Dickens As an Educator Part 33

Physical education received due attention at Doctor Strong's school. "We had n.o.ble games out of doors." These outdoor sports have done more than anything else to develop the strength and energy of the British character.

Thoughtful educators everywhere recognise the value of play in the development of the physical, the intellectual, and the spiritual nature as taught by Froebel. The love of play has been one of the distinctive elements of the British people.

Doctor Strong's personal influence was good. "He was the idol of the whole school." He was not coercive nor restrictive; he was an inspiration to effort and to manliness of conduct. "He was the kindest of men," full of sympathy with boyhood and with individual boys. "He had a simple faith in him that might have touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall." Mr. Wickfield told David that he feared some of the boys might take advantage of his kindness and faith, but boys do not abuse the confidence of such teachers. "He appealed in everything to the honour and good faith of the boys, and avowed his intention to rely on the possession of these qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy." David says this "worked wonders." He had no spies in schoolroom or grounds. He trusted his boys in a frank, unconventional way, and they proved themselves worthy of trust.

In such an atmosphere a boy grows to be reliable. He does not need to be hypocritical or false. "The boys all became warmly attached to the school--I am sure I did for one, and I never knew, in all my time, of any other boy being otherwise--and learned with a good will, desiring to do it credit."

They had independent self-activity. "We had plenty of liberty." Without this no child can reach his best growth. The boys did not abuse their privilege. They respected themselves more because they had liberty. "As I remember, we were well spoken of in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner, to the reputation of Doctor Strong and Doctor Strong's boys."

The community ideal was wrought into the lives of the boys by their experience in this model school. "We all felt that we had a part in the management of the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity." The highest work of schools, colleges, and universities is to fill the lives of men and women with the apperceptive centres of the community ideal.

Christian community can not be made clear by books or teaching or sermons unless its foundations are laid by experience, by "sharing in the management" of the conditions of the life of the boy, or girl, or student.

Froebel pleaded for a college and university education in which students should "share in the management." d.i.c.kens applied this high ideal.

There is another most important element in Doctor Strong's influence. He was not "a human barrel organ," like Mr. Feeder, "playing a little list of Greek and Latin tunes over and over again without any variation." He was an original investigator. He was preparing a dictionary of Greek roots. He was not merely an acc.u.mulator of knowledge as it had been prepared by some one else. He was not a mere ca.n.a.l through which knowledge slowly flowed through artificial channels, nor a marsh in which knowledge had become confused and stagnant, nor a dead sea into which knowledge flowed, but from which there was no outlet. He was a fresh fountain from which knowledge came clear and pure. So the boys gained knowledge readily from him, but, far beyond knowledge, they learned incidentally the habit of work, and were filled with the desire to add to the store of knowledge as a basis for the progressive evolution of humanity.

What a farce it is to say that d.i.c.kens was not conscious of the pedagogic value of his work. He had great facility in learning, but he was also a hard student. No one could have written so much and so wisely about education unless he had studied carefully the thought of the most advanced educators.

David's aunt had the wisdom to try to develop in him the characteristics of excellence that were lacking in his parents. This is a thought that is slowly making its way in the minds of educators.

"But what I want you to be, Trot," resumed my aunt--"I don't mean physically, but morally; you are very well physically--is a firm fellow. A fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. With resolution,"

said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clinching her hand. "With determination. With character, Trot--with strength of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. That's what I want you to be. That's what your father and mother might both have been, Heaven knows, and been the better for it."

I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described.

"That you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance upon yourself, and to act for yourself," said my aunt, "I shall send you upon your trip alone."

In pursuance of my aunt's kind scheme, I was shortly afterward fitted out with a handsome purse of money and a portmanteau, and tenderly dismissed upon my expedition. At parting, my aunt gave me some good advice and a good many kisses; and said that as her object was that I should look about me, and should think a little, she would recommend me to stay a few days in London, if I liked it, either on my way down into Suffolk, or in coming back. In a word, I was at liberty to do as I would for three weeks or a month; and no other conditions were imposed upon my freedom than the before-mentioned thinking and looking about me, and a pledge to write three times a week and faithfully report myself.

Betsy Trotwood may safely be taken as a model in dealing with boys during the adolescent period, and with young men just about to start in the real work of life.

d.i.c.kens puts into the words of David Copperfield a statement of the elements of character which he regarded as most essential to success in life, and which he would take pains to develop by the training in homes and schools.

I will only add to what I have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me, and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that, in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companions.h.i.+p of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no subst.i.tute for thoroughgoing, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything on which I could throw my whole self and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was, I find, now, to have been my golden rules.

Bleak House, which is so rich in ill.u.s.trations of bad training, contains little direct teaching regarding the proper training of children.

The value of a doll in the training of a girl is shown in Esther's early experience. The doll had a real personal relations.h.i.+p to her. She made it her confidant, and in various ways gave it a distinct personal standing.

She could pour out to it the joys and sorrows of her heart more fully than to any real person. The doll was an outlet for the pent-up emotions that were checked in their flow by the adults with whom she was a.s.sociated. A doll is more than a mere plaything to a child; or perhaps it would be more exact to say play with a doll means much more than most people believe.

d.i.c.kens was able to sympathize with even a little girl.

Esther says:

I can remember, when I was a very little girl indeed, I used to say to my doll, when we were alone together, "Now, Dolly, I am not clever, you know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!" And so she used to sit propped up in a great armchair, with her beautiful complexion and rosy lips, staring at me--or not so much at me, I think, as at nothing--while I busily st.i.tched away, and told her every one of my secrets.

My dear old doll! I was such a shy little thing that I seldom dared to open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody else. It almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be to me, when I came home from school of a day, to run upstairs to my room, and say "Oh you dear faithful Dolly, I knew you would be expecting me!" and then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the elbow of her great chair, and tell her all I had noticed since we parted. I had always rather a noticing way--not a quick way, oh, no!--a silent way of noticing what pa.s.sed before me, and thinking I should like to understand it better. I have not by any means a quick understanding.

When I love a person very tenderly indeed, it seems to brighten.

When on her lonely birthday she had been told by her G.o.dmother that a shadow hung over her life she says:

I went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll's cheek against mine wet with tears; and holding that solitary friend upon my bosom cried myself to sleep.

Dear, dear, to think how much time we pa.s.sed alone together afterward, and how often I repeated to the doll the story of my birthday, and confided to her that I would try, as hard as ever I could, to repair the fault I had been born with (of which I confessedly felt guilty and yet innocent), and would strive as I grew up to be industrious, contented, and kind-hearted, and to do some good to some one, and win some love to myself if I could.

Mr. Jarndyce emphasized the opinion of David Copperfield when he gave advice to Richard Carstone:

"Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own efforts. Never separate the two, like the heathen wagoner. Constancy in love is a good thing; but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort. If you had the abilities of all the great men, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely meaning it and setting about it. If you entertain the supposition that any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could be, ever will or can be, wrested from fortune by fits and starts, leave that wrong idea here."

Mr. George gave Woolwich Bagnet kindly counsel regarding his duty to his mother:

"The time will come, my boy," pursues the trooper, "when this hair of your mother's will be gray, and this forehead all crossed and recrossed with wrinkles--and a fine old lady she'll be then. Take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, '_I_ never whitened a hair of her dear head--_I_ never marked a sorrowful line in her face!' For of all the many things that you can think of when you are a man, you had better have _that_ by you, Woolwich!"

Mr. Meagles in Little Dorrit, good, kind Mr. Meagles, explained why Little Dorrit, amid all her trials and all her difficulties, had grown to be so true a woman, loved by so many people.

If she had constantly thought of herself, and settled with herself that everybody visited this place upon her, turned it against her, and cast it at her, she would have led an irritable and probably a useless existence. Yet I have heard tell, Tattycoram, that her young life has been one of active resignation, goodness, and n.o.ble service. Shall I tell you what I consider those eyes of hers that were here just now, to have always looked at, to get that expression?

"Yes, if you please, sir."

"Duty, Tattycoram. Begin it early, and do it well; and there is no antecedent to it, in any origin or station, that will tell against us with the Almighty, or with ourselves."

Although Mr. Pocket was not able to manage his own household and family, chiefly owing to the hopeless incompetence of Mrs. Pocket, he was an excellent teacher, and knew how to treat his pupils. Pip found him a most satisfactory guide.

He advised my attending certain places in London for the acquisition of such mere rudiments as I wanted, and my investing him with the functions of explainer and director of all my studies. He hoped that with intelligent a.s.sistance I should meet with little to discourage me, and should soon be able to dispense with any aid but his. Through his way of saying this, and much more to similar purpose, he placed himself on confidential terms with me in an admirable manner: and I may state at once that he was always so zealous and honourable in fulfilling his compact with me that he made me zealous and honourable in fulfilling mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I had no doubt I should have returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no such excuse, and each of us did the other justice.

In Our Mutual Friend Betty Higden and Mrs. Boffin are given as true types of the proper spirit of adulthood toward childhood. Betty, poor as she was, wept at the thought of parting from Johnny, and Mrs. Boffin said to her:

"If you trust the dear child to me he shall have the best of homes, the best of care, the best of education, the best of friends. Please G.o.d, I will be a true good mother to him!"

Jemmy Lirriper had an ideal training in many ways. He had freedom and love, and his imagination and individuality were developed as fully as Mrs. Lirriper and the Major could secure these desirable results. His boyish personality received respectful consideration. The Major's method of revealing mathematical conceptions and processes, while it did not fully reveal Froebel's processes in reaching the same results (even the great mathematicians have been slow in doing that), was much in advance of the pedagogy of his time, and it shows the spirit in which d.i.c.kens would have the child treated, and this is much more important than mathematics.

Mrs. Lirriper tells the story:

My dear, the system upon which the Major commenced, and, as I may say, perfected Jemmy's learning when he was so small that if the dear was on the other side of the table you had to look under it instead of over it to see him with his mother's own bright hair in beautiful curls, is a thing that ought to be known to the Throne and Lords and Commons, and then might obtain some promotion for the Major, which he well deserves, and would be none the worse for (speaking between friends, L. S. D-ically). When the Major first undertook his learning he says to me:

"I'm going, Madam," he says, "to make our child a Calculating Boy."

"Major," I says, "you terrify me, and may do the pet a permanent injury you would never forgive yourself."

"Madam," says the Major, "I would regret if this fine mind was not early cultivated. But mark me, Madam," says the Major, holding up his forefinger, "cultivated on a principle that will make it a delight."

"Major," I says, "I will be candid with you and tell you openly that if ever I find the dear child fall off in his appet.i.te I shall know it is his calculations, and shall put a stop to them at two minutes'

notice. Or if I find them mounting to his head," I says, "or striking anyways cold to his stomach or leading to anything approaching flabbiness in his legs, the result will be the same, but, Major, you are a clever man and have seen much, and you love the child and are his own G.o.dfather, and if you feel a confidence in trying, try."

"Spoken, Madam," says the Major, "like Emma Lirriper. All I have to ask, Madam, is that you will leave my G.o.dson and myself to make a week or two's preparations for surprising you, and that you will give leave to have up and down any small articles not actually in use that I may require from the kitchen."

"From the kitchen, Major!" I says, half feeling as if he had a mind to cook the child.

"From the kitchen," says the Major, and smiles and swells, and at the same time looks taller.

So I pa.s.sed my word, and the Major and the dear boy were shut up together for half an hour at a time through a certain while, and never could I hear anything going on betwixt them but talking and laughing and Jemmy clapping his hands and screaming out numbers, so I says to myself "It has not harmed him yet," nor could I, on examining the dear find any signs of it anywhere about him, which was likewise a great relief. At last one day Jemmy brings me a card in joke in the Major's neat writing "The Messrs. Jemmy Jackman," for we had given him the Major's other name too, "request the honour of Mrs. Lirriper's company at the Jackman Inst.i.tution in the front parlour this evening at five, military time, to witness a few slight feats of elementary arithmetic." And, if you'll believe me, there in the front parlour at five punctually to the moment was the Major behind the Pembroke table with both leaves up and a lot of things from the kitchen tidily set out on old newspapers spread atop of it, and there was the Mite stood up on a chair, with his rosy cheeks flus.h.i.+ng and his eyes sparkling cl.u.s.ters of diamonds.