The "P.R." Letter Bag.
Volume 7, 1896, pg. 688-692
(The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of Correspondents.)
ENGLAND'S OBLIGATIONS TO ARMENIA.
[This letter refers to the Hamidian Massacres, or Armenian Massacres of 1894-1896. Mussulmans is an archaic term for Muslims.]
DEAR EDITOR,--One would have imagined that at this time of day there would have been little need to have insisted that we had as a nation such distinct obligations to go to the rescue of the last remnant of a nation, that we could not as honourable Englishmen resist the appeal that Armenia makes to us. But one so consistently hears the contrary asserted that one dares to ask your readers to consider the following facts.
It was England who in 1853 prevented the Armenian Christians from obtaining the reforms they were demanding at the hands of the Turk; and rather than allow Russia to step in and obtain single-handed such a treaty with the Porte as would have ensured the redress of their wrongs, it was England who entered light-heartedly upon the Crimean War. Prince Menschikoff, speaking for Russia, said: "We demand from the Porte convention which shall enable us to ensure the redress of Christian grievances, and, if they are not redressed, to resort to force." And how did England answer Prince Menschikoff? Let the fifty-six thousand men whose bones are mouldering in the Crimea and the bones of the thousands upon thousands of Armenians who have cruelly perished since be witnesses . . .
What were the terms of the Berlin Treaty? The now famous 61st Article of it ran as follows:--"The Sublime Porte undertakes to carry out, without further delay, the amelioration and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians and to guarantee their security against the Circassians and Kurds. It will periodically make known the steps taken to this effect to the Powers, who will superintend their application." It is quite obvious that England was only co-signatory to that treaty, but England was the Great Power who was responsible for the abrogation of the Treaty of San Stefano, and for the substitution of this Treaty of Berlin. So England, more that other Powers, had responsibilities laid upon her by it. How has she carried out her obligations? Has she superintended the application of any of the ameliorations and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by Armenians? It will not do to make the excuse that she has not failed in her duty more than the other Powers with whom she was co-signatory.
The obligations remain, though the Armenians perish . . .
But in addition to these obligations that rest upon England jointly with the powers to oblige the Sultan to carry out reforms and to fulfill his solemn contracts, it is clear that by the secret treaty she contracted with the Porte in 1878, known as the Cyprus Convention, England has specifically entered into agreements with Turkey which bind her in all honour to see that the Armenians obtain from the Sultan redress and reform. This is the wording part of the first article of that questionable Cyprus Convention:--"H. I. M. the Sultan promises to England to introduce necessary reforms, to be agreed upon later between the two Powers, into the government and for the protection of the Christian and other subjects of the Porte in these territories (Armenia); and in order to enable England to make necessary provision for executing her engagements, H. I. M. the Sultan further consents to assign the island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by England.". . .
But there is, above all these considerations, a weightier one to urge her to rise to the occasion and honour her obligations. The moral obligation upon all who love purity, freedom, justice, and right, upon all who are against cruelty and oppression, upon all who believe in the future of Christianity, upon all who care for the sacred cause of humanity lies specially upon the signatories to the Treaty of Berlin and on the signatory to the Cyprus Convention, for the following reason. It is a matter of common knowledge that the prescriptions of the Sheri law, by which the actions of the mass of Mussulman population is guided, lay it down that "if any Christians attempt, by having recourse to foreign Powers, to overstep the limits of privileges allowed to them by their Mussulman masters and to free themselves from their bondage, their lives and their properties are to be forfeited, and are at the mercy of the Mussulmans." Now, it was distinctly in consequence of the promises of a better time conveyed to the persecuted Armenians by the terms of the Berlin and Cyprus Treaties that Armenia lifted up her voice for reform, and Armenia all through these years has appealed in her impotence to the foreign Powers. To the Turkish mind the Armenians have tried "to overstep the limits of privileges allowed to them by their Musselman masters and to free themselves from their bondage, their lives and their properties are to be forfeited, and are at the mercy of the Musselmans." Now it was distinctly in consequence of the promises of a better time conveyed to the persecuted Armenians by the terms of the Berlin and Cyprus Treaties that Armenia lifted up her voice for reform, and Armenia all through these years has appealed in her impotence to the foreign Powers. To the Turkish mind the Armenians have tried "to overstep the limits of privileges allowed them by their Mussulman masters" by appealing to the foreign Powers. They have therefore considered it their religious duty and a just and righteous thing to destroy the lives and to seize the property of their Armenian subjects. How can we, in face of such facts, disown our obligations to the people whose destruction we seem by the very terms of our treaties to have compassed?
Many of us are lovers of our country. But as we think on these things we are tempted to say of her--
"I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more."
We are lovers of an England with fine feeling for international
integrity, of an England that honours her obligations that holds by her
word, that keeps her treaties, and so far as in her lies will oblige
those in treaty with her to keep their part of the bargain. This is the
England of honour we would live for--the England worthy, if need be,
dying for. But this new international morality we disavow. We will not
be frightened by bogeys or nightmares into accepting it.
--Yours, &c.,
H.D. RAWNSLEY
[We are sorry to have been obliged to lessen the force of Canon Rawnsley's argument by omitting parts of his letter, because we had not space for the whole.--Ed.]
[Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, 1851-1920, was an Anglican priest from the Lake District, friend of John Ruskin and Beatrix Potter. "In 1896 he went to Russia as a newspaper correspondent to cover the coronation of Nicholas II." (Wikipedia) Perhaps that's when he was exposed to the genocide in Armenia. The Parents' Review printed additional writings on Armenia by him.]
___________________________
DEAR EDITOR,--My governess and I have been discussing the Parents'
Review School--whether to put our three boys into it or not. We are
anxious, of course, that they should take good places in the public
schools when the time comes for them to enter, and I should like to
have the opinion of mothers who have sent boys trained under your
system to preparatory schools, &c. Could a girl or boy, after being
taught in the Parents' Review School for some years, go in easily for
the Oxford examinations? I am sure it would interest not only myself
but many of your readers to have my questions answered in the "Letter
Bag." The expense might deter some mothers from joining, but this last
year I have spent more than the £3 3s in finding out the best books to
introduce into the schoolroom, and in answering advertisements and
joining classes here and there. Trusting that many replies will be sent
to you.
AN ANXIOUS MOTHER
____________________________
DEAR EDITOR,--The following letter from a lady living in the outskirts of one of our largest manufacturing towns may be of interest to your readers:--
"Our great pet just now is a tame butterfly, which we have christened 'Sweet-pea,' owing to his partiality for that flower. A month or more ago we caught a caterpillar, which changed after a time into a chrysalis, and in eight or nine days to a butterfly. He is now eleven days old. I keep him in a glass jar covered with muslin on my window-sill, and fill it twice a day with fresh flowers. He likes sweet-peas and clover best, as far as I can find. Sometimes I take him out and let him fly in the room. He will stand willingly on my finger, and go to the children. We feed him with milk; he will also sometimes take a little sugar and water, or gooseberry juice. He stands on my finger, and I hold a spoon with milk for him to drink out of. Eric calls it 'proboscising,' a word of his own coining. When I take him on my finger and gently stroke his curled-up proboscis with the edge of the spoon, he wakes up and uncoils it quickly and drinks away, beating with his proboscis if it is not just to his mind. He will stand while I stroke his back gently with a piece of grass, and seem pleased. He washes his face and legs after drinking like a fly. He takes so long over his meals that I cannot always hold him all the time, so then I set him down on the table with the spoon by him, and he stands on the edge of it and drinks. He spends about three-quarters of an hour over his breakfast, and takes his afternoon tea in the same way."
In a further letter she says that her little boy Eric, aged five, deserves all the credit of it:--
"Ever since we caught it, about five weeks ago, Eric has run down the garden two or three times a day to look at it and 'exercise' it, by making the caterpillar walk on the grass, giving it an extra 'holiday' on Sunday. He has cleaned out the box regularly, and gathered twice a day flowers and leaves, carefully choosing what he thought it would like, studying it, and talking it over. Since it became a butterfly, and has been promoted to my window-sill and a glass bottle, he has taken untiring pains, letting it out to fly in the room, cleaning and polishing the glass, arranging the muslin to suit it, and placing it where the sun shone, going twice a day to the end of the kitchen-garden to gather a bunch [of] sweet-peas of various colours. When out for walks the boys (Eric and Basil, aged three and a half) gather clover and other wild flowers, and carry them carefully home for 'little Sweet-pea,' talking over its likes and dislikes, watching it feed, and letting it stand on their hands and frocks."
P.
____________________________
DEAR EDITOR,--I should be glad if any of your readers could recommend a good book on Mythology, suitable for girls of twelve. I know Keightley's small volume [The Fairy Mythology], but should be glad to hear if any later work has recently been published equally concise and not expensive.
While visiting a country Board School this summer, I made a note of
some maps in use which seem desirable for beginners in geography to
handle and copy in the place of a bound atlas. They are called Bacon's
Excelsior Memory Maps, and can be had from
G. Bacon & Co.,
127, Strand, at a halfpenny each.
24, Argyll Road, Kensington.
J. B. S. Thompson
____________________________
DEAR EDITOR,--In an article on The Religious Teaching of Children, by the Rev. Wotherspoon, in the September issue of the Parents' Review, he makes somewhat unfair remark when he says, p. 456,--"One should also be careful to avoid teaching a child to be an Unitarian first in order that it may be a Christian later." This seems to imply that Unitarians are not Christians. Possibly we are not from his acceptance of the term "Christian," but I am sure nowhere could more earnest and faithful followers of the Spirit of Christ be found, and to use the good man "who was tempted like as we" stands for a higher, nobler example than any supernatural interpretation of Jesus can ever do. On most other points I felt in great sympathy with the writer. It grieves one to think how little parents value the privilege of themselves imparting religious teaching to their children.
I cannot close this note without telling you how I enjoy the Review and what a source of pleasure it is to me, and congratulation you on the well-earned success which attends all your efforts for the good of our children. May I add how much I admire and respect the spirit of true freedom of thought which pervades your acts and works.
Yours gratefully, C. Schultz.
____________________________
DEAR EDITOR,--Premising that what is described as "Children's Poetry" is roughly to be divided into two classes--subjective poetry and objective poetry--E. V. Lucas (Fortnightly Review for September) considers that the existing anthologies fail in being largely composed of the former, with which children have no sympathy. "Blake sang of childhood in the abstract, and to men and women whose hearts are right he is a fount of pure joy; but children care nothing for childhood in the abstract, and well for them that it is so." So, too, Wordsworth. "The child's anthology should amuse and delight from first page to last; it should, although not itself poetry, stand for poetry in the minds of its young readers, and convince them that poetry is a good thing and a pleasant, and thus, instead of being indifferent to it--or, worse, prejudiced against it--they would be prepared for the time when, like Aurora Leigh, they 'chanced' (as all of us should) upon the poets in reality. To a mind that is not ready for it, poetry presents few attractions, and these are diminished rather than augmented by the encomiastic statements of relatives and instructors . . . How many of us there are who have been kept from the right attitude towards certain poems for no other reason than that in our young days we were incessantly called upon to learn or admire them! If, however, we had been given a volume of verse of the kind we were ready to enjoy, which, as I have said, stood for poetry, in our minds, we should have known no such barriers."
"Should history be taught backwards?" is the question discussed by Sir Roland Wilson in the Contemporary for September. The article is valuable, especially the specimen lecture he gives, which could not fail in his hands to be most interesting and instructive to a class of advanced pupils who have already acquired some knowledge of history, but when one tries mentally to apply the same method to the teaching of one's one small schoolboy son, the difficulties seem insuperable and the gain problematical.
There are several articles in the October magazines that must be carefully studied by the educationalist, and I can only refer briefly to some of them. The first to attract attention will, doubtless, be the spirited attack on the "Public School Product" in the New Review, A. W. Ready, in which he says that the education given in our "public" schools (so called because they are open to the wealthier classes and not to the public, and teach chiefly athletics) is a pure farce, and the result ludicrously incommensurate with the cost. They succeed, as far as the vast majority of the boys is concerned, in neither of the two main objects of education; the formation of character and the instilling of useful knowledge, and his strictures are borne out by a passage in Augustus Hare's Reminiscences, where he describes his own education at school and at Oxford as nothing but "a waste of £4,000 and fourteen years."
In the Nineteenth Century Mr. Acland discusses the late Education Bill, and offers suggestions. The conclusion he arrives at is that the proposed decentralization of elementary education was a mistake, and that this should be left, as now, in the hands of the central authorities, but that secondary education might with advantage be controlled by local bodies and subsidized by them without assistance is that by Mr. W. K. Hill, in the Contemporary, on "Modern Ideals of Education." The object of all our school teaching is lofty and is universally acknowledged, but "it is just in that universality of acknowledgement that the mischief lies. It is such a common-place, this ideal, that no one ever thinks about it. And, therefore, it is that almost everyone has forgotten to aim at it." I cannot do justice to this article in a brief summary, and would advise all serious educationalists to study the complete article.
Pater Junior.
Proofread by LNL, Sep. 2020