The Lighter Side of School Life, Ian Hay [historical books to read .txt] 📗
- Author: Ian Hay
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It was during the geography hour. Mr. Bull had asked Nixon to define a watershed. Nixon, [115] who upon the previous evening had been too much occupied with his duties as Vice-President of the Anarchists to do much Prep, had replied with a seraphic smile that a watershed was "a place to shelter from the rain." As an improvised effort the answer seemed to him an extremely good one; but Mr. Bull had promptly left his seat, addressed Nixon as a "cheeky little hound," and committed the assault complained of.
"This sort of thing," observed Rumford tertius, the President, "can't go on. What shall we do?"
"We might saw one of the legs of his chair through," suggested one of the members.
"Who's going to do it?" inquired the President. "We'll only get slain."
Silence fell, as it usually does when the question of belling the cat arrives at the practical stage.
"We could report him to the Head," said another voice. "We might get him the sack for assault—even quod! We could show Nixon's head to him. It would be a sound scheme to make it bleed a bit before we took him up."
The speaker fingered a heavy ruler lovingly, but Mr. Nixon edged coldly out of reach.
[116] "Certainly," agreed the President, "Bashan ought to be stopped knocking us about in form."
"I'd rather have one clout over the earhole," observed an Anarchist who so far had not spoken, "than be taken along to Bashan's study and given six of the best. That is what the result would be. Hallo, Stinker, what's that?"
The gentleman addressed—a morose, unclean, and spectacled youth of scientific proclivities—was the latest recruit to the gang. He had been admitted at the instance of Master Nixon, who had pointed out that it would be a good thing to enrol as a member some one who understood "Chemistry and Stinks generally." He could be used for the manufacture of bombs, and so on.
Stinker had produced from his pocket a corked test-tube, tightly packed with some dark substance.
"What's that?" inquired the Anarchists in chorus. (They nearly always talked in chorus.)
"It's a new kind of explosive," replied the inventor with great pride.
"I hope it's better than that new kind of stinkpot you invented for choir-practice," remarked a cynic from the corner of the study. [117] "That was a rotten fraud, if you like! It smelt more like lily-of-the-valley than any decent stink."
"Dry up, Ashley minor!" rejoined the inventor indignantly. "This is a jolly good bomb. I made it to-day in the Lab, while The Badger was trying to put out a bonfire at the other end."
"Where does the patent come in?" inquired the President judicially.
"The patent is that it doesn't go off all at once."
"We know that!" observed the unbelieving Ashley.
"Do you chuck it or light it?" asked Nixon.
"You light it. At least, you shove it into the fire, and it goes off in about ten minutes. You see the idea? If Bashan doesn't see us put anything into the form-room fire, he will think it was something wrong with the coal."
The Anarchists, much interested, murmured approval.
"Good egg!" observed the President. "We'll put it into the fire to-morrow morning before he comes in, and after we have been at work ten minutes or so the thing will go off and blow the whole place to smithereens."
[118] "Golly!" gobbled the Anarchists.
"What about us, Stinker?" inquired a cautious conspirator. "Shan't we get damaged?"
Stinker waved away the objection.
"We shall know it's coming," he said; "so we shall be able to dodge. But it will be a nasty jar for Bashan."
There was a silence, full of rapt contemplation of to-morrow morning. Then the discordant voice of Ashley minor broke in.
"I don't believe it will work. All your inventions are putrid, Stinker."
"I'll fight you!" squealed the outraged scientist, bounding to his feet.
"I expect it'll turn out to be a fire-extinguisher, or something like that," pursued the truculent Ashley.
"Hold the bomb," said Stinker to the President, "while I——"
"Sit down," urged the other Anarchists, drawing in their toes. "There's no room here. Ashley minor, chuck it!"
"It won't work," muttered Ashley doggedly.
Suddenly a brilliant idea came upon Stinker.
"Won't work, won't it?" he screamed. "All right, then! We'll shove it into this fire now, and you see if it doesn't work!"
[119] Among properly constituted Anarchistic Societies it is not customary, when the efficacy of a bomb is in dispute, to employ the members as a corpus vile. But the young do not fetter themselves with red-tape of this kind. With one accord Stinker's suggestion was acclaimed, and the bomb was thrust into the glowing coals of Rumford's study fire. The brotherhood, herded together within a few feet of the grate—the apartment measured seven feet by six—breathed hard and waited expectantly.
Five minutes passed—then ten.
"It ought to be pretty ripe now," said the inventor anxiously.
The President, who was sitting next the window, prudently muffled his features in the curtain. The others drew back as far as they could—about six inches—and waited.
Nothing happened.
"I am sure it will work all right," declared the inventor desperately. "Perhaps the temperature of this fire——"
He knelt down, and began to blow upon the flickering coals. There was a long and triumphant sniff from Master Ashley.
"I said it was only a rotten stinkp—" he began.
[120] BANG!
There is a special department of Providence which watches over the youthful chemist. The explosion killed no one, though it blew the coals out of the grate and the pictures off the walls.
The person who suffered most was the inventor. He was led, howling but triumphant, to the Sanatorium.
"Luckily, sir," explained Rumford to Mr. Bull a few days later, in answer to a kindly inquiry as to the extent of the patient's injuries, "it was only his face."
[121]
CHAPTER FIVE
[123]
THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE IOne of the most pathetic spectacles in the world is that of grown-up persons legislating for the young. Listening to these, we are led to suspect that a certain section of the human race—the legislative section—must have been born into the world aged about forty, sublimely ignorant of the requirements, limitations, and point of view of infancy and adolescence.
In what attitude does the ordinary educational expert approach educational problems? This question induces another. What is an educational expert?
The answer is simple. Practically everybody.
All parents are educational experts: we have only to listen to a new boy's mother laying down to a Headmaster the lines upon which his school should be conducted to realise that. So are all politicians: we discover this fact by following the debates in the House of Commons. So are the clergy; for they themselves have told us so. So, presumably, are the writers of manuals and text-books. So are the dear old [124] gentlemen who come down to present prizes upon Speech Day. Practically the only section of humanity to whom the title is denied are the people who have to teach. It is universally admitted by the experts—it is their sole point of agreement—that no schoolmaster is capable of forming a correct judgment of the educational needs of his charges. He is hidebound, "groovy"; he cannot break away from tradition.
"What can you expect from a tripe-dresser," inquire the experts in chorus, "but a eulogy of the stereotyped method of dressing tripe?"
So, ignoring the teacher, the experts lay their heads—one had almost said their loggerheads—together, and evolve terrific schemes of education. Each section sets about its task in characteristic fashion. The politician, with his natural acumen, gets down to essentials at once.
"The electorate of this country," he says to himself, "do not care one farthing dip about Education as such. Now, how can we galvanise Education into a vote-catching machine?"
He reflects.
"Ah! I have it!" he cries presently. "Religion! That'll ginger them up!"
So presently an Education Bill is introduced into the House of Commons. Nine out of its [125] ten clauses deal purely with educational matters and are passed without a division; and the intellectual teeth of the House fasten greedily upon Clause Number Ten, which deals with the half-hour per day which is to be set aside for religious instruction. The question arises: What attitude are the youth of the country to be taught to adopt towards their Maker? Are they to praise Him from a printed page, or merely listen to their teacher doing so out of his own head? Are they to learn the Catechism? Is the Lord's Prayer to be regarded as an Anglican or Nonconformist orison?
Everybody is most conciliatory at first.
"A short passage of Scripture," suggest the Anglicans; "a Collect, mayhap; and a few words of helpful instruction—eh? Something quite simple and non-contentious, like that?"
"We are afraid that that is sectarian religion," object the Nonconformists. "A simple chapter from the Bible, certainly—maybe a hymn. But no dogmatic teaching, if you please!"
"But that is no religion at all!" explain the Anglicans, with that quickness to appreciate another's point of view which has always distinguished the Church of England.
After a little further unpleasantness all round, [126] a deadlock is reached. Then, with that magnificent instinct for compromise which characterises British statesmanship, another suggestion is put forward. Why not permit all the clergy of the various denominations to enter the School and minister to the requirements of their various young disciples? "An admirable notion," says everybody. But difficulties arise. Are this heavenly host to be admitted one by one, or in a body? If the former, how long will it take to work through the entire rota, and when will the ordinary work of the day be expected to begin? If the latter, is the School to be divided, for devotional purposes, into spiritual water-tight compartments by an arrangement of movable screens, or what? So the battle goes on. By this time, as the astute politician has foreseen, every one has forgotten that this is an Education Bill, and both sides are hard at work manufacturing party capital out of John Bull's religious susceptibilities. Presently the venue is shifted to the country, where the electorate are asked upon a thousand platforms if the Church which inaugurated Education in our land, and built most of the schools, is to be ousted from her ancient sphere of beneficent activity; and upon a thousand more, whether the will of the People or the [127] Peers is to prevail. (It simplifies politics very greatly to select a good reliable shibboleth and employ it on all occasions.) Finally the Bill is thrown out or talked out, and the first nine clauses perish with it.
That is the political and clerical way of dealing with Education. The parent's way we will set forth in another place.
The writer of manuals and text-books concerns himself chiefly with the right method of unfolding his subject to the eager eyes of the expectant pupil. "There is a right way and a wrong way," he is careful to explain; "and if you present your subject in the wrong way the pupil will derive no educational benefit from it whatever." At present there is a great craze for what is known as "practical" teaching. For instance, in our youth we were informed, ad nauseam, that there is a certain fixed relation between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, the relation being expressed by a mysterious Greek symbol pronounced "pie." The modern expert scouts this system altogether. No imaginary pie for him! He is a practical man.
Take several ordinary tin canisters, he commands, a piece of string, and a ruler; and without [128] any other aids ascertain the circumference and diameter of these canisters. Work out in each case the numerical relation between the circumference and diameter. What conclusion do you draw from the result?
We can only draw one, and that is that no man who has never been a boy should be permitted to write books of instruction for the young. For what would the "result" be? Imagine a company of some thirty or forty healthy happy boys, each supplied gratuitously with several tin canisters and a ruler, set down for the space of an hour and practically challenged to create a riot. Alexander's Rag-Time Band would be simply nowhere!
As for the last gang of experts—the dear old gentlemen who come down to give away prizes on Speech Day—they do not differ much as a class. They invariably begin by expressing a wish that they had enjoyed such educational facilities as these in their young days.
"You live in a palace, boys!" announces the old gentleman. "I envy you." (Murmurs of "Liar!" from the very back row.)
After that the speaker communicates to his audience a discovery which has been communicated to the same audience by different speakers [129] since the foundation of the School—to this effect, that Education (derivation given here, with a false quantity thrown in) is a "drawing out" and not a "putting-in."
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