The Story of a Great SchoolmasterWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
The Story of a Great Schoolmaster
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Sanderson, F. W. (Frederick William), 1857-1922; School principals -- Great Britain -- Biography
The idea of this 'House of Vision' was still growing in his mind when
he died. He had not yet settled upon a name for it, though he had
tried over a number of names--a House of Vision, which is the name we
have taken for it here, the Home of Silence, the Hall of Industry, the
Anthropaeum, the Making of Man, the Life Creative, the Soul of the
School. All these names converge upon the end he was seeking. This
approach by trial, by leaving the idea to shape itself for a time and
then taking it up again, by talking it over with this man and that, was
very characteristic of his mental processes.
A member of the staff recalls a stage in the development of the idea.
'I talked with the headmaster about the Yarrow Memorial in October
1920,' he says. 'He then seemed to dally with a suggestion to name it
the "Temple of the World"--he expressed his hatred of the tendency to
call it the "Museum." I gathered that his idea was to fill it with
charts of all things and all ages, including pictures of at least all
the world's great men--then to turn a boy loose in it, thereby to
realise his position in the world as a unit of its time, as opposed to
the inculcation of any idea of his having a part in his nationality
only. His root idea seemed to be that it should be a place for
meditation--restful as well as invigorating.'
Here is a passage written by Sanderson himself a little later. The idea
ripens and broadens out very manifestly.
'Every school, every locality and industry,' he writes, 'might build
within their boundaries a new kind of chapel, a heritage, a temple--a
beautiful building in which are gathered together and exhibited the
records of man's great deeds and of man's progress, and the records
of his needs. It is such a "Hall of Needs" that we regard the Yarrow
Memorial, and to this end it is being equipped.'
And here Sanderson speaks again in a sermon preached upon the text of
Moses' withdrawal to the mount.
'A school will grow into a book. It will take upon itself the form of a
Bible. Within it will appear the stages in the life of the soul--"the
coming of a kingdom"; the foundations, the building, the furniture,
the complex apparatus, the organised beauty. A school--its buildings,
workshops, class-rooms, and all that goes towards a great school--can
take on the form of a parable. As we wander from one place to another
all that speaks of life will manifest itself before us. How life
begins, what is needed for its growth; what shall be its standards, its
ideals; what the nature of its proof-plate; the craftsman and what he
is; the craftsman in languages, in mathematics, in science, in art;
the secrets of nature revealing themselves; progress, change, vision.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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