Friday, January 06, 2017

What is Education? Guest Column by Alan Patrick Herbert

I like A.P. Herbert's Misleading Cases, and this is one of my favourites-

WHAT IS EDUCATION?

The Court of Criminal Appeal gave judgement in this case today, which arose out of the conviction of a canal boatman for failing to send his children to school.

     The Lord Chief Justice: This case is simple but important. The appellant, Samuel Bloggs, is a boatman owning and navigating a pair of monkey-boats (erroneously described by Sir Ethelred Rutt as barges) on the Grand Union Canal. Mr. Bloggs is a married man and has three children, who reside with their father and mother on the two boats, which are loyally entitled George and Mary. Mr. Bloggs was summoned by the Education Authority of the County of Middlesex for failing to send his children to a school for the purpose of receiving elementary education, and he was committed.

     It has to be remembered that, if the prosecution is successful, the defendant’s children will be educated free of charge. The prosecutors, therefore, are wantonly seeking to increase the public expenditure. It is difficult to see why, in the present state of the national finances, the children of a class already too prolific should be educated for nothing. If a man can afford beer, tobacco, and entertainment, and a weekly contribution to a trade union, he can to contribute some small sum weekly towards the education of his children. The State at one time could well afford to educate them without the assistance of the parents, but it can well afford it no longer, and therefore we must look  with particular suspicion on any attempt to increase the burdens of the State in this respect.

     In the course of his trade or occupation as a carrier of goods or raw materials, Mr Bloggs travels continuously up and down the canal between Birmingham and London; and he put forward the reasonable defence that it was difficult for him to send children who were constantly in motion to a. school which remained stationary. He also questioned the right of a Middlesex authority to intervene in the private affairs of a family which spent more than half the week in Warwickshire and other counties. But a defence founded on nothing more than reason and practicability was easily brushed aside by a public authority, and Mr Bloggs was driven to that second line of defence which has perplexed and divided the Courts below.

     ‘What is Education?’ says Mr Bloggs. But it is not necessary for this Court to add one more to the many answers which learned men have made to that question. The question for us is, What is meant by Elementary Education in the Education Acts of this We find, after careful research, that the expression ‘elementary education’ is nowhere defined in that long series of statutes. The omission is wise, for the notion of what constitutes elementary education must obviously vary in every age, county, and class. But, though Parliament has been discreetly vague, the Court in this case is compelled to be definite.
    
     The respondents ask us to say that by elementary education is meant education in those elementary subjects which are ordinarily taught to our defenceless children, as reading, writing, and arithmetic. But it has been argued for Mr Bloggs that the words mean education in the elements or first parts to be learned of any subject which may be useful or necessary to the good citizen in that state of life for which he is destined by Providence, heredity, or inclination.

     Now, the children of Mr Bloggs, though they have not attended a school, have already acquired the rudiments of their father’s and grandfather’s trade, that is to say, the handling of boats and the navigation of canals; they are able in an emergency to steer a boat into a lock, to open or close a lock-gate, to make bowlines and reef-knots, clove hitches and fisherman’s bends, and to do many other useful and difficult things which the members of this Court, we admit, are unable to do. Further, it is common ground that the children are healthy, sufficiently fed, well-behaved, and attached to the life of the water, as their forebears for three generations have been. Mr and Mrs Bloggs are instructing them slowly in reading and writing, and even, with reluctance, it seems, in arithmetic.

     It is not contended that in these subjects they are so far advanced as children of the same age who attend the public elementary schools; on the other hand, the evidence is that those children are quite unable to make a bowline-on-a-bight, to distinguish between the port and. starboard sides1 of a. vessel, or to steer the smallest boat into the largest lock without disaster, while in health, discipline, manners, and practical intelligence they are inferior to the little Bloggs.

     Standardized themselves according to a single pattern, they conceive it their right and duty to take offensive notice of any person who seems to them to be unusual, a man with long hair or a woman with a short skirt. The Bloggs children do not shout ‘Oy!’ at passing strangers, as do increasingly the ‘educated’ children of the shore; they are more courteous to persons and more respectful of property. They do not commit what are called, it appears, ‘runaway-rings’, steal flowers from window-boxes or apples from trees. They would scorn to spit from bridges or throw stones at the mariner passing below. They exhibit the same good manners and gentle bearing as their parents; and since they are not in constant attendance at the cinema their speech is uncorrupted by the slang or accent of Chicago.

     Now, Mr. Herbert Spencer said that if we give our pupils the knowledge which ‘is of most worth’ – that is, the knowledge which has indispensable practical value in regulating the affairs of life – we shall at the same time give them the best possible mental training. And Mr. Bloggs (who, by the way, can read but not write) is an unconscious follower of Mr. Spencer. It may well be that our education authorities exaggerate the value of reading, writing, and arithmetic as aids to citizenship. In these days a person unable to read would be spared the experience of much that is vulgar, depressing, or injurious; a person unable to write will commit neither forgery nor free verse; and a person not well grounded in arithmetic will not engage in betting, speculation, the defalcation of accounts, or avaricious dreams of material wealth. At any rate it will not be denied that the spread of these three studies has had many evil and dubious consequences.

     But the practice of navigation is at the bottom of our national prosperity and safety, and has played no small part in the formation of the British character. The charge against Mr. Bloggs is that he has given his children an elementary training in the arts of this noble profession to the neglect of certain formal studies which are not essential to a virtuous, God-fearing, and useful life in the calling of their forefathers.

     They are unable, it is true, to read fluently the accounts of murder trials in the Sunday newspapers; they cannot write their names upon the walls of lavatories and public monuments; they do not understand the calculation of odds or the fluctuations of stocks and shares. But these acquirements may come in time.

     Meanwhile, as day by day they travel through the country, the skies and of England are their books, their excellent parents are their newspapers, and the practical problems of navigation are their arithmetic. As for writing, there is too much writing in our country as it is; and it is a satisfaction to contemplate three children who in all probability will never become novelists nor write for the papers.

     It cannot have been the intention of Nature, which fashions the flowers and fishes in such variety, that Men, the noblest works of Nature, should be all exactly alike, shaped in the same mould and fitted to the same ends. But that, it appears, is the principle, which has prompted this prosecution.

     What is in the mind of the Education Authority, however, is no great matter. The short point in this case is that Parliament does not support them. Parliament has nowhere said that the first essentials of an elementary education are reading, writing, and arithmetic. I hold therefore that Mr. Bloggs, who is carefully, lovingly, and without cost to the State equipping his children for a useful career, is providing for them an ‘elementary education’ within the meaning of the Acts. He was wrongfully convicted, and the appeal must be allowed. Costs to Mr. Bloggs, and a lump sum of one hundred pounds by way of compensation for his time and trouble.

Thursday, January 05, 2017

French Draft....

My draft was of course edited for style and length, as is perfectly correct in a magazine. For those who might prefer my own, um, breezy style, here's the original. Links are to to Sarah Farnsworth's better-than-reality pictures.
Where can you look around yourself and see carbon fiber bicycles, tricorne hats, dogs with names like Aphrodite, trotting horses, gilded swords, thoroughbreds, and huge cameras, all being used at the same time?
Any Saturday out with a pack of staghounds in France!
Last fall your correspondent had the chance to introduce some American friends to the chasse à courre - French mounted hunting. Experienced hunters in the U. S. and in England, they found out that across la manche it's the same- and different. We were lucky enough to have magnificent sporting photographer Sarah Farnsworth along, so the pictures are almost better than real life! A spectacle that has been refined since medieval times, it's the ancestor of English hunting. And like all our ancestors, the same, and different.
To start with, French hunting is done in large forests, which have been carefully maintained for centuries. The woods are organized- they are cut with two-horse-wide pathways in a pattern that resembles a pattern of spider webs. You always know where you are- every intersection has a name, and in this forest, a signpost telling you which clearing is which way.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h64942c68…
Our meet, at the Croix Bacquet in the forest of Villiers Cotteret, was with the Villiers Cotteret stag hounds. The red deer, which looks somewhat like an American elk but slightly smaller is generally considered the greatest game. But don't say that too loudly around the followers of the scores of packs that chase the wily roebuck, tough boar, boar, speedy hare, or clever fox- à chacun son goût.
Just like a North American day with hounds, people show up in ones and twos at the designated clearing. The first thing a hunter from the U. S. notices is that mounted hunters are distinctly a minority, although the etiquette is that they have the right of way. Although hunting started as as an aristocratic pastime, these days all sorts of people come out.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h6fd655f7…
On foot, in vehicles, on bicycles, it's an occasion for everybody who loves the chase.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h66213a25…
This man on his very well muffled scooter is a regular.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h684f5396…
Like hunters in the states, everyone is smiling. And the first thing you do when you get there is to shake hands, or share a kiss on the cheek, with everyone there! The meet-and greet goes on for a while, snacks come out, and the tufters straggle up. Just a coincidence.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h68e533f1…

The tufters are hounds that went out with their handlers at dawn, looking for signs of big red deer stags.
Patrice, who's providing our livery for the day, always has wonderful horses. Well turned out, mannerly, and hard as nails. Ex race horses are a great source for hunter prospects everywhere. And since trotting tracks are big business there, more than half the horses you'll see in the woods had a first career pulling a sulky around. It works- as you'll see, endurance matters more than sprinting.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h60871554…
And here come the hounds! They have their very own minivan-
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h6cb2cf4d…
"We want to hunt!"
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h69b965cb…

Out they get, and everyone gathers up for the rapport.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h6e996fb7…
The tufters line up, and each one tells the Master what he's found- or not found- in the solitary misty dawn. It's an example of how French hunting is more crowd sourced than ours is. Those volunteer tufters who think they have a good stag try to "sell" what they've found to the Master, and there's plenty of banter. Eventually he decides where he will draw, and puts us all in the picture. He also warns us about possible problems, where things are going on in the forest, and so forth.
So, to horse/truck/bike/track shoes!
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h62013d0f…
This is where another French difference starts- the music!
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h6e1c37ba…
The more experienced hunters and some of the professional staff carry full sized, valveless French horns wrapped around themselves.
Everything that happens during a hunt has a specific tune to go with it, and "Let's go" is first. All through the day, you'll hear those horns telling you what's going on. Remember this is the woods, so unless you're right there, you can't see the action. And once hounds get rolling, they are tough to spot by ear as well. The cry echoes back and fort among the trees, and sometimes it sounds as though you are right in the middle of the action. You might be, too! But If you know the tunes, the horns will let you know if they have found, what kind of stag it is, when it crosses a road or goes along it, goes to water, or gets away out of the forest.
The move off is part of the pageantry. The hunt's fanfare- each one has one- is blown, along with fanfares from packs who have visiting members, personal signature music, and probably what seems like a brassy version of "Woo Hoo!"!
And by the way, another difference (and one of my favorites) from anglophone hunting- NO electronic communication. They'll send you home if you use a cell telephone to hunt, and I think a radio might get you a head shaving. If you can't keep up or you get lost, you miss out. Eyes and ears were good enough for Charlemagne, they are good enough for us.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h61ca201f…
The dress, too, is different from ours. Gold braid, long coats, and swords add panache and draw the eye in a way our somber livery doesn't. And that's another part of the hunt as spectacle- each item of clothing transmits information about who the wearer is in the scheme of the day.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h69b965cb…
We're off! The huntsman heads for the designated section of forest and casts his hounds out to search. Drawing for game is the same in Virginia or the Vendee. But hounds may pursue only a mature stag. So when hounds speak, all eyes are out to see the game- everyone is looking along the allees to see it cross.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h6c190791…
Even the horses know what's what.
And another difference appears- there's no organized, controlled field as is typical west of Finisterre. You're on your own here- everyone goes where he thinks he'll have the best chance to spot the quarry and hounds. It would make most English and American huntsmen crazy. Thirty horses, twenty cars, a hundred foot and bicycle people all over the place. I love it myself, but it will look like seven train wrecks the first time you see it.
And it works, I think, because of something all the visitors remark on. Once things start, the hounds seem to be the full focus of everyone out there. It's a truism that some people ride to hunt and some hunt to ride, but here the first seem almost absent. We found that everyone was listening, watching, trying to figure out what was going on and what might happen next.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h68ba89a1…
And that continued all day. Just as anywhere, people had a snack and a visit, but their eyes and ears were always cocked to the hounds and the forest.
Once hounds found, the stag put on his skates and ran. Like a coyote back home, they have superior speed and strength, intimate territorial knowledge, and they evade for a living.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h6e8fd174…
So there's going to be an hour or two of find him lose him, draw again.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h663a7781…
Sarah will do whatever it takes to get the shot, you can't see it but she climbed a pretty good little bank to get this one, and took a pretty good tumble coming down quickly! You don't have to be on a horse to get hurt doing this.
And here we saw more of that crowdsourcing. The Master and the Huntsman weren't shy about asking what we'd seen, or what we hadn't seen. After a while, this whipper-in saw the hunted stag- lucky us, we were right there- and we were off again!
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h667fb01b…
Injured hounds have priority, just like at home.
Horses were getting tired, and people too. Another French difference- no alcohol out hunting! I know, it sounds crazy in the land of champagne- and actually on the border of Champagne itself- but it's true.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h6c10ad91…
The Americans were still in it!
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h66ff1538…
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h60245491…
Cary McWhorter and Crispin Menefee weren't about to go home.
A tai-o, and we were off again! This find-lose-find took much longer on this day than usual, there was speculation that the stag was a visitor because he did not seem to run typical routes. We got to see lots of forest! As you'd expect, to a visitor one wall of oak trees looks much like another, but our experienced French hosts knew the place intimately.
And then, away! I must confess that your humble correspondent made the mistake of taking a chance on where he thought the stag would go. I have got to quit that thinking stuff, it hurts my head. I was wrong, and we were thrown well out.
It turns out that the stag left the forest! They do that now and again, and once they do, it's tough to catch them up again. Although I've seen this pack do it they didn't today. Shadows were lengthening, there were only a few people still up (including the Americans!), so they gave him best.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h609648c8…
I admit that I like this part of the hunting day a lot.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h6ee0a054…
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h6995d26d…
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h645acdf7…
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h6840fdbf…
It's a pleasure to see piled up hounds, tired horses, making sure everyone is accounted for, and loading that last one who's just too tired to take another step.
http://www.sarahfarnsworth.co.uk/p831166707/h6ab9bf38…
The universal end of the hunting day.
One of us diaried it- "We saw the hunted stag six times, six hours in the saddle, 45 Kilometers". By French standards, it wasn't a particularly big day.

Sarah Farnsworth
sarahfarnsworth.co.uk