I knew him personally only during the last eight years of his life; I met him for the first time in 1914, when I was proposing to send my sons to his school. But our thoughts and interests drew us very close to one another, I never missed an opportunity of meeting and talking to him, and I was the last person he spoke12 to before his sudden death. He was sixty-six years of age when he died. Those last eight years were certainly the richest and most productive of his whole career;[Pg 3] he grew most in those years; he travelled farthest. I think I saw all the best of him. It is, I think, no disadvantage to have known him only in his boldest and most characteristic phase. It saves me from confusion between his maturer and his earlier phases. He was a much stratified man. He had grown steadfastly13 all his life, he had shaken off many habitual14 inhibitions and freed himself from once necessary restraints and limitations. He would go discreetly15 while his convictions accumulated and then break forward very rapidly. He had a way of leaving people behind, and if I had fallen under his spell earlier, I, too, might have been left far behind. He was, I recall, a rock-climber; he was a mental rock-climber also, and though he was very wary16 of recalcitrance17, there were times when his pace became so urgent that even his staff and his own family were left tugging18, breathless and perplexed19, at the rope.
Out of a small country grammar-school he created something more suggestive of those great modern teaching centres of which our world stands in need than anything else that has yet been attempted. By all ordinary standards the[Pg 4] Oundle School of his later years was a brilliant success; it prospered20 amazingly, there was an almost hopeless waiting-list of applicants21; boys had to be entered five years ahead; but successful as it was, it was no more than a sketch22 and demonstration23 of the great schools that are yet to be. I saw my own sons get an education there better than I had ever dared hope for them in England, but from the first my interest in the intention and promise of Oundle went far beyond its working actualities. And all the educational possibilities that I had hitherto felt to be unattainable dreams, matters of speculation24, things a little too extravagant25 even to talk about in our dull age, I found being pushed far towards realisation by this bold, persistent26, humorous and most capable man.
Let me first try to give you a picture of his personality as he lives in my memory. Then I will try to give an account of his beginnings, as far as I have been able to learn about them, and so we will come to our main theme, Sanderson contra Mundum, the schoolmaster who set out to conquer the world. For, as I shall show, that and no less was what he was trying to do in the last years of his life.
[Pg 5]
'Ruddy' and 'jolly' are the adjectives that come first to mind when I think of describing him. He had been a slender, energetic young man his early photographs witness; but long before I met him he had become plump and energetic, with a twinkling appreciation27 for most of the good things of life. His complexion28 had a reddish fairness; he had well-modelled features, thick eyebrows29 and thick moustache touched with grey, and he wore spectacles through and over and beside which his active eyes took stock of you. About his eyes were kindly30 wrinkles, and generally I remember him as smiling—often with a touch of roguery in the smile. Quick movements of his head caused animating31 flashes of his glasses. He was carrying a little too much body for his heart, and that made him short of breath. His voice was in his chest, there was a touch of his native Northumbria in his accent, and he had a habit of speaking in incomplete sentences with a frequent use of the interrogative form. His manner was confidential32; he would bend towards his hearer and drop his voice a little. 'Now what do you think of ——?' he would say, or 'I've been thinking of ——' so and so. At times his confidential manner became[Pg 6] endearingly suggestive of a friendly conspirator33. This, as yet, he seemed to say, was not for too careless a publication. You and he understood, but those other fellows—they were difficult fellows. It might not be practicable to attempt everything at once.
That reservation, that humorous discretion34, is very essential in my memory of him. It is essential to the whole educational situation of the world. He was an exceptionally bold and creative man, and he was a schoolmaster, and that is perhaps as near as one can come to a complete incompatibility35 of quality and conditions. In no part of our social life is dull traditionalism so powerfully entrenched36 as it is in our educational organisation11. We have still to realise the evil of mental heaviness in scholastic37 concerns. We take, very properly, the utmost precautions to exclude men and women of immoral38 character not only from actual teaching but also from any exercise of educational authority. But no one ever makes the least objection to the far more deadly influences of stupidity and unteachable ignorance. Our conceptions of morality are still grossly physical. The heavier and slower a man's[Pg 7] mind seems to be, the more addicted39 he is to intellectual narcotics40, the more people trust him as a schoolmaster. He will 'stay put.'
A timid obstructiveness is the atmosphere in which almost all educational effort has to work, and schoolmasters are denied a liberty of thought and speech conceded to every other class of respectable men. They must still be mealy-mouthed about Darwin, fatuously41 conventional in politics, and emptily orthodox in religion. If they stimulate42 their boys they must stimulate as a brass43 trumpet44 does, without words or ideas. They may be great leaders of men—provided they lead backwards45 or nowhither. Sanderson in his latter days broke into unexampled freedom, but for the greater part of his life he was—like most of his profession—'wading hips-deep in fools,' and equally resolved to work out his personal impulse and retain the great opportunities that the governing body of Oundle School had, almost unwittingly, put into his hands. He was therefore not only a great revolutionary but something of a Vicar of Bray46. A large part of the amusing subtlety of his personality was the result of the balanced course he had to pursue. In all[Pg 8] he did, in all he said, he was feeling his way. No other schoolmaster—and there must be many a rebellious47 heart lying still in the graves of dead schoolmasters and many a stifled48 rebel in the schoolrooms of to-day—no other schoolmaster has ever felt his way so discreetly, so far and, at last, so triumphantly49.
I remember as a very characteristic thing that he said one day when I asked for his opinion of a particularly progressive and hopeful addition to his board of governors: 'He does not know much about schools yet, but he will learn. Oundle will teach him.' And in his last great lecture, he flung out a general 'aside'—that lecture was full of astonishing 'asides'—'I turned round on the boys and the parents,' he said, 'both are my business.'
Never was schoolmaster so emancipated50 as he in his latter years from the ancient servility of the pedagogue51. Not for him the handing on of mellow52 traditions and genteel gestures of the mind, not for him the obedient administration of useful information to employers' sons by the docile53 employee. He saw the modern teacher in university and school plainly for what he has to be, the anticipator, the planner, and the foundation-maker [Pg 9]of the new and greater order of human life that arises now visibly amidst the decaying structures of the old.
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1
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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adventurousness
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7
steadfast
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| adj.固定的，不变的，不动摇的；忠实的；坚贞不移的 | |
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8
octopus
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| n.章鱼 | |
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tentacle
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| n.触角，触须，触手 | |
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tentacles
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| n.触手( tentacle的名词复数 )；触角；触须；触毛 | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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13
steadfastly
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| adv.踏实地，不变地；岿然；坚定不渝 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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recalcitrance
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| n.固执，顽抗 | |
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18
tugging
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| n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
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perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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prospered
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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applicants
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| 申请人，求职人( applicant的名词复数 ) | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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24
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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30
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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31
animating
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| v.使有生气( animate的现在分词 )；驱动；使栩栩如生地动作；赋予…以生命 | |
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32
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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33
conspirator
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| n.阴谋者，谋叛者 | |
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34
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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35
incompatibility
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| n.不兼容 | |
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36
entrenched
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| adj.确立的，不容易改的(风俗习惯) | |
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scholastic
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| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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38
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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39
addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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40
narcotics
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| n.麻醉药( narcotic的名词复数 )；毒品；毒 | |
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41
fatuously
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| adv.愚昧地，昏庸地，蠢地 | |
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42
stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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43
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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44
trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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45
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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46
bray
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| n.驴叫声, 喇叭声；v.驴叫 | |
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47
rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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48
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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49
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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50
emancipated
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| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
pedagogue
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| n.教师 | |
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52
mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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53
docile
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| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
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