Page images
PDF
EPUB

I ask in what sense are these productions pictures? Diagrams, hieroglyphics they may be; but why are they called pictures? If music is intellectual and moral but not musical, if pictures are symbolic but not pictorial, well, it suggests Anarchy to me; a refusal to be bound not only by outside tyranny, but by the essential and innate laws of the very business in hand, by the spiritual unity which perhaps you made yourself, but without which your object has no exist

ence.

Not only among the playboys of art is there lapse into Anarchy; in public affairs we find an increasing inclination to play games without minding the rules. I am not referring to the politicians, for it is not always clear to me what game they are playing, still less what are their rules. I speak of the lower mortals, those who are governed, for whom the laws of the land are made. The rules of the government game are that we depute our representatives, chosen by various sifting processes, to govern us; and once having set them in the seats of authority, we don't personally interfere with them, but let them impose laws which we undertake simply to obey. But nowadays, personally, we want to interfere.

Unruly women dog the steps of ministers, interrupt their speeches, bid them discuss this or give priority to that, are only by superhuman vigilance prevented from bursting into the Houses of Parliament and usurping the members' right to make orations. And these same women do illegal things with impunity. For they have adopted a cunning use for woman's time-honored prerogative of ill-health, and turning their punishment into illness are allowed by the customs of chivalry to decline the just wages of their deeds. As for the rules of the game they say they weren't con

sulted about rules, haven't agreed to them, and so are at liberty to profit by all winnings accruing from the game, while repudiating losses and the smallest obligation as to their play. "Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda passa."

Among men and women alike is another spirit hostile to fair play. It considers that individuals are to obey only those laws which individually they approve. Smith won't have his baby vaccinated; Jones won't send Tommy to school; Robinson won't pay income tax; Mrs. Jones-RobinsonSmith smuggles and refuses to lick stamps for her half-dozen servants. And now Ulster says she will fight if the Home Rule Bill becomes law.

Uister is probably right. Ulster is more than individuals; and of course there does come a point when the game itself proves so irksome that one gives it up and starts another. That is Revolution, and in the last resort is a sacred duty. But these passive resisters, these little, opinionated, turbulent folk, who are discontented as to some one point, and think they understand so much better than the responsible men who have studied it, these little people don't want a Revo lution. They don't want to give up the game. They only wish to break the rules, to play for their own personal advantage; to tie the hands of their deputies, just as a stupid mistress ties the hands of the cook she has bidden make a pudding, by herself overhauling the ingredients and altering the heat of the oven. In a free country is this liberty? or is it chaos coming again-Anarchy?

I suppose I really have grown old thus seeing Anarchy everywhere. I repeat Tennyson's lines to myself daily:

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."

But it's no good. I am still apprehensive. One more example and I have done. Anarchy has crept into education. It begins, if not in the cradle, at least in the crèche! I have expected this. Long ago it occurred to me that most of the arguments in support of the extension of the franchise to the dregs of the population (which phrase, of

course, precludes me from adding "and

to women") could equally be

advanced in favor of bestowing it on boys and girls. Are they not human? Are they not citizens? Have they not rights? grievances? Why should they be the only class unrepresented? Why should they be taxed, and not allowed (once they can talk) to express their views on expenditure? I have been expecting the children to organize passive, or more probably active resistances to their many oppressions. Breaking windows in the cause of liberty will, I am sure, be a task most congenial to them.

Well, the other day I read of a messenger boys' strike, and a little earlier of infants in a body who refused to attend school. And now here comes Signora Dottoressa Montessori telling us in no uncertain tones that she is going to reform education all over the world, from the children's point of view.

It seems, according to this wise and successful lady, that from time immemorial we have been making slaves of our little people, tyrannizing over them, depriving them of self-assertion and self-reliance, forbidding them to grow. In the new system the scholars are to lead and the teacher-I beg pardon! the director, but it's a misnomer-is to follow; to be as passive as possible, to observe, occasionally very delicately to hint. He (or she)

must not punish, must not find fault, must not correct, must not even explain. He may say, "This is red, that is blue"; but whatsoever more in comment or illustration cometh of evil. To be so simple, so laconic, is admittedly hard upon the director; for he is essentially scientific, and his natural propensities incline him to verbiage and the longest and abstrusest words, such as pedagogical anthropology, orthophrenic psychiatry, blaesitas and lambdacism. The child, in short words or long, may chatter as it will, may sit where it pleases, may run round the garden when the whim takes it. However, it must be hindered from disturbing the others; this is the unpardonable sin, and must be treated with the greatest severity; namely, the offender must be seen by the doctor, then put in an armchair in a retired corner (no advice is offered as to how he shall be induced to stay there), given his favorite toys, and specially noticed and petted and coaxed, till he becomes of his own accord perfectly amenable, and in fact less troublesome than any of his companions.

Result of this hothouse forcing, the children educate themselves. At six years old they bath and dress their own bodies; they sweep rooms and wait at table; they add up sums; they distinguish between a square and a circle, an oval and an ellipse; they write letters, read books, are courteous and graceful, calm, cheerful and busy; and, marvel of marvels, they are obedient, for "obedience occurs as a natural tendency in older children."

It is admirable; but I want to know if the system is adapted to all children, or only to good ones?-for I have noted a by-law, that "incorrigibles shall be dismissed." At any rate the babes described don't seem at all like the babes I know. Dr. Montessori says her little ones put things in

their places, are conscience stricken if they upset chairs, enjoy washing. Good heavens!

A story is told of an injudicious nurse, seen on the Pincio in charge of a smiling babe eighteen months old who was shovelling sand into a pail. It was time to go home; the nurse "exhorted" the baby, but he continued to shovel. Then, kindly but rapidly, she filled the pail herself, set pail and baby in the perambulator and wheeled it away. Great wrath on the part of the baby, loud cries, and expression on his erst smiling countenance of protest against violence and injustice.

I ask, what should this nurse have done? Was it for Mr. Baby to fix the time for going home?

Seriously, in all this new system I question whether unwilling children ever really gain the power of doing something they don't want to do, of learning something they don't want to learn. The power can be gained; for instance, I mastered the scales; with pain and grief, I admit, but their early conquest, quite apart from its benefit to my future playing, became an object lesson to me for all my life.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

But it occurs to me that probably Dr. Montessori wishes to train up Anarchists. Anarchy, theoretically, is a perfect system. Like the children she describes in their class-room, the anarchist is to move through his world "intelligently and gracefully, committing no rude or unkind act, voluntarily busy, a law unto himself, owning no master, no superior, no law." It is the precise condition I should like to arrive at myself. But alas! it presupposes the millennium, when wicked'ness shall have been abolished. Or else it presupposes slavery for incorrigibles, and I know not if ever they shall be few.

Having reached the Earthly Paradise, Virgil bestowed on Dante the symbolic crown and mitre, and sent him on his way, lord of himself. But ah! he had been through the world and hell and purgatory first; and, moreover, he was going into the waters of grey Lethe and thence straight into heaven-where there is no more curse; where the fearful are not, nor the unbelieving, nor the unjust, nor abominations, nor lies; but on all sides is the pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal; where the servants of the Lamb serve him, and so shall reign for ever and ever. Helen Hester Colvill.

JOHN COPE'S YEAR AT OXFORD.

CHAPTER I.

If there was one quality on the possession of which the Dean of St. Cyprian's prided himself it was that of explicitness. "Shakespeare, Butler, and Bacon," he was once heard to re

mark, “have rendered it extremely difficult for all who come after them to be sublime, witty, or profound, but a man of very ordinary intelligence can, if he will only take the trouble, be explicit." The Dean himself, be it

he

said, possessed something more than mere ordinary intelligence. It was a matter of common report that as an undergraduate Maple of St. Cyprian's had been the best all-round man of his day, his weakness being that he had allowed his enthusiasm to run rampart in too many directions and had essayed too much. A winner of two University Prizes, men said that he had missed the Craven because elected to read for mathematical honors after securing the best First of the year in Classics; while his partial devotion to the River, where he was the best College stroke of his time, had probably cost him a place in the "Varsity" Eleven. Years and experience. adding a degree of formality to his bearing, had in no degree abated his enthusiasm, which was now, however, centered on one object only-the attainment of distinction alike in the Schools and the Playing-fields by the College of which he had been in the first place Scholar, then Classical Tutor, and was now the Dean and virtual ruler.

On this particular afternoon in March the Dean felt himself called upon to be even more than ordinarily explicit. For he found himself confronted by a hitherto unknown quantity, in the person of a young man of six-and-twenty or thereabouts, who, having called upon him, armed with a letter of introduction from an old College friend, had put forth the extraordinary, nay, even preposterous suggestion that he, John Cope by name, should be allowed to enter his name on the books of St. Cyprian's, and having dispensed with the formality of a Matriculation Examination, to reside for probably one year only. True, under favorable circumstances the period of residence might be indefinitely prolonged; but this Mr. John Cope, albeit singularly badly informed on most points, seemed

to have just enough inteligence to believe that the "Dons"-these the Dean gathered to be the University Authorities might require him to present himself "for one of their rotten examinations" at the end of the year. "And, of course, I'm not going to do that," he concluded in an airy way.

Here, indeed, was an occasion for plain speaking. This very confident young gentleman, Mr. John Cope, must be firmly and politely shown, for once and for all time, that St. Cyprian's, so far from being an asylum for the vagabond and the idler, or even an ordinary College, was rather a community of especially selected young men, not merely immaculate of conduct, but of whom each individual was expected to contribute a something which should, if possible, enhance an unusually high reputation. And, most unfortunately for John Cope, he had blundered badly at the very outset of his undertaking.

"Mind your p's and q's when you talk to the Dean, John," his good friend and rector had said.

And John, who by virtue of an uncle's death had for a year or thereabouts been Squire of Harraden, in his anxiety to follow the Rector's advice, writing to make an appointment with the Dean, had spelt St. Cyprian's with two p's. A venial offence in his case. For neither can it be expected that a youth who has left Eton when only in the Remove, and then spent five years on an Australian sheep-station before being summoned home to assist in the management of his uncle's estate, will necessarily know every saint and martyr in the calendar, nor has it ever been proved that a practical knowledge of the productive capacity of native guano, nitrate of soda, and so forth, necessarily entails an intimate acquaintanceship with the rules of orthography. That extra "p," however, had wounded the Dean's feelings. For

did not its insertion seem to imply that the young gentleman, who could not even spell the name properly, must have very vague ideas of the true importance of St. Cyprian's?

"I seem to gather, Mr. Cope, what your views are in reference to what we may call a temporary residence in Oxford as a member of the University. Your case, I will admit, is peculiar. You do not appear to have had the benefit of an extended system of education, and with a view to future contingencies an idea, perhaps, of eventually becoming a Member of Parlia ment-eh? I beg your pardon."

"I'm not going to do that, anyhow. They talk a lot of rot, and do nothing but tax landlords—" then after a perceptible pause, “sir."

The Dean, in his official vein a purist to the core in the matter of choice of words, shivered slightly, and then resumed.

"Well, we will substitute, of fulfilling your position of landed gentle

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

say, the sheep preponderate, though doubtless in some less favored Colleges, goats-eh-eh-?"

Mr. Cope took instant advantage of the momentary hesitation.

"Breed," he suggested, and then proceeded to quash the Dean's objection. "Well, if I called them asses, you called them goats-sir. I'd rather be an ass than a goat any day. An ass is some good and a goat isn't, except to draw a child's carriage. Of course, goat's milk is all right, and so is asses' milk. Rare good stuff for kids. I was reared on it, in fact."

"Very likely," said the Dean drily, "but what I wish to point out to you. Mr. Cope, is this. You have not come to the right College for your requirements. I do not say that you may not be successful elsewhere. But St. Cyprian's-by the way, there is only one p in the Saint's name: he was martyred, if you remember, at Carthage in the third century."

"Poor old chap!" sympathetically ejaculated Mr. Cope.

"St. Cyprian's is a comparatively small but distinctly select College; indeed it may almost be said to fulfil the position of a tribus prærogativa.”

"What's that?"

"The tribe in the Comitia at Rome, or rather, in our case, the College in the University which takes the lead, and gives the tone to other nominally equal, but eh-eh?-less highly favored foundations"

"Sort of big boss donkey that walks first in the string-sir."

"Yes, yes. Every member of St. Cyprian's makes it his business to contribute his quotum towards keeping up the College reputation. In fact, I may say that all our undergraduates take pride in maintaining our traditions. Last year, for instance, we obtained no less than nine First Classes in various schools; our Eight was second on the river, three of our men repre

« PreviousContinue »