The Lady's World - "Our Children's Work for the Navy" c.1916
The Lady's World - "Our Children's Work for the Navy"
New Self-denial in the School and Homes
by W.G. Fitzgerald
IT is hard for the most hopeful thinker to extract much good from the dreadful slaughter of nations
which we call the World-War. At the same time, the lessons impressed upon our children are not wholly
sombre, nor without benefit to the rising generation. Thrift as regards money, economy in the kitchen,
self-denial in the matter of comforts and luxuries, and the joy of giving and doing good - these are
excellent results of the great social upheaval of to-day.
Every teacher and every mother knows that our young folks do think and speak of the war; they even
write about it in school exercises, often in the queerest terms. "Don't give things to the cat, but
eat them yourself," is a doubtful, if well-meant piece of domestic economy; "If you make a mistake
in the home lessons," an heroic little fellow advised, "tell your mother not to let you have any jam,
and put the money saved into the War Loan." "Stop climbing lamp-posts, and so save your clothes."
"Don't wear out your boots by striking sparks from the kerb." These are sound enough maxims; though
I cannot say the same for the tiny girl who sighed to her teacher:
"I wish I was an angel, so's as I could drop bombs on the Germans."
Children are most anxious to do war work, and the desire has very properly been fostered at home and
at school. The Boy Scouts acted as fruit-pickers last season. Periscopes and surgical appliances were
made in some of the London Board Schools, and even the more "exclusive" public achools had war-work
of a suitably advanced kind. Thus at Uppingham, for example, the metal-shops turned out screwed bases
for howitzer shells. Jigs and limit-guages were supplied to the lads, and their instructor, Mr. A.
Hardie, is a graduate of Woolwich Arsenal. Repton, Clifton, Harrow, Haileybury, and Dulwich Schools
also have first-rate engineering shops for work of this kind.
As for the girls, 325 schools soon formed a patriotic Union under the patronage of Princess Mary, and
the guidance of the Association of Headmistresses. Schools were advised to work with the local
organisations, and to ascertain the needs of these before setting to work.
Sugar, cakes, and sweets, as well as school prizes, were given up, and their value made over to
the Red Cross or other relief funds.
And half holidays_were sacrificed too, so as to set free adults for war-work of importance.
Many schools worked for the local hospital, equipping it with bed-linen, swabs, bandages and other
necessaries. One school supplied the wounded with stamped envelopes, paper and pencil, and
there were good wishes from the sender written inside. The Manchester High School supplied
home-made jam. Mayoresses called upon the girIs for urgent work, secretarial and other.
Wither-pads were made for the horses at the front. Books and newspapers were collected, flowers sent
to the hospitals, and motors procured for connvalescent drives. And always there was the self-denjal
money-box in a conspicuous place in the school. Most interesting of all, however, is the work for our
wonderful Navy-that silent service to which we owe all our security.
Teacher would sit by a blackboard inscribed: "Duty to our sailors." And she received the girls' pennies
in order to buy wool for helmets, scarves, and mitts. It is well for our seamen to know that children's
schools " adopt " certain ships. The Headmaster of the Paragon School, a London County Council institution
in the New Kent Road, discovered there was a war-ship also named the Paragon, so it was forthwith "adopted."
Communications were begun between the children and the crew. The commander sent a picture of the "adopted"
vessel, and the sailors sent a shield of their own making. Presents as well as letters were soon exchanged,
and the children came to have a new and vivid idea of what the Navy really meant and that our island's
immunity from invasion and all its horrors was no accident, no miracle, at all, but the result of ceaseless
watch and ward in terrible winter seas-in roaring darkness, beset with awful peril, such as the midnight
naval raider, the floating mine, the underwater boats, as well as collision, wind and storms, and sudden
strokes of fate.
Of the jngenuity shown in earning money, for the gifts, I cannot speak at any length, for the subject is
endless. One little child will send a few pence; Alfred Butt, the seven-year-old son of a famous theatrical
manager, can collect as much as �120. The sale of a pet goat or a doll's "pram" these are matters for new
joy at this time. The school garden now grows fruit and fresh vegetables for the Fleet. Never was any
spot so grand, so precious to the school-child, as his (or her) "Navy Plot." Some of these were lent by
municipal councils, others were the gardens of empty houses. And the importance of the fruit and vegetable
offering is seen from the report of Sir Arthur May, the Medical Director-General of our Navy.
"It is," Sir Arthur asserts of the gift, "an important factor in the present most satisfactory low rate
of sickness in the ships of the Grand Fleet."
The children of St. John's Infant School, in Camberwell, saved up their farthings, and when a decent sum
was amassed they decided against cigarettes and voted for - peppermints for Jack at sea! In this case it
was a great success, as a certain photograph showed, which came back to the children from a patrol ship
in the North Sea.
In this was plainly seen the delight of the the playful sailors over this unlooked-for treat.
Some of the lads posed before the camera wearing the mint circles as eye-glasses, and smiling broadly
in order that the little ones might know how good it was to be remembered and catered for in this way.
It is well that the rising generation should be in touch with the Royal Navy, which is essentially a
Service that works in the dark. There are no daily bulletins from the Grand Fleet: Sir David Beatty
has no sensational battles to record. Only in a vague and general way do even the most intelligent
children realise that a mighty naval force protects our shores and homes, and wars with those invisible
underwater craft which threaten our food supplies and impose economy upon us all. School teachers are
now telling the young charges how the Navy literally carries the entire Grand Alliance "on its back"
men and guns, shells and horses, and stores of all sorts belonging to all the many nations at war with
the Central Powers. Take away our sea power and the Allies' cause collapses like a house of cards. Here
is a fact so huge that it is only too apt to be taken for granted, like the atmosphere or the moon.
So our children's interest in warships and sailors is a thoroughly wholesome sign. They knit and sew for
these splendid fellows who keep watch by night and day, and defy the German power on the sea, even to
assert or show itself.
I have before me all manner of letters from naval officers of all ranks to the boys and girls and teachers.
A girl at Barcombe, near Lewes, sent a fine knitted scarf to her chosen ship, and got an answer that
was amusing as well as appreciative.
"I could tell you more, my dear" the officer wrote, " but this letter has to pass a horrid old fellow
called the Censor!" And lo, as the child received it, the letter bore a note from that same ogre himself:
"The Censor is not so black as he's painted."
A much graver note was taken by Admiral Jellicoe, when commanding the Grand Fleet up in those northern mists.
The present First Sea Lord wrote as follows to the Schoolmistress, a professional journal much concerned
with these matters, on Trafalgar Day: " I do not like the limelight, and prefer that my name should never
appear in print. But it would, perhaps, be churlish to decline to send a message to the children who, to
my own knowledge, are showing so much patriotism and are, alas! in some cases, a lesson to their elders.
I will say to them, that I hope they will cherish throughout their lives the spirit of patriotism which
animates them now, and that they will place their country's good before their own, as their fathers and
brothers are doing now. For in this lies the strength of nations."
This article is transcribed from "The Lady's World - Fancy Work Book" c.1916
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This page created 27 December 2005
& updated/amended 13:05 26/02/2020