I had jumped with glee from the gangway and was looking around in sheer delight at being on English ground again, when an elderly man and a younger one approached me, asked me where I was intending to go and what my luggage was, and offered to arrange everything for me, trains and all. While I was explaining Arthur’s directions to the older man the younger one had gone off and soon drove up in an open fly with my trunk aboard. He then took me to the right station for Wales, sent my telegram for me, and saw me off. He refused all payment for fly and telegram, and said it was a pleasure. I like to think that these kindly people were not members of some Society for the Protection of Young Females, but were just being helpful to anyone bewildered on arrival at a big port.
My train was a rackety old thing, finishing an honourable life no doubt on an unfrequented line. It was one of those soft September mornings when the sleepy countryside looks its best—green fields with overgrown hedges, where the children gathering blackberries stopped to wave at the train…old red farms and grey churches. It all reminded me of my mother’s saying that England always seemed to her like a garden when she returned from abroad. As we drew near to Winchester I hung out of the window to catch a glimpse of the ancient royal city and the cathedral. In the station the guard strolled up for a word and told me that I was the only passenger. When I said that I had been over to Chicago he was greatly interested, for his wife had a nephew out in those parts, and he felt sure that I must have come across him.
I passed through bits of England that day that I shall probably never see again, for it was an oddly cross-country journey. My first change was at Oxford, where I saw a woman struggling with a child and a lot of luggage. As I helped her along I asked her where she was going. ‘Quebec,’ said she, ‘a terrible long way.’ ‘It will soon be over,’ said I, ‘and when you get there it is such a lovely place, something like England, you know. I’ve just come from there, and I was so sorry to leave it.’ This cheered her, and I was able to pack her comfortably in her train before mine came in.
The usual confusion at Shrewsbury seemed quite homely, and the hills of Wales homelier still, and as we slowed down for Machynlleth I saw Arthur at the extreme edge of the platform.
VII. Peter, Martin, and Jack Work Together
§ 1
WHEN work began again in the autumn I felt much richer for my time in America. Not from the speeches at the Chicago Conference, which had made only the slightest impression, but from the mixing with all sorts of people, and seeing how English ways looked from a distance. High-sounding educational theories made a stir and faded out. Ingenious methods took on the same ridiculous aspect as cure-all patent medicines. The only things of permanent importance to a teacher seemed to be to get hold of her pupils’ point of view, and work somehow from that. This I knew meant nimbleness of mind rather than long experience; in fact I had observed that long experience, of itself, was often a drawback; your experienced teacher, especially if ‘successful’, was sure to meet any fresh idea with ‘Well, I always make them…’
What, then, could I do to help these students of mine to a quicker means of getting en rapport with their classes? The natural way was to attend their lessons and discuss these afterwards. But the practice we managed to get in the schools was so deplorably little. And sometimes I hardly wondered this, for despite all our care we had some humiliating experiences. Although the students were all women with diplomas and were assumed to be well educated, reliance could not be placed on their general knowledge. I impressed on them continually that they must not be afraid of questions, that every question from a pupil was a feather in one’s cap’, and that the ideal lesson would consist entirely of answers to such questions. In accordance with this idea I tried to foresee any likely questions and make sure that the student could answer them. One of our number, a London B.A., was so limited in her range that I used to go over her notes with great care, however simple the subject, lest she should be landed in some awkward hole. In a lesson on the camel, for instance, she had a note to the effect that it could go without food for a considerable time by obtaining sustenance from its hump. This sounded bookish. ‘Now suppose,’ said I, ‘that the class should ask you how the camel does this. What will you say?’ As she looked nonplussed, I added, ‘Do you think it stretches its head round and takes a bite for lunch?’ ‘Yes, I suppose it does.’ Again, in a lesson on Australia she referred to the penal settlement. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘if a child should ask you where our convicts are sent nowadays, I hope you know?’ ‘They are sent to Siberia, aren’t they?’ she replied. The word portcullis occurred in some poem she was to teach, and I asked her to draw it, or at least to describe it. No reply. ‘Well, do you think it is a kind of Russian soldier?’ She thought it probably was. However, ignorance never mattered much so long as they didn’t haver and muddle and pretend to know what they didn’t. Even specialists can be gravelled in their own subject, but it’s quite easy to find things out. In fact, elder pupils can be given books of reference and dig for themselves.
Whatever preliminary pains I took, blush-making mistakes would be made either from ignorance or nervousness, and I used to amuse Arthur with them at the week-end. He said it must be as bad for me to sit and endure blunders and good chances thrown away, as it is for a Junior to watch his Leader ruining his case. ‘I am more exhausted by the agony of hearing him spoil point after point than by any amount of work of my own, even bad work of my own.’
My worst experience in this line happened at the school for daughters of the clergy, where I had obtained by means of great meekness and cajolery permission to give a course of lessons. I had at the time a student rather older than the rest, a woman of intelligence and wide culture, who had travelled in Italy and enjoyed the pictures that I had always longed to see. When I suggested that she should give one or two lessons on Italian artists to these daughters of the clergy, grew quite enthusiastic and prepared notes on Botticelli full of interesting matter and illustrated by good reproductions. The girls, an elder class, were assembled, and I looked forward to a pleasant half-hour, as the student took up her position at the desk and disposed all her illustrations conveniently to hand. But not a word did she utter. Minutes passed. Still not a syllable…nor sign…nor groan. She didn’t look ill. I almost wished she did. The girls began to look at one another and fidget. It seemed much longer, but I suppose it was only ten minutes that we sat expecting her to begin every moment. Then it dawned on me that she had been literally struck dumb with nervousness. I had seen it take very odd shapes, but never such abject paralysis as this. Making some excuse I led her out, and returned to give some kind of a lesson on Botticelli. The girls guessed what was the matter, I think, for they behaved splendidly, as young people always will if things go wrong.
But news of the incident reached the headmistress, who came to me when I was putting on my hat to request that we would not come again. When I pleaded nervousness she replied, ‘But you mustn’t allow them to be nervous.’ I am sure she meant this kindly, and she added, what was of course true, that she couldn’t afford to have the girls’ time wasted like that. So bang went the bit of practice that had been so hard won.
It was no use to blame the poor student, whose contrition, like her feeling for Botticelli, was past words. But we all tried to analyse the malady, and came to the conclusion that the chief ingredients of nervousness were conceit and want of breath. If you don’t mind making a fool of yourself (which you are sure to do anyhow) and take a deep breath, you will be able to face anything. It had been the fear of saying something inadequate about Botticelli, conceit in short, that had led to the present distress. The old slogan, ‘It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt’, may be excellent in society, but is no good in front of a class of girls. I cheered them with the reflection that all eminent speakers are nervous on beginning their speeches, however experienced they may be, for Arthur had told me that this was the case with even the best men at the Bar. He sai
d that even an after-dinner speech was not worth anything unless the speaker felt nervous when he started. Realizing that the sky hadn’t fallen, the student recovered her poise and was never ‘dumb before a Botticelli’ again.
Another student was at the opposite pole, giving no trouble to herself or the school, free from nervousness, completely self-confident and humdrum. Of her I despaired, feeling sure that in mature age she would be precisely the same and would retire deeply respected.
Self-confidence, however, could appear in a different and highly interesting form. One student was a specialist in history, had been excited by Mr. Allen’s scientific view of it, and was brimful of the notion that a class must catch her own spirit of enthusiasm for the subject. Now it chanced that her lot fell to take a class of elder girls in the Marylebone Higher Grade School. Such a tough set they were that the students used to call them ‘the lions’ den’, and suffered tortures of nervousness before facing them. Well, she was for capturing their minds by taking broad sweeps of history, showing them the process of human development through the ages, giving them a graphic idea of the Flow of Time. Standing at a table in front of the ‘lions’ she opened ostentatiously a very large volume of history, and tossing its pages carelessly to and fro she began brightly: ‘Today we are going to take some event in history, and see what led up to it, and then what flowed from it. Now, girls, tell me anyone historical fact, in any age.’ A long pause followed, as may be well imagined, and I sat expectant, incapable myself of thinking of any event at all. At last one of the lions put up a paw. ‘Please, Miss, Henry VIII had six wives.’ The giggle round the class that followed put the poor student completely off her stroke, and the lesson went to pieces. But she herself had sufficient humour to learn a lesson from her failure. In fact we all profited by it, for I took the occasion to point out (much to the general comfort) the danger of being ‘brilliant’, of just enjoying oneself and regarding the pupils as an audience. ‘Ask yourself,’ I said, ‘after an apparently successful lesson, whether you have been teaching, or merely performing in front of the class.’
A quite peculiar problem was provided by another student. For some reason or other she had come on to me for a last term after having attended another training college for two terms. All my efforts had to be expended on untraining her. She had learnt to do all the correct things with a precise and devastating thoroughness. Such pains did she take to avoid mistakes in method that her lessons were drained of all spontaneity and were as dull and predictable as an old-fashioned sermon. Every lesson was furnished with a proper introduction, and ended with a summary; the life of a man always began with the Influence of his Times on Him and ended with His Influence on his Times. And yet in ordinary life this girl was sensible and natural. I then saw why so many people objected to training, without being able to say exactly what was the matter with it. I felt that if I could only smash something inside her she would come out well. I put the case before Arthur.
‘You say that she does nothing wrong, and yet nothing worth doing?’ said he. ‘Has she any sense of humour?’
Oh, plenty, when she isn’t teaching; and she has brains.’ ‘Then why not take the bull by the horns and tell her the story of the man buying a horse at the fair?’
The story ran thus: A man saw a horse that greatly took his fancy—good appearance and every point correct. But the price was absurdly low. He asked what was the matter with it. Did it jib? No. Did it kick? No. Some ugly trick, surely? No, nothing wrong at all. So he bought it, and as soon as the money had been passed over he said, ‘Now tell me, what is the matter with it?’ The former owner replied, ‘There’s nothing the matter with it, but the horse isn’t worth a damn.’ Following counsel’s advice I took the bull by the horns, told the story, and got in response a hearty laugh from the student. She was then ready to see that a teacher, too, might be faultless and worthless. ‘Cast all methods to the winds,’ I suggested, ‘and be your natural self. Keep your eye on the class more than on your prepared ideas, be ready for any emergency or change of mood, and like a good horse be able to go the pace.’
It was for this general loosening-up of the minds of the students that we needed more practice so badly. And we suffered not only in the small quantity of teaching allowed us but also in its quality. We were asked to give lessons on subjects that the children already knew well (in which we could do little harm) or else on subjects that were dull, difficult, or unpleasant to take; for instance, a lesson on the plagues of Egypt, and another on Gehazi and Ananias (presumably to teach the dangers of untruthfulness). An example of the too familiar was a lesson on the well-worn Clive, and I was really sorry for the student who had to take it, for she was the one who had endured the anecdote of the horse. But she smiled on me cheerfully as she began. Finding, as we suspected, that the class knew all about Clive’s naughtiness as a boy, and also all about the Black Hole, even to the exact number who crawled out alive in the morning, she said, ‘Ah yes, I was sure you would know that. But have you ever thought what became of those twenty-three? Their health was undermined perhaps, and they died soon after? Very likely most of them did. But the other day, as I was walking through old St. Pancras churchyard, what should I see but a tombstone to the memory of one of those twenty-three survivors. He had lived to a great age, and I wondered how often he had told the story of that night.’ This little atom of reality brought the class to life. Then she suggested that they might act a scene about it: one could be the old man telling the story, the others acting as his grandchildren asking him questions as to who ordered the black hole, and why, who punished him, and how, and any other questions they liked. ‘If grandpapa doesn’t know something he is asked, it is because his memory is failing with age, and one of the others can say she knows it from hearing him tell it so often before.’ The scene went with a swing, and the time was up all too soon. As we left the school I said to her in mock concern, ‘You have entirely neglected Clive’s Influence on his Times.’ ‘Yes, thank goodness,’ was her happy reply.
In such wrestling with trouble, and building bethels out of stony griefs, the students made the best of bad jobs. Then it occurred to me that I might supplement the meagre school practice by some exercises in College. So I set apart Saturday morning for doing all sorts of things that would help them to get rid of nervousness, to become ready-witted for emergencies, to feel confidence in being able to manage some devices rapidly and well. Sometimes I gave out a subject to be prepared, sometimes the exercise had to be done impromptu. Each student in turn had to tell an anecdote, describe some place, sketch a character from history, or explain something from her special subject (or even stand questioning on it). Sometimes there was a competition in writing on the blackboard, for rapidity and legibility at a distance; or working out a long sum, or arranging heads effectively. Reading aloud, getting variety into the voice, arranging for the others to act a scene, dictating a passage—I thought up all the tortures I could, and at first they were unpopular. But I took care that all criticism should be light-hearted, I thanked those who made fools of themselves for the public good, and in this spirit Saturday mornings became a pleasure for us all.
An exercise in drawing was always part of the programme, and here there was a great deal of recalcitrance to be fought. From America I had learnt the phrase ‘talking with the chalk’, and I urged the students to throw a little plan or sketch or map on the board to illustrate anything they were explaining or describing. ‘It may not be really needed to make the point clear, but it focuses attention if nothing else.’ ‘Oh, I never could draw,’ was of course a common reason for never trying, until I hit on the slogan, ‘The worse you draw the better.’ I pointed out, what they already knew, that elaborate drawings on the board, so often seen in schools, were a waste of time and ministered only to the vanity of the teacher. ‘Draw worse than you really can,’ said I, ‘and if a pupil looks supercilious invite her to come out and make a better sketch for you. She very likely can, you thank her, and everyone is pleased
. Poor drawing in the teacher encourages all to have a try, while perfect drawing has a precisely opposite effect. Welcome every kind of superiority in your pupils (of knowledge or skill), for after all they must outshine you eventually if you teach well. Tell them so. Glory in it.’ I had got this idea from Rousseau, the only valuable notion I remember from Émile. As for maps, I insisted that they ought to be able to draw a rough map of any country from memory, and its position among other countries; and I waged warfare against the over-elaborated ones with blue edges and feather mountains that are still marked ‘very good’ in school exercise-books.
Short stories and anecdotes were also practised every week, because there was no knowing when they would come in useful. Is the weather very hot or very cold? Is some little disciplinary trouble threatening? Are you attacked (as everyone is at times) by complete blankness about the matter in hand? You have merely to say ‘That reminds me,’ and plunge into a story. The magic words ‘once upon a time’ will hold young people back from any dark design, and they will never worry as to what reminded you. It is interesting to note the words ‘There was a certain man’ coming again and again in the Gospel record. Perhaps the multitude sometimes needed handling. The mere fact of having a story up your sleeve is sufficient to impart peace of mind and thus often obviate the necessity for using it. ‘Up your sleeve’ can be almost literal if you make a list of available stories, or sources of stories (such as Greek and Roman legends, history, Hans Andersen, Grimm, Norsk and Celtic tales), and keep it in your desk.
These exercises had their use for general class teaching, but they left untouched the problem of getting at the minds of individual pupils. ‘It’s easy,’ I said, ‘to give a successful lesson with the aid of a few bright girls, but what about back-row boredom?’ What about those lumpy girls, those White Queens, who sit in their thousands in English schools, while ‘interesting’ lessons are poured over them? In old days they would have been useful at home, cooking and washing and sewing and picking up wisdom of a kind. Now the schools are making them stupid. Every efficient lesson that leaves them untouched does them harm; they become more dazed, more stupid, less interested in anything at all, and finally manage to marry men who commit suicide.
A London Home in the Nineties Page 10