CHAPTER XV.
MINOR SCHOOLS.
The schools of Squeers, Doctor Blimber, Mr. Creakle, Doctor Strong, andMr. Gradgrind and Mr. M'Choakumchild are the most celebrated schools ofDickens, and they contain the greater part of his pedagogical teaching.His other schools are, however, worthy of very careful study.
One of the first of the Sketches by Boz described a man who had passedthrough many vicissitudes, and at length was reduced to such poverty thathe applied to the parish board for charity. This led to his appointment asa schoolmaster. Dickens clearly intended to teach the lesson, afterwardemphasized in Nicholas Nickleby and other books, that poverty should notestablish a claim to the position of a school-teacher.
Minerva Hall, also in Sketches by Boz, reveals "one of those publicnuisances, a spoiled child," spoiled because his papa was too busy withpublic duties and his mamma with society duties to train him properly. Italso shows the reason Mrs. Cornelius Brook Dingwall had for sending herdaughter to school. She said: "One of my principal reasons for partingwith my daughter is that she has lately acquired some sentimental ideas,which it is most desirable to eradicate from her young mind." Here thepublic nuisance fell out of a chair, and mamma and papa showed their usualmode of training him. Mamma called him "a naughty boy," and threatened "tosend for James to take him away"--both name and threat being wrong. Papamerely excused the cherub on the ground of "his great flow of spirits."The school also shows the silly training of so-called "finishingschools," as chiefly intended to teach young ladies the smallconventionalities of "society."
In The Old Curiosity Shop there are four schools: Mr. Marton's twoschools, Mrs. Wackles's school, and Miss Monflathers's school. Mr.Marton's first school was introduced to reveal all the good qualities thatMr. Squeers lacked, especially sympathy. Mr. Marton was the immediatesuccessor of Mr. Squeers, and they possessed directly opposite traits ofcharacter in their relationship to childhood. Mr. Squeers was coarse,unsympathetic, and coercive. Mr. Marton was kind, considerate, and aperfect type of true sympathy with the child. It is reasonable to believethat Mr. Marton and Mr. Squeers were drawn as companion pictures toillustrate and enforce the same truth--that sympathy with the child is thefundamental element in the character of a true teacher.
The old bachelor emphasized this when he said to Mr. Marton, "You are nonethe worse teacher for having learned humanity."
There is a great deal of food for psychological and pedagogical study inthe introduction of the boys he was to teach in his second school, givenby the bachelor to Mr. Marton. The bachelor was as full of genuine boyishspirit as it is possible for any adult to be, and was in some respects amore perfect type for an ideal teacher than Mr. Marton. Mr. Marton had thetender, spiritual sympathy of a true woman, the motherhood spirit thatconstitutes the atmosphere in which all right elements of childhood findtheir richest development; the bachelor had the perfect manly sympathythat enabled him to enter heartily into boy life. He had especially thepower of recognising in the things for which boys are often rebuked thebest evidences of their strength, and he could remember his own boyhood sowell as to fully sympathize _with_ the boys. Mr. Marton and the bachelorreveal the whole range of sympathetic possibilities.
When nothing more was left to be done he charged the boy to run off and bring his schoolmates to be marshalled before their new master and solemnly reviewed.
"As good a set of fellows, Marton, as you'd wish to see," he said, turning to the schoolmaster when the boy was gone; "but I don't let 'em know I think so. That wouldn't do at all."
The messenger soon returned at the head of a long row of urchins, great and small, who, being confronted by the bachelor at the house door, fell into various convulsions of politeness; clutching their hats and caps, squeezing them into the smallest possible dimensions, and making all manner of bows and scrapes, which the little old gentleman contemplated with excessive satisfaction, and expressed his approval of by a great many nods and smiles. Indeed, his approbation of the boys was by no means so scrupulously disguised as he had led the schoolmaster to suppose, inasmuch as it broke out in sundry loud whispers and confidential remarks which were perfectly audible to them every one.
"This first boy, schoolmaster," said the bachelor, "is John Owen; a lad of good parts, sir, and frank, honest temper; but too thoughtless, too playful, too light-headed by far. That boy, my good sir, would break his neck with pleasure, and deprive his parents of their chief comfort--and between ourselves, when you come to see him at hare and hounds, taking the fence and ditch by the finger post, and sliding down the face of the little quarry, you'll never forget it. It's beautiful!"
John Owen having been thus rebuked, and being in perfect possession of the speech aside, the bachelor singled out another boy.
"Now look at that lad, sir," said the bachelor. "You see that fellow? Richard Evans his name is, sir. An amazing boy to learn, blessed with a good memory and a ready understanding, and moreover with a good voice and ear for psalm singing, in which he is the best among us. Yet, sir, that boy will come to a bad end; he'll never die in his bed; he's always falling asleep in sermon time--and to tell you the truth, Mr. Marton, I always did the same at his age, and feel quite certain that it was natural to my constitution, and I couldn't help it."
This hopeful pupil edified by the above terrible reproval, the bachelor turned to another.
"But if we talk of examples to be shunned," said he, "if we come to boys that should be a warning and a beacon to all their fellows, here's the one, and I hope you won't spare him. This is the lad, sir; this one with the blue eyes and light hair. This is a swimmer, sir, this fellow--a diver, Lord save us! This is a boy, sir, who had a fancy for plunging into eighteen feet of water, with his clothes on, and bringing up a blind man's dog, who was being drowned by the weight of his chain and collar, while his master stood wringing his hands upon the bank, bewailing the loss of his guide and friend. I sent the boy two guineas anonymously, sir," added the bachelor, in his peculiar whisper, "directly I heard of it; but never mention it on any account, for he hasn't the least idea that it came from me."
Having disposed of this culprit, the bachelor turned to another, and from him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying, for their wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting emphasis on such of their propensities as were dearest to his heart, and were unquestionably referable to his own precept and example. Thoroughly persuaded, in the end, that he had made them miserable by his severity, he dismissed them with a small present, and an admonition to walk quietly home, without any leapings, scufflings, or turnings out of the way; which injunction, he informed the schoolmaster in the same audible confidence, he did not think he could have obeyed when he was a boy had his life depended on it.
What a model he was for teachers, this glorious bachelor, in his sympathy_with_ the boys, and in his unconventionality! When teachers begin to feelthe grip of formalism on their better natures and begin to lose faith inso-called bad boys, they should read this introduction of the pupils bythe bachelor. Bless his memory! he will always rank among the greatestchild trainers.
His pretence of not letting the boys know that he thought they were goodfellows was a pleasant rebuke of the miserable old doctrine that a boyshould always be told his faults, but never be spoken to about hisvirtues. This false doctrine having been so carefully applied in homes andschools for centuries as a religious duty, based on the unscripturaldoctrine of child depravity, has made a large portion of humanity inChristian countries mere defect dodgers, instead of making them consciousof power to do independent work for God and their fellow-men. Dickens hadno faith in this doctrine, and he taught that one of the highest things ateacher can do for a child is to recognise and show honest appreciation ofhis best powers and qualities. When superintendents search as carefullyfor the good qualitie
s and powers of their teachers as some yet do fortheir weaknesses, and when they are so unconventional as to be able toshow genuine appreciation frankly to the teachers themselves, the schoolswill reach their proper rate of progressive development.
Through the whole series of criticisms of the boys, Dickens is showing thefull rich sympathy of his own great heart for the whole race of boys inthe unreasonable and unjust criticism to which they are subjected byforgetful and ignorant adulthood. Those who should be wisest in thesematters--and especially many who think themselves wise--are still veryforgetful of their own early life, and very ignorant of boyhood.
Mrs. Wackles's school was called a "Ladies' Seminary," but it was inreality "a very small day school for young ladies of proportionatedimensions."
The several duties of instruction in this establishment were thus discharged: English grammar, composition, geography, and the use of the dumb-bells, by Miss Melissa Wackles; writing, arithmetic, dancing, music, and general fascination, by Miss Sophy Wackles; the art of needlework, marking, and samplery, by Miss Jane Wackles; corporal punishment, fasting, and other tortures and terrors, by Mrs. Wackles. Miss Melissa Wackles was the eldest daughter, Miss Sophy the next, and Miss Jane the youngest. Miss Melissa might have seen five-and-thirty summers or thereabout, and verged on the autumnal, Miss Sophy was a fresh, good-humoured, buxom girl of twenty; and Miss Jane numbered scarcely sixteen years. Mrs. Wackles was an excellent, but rather venomous old lady of threescore.
Mrs. Wackles's school is described to show the frivolous nature of suchso-called private educational institutions, and to strike again theabominable practice of abusing children by "corporal punishment, fasting,and other tortures and terrors" by "a venomous old lady of threescore."
Miss Monflathers's school was a boarding establishment for young ladies,in which they were duly impressed with the dignity of their socialposition; with the terrible danger of yielding in any way to their naturalimpulses, all of which were assumed to be very wicked; with the sinfulnessof sympathizing with or in any way recognising the lower classes; with theimpropriety of knowing the fact that there was any wrong in the world tobe righted or any suffering to be relieved; with the inestimable value ofaristocratic birth; and with the most important truth that men are verydangerous animals, to be carefully shunned.
Little Nell was sent to the establishment of Miss Monflathers with noticesof Mrs. Jarley's waxworks, being temporarily in the employ of that lady.
Nell had no difficulty in finding out Miss Monflathers's Boarding and Day Establishment, which was a large house, with a high wall, and a large garden gate with a large brass plate, and a small grating through which Miss Monflathers's parlour maid inspected all visitors before admitting them; for nothing in the shape of a man--no, not even a milkman--was suffered, without special license, to pass that gate. Even the taxgatherer, who was stout, and wore spectacles and a broadbrimmed hat, had the taxes handed through the grating. More obdurate than gate of adamant or brass, this gate of Miss Monflathers's frowned on all mankind. The very butcher respected it as a gate of mystery, and left off whistling when he rang the bell.
As Nell approached the awful door, it turned slowly upon its hinges with a creaking noise, and forth from the solemn grove beyond came a long file of young ladies, two and two, all with open books in their hands, and some with parasols likewise. And last of the goodly procession came Miss Monflathers, bearing herself a parasol of lilac silk, and supported by two smiling teachers, each mortally envious of the other, and devoted unto Miss Monflathers.
Confused by the looks and whispers of the girls, Nell stood with downcast eyes and suffered the procession to pass on, until Miss Monflathers, bringing up the rear, approached her, when she courtesied and presented her little packet; on receipt whereof Miss Monflathers commanded that the line should halt.
"You're the waxwork child, are you not?" said Miss Monflathers.
"Yes, ma'am," replied Nell, colouring deeply, for the young ladies had collected about her, and she was the centre on which all eyes were fixed.
"And don't you think you must be a very wicked little child," said Miss Monflathers, who was of rather uncertain temper, and lost no opportunity of impressing moral truths upon the tender minds of young ladies, "to be a waxwork child at all?"
Poor Nell had never viewed her position in this light, and not knowing what to say, remained silent, blushing more deeply than before.
"Don't you know," said Miss Monflathers, "that it's very naughty and unfeminine, and a perversion of the properties wisely and benignantly transmitted to us, with expansive powers to be roused from their dormant state through the medium of cultivation?"
"Don't you feel how naughty it is of you," resumed Miss Monflathers, "to be a waxwork child, when you might have the proud consciousness of assisting, to the extent of your infant powers, the manufactures of your country; of improving your mind by the constant contemplation of the steam engine; and of earning a comfortable and independent subsistence of from two and ninepence to three shillings per week? Don't you know that the harder you are at work, the happier you are?"
"'How doth the little----'" murmured one of the teachers in quotation from Dr. Watts.
"Eh?" said Miss Monflathers, turning smartly round. "Who said that?"
"The little busy bee," said Miss Monflathers, drawing herself up, "is applicable only to genteel children.
'In books, or work, or healthful play'
is quite right as far as they are concerned; and the work means painting on velvet, fancy needlework, or embroidery. In such cases as these," pointing to Nell with her parasol, "and in the case of all poor people's children, we should read it thus:
'In work, work, work. In work alway Let my first years be passed, That I may give for ev'ry day Some good account at last.'"
Just then somebody happened to discover that Nell was crying, and all eyes were again turned toward her.
There were indeed tears in her eyes, and drawing out her handkerchief to brush them away, she happened to let it fall. Before she could stoop to pick it up, one young lady of about fifteen or sixteen, who had been standing a little apart from the others, as though she had no recognised place among them, sprang forward and put it in her hand. She was gliding timidly away again, when she was arrested by the governess.
"It was Miss Edwards who did that, I _know_," said Miss Monflathers predictively. "Now I am sure that was Miss Edwards."
It was Miss Edwards, and everybody said it was Miss Edwards, and Miss Edwards herself admitted that it was.
"Is it not," said Miss Monflathers, putting down her parasol to take a severer view of the offender, "a most remarkable thing, Miss Edwards, that you have an attachment to the lower classes which always draws you to their sides; or, rather, is it not a most extraordinary thing that all I say and do will not wean you from propensities which your original station in life has unhappily rendered habitual to you, you extremely vulgar-minded girl?"
"I really intended no harm, ma'am," said a sweet voice. "It was a momentary impulse, indeed."
"An impulse!" repeated Miss Monflathers scornfully. "I wonder that you presume to speak of impulses to me"--both the teachers assented--"I am astonished"--both the teachers were astonished--"I suppose it is an impulse which induces you to take the part of every grovelling and debased person that comes in your way"--both the teachers supposed so too.
"But I would have you know, Miss Edwards," resumed the governess, in a tone of increased severity, "that you can not be permitted--if it be only for the sake of preserving a proper example and decorum in this establishment--that you can not be permitted, and that you shall not be permitted, to fly in the face of
your superiors in this extremely gross manner. If _you_ have no reason to feel a becoming pride before waxwork children, there are young ladies here who have, and you must either defer to those young ladies or leave the establishment, Miss Edwards."
This young lady, being motherless and poor, was apprenticed at the school--taught for nothing--teaching others what she learned for nothing--boarded for nothing--lodged for nothing--and set down and rated as something immeasurably less than nothing, by all the dwellers in the house. The servant maids felt her inferiority, for they were better treated; free to come and go, and regarded in their stations with much more respect. The teachers were infinitely superior, for they had paid to go to school in their time, and were paid now. The pupils cared little for a companion who had no grand stories to tell about home; no friends to come with post horses, and be received in all humility, with cake and wine, by the governess; no deferential servant to attend and bear her home for the holidays; nothing genteel to talk about, and nothing to display. But why was Miss Monflathers always vexed and irritated with the poor apprentice--how did that come to pass?
Why, the gayest feather in Miss Monflathers's cap, and the brightest glory of Miss Monflathers's school, was a baronet's daughter--the real live daughter of a real live baronet--who, by some extraordinary reversal of the laws of Nature, was not only plain in features but dull in intellect, while the poor apprentice had both a ready wit and a handsome face and figure. It seems incredible. Here was Miss Edwards, who only paid a small premium which had been spent long ago, every day outshining and excelling the baronet's daughter, who learned all the extras (or was taught them all), and whose half yearly bill came to double that of any other young lady's in the school, making no account of the honour and reputation of her pupilage. Therefore, and because she was a dependent, Miss Monflathers had a great dislike to Miss Edwards, and was spiteful to her, and aggravated by her, and, when she had compassion on Little Nell, verbally fell upon and maltreated her, as we have already seen.
"You will not take the air to-day, Miss Edwards," said Miss Monflathers. "Have the goodness to retire to your own room, and not to leave it without permission."
The poor girl was moving hastily away, when she was suddenly, in a nautical phrase, "brought to" by a subdued shriek from Miss Monflathers.
"She has passed me without any salute!" cried the governess, raising her eyes to the sky. "She has actually passed me without the slightest acknowledgment of my presence!"
The young lady turned and courtesied. Nell could see that she raised her dark eyes to the face of her superior, and that their expression, and that of her whole attitude for the instant, was one of mute but most touching appeal against this ungenerous usage. Miss Monflathers only tossed her head in reply, and the great gate closed upon a bursting heart.
In addition to the gross evils of such institutions already suggested,Dickens exposed the cruelty of Miss Monflathers, as a type of Christianrectitude, toward Nell, whom she assumed to be very wicked, and thetendency of society to treat teachers with contempt, if they are not rich.The standard based on mere wealth is happily changing.
The tone of Miss Monflathers's lofty criticism in language and thought,quite incomprehensible to the person admonished, is very true to the lifein cases of conventional people, who take no pains to understand childnature or human nature in any phase, except its depravity.
The heartlessness of the distinction between the "genteel" children andpoor children is clearly pointed out. There could scarcely be a moreunchristlike thought than the one that would prohibit the children of thepoor from the enjoyment of their natural tendency to play. No civilizationin which either by deliberate purpose or by criminal negligence thechildren of the poorest are left without the privilege and the means forfull free play should dare to call itself Christian. Yet MissMonflathers's parody aptly represented the practical outworking ofcivilization at the time of Dickens, and long since, too, in regard topoor children.
Miss Monflathers told Miss Edwards majestically that she "must not takethe air to-day," and contemptuously ordered her to remain in her room allday. This was written to condemn the common punishment of keeping childrenin at recess or confining them as a means of punishment. Dickens alwaysthought it a crime against childhood to punish a child by robbing it ofany of its natural rights to food, or fresh air, or free exercise.
The ecstasy of passion reached by Miss Monflathers because Miss Edwardspassed her without saluting her showed Dickens's attitude toward those whoinsisted and still insist on obeisance from those whom they are pleased toregard as "inferiors." Public school education has been criticised because"it does not train poor children to courtesy to their superiors." Anysystem deserves the support of all right-thinking people if it trains thechildren of the poorest to hold their heads up respectfully, and look theworld squarely in the face without a debasing consciousness ofinferiority. The greatest aim of education, so far as the individual isconcerned, is freedom--spiritual freedom. Respect for properly constitutedauthority should become a part of every child's consciousness, but thisproperly involves contempt for the arrogant assumption of certain peoplethat certain other people should bow down in servile humility to them.Education must always be the enemy of tyranny, slavery, and all kinds ofabasement.
The grinders' school was introduced to ridicule the practice of forcingall children in charitable institutions to wear a uniform dress, and toattack corporal punishment, neglect of moral training, and the practice ofplacing ignorant men in the high position of a teacher. The teacher in thegrinders' school was "a superannuated old grinder of savage disposition,who had been appointed schoolmaster because he didn't know anything, andwasn't fit for anything, and for whose cruel cane all chubby little boyshad a perfect fascination." The practice of dressing all children alike,and of dressing them all without taste, is continued in most homes fororphan children still. Surely the poor orphans have suffered enoughwithout subjecting them to the indignity of tasteless dressing. Theremight at least be a difference of taste in colour, for instance, for theblondes and the brunettes.
The school taught by Agnes in David Copperfield is mentioned to show thatif a teacher works with a true spirit (Agnes was a splendid character forwomen to study with great care), teaching is a pleasant instead of anunhappy profession.
David said: "It is laborious, is it not?" "The labour is so pleasant," shereturned, "that it is scarcely grateful in me to call it by that name."
The school attended by Uriah Heep and his father before him was describedas an attack on the practice of instilling into the minds of poor childrenthe consciousness of subserviency. David says: "I fully comprehended nowfor the first time (after hearing Uriah describe his training at school)what a base, unrelenting, and revengeful spirit must have been engenderedby this early, and this long, suppression."
The first school attended by Esther in Bleak House is apparentlyintroduced to point out four evils in the social training of littlechildren. The other children were all older than Esther; her godmotherrefused to allow her to accept invitations to go to the homes of the othergirls; she was never allowed out to play; and while holidays were given onthe birthdays of other girls, none were ever given on hers. The cruelty oftwo of these evils was made still more bitter by the revelation of thefact that she was not treated like other girls because of some wrong hermother was supposed to have done.
Miss Donny's school at Greenleaf was a charming place, conducted in a"precise, exact, and orderly way." Esther was taught well, and trainedwell. She was to be a governess, and so she taught as she learned. Herbarren childhood made her sympathize with the girls whom she taught,especially the new girls, and she naturally won their love, and wastherefore happy. Esther possessed every essential characteristic of a goodteacher and a true woman. Miss Donny's school is one of the schools inwhich Dickens was approving, not condemning
.
Mr. Cripple's academy is merely mentioned in Little Dorrit to complainabout the habit of scribbling over buildings and on desks and walls inwhich boys used to indulge, and of which many evidences may yet be foundon the fences and walls of the present day.
"The pupils of Mr. Cripple's appeared to have been making a copy book ofthe street door, it was so extensively scribbled over in pencil."
Pip's early education, in Great Expectations, was received in Mr. Wopsle'sgreat-aunt's school.
Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt kept an evening school in the village; that is to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in the society of youth, who paid twopence per week each, for the improving opportunity of seeing her do it. She rented a small cottage, and Mr. Wopsle had the room upstairs, where we students used to overhear him reading aloud in a most dignified and terrific manner, and occasionally bumping on the ceiling. There was a fiction that Mr. Wopsle "examined" the scholars once a quarter. What he did on those occasions was to turn up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us Mark Antony's oration over the body of Caesar.
Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a bramble bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every letter. After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition. But at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to read, write, and cipher on the very smallest scale.
Biddy was Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter; I confessed myself quite unequal to the working out of the problem, what relation she was to Mr. Wopsle.
The educational scheme or course established by Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt may be resolved into the following synopsis: The pupils ate apples and put straws down one another's backs, until Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt collected her energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with a birch rod. After receiving the charge with every mark of derision, the pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to hand. The book had an alphabet in it, some figures and tables, and a little spelling--that is to say, it had had once. As soon as this volume began to circulate, Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt fell into a state of coma, arising either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The pupils then entered among themselves upon a competitive examination on the subject of boots, with the view of ascertaining who could tread the hardest upon whose toes. This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a rush at them and distributed three defaced Bibles (shaped as if they had been unskilfully cut off the chumped end of something), more illegibly printed at the best than any curiosities of literature I have since met with, speckled all over with iron mould, and having various specimens of the insect world smashed between their leaves. This part of the course was usually lightened by several single combats between Biddy and refractory students. When the fights were over, Biddy gave out the number of a page, and then we all read aloud what we could--or what we couldn't--in a frightful chorus; Biddy leading with a high shrill monotonous voice, and none of us having the least notion of, or reverence for, what we were reading about. When this horrible din had lasted a certain time, it mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, who staggered at a boy fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was understood to terminate the course for the evening, and we emerged into the air with shrieks of intellectual victory.
The reasons for describing this school were to renew the attack on badprivate schools, conducted without any state control and no supervision orinspection by competent officers, to show the need of better appliancesand text-books, and to teach the utter folly of allowing pupils to try toread any book, especially the Bible, without understanding what they werereading. Incidentally Dickens taught that to use the Bible as it was usedin Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's school develops a lack of reverence for it.The evil of corporal punishment of the indiscriminate and irregular kindcomes in for a share of condemnation in this wretched school.
Dickens returned to the attack on bad private schools in Our MutualFriend. He had made a thorough study of the evening schools conducted inLondon--conducted many of them by organizations with good intentions.
There are a good many Sunday schools yet which in some respects are opento the criticisms made of Charley Hexam's first school.
The school at which young Charley Hexam had first learned from a book--the streets being, for pupils of his degree, the great preparatory establishment, in which very much that is never unlearned is learned without and before book--was a miserable loft in an unsavoury yard. Its atmosphere was oppressive and disagreeable; it was crowded, noisy, and confusing; half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state of stupefaction; the other half kept them in either condition by maintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if they were performing, out of time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe. The teachers, animated solely by good intentions, had no idea of execution, and a lamentable jumble was the upshot of their kind endeavours.
It was a school for all ages and for both sexes. The latter were kept apart, and the former were partitioned off into square assortments. But all the place was pervaded by a grimly ludicrous pretence that every pupil was childish and innocent. This pretence, much favoured by the lady visitors, led to the ghastliest absurdities. Young women, old in the vices of the commonest and worst life, were expected to profess themselves enthralled by the good child's book, the Adventures of Little Margery, who resided in the village cottage by the mill; severely reproved and morally squashed the miller, when she was five and he was fifty; divided her porridge with singing birds; denied herself a new nankeen bonnet, on the ground that the turnips did not wear nankeen bonnets, neither did the sheep, who ate them; who plaited straw and delivered the dreariest orations to all comers, at all sorts of unseasonable times. So unwieldy young dredgers and hulking mudlarks were referred to the experiences of Thomas Twopence, who, having resolved not to rob (under circumstances of uncommon atrocity) his particular friend and benefactor, of eighteenpence, presently came into supernatural possession of three and sixpence, and lived a shining light ever afterward. (Note, that the benefactor came to no good.) Several swaggering sinners had written their own biographies in the same strain; it always appearing from the lessons of those very boastful persons that you were to do good, not because it _was_ good, but because you were to make a good thing of it. Contrariwise, the adult pupils were taught to read (if they could learn) out of the New Testament; and by dint of stumbling over the syllables and keeping their bewildered eyes on the particular syllables coming round to their turn, were as absolutely ignorant of the sublime history as if they had never seen or heard of it. An exceedingly and confoundingly perplexing jumble of a school, in fact, where black spirits and gray, red spirits and white, jumbled, jumbled, jumbled, jumbled, jumbled every night. And particularly every Sunday night. For then an inclined plane of unfortunate infants would be handed over to the prosiest and worst of all the teachers with good intentions, whom nobody older would endure. Who, taking his stand on the floor before them, as chief executioner, would be attended by a conventional volunteer boy as executioner's assistant. When and where it first became the conventional system that a weary or inattentive infant in a class must have its face smoothed downward with a hot hand, or when or where the conventional volunteer boy first beheld such system in operation, and became inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it, matters not. It was the function of the chief executioner to hold forth, and it was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants, yawning infants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth their wretched faces, sometimes with o
ne hand, as if he were anointing them for a whisker; sometimes with both hands, applied after the fashion of blinkers. And so the jumble would be in action in this department for a mortal hour; the exponent drawling on to my dearerr childerrenerr, let us say for example, about the beautiful coming to the sepulchre; and repeating the word sepulchre (commonly used among infants) five hundred times and never once hinting what it meant; the conventional boy smoothing away right and left, as an infallible commentary; the whole hotbed of flushed and exhausted infants exchanging measles, rashes, whooping-cough, fever, and stomach disorders, as if they were assembled in High Market for the purpose.
Even in this temple of good intentions, an exceptionally sharp boy exceptionally determined to learn, could learn something, and, having learned it, could impart it so much better than the teachers; as being more knowing than they, and not at the disadvantage in which they stood toward the shrewder pupils. In this way it had come about that Charley Hexam had risen in the jumble, taught in the jumble, and been received from the jumble into a better school.
Dickens slaughtered evils by wholesale in this brief description. Theinfluence of the great preparatory establishment, the street, was broughtto the notice of thinking people.
The need of ventilation was pointed out, and the evil of crowding a largenumber of pupils into poorly ventilated rooms was made very clear. "Halfthe pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state of waking stupefaction."
The teachers were untrained. "They were animated solely by goodintentions, and had no idea of execution." The consequence was alamentable jumble.
The separation of the sexes was not approved.
The stupid blunder of treating all pupils alike, without regard toheredity, environment, or past experience, is aptly caricatured in givingthe Adventures of Little Margery and the Experiences of Thomas Twopence toyoung women old in vice and to young male criminals in order to reformthem.
Incidentally he disapproves of such literature for any children, and alsoof the autobiographies of "swaggering sinners."
The error pointed out in Pip's education of using the New Testament as abook from which pupils should be taught how to read is emphasized. "Bydint of stumbling over the syllables and keeping their bewildered eyes onthe particular syllables coming round to their turn, they were asabsolutely ignorant of the sublime history as if they had never seen orheard of it."
He criticised severely the old custom of giving least attention to thechoice of a teacher for the little ones. The old theory was: they can notlearn much any way; anybody will do to teach them. "The inclined plane ofunfortunate infants would be handed over to the prosiest and worst of allthe teachers of good intentions, whom nobody older would endure."
The dreadful practice, still kept up in some heathen-producing Sundayschools, of having an "executioner's assistant to keep order," is severelycondemned. "It was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleepinginfants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth, their wretchedfaces." The irritating influence of this operation on the sufferinginfants and the degrading effect on the executioner's assistant himselfare clearly indicated.
But the greatest cruelty was in having the infants talked at in a droningvoice for an hour by the chief executioner in a voice that would sometimesdeaden, sometimes irritate their nervous systems, and in language theycould not comprehend, about subjects entirely foreign to theirexperiences.
The danger of spreading contagious diseases in such badly ventilatedschools was shown. Dickens was a leader in the department of sanitationboth in homes and in schools.
The schools taught by Bradley Headstone and Miss Peecher were
newly built, and there were so many like them all over the country, that one might have thought the whole were but one restless edifice with the locomotive gift of Aladdin's palace.
All things in these schools--buildings, teachers, and pupils--were according to pattern, and engendered in the light of the latest Gospel according to Monotony.
These brief descriptions contained volumes of protest against the deaduniformity of school architecture, and against the sacrifice ofindividuality in schools. There are no other buildings in which thereshould be more care taken to have truly artistic architecture than inschools, because the children are influenced so much by their environment.Correct taste may be formed more easily and more definitely by making theplaces in which children spend so much of their lives truly artistic thanby studying the best authorities. The child's spirits should be toned bythe colouring of the walls of the schoolroom, and by the pictures,statues, and other artistic articles around them.
The phrase "Gospel according to Monotony" is one of the most effectivephrases ever used to describe the destruction of individuality.
The Peecher-Headstone schools were described as one of several protestsagainst separating little girls from little boys in schools.
Phoebe, the happy young woman, who had never been able to sit up sinceshe had been dropped by her mother when she was in a fit, is one of thesweetest of the characters of Dickens. She lay on a couch as high as thewindow and enjoyed the view as she made lace. She taught a little schoolpart of the day, and when Barbox Brothers was at Mugby Junction he heardthe children singing in the school, and watched them trooping home happilytill he became so interested in what was going on in the little cottagethat he went in to investigate. He found a small but very clean room, withno one there but Phoebe lying on her couch. He asked her if she waslearned in the new system of teaching, meaning the kindergarten system,because he had heard her children singing as he passed.
"No," she said, "I am very fond of children, but I know nothing of teaching, beyond the interest I have in it, and the pleasure it gives me, when they learn. I have only read and been told about the new system. It seemed so pretty and pleasant, and to treat them so like the merry robins they are, that I took up with it in my little way. My school is a pleasure to me. I began it, when I was but a child, because it brought me and other children into company, don't you see? I carry it on still, because it keeps children about me. I do it as love, not as work."
What a beautiful school! What an ideal spirit for every true teacher! Whata wise man Dickens was to reveal so much sweetness and trueness in thelife of such a woman as Phoebe! When Phoebe had overcome herrestrictions so triumphantly, surely every one who dares to teach shouldtry to rise above personal infirmities, and treat children like the "merryrobins that they are."
The Holiday Romance, in which three young children write romances for theedification of their adult friends and relatives, to show how adulttreatment impresses young children, is usually regarded as merely anexquisite piece of humour. In writing to Mr. Fields about the storyDickens said: "It made me laugh to that extent, that my people herethought I was out of my wits, until I gave it to them to read, when theydid likewise."
There is more philosophy than fun in these stories, however, and whencarefully studied they should aid in the "education of the grown-uppeople"--not merely the "grown-ups" for whom they were intended, but all"grown-ups." This is especially true of the last story, written by MissNettie Ashford, aged "half-past-six."
The story is about Mrs. Lemon's school and Mrs. Orange's family.
"The grown-up people" were the children in Nettie's story, and thechildren were the managers of all things at home and at school.
Mrs. Orange went to Mrs. Lemon's and told her that "her children weregetting positively too much for her." She had two parents, two intimatefriends of theirs, one godfather, two godmothers, and an aunt. She wishedto send them to school, because they were "getting too much for her." Manyreal mothers give the same reason.
"Have you as many as eight vacancies?"
"I have just eight, ma'am," said Mrs. Lemon.
"Corporal punishment dispensed with?"
"Why, we do occasionally shake," said Mrs. Lemon, "and we have slapped. But only in extre
me cases."
Mrs. Orange was shown through the school, and had the bad "grown-ups"pointed out to her and their evil propensities explained to her in theirhearing, as naturally as in a real school. She decided to send her family,and went home with her baby--which was a doll--saying, "These troublesometroubles are got rid of, please the pigs."
A small party for the grown-up children was given by Mrs. Alicumpaine, andthe arrangements made for the adults, and the ways in which they weretreated by their child masters, and the criticisms on the way the seniorsbehaved are all instructive to thoughtful parents. The real things thatadult people say and do appear delightfully stupid or exquisitely sillywhen made to appear as said and done by children.
When Mr. and Mrs. Orange were going home they passed the establishment of Mrs. Lemon, and necessarily thought of their eight adult pupils who were there.
"I wonder, James, dear," said Mrs. Orange, looking up at the window, "whether the precious children are asleep!"
"I don't care much whether they are or not, myself," said Mr. Orange.
"James, dear!"
"You dote upon them, you know," said Mr. Orange. "That's another thing."
"I do," said Mrs. Orange rapturously. "Oh, I do!"
"I don't," said Mr. Orange.
"But, I was thinking, James, love," said Mrs. Orange, pressing his arm, "whether our dear, good, kind Mrs. Lemon would like them to stay the holidays with her."
"If she was paid for it, I dare say she would," said Mr. Orange.
"I adore them, James," said Mrs. Orange, "but _suppose_ we pay her, then."
This was what brought the country to such perfection, and made it such a delightful place to live in. The grown-up people (that would be in other countries) soon left off being allowed any holidays after Mr. and Mrs. Orange tried the experiment; and the children (that would be in other countries) kept them at school as long as ever they lived, and made them do whatever they were told.
This story was written about two years before the death of Dickens, so itrepresents his maturest thought. Its great fundamental motive wasFroebel's motto, "Come, let us live with our children." It was atrenchant, though humorous criticism of the methods of treating childrenpractised by adults, at home and at school. Mrs. Orange's adoration forchildren, while at the same time she was proposing to keep them at schoolduring the holidays, is very suggestive to those mothers who in societytalk so much about their "precious darlings," but who keep them in thenursery so that they have no share in the family life. The practice ofcalling children bad and describing their supposed evil propensities inthe presence of others is also condemned in this story.
One of the very best of the stories of Dickens to show his perfectsympathy with boyhood is the story told by Jemmy Jackman Lirriper about"the boy who went to school in Rutlandshire."
It reveals the feelings of boys to the "Tartars" who teach school, as theboys, when they got control, put the Tartar into confinement and "forcedhim to eat the boys' dinners and drink half a cask of their beer everyday."
It reveals, too, the psychological condition of a healthy boy justentering the adolescent period, if he has been fortunate enough to havehad a life of love and freedom at home; with his heart filled with lovefor the schoolmaster's daughter Seraphina, and his mind filled withhopeful dreams of success, and triumph, and fortune, and happiness everafterward, not excluding those who had nurtured him, but sharing all withthem, and finding his greatest joy in their affectionate pride at hissuccess. Blessed is the boy who has such glorious experiences and suchhopeful dreams in his later boyhood and onward, and thrice blessed is hewho finds in parenthood hearts so reverently sympathetic that it isnatural for the young heart to overflow into them.
"But such dreams can never come true." They are true. Nothing is ever moretrue for the stage of evolution in which they naturally fill the life ofthe child. To stop them is a crime; to shut them up in the heart of theboy or girl makes them a source of great danger instead of an essentialelement in the ennoblement of character.
Let the boy dream on, and help him to dream by sympathetically sharing hisvisions with him. His own visions and the most wonderful visions ofheroism and adventure dreamed by the best authors should fill his lifeduring the most important stage of his growth, adolescence, when theelements of his manhood are rushing into his life and require an outlet inthe ideal life as a preparation for the real life of later days.
Dickens recognises, too, in this story the great truth so little used byeducators, that the child's imagination is not restricted by anyconditions of impossibility or by any laws of Nature or of man. The idealtranscends the real, the desired is accomplished. Development is rapidunder such conditions.
"And was there no quarrelling," asked Mrs. Lirriper, "after the boy and his boy friend had gained high renown, and unlimited stores of gold, and had married Seraphina and her sister, and had come to live with Gran and Godfather forever, and the story was ended?"
"No! Nobody ever quarrelled."
"And did the money never melt away?"
"No! Nobody could ever spend it all."
"And did none of them ever grow older?"
"No! Nobody ever grew older after that."
"And did none of them ever die?"
"O, no, no, no, Gran!" exclaimed our dear boy, laying his cheek upon her breast, and drawing her closer to him. "Nobody ever died."
"Ah, Major, Major!" says Mrs. Lirriper, smiling benignly upon me, "this beats our stories. Let us end with the Boy's Story, Major, for the Boy's Story is the best that is ever told."
Miss Pupford's school in Tom Tiddler's Ground reveals the foolishconventional formalism of some teachers before their pupils; exposes thepretences of some teachers in private schools--"Miss Pupford's assistantwith the Parisian accent, who never conversed with a Parisian and neverwas out of England"; and condemns the practice of sending mere childrenlong distances from home to be trained and educated: "Kitty Kimmeens hadto remain behind in Miss Pupford's school during the holidays, because herfriends and relations were all in India, far away."
In Edwin Drood Dickens had begun a description of the school: "On the trimgate inclosing the courtyard of which is a resplendent brass plateflashing forth the legend: 'Seminary for Young Ladies. Miss Twinkleton.'"
The chief thing revealed by the brief description given of it is theformal conventionality of most teachers in such institutions, theunreality of manner and tone and character shown by most teachers in theschoolroom.
How much greater Miss Twinkleton's power would have been to help indeveloping human hearts and heads, if she could have been more truly humanduring the day! She did not deceive the young ladies either by herformalism. They merely said, "What a pretending old thing Miss Twinkletonis!"
When the rumour of the quarrel between Neville Landless and Edwin Droodreached the seminary, and began to cause dangerous excitement among theyoung ladies, Miss Twinkleton deemed it her duty to quiet their minds.
It was reserved for Miss Twinkleton to tone down the public mind of the Nuns' House. That lady, therefore, entering in a stately manner what plebeians might have called the schoolroom, but what, in the patrician language of the head of the Nuns' House, was euphuistically, not to say roundaboutedly, denominated "the apartment allotted to study," and saying with a forensic air, "Ladies!" all rose. Mrs. Tisher at the same time grouped herself behind her chief, as representing Queen Elizabeth's first historical female friend at Tilbury Fort. Miss Twinkleton then proceeded to remark that Rumour, ladies, had been represented by the Bard of Avon--needless were it to mention the immortal Shakespeare, also called the Swan of his native river, not improbably with some reference to the ancient superstition that that bird of graceful plumage (Miss Jennings will please stand upright) sung sweetly on the approach of death, for which we have no ornithological authority--Rumour, lad
ies, had been represented by that bard--hem!--
"Who drew The celebrated Jew,"
as painted full of tongues. Rumour in Cloisterham (Miss Ferdinand will honour me with her attention) was no exception to the great limner's portrait of Rumour elsewhere. A slight _fracas_ between two young gentlemen occurring last night within a hundred miles of these peaceful walls (Miss Ferdinand, being apparently incorrigible, will have the kindness to write out this evening, in the original language, the first four fables of our vivacious neighbour, Monsieur La Fontaine) had been very grossly exaggerated by Rumour's voice. In the first alarm and anxiety arising from our sympathy with a sweet young friend, not wholly to be dissociated from one of the gladiators in the bloodless arena in question (the impropriety of Miss Reynolds's appearing to stab herself in the hand with a pin is far too obvious, and too glaringly unladylike to be pointed out), we descended from our maiden elevation to discuss this uncongenial and this unfit theme. Responsible inquiries having assured us that it was but one of those "airy nothings" pointed at by the poet (whose name and date of birth Miss Giggles will supply within half an hour), we would now discard the subject, and concentrate our minds upon the grateful labours of the day.
The unnatural formalism of her manner and her language are properly heldup to ridicule by Dickens.
He incidentally shows the great blunder of interrupting a lesson tocensure a pupil, the weakness of having to demand attention, and the errorof punishing by impositions to be memorized or written. What a terriblemisuse it is of the literature that should always be attractive andinspiring to have it associated with punishment! He exposes the greatercrime of making children commit to memory selections from the Bible as apunishment in Dombey and Son, and the association of the Bible with tasksin Our Mutual Friend.
The Schoolboy's Story deals with the problems of nutrition, coercion,robbing a boy of his holidays, the declaration of perpetual warfarebetween pupils and teachers in the olden days, and the surprise of theboys when they found that one of their teachers had a true and tenderheart (what a commentary on teachers that boys should be surprised attheir being true and good!), and how to treat children as Old Cheesemandid, when he inherited his fortune and married Jane, and took thedisconsolate boys home to his own house, when they were condemned to spendtheir holidays at school.
In Our School the chief pedagogical lessons are: the man's remembrance ofthe pug dog in the entry at the first school he attended, and his utterforgetfulness of the mistress of the establishment; the folly of externalpolishing or memory polishing on which "the rust has long sinceaccumulated"; the gross wrong of allowing an ignorant and brutal man to bea teacher--"The only branches of education with which the master showedthe least acquaintance were ruling and corporally punishing"; thedeadening injustice of showing partiality, whether on account of a boy'sparentage or for any other reason; sympathy for "holiday stoppers"; theinterest all children should take in keeping and training pet animals; theadvantages to boys of having to construct "houses and instruments ofperformance" for these pets--"some of those who made houses and inventedappliances for their performing mice in school have since made railroads,engines, and telegraphs, the chairman has erected mills and bridges inAustralia"; the fact that "we all liked Maxby the tutor, for he had a goodknowledge of boys"; and that teachers should be very particular abouttheir personal neatness, because children note so accurately every detailof dress and manner. This is shown by the reminiscences about Maxby, theLatin master, and the dancing master. The ungenerous rivalry oftenexisting between schools, and schools of thought, too, was pointed out:"There was another school not far off, and of course our school could havenothing to say to that school. It is mostly the way with schools, whetherof boys or men."
"The world had little reason to be proud of Our School, and has done muchbetter since in that way, and will do far better yet." This closingsentence of the sketch is very suggestive.
Dickens described one school that he visited in America in his AmericanNotes, evidently in order to show the need of more care than was thentaken in the choice of matter for the pupils to read.
I was only present in one of these establishments during the hours of instruction. In the boys' department, which was full of little urchins (varying in their ages, I should say, from six years old to ten or twelve), the master offered to institute an extemporary examination of the pupils in algebra, a proposal which, as I was by no means confident of my ability to detect mistakes in that science, I declined with some alarm. In the girls' school reading was proposed, and as I felt tolerably equal to that art I expressed my willingness to hear a class. Books were distributed accordingly, and some half dozen girls relieved each other in reading paragraphs from English history. But it seemed to be a dry compilation, infinitely above their powers; and when they had blundered through three or four dreary passages concerning the treaty of Amiens, and other thrilling topics of the same nature (obviously without comprehending ten words), I expressed myself quite satisfied. It is very possible that they only mounted to this exalted stave in the ladder of learning for the astonishment of a visitor, and that at other times they keep upon its lower rounds; but I should have been much better pleased and satisfied if I had heard them exercised in simpler lessons, which they understood.
"The world has done better since, and will do far better yet" in thechoice of reading matter for children.
The school recalled by memory in connection with the other ghosts of hischildhood in The Haunted House was described briefly, but the descriptionis full of suggestiveness.
Then I was sent to a great cold, bare school of big boys; where everything to eat and wear was thick and clumpy, without being enough; where everybody, large and small, was cruel; where the boys knew all about the sale before I got there [his father's furniture had been sold for debt], and asked me what I had fetched, and who had bought me, and hooted at me, "Going, going, gone."
The inartistic bareness of the school, the tasteless clothing, theunattractive, unsatisfying food, the pervading atmosphere of cruelty, andthe heartlessness of the boys in tearing open the wounds of the sensitivenew boy--are all condemned.
Dickens As an Educator Page 19
