Modular Infotech Pvt. Ltd. - DSpace
Modular Infotech Pvt. Ltd. - DSpace
Modular Infotech Pvt. Ltd. - DSpace
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LITERARY TRAINING 179<br />
school life. Time and energy were expended in insisting<br />
on mUBic's claims, but neither Barnby nor Lloyd believed<br />
in corporate training, though the latter especially was<br />
very successful in the teaching of gifted individuals.<br />
Added to these obstacles there has always been the patent<br />
fact that for about half the time of their Public School<br />
lives boys are unable to sing, though they can croak, and<br />
we shall never achieve what is possible till the spade-work<br />
is done between nine and fourteen in the Preparatory<br />
Schools, Then the child-voices are at their best and<br />
unselfconscious progress is quite possible. Excellent work<br />
is being done here and there, and though the results are<br />
everywhere slight compared with our hopes, the Eton<br />
musical training is immensely better than it was or ever<br />
has been.<br />
In regard to the literary training, which still occupies<br />
the bulk of the available accommodation in the· larger<br />
l'ublic Schools, we must never cease to remember that<br />
the love of learning for its own sake is nearly universal<br />
among children and the dislike of learning is not very far<br />
from being universal among adolescents, though a show<br />
of zeal is maintained by numerous stimulants. Swarms<br />
of old l'ublio School men stoutly maintain that without<br />
the stimulants-professional examinations, competition,<br />
prizes, threatening penury, etc.-no " work" at all would<br />
'be done by our youngsters ; possibly by girls, never by<br />
boys. I should agree with them if I had never taught<br />
children. As it is, I know full well that the early, apontaftl1oru<br />
love of knowledge in countless cases does disappear,<br />
and that one of the most effective ways of crushing<br />
it is to stimulate the wrong motives for intellectual effort.<br />
In the light of this fact, what are we to make of the<br />
institution of prizes lavishly offered in the more opulent<br />
schools and bestowed wherever possible by kindly but<br />
unreflecting benefactors ? I maintain that prize-giving on<br />
the present scale, if it is ineffective as a stimulus to intellectual<br />
efiort. is a dismal waste of money ; but that a
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