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I can't think of a better way to end this book than to include a grateful word of appreciation, unworthy though my words may be, to a truly great Educator. His understanding and criticism stimulated me, and his life and thoughts inspired me for the twenty years we worked together. Even this brief chapter about a man who devotedly served his country through education might be enough to inspire our readers, although I hope to do him justice by having a longer book written about him with which to assess his outstanding life.
The Parents' Union suffered a loss that can't be measured when Thomas Godolphin Rooper died on May 20, 1903. From the time the concept of the PNEU was kindled, he was on board with us. He was a member of the very first committee we had. That committee began in 1887 and had many meetings in Bradford, where he had a job as Inspector of Schools. At the meetings, members would discuss ways and methods of starting this kind of a group. He went straight to the principles of the PNEU, and embraced them warmly and insightfully.
His ability to fully realize the result of a high-quality, well-cultivated
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mind that had read widely and knew about many different issues, made him able to weigh possibilities and performance of the PNEU delicately and fairly. For example, he thought that 'the Parents' Union is the most important group to start discussion' about educational issues. And I think he felt that schools would become living and useful only to the extent that parents got involved and took an active part in educational opinion and plans. That special quality that enabled Mr. Rooper to be fair and just in his appreciation, and to be steadfast in his hope regarding the PNEU and other educational efforts is what made him a sharp observer and effective critic. Everyone who worked with him felt confident that, if there was a problem, he would notice it and help to correct it.
The Board of Education, other members of the Inspector Team, teachers in his district, and many other assorted educational groups have deeply felt the value of his encouragement and unbiased criticism. But the PNEU seems to have added a new dimension to his rich mind and generous personality. It might be said that he possessed the unique ability of minimizing his own ego, except that he didn't seem to have any ego to diminish. During his last sad days, he would tell the nurses when they sympathized with his fatigue, 'It's all in a day's work.' That saying was a key to his life. He didn't seem to feel that it was necessary to express his own self or advance himself. The work itself and him being there to do it seemed to be all that was on his mind. That's where I think the PNEU can be glad
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that they were able to draw some graceful, scholarly wisdom from his cultivated mind. He probably never would have written just for the purpose of expressing himself his own thoughts, but from time to time, we've been able to get written lectures from him--enough to fill almost two books of essays (School and Home Life, and Educational Studies and Addresses). They are filled with wisdom, charmingly written, and full of profoundly philosophic teaching. The secretary of one of the Branch PNEU offices would invite him to speak, and he always considered that an honor. The lectures he would write for these occasions would deal with some relevant issue of the day, and at the same time would display his treasures of wisdom, scholarship and wide reading. Some readers will remember his essay 'Reverence, or the Ideal in Education.' We find phrases like these in it: 'Without great thoughts there can be no great deeds;' and 'The true spirit of patriotism is having enough appreciation for one's country that a person feels humble, modest, and ready to sacrifice himself as an insignificant part for the good of the whole community.' The excellent quality of his thoughts was a result of his life being so noble. Near the end of his life, he smiled and said, 'I feel like a soldier who has given his life for his country.' Interestingly enough, he's not the only one who noticed the comparison. Someone else said, 'He died as a martyr to the cause of education.'
One of his very delightful essays is called 'Lyonesse: Education at Home versus Education at a Public School.' 'Lyonnesse' is the name he coined for the romantic land of public/boarding school, separated from the turmoils of this troublesome world, but not
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forgotten. He chose 'Lyonnesse' because his own school, Harrow, was founded by a man named Mr. Lyon. There's probably never been anything more charming written about this subject; he reveals the reverence and loyalties that a person feels for his school, things that stay with a person for the rest of his life. It makes one wonder if a person as modest, cultured and capable as Mr. Rooper could have been produced anywhere but a great English boarding school, or one of our traditional old universities. Rooper was loyal to Balliol College in Oxford, and a devoted disciple of its headmaster, Benjamin Jowett. His loyalty to Jowett was unbounded, and he partly owed his insight regarding life's true issues to Jowett. He also picked up Balliol's distinctive way of leaving a question open--of stating both sides and every side of an issue. I think he hated dogmatism and declamation. His quiet, tentative way of offering ideas and suggestions could be misleading to anyone who wasn't used to his piercing wit and philosophic shrewdness.
A knowledgeable person reading his essays might see in them the springs of thought and purpose that moved his life. Was Lord Collingwood his hero? The essay on Collingwood's 'Theory and Practice of Education' seems to have a deep understanding of a life that helped make Rooper who he was. When he wrote about the three great admirals--Sir John Jervis, Horatio Nelson, and Cuthbert Collingwood--he said, 'It's hardly even possible to mention these three men without our words and thoughts rising to a level above common, ordinary conversation.' This sentence provides a key to the struggling passion that brought about his untimely death. But then, Collingwood was also an educationalist. Rooper wrote:
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'It was Collingwood's character, superior education, and study of education with its related study of occupation in daily life, that made it possible for him to accomplish such an unparalleled feat' (of keeping 800 men healthy and content on a ship at sea for 22 months).
In fact, what Rooper says about Collingwood is practically word for word what many people would say about Rooper, so I can't resist quoting further: 'It wasn't just his ceaseless military (or, educational, in Rooper's case) tasks that wore him out. Collingwood answered an immense number of letters, and his judgment was so highly respected that people came to him from all over to ask about all different subjects. He was by nature and education a man of cultivated, refined tastes, and simplicity of character. He combined both intellectual ability and friendly approachability. Those two gifts are rarely found in one person. At home, he liked to read, especially history, and he liked to compose well-written abridgements from them as he read. He liked to draw and cultivate his garden at Morpeth. He once wrote, 'My wits are always at work finding ways to keep my sailors busy, both to keep them healthy and to keep them out of trouble. Lately we've been making musical instruments, and now we have a very good band. Every moonlit night, the sailors dance. They seem as happy and festive as if we were in Wapping itself.'
'Lord Collingwood seemed like a saint, but he was human, too. He wasn't a Puritan. The right kind of activity was the crux of his educational system, and it seems to be the safest and most practical thing to do for anyone involved in education.'
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In this essay about Collingwood, we find several keys to Rooper's own life. He also read widely, especially history, he loved his garden, and he shared the concern of trying to keep others busy in daily life. He was a devoted supporter of The National Handwork Union and their magazine, 'Hand and Eye.' He loved creating a perfect wooden spoon on his Sloyd bench, and wanted to learn leather-work by watching House of Education students. Everyone knows about his enthusiastic work with school gardens and his report on Continental school gardens.
We get another glimpse of Rooper's friendly wisdom and multifaceted character in his charming essays, 'Gaiety in Education,' and 'Don Quixote.' In his praise of chivalry, even when it's reckless chivalry, we see a little more into the moving springs of his life.
I need to mention one more essay that he submitted just a few weeks before he died, about 'Robinson Crusoe in Education.' I've never known of anyone else to see another 'Pilgrim's Progress' in Crusoe's delightful adventures. Rooper writes, 'But the island hermit isn't alone in the spirit. He had thoughts that, now that they were undistracted by the slow staining of the world, led him to a more elevated frame of mind than he could ever have found in society.
'Knowledge and truth and virtue were his theme. The thoughts he treasured most were lofty hopes of Divine liberty.
'Robinson Crusoe saves a Bible from the shipwreck, and his sad life alone on the island leads him to appreciate it. In the same way that Crusoe is cut off from social and political life, he's also free from denominational controversy. As Crusoe struggles
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with Nature and subdues her bit by bit, his spirit wins its way to religion with no human aid, only the Bible. If you overlook this passage, you can't understand the gist of Robinson Crusoe.' This gives us a glimpse into an area of thought that Rooper usually kept jealously guarded. He hated hypocrisy--educational, social, or religious. But those who knew him best and spent a lot of time with him considered him, like Collingwood, 'a saint.'
Audiences loved his lectures, but I think he enjoyed giving them as much as they enjoyed hearing them. On his annual visits to the College at Ambleside, Rooper always had gleeful reminiscences of Parents' Union meetings in different places that he had spoken at. He was incapable of pettiness or harsh criticism. Whether his audiences were small and slow, or large and intellectual, he was always delighted that such an audience would gather to discuss education. In fact, the Parents' Union itself was always a fresh wonder to him, an extraordinary realization of the ideal concept. Maybe the same sense of joy, almost self-joy, was shown when he brought news of graduated students that he'd found working in various places. In their work, he also seemed to be surprised at seeing the ideal realized. Dante wrote, 'Hope is the distinguishing mark of all the souls that God has made friends with.' Without always putting it into words, Rooper projected hope, confidence, aspiration and humility to the young teachers he'd come to assess.
Rooper was not at all lavish with praise, and he
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was almost severe in criticism. Yet student teachers felt like he was pleased with their enthusiastic spirit and satisfied with their work, even when he didn't say so. He was remarkably thorough--he'd start working at 8:30 and not take a break until 1pm, listening to each of the teachers lecturing, and the second year students giving lessons that had been chosen from three sets of notes. What both the teachers and students loved was his keen questioning and the personal interest he had in every subject they taught. He had a way of leaving people more in love with knowledge than they were before. One time, insect galls would excite his curiosity and interest, then weaving, then local geography. He'd be enthralled by a passage in a French or German book, then Italian, and then math. He always had a pleasing way of making the teacher feel like the subject she was teaching was extremely interesting in and of itself, whether it was baking rolls or working on math equations. All of us noticed some instance where his thoroughness was worth recording.
The lesson notes that students gave him to choose from have always covered a broad range of topics in languages, handicrafts, art, science, and lots of other things, but it occurred to him that he'd never heard any of them giving piano lessons, so piano lessons were squeezed into their already busy schedule. In the afternoon, he would examine the different student handicraft projects with interest and knowledge. There were drills [calisthenics] to be observed and books to be looked at. In the evening, the students would usually entertain him with some kind of impromptu acting, or sometimes a charade where they'd poke kindhearted fun at him, their Inspector. It was good to see this kind of fun on his visits.
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He knew lots of people and knew what was going on everywhere he went, so he was able to have a lot of conversations with the students about things they knew about. He loved having contact with some ladies from another culture who were preparing for the same passion he had--education. He liked their enthusiasm and their simple manners. The students respected and liked Inspector Rooper. They could see that he knew his stuff, and that he cared. A couple of times, in his zeal for education, he came here to give lessons to students about topics that he knew would help them, even though the trip was very inconvenient for him. On one of these visits, a student teacher was giving a very dull history lesson. So Mr. Rooper gave the same lesson, using various associations, illustrations, and living interests that most of us had never heard before. The lesson wasn't a good model for students to copy, because not many people in the whole country could have shared such a storehouse of information!
He used to entertain everyone at the dinner table by solemnly referring to the time 'when I was a governess.' As a matter of fact, after he graduated from college, he had taken care of the children of his friends Dr. and Mrs. Miller when he was between jobs. Apparently he enjoyed it, and that experience along with the five years he spent tutoring the student who became the Duke of Bedford made him especially interested in the education of children who stayed home [as opposed to going to boarding school], and that led to his interest in the House of Education.
It's difficult to talk about Mr. Rooper's fun and stimulating conversation, and his good-natured interest in everything. When he died, we lost a great man,
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and just when his achievements, talents and knowledge would have been especially valuable to his country. One of his many friends wrote, 'For me personally, the loss can't be replaced.' Those words are shared by many other people. Many knew how he was as devoted as a brother. But to everyone who is mourning him, he has left the legacy of his life, as well as three quotes that he said when he was near death: 'hope,' and then, after a long pause, 'press forward,' and later, 'help from God.' Even when he didn't speak those words consciously to those of us who were like his sisters, those words are the message of his life. The death of martyrs has always been the seed that the church has grown from. Let us all 'hope,' 'press forward,' and look for 'help from God.'
I can't think of a better way to close this inadequate remembrance of a great and good man than by including some quotes from Mr. Rooper's essay The Grammarian's Funeral that includes the motto, 'Great men mean what they say'--
So, let's--
[This article was first published in the Parents' Review shortly after Mr. Rooper died. The more personal references were from letters that Miss Rooper and Miss Agnes Rooper wrote and allowed me to quote.]