League of Nations Union Junior Branches 1919-1939: Creating World Citizens in British Schools

Author(s):

Susannah Wright(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

17. Histories of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

17 SES 09 A, The Museum: a Place for Education (Part 1)

Paper Session to be continued in 17 SES 10 B

Time:

2015-09-10

11:00-12:30

Room:

427.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Branko Šuštar

Contribution

Between the First and the Second World Wars, the League of Nations Union, one of the League of Nations societies established in member states, sought to promote what contemporaries called League of Nations teaching in British schools. Such teaching aimed to influence both hearts and minds. In terms of knowledge it addressed the aims, machinery and activities of the League of Nations. It also aimed to cultivate an internationalist sensibility among pupils, engendering a “change of feeling and purpose”, and creating a “sense of world citizenship”.[i] How far the LNU was able to create this sense of world citizenship will be addressed in this paper. The transition intended here, as this quotation suggests, was at the level of the individual pupil. This in turn was intended to lead to a transition at a societal level: generating a strong basis of grass roots support for the League of Nations, and the cause of international understanding more generally, among the young, was thought necessary in order to secure the future effectiveness of the work of the League of Nations itself, and a future of international understanding and cooperation. League of Nations teaching was welcomed by many teachers.[ii] Others, however, thought it dangerous to use schools for political purposes in this way.[iii] League teaching could incorporate timetabled lessons, and also a range of extra-curricular activities, many of which were organised by junior branches within schools, which will be examined in this paper on the grounds that they have not received the consideration that they deserve in existing accounts of the LNU’s educational work,[iv] and also because contemporaries saw them as the educational approach most suited to creating world citizens.

The work of junior branches in British schools is situated at an intersection of different sites of internationalist activity in the interwar years which are receiving scholarly attention. A range of national and international networks and organisations, some connected with the League of Nations itself, linked teachers and other educators who sought to promote internationalism among the young.[v] At the same time, a number of youth movements at this time either emerged with, or cultivated alongside their older commitments, a distinctive internationalist ideology and repertoire of activities. Among the most relevant are the Junior Red Cross, the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry, and the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides.[vi] Thirdly, through what could be seen as the informal educational contexts of its publications, its pageants, and its meetings, the LNU as a whole influenced domestic political culture and public understanding:[vii] this dimension of activity is pertinent as many of the teachers connected to the junior branches were also involved in their local adult LNU branches.[viii]

I suggest that the LNU’s junior branches, sitting as they do between these sites of activity, offer a unique insight into the possibilities for, and barriers to, developing the internationalist sensibilities that the LNU wanted to see in its world citizens. They present an opportunity to try to ascertain what was happening in schools, and examine, as far as is possible, the meanings ascribed to activities, and key concepts of internationalism and world citizenship, by those involved. The records and publications of the LNU, the educational press of period, and a small sample of school magazines will therefore be drawn on to discuss the work of junior branches in detail, and to consider whether they were, in fact, able to create world citizens in British schools.

Method

This paper draws on the records and publications of the LNU (held in the British Library of Political and Economic Science), a small sample of school magazines, and, to a lesser extent, discussions of League of Nations teaching in the educational press, national press, and other relevant educational texts of the period. Minutes of the LNU Education Committee (1919-1939) and Junior Branches Sub-Committee (1932-1939), along with Education Committee pamphlets, teaching aids, and guidance for teachers are used for an overview of LNU policies and intentions relating to Junior Branches, while some documents refer to the views of teachers leading junior branches in schools. For detail on the programmes and practices of individual junior branches, and also for pupil perspectives, I examine in detail the reports of activities submitted by junior branches found in the LNU’s periodicals (Headway, League of Nations Union News Sheet, League News) for as much of the period 1919-39 as they are available. These periodicals supplement limited LNU data on the distribution of branches in different types of schools, and give a sense of popular activities. Further detail on individual branches and pupil perspectives are gleaned from magazines from two boys’ schools and two girls’ schools, from as much of the period 1919-39 that the school’s magazine is available and the school’s junior branch was active. The key analytical concept here is “world citizenship”: a phrase frequently used by the LNU but rarely defined precisely. However, the form of transnational sensibility intended can be gleaned from phrases in the LNU’s publications such as a “sense of fellowship in our common humanity”, a “sympathetic interest” in people living in other countries, and “a positive desire for international justice and a sense of world loyalty”. Despite the inclusive rhetoric, however, the LNU’s version of world citizenship was framed by the victors of the First World War, and an educated, mostly male, elite among them. It offered no fundamental challenge to commitment to the nation state – the LNU stated that it sought to supplement rather than undermine existing national and imperial loyalties – and envisaged a hierarchy of nation states, illustrated most clearly in the League of Nations mandate system. Findings to date illustrate how some of the complexities embedded within the concept played out within junior branches in schools. It is also important to trace meanings ascribed to the 'liberal' version of internationalism adopted by the LNU.

Expected Outcomes

It proves difficult to gain a clear country-wide picture of the number of branches or of membership levels, yet the LNU’s publications and school magazines provide a rich, if not representative, source of evidence on their activities and how they were viewed by some of those involved. Junior Branches had clear strengths. Even allowing for gaps in the data, the reach and popularity of junior branches was undoubtedly impressive. At a time when school clubs or ‘societies’ were becoming ever more popular, junior branches achieved an impressive reach, numbering over 1500 by 1938. The attraction of junior branch activities is borne out by the membership levels of over 400 in some schools, and teacher and pupil enthusiasm emerges in the reports of branch activities in the LNU’s periodicals and school magazines, possibly suggesting some success in the aim of creating world citizens. Moreover, in some schools, junior branches lasted for many years, a longevity arguably achieved because they constituted one aspect of a broader internationalist ethos. It is more difficult, however, to establish how far junior branches influenced the future behaviour and ideas of pupils involved. There were also important limitations. Despite the inclusive intentions behind the notion of world citizenship, junior branches were uneven in their reach. Branches flourished in secondary more than elementary schools, and in girls’ schools more than boys’ schools. Junior branch activities were also not the only demand on pupils’ time and attention outside their timetabled lessons: in many schools, the activities of even the most popular junior branches could clash with activities with nationalist and imperialist ideals. In schools, as in British society at last, the cause of world citizenship did not displace nationalist and imperialist ideals.

References

i. LNU, Declaration Concerning the Schools of Britain and the Peace of the World, London: LNU, 1927, p.12. ii, Amy Robinson, The League and the Infants’ School, Teachers World, 5 February 1926, pp.952-4, p.953. iii. J.L. Morison, Letter to the Editor, The Times, 8 July 1927, p.15. iv. B.J. Elliott, ‘The League of Nations Union and History Teaching in England: a Study in Benevolent Bias’, History of Education, 6:2, 1977, 131-41; H. McCarthy, The British People and the League of Nations: Democracy, citizenship and internationalism, c.1918-1945, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011, pp.103-31. v. E. Fuchs, ‘Educational Sciences, Morality and Politics: International educational congresses in the early twentieth century’, Paedagogica Historica, 40:6, 2004, 257-84; E. Fuchs, ‘The Creation of New International Networks in Education: The League of Nations and educational organisations in the 1920s’, Paedagogica Historica, 43:2, 2007, 199-209; J. Goodman, ‘Working for Change Across International Borders: the Association of Headmistresses and Education for International Citizenship’, Paedagogica Historica, 43:1, 2007, 165-80. vi. B. Morris (1974) Woodcraft and Education: the English Woodcraft Chivalry Movement, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 6:1, 1974, 27-34; T. Proctor, On my honour (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002). vii. McCarthy, The British People and the League of Nations; H. McCarthy, ‘The League of Nations, Public Ritual and National Identity in Britain, c.1919-56’, History Workshop Journal, 70, 2010, 108-32. viii, Board of Education, Report on the Instruction of the Young in the Aims and Achievements of the League of Nations, London: HMSO, 1932. ix. Letter by F.J. Gould to the Educational Times, May 1921, p.240; LNU, Yearbook for 1937, London: LNU, 1937, pp.29-30. x.McCarthy, The British People and the League of Nations, chapter 5. xi. Junior Branches Sub-Committee Minutes (hereafter JBSCM) 1/3/38, 29/11/38, 6/7/39, BLPES. July 1939 is the latest date for which figures are available before the reconstitution of the education committee as CEWC. There were also a few overseas branches (League News, June 1932, p.8; June 1933, p.8; February 1934 p.7 and recorded in Education Committee minutes after 1934). xii. League News, June 1935, p.7; Headway, November 1934, p.218. xiii. See S. Winfield, ‘Travelling the Empire: the “School Empire Tours” and their significance for conceptual understandings (1927-1939), History of Education Review, 40:1, 2011, 81-95.

Author Information

Susannah Wright (presenting / submitting)

Oxford Brookes University

School of Education

Oxford

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