By the Christmas Fire Part 5

There is nothing unusual about my Philosopher. He is not a prodigy or a genius. He is what a normal human being is at the age of four, when he is still in possession of all his faculties. Having eyes he sees with them, and having ears he hears with them. Having a little mind of his own, he uses it on whatever comes to hand, trying its edge on everything, just as he would try a jackknife if I would let him. He wants to cut into things and see what they are made of. He wants to try experiments. He doesn't care how they come out; he knows they will come out some way or other. Having an imagination, he imagines things, and his imagination being healthy, the things he imagines are very pleasant.

In this way he comes to have a very good time with his own mind.

Moreover, he is a very little person in a very big world, and he is wise enough to know it. So instead of confining himself to the things he understands, which would not be enough to nourish his life, he manages to get a good deal of pleasure out of the things he does not understand, and so he has "an endless fountain of immortal drink."

What becomes of these imaginative, inquisitive, myth-making, light-hearted, tender-hearted, and altogether charming young adventurers who start out so gayly to explore the wonder-world?

The solemn answer comes, "They after a while are grown-up." Did you ever meditate on that catastrophe which we speak of as being "grown-up"?

Habit has dulled our perception of the absurd anti-climax involved in it. You have only to compare the two estates to see that something has been lost.

You linger for a moment when the primary school has been dismissed. For a little while the stream of youthful humanity flows sluggishly as between the banks of a ca.n.a.l, but once beyond the school limits it returns to nature. It is a bright, foaming torrent. Not a moment is wasted. The little girls are at once exchanging confidences, and the little boys are in Valhalla, where the heroes make friends with one another by indulging in everlasting a.s.sault and battery, and continually arise "refreshed with blows." There is no question about their being all alive and actively interested in one another. All the natural reactions are exhibited in the most interesting manner.

Then you get into a street car, invented by an ingenious misanthropist to give you the most unfavorable view possible of your kind. On entering you choose a side, unless you are condemned to be suspended in the middle. Then you look at your antagonists on the opposite side. What a long, unrelenting row of humanity! These are the grown-ups. You look for some play of emotion, some evidence of curiosity, pleasure, exhilaration, such as you might naturally expect from those who are taking a little journey in the world.

Not a sign of any such emotion do you discern. They are not adventuring into a wonder-world. They are only getting over the ground. One feels like putting up a notice: "Lost, somewhere on the road between infancy and middle age, several valuable faculties. The finder will find something to his advantage."

I have no quarrel with Old Age. It should be looked upon as a reward of merit to be cheerfully striven for.

Old Age hath still his honor and his toil.

Nor do I object to the process of growth. It belongs to the order of nature. Growing is like falling,--it is all right so long as you keep on; the trouble comes when you stop.

What I object to is the fatalistic way in which people acquiesce in the arrest of their own mental development. Adolescence is exciting. All sorts of things are happening, and more are promised. Life rushes on with a sweet tumult. All things seem possible. It seems as if a lot of the unfinished business of the world is about to be put through with enthusiasm. Then, just as the process has had a fair start, some evil spirit intervenes and says: "Time's up! You've grown all you are to be allowed to. Now you must settle down,--and be quick about it! No more adolescing; you are adults!"

Poor adults! Nature seems to have been like an Indian giver, taking away the gifts as soon as they are received,--

The gifts of morn Ere life grows noisy and slower-footed thought Can overtake the rapture of the sense.

The extinction of the early poetry and romance which gave beauty to the first view of these realities has often been accomplished by the most deliberate educational processes. There are two kinds of education,--that which educates, and that which eradicates. The latter is the easier and the more ancient method.

Wordsworth writes:--

Oh, many are the poets that are sown By Nature, men endowed with highest gifts, The vision and the faculty divine.

But with this broad-sowing of the highest gifts it is astonis.h.i.+ng how few come to maturity. I imagine that the Educational Man with the Hoe is responsible for a good deal of the loss. In his desire for clean culture he treats any sproutings of the faculty divine as mere weeds, if they come up between the rows.

If the Educational Man with the Hoe is to be feared, the Educational Man with the Pruning Shears is an equal menace.

There is an art, once highly esteemed, called topiary. The object of topiary when carried to excess was to take a tree, preferably a yew tree, and by careful tr.i.m.m.i.n.g to make it look like something else, say a peac.o.c.k standing under an umbrella. Curious effects could be produced in this way, leafy similitudes of birds and animals could be made so that the resemblance was almost as striking as if they had been cut out of gingerbread.

The object of educational topiary is to take a child, and, by careful pruning away of all his natural propensities, make of him a miniature grown-up. It is an interesting art, for it shows what can be done; the only wonder is why any one should want to do it. If you would see this art at its best, turn to Miss Edgeworth's "Frank," a book much admired in its day. Frank, to begin with, was a very likable little boy. If he was not made of the "sugar and spice and all things nice" that little girls are made of, he had all the more homely miscellaneous ingredients that little boys are made of. The problem of the careful father and mother was to take Frank and reduce him in the shortest possible time to the adult frame of mind. To this end they sought out any vagrant fancies and inquisitive yearnings and wayward adventurousness, and destroyed them. This slaughter of the innocents continued till Frank's mind was a model of propriety.

It was hard work, but there was a satisfaction in doing it thoroughly.

The evening meal was transformed into a purgatorial discipline, and as he progressed from course to course Frank's mind was purified as by fire.

Here is one occasion. There was a small plumcake, and Frank was required to divide it so that each of the five persons present should have a just share. Frank began to cut the cake, but by a mistake cut it into six pieces instead of five.

This miscarriage of justice sent dismay into the hearts of his parents.

They felt that he was at the parting of the ways. It was a great moral crisis, in which his character was to be revealed. What would Frank do with that sixth piece of cake? Perhaps--horrible thought!--he might eat it. From this crime he was saved only to fall into the almost equal sin of unscientific charity. In order to save trouble he proposed to give the extra piece to his father, and when questioned he could give no better reason than that he thought his father liked cake.

"'What right have you to give it to any of us? You were to judge about the size of the pieces, and you were to take care that we each have our just share. But you are going to give one of us twice as much as any of the others.'"

Justice triumphed. "Frank took the trouble to think, and he then cut the spare bit of cake into five equal parts, and he put these parts by the side of the five large pieces and gave one of the large and one of the small pieces to each person, and he then said: 'I believe I have divided the cake fairly now.' Everybody present said 'yes,' and everybody looked carefully at each of the shares, and there appeared exactly the same quant.i.ty in each share. So each person took a share, and all were satisfied."

That is to say, all were satisfied except Frank's mother. She was afraid that the family meal had not yielded its full educational value.

"'My dear Frank,' said his mother, 'as you have divided the cake so fairly, let us see how you will divide the sugar that was upon the top of the cake, and which is now broken and crumbled to pieces in the plate. We all like sugar; divide it equally amongst us.'

"'But this will be very difficult to do, mamma, because the pieces of sugar are of such different sizes and shapes. I do not know how I shall ever divide it exactly. Will it do if I do not divide it quite exactly, ma'am?'

"'No,' said his mother, 'I beg you will divide it quite exactly.'"

Frank gathered his fragments into five little mounds, and after carefully measuring their height, declared that they were equal.

"'They are of the same length and breadth, I acknowledge,' said the father, 'but they are not of the same thickness.'

"'Oh, thickness! I never thought of thickness.'

"'But you should have thought of it,' said his father."

At last Frank, seeing that there was no other way to satisfy the demands of distributive justice, went to the closet, and brought forth a pair of scales. "By patiently adding and taking away, he at last made them each of the same weight, and everybody was satisfied with the accuracy of the division."

This habit of accuracy, developed in the family meals, saved them from the temptation of wasting time in flippant conversation.

Miss Edgeworth's most striking plea for grown-up-edness versus childish curiosity was elaborated in her story of Frank and his orrery. Frank had read of an orrery in which the motions of the planets were shown by ingenious mechanism. Being a small boy, he naturally desired to make one.

For several days he almost forgot about his Roman History and Latin Grammar and the "Stream of Time," so absorbed was he in making his orrery. He had utilized his mother's tambour frame and knitting needles; and wires and thread held together his planets, which were made of worsted b.a.l.l.s. It was a wonderful universe which Frank had created--as many great philosophers before him had created theirs--out of the inner consciousness. When it had been constructed to the best of his ability, the only question was, would his universe work,--would his planets go singing around the sun, or was there to be a crash of worlds? Frank knew no other way than to put it to the test of action, and he invited the family to witness the great experiment. He pointed out with solemn joy his worsted earth, moon, and planets, and predicted their revolutions according to his astronomy.

But the moment his father's eye rested upon it all, he saw that it was absurd.

He "pointed out the defects, the deficiencies, the mistakes,--in one word, the absurdities,--but he did not use that offensive word, for he was tender of Frank's feelings for his wasted work."

"'Well, papa,' said Mary, 'what is your advice to Frank?'

"'My first advice to you, Frank,' said his father, 'and indeed the condition upon which I now stay and give up my time to you is that you abide steadily by whatever resolution you now make, either quite to finish or quite to give up this orrery. If you choose to finish it you must give up for some time reading anything entertaining or instructive; you must give up arithmetic and history.'

"'And the "Stream of Time" and the lists?' said Mary.

"'Everything,' said his father, 'to the one object of making an orrery,--and when made as well as you possibly could with my a.s.sistance make it, observe that it will only be what others have repeatedly made before.... Master Frank will grow older, and when or why or how he made this orrery few will know or care, but all will see whether he has the knowledge which is necessary for a man and a gentleman to possess. Now choose, Frank.'"

Frank seized the orrery. "'Mary, bring your work basket, my dear,' said he.