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
'And this is what is in mind to do--and yet I confess to a certain
amount of fear. A lofty, spacious chapel I have had no doubt would at
the right moment be built by the Grocers' Company. Just before the war
the building of this chapel was emerging as the next great building
to undertake--a chapel, such as a college chapel with stalls, as
for private service. But now we look beyond this. We want something
different, more open. A lofty, spacious chapel to form the nave--no
fixed seats, the clear open space; quiet, still, "urgent with beauty."
Joined to this the choir and sanctuary, with aisles round the three
sides of it, forming an ambulatory. Round these aisles, on the walls
and in the windows, the recorded memory of the boys who have fallen.
An east window, a reredos, stalls, altar. A chapel, abundant in space,
not for the mind to sit down in, but for the mind to move about in, for
contemplation, for dwelling in the infinite, for piercing through the
night, for vision, for the clear spirit of thankfulness, for communion
with the saints, our own young saints among them. So we hope. As you
wander round the aisles there will pass before you the memorial of
those boys who have cast down their lives for the rescue of man.'
§ 3
I cannot guess how Sanderson, had he lived, would have resolved this
conflict between his House of Vision and his Great Chapel, just as
I can hazard no opinion of the ultimate form his interpretation of
Christianity would have taken. But the recognition of these conflicts
is fundamental to my conception of the man and his significance.
He stands for a great multitude reluctant to abandon many of the
familiar phrases of the Christian use and eager to read new and deeper
meanings into them. But he never took 'holy orders'; he knew the days
of the priest, except for evil, were past, and it is only by its being
born again as a House of Vision that he could anticipate his chapel
with contentment. The time has come for mankind to choose plainly
between the priest and the teacher.
Some six months after Sanderson's death I went to Oundle and visited
the Yarrow Memorial, that abortive first House of Vision. Except for
a bronze statue of a boy by Lady Scott that Sanderson had liked and
bought, it was as I had seen it with Sanderson a year before. It was
still, deserted, and I suppose I must count it dead. The time-charts
had not been carried on. The collection of inventions, the display of
humanity's growth, were still represented by empty cases. The statue
was intended for the school chapel, but meanwhile it had been dumped in
the House of Vision as a convenient vacant place for such dumping. The
bronze boy is in an eager pose; there is duty to be done and danger to
be faced and a great creative effort to be made. 'Send me!' he said, in
that empty, neglected House of Vision. But the hand that would have put
that dart to the bowstring and aimed it at work and service was there
no more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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