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THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER
MY reading has been
lamentably desultory and immethodical. odd, out of the way, old
English plays, and treatises, have supplied me with most of my
notions, and ways of feeling. In every thing that relates to science,
I am a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world. I should
have scarcely cut a figure among the franklins, or country gentlemen,
in king John's days. I know less geography than a school-boy of
six weeks' standing. To me a map of old Ortelius is as authentic
as Arrowsmith. I do not know whereabout Africa merges into Asia;
whether Ethiopia lie in one or other of those great divisions;
nor can form the remotest conjecture of the position of New South
Wales, or Van Diemen's Land. Yet do I hold a correspondence with
a very dear friend in the first-named of these two Terrae Incognitae.
I have no astronomy. I do not know where to look for the Bear,
or Charles's Wain; the place of any star; or the name of any of
them at sight. I guess at Venus only by her brightness -- and
if the sun on some portentous morn were to make his first appearance
in the West, I verily believe, that, while all the world were
gasping in apprehension about me, I alone should stand unterrified,
from sheer incuriosity and want of observation. Of history and
chronology I possess some vague points, such as one cannot help
picking up in the course of miscellaneous study; but I never deliberately
sat down to a chronicle, even of my own country. I have most dim
apprehensions of the four great monarchies; and sometimes the
Assyrian, sometimes the Persian, floats as first in my fancy.
I make the widest conjectures concerning Egypt, and her shepherd
kings. My friend M., with great painstaking, got me to think I
understood the first proposition in Euclid, but gave me over in
despair at the second. I am entirely unacquainted with the modern
languages; and, like a better man than myself, have "small
Latin and less Greek." I am a stranger to the shapes and
texture of the commonest trees, herbs, flowers -- not from the
circumstance of my being town-born -- for I should have brought
the same inobservant spirit into the world with me, had I first
seen it in "on Devon's leafy shores," -- and am no less
at a loss among purely town-objects, tools, engines, mechanic
processes. -- Not that I affect ignorance -- but my head has not
many mansions, nor spacious; and I have been obliged to fill it
with such cabinet curiosities as it can hold without aching. I
sometimes wonder, how I have passed my probation with so little
discredit in the world, as I have done, upon so meagre a stock.
But the fact is, a man may do very well with a very little knowledge,
and scarce be found out, in mixed company; every body is so much
more ready to produce his own, than to call for a display of your
acquisitions. But in a tete-a-tete there is no shuffling. The
truth will out. There is nothing which I dread so much, as the
being left alone for a quarter of an hour with a sensible, well-informed
man, that does not know me. I lately got into a dilemma of this
sort. -
In one of my daily
jaunts between Bishopsgate and Shacklewell, the coach stopped
to take up a staid-looking gentleman, about the wrong side of
thirty, who was giving his parting directions (while the steps
were adjusting), in a tone of mild authority, to a tall youth,
who seemed to be neither his clerk, his son, nor his servant,
but something partaking of all three. The youth was dismissed,
and we drove on. As we were the sole passengers, he naturally
enough addressed his conversation to me; and we discussed the
merits of the fare, the civility and punctuality of the driver;
the circumstance of an opposition coach having been lately set
up, with the probabilities of its success -- to all which I was
enabled to return pretty satisfactory answers, having been drilled
into this kind of etiquette by some years' daily practice of riding
to and fro in the stage aforesaid -- when he suddenly alarmed
me by a startling question, whether I had seen the show of prize
cattle that morning in Smithfield? Now as I had not seen it, and
do not greatly care for such sort of exhibitions, I was obliged
to return a cold negative. He seemed a little mortified, as well
as astonished, at my declaration, as (it appeared) he was just
come fresh from the sight, and doubtless had hoped to compare
notes on the subject. However he assured me that I had lost a
fine treat, as it far exceeded the show of last year. We were
now approaching Norton Falgate, when the sight of some shop-goods
ticketed freshened him up into a dissertation upon the cheapness
of cottons this spring. I was now a little in heart, as the nature
of my morning avocations had brought me into some sort of familiarity
with the raw material; and I was surprised to find how eloquent
I was becoming on the state of the India market -- when, presently,
he dashed my incipient vanity to the earth at once, by inquiring
whether I had ever made any calculation as to the value of the
rental of all the retail shops in London. Had he asked of me,
what song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when
he hid himself among women, I might, with Sir Thomas Browne, have
hazarded a "wide solution." My companion saw my embarrassment,
and, the almshouses beyond Shoreditch just coming in view, with
great good-nature and dexterity shifted his conversation to the
subject of public charities; which led to the comparative merits
of provision for the poor in past and present times, with observations
on the old monastic institutions, and charitable orders; -- but,
finding me rather dimly impressed with some glimmering notions
from old poetic associations, than strongly fortified with any
speculations reducible to calculation on the subject, he gave
the matter up; and, the country beginning to open more and more
upon us, as we approached the turnpike at Kingsland (the destined
termination of his journey), he put a home thrust upon me, in
the most unfortunate position he could have chosen, by advancing
some queries relative to the North Pole Expedition. While I was
muttering out something about the Panorama of those strange regions
(which I had actually seen), by way of parrying the question,
the coach stopping relieved me from any further apprehensions.
My companion getting out, left me in the comfortable possession
of my ignorance; and I heard him, as he went off, putting questions
to an outside passenger, who had alighted with him, regarding
an epidemic disorder, that had been rife about Dalston; and which,
my friend assured him, had gone through five or six schools in
that neighbourhood. The truth now flashed upon me, that my companion
was a schoolmaster; and that the youth, whom he had parted from
at our first acquaintance, must have been one of the bigger boys,
or the usher. He was evidently a kind-hearted man, who did not
seem so much desirous of provoking discussion by the questions
which he put, as of obtaining information at any rate. It did
not appear that he took any interest, either, in such kind of
inquiries, for their own sake; but that he was in some way bound
to seek for knowledge. A greenish-coloured coat, which he had
on, forbade me to surmise that he was a clergy-man. The adventure
gave birth to some reflections on the difference between persons
of his profession in past and present times.
[Footnote] *Urn Burial.
Rest to the souls of
those fine old Pedagogues; the breed, long since extinct, of the
Lilys, and the Linacres: who believing that all learning was contained
in the languages which they taught, and despising every other
acquirement as superficial and useless, came to their task as
to a sport! Passing from infancy to age, they dreamed away all
their days as in a grammar-school. Revolving in a perpetual cycle
of declensions, conjugations, syntaxes, and prosodies; renewing
constantly the occupations which had charmed their studious childhood;
rehearsing continually the part of the past; life must have slipped
from them at last like one day. They were always in their first
garden, reaping harvests of their golden time, among their Flori
and their Spici-legia; in Arcadia still, but kings; the ferule
of their sway not much harsher, but of like dignity with that
mild sceptre attributed to king Basileus; the Greek and Latin,
their stately Pamela and their Philoclea; with the occasional
duncery of some untoward Tyro, serving for a refreshing interlude
of a Mopsa, or a clown Damaetas!
With what a savour
doth the Preface to Colet's, or (as it is sometimes called) Paul's
Accidence, set forth! "To exhort every man to the learning
of grammar, that intendeth to attain the understanding of the
tongues, wherein is contained a great treasury of wisdom and knowledge,
it would seem but vain and lost labour; for so much as it is known,
that nothing can surely be ended, whose beginning is either feeble
or faulty; and no building be perfect, whereas the foundation
and ground-work is ready to fall, and unable to uphold the burden
of the frame." How well doth this stately preamble (comparable
to those which Milton commendeth as "having been the usage
to prefix to some solemn law, then first promulgated by Solon,
or Lycurgus") correspond with and illustrate that pious zeal
for conformity, expressed in a succeeding clause, which would
fence about grammar-rules with the severity of faith-articles
! -- "as for the diversity of grammars, it is well profitably
taken away by the king majesties wisdom, who foreseeing the inconvenience,
and favourably providing the remedie, caused one kind of grammar
by sundry learned men to be diligently drawn and so to be set
out, only everywhere to be taught for the use of learners, and
for the hurt in changing of schoolmaisters." What a gusto
in that which follows: "wherein it is Profitable that he
Can orderly decline his noun, and his verb." His noun!
The fine dream is fading
away fast; and the least concern of a teacher in the present day
is to inculcate grammar-rules.
The modern schoolmaster
is expected to know a little of every thing, because his pupil
is required not to be entirely ignorant of any thing. He must
be superficially, if I may so say, omniscient. He is to know something
of pneumatics; of chemistry; of whatever is curious, or proper
to excite the attention of the youthful mind; an insight into
mechanics is desirable, with a touch of statistics; the quality
of soils, &c. botany, the constitution of his country, cum
multis aliis. You may get a notion of some part of his expected
duties by consulting the famous Tractate on Education addressed
to Mr. Hartlib.
All these things --
these, or the desire of them -- he is expected to instil, not
by set lessons from professors, which he may charge in the bill,
but at school-intervals, as he walks the streets, or saunters
through green fields (those natural instructors), with his pupils.
The least part of what is expected from him, is to be done in
school-hours. He must insinuate knowledge at the mollia tempora
fandi. He must seize every occasion -- the season of the year
-- the time of the day -- a passing cloud -- a rainbow -- a waggon
of hay -- a regiment of soldiers going by -- to inculcate something
useful. He can receive no pleasure from a casual glimpse of Nature,
but must catch at it as an object of instruction. He must interpret
beauty into the picturesque. He cannot relish a beggar-man, or
a gipsy, for thinking of the suitable improvement. Nothing comes
to him, not spoiled by the sophisticating medium of moral uses.
The Universe -- that Great Book, as it has been called -- is to
him indeed, to all intents and purposes, a book, out of which
he is doomed to read tedious homilies to distasting schoolboys.
-- Vacations themselves are none to him, he is only rather worse
off than before; for commonly be has some intrusive upper-boy
fastened upon him at such times; some cadet of a great family;
some neglected lump of nobility, or gentry; that he must drag
after him to the play, to the Panorama, to Mr. Bartley's Orrery,
to the Panopticon, or into the country, to a friends house, or
to his favourite watering-place. Wherever he goes, this uneasy
shadow attends him. A boy is at his board, and in his path, and
in all his movements. He is boy-rid, sick of perpetual boy.
Boys are capital fellows
in their own way, among their mates; but they are unwholesome
companions for grown people. The restraint is felt no less on
the one side, than on the other. -- Even a child, that "plaything
for an hour," tires always. The noises of children, playing
their own fancies -- as I now hearken to them by fits, sporting
on the green before my window, while I am engaged in these grave
speculations at my neat suburban retreat at Shacklewell -- by
distance made more sweet -- inexpressibly take from the labour
of my task. It is like writing to music. They seem to modulate
my periods. They ought at least to do so -- for in the voice of
that tender age there is a kind of poetry, far unlike the harsh
prose-accents of man's conversation. -- I should but spoil their
sport, and diminish my own sympathy for them, by mingling in their
pastime.
I would not be domesticated
all my days with a person of very superior capacity to my own
-- not, if I know myself at all, from any considerations of jealousy
or self-comparison, for the occasional communion with such minds
has constituted the fortune and felicity of my life -- but the
habit of too constant intercourse with spirits above you, instead
of raising you, keeps you down. Too frequent doses of original
thinking from others, restrain what lesser portion of that faculty
you may possess of your own. You get entangled in another man's
mind, even as you lose yourself in another man's grounds. You
are walking with a tall varlet, whose strides out-pace yours to
lassitude. The constant operation of such potent agency would
reduce me, I am convinced, to imbecility. You may derive thoughts
from others; your way of thinking, the mould in which your thoughts
are cast, must be your own. Intellect may be imparted, but not
each man's intellectual frame. -
As little as I should
wish to be always thus dragged upwards, as little (or rather still
less) is it desirable to be stunted downwards by your associates.
The trumpet does not more stun you by its loudness, than a whisper
teases you by its provoking inaudibility.
Why are we never quite
at our ease in the presence of a schoolmaster ? -- because we
are conscious that he is not quite at his ease in ours. He is
awkward, and out of place, in the society of his equals. He comes
like Gulliver from among his little people, and he cannot fit
the stature of his understanding to yours. He cannot meet you
on the square. He wants a point given him, like an indifferent
whist-player. He is so used to teaching, that he wants to be teaching
you. One of these professors, upon my complaining that these little
sketches of mine were any thing but methodical, and that I was
unable to make them otherwise, kindly offered to instruct me in
the method by which young gentlemen in his seminary were taught
to compose English themes. -- The jests of a schoolmaster are
coarse, or thin. They do not tell out of school. He is under the
restraint of a formal and didactive hypocrisy in company, as a
clergyman is under a moral one. He can no more let his intellect
loose in society, than the other can his inclinations. -- He is
forlorn among his co-evals; his juniors cannot be his friends.
"I take blame
to myself," said a sensible man of this profession, writing
to a friend respecting a youth who had quitted his school abruptly
-- "that your nephew was not more attached to me. But persons
in my situation are more to be pitied, than can well be imagined.
We are surrounded by young, and, consequently, ardently affectionate
hearts, but we can never hope to share an atom of their affections.
The relation of master and scholar forbids this. How pleasing
this must be to you, how I envy your feelings, my friends will
sometimes say to me, when they see young men, whom I have educated,
return after some years absence from school, their eyes shining
with pleasure, while they shake hands with their old master, bringing
a present of game to me, or a toy to my wife, and thanking me
in the warmest terms for my care of their education. A holiday
is begged for the boys; the house is a scene of happiness; I,
only, am sad at heart -- This fine-spirited and warm-hearted youth,
who fancies he repays his master with gratitude for the care of
his boyish years -- this young man -- in the eight long years
I watched over him with a parent's anxiety, never could repay
me with one look of genuine feeling. He was proud, when I praised;
he was submissive, when I reproved him; but he did never love
me -- and what he now mistakes for gratitude and kindness for
me, is but the pleasant sensation, which all persons feel at revisiting
the scene of their boyish hopes and fears; and the seeing on equal
terms the man they were accustomed to look up to with reverence.
My wife too, "this interesting correspondent goes on to say,
"my once darling Anna, is the wife of a schoolmaster.-- When
I married her -- knowing that the wife of a schoolmaster ought
to be a busy notable creature, and fearing that my gentle Anna
would ill supply the loss of my dear bustling mother, just then
dead, who never sat still, was in every part of the house in a
moment, and whom I was obliged sometimes to threaten to fasten
down in a chair, to save her from fatiguing herself to death --
I expressed my fears, that I was bringing her into a way of life
unsuitable to her; and she, who loved me tenderly, promised for
my sake to exert herself to perform the duties of her new situation.
She promised, and she has kept her word. What wonders will not
woman's love perform ? -- My house is managed with a propriety
and decorum, unknown in other schools; my boys are well fed, look
healthy, and have every proper accommodation; and all this performed
with a careful economy, that never descends to meanness. But I
have lost my gentle, helpless Anna ! -- When we sit down to enjoy
an hour of repose after the fatigue of the day, I am compelled
to listen to what have been her useful (and they are really useful)
employments through the day, and what she proposes for her to-morrow's
task. Her heart and her features are changed by the duties of
her situation. To the boys, she never appears other than the master's
wife, and she looks up to me as the boys' master; to whom all
show of love and affection would be highly improper, and unbecoming
the dignity of her situation and mine. Yet this my gratitude forbids
me to hint to her. For my sake she submitted to be this altered
creature, and can I reproach her for it? " -- For the communication
of this letter, I am indebted to my cousin Bridget.
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