Reveries of a Schoolmaster Part 7

I like Robert Burns and think his "To Mary in Heaven" is his finest poem. But the critics seem to prefer his "Highland Mary." So I suppose these critics will look at me, with something akin to pity in the look, and say: "Don't you wish you could?" Years ago some one planted trees about my house for shade, and selected poplar. Now the roots of these trees invade the cellar and the cistern, and prove themselves altogether a nuisance. Of course, I can cut out the trees, but then I should have no shade. That man, whoever he was, might just as well have planted elms or maples, but, by some sort of perversity or ignorance, planted poplars, and here am I, years afterward, in a state of perturbation about the safety of cellar and cistern on account of those pesky roots. I do wish that man had taken a course in arboriculture before he planted those trees. It might have saved me a deal of bother, and been no worse for him.

Back home, after we had pa.s.sed through the autograph-alb.u.m stage of development, we became interested in another sort of literary composition. It was a book in which we recorded the names of our favorite book, author, poem, statesman, flower, name, place, musical instrument, and so on throughout an entire page. That experience was really valuable and caused us to do some thinking. It would be well, I think, to use such a book as that in the examination of teachers and pupils. I wish I might come upon one of the books now in which I set down the record of my favorites. It would afford me some interesting if not valuable information.

If I were called upon to name my favorite flower now I'd scarcely know what to say. In one mood I'd certainly say lily-of-the-valley, but in another mood I might say the rose. I do wonder if, in those books back yonder, I ever said sunflower, dandelion, dahlia, fuchsia, or daisy. If I should find that I said heliotrope, I'd give my adolescence a pretty high grade. If I were using one of these books in my school, and some boy should name the sunflower as his favorite, I'd find myself facing a big problem to get him converted to the lily-of-the-valley, and I really do not know quite how I should proceed. It might not help him much for me to ask him: "Don't you wish you could?" If I should let him know that my favorite is the lily-of-the-valley, he might name that flower as the line of least resistance to my approval and a high grade, with the mental reservation that the sunflower is the most beautiful plant that grows. Such a course might gratify me, but it certainly would not make for his progress toward the lily-of-the-valley, nor yet for the salvation of his soul.

I have a boy of my own, but have never had the courage to ask him what kind of father he thinks he has. He might tell me. Again I am facing a dilemma. Dilemmas are quite plentiful hereabouts. I must determine whether to regard him as an a.s.set or a liability. But, that is not the worst of my troubles. I plainly see that sooner or later he is going to decide whether his father is an a.s.set or a liability. We must go over our books some day so as to find out which of us is in debt to the other. I know that I owe him his chance, but parents often seem backward about paying their debts to their children, and I'm wondering whether I shall be able to cancel that debt, to his present and ultimate satisfaction. I'd be decidedly uncomfortable, years hence, to find him but "the runt of something good" because I had failed to pay that debt. When I was a lad they used to say that I was stubborn, but that may have been my unsophisticated way of trying to collect a debt. I take some comfort, in these later days, in knowing that the folks at home credit me with the virtue of perseverance, and I wish they had used the milder word when I was a boy.

There is a picture show just around the corner, and I'm in a quandary, right now, whether to follow the crowd to that show or sit here and read Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies." If I go to see the picture film I'll probably see an exhibition of cowboy equestrian dexterity, with a "happy ever after" finale, and may also acquire the reputation among the neighbors of being up to date. But, if I spend the evening with Ruskin, I shall have something worth thinking over as I go about my work to-morrow. So here is another dilemma, and there is no one to decide the matter for me. This being a free moral agent is not the fun that some folks try to make it appear. I don't really see how I shall ever get on unless I subscribe to Sam Walter Foss's lines:

"No other song has vital breath Through endless time to fight with death, Than that the singer sings apart To please his solitary heart."

CHAPTER XXVI

RABBIT PEDAGOGY

As I think back over my past life as a schoolmaster I keep wondering how many inebriates I have produced in my career. I'd be glad to think that I have not a single one to my discredit, but that seems beyond the wildest hope, considering the character of my teaching. I am a firm believer in temperance in all things; but, in the matter of pedagogy, my practice cannot be made to square with my theory. In fact, I find, upon reflection, that I have been teaching intemperance all the while. I'm glad the officers of my church do not know of my pedagogical practice. If they did, they would certainly take action against me, and in that case I cannot see what adequate defense I could offer. Being a schoolmaster, I could scarcely bring myself to plead ignorance, for such a plea as that might abrogate my license.

So I shall just keep quiet and look as nearly wise as possible. It is embarra.s.sing to me to reflect how long it has taken me to see the error of my practice. If I had asked one of my boys he could have told me of the better way.

When we got the new desks in our school, back home, our teacher seemed very anxious to have them kept in their virgin state, and became quite animated as he walked up and down the aisle fulminating against the possible offender. In the course of his sulphury remarks he threatened condign punishment upon the base miscreant who should dare use his penknife on one of those desks. His address was equal to a course in "Paradise Lost," nor was it without its effect upon the audience. Every boy in the room felt in his pocket to make sure that it contained his knife, and every one began to wonder just where he would find the whetstone when he went home. We were all eager for school to close for the day that we might set about the important matter of whetting our knives. Henceforth wood-carving was a part of the regular order in our school, but it was done without special supervision. Of course, each boy could prove an alibi when his own desk was under investigation. It would not be seemly, in this connection, to give a verbatim report of the conversations of us boys when we a.s.sembled at our rendezvous after school. Suffice it to say that the teacher's ears must have burned. The consensus of opinion was that, if the teacher didn't want the desks carved, he should not have told us to carve them. We seemed to think that he had said, in substance, that he knew we were a gang of young rascallions, and that, if he didn't intimidate us, we'd surely be guilty of some form of vandalism. Then he proceeded to point out the way by suggesting penknives; and the trick was done. We were ever open to suggestions.

We had another teacher whose pet aversion was match heads. Cicero and Demosthenes would have apologized to him could they have come in when he was delivering one of his eloquent orations upon this engaging theme. His vituperative vocabulary seemed unlimited, inexhaustible, and c.u.mulative. He raved, and ranted, and exuded epithets with the most lavish prodigality. It seemed to us that he didn't care much what he said, if he could only say it rapidly and forcibly. In the very midst of an eloquent period another match head would explode under his foot, and that seemed to answer the purpose of an encore. The cla.s.s in arithmetic did not recite that afternoon.

There was no time for arithmetic when match heads were to the fore.

I sometimes feel a bit guilty that I was admitted to such a good show on a free pa.s.s. The next day, of course, the Gatling guns resumed their activity; the girls screeched as they walked toward the water-pail to get a drink; we boys studied our geography lesson with faces garbed in a look of innocence and wonder; our mothers at home were wondering what had become of all the matches; and the teacher--but the less said of him the better.

We boys needed only the merest suggestion to set us in motion, and like Dame Rumor in the Aeneid, we gathered strength by the going.

One day the teacher became somewhat facetious and recounted a red-pepper episode in the school of his boyhood. That was enough for us; and the next day, in our school, was a day long to be remembered.

I recall in the school reader the story of "Meddlesome Matty." Her name was really Matilda. One day her curiosity got the better of her, and she removed the lid from her grandmother's snuff-box. The story goes on to say:

"Poor eyes, and nose, and mouth, and chin A dismal sight presented; And as the snuff got further in Sincerely she repented."

Barring the element of repentance, the red pepper was equally provocative of results in our school.

I certainly cannot lay claim to any great degree of docility, for, in spite of all the experiences of my boyhood, I fell into the evil ways of my teachers when I began my schoolmastering, and suggested to my pupils numberless short cuts to wrong-doing. I railed against intoxicants, and thus made them curious. That's why I am led to wonder if I have incited any of my boys to strong drink as my teachers incited me to desk-carving, match heads, and red pepper.

I have come to think that a rabbit excels me in the matter of pedagogy. The tar-baby story that Joel Chandler Harris has given us abundantly proves my statement. The rabbit had so often outwitted the fox that, in desperation, the latter fixed up a tar-baby and set it up in the road for the benefit of the rabbit. In his efforts to discipline the tar-baby for impoliteness, the rabbit became enmeshed in the tar, to his great discomfort and chagrin. However, Brer Rabbit's knowledge of pedagogy shines forth in the following dialogue:

W'en Brer Fox fine Brer Rabbit mixt up wid de Tar-Baby he feel mighty good, en he roll on de groun' en laff. Bimeby he up'n say, sezee:

"Well, I speck I got you dis time, Brer Rabbit," sezee. "Maybe I ain't, but I speck I is. You been runnin' roun' here sa.s.sin' atter me a mighty long time, but I speck you done come ter de een' er de row. You bin cuttin' up yo' capers en bouncin' 'roun' in dis neighborhood ontwel you come ter b'leeve yo'se'f de boss er de whole gang. En den youer allers some'rs whar you got no bizness," sez Brer Fox, sezee. "Who ax you fer ter come en strike up a'quaintance wid dish yer Tar-Baby? En who stuck you up dar whar you is? n.o.body in de roun' worril. You des tuck en jam yo'se'f on dat Tar-Baby widout watin' fer enny invite," sez Brer Fox, sezee, "en dar you is, en dar you'll stay twel I fixes up a bresh-pile and fires her up, kaze I'm gwineter bobby-cue you dis day, sho," sez Brer Fox, sezee.

Den Brer Rabbit talk mighty 'umble.

"I don't keer w'at you do wid me, Brer Fox," sezee, "so you don't fling me in dat brier-patch. Roas' me, Brer Fox," sezee, "but don't fling me in dat brier-patch," sezee.

"Hit's so much trouble fer ter kindle a fier," sez Brer Fox, sezee, "dat I speck I'll hatter hang you," sezee.

"Hang me des ez high as you please, Brer Fox," sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, "but do fer de Lord's sake don't fling me in dat brier-patch,"

sezee.

"I ain't got no string," sez Brer Fos, sezee, "en now I speck I'll hatter drown you," sezee.

"Drown me des ez deep ez you please, Brer Fox," sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, "but do don't fling me in dat brier-patch," sezee.

"Dey ain't no water nigh," sez Brer Fox, sezee, "en now I speck I'll hatter skin you," sezee.

"Skin me, Brer Fox," sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, "s.n.a.t.c.h out my eyeb.a.l.l.s, t'ar out my years by de roots, en cut off my legs," sezee, "but do please, Brer Fox, don't fling me in dat brier-patch," sezee.

Co'se Brer Fox wanter hurt Brer Rabbit bad ez he kin, so he cotch 'im by de behime legs en slung 'im right in de middle er de brier-patch.

Dar wuz a considerbul flutter whar Brer Rabbit struck de bushes, en Brer Fox sorter hang 'roun' fer ter see w'at wuz gwineter happen.

Bimeby he hear somebody call 'im, en way up de hill he see Brer Rabbit settin' cross-legged on a c.h.i.n.kapin log koamin' de pitch outen his har wid a chip. Den Brer Fox know dat he bin swop off mighty bad. Brer Rabbit was bleedzed fer ter fling back some er his sa.s.s, en he holler out:

"Bred en bawn in a brier-patch, Brer Fox--bred en bawn in a brier-patch!" en wid dat he skip out des ez lively ez a cricket in de embers.

CHAPTER XXVII

PERSPECTIVE

I wish I could ever get the question of majors and minors settled to my complete satisfaction. I thought my college course would settle the matter for all time, but it didn't. I suspect that those erudite professors thought they were getting me fitted out with enduring habits of majors and minors, but they seem to have made no allowance for changes of styles nor for growth. When I received my diploma they seemed to think I was finished, and would stay just as they had fixed me. They used to talk no little about finished products, and, on commencement day, appeared to look upon me as one of them. On the whole, I'm glad that I didn't fulfil their apparent expectations. I have never been able to make out whether their attentions, on commencement day, were manifestations of pride or relief. I can see now that I must have been a sore trial to them. In my callow days, when they occupied pedestals, I bent the knee to them by way of propitiating them, but I got bravely over that. At first, what they taught and what they represented were my majors, but when I came to shift and reconstruct values, some of them climbed down off their pedestals, and my knee lost some of its flexibility.

We had one little professor who afforded us no end of amus.e.m.e.nt by his taking himself so seriously. The boys used to say that he wrote letters and sent flowers to himself. He would strut about the campus as proudly as a pouter-pigeon, never realizing, apparently, that we were laughing at him. At first, he impressed us greatly with his grand air and his clothes, but after we discovered that, in his case at least, clothes do not make the man, we refused to be impressed.

He could split hairs with infinite precision, and smoke a cigarette in the most approved style, but I never heard any of the boys express a wish to become that sort of man. Had there occurred a meeting, on the campus, between him and Zeus he would have been offended, I am sure, if Zeus had failed to set off a few thunderbolts in his honor.

We used to have at home a bantam rooster that could create no end of flutter in the chicken yard, and could crow mightily; but when I reflected that he could neither lay eggs nor occupy much s.p.a.ce in a frying-pan, I demoted him, in my thinking, from major rank to a low minor, and awarded the palm to one of the less b.u.mptious but more useful fowls. Our little professor had degrees, of course, and has them yet, I suspect; but no one ever discovered that he put them to any good use. For that reason we boys lost interest in the man as well as his garnishments.

Our professor of chemistry was different. He was never on dress-parade; he did not pose; he was no sn.o.b. We loved him because he was so genuine. He had degrees, too, but they were so obscured by the man that we forgot them in our contemplation of him. We knew that they do not make degrees big enough for him. I often wonder what degrees the colleges would want to confer upon William Shakespeare if he could come back. Then, too, I often think what a wonderful letter Abraham Lincoln could and might have written to Mrs.

Bixby, if he had only had a degree. Aga.s.siz may have had degrees, but he didn't really need them. Like Browning, he was big enough, even lacking degrees, to be known without the identification of his other names. If people need degrees they ought to have them, especially if they can live up to them. Possibly the time may come when degrees will be given for things done, rather than for things hoped for; given for at least one stage of the journey accomplished rather than for merely packing a travelling-bag. If this time ever comes Thomas A. Edison will bankrupt the alphabet.

In this coil of degrees and the absence of them, I become more and more confused as to majors and minors. There in college were those two professors both wearing degrees of the same size. Judged by that criterion they should have been of equal size and influence. But they weren't. In the one case you couldn't see the man for the degree; in the other you couldn't see the degree for the man. Small wonder that I find myself in such a hopeless muddle. I once thought, in my innocence, that there was a sort of metric scale in degrees--that an A.M. was ten times the size of an A.B.; that a Ph.D.

was equal to ten A.M.'s; and that the LL.D. degree could be had only on the top of Mt. Olympus. But here I am, stumbling about among folks, and can't tell a Ph.D. from an A.B. I do wish all these degree chaps would wear tags so that we wayfaring folks could tell them apart. It would simplify matters if the railway people would arrange compartments on their trains for these various degrees. The Ph.D. crowd would certainly feel more comfortable if they could herd together, so that they need not demean themselves by a.s.sociating with mere A.M.'s or the more lowly A.B.'s. We might hope, too, that by way of diversion they would put their heads together and compound some prescription by the use of which the world might avert war, reduce the high cost of living, banish a woman's tears, or save a soul from perdition.

Be it said to my shame, that I do not know what even an A.B. means, much less the other degree hieroglyphics. Sometimes I receive a letter having the writer's name printed at the top with an A.B.

annex; but I do not know what the writer is trying to say to me by means of the printing. He probably wants me to know that he is a graduate of some sort, but he fails to make it clear to me whether his degree was conferred by a high school, a normal school, a college, or a university. I know of one high school that confers this degree, as well as many normal schools and colleges. There are still other inst.i.tutions where this same degree may be had, that freely admit that they are colleges, whether they can prove it or not. I'll be glad to send a stamped envelope for reply, if some one will only be good enough to tell me what A.B. does really mean.

I do hope that the earth may never be scourged with celibacy, but the ever-increasing variety of bachelors, male and female, creates in me a feeling of apprehension. Nor can I make out whether a bachelor of arts is bigger and better than bachelors of science and pedagogy.

The arts folks claim that they are, and proceed to prove it by one another. I often wonder what a bachelor of arts can do that the other bachelors cannot do, or _vice versa_. They should all be required to submit a list of their accomplishments, so that, when any of the rest of us want a bit of work done, we may be able to select wisely from among these differentiated bachelors. If we want a bridge built, a beefsteak broiled, a mountain tunnelled, a loaf of bread baked, a railroad constructed, a hat trimmed, or a book written, we ought to know which cla.s.s of bachelors will serve our purpose best. Some one asked me just a few days ago to cite him to some man or woman who can write a prize-winning short story, but I couldn't decide whether to refer him to the bachelors of arts or the bachelors of pedagogy. I might have turned to the Litt.D.'s, but I didn't suppose they would care to bother with a little thing like that.

In college I studied Greek and, in fact, won a gold medal for my agility in ramping through Mr. Xenophon's parasangs. That medal is lost, so far as I know, and no one now has the remotest suspicion that I ever even halted along through those parasangs, not to mention ramping, or that I ever made the acquaintance of ox-eyed Juno. But I need no medal to remind roe of those experiences in the Greek cla.s.s.

Every bluebird I see does that for me. The good old doctor, one morning in early spring, rhapsodized for five minutes on the singing of a bluebird he had heard on his way to cla.s.s, telling how the little fellow was pouring forth a melody that made the world and all life seem more beautiful and blessed. We loved him for that, because it proved that he was a big-souled human being; and pupils like to discover human qualities in their teachers. The little professor may have heard the bluebird's singing, too; but if he did, he probably thought it was serenading him. If colleges of education and normal schools would select teachers who can delight in the song of a bluebird their academic attainments would be enn.o.bled and glorified, and their students might come to love instead of fearing them. Only a man or a woman with a big soul can socialize and vitalize the work of the schools. The mere academician can never do it.

The more I think of all these degree decorations in my efforts to determine what is major in life and what is minor, the more I think of George. He was an earnest schoolmaster, and was happiest when his boys and girls were around him, busy at their tasks. One year there were fourteen boys in his school, fifteen including himself, for he was one of them. The school day was not long enough, so they met in groups in the evening, at the various homes, and continued the work of the day. These boys absorbed his time, his strength, and his heart. Their success in their work was his greatest joy. Of those fourteen boys one is no more. Of the other thirteen one is a state official of high rank, five are attorneys, two are ministers of the Gospel, two are bankers, one is a successful business man, and two are engineers of prominence. George is the ideal of those men. They all say he gave them their start in the right direction, and always speak his name with reverence. George has these thirteen stars in his crown that I know of. He had no degrees, but I am thinking that some time he will hear the plaudit: "Well done, good and faithful servant."