John Bull, Junior Part 23

The first time he reached one of these establishments, he tripped on getting out of his cab, and fell on the pavement. The porter helped him up and asked him:

"_Avez-vous du mal, monsieur?_"

He thought the porter took him for a Frenchman, and he prepared to answer in French. Believing he was asked if "he had two trunks," he answers:

"No, only a portmanteau."

After this first success, he thought he would air his French.

"_Garcon!_" he calls; "_j'ai faim._"

He p.r.o.nounces this quite perfectly, so perfectly that the waiter, understanding that he is married, informs him that he can have apartments ready for Madame.

"He is obstinate and will have another shot:

"_Je suis fameux, garcon!_"

The waiter bows respectfully.

This won't do, dear fellow; try again.

"_Je suis femme!_" he yells.

This staggers the waiter.

It is time to inquire of him if he speaks English.

"Can you speak English?"

"Oh yes, sir."

Our traveler is all right again, but he thinks that those confounded French people have a queer manner of p.r.o.nouncing their own language.

With the exception of our nasal sounds, which I know are stumbling-blocks to Englishmen--who will always insist on calling our great music composer and pianist Saint-Saens, "Sang Songs"--I never could understand that the difficulty of our p.r.o.nunciation was insuperable. Our vowels are bold, well-marked, always sounded the same, and, except _u_, like the English vowels, or so nearly like them that they can not prevent an Englishman from understanding French and speaking it.

The greatest mistake he makes is in not bearing in mind that the accent should always be laid on the last syllable, or on the last but one if the word ends in _e_ mute. How much easier this is to remember than the place of the English accented syllable, which varies constantly! In _admirable_, you have it on the first; in _admire_, on the second; in _admiration_, on the third. On the contrary, no difficulty about the p.r.o.nunciation of the three French words, _admirable_, _admirer_, and _admiration_; the tonic accent falls on the last sound syllable in every case.

The less educated a man is the more stress he lays on the accented syllables; and you find the lower cla.s.ses of a country lay such emphasis on these syllables that they almost p.r.o.nounce nothing else.

Being unable to make myself understood when p.r.o.nouncing whole English words, I have often tried to use only the accented syllables when speaking to the lower cla.s.s people of England; in every attempt I have been successful.

I obtained a basket of strawberries in Covent Garden Market by asking for a "_bask of strawbs_."

A lower cla.s.s Yankee will understand few Frenchmen who speak to him of _America_; but he will understand them if they speak to him of _Merk_.

The greatest defect in an Englishman's p.r.o.nunciation of French is generally in the wrong connection of words between which there is no pause.

The final consonant of a word, followed by another beginning with a vowel or _h_ mute, should be p.r.o.nounced as if it belonged to the latter word. An Englishman sounds _ses amis_ as if it was _seize amis_. He should say: "se samis."

"Mon ami est a Paris" = "Mo nami e ta Paris."

Perhaps the following remark on the separation of syllables may fix the rule:

The English say: _mag-nan-im-ity_.

The French say: ma-gna-ni-mi-te.

You see, dear reader, how difficult it is to refrain from talking "shop," when one has been a school-master.

XVI.

PUBLIC SCHOOL SCHOLARs.h.i.+PS AND EXHIBITIONS.--GRATEFUL PARENTS.-- INQUIRING MOTHERS.--A DEAR LITTLE CANDIDATE.--LADIES' TESTIMONIALS.

--A SCIENCE MASTER WELL RECOMMENDED.

It seems strange that in a democratic country, overburdened with school-rates, free education should be offered in the public schools to the children of the well-to-do and even wealthy people. To give opportunities to those who have clever children and cannot afford to pay for their education, such was the spirit which dictated the foundation of scholars.h.i.+ps and exhibitions in the public schools, which schools are under the supervision of the Charity Commissioners.

The Charity Commissioners! The organizers of that well-ordered British charity which begins at home!

But all this again does not concern me. If it did, I should say to gentlemen enjoying revenues of 700, 800, and 1,000 a year: "My dear sirs, you can afford to pay school fees for your children; please to leave these scholars.h.i.+ps to your less fortunate countrymen."

My diary contains a few recollections about foundation scholars and their parents which suggested the foregoing remarks to me. Pardon me for having given them a place here.

I have always noticed that the parents of foundation scholars are much more troublesome and exacting than those who pay their twenty or thirty pounds a year to the school for their sons' tuition fees.

The school is their property, the masters their servants, and when complaints are lodged with the authorities you may be sure they come from them.

They imagine, for instance, that the school ought to provide the boys with books, and think it very hard that they should be called upon to pay for them. When their sons are ordered to get a new book, they generally take a fortnight to obtain it.

"Where is your book?" you say to a scholar you see looking at his neighbor's.

"Please, sir, it has not come yet; I have ordered it at the stores."

Two weeks later the book makes its appearance.

When the boys raise subscriptions for their sports, which ought to be supported especially by those who owe a debt of grat.i.tude to the school, or for a testimonial got up in favor of a retiring master, or in memory of a celebrated old pupil, the few recalcitrants are invariably to be found among the free scholars.