163, 197 ; absence of activity, 193 ; acceptance of educational training, 194, 230 ; General Order, 196-7 ; Schools of Education, 244.
Information Bureaux, 112, 131.
Instructors : scales allowed, 92, 215-16, 222 ; civilian, 142, 154, 244 ; total, June 1919, 148.
Interpreterships, training for, 252.
Ipswich, Suffolk Agricultural Show at, 173.
Ireland : institution of work, 41 ;
figures, February 1919, 114;
Brigade Order, 231. Isacke, Col. H., 194-5. Italy : institution of work, 40 ;
figures, December 1918, 116.
Jacob. Lt.-Gen. Sir C. W., 195-6. Jenkinson, Capt. C. H., 76. Johnson, Dr., quoted, 86. Johnston, Lt.-Col. A. C, 76. Jones, Capt. A. J., 209. Jones, Col, Douglas, 200. Jones, Major Russell, 15, 156. Jones, Sir Henry, quoted, 277, n.
K
Kelly, Capt. D. P. J., 209.
Kent Independent Force, 15.
Kerry, Major Lord, 39.
Kindersley, Sir Robert, 63.
King, the : visit to Colchester, 15 ; message to Education Officers, 63 ; gracious permis- sion to overseas soldier-farmers,
173- Kirk, Capt. E. C, work on New
Zealand scheme of, 40, 128,
168. Kitchener, Field-Marshal Lord, 8.
Lansdowne, Lord, 200.
Lascelles, Lt.-Col. E. £f. W. : work at Brocton, 10 ; appoint- ment to War Office, 77 ; visit to Rhine, 142 ; first talk with, 166 ; Vice-Chairman, Imperial Edu- cation Committee, 168 ; assist- ance over Imperial Agricultural Bureau, 179 ; view of impor- tance of work in India, 194, 197 ; transfer to General Head- quarters, India, 195, 230; continued co-operation, 198 ;
288
EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
discussion of interim scale, 216 ; letters on Schools of Education to, 244.
Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar, 42.
Leach, Col. T. E. B., 202, 205.
Leach, Mrs., 75.
League of Nations, Secretariat of, 277.
Lecture Committee : institution and work, 66, 97, 162, 166 ; Australian appreciation, 66.
Local Education Authorities : ar- rangements with, 6y , 74, 97, 112, 130, 275 ; Board of Educa- tion circular to, 90.
London County Council, evening continuation classes of, 145.
Long, Bishop : work on Austra- lian scheme, 40 ; co-operation with, 166.
Longley, Col. F. F., 164.
Lowther, Major-Gen. Sir H.C. : at War Office Conference, March 191 8, 17 ; at War Office Con- ference, May 1918, 30; view taken of extension of work, 7 1 ; successor, 195 ; suggestion as to helping young officers, 239.
Ludendorff ,Gen.von, quoted, 2 1 , n .
Lynden - Bell, Major - Gen, Sir A. L. : at War Office Confer- ence, March 1918, 17 ; at War Office Conference, May 191 8, 30 ; satisfaction as to progress, 37 ; criticism of first proposal, 43 ; approval of first appointments, 53 ; support of extension, October 1918,73 ; action taken, April 1 919, 143 ; interview with Sir Henry Wilson, 188 ; conference as to Army School- masters, 205 ; acceptance of final proposals, 227 ; second interview with Sir Henry Wil- son, 229 ; approval of revised Certificates, 249 ; discussion of successor to Lord Gorell, 255 ; information as to Trea- sury assent, 257 ; discussion of Corps^i^ 263 ; farewell luncheon given Dy, 266 ; letter of, 268.
M
MacAlister, Sir Donald, 176.
McCall, Mr. C. Home, 123.
McCowen, Mr. O. H., 27, 54.
McCracken, Lt.-Gen. Sir F. W. N., III.
Macdonogh, Lt.-Gen. Sir G. M. W.: sent for by Lord Milner, 91 ; indifference of, 149 ; agreement as to provisional establishment, 192 ; surrender of Army School- masters, 204-5 '> includes Army Educational Corps in schedule, 256.
MacEachran, Professor J. M., 169.
McElwain, Major J., 242.
McGregor, Capt. D. H., 58, 116.
MacLean, Major W. : appoint- ment to War Office, yj ; indus- try and devotion, 105 ; Secre- tary, Imperial Education Com- mittee, 168, 172, 180.
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. Ian, 80.
Mann, Mr. H. E., 248.
Mansbridge, Mr. Albert : co- operation of, 57, 275 ; at Oxford School, 245 ; apprecia- tion of Army educational move- ment, 276.
Manual of Educational Training, 253, et seq., 261, 264-$, 281,
Marshall, Col. F. J., 195, 244.
Masaryk, President Thomas G., 277.
Maude, Major C. G., 108.
Maxwell, Gen. Hon. Sir J. G., 112. 137-
Merchant seamen, education of, 278-81.
Mesopotamia, telegrams from, 117, 189.
Middleton, Sir Thomas, report of, 158.
Mildmay, Rt. Hon. Col. F. B., 228.
Millard, Rev. F. L. H., educa- tional tours of, 117.
Milner, Lord : early interest, 36 ; interview with Sir Henry Hadow, 38 ; decision, August 15, 191 8, 42, et seq. ; approval
INDEX
289
of first appointments, 52 ; decision as to extension, 72 ; memorandum of October 10, 191 8, to, 73-5, 89 ; minute to Army Council, 80 ; continued interest and action, 91 ; trans- ference to Colonial Office, 98 ; interest in Imperial Education Conference, 177, 178.
Mitchell, Major R., 57.
Montagu, Rt. Hon. E. S., 194, 230.
Montgomery, Major-Gen. A. A., 155. 221.
Morison, Lt.-Col. Sir Theodore : appointment to War Office, 5 3 ; work on resettlement, 62, 123, 139 ; visit to Rhine, 141 ; appointment to Armstrong Col- lege, Newcastle, 146.
Muir, Professor Ramsay, 176.
Munitions, Ministry of, 129.
Murmansk, 153.
Murray, Lt.-Col. Hon. A. C, 190-1.
N
Nathan, Sir Matthew, Committee
of, 138. Newfoundland Contingent, 168,
173- Newmarket, transference of School
of Education to, 239, 241. New Zealand Educational Service:
beginnings, 24, 40, 128, 165 ;
hospital at Hornchurch, 36 ;
co-operation over lectures, 66,
97, 166 ; co-operation over
tours, 168, 173 ; students at
Oxford School, 239. Norwich, Agricultural Show at,
O
Officers and men, 113, 123, 144, 240.
' Outline Lectures ', 66.
Overseas Sailor and Soldier Scholarships Scheme, 14, 165.
Oxford School of Education : in- stitution, 78-80, 234 ; account of
purpose, in The Times, 235-6; visit of Mr. Fisher, 237 ; trans- ference to Newmarket, 241.
Pahlow, Dr. E. W., 164.
Palestine, work in, 117.
Parliament: debates in, 128, 132, 233, 257 ; report to, 165 ; ques- tions in, 1 90- 1, 229-30, 264.
Paterson, Mr. R., 52, 263.
Pay : increase of Army, 227 ; proficiency, 251.
Pensions : Ministry of, 57, 130-1, 179; fallacy concerning, 126.
Perry, Sir E* Cooper, 248.
Plumer, Field-Marshal Lord, 141-2.
Police Service, recommendations as to, 273-5.
Prime Minister, the, 178, 226, 279.
Principle of continuance, decision as to, 190.
Promotion examinations, reinsti- tution of, 223, 255.
Pulteney, Lt.-Gen. Sir W. P.,
137. Purdy, Mr. H. M., 1^5.
Q
Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps, 48, 75, 212.
Queen, the : message to Educa- tion Officers, 63 ; personal in- terest, 135.
Queen Victoria School, Dunblane, 200.
R
Ranke, on the Reformation, quoted, 109.
Rawlinson, Gen. Lord, 232.
Recruits : low standard of, 251 ; educational tests for, 252.
Red Cross Society, British, gene- rosity of , 1 3 1 .
Redmond, John, quoted, 227.
Reduction of staff, 217, 233.
Rees, Lt.-Col. R. L, 165.
290
EDUCATION AND THE ARMY
Register, Central, 145, 275.
Regular Army : reconstitution, 182, et seq. ; pamphlet concern- ing work in, 192, 220 ; pro- visional interim scale, 216 ; fallacy of purely professional, 272.
Regular Officers: support, 13, 184-5, 196 ; employment on educational duties, 152 ; opin- ions, 218-20, 231, 251 ; train- ing, 223, 232 ; testimony to, 267-8.
Resettlement, consideration of problems of, 62-4, 135-9.
Rhine, Army of Occupation on the : formation, 140 ; work in, 153, et seq. ', General Order, 155. 185, 221 ; figures, March- June 1919, 156; figures, Octo- ber 19 1 9, 182 ; scale of in- structors, 222.
Richborough, technical institute at, 12, 49.
Richmond, Rear-Admiral H. W., 161.
Robertson, Field-Marshal Sir William, no.
Robertson, Mr. C. Grant : — ^lecture tour in France, 20 ; Chief In- structor at Oxford School, 80, 235 ; inspirational force, 237 ; on criticisms of School, 243.
Rogers, Major W. M., 165.
Roscoe, Mr. Frank, 29.
Roumanian Military Attache, the, 164.
Royal Army Service Corps, griev- ance of, 85.
Royal Hibernian Military School, 200.
Royal Warrant : Army Educa- tional Corps, II, 257, 264, 266 ; Army Schoolmistresses, 213 ; pay, 227.
Salonika, work at, 72, 1 18-19. Sandhurst, 222, 230. Sandringham, visit of overseas soldier-farmers to, 173.
Schools of Education : institu- tion at Oxford and Cambridge, 78-80, 234 ; attendance of students of Royal Air Force, 164 ; necessity for courses, 222 ; work, 234, et seq. ; amalgama- tion, 241 ; criticisms, 243 ; in India, 244.
Schools of Instruction : in Eng- land, 108; in Ireland, 116; in Egypt, 117; at Bedford and Catterick, 145, 240-2 ; on the Rhine, 156-9; future need of the Army, 226.
Scientists, visit of two, 58.
Seamen, merchant, education of, 278-81.
Selbome, Lord, 14.
Selby-Bigge, Sir L. A., 29, 145, 170.
Seymour-Lloyd, Major-Gen. Sir J., 40.
Shakespeare and soldiers, 245, n.
Sharland, Lt.-Col. A. A., 242.
Shelley, Professor J. : at Brent- wood, 15 ; Chief Instructor at Cambridge School, 80, 235 ; in- spirational force, 237 ; Chief Instructor at Newmarket, 242-3.
Shoreham, audience at, 65.
Sixteenth century, spirit of, 96, 108.
Smith, A. L. : share in Brocton scheme, 11, 14; assistance of, 80 ; discussion with, 145 ; epigram of, 270,
Solbert, Col. O. N., 165.
South African Force, 168, 171,
173-
Staff College, Camberley, 185, 230.
Stanhope, Lt.-Col. Lord : co- operation of, 36, 42 ; criticisms of, 128, 132.
Stationery Office, 39, 60, 104.
Stenning, Lt.-Col. J., 79.
Stewart, Col. H., 168.
Stibbard, Major H. J., 59, 112.
Struthers, Sir John, 58, 67.
Students : early demobilization of, 89, et seq. ; Central Library for, 104, 279.
INDEX
291
Tanner, Lt.-Col. F. C. 140.
Teachers, early demobilization of, 89, et seq.
Teaching profession, rise of the, 211.
Theatrical performances at Schools, 241.
Theodosius, Mr. A. J., 134.
Thomson, Capt. H., 166.
Thornton, Major R. H., 76, 132.
Tory, Dr. H. M. : statement as to origins of educational move- ment, 24 ; work on Canadian Scheme, 40 ; co-operation with, 166 ; support of Imperial Edu- cation Committee, 169 ; sug- gests Imperial Education Con- ference, 174 ; opens discussion, 176.
Tours, educational, for overseas soldiers, 168, 173.
Trade Advisory Committee, National, 131.
Trades Unions, relations with, 133, 136. 157-
Treasury, difficulties with the, over books, 61, 97, 104.
Turner, Lt.-Col. D. B., see Borden- Turner.
Typist, z?,, 105.
U
Universities Bureau of the British Empire, 172, 176.
Universities Committee, Young Men's Christian Association,
27. 54- Universities, negotiations with, 62, 77, 97, 248.
Vesey, Major-Gen. I. L. B., 256.
Victoria League : lecture work, 66, 122, 131 ; close of co-opera- tion, 183.
W
Ward, Sir Edward, Committee of,
138- Warrant Officers, 94, 207. Watson. Lt.-Col. H. W. M., 65.
' White City experiment ', the, 8-9.
Williams, Major A. F. Basil, 62.
Williamson, Sir Archibald, 257.
Willis, Mr. Z. F., 27.
Wilson, Field-Marshal Sir Henry : view of step taken by the Army, 7, 267 ; approval of scheme by, 45 ; Circular and Ministry of Labour, 63 ; foreword to report from Great Britain, 114; ac- tion taken, March 19 19, 143 ; at Imperial Education Con- ference, 174-S ; foreword to report of Imperial Education Conference, 186 ; interview with, July 14, 1919, 188-90 ; interview with, November 5, 19 1 9, 229 ; interest in Schools of Education, 244 ; apprecia- tion of revised Certificates, 249 ; at San Remo, 261-2 ; return, 264 ; last interview with, 266.
Winchester, Repatriation Camp at, 182.
Windsor, visit of overseas soldier- farmers to Royal Farm, 173.
Wolseley, Field-Marshal Lord, 200.
Wood, Major McKenzie, 229.
Wood, Major W. de B., 64, 139.
Woolwich, 222.
World Association for Adult Education, 275, et seq.
Yate, Col. Sir C. E., 230.
Yeaxlee, Rev. B., 38, 166.
Young, Commander E. Hilton, 170.
Young Men's Christian Associa- tion : occasional lecturers, 13 ; co-operation over lecturers, 19, 66; development of educational work, 23 ; agreement to act as agents on Lines of Communica- tion, 27-8 ; luncheon given by, 38 ; work on Lines of Com- munication, no; assistance in Egypt, 117; assistance at Salonika, 118; end of co- operation, 154.
Yoxall, Sir James, 209.
Ypres, third Battle of, strain of, 18.
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