I don't feel called upon to pass judgment on the strife between
Leentje and Pennewip regarding the latter's partiality towards Keesje,
the butcher's son. But that fiery feeling for right and justice
which has harrassed me from my earliest youth--ah, for years have I
waited in vain for justice--and the foolish passion for hunting after
mitigating circumstances, even when the misdeed has been proved--all
this compels me to say that Pennewip's lot might be considered a
mitigating circumstance for a man convicted of the eight deadly sins.
I have found that many great men began their careers as feeders of
hogs (see biographical encyclopedias); and it seems to me that this
occupation develops those qualities necessary in ruling or advancing
mankind.
If the theologists should happen to criticise this story, and perhaps
accuse me of far-reaching ignorance, because I enumerate one cardinal
sin more than they knew of, or of the crime of classifying man as
a sort of hog, I reply that, still another new canonical sin could
be discovered that they have never studied. And that ought to be as
pleasing to them as influenza is to the apothecary.
New problems, gentlemen, new problems!
And as for our relationship with pigs, just consider the relation
of coal to diamond, and I think everyone will be satisfied--even
the theologists.
What a magnificent prospect anyone has who spends his tender youth
with those grunting coal-diamonds of the animal world! But I have
often wondered that in the "Lives of Famous Men" we so seldom read of
a school-teacher, for in the school all the ingredients of greatness
are abounding.
The reverse is more often true. Every day we see banished princes
teaching lazy boys. Dionysius and Louis Philippe are not the only
ones. I myself once tried to teach an American French. It was no go.
If it should ever become customary again to elect kings, I hope the
people will elect such persons as have studied men, just as one studies
Geography on globes or maps. All virtues, propensities, passions,
mistakes, misdeeds, knowledge of which is so indispensable in human
society, can be studied much better in the schoolroom. The field is
restricted, and can be taken in more readily. The famous statecraft
of many a great man, if the truth were known, had its origin in that
old tripping trick, which is everything to the three-foot Machiavellis.
The task of a schoolmaster is not an easy one. I have never understood
why he is not better paid, or, since this must be so, why there are
still men who prefer to teach, when on the same pay they might be
corporals in the army, and teach the use of firearms, which offers
fewer headaches and more fresh air.
I would even rather be a preacher; for he does work with people who are
interested and come to hear him of their own free will. The teacher
has to fight continually with indifference, and with the extremely
dangerous rivalry of tops, marbles, and paper-dolls--not to speak of
candy, scarlatina and weak mothers.
Pennewip was a man of the old school. At least he would seem so to
us if we could see him in his gray school jacket and short trousers
with buckles, and his brown wig, which he was continually pushing
into place. At the first of the week this was always curly, when it
was not raining--rain isn't good for curls; and on Sundays "the man
with the curling irons" came.
Antiquated? But perhaps this is only imagination. Who knows? perhaps
in his day he was quite modern. How soon people will say the same
of us! At all events, the man called himself "Master" and his school
was a school and not an "Institute." It is no advance to call things
by other than their right names. In his school boys and girls sat
together indiscriminately, according to the naÔve custom of those
days. They learned, or might learn, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic,
National History, Psalmody, Sewing, Knitting, and Religion. These
were the order of the day, but if anyone distinguished himself by
a show of talent, diligence or good behavior, that one received
special instruction in versification, an art in which Pennewip took
great pleasure.
Thus he taught the boys till they were sufficiently advanced to be
confirmed. With the help of his wife he gave the girls a "finishing
course." They were graduated with a paternoster done in red on a black
background, or perhaps a pierced heart between two flower-pots. Then
they were through and ready to become the grandmothers of their
own generation.
There was no natural science then. Even to-day there is room for
improvement along this line. It is said that some advance has been
made recently. It is more useful for a child to know how corn grows
than to be able to call the name of it in a foreign language. I don't
say that either is incompatible with the other.
The public schools were most deficient at the time when Walter and
Keesje were slowly crawling around the arena of honor; but I doubt if
one could say much more of the "institutes" of to-day. I would advise
everyone to visit such a school as he attended when a boy; and I am
convinced that after this test many a father who has the welfare of
his children at heart will prefer to keep them at home. One comes to
the conclusion, that after all in the school of clever Master Miller,
who was so clever that he got himself addressed as M'sieu Millaire,
precious little was to be learned.
Failing to make this test we continue to believe in the infallibility
of M'sieu of Millaire. We always consider that one a great man whom
we have known in childhood and haven't seen since.
When I remarked a moment ago that school-teachers are paid so
niggardly, I didn't mean that their remuneration was insufficient,
considering the quality and quantity of the goods delivered--knowledge,
scholarship, education. I only had in mind the bitterness of their
lot, and the poor indemnity given to the man who spends his life in
a wasp's nest.
In addition to versifying, Pennewip had still another hobby, which gave
him more claim to a throne than did anything else. He was possessed
with the mania for classifying, a passion known to few, but still of
not infrequent occurrence. I have never quite understood the disease;
and I gave up my search for the "first cause" as soon as I saw how
difficult it is to get around with a hobby-horse taken from somebody
else's stable. So I am going to give only a short sketch of Pennewip's
harmless animal.
Everything that he saw, perceived, experienced he divided into
families, classes, genera, species and sub-species, and made of the
human race a sort of botanical garden, in which he was the Linne. He
regarded that as the only possible way to grasp the final purpose
of creation and clear up all obscure things, both in and out of
school. He even went so far as to say that Walter's New Testament
would have turned up again if Juffrouw Pieterse had only been able
to tell to what class the man belonged who had bound the volume in
black leather. But that was something she didn't know.
As for myself, I shouldn't have said a word about Pennewip's mania for
classifying everything, if I hadn't thought it might help me to give
the reader a better picture of our hero and his surroundings. I should
have preferred to leave the said Pennewip in undisturbed intercourse
with the muses; but we shall have occasion later to refer to his
poetic art, when we shall quote some poems by his pupils.
After the usual general division into "animate" and "inanimate"--the
good man gave the human race only one soul--followed a system that
looked like a pyramid. On the top was God with the angels and
spirits and other accessories, while the oysters and polyps and
mussels were crawling about down near the base, or lying still--just
as they pleased. Half way up stood kings, members of school-boards,
mayors, legislators, theologians and D.D.'s. Next under these were
professors and merchants who do not work themselves. Then came
doctors of things profane, i. e., those driving double rigs, also
lawyers and untitled preachers, the Colonel of the City Militia,
the Rector of the Latin School. Philosophers (only those who have
developed a system), doctors with one horse, doctors without any
horse and poets were further down. Rather low down, and not far from
the mussels, was the seventh sub-division of the third class of the
"citizen population." Our hero would come under this sub-section.
Citizen Population, Class III., 7th Sub-Division.
People Living in Rented Flats.
a. Entrance for tenants only. Three-window front. Two stories,
with back-rooms. The boys sleep alone, dress, however, with
the girls. Fresh straw in case a baby is born. Learning French,
poems at Christmas. The girls are sometimes called Lena or Maria,
but seldom Louise. Darning. The boys work in offices. One girl
kept, sewing-girl, and "person for the rough work." Washing
at home. Read sermons by Palm. Pickled pork on Sundays, with
table-cloth, liquor after coffee. Religion. Respectability.
b 1. Still three windows. One story. Neighbors live above who ring
twice (Vide b. 2). Leentje, Mietje; Louise heard seldom. House-door
opened with a cord, which is sleek from long use. Sleep in one
room. Straw-heaps in cases of confinement. One maid-servant
for everything. Sundays cheese, no liquor, but religion and
respectability as above.
b 2. Neighbors who ring twice. About as above. No maid, only a
"person for the rough work." Seamstress. White table-cloth. Cheese
from time to time, only occasionally. Religion as above.
c. One story higher. Two-window front. Small projecting
back-room. The entire family sleeps in two beds. No trace of
straw. The boys are called Louw, Piet, or Gerrit, and become
watchmakers or type-setters. A few become sailors. Continual
wrangle with the neighbors about the waste-water. Religion as
above. Associate with "respectable folk." Read "Harlemmer" with
III. 7, b. 2. No maid, or person for rough work, but a seamstress
on seven stivers and a piece of bread and butter.
That brings us to Juffrouw Pieterse.
The reader will now have a very good idea of Walter's environment, and
will readily understand why I said he had a "city complexion." That
was when we saw him in the Hartenstraat, on the road to fame, or on
the road to that nameless "other thing" of Juffrouw Laps. At all
events he was on his way to things that will occupy our attention
for some time yet.