Dickens As an Educator Part 25

d.i.c.kens's types of sympathy with children grew more perfect as he grew older. In his later years his head began to catch up with his heart.

Major Jackman, Mrs. Lirriper, and Doctor Marigold are among his most wonderfully sympathetic characters.

What an ideal sending away to school Jemmy Lirriper had!

So the Major being gone out and Jemmy being at home, I got the child into my little room here and I stood him by my chair and I took his mother's own curls in my hand and I spoke to him loving and serious.

And when I had reminded the darling how that he was now in his tenth year, and when I had said to him about his getting on in life pretty much what I had said to the Major, I broke to him how that we must have this same parting, and there I was forced to stop, for there I saw of a sudden the well-remembered lip with its tremble, and it so brought back that time! But with the spirit that was in him he controlled it soon, and he says gravely, nodding through his tears: "I understand, Gran--I knew it _must_ be, Gran--go on, Gran, don't be afraid of _me_." And when I had said all that ever I could think of, he turned his bright steady face to mine, and he says just a little broken here and there: "You shall see, Gran, that I can be a man, and that I can do anything that is grateful and loving to you; and if I don't grow up to be what you would like to have me--I hope it will be--because I shall die." And with that he sat down by me, and I went on to tell him of the school, of which I had excellent recommendations, and where it was and how many scholars, and what games they played as I had heard, and what length of holidays, to all of which he listened bright and clear. And so it came that at last he says: "And now, dear Gran, let me kneel down here where I have been used to say my prayers, and let me fold my face for just a minute in your gown and let me cry, for you have been more than father--more than mother--more than brothers, sisters, friends--to me!" And so he did cry, and I too, and we were both much the better for it.

Dear old Doctor Marigold, the travelling auctioneer, in his tender sympathy for his little girl when her mother was so cruel to her, whispering comforting words in her ear as he was calling for bids on his wares while she was dying, and afterward loving the deaf-mute child whom he adopted in memory of his own child whom he had lost, has made thousands more kindly sympathetic with children.

In the novel that he was writing when he died d.i.c.kens makes Canon Crisparkle say to Helena Landless: "You have the wisdom of Love, and it was the highest wisdom ever known upon this earth, remember."

David Copperfield said, "I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world."

The effect of lack of true sympathy on the heart that should have felt and shown it is revealed in what Sydney Carton said to Mr. Lorry: "If you could say with truth to your own solitary heart to-night, 'I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the grat.i.tude and respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by,' your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight curses; would they not?"

The contrast between the coldness and heartlessness of his parents or guardians and the encouraging sympathy of his teacher is one of the strongest features in the story of Barbox Brothers (Mugby Junction).

"You remember me, Young Jackson?"

"What do I remember if not you? You are my first remembrance. It was you who told me that was my name. It was you who told me that on every 20th of December my life had a penitential anniversary in it called a birthday. I suppose the last communication was truer than the first!"

"What am I like, Young Jackson?"

"You are like a blight all through the year to me. You hard-lined, thin-lipped, repressive, changeless woman with a wax mask on! You are like the Devil to me--most of all when you teach me religious things, for you make me abhor them."

"You remember me, Mr. Young Jackson?" In another voice from another quarter:

"Most gratefully, sir. You are the ray of hope and prospering ambition in my life. When I attended your course I believed that I should come to be a great healer, and I felt almost happy--even though I was still the one boarder in the house with that horrible mask, and ate and drank in silence and constraint with the mask before me every day.

As I had done every, every, every day through my school time and from my earliest recollection."

"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?"

"You are like a Superior Being to me. You are like Nature beginning to reveal herself to me. I hear you again as one of the hushed crowd of young men kindling under the power of your presence and knowledge, and you bring into my eyes the only exultant tears that ever stood in them."

"You remember Me, Mr. Young Jackson?" In a grating voice from quite another quarter:

"Too well. You made your ghostly appearance in my life one day, and announced that its course was to be suddenly and wholly changed. You showed me which was my wearisome seat in the Galley of Barbox Brothers. You told me what I was to do, and what to be paid; you told me afterward, at intervals of years, when I was to sign for the Firm, when I became a partner, when I became the Firm. I know no more of it, or of myself."

"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?"

"You are like my father, I sometimes think. You are hard enough and cold enough so to have brought up an acknowledged son. I see your scanty figure, your close brown suit, and your tight brown wig; but you, too, wear a wax mask to your death. You never by a chance remove it; it never by a chance falls off; and I know no more of you."

CHAPTER X.

CHILD STUDY AND CHILD NATURE.

d.i.c.kens was a profound student of children, and he revealed his consciousness of the need of a general study of childhood in all he wrote about the importance of a free childhood, individuality, the imagination, coercion, cramming, and wrong methods of training children.

He criticised the blindness of those who saw boys as a cla.s.s or in a limited number of cla.s.ses, distinguished by external and comparatively unimportant characteristics, in Mr. Grimwig, "who never saw any difference in boys, and only knew two sorts of boys, mealy boys and beef-faced boys."

He exposed the ignorance--the wilful ignorance--of vast numbers of parents and teachers who indignantly resent the suggestion that they need to study children, in Jane Murdstone. When Jane was interfering in the management of David, and with her brother totally misunderstanding him and misrepresenting him, his timid mother ventured to say:

"I beg your pardon, my dear Jane, but are you quite sure--I am certain you'll excuse me, my dear Jane--that you quite understand Davy?"

"I should be somewhat ashamed of myself, Clara," returned Miss Murdstone, "if I could not understand the boy, or any boy. I don't profess to be profound, but I do lay claim to common sense."

Many Jane Murdstones still claim that it is not necessary to study so common a thing as a boy. Yet a child is the most wonderful thing in the world, and, whether the Jane Murdstones in the schools and homes like it or not, the wise people _are_ studying the child with a view to finding out what he should be guided to do in the accomplishment of his own training.

Richard Carstone had been eight years at school, and he was a miserable failure in life, although a man of good ability.

"It had never been anybody's business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to him."

Esther wisely said: "I did doubt whether Richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying Latin verses so much."

d.i.c.kens studied every subject about which he wrote with great care and discrimination. As an instance of this careful study it may be stated that medical authorities say that the description of Smike's sickness and death is the best description of consumption ever written. d.i.c.kens had a wonderful imagination, but he never relied on his imagination for his facts or his philosophy. It is therefore reasonable to believe that as he wrote more about children than any other man or woman, he was the greatest and most reverent student of childhood that England has produced.

In addition to the revelations of his conclusions given in the evolution of his child characters, and in the many ill.u.s.trations of good and of bad training, he continually makes direct statements in regard to child nature and how to deal with it in its varied manifestations.

His central motive was expressed by the old gentleman who found Little Nell astray in London: "I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from G.o.d, love us."

His ideal of unperverted child nature was entirely different from that which had been taught by theology and psychology. He believed the child to be pure and good, and that even when heredity was bad, its baneful influences need not blight the divinity in his life, if he was wisely trained and had a free life of self-activity, a suitable environment, and truly sympathetic friends.

"It would be a curious speculation," said I, after some restless turns across and across the room, "to imagine her in her future life, holding her solitary way among a crowd of wild, grotesque companions, the only pure, fresh, youthful object in the throng."

To keep children pure and fresh was the chief aim of his life work. He had no respect for those who treated children as if they were grown-up, reasonable beings; who judged children as they would judge adults, and therefore misjudged them. He always remembered that a child was a little stranger in a new world, and that his complex nature had to adjust itself to its environment. He had a perfect, reverent, considerate sympathy for the timid young soul venturing to look out upon its new conditions. One of the most pathetic things in the world to him was the fact that children are nearly universally misunderstood and misinterpreted. How he longed to tear down the barriers of formalism, and conventionality, and indifference, and misconception from the lives of parents and teachers, so that timid children might be true to their better natures in their presence.

When little Florence timidly presented herself, Mr. Dombey stopped in his pacing up and down and looked toward her. Had he looked with greater interest and with a father's eye, he might have read in her keen glance the impulses and fears that made her waver; the pa.s.sionate desire to run clinging to him, crying, as she hid her face in his embrace, "Oh, father, try to love me! there's no one else!" the dread of a repulse; the fear of being too bold, and of offending him; the pitiable need in which she stood of some a.s.surance and encouragement; and how her overcharged young heart was wandering to find some natural resting place for its sorrow and affection.

But he saw nothing of this. He saw her pause irresolutely at the door and look toward him; and he saw no more.

"Come in," he said, "come in; what is the child afraid of?"

She came in, and after glancing round her for a moment with an uncertain air, stood pressing her small hands hard together, close within the door.

"Come here, Florence," said her father coldly. "Do you know who I am?"

"Yes, papa."

"Have you nothing to say to me?"

The tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his face were frozen by the expression it wore. She looked down again and put out her trembling hand.

Mr. Dombey took it loosely in his own, and stood looking down upon her for a moment, as if he knew as little as the child what to say or do.

"There! Be a good girl," he said, patting her on the head, and regarding her, as it were, by stealth with a disturbed and doubtful look. "Go to Richards. Go!"