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AOSA CENTENARY HISTORY 1841 - 1941 |
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Chapter
XI |
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Contents
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Frank Arundel had two practical and very useful gifts, one positive, the other negative. Positively he had a shrewd eye for the character and possibilities of a fledgling teacher. Thus when the young Herbert Dennis came straight from his studies at Oliver’s Mount School for a six months’ test at Ayton, F. R. Arundel, by the time the six months had passed, knew that the lad must be secured even at the cost of concessions. So when the indenture of apprenticeship was signed, it contained an unprecedented clause allowing three consecutive years at Flounders. Thus, after one year at Ayton, the Flounders years followed, and Herbert Dennis returned to Ayton to complete his apprenticeship as a graduate and as the first graduate ever on the staff. Negatively, Frank Arundel had the gift of non-interference. He watched unobtrusively; he let the young apprentice make his own mistakes and suffer his own hard knocks. The headmaster let him find his own way and develop his own strength and all the while remained himself in the background, available for advice or encouragement. Apprenticeship provided the test, and Herbert Dennis replied to call after call. From junior apprentice he advanced to second and on his return from Flounders did a man’s work for a lad’s pay. Then the time came when F. R. Arundel asked him to fill the senior assistant’s place. He agreed, and, still an apprentice, assumed the responsibility for running the boys’ side. Here the weakness of inefficient assistants which perforce he must remedy, toughened his character and resolution, so when at last in 1906 he left Great Ayton he left equipped both practically and technically by his experiences there. His marriage linked him closer historically to the school. While still at Ayton he had become engaged to Muriel Dixon, a granddaughter of George Dixon, the first superintendent, and their marriage once more brought, on their return to Great Ayton in 1913, a Dixon into an official connection with the school. Her position as mistress of the household restored to Ayton the Dixon touch which had prevailed from 1841 to 1895 and which was again to prevail from 1913 to 1940. The granddaughter’s social gifts as hostess, her domestic gifts as mother, her artistic gifts in decoration, her flair for flowers, her tact in personal relations and in entertainment, would have surprised her grandfather, but they found indeed ample scope in the duties of her new position. Thus, when in 1913 the Committee appointed Herbert Dennis as headmaster,
they appointed a man linked with the past of the school, familiar with
its present ways and well equipped to care for its future. Time and
events justified their choice of the young headmaster. Not only did
he inspire, guide and control the changes that were to come, but by
the impact of his personality and ideals he influenced all those, children
or adults, who were around him. Methodical efficiency marked his work;
he kept careful and accurate records; statistics occupied an exalted
place in his hierarchy; facts weighed heavily. His keen personal pleasure
in craftsmanship allied with his technical skill inspired the children
to enthusiastic efforts. His treatment of the School as a great family
and his emphasis on the communal aspects of family life revealed to
many fresh possibilities in co-education and in the normal development
of girls and boys. Natural difficulties in the way of intimacy between
head and children did not prevent the older children at any rate from
meeting their headmaster on terms of friendly companionship. With him
they began to know their privileges, duties and responsibilities. His
sincere and simple dealings with religion and the plain directness
of his words in Meeting became the more effective when his hearers
realised that they reflected the manner of his own life. |
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Herbert Dennis, the new headmaster,
was coming to no unfamiliar place. He did not need to learn through
trial and frequent error the geography
of the passages and rooms and the limits of bounds, nor the mysteries
of the two sides. He already knew, by his own experience, the characteristic
tough sturdiness of the children of Durham and North Yorkshire. As
a young and untried teacher he had tested his capacity in the big bedroom
and the new one at the end of the passage. He had taken his turn of
duty when one master saw both bedrooms to bed at the same time; he
had taken collects and preparations; he had taught both Ayton girls
and Ayton boys and had played with the girls at mixed hockey and with
the boys at football and cricket. He was already initiated.