Chronicle-1971

As for the daily routine, let us examine the prescribed rules: 4 a.m. The children rise,summer and winter,and spend an hour in Private Meditation, Self-examination and Prayer. 5 a.m. They attend the Public Service. 6 a.m. From Six they work till Breakfast. 7a.m. The School begins and Languages are taught till Nine. 9a.m. Writing etc. till Eleven. 11 a.m. The Children walk or work. 12 noon They dine, and then work or sing till One. 1 p.m. From One to Four Languages are taught. 4 p.m. Writing,etc. 5 p.m. The Hour of Private Prayer 6 p.m. They walk or work till Supper. 7 p.m. The Publick Service begins. 8 p.m. They go to bed. HARD WORK.This was the sixteen-hour daily routine six days a week.Sunday brought variety, if not relief."At Six they dress and Breakfast. At Seven they learn Hymns or Poems. At Eight attend the Publick Service. At Nine go to the Parish Church. At One dine and sing. At Two attend the Publick Service, and at Four are privately instructed." The rest of Sunday is unaccounted for, but one may justifiably wonder whether they then escaped from bounds and became uproariously drunk! The work curriculum was centred almost entirely on the study oflanguages,together with the reading of Uplifting Biographies(and translating same into Latin). As said earlier, Wesley edited or wrote all the books used throughoutthe school.He himself prepared grammar books in English, Latin, Greek,Hebrew and French. He demanded from the boys something of the drilled approach to study which he himself followed."Every voluntary blockhead" he wrote "is a knave. He defrauds his benefactors, his parents and his world." Again he writes"Why are wenot moreknowing? Because we are idle. Wetalk and talk,or read History or whatcomes to hand.Read the most useful books,and that regularly and constantly". After the day's grind was over,the boys were invited to burst into song "If they have a turn for it." Wesley himself slept only 3 hours a night. He maintained that3 hours were enough for a man,4for a woman,5for a child, and "he who desires more than 5 hours'sleep is a knave." There were strict rules about hygiene. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness", said Wesley. For this reason he laid down a rule that every boy should"wash his neck every Tuesday night, and his feet every other Saturday, whether he needs it or not." England of the 18th Century had come a long way since the Roman days of daily bathing. Lest you think that nourishment was only of the mind,here is the weekly menu: "Breakfast (every day): Milk-porridge and Water-gruel, by turns. Supper (every day): Bread and Butter, and Milk by turns. Dinner: Sunday: Cold Roast Beef Monday:Hash'd Meat and Apple-dumplins Tuesday:Boiled Mutton Wednesday: Vegetables and Dumplins Thursday: Boil'd Mutton or Beef Friday: Vegetables and Dumplins Saturday: Bacon and Greens, Apple-dumplins They drink Water at Meals, nothing between Meals." On Fridays, should they find themselves gorged on this rich diet, they were per mitted to fast until 3 p.m."Experience shews that this greatly conduces to Health". All meals were conducted in silence, but boys were allowed to read. AND TODAY?This,then, was the system on which Methodist Education was founded. We havecomea long way since then.In many ways we have becomeenlightened;in many ways we have failed to maintain the ideals which Wesley set. When I myself went to Kingswood (Bath) 170 years after Kingswood (Bristol) was founded, the school rules and routine still reflected a good deal ofthe Wesley influence. Wetook it all for granted.No parents ever visited the school. Sundays were almost Wesley-like, but we knew nothing else. In winter we hadhad breakfast and completed two lessons before day dawned. Our menu was as stereotyped as Wesley's,and in seven years I cannot remember a cooked meal for breakfast or supper: bread and margarine (or sometimes butter) was the staple diet, which we brightened up by applying salt and pepper, or mustard. But we grew up into reasonably normal men, with no grumbles about "generation gaps" or "misunderstandings". I am quite convinced that the ideal, though no longer achievable, system for Church Boarding School life should lie atsome mid-stage between the Christian austerity ofthe Wesley days, and the ultra-freedom of life today. 50

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTc3MDU5Nw==