Octavia answered Miss Weismann’s questions as well as she could, explaining that her journey had been ‘quite eventful’ but making light of the storm, while this amazing city racketed and roared around her. Inside her head, her thoughts shifted and intermeshed like cogs. It seemed to her that all the experiences of her life were culminating in this visit – the easy lessons she’d learnt at school and at home, the hard ones forced on her as a suffragette, the rich talk around her father’s Fabian table, the hesitant speech of her first and youngest pupils, being secretly loved and publicly unmarried. Even the anguish of Cyril’s death, the distress of seeing Podge crippled by that awful gas, the agony of watching Emmeline’s two poor little boys succumbing to that awful influenza, the dragging misery of refusing Tommy and knowing she would never see him again. These things, good and bad, had been her education and had brought her to this invigorating city and the questions that would soon be answered. Oh yes, yes! The questions that would soon be answered.
After the bustle of the city, Aristotle Avenue was like an oasis – wide, tree-lined and already leafy, traffic-free and gently quiet. The Dalton school was a large white building at the corner of the road and that was quiet too, although, as Octavia saw at once, every classroom was full of pupils.
The principal was waiting in the foyer to welcome her. She was an impressive lady with iron-grey hair, a very straight spine and a disarming smile, who introduced herself as Amelia Barnes and, having settled Octavia’s luggage in the school office and handed her hat and coat to the school secretary, set off at once on what she called ‘a short tour of inspection’ explaining that Octavia would just have time to see a few studies at work before they adjourned for lunch.
‘The study period is the core of our system,’ she said, as they walked along a corridor, ‘as I believe I told you in my letter, so I felt sure you would wish to see it at the first opportunity. Let us start with an English study, shall we, since that is your subject.’ And she opened the door to the nearest classroom.
Octavia was prepared for something out of the ordinary but even so she was surprised by the impact of this room. For a start it was full of cheerful voices, not gossiping or chattering, as she could see and hear, but deep in earnest discussion. So much for the doctrine of ‘sit up straight and stop talking!’ she thought and remembered how very unpleasant she’d found that instruction the first time she’d heard it. Then as she continued to look around, she saw that the pupils were of all ages, from serious fifth formers who went on reading as though there were no interruption, to inquisitive first formers who looked up at her as soon as she entered the room. They seemed perfectly at ease and not at all put out by her arrival. She smiled at them but hesitated in the doorway uncertain as to whether it was in order to walk in, steadying herself as if she was about to embark on another long voyage.
Miss Barnes moved to the front of the class, treading lightly, her skirts silkily a-swish. ‘This lady is Miss Smith,’ she said. ‘She is the headmistress of a grammar school in London and she’s come all the way from England just to visit us, which is a great honour.’ Even the fifth formers looked up and smiled at that. ‘I’m sure you will answer all her questions and show her the work you are doing. And I’m sure she will answer your questions in her turn. Is that not right, Miss Smith?’
Octavia agreed that it was and edged to the nearest desk, as quietly as she could. There were two small girls sitting side by side with their heads close together discussing the essays they’d just written. They were very friendly and stopped to explain what they were doing. ‘It’s full stops, ma’am. We have to be sure they’re all there.’
The teacher in Octavia took over. ‘I know a useful trick for full stops,’ she told them. ‘Would you like me to tell you about it?’
They would. So she did. ‘You use a full stop to show you when to breathe when you’re reading out loud,’ she said. ‘That’s what it’s for. I expect you know that. If one of you were to read, the other would hear when she was breathing. If it’s a little gulping breath it might be a comma but if it’s a nice long breath, it’s sure to be a full stop.’
They tried it at once and were delighted to find that it worked. And Octavia was delighted too because she had made a good start to this visit and given before she began to take. She smiled at the two girls and moved on to another group, this time a pair who looked like third formers and were working though a page full of adverbial clauses. The variety of work being done in the room was impressive – studying poetry by Longfellow, reading David Copperfield, Emma and Julius Caesar, parsing and clause analysis, writing essays – and so was the ease with which the teacher turned from one pupil to the next as girls arrived at her desk with their queries.
Later, over lunch, she asked the English teacher how she managed to cope with such variety. ‘It’s much the same as coping with the difference between lessons, I guess,’ the teacher said. ‘Only quicker. As long as you’re well prepared and have all the material you need to hand, you can cope with pretty much anything and of course if you don’t know the answer you can promise to find it or suggest that you find it together. They quite enjoy doing that.’
This begged the first of the questions that Octavia had planned to ask. ‘How long does it take to gather all the material you need?’
‘When we first began,’ Miss Barnes told her, ‘we allowed ourselves six months in which to prepare and we needed every second of it. Now we aim to keep half a term ahead of ourselves – more if possible. We give every girl a syllabus of work in every subject, a month at a time for the first two grades, half-termly for the others, and we check and change at regular intervals so as to keep up to date. You can’t afford to rest on your laurels when you operate this system. So yes, to answer the question you haven’t asked, it means a lot of work. But the rewards far outweigh the effort.’
‘Tell me,’ Miss Weismann said, leaning forward across the table. ‘What roused your interest in our system in the first place? Was it a particular concern or just general curiosity?’
They get to the heart of things so quickly, Octavia thought, and answered carefully. ‘It was a combination of things,’ she told them. ‘Having heard about you from the Fabian Society started me thinking, as I told you in my first letter, but there were worries too, about the efficiency of what we were doing, about the lack of impact our teaching was having.’ Miss Barnes was looking a question at her, so she continued. ‘I’ve been aware for quite a long time that many of our pupils are bored, no matter how hard we try to inspire them, and sometimes I only have to read their written work to see how little of what I’ve said has actually gone in. Some have understood and made great strides, others have tried hard but missed the point and some are floundering.’
‘Exactly so,’ Miss Barnes said. ‘Because you have been teaching them at one speed and one speed cannot possibly suit an entire class. Once you give them the freedom to work at their own speed, in their own time and to ask for your help when they need it, you will notice an enormous change. There is no reason, when you think about it, why all children should learn at the same rate. Some will come to understanding slowly and after much discussion, sometimes with their friends, sometimes with their teachers, as you’ve already seen, but given encouragement and time they will all get there in the end. Not scrappily and unsure whether they understand or not, but completely and happily. There is nothing quite so happy as a child who has learnt and understood.’
‘I saw that this morning,’ Octavia said. ‘Happy and sociable. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a classroom that was quite so friendly.’
‘Exactly so.’
‘You will see more of it this afternoon,’ the Art teacher said. She wore a rather gorgeous Indian shawl over her shoulders and had hair so black it looked blue in the sunshine that streamed in upon them through the high windows of the staff room. ‘I hope you will visit my studio and see what a joy painting can be.’
Octavia visited the studio, a French study and a
Science one, in a lab full of retorts and Bunsen burners and the usual faint smell of gas, and then went on to the gymnasium where a group of juniors were climbing the ropes, leaping a horse and exercising on the wall bars.
‘Gym and Games are the only lessons on the curriculum with no studies attached,’ Miss Barnes explained, as they stood amid the twirling bodies. ‘Much enjoyed, as you can see.’
‘Could they opt out if they wanted to?’ Octavia asked.
‘Indeed yes. Some do, on occasions.’
‘What do they do instead?’
‘Join a study group,’ Miss Barnes said, ‘visit the library, go to the studio to paint or make pots, or the Cookery room to bake cakes. There’s always plenty to do in a Dalton school. The choice is theirs.’
‘Which is the essence of the system,’ Octavia said. ‘You give them the freedom to plan their own lives. Rather as one does at university.’
‘Exactly as one does at university.’
There was only one more question that needed asking – at least for that afternoon. ‘How many lessons do they have to attend?’
‘It varies,’ Miss Barnes said, ‘depending on the age of the girl and the number of subjects she wishes to study. As a rule of thumb, the juniors have about fifteen lessons a week, one or two in each subject including Gym and Games and Religious Instruction of course, and the seniors have about ten or so. It works out at two a day, which gives them plenty of time for private study. And fun.’
The word sang in Octavia’s head. She smiled happily at her new friends. ‘You believe in fun too.’
They all did and smiled and nodded to prove it. ‘High days and holidays,’ Miss Barnes said, ‘are the icing on the cake. Christmas and Santa Claus, Thanksgiving and turkey, Easter for eggs and bonnets. We have an Easter parade to mark the end of the spring term, which you will see in two days’ time. Every girl makes an Easter bonnet and they wear them for the end of term assembly. It’s a great occasion. They love it. Why aim for a dull life when you can have a life full of richness and variety? It’s the great moments we remember, is it not? And the richer the ritual the more keenly we look forward to it.’
Octavia was remembering the queen’s Diamond Jubilee and all those splendid horses stepping in line, the little fat queen in her red and gold coach and the massed choristers in full song on the steps of St Paul’s and she was uplifted simply by the memory. ‘Exactly so,’ she said.
It wasn’t until much later that evening when she was settling to sleep in Miss Barnes’ blue and white spare bedroom, her thoughts spinning with all the impressions and information she’d been gathering, that she recognised the feeling that had been growing so strongly in her ever since she arrived. It was the sense that she had come home.
During the next five days of her visit she learnt so much she began to be afraid she would forget it all before she got back to England. Miss Barnes gave her five copies of a booklet which she said would give her staff an outline of the system but there was so much more – the extraordinary number of high days and holidays for example, the lack of supervision in the grounds, which Miss Weismann told her was unnecessary ‘because the girls are happy there, I guess’, the way textbooks were provided in cupboards at the back of every classroom, to be readily available. Every question she asked provided her with almost more information than she could digest. The only thing to be done was to take notes, which she did copiously.
The Easter parade was a splendid occasion with every hat trimmed to excess, and the final assembly that followed it was more cheerful than any school gathering she’d ever seen. ‘We always sing the same hymns,’ Miss Barnes explained. ‘It’s one of our traditions.’ And on the last day of her visit there was a party for all the staff at Miss Barnes’ house ‘to celebrate an excellent term’, and that seemed to be an Easter tradition too.
By the time Octavia was being driven back to the quayside for her return journey, she felt she’d known these forthright, eccentric women for years.
‘You must write to us,’ Amelia Barnes said, as they kissed goodbye, ‘and let us know how you are getting on. Don’t forget. And if there’s any way we can help you, you have only to ask. Have a safe journey home.’
It was a very busy journey for, the Atlantic being relatively calm, she made use of the time to arrange her notes in the most intelligible order and to write up her impressions as clearly as she could. She had no doubt at all that this system was entirely right for her and her school and she wanted to present it to the others as positively as she could.
The summer term was well under way by the time she rejoined the school. Her staff had been hard at work, teaching her classes as well as their own, so she was loath to burden them with yet another chore until she had settled back to work among them. But they were all keen to know how she had got on and what she thought of the system, so after a little persuasion, she handed them all a pack of prepared material and suggested that they should discuss it at the staff meeting at the end of the week.
It was a lively meeting for, although they were all in complete agreement that the system would suit them and should certainly be tried, there were two distinct opinions as to how they should go about it. Alice Genevra was all for starting it in September at the beginning of the school year.
‘I know it would mean a lot of work,’ she said, ‘but we’re none of us afraid of work, are we? And it would make much better sense to begin at the beginning of the school year. Our new first formers could be Dalton girls from the word go.’
Morag Gordon supported her. ‘I know they said – what was it? – In our opinion it takes at least six months to prepare for such a change. But that would be for a full-sized school, would it not? Ours is small, so there would be less work. I think we could do it. In fact, I would go so far as to say I think we should. I agree with Alice. It would be good for the first formers to start off the way they are going to go on and we must consider our present third formers too. I know there are only fourteen of them but what a difference it would make if they could be taught in this new way for two full years before they take their Lower Schools Certificate.’
Miss Fennimore put her pince-nez to her eye and consulted her copy of the leaflet. ‘At least six months is considerably more than we would be allowing ourselves if we want to be ready by September,’ she pointed out. ‘We are well into April now and the new term starts in the first week of September, don’t forget. We would be looking at twenty-one weeks. I don’t think that would be anywhere near enough. I should hate to start the term unprepared and in a rush. I suggest we defer the start until the New Year and give ourselves eight and a half months to do the thing properly.’
Sarah Fletcher was the last to speak and, rather to Octavia’s surprise, she opted for caution. ‘I’d like to make a really good job of it,’ she said. ‘I’d like to see our third formers getting the best we can give them, I agree with you on that, Morag, but would we be able to do it if we were rushed and ill prepared?’
The debate went on for nearly an hour and they were no nearer to a decision. The only thing they were agreed on was that they wanted to make the change and they wanted it to be a success. Eventually Octavia told them she would have to use her casting vote, and that as she too felt it would make better sense to start at the beginning of the school year with the new first form, she voted for September. ‘Although I know what a lot I am asking of you,’ she said. ‘It will be a formidable task. We must work together and help one another all we can.’ And she thanked them for having studied the pack so closely and for giving their opinions so honestly, and declared the meeting closed.
Once they’d left her, she realised that she would have to delay her house-hunting, yet again, and the thought wearied her. There never seemed to be a moment when she could actually get down to finding herself a home. But she couldn’t have allowed personal considerations to influence her when they’d been discussing something so important and all in all she felt she’d probably done the right thing.
She told him about her visit to New York and what an inspiration it had been, she detailed the change that she and her staff were now proposing to make and what a lot of work it would mean for all of them, she said she was sure they would have his full support in the great experiment they were undertaking. Then, turning from the philosophical to the practical, she suggested several ways in which the task could be made easier for them.
‘It would help the entire school if we could have a school secretary,’ she wrote. ‘It would release me to supervise classes and assist my staff in drawing up the new syllabuses and ordering the extra stock that this method requires. It would also help the entire school, both now and in the future, if we could expand our staff. At present we have no Art teacher and no Music teacher and Miss Fennimore, although she does not complain, is considerably overloaded as a teacher of Science and Mathematics. I think we shall find that two new members of staff would be more than justified by our rising numbers.’ She wasn’t sure whether her numbers would rise that autumn, that had yet to be revealed, but it was at least likely. Their popularity was growing.
Then she signed herself, ‘Yours hopefully,’ and took the letter to the post.
Mr Gillard was a valuable ally. His answer came almost by return of post. A school secretary was an excellent suggestion. He’d been thinking along the same lines himself. She could advertise for one as soon as she liked. The matter of two new teachers would have to be discussed with the board but it would be done at the earliest opportunity and he would write to tell her the outcome as soon as he knew it.
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