Every so often, one stumbles across some long-forgotten text that could have been written yesterday. It’s a reminder that often the answers to today’s problems lie in the past. I had one of those moments when I read Lord Baden-Powell’s Rovering to Success. Recently I had another such moment reading about Kurt Hahn’s Six Declines of Modern Youth. He wrote of a widespread decline of self-discipline, a dislocation from the world and a weakened tradition of craftsmanship. All this, and more, rings true. And, God knows, we need to find solutions.
Kurt Hahn is not exactly unknown: the German-born educator who later settled in Scotland was the late Duke of Edinburgh’s headmaster at Gordonstoun which Hahn founded together with Lawrence Holt. Hahn was always determined that his principles of education should be disseminated far and wide: ‘supposing we had developed a remedy of a particularly grave disease’ he explained, ‘We ought to feel uneasy in our conscience if we only administered it in our own institution; we ought to do all we can to make it available to the great mass of patients suffering’.
None of this stuff is rocket science. It is – dare I say it – good old-fashioned common sense
To do so, in 1941 Hahn and Holt established Outward Bound, the outdoor education programme that continues to thrive, today with branches across 34 countries. Hahn is also said to have inspired Prince Philip to set up The Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards (DofE). That scheme, which has now expanded to some 140 countries and has had well over six million participants in the UK alone – including your columnist – was rightly hailed upon The Duke’s death as probably his most important legacy.
But despite the success of the initiatives he founded and inspired, there has been remarkably little consideration given to the core philosophy that sat behind Hahn’s efforts. What was the ‘grave disease’ of which he spoke and which his educational system sought to remedy? He summarised the main elements in what he called the ‘six declines of modern youth’.
First, the decline of fitness. Like them all, it feels even more pressing now than in Hahn’s day. Its relevance to obesity is self-explanatory, but Hahn saw fitness as more than just about health. In the tradition of Plato, he saw it as inexplicably tied up with moral development: ‘build[ing] up physical fitness for the sake of the soul.’
Second, Hahn bemoaned the ‘decline in initiative due to the widespread disease of spectatoritis’ (no connection to this magazine). He explained: ‘You can take part as a spectator in great feats of human effort… as if you are part of the action you watch, the sensation is transitory and fraudulent yet ever again coveted with intensity’. Who can look at today’s widespread social media addiction and legions of armchair experts and not conclude such spectatoritis is more acute now than ever before? Hahn believed not in passively spectating but in actively participating – in practical experiences which he thought was key to building strength of character. Indeed, in his words ‘it is culpable neglect not to impel young people into experiences’. In a speech in 1960, Hahn told his audience that it is necessary for the youth to have experiences like expeditions which, to quote Joseph Conrad in Lord Jim, reveal ‘the inner worth of a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff’. That is the key insight that informs DofE and Outward Bound.
Hahn’s third decline was that of memory or recollection, which should be apparent to anyone who now fails to remember a telephone number beyond their own. But it is the final three declines that are perhaps the most interesting.
Hahn spoke of a decline of skill and thoroughness as a result of a weakened tradition of craftsmanship and a constant desire for quick results. In a 1936 address Hahn explained that in his schools:
All our boys learn a craft… They go to the boat-builder, to the smith, to the carpenter. They will go to the engineer and the sail-maker… your sterling artisans have a greater horror of half-finished work than the schoolmaster. Every one of our boys learns how to groom a horse; many of them learn gardening. In this way all sense the dignity of manual labour.
His discussion of craft feels important, not just because of its pedagogic impact, but given the decline of traditional crafts we see in Britain today. In the most recent report by the Heritage Crafts Association, gold beating and cricket ball making were among those declared newly extinct in the UK. Holding onto traditional craftsmanship is surely important. It also happens to be a long-held passion of our new King.
Fifth, Hahn spoke of a decline in self-discipline, a quality which he saw as the duty of the schoolmaster to instil in his students. ‘Freedom and discipline are not enemies, they are friends’. He described how boys ‘up to the age of thirteen [are] full of curiosity, courteous, animated by high and good spirits. Then they reach the awkward age’. Hahn saw it as his mission to steer the boys through these difficult, loutish years: ‘I belong to a secret society called the Anti-lout Society.’
That society explains Gordonstoun’s own coastguard station, fire brigade and mountain rescue team, which served their surrounding district and in which all the boys were expected to participate in. Indeed Hahn regarded this as amongst the most important parts of their entire education. He told of once being cross-examined by a stern, progressive educator who asked him: ‘‘Do your boys enjoy jumping, running and throwing?’ And I put the counter question to him: ‘Do you enjoy brushing your teeth, Sir?’ And he said, ‘I don’t enjoy it and don’t do it.’’. Hahn believed in brushing his teeth.
The final decline is that of compassion – for Hahn it was the most important of all. It is perhaps, on the face of it, a decline less in evidence in our contemporary society. Isn’t #BeKind all around us? But what Hahn was really getting at was the virtue of the Good Samaritan: ‘The experience of helping a fellow man in danger, or even of training in a realistic manner to be ready to give this help, tends to change the balance of power in a youth’s inner life, with the result that compassion can become the master motive.’ It was also the decline of community life, replaced by what he saw as a narcissistic egoism, that Hahn wanted to counter. Understood in this way, it is strikingly relevant today.
There is much more in Hahn’s writings to ponder. He makes an articulate defence of a friendly internationalism that need not come at the expense of national pride: ‘Patriotism does not become diluted; on the contrary, it grows up stronger and nobler by including the love of humanity’. He also clearly had a deep understanding of how to communicate his philosophy to his students, how to harness the instincts of young boys to turn them towards good: ‘You can preach at them, that is a hook without a worm; you can say “You must volunteer,” that is of the devil; and you can tell them, “You are needed.” That appeal hardly ever fails’.
None of this stuff is rocket science. It is – dare I say it – good old-fashioned common sense. It has much in common with the principles of Scouting. Indeed Hahn tells of how, having diagnosed these six social diseases to which the modern young were exposed, he wrote in 1936 an open letter to the Times setting out proposed antidotes. He received only one letter of encouragement – it came from Lord Baden-Powell.
Their system was ‘stolen from everywhere, from the Boy Scouts, the British public schools, from Plato, from Goethe’
As Prince Maximilian of Baden – Hahn’s co-founder of the first institution set up according to these principles, the Salem school in Germany – happily admitted, their system was ‘stolen from everywhere, from the Boy Scouts, the British public schools, from Plato, from Goethe.’ When giving a tour around his schools for an American visitor who probed whether he ought not to aim for originality, Maximilian answered, ‘In medicine, as in education, you must harvest the wisdom of a thousand years. If you ever come across a surgeon who wants to take out your appendix in the most original manner possible, I strongly advise you to go to another surgeon.’
Perhaps we might take a similar view. Doing all we can to champion the likes of Outward Bound and DofE might seem a rather unoriginal conclusion to tackling youth problems today. But it doesn’t make it the wrong one. Of course participating in one of these programmes, no matter how formative, can’t on its own be the whole answer. Hahn was acutely aware of what he called the ‘follow-up problem’: if, from the muddy field, it’s straight back to scrolling Instagram much of the good from these initiatives may ‘evaporate, leaving no trace on future conduct’. But it feels to me these programmes can be an essential part of the solution. As we reach the second anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh’s death, and next year the 50th anniversary of Hahn’s death, it feels the best possible way to honour both of their legacies.
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