Communist Schools in England
Almedingen, E. M.
May ig, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 3 COMMUNIST SCHOOLS IN...
...Their pupils are given ten maxims to learn...
...spelling is apt to be uncertain, her grammar loose, her How did such a writer feel an interest in a saint composition remote from the formal French canons, whose pretty nicknames, the Little Flower, the Little but her soul is in every page...
...This interview is interesting for the light We are taught about King Alfred who burnt the cakesthrown by it on the relationship between the socialistic and Queen Elizabeth with her love for dresses, whereas Sunday schools and those of the Communist party...
...socialistic Sunday school movement is now proved to A. God is that power which man in his ignorance has be affiliated with other centres of education-where called supernatural...
...The socialistic Sunday schools teach love of everybody, promotion of universal brotherT HE present-day Communist schools in England hood, upbuilding of endless peace, etc...
...Lucie Delarue was unbeliever abounding in France, an "unreligious Catho- born, and still lives several months a year, in Nor...
...finally, Sainte Therese de contact with the warped popular presentment of Lisieux (Paris: Fasquelle) by Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Catholicism, and, like Valentine or Marcion, she has to which alone I wish to draw the reader's attention...
...Her hagiography as it appeals to lovers of the sublime...
...of Youth-had the following statement in its number of September, 1922: "By an agreement with the This is written by a boy aged eleven...
...He originated them in As late as 1923 the socialistic Sunday school authori- Glasgow about seven years ago...
...etc.] and to teach them to organize this resentment Bulletin, the organ of the Young Communist for the class struggle...
...existing proletarian schools...
...But the socialistic Sunday schools have not The prime object of those first socialistic Sunday alienated themselves from the proletarian school schools was to turn their pupils into "intelligent and movement...
...ideals are greater than Christ-or greater even than Proletarian school-teachers are quite frank about God...
...If we believe what they tell us in day school about Russia, we would think that the RusSunday schools in England is of tremendous impor- sians are very wicked, but we comrades know that Russia tance to the development of anti-religious propaganda is now the finest country in the world, having overthrown among the British masses...
...figures are, doubtless, much larger today...
...No list of these ties were asked to define their views on religion...
...These socialist...
...Their official organ, the Red of the questions put ran thus : "Do you believe and Dawn, was merged into Proletcult (affiliated with the acknowledge God as the Author and Being of the Soviet publication of the like name) in 192o, but four universe...
...Again, Thomas Anderson-who of Socialism...
...concluded there must be another God...
...thus grow "in intellectual and spiritual development...
...The teaching take their real beginning in the movement started of proletarian schools is distinguished by vehement by Thomas Anderson in Glasgow somewhere anti-religiousness, and incitement to class hatred...
...May ig, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 3 COMMUNIST SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND By E. M. ALMEDINGEN (Timeliness is given this article on a very curious move- arrogant principle of the movement "being even ment among young people of the working class in England, greater than God" can find no room-for the simple by the recent news despatch to the New York World, de- reason that these other schools make a point of denyscribing the "first annual conference of the Young Comrades' ing God's existence at every point...
...A little girl socialistic Sunday school organization, the Young Com- of ten writes that "we must be given to understand munist League will not form any new schools where how to learn to fight together to get our aim...
...The The number of such socialistic schools rapidly in- word `Socialism' does not mean much today...
...Mardrus, nate tendency was and still remains religious, her book the famous translator of the Arabian Nights, is a leaves no doubt, and some pages of it show this in poet and novelist whose forceful facility, indifference a touching manner, while her assimilation of saintto mere effect, and preference for the higher strata liness to genius marks her off from the herd of everyof her subjects have long made famous, half-way be- day scoffers: Lucie Delarue is certainly fitted to write tween Colette and the Comtesse de Noailles...
...They affirmed that their teaching was was primarily instrumental in the founding of the absolutely non-theological and non-political, and their socialistic Sunday schools-is also at the head of the attitude to all parties in general was quite unbiased...
...Letters from "enlightened" communsiderable space to reports on the various activities of ist boys and girls sufficiently show the trend of the these schools in England...
...viously, when Mary Gray-a pioneer of Socialism- Among these we read-"Thou shalt not be a patriot founded the very first socialistic Sunday school in a for a patriot is an international blackleg...
...They simply wanted "to bring about a uni- their attitude toward morals and religion-"We must versal brotherhood...
...And the former has schools already in existence, but the their teachers say: "It is our task to make them [the Young Communist Comrades will go there to work"- children] realize and resent these things [capitalism, which they have been doing since...
...their hymn-books, when examined, reveal earnest Socialists," and the History of Mankind was a good deal of similarity to the hymnals used by the taken as the basis to an "intelligent" understanding proletarian schools...
...Paris: Gras- village church, and even, as she puts it, "the gestures of set) also written from the orthodox standpoint, but the Mass," and no doubt has only contempt for antito which a constant striving after literary distinction clericalism, but her masculine intellect has come into gives a special character...
...At the very start of the new "education" enterprise a Soviet reporter secured an interview with A. MacManus, president of the Communist party in Comrades, what are we taught at the council schools...
...Carmel: one of her sisters is a nun-but, in time, more or less Lisieux) which bids fair to be the final word from the lost her faith and does not know how to regain it...
...there creased, and the 1921 statistics show us that there ex- are so many grades of thought calling themselves isted then no less than 153 schools in the United King- socialist that one actually feels ashamed to be labeled dom-with 10,000 children attending them...
...A NOVELIST AND A SAINT By ERNEST DIMNET T HREE volumes have recently been published in lic," as she herself says, more regretfully than deFrance on the increasingly fascinating subject of fiantly, that is to say, a person who was born a Cathothe young saint of Lisieux : one by Monsignor lic, was probably educated in Catholic surroundingsLaveille (Sainte Therese de l'Enfant Jesus...
...Its Parents...
...growth are watched with a great interest by the lead- In England, it is true, the movement is going on ers...
...Rose, the Little Queen, dear to popular piety, are, Madame Delarue-Mardrus is the curious sort of however, irritating to outsiders...
...Your duty . . . is to wage class war against all Their program was couched in absolutely clear . . . bourgeois wars...
...methods of attacking religion, both are out "to smash Three years after the opening of proletarian schools Christianity-which is a useless legacy of a useless (in 1921) another movement was begun...
...At the first glance there are innumermental in organizing strikes of children...
...But the Q. What do you mean by God...
...They answered that they did not claim years later the paper was suspended-due to the apto be for or against any theological doctrine...
...London suburb...
...The Soviet on a far lesser scale than in Russia, but the nuclei are anti-religious paper, Atheist, has of late devoted con- there already...
...another by M. Gaetan Berno- She is an artist who loves the cathedral and even the ville (Sainte Therese de l'Enfant Jesus...
...One schools is yet available...
...The pearance of an obscene pamphlet, Sex Knowledge for socialistic movement is greater than any religion...
...able differences...
...Both make use of these ciples remain just the same...
...Such are the strictly proletarian schools...
...38 THE COMMONWEAL May 19, 1926 There is no direct evidence whether this catechism League, and the Moscow Atheist are absolutely idenis in actual use today-but the proletarian school prin- tical in tone and treatment...
...So-called age"-or, as they say elsewhere, "a shameful remnant communist schools were founded-whose progress and of bygone slavery...
...MacManus said that "the growth of socialistic ers' history...
...In fact, they profess to have none-as teachings may have its demerits-but it certainly has will be seen from their catechism no particularly offensive elements in it...
...of the Soviet education in Moscow...
...not make people believe that their religion and ours is This attitude of indifference to recognized religious the same...
...The so-called socialistic education as- mention of any fraternal love is to be found in their sumed a more or less definite shape a few years pre- text-books...
...The Editors...
...ages ranged from nine to fifteen, and claiming to represent a membership of 2,000,000, spoke from the platform, endorsing It is essential at the start to give a clear definition the entire Communist program of class warfare, and boasting of their similarity to and links with the socialistic Sunthat "members of our school groups have been . . . instru- day schools...
...To sum up-"Thou shalt terms : they were simply out to give "the workers suf- hate the existing order of things-God, state, religion ficient weapons" in order to enable them "to emanci- -all are inventions of the hated bourgeoisie, all are pate themselves from the bonds of capitalism," and to be hated...
...purely Catholic side...
...No about 1896...
...That her inMadame Lucie Delarue, the wife of Dr...
...the theory of promoting "a universal brotherhood" Q. Was not Jesus the son of God ? seems not to be acknowledged at all-and where the A. There is no God-he could not be his son...
...League of the Communist party of Great Britain," just held These are the so-called proletarian and the comat Openshaw, Manchester, in which child delegates whose munist schools in England...
...the capitalist system, and put in its place a workers' Soviet Again, the British Communist organ-International republic...
...at the communist children's section we are taught workMr...
...England...
Vol. 4 • May 1926 • No. 2
