In the previous chapter I have told how Sanderson was taught by his laboratories and library the possibility of a new type of school with a new spirit, and how he grew to realise that an organisation¹ of such new schools, a multiplication² of Oundles, must necessarily produce a new spirit in social and industrial life. Concurrently³ with that, the obvious implications of applied⁴ science were also directing his mind to the close reaction between schools and the organisation of the economic life of the community.  
It is amusing to reflect that Sanderson probably owed his appointment at Oundle to the simple desire of various members of the Grocers' Company for a good school of technical science. They did not want any change in themselves, they did[Pg 62] not want any change in the world nor in the methods of trading and employment, but they did want to see their sons and directors and managers equipped with the sharper, more modern edge of a technical scientific training. Germany had frightened them. If this new training could be technical without science and modern without liberality, so much the better. So the business man brought his ideas to bear upon Oundle, to produce quite beyond his expectation a counteroffensive of the school upon business organisation and methods. Oundle built its engines, organised itself as an efficient munitions⁵ factory during the war, made useful chemical inquiries⁶, extended its work into agriculture, analysed soils and manures for the farmers of its district, ran a farm and did much able competent technical work, but it also set itself to find out what were the aims and processes of business and what were the reactions of these processes upon the life of the community. From the laboratory a boy would go to a careful examination of labour conditions under the light of Ruskin's Unto This Last; he was brought to a balanced and discriminating⁷ attitude towards strikes and lock-outs; he was constantly reminded[Pg 63] that the end of industry is not profits but life—a more abundant life for men.
 
As one reads through the sermons and addresses that are given in Sanderson of Oundle one finds a steadily⁸ growing consciousness of the fact that there was a considerable and increasing proportion of Oundle boys destined⁹ to become masters, managers, and leaders in industrial and business life, and with that growing consciousness there is a growing determination that the school work they do shall be something very far beyond the acquisition of money-getting dodges¹⁰ and devices and commercialised views of science. More and more does he see the school not as a training ground of smart men for the world that is, but as a preliminary working model of the world that is to be.
 
Two quotations¹¹ from two of Sanderson's sermons will serve to mark how vigorously he is tugging¹² back the English schools from the gentlemanly aloofness¹³ of scholarship and school-games to a real relationship to the current disorder¹⁴ of life, and how high he meant to carry them to dominance over that disorder.
 
The first extract is from a sermon on Faraday.[Pg 64] Under Sanderson, it has been remarked, Faraday ousted¹⁵ St. Anthony from being the patron saint of Oundle School. 'With what abundant prodigality,' Sanderson exclaims, 'has Nature given up of her secrets since his day!'
 
'A hundred years ago Man and Nature as we think of them to-day were unexplored by science; to-day a new world, a new creation. Industrial life has developed, machinery¹⁶, discoveries, inventions—steam engine, gas engine, dynamo—electrical machinery, telegraphy, radioactive bodies, tremendous openings out of chemistry, biology, economics, ethics¹⁷. All new. These are Thy works, O God, and tell of Thee. Not now only may we search for Thy Presence in the places where Thou wert wont¹⁸ in days of old to come to man. Not there only. Not only now in the stars of heaven; or by the seashore, or in the waters of the river, or of the springs; among the trees, the flowers, the corn and wine, on the mountain or in the plain; not now only dost Thou come to man in Thy works of art, in music, in literature; but Thou, O God, dost reveal Thyself in all the multitude of Thy works; in the workshop, the factory, the mine, the laboratory, in industrial life. No[Pg 65] symbolism here, but the Divine God. A new Muse¹⁹ is here—
 
'Mightier²⁰ than Egypt's tombs,
Fairer than Grecia's, Roma's temples.
Prouder than Milan's statued, spired²¹ cathedral,
More picturesque²² than Rhenish castle-keeps,
We plan even now to raise, beyond them all,
Thy great cathedral, sacred industry, no tomb—
A keep for Life.'
And the builders, a mighty²³ host of men: Homeric heroes, fighting against a foe²⁴, and yet not a foe, but an invisible, impalpable thing wherein the combatant is the shadow of the assailant.
 
'Mighty men of science and mighty deeds. A Newton who binds²⁵ the universe together in uniform law; Lagrange, Laplace, Leibnitz with their wondrous²⁶ mathematical harmonies; Coulomb measuring out electricity; Oversted with the brilliant flash of insight "that the electric conflict acts in a revolving²⁷ manner"; Faraday, Ohm, Ampère, Joule, Maxwell, Hertz, Röntgen; and in another branch of science, Cavendish, Davy, Dalton, Dewar; and in another, Darwin, Mendel, Pasteur, Lister, Sir Ronald Ross. All these and many others, and some whose names have no memorial, form a great host of heroes, an army[Pg 66] of soldiers—fit companions of those of whom the poets have sung; all, we may be sure, living daily in the presence of God, bending like the reed before His will; fit companions of the knights²⁸ of old of whom the poets sing, fit companions of the men whose names are renowned²⁹ in history, fit companions of the great statesmen and warriors³⁰ whose names resound^{31............}