b16297234_0006_169_2

VILLAGE NIGHT
SCHOOLS.

BEFORE offering any suggestions
as to the management
of village night schools,
it may be as well to relate our own experience, and the circumstances which led us to begin one in our neighbourhood.
It is not at all an ideal village, a quiet peaceful spot, far removed from the living world, and inhabited by simple-minded and contented peasants; but a noisy little place, with several flourishing public-houses, md inhabited, a casual visitor might imagine, olely by a very rough and turbulent set of the ;outh of both sexes. There are older people, but they do not impress themselves upon the notice of strangers so forcibly as do their sons and daughters.
Every Thursday evening for some time past a cottage meeting had been held in the village, but every week the peace of the few devout souls who gathered there was disturbed by howlings as of creatures in great bodily pain, by the crowing of cocks, the note of the cuckoo, all the street songs of the day, ear- piercing whistles, and every other distracting noise in the power of youth to invent. The boys made the most noise, but we strongly suspected that they were incited thereto by the secret plaudits of admiring maidens. It was of no use for one of the congregation to creep quietly to the door, and try to open it noiselessly; for the more carefully the door was opened, the more it creaked, and by the time the well-meaning door-keeper had got outside, there was not a boy to be seen, or only one or two innocent looking lads engaged in a quiet talk. No sooner was the man seated again, however, than a derisive yell would sound close to the key-hole, and the uproar became worse than before; and the fact that the one policeman had been requested to come round that way as often as proper attention to his beat would allow, only added zest to the sport, as it infused the element of danger which boys find necessary to real enjoyment.
Something must be done, so we laid our heads together, and arranged to provide a counter attraction in the shape of a boys’ club.
There was no room of any sort to be hired or borrowed in the village, except one small kitchen, so we had to take it, though it was not well suited to the purpose. Having invited the boys to meet us there, we only aimed at first at amusing them so as to let the elders enjoy their service in peace; but the club soon grew, and branched out in many directions, and in course of time we obtained the use of the barn, which we had cleaned out, and the walls adorned with a few coloured prints and large texts, and used it several evenings in the week for boys and girls alternately. But we did not attain to good behaviour and a well organised school all at once; we had a period of disorder and confusion at first which sorely tried our patience, and anyone who tries such work must be prepared for a good deal of disheartening experience at first.
How badly they did behave sometimes, especially when the kitchen was crowded to the very doors, and there was no possibility of keeping each boy in sight. We drew up a code of rules for behaviour, and elected a committee of the elder boys to help us arrange the room, and keep order. But sometimes an evil spirit seemed to enter into them all, committee included, and such a scene of uproar would ensue that the only thing to do was to dismiss the whole class, except the committee. When the noise of the departing throng had partially died away, the committee, deserted by their comrades, and a prey to remorse, became meek and abject, and, after listening humbly to a good scolding, promised amendment for themselves and the rest if we would try them once more.
We read all the literature we could hear of on the subject of managing boys, but finally fell back on our own experience. One good hint we did get, however. “Never wound the feelings of your scholars by sarcasm,” said the tender-hearted author of ne paper. We considered the subject, and at our next meeting reduced a hitherto incorrigible youth to silence and confusion by the use of this new and forbidden weapon. We found good- natured ‘‘chaff” invaluable with these stolid country lads, and in return did not mind an occasional honest laugh at our own expense.
At the first few meetings we only read tales to the boys, and taught them a few good songs, chiefly of a martial order, which they much enjoyed, and which were a great improvement upon the perfectly meaningless, or sometimes really objectionable, songs they were accustomed to. As our numbers at this time were small, we found it sufficient to write the words of a new song as large as possible on several sheets of foolscap paper pasted together, and pinned up on the wall before them. Then we sang it to them, telling them (after we had sung it once right through) to join in as soon as they had caught the tune.
After a few weeks we began giving lectures, very short and simple, on all kinds of natural objects, and as these proved to be the great attraction of the club, and the starting point of many future developments, they deserve a little description. The first one was on the geological formation of that neighbourhood, and consisted of a very graphic description in most unscientific language of the rushing of water down the valleys the boys knew so well, leaving behind it the particular rocks they were so fond of scrambling over, with guesses at the origin of all the other well-known features of the district, illustrated by a few of the commonest and most unmistakable fossils.
This lecture was so entirely and unexpectedly successful that we were emboldened to continue the series, and went gradually through the formation of all the different strata, enlivening the lectures, of course, with all sorts of pictures and anecdotes, and thrilling accounts of the wild animals which ravaged the country at each particular epoch. Then we drew attention to the different kinds of stones to be met with actually inside our own village, the slates on the roofs, the bricks and Stones fl the walls, the paving stones of the side walks, and so on.
But though we began with geology, we did not by any means confine ourselves to that subject. Our aim was to “open another set of eyes” for the boys, by showing them how much there was to be seen all about them which they had hitherto passed unnoticed, as we were convinced that to have their minds occupied was a decided step towards resisting temptation to evil If one may slightly alter Dr. Watts’ lines, we get the very forcible truth that—
“ Satan finds some mischief still For idle minds to do.”
We had, amongst other things, a series of what we called “object lessons,” on what the boys could observe for themselves, such as the position of the feet and legs of horses in different paces. This lesson was illustrated by all the pictures of horses we could find, winding up with some of the prints which have appeared lately in various magazines, giving the actual position taken by horses, as obtained by instantaneous photography. Then we invited the boys to notice
horses during the coming week, and promised to bring the pictures again the following week that they might report their observations, and say which they considered most correct.
We found a black board indispensable, as nothing could be made interesting without illustrations it did not matter how
rough these were, but we could not do without them. In addition to drawings on the black board, we sometimes made roughly coloured diagrams on paper.
Amongst other subjects, we took very elementary