Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

An Adventure in Working Class Education. Being the btory ot the Workers' Educational Association, i^03 — D. by /Aiuert Mansbridge, rion. M.A. (Oxon founder Lateral Secretary, l?UJ — 15. Longmans, Green 6c Co. b/ froiessor Oraham Wailas, one or tne shrewdest and most penetrating critics or moaern liie and politics, once reiened to the author ot this little book as one ot the greatest social inventors of our time. While others, he said, were creating tne aeroplane and the wireless telegraph, Mr. Mansbridge had been making a new way ot education, drawing together tne workers, with their vast, chaouc yearning for knowledge and light, and the scholars who had the knowledge but who lacked contact with the realities life and ot industry. i ne union ot these two torces produced as its finest flower the university tutorial class, which, at its best, and where its ideals are most rally realised, is one ot the most pertect educa- tional instruments ever created. i he story ot the twelve crowded years ot this inventive process is told in the sixty-six pages ot this modest booic, and the tuture historian of Laoour or ot Education in those taietui years will be unable to tell his tale without consulting it. i he story is told with little detail, and perhaps not with much art, and it might have been better told by one who had not been its central figure, strive though he may to conceal the tact. But, even though blurred on times, there bursts through the vivid picture ot a man who is at once a visionary and a keen business man, who saw in his youth the great vision of a people set tree by education, and who has laboured through ail his days to realise that vision. The thing he had dreamed was so near to the hearts of all men and women ot good will, that in a tew years he drew round him many ot the noblest men and women ot his time, and the creation ot the Workers' Educational Association and the University Tutorial Class system reads like a fairy tale. They are successful and established institutions now, and to some etxent the glory of their early life has faded into the light of common day, but because the gitts they ottered were essentially of the spirit, because they called men and women from the toil of the workshop and the stnte ot politics and industry to a great fellowship in the search for knowledge, the response was overwhelming, and the W.E.A. spirit was known everywhere as something that arew together the most diverse men and women in the bonds of fellowship, and that set them to tasks of unheard-of self-sacrifice both in seeking knowledge for themselves and in spreading the good news to others. The story, as it is told here, naturally does not reveal the many-sided and even perplexing personality of the man who, more than any other, began the great movement of working-class education of these last years. But even those who do not know him and his work must guess at the strange union of visionary and mystic who tells us that in the affairs of life no man has really lived until he has for a reasonable purpose risked the loss of all that he desires, of diplomat who watched and took his chances with the powers behind Universities, Education Autho- rities, and Trade Unions, gaining here a point and there a point, until his structure was built; and a business man, who, to finance his adventure," which even in its second year of work had an income of only £ 100 a year, would pounce upon the unsuspecting visitor and mulct him of a subscription to the W.E.A. or the price of a book before he knew what was happening. Underlying the whole book is the conception of education as the liberating influence which sets men free to do the work for which God made them, whether it be making a chair or directing a University. The equipment of those who would adventure is a belief in the power of everyone to perform his or her true service. The community is like a living mosaic. It has a pattern, and the impulse and motion or men is towards their rightful place in it. The most powerful attraction of the W.E.A. has always been that it has drawn together in the most hearty and intimate comradeship people of widely varying outlook and experience, who were able to sink all their deep-rooted differences in the common search for knowledge. Like all things worth doing, this catholicity had its own difficulties, but it was the essential core of the gospel of the founders of the Association. One divines a little anxiety lest in these later days of power and success it should come to be too definitely associated with any particular school of thought or party in politics. On no REVIEWS. account, writes Mr. Mansbridge, no matter how great the temptation even though lite itselt seems to be at stake, should it oow tne knee in the house of those who promise support and power uaureamed ot, it it will chant their songs and utter their dogmas. 1 he book tells of the spread of the W.E.A. in Australia, New Zealand, South Alrica, and Canada, and there are namas ot the pioneers in all these fields, and records of their work. But the Welsh reader will search in vain for the name of a Welsh uranch or a Welsh class-not because there are none tor the W.E.A. has existed in Wales from its early days. i^er.iapj it is because its origin and genius was English, and we, who have our own educational enthusiasms and adventures, have never quite taken it to our hearts. It will be to our lasting loss however, if we learn nothing of its spirit, and if we tail to translate into our own national life the lessons which this story can teach us. Trie Group Mind. A sketch of the Principles of Collective rsyc.ioiogy, with some attempt to apply them to the interpretation or national lite and character By William McDougall, F.R.S. -PP-. Cambridge University Press. 21/- net. This is an excellent book, and is a sequel to the author's previous work, An Introduction to Social Psychology," which appeared in 1908, and which has enjoyed considerable success. More than one critic of the earlier book pointed out that though the words Social Psychology occurred in the title, the book itself was very little social, indeed, much less so than the majority of books on Psychology. This omission is explained in the Preface and Introduction of the present volume, in which the relation of the two books to each other is clearly defined. The earlier and smaller book was an attempt to provide an account of the fundamentals of human nature." There was no intention of dealing with Social Psychology at all, but merely of preparing the ground, and laying the foundations for it. The present volume, the substance of which, we are told, was written before the Great War, is part of the superstructure. It deals with Collective or Group Psychology, which is a branch or department of the wider Science of Social Psychology. The book is divided into three parts. In Part I., which deals with general principles, the conception of a group or collective mind is explained, illustrated, and defended against hostile criticism. The discussion is acute and interesting, particularly its handling of R. M. Maciver, the author of a notable work on Sociology. But somehow it leaves the reader with a feeling of the need of further elucidation. Perhaps a more satisfactory result would have been reached if the author, while vindicating the reality of the group mind," had thought it well to bring out more fully the points in which it differs from the individual mind. In Part 11 that special form of the group mind which we call Nationalism is dealt with, and in the concluding Part the evolution of national mind and character through the long course of ages is traced. The chapters on What is a Nation? and The Mind of a Nation are exceptionally valuable. Prof. McDougall holds with Prof. Ramsay Muir, that nationhood is essentially a psycho- logical conception, but he differs from him in his view as to the psychological determining condition or factor. The essence of nationality is not a sentiment; neither is it a belief on the part of a community that it is a nation. It is organisation, not material organisation, but such mental organisation as will render the group capable of effective group life, of collective delibera- tion, and collective volition." The volume is a very important contribution to the literature of the subject, and it is throughout characterised by lucidity, freshness, and balance. And the discussion has the great merit of being almost entirely free of technical terms which would be unintelligible to the general reader. As Nationalism has come to be regarded as the most important factor in modem history the appearance of this work at this time is most opportune, and we can confidently recommend it not only to students, but to all intelligent readers who are interested in the problem of nationality. The author, we understand, is about to take up the duties of an American professorship. Though his departure may not involve any loss to science, we cannot help regretting that Oxford will be deprived of a singularly impressive and luminous teacher W. Jenkyn Jones.