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AOSA CENTENARY HISTORY 1841 - 1941 |
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Chapter
VII |
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Contents
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When George Dixon in 1862 went to live in his own new house the Committee felt that they did not ‘require his attendance at the Family Scripture Reading or at Meals,’ and at the same time they were ‘specially desirous that Ralph and Elizabeth Dixon should be encouraged to feel their new and important position.’ They should live in the school and though it was ‘not proposed to give to Elizabeth Dixon any specified charge,’ she was to be regarded as ‘the female head of the family' and was to have the help of an efficient housekeeper. The ruling housekeeper, Emma Lamb, ‘declined to remain under any resident Master or Mistress,’ received three months’ notice and rather than disturb her solitary reign, duly departed. Thus before the final break Ralph Dixon had already wielded authority, and his father had to a large extent put aside the sceptre. The way had been well prepared. Everyone concerned recognised the principle of divide and rule and recognised, too, that the footsteps of the son were following in the path of the father. So when at last the father's resignation became final and complete no question arose as to his successor. Amurath to Amurath succeeded and Ralph Dixon, in January 1866, was made superintendent in name as well as in fact. No one could cavil at the appointment. Born in 1836 at Bishop Auckland, the second son of George Dixon, the child Ralph appeared first on the Ayton scene in May 1841, when his father and mother, his brother John, his sister Alice and the little nursemaid and he himself arrived in the evening at the empty house on the green; and at Ayton, except for a few early years, he spent the rest of his life. He received his first schooling there and had the elements firmly ground into him by his father, so that when in 1845 he went to Ackworth he found no difficulty with his lessons, and thought the rigorous life there was a life of comparative ease after the stern and disciplined simplicity of Ayton. Ackworth influenced him deeply and Ayton School showed the extent of this influence. The Ackworth reader, the Ackworth table book, the Ackworth scripture text book, became also the Ayton manuals; Ayton times and time tables depended on the Ackworth ones; Ackworth and Ayton handwriting followed the same model. Ackworth teaching and staffing methods were followed by Ayton. While Ralph Dixon was yet at Ackworth, his future was decided. In the summer of 1850 the Committee realised that John W. Watson had only one more year of his apprenticeship to run, and so at George Dixon's suggestion they ‘favourably considered the propriety of Ralph Dixon, son of George Dixon now in his last year at Ackworth School being engaged on trial as an apprentice at this Institution.’ The lad began as apprentice-elect in January 1851, and six months afterwards his indenture was duly signed and witnessed. He had started his life's work. The apprentice system, common in Friends’ Schools, had one superlative merit, it tested the teacher early; he was thrown into the hurly-burly there to sink or swim. When the trial failed, stool, desk or counter, workshop or factory, offered a suitable means of living and youths not yet too old gave up teaching for trade. But to a suitable candidate the apprentice system offered a sound practical training. At the very outset he began to teach in some fashion and to control in his own fashion, boys and girls who had been his fellow scholars only a few weeks before. Masters and mistresses became now in some degree, colleagues ready to help, advise, sustain. Previous restraint disappeared in self-discipline and those who after their six months of trial found they had got hold and could manage began to realise that they had entered not only a career but a calling. The apprentice system provided an unequalled training ground. Ralph Dixon as an apprentice worked under the eve of his father, who was not the kind of man to let this relationship affect his tutelage. Father and son did all the teaching on the boys’ side; the son soon helped in farm and garden as well. Two years of this work, the formative years between fifteen and seventeen, tested and toughened him, and then the Committee granted the father's request that Ralph Dixon ‘might be allowed should the way open to spend one year in the Flounders Institute with a view to acquiring such knowledge of the course of study there adopted as would enable him on his return to impart a portion of the benefit he may there derive to the apprentices and older boys in this Establishment.’ They further agreed that the cost of his clothing while at the Flounders would be ‘defrayed by this Institution’ and requested his mother to hand in an account of the expenses incurred on his behalf. This she did to the extent of £8. |
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The change from George Dixon to Ralph Dixon, from father to son, had
been arranged so gradually, so quietly, with such care, that the rule
of one merged smoothly into the rule of the other. For eight years
the son had superintended the working of the school under the keen
but benevolent eyes of his father; he had been tested, helped, advised.
He had slowly extended his control.