Life With Your Elders.
Have you ever read Amyas Leigh? Amyas Leigh is an historical novel,
written by Charles Kingsley, an English author. His object, or one of his
objects, was to extol the old system of education, the system which
trained such men as Walter Raleigh and Philip Sidney.
The system was this. When a boy had grown up to be fourteen or fifteen
years old, he was sent away from home by his father to some old friend of
his father, who took him into his train or company for whatever service or
help he could render. And so, of a sudden, the boy found himself
constantly in the company of men, to learn, as he could, what they were
doing, and to become a man himself under their contagion and sympathy.
We have abandoned this system. We teach boys and girls as much from books
as we can, and we give them all the fewer chances to learn from people or
from life.
None the less do the boys and girls meet men and women. And I think it is
well worth our while, in these papers, to see how much good and how much
pleasure they can get from the companionship.
I reminded you, in the last chapter, of Jonas and Beechnut's wise advice
about little children. Do you remember what Jonas told Rollo, when Rollo
was annoyed because his father would not take him to ride? That
instruction belongs to our present subject. Rollo was very fond of riding
with his father and mother, but he thought he did not often get invited,
and that, when he invited himself, he was often refused. He confided in
Jonas on the subject. Jonas told him substantially two things: First, that
his father would not ask him any the more often because he teased him for
an invitation. The teazing was in itself wrong, and did not present him in
an agreeable light to his father and mother, who wanted a pleasant
companion, if they wanted any. This was the first thing. The second was
that Rollo did not make himself agreeable when he did ride. He soon wanted
water to drink. Or he wondered when they should get home. Or he complained
because the sun shone in his eyes. He made what the inn-keeper called "a
great row generally," and so when his father and mother took their next
ride, if they wanted rest and quiet, they were very apt not to invite him.
Rollo took the hint. The next time he had an invitation to ride, he
remembered that he was the invited party, and bore himself accordingly. He
did not "pitch in" in the conversation. He did not obtrude his own
affairs. He answered when he was spoken to, listened when he was not
spoken to, and found that he was well rewarded by attending to the things
which interested his father and mother, and to the matters he was
discussing with her. And so it came about that Rollo, by not offering
himself again as captain of the party, became a frequent and a favorite
companion.
Now in that experience of Rollo's there is involved a good deal of the
philosophy of the intercourse between young people and their elders. Yes,
I know what you are saying, Theodora and George, just as well as if I
heard you. You are saying that you are sure you do not want to go among
the old folks,--certainly you shall not go if you are not wanted. But I
wish you to observe that sometimes you must go among them, whether you
want to or not; and if you must, there are two things to be brought
about,--first, that you get the utmost possible out of the occasion; and,
second, that the older people do. So, if you please, we will not go into a
huff about it, but look the matter in the face, and see if there is not
some simple system which governs the whole.
Do you remember perhaps, George, the first time you found out what good
reading there was in men's books,--that day when you had sprained your
ankle, and found Mayne Reid palled a little bit,--when I brought you
Lossing's Field-Book of the Revolution, as you sat in the wheel-chair, and
you read away upon that for hours? Do you remember how, when you were
getting well, you used to limp into my room, and I let you hook down
books with the handle of your crutch, so that you read the English Parrys
and Captain Back, and then got hold of my great Schoolcraft and Catlin,
and finally improved your French a good deal, before you were well, on the
thirty-nine volumes of Garnier's "Imaginary Voyages "? You remember that?
So do I. That was your first experience in grown-up people's books,--books
that are not written down to the supposed comprehension of children. Now
there is an experience just like that open to each of you, Theodora and
George, whenever you will choose to avail yourselves of it in the society
of grown-up people, if you will only take that society simply and
modestly, and behave like the sensible boy and girl that you really are.
Do not be tempted to talk among people who are your elders. Those horrible
scrapes that Frank used to get into, such as Harry once got into, arose,
like most scrapes in this world, from their want of ability to hold their
tongues. Speak when you are spoken to, not till then, and then get off
with as little talk as you can. After the second French revolution, my
young friend Walter used to wish that there might be a third, so that he
might fortunately be in the gallery of the revolutionary convention just
when everything came to a dead lock; and he used to explain to us, as we
sat on the parallel bars together at recess, how he would just spring over
the front of the gallery, swing himself across to the canopy above the
Speaker's seat, and slide down a column to the Tribune, there "where the
orators speak, you know," and how he would take advantage of the surprise
to address them in their own language; how he would say "_Français_,--_mes
frères_" (which means, Frenchmen,--brothers); and how, in such strains of
burning eloquence, he would set all right so instantaneously that he would
be proclaimed Dictator, placed in a carriage instantly, and drawn by an
adoring and grateful people to the Palace of the Tuileries, to live there
for the rest of his natural life. It was natural for Walter to think he
could do all that if he got the chance. But I remember, in planning it
out, he never got much beyond "_Français,_--_mes frères_" and in forty
years this summer, in which time four revolutions have taken place in
France, Walter has never found the opportunity. It is seldom, very seldom,
that in a mixed company it is necessary for a boy of sixteen, or a girl of
fifteen, to get the others out of a difficulty. You may burn to interrupt,
and to cry out "_Français,_--_mes frères_" but you had better bite your
tongue, and sit still. Do not explain that Rio Janeiro is the capital of
Brazil. In a few minutes it will appear that they all knew it, though they
did not mention it, and, by your waiting, you will save yourself horrible
mortification.
Meanwhile you are learning things in the nicest way in the world. Do not
you think that Amyas Leigh enjoyed what he learned of Guiana and the
Orinoco River much more than you enjoy all you have ever learned of it?
Yes. He learned it all by going there in the company of Walter Raleigh and
sundry other such men. Suppose, George, that you could get the engineers,
Mr. Burnell and Mr. Philipson, to take you with them when they run the
new railroad line, this summer, through the passes of the Adirondack
Mountains. Do you not think you shall enjoy that more even than reading
Mr. Murray's book, far more than studying levelling and surveying in the
first class at the High School. Get a chance to carry chain for them, if
you can. No matter if you lose at school two medals, three diplomas, and
four double promotions by your absence. Come round to me some afternoon,
and I will tell you in an hour all the school-boys learned while you were
away in the mountains; all, I mean, that you cannot make up in a well-used
month after your return.
And please to remember this, all of you, though it seems impossible.
Remember it as a fact, even if you cannot account for it, that though we
all seem so old to you, just as if we were dropping into our graves, we do
not, in practice, feel any older than we did when we were sixteen. True,
we have seen the folly of a good many things which you want to see the
folly of. We do not, therefore, in practice, sit on the rocks in the spray
quite so near to the water as you do; and we go to bed a little earlier,
even on moonlight nights. This is the reason that, when the whole merry
party meet at breakfast, we are a little more apt to be in our places
than--some young people I know. But, for all that, we do not feel any
older than we did when we were sixteen. We enjoy building with blocks as
well, and we can do it a great deal better; we like the "Arabian Nights"
just as well as we ever did; and we can laugh at a good charade quite as
loud as any of you can. So you need not take it on yourselves to suppose
that because you are among "old people,"--by which you mean married
people,--all is lost, and that the hours are to be stupid and forlorn. The
best series of parties, lasting year in and out, that I have ever known,
were in Worcester, Massachusetts, where old and young people associated
together more commonly and frequently than in any other town I ever
happened to live in, and where, for that very reason, society was on the
best footing. I have seen a boy of twelve take a charming lady, three
times his age, down Pearl Street on his sled. And I have ridden in a
riding party to Paradise with twenty other horsemen and with twenty-one
horsewomen, of whom the youngest, Theodora, was younger than you are, and
quite as pretty, and the oldest very likely was a judge on the Supreme
Bench. I will not say that she did not like to have one of the judges ride
up and talk with her quite as well as if she had been left to Ferdinand
Fitz-Mortimer. I will say that some of the Fitz-Mortimer tribe did not
ride as well as they did ten years after.
Above all, dear children, work out in life the problem or the method by
which you shall be a great deal with your father and your mother. There is
no joy in life like the joy you can have with them. Fun or learning,
sorrow or jollity, you can share it with them as with nobody beside. You
are just like your father, Theodora, and you, George, I see your mother's
face in you as you stand behind the bank counter, and I wonder what you
have done with your curls. I say you are just like. I am tempted to say
you are the same. And you can and you will draw in from them notions and
knowledges, lights on life, and impulses and directions which no books
will ever teach you, and which it is a shame to work out from long
experience, when you can--as you can--have them as your birthright.