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Thank you for a fresh and interesting presentation, I was really inspired by your argument that the war caused profound changes to the schools and raised the students to the center. I wonder if this had any ingredient of guilt from the headmasters’ part? At least according to a common stereotype, prewar school headmasters were often one of the main advocates for national chauvinism and pro patria mori mentality. Did you recognize any guilty sentiments in the headmasters postwar thinking?
Dear Ville Kivimäki, thank you very much for your interest!
Your question is very interesting and quite complex to answer. It makes me want to look more closely at this issue in the archives.
As a first step towards an answer, I make the hypothesis that just after the war, pride is more emphasized: all these old pupils did not die in vain. At the unveiling of the school war memorial in 1922, Mr Price said that he “had devoted his time and energy to the education of these boys, who went out at the call of duty and sacrificed their lives in the service of humanity”. Gradually, during the 1920s, this feeling of guilt that can be observed among teachers and headmasters grew, intrinsically linked to pacifism. At the very end of the 1930s, when a new war seemed inevitable, this feeling of guilt was redoubled: that of having failed to ensure that the Great War was the last war, the “der des ders”. More than because of guilt, it would seem that the headmasters put the pupil first because they saw the benefit of autonomy during the war and because they had great hopes in this new generation. The weight of the war was heavy for these post-war pupils: they had to make themselves worthy of their elders in peace.
I hope I have answered and thank you again!
Many thanks for sharing your research and giving us a glimpse into these two headmasters’ lives. Do you have information about how these innovations in everyday school life were in turn received by the school authorities, parents etc.? Were they incorporated into the national war propaganda, as efforts to support the home front? In Germany, many school pupils in the later years of the war had to participate in activities like working in agriculture or collecting materials for impoverished families and to strengthen the war industry (textiles, metals etc.) – these activities usually took place outside of school but were often coordinated by them. Was this similar in England and France – e.g. were the vegetables grown on the school allotment intended for the pupils themselves or given away to civilians in need? How would such an entanglement with state-driven war efforts and propaganda have influenced the headmasters’ agency on implementing reforms in their schools?
Dear Anna,
thank you very much for your interest, your comments, and your questions.
First, to answer to your first question: in England as in France, as far as I could read in the archives, these innovations were always well received. To follow the example of “The Vegetable Show” at Elliott Central School, I read in the report that school authorities, teachers, pupils and parents came to that event which was reported as a great success. Above all, after the war, when the vegetable garden was no longer necessary, the headmaster and the pupils continued this activity in the 1920s.
Then, this kind of activity could have three different addressees or purposes. First, in the case of the vegetable garden here, the crop was intended for the pupils themselves who cooked it and ate it for lunch – with the idea that by doing so they were not spoiling the national food supply. Secondly, the pupils could indeed directly support the home front: by helping farmers for example. Finally, a significant number of these activities were aimed at the soldiers at the front, especially in English and French girl secondary schools. A gender distinction can be observed: the girls for example knitted socks and scarves, made bandages or made jams for the soldiers, as it can be seen in the photographs of Manchester High School for Girls’ school magazine of December 1914.
In any case, in these three categories, pupils participated fully in the war effort and were completely immersed in the war culture.
Finally, with regard to your last question, I think I would speak more about “war culture” than about propaganda. I think they lived such an unprecedented experience that a return to the pre-war period would have seemed impossible. In that particular period, pupil-adult relationships and authority were so changed by the war experience that it created the need for new school reforms.
I hope I have answered your questions. Thank you again!
Thank you for your great poster! It is a great idea to compare these two headmasters. What was their position and status in their professional communities? Were they seen as typical, exeptional, exemplary, problematic, innovative or something else by their professional communities?
Pirjo Markkola
10.3.2021 12:37
Dear Pirjo Markkola, thank you very much for your comment and question! It is very interesting.
Louis Haudié, the French headmaster, had a career of excellence that was typical of secondary school teachers and headmasters in the Third Republic. Son of a schoolteacher, pupil at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) and then Agrégé of Litterature. His inspection reports before the war when he was a teacher were excellent: he was brilliant. However, after the war, when he was headmaster, he was increasingly criticised as being tyrannical, not listening to teachers, especially by the ex-soldier teachers. These increasing conflicts eventually led to his retirement earlier than expected.
William Price, the English headmaster, was spotted and carried by his school headmaster who guided him towards education. He was a francophile and then, embodied his school. He was an exceptional headmaster, maintaining links with the teachers of Elliott Central School long after his retirement and throughout the Second World War. He was also a socialist and he fought to ensure that pupils from his central school could have successful careers, even though it was not a public school.
I hope I have answered, thank you very much again!
Emma Papadacci
10.3.2021 16:15
Dear Emma,
thank you for your answer. Yes, you did give a clear answer and showed how interesting your two headmasters are within their professional communities.
Pirjo Markkola
11.3.2021 09:54