Father Payne generally declined to talk about education. "Teaching is one
of the things, like golf and hunting, which is exciting to do and pleasant
to remember, but intolerable to talk about," he said one evening.
"Well," I said, "it is certainly intolerable to listen to people discussing
education, or to read about it; but if you know anything about it, I should
have thought it was good fun to talk about it."
"Ah," said Father Payne, "you say, 'If you know anything about it.' The
worst of it is that everybody knows everything about it. A man who is a
success, thinks that his own education is the only one worth having; a man
who is a failure thinks that all systems of education are wrong. And as for
talking about teaching, you can't talk about it--you can only relate your
own experience, and listen with such patience as you can muster to another
man relating his. That's not talking!"
"But it is interesting in a general way," said Vincent,--"the kind of thing
you are aiming at, what you want to produce, and so on."
"Yes, my dear Vincent," said Father Payne, "but education isn't that--it's
an obstinate sort of tradition; it's a quest, like the Philosopher's Stone.
Most people think that it is a sort of charm which, if you could discover
it, would transmute all baser metals into gold. The justification of the
Philosopher's Stone is, I suppose, that different metals are not really
different substances, but only different arrangements of the same atoms.
But we can't predicate that of human spirits as yet; and to attempt to find
one formula of education is like planting the same crop in different soils.
It is the ridiculous democratic doctrine of human equality which is the
real difficulty. There is no natural equality in human nature, and the
question really is whether you are going to try to reduce all human beings
to the same level, which is the danger of discipline, or to let people
follow their own instincts unchecked, which is the shadow of liberty. I'm
all for liberty, of course."
"But why 'of course'?" said Vincent.
"Because I take the aristocratic view," said Father Payne, "which is that
you do more for the human race by having a few fine people, than by having
an infinite number of second-rate people. What the first-rate man thinks
to-day, the second-rate people think to-morrow--that is how we make
progress; and I would like to take infinite pains with the best material,
if I could find it, and leave discipline for the second-rate. The Jews and
the Greeks, both first-class nations, have done more for the world on the
whole than the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons, who are the best of the
second-rate stocks."
"But how are you going to begin to sort your material?" said Barthrop.
"Yes, you have me there," said Father Payne. "But I don't despair of our
ultimately finding that out. At present, the worst of men of genius is that
they are not always the most brisk and efficient boys. A genius is apt to
be perceptive and sensitive. His perceptiveness makes him seem bewildered,
because he is vaguely interested in everything that he sees; his
sensitiveness makes him hold his tongue, because he gets snubbed if he asks
too many questions. Men of genius are not as a rule very precocious--they
are often shy, awkward, absent-minded. Genius is often strangely like
stupidity in its early stages. The stupid boy escapes notice because he is
stupid. The genius escapes notice because he is diffident, and _wants_
to escape notice."
"But how would you set about discovering which was which?" said Barthrop.
"Well," said Father Payne, "if you ask me, I don't think we discriminate; I
think we go in for teaching children too much, and not trying to make them
observe and think more. We give them things to do, and to get by heart; we
imprison them in a narrow round of gymnastics. As Dr. Johnson said once,
'You teach your children the use of the globes, and when they get older you
wonder that they do not seek your society!' The whole thing is so devilish
dull, and it saves the teacher such a lot of trouble! I myself was fairly
quick as a boy, and found that it paid to do what I was told. But I never
made the smallest pretence to be interested in what I had to do--grammar,
Euclid, tiny scraps of Latin and Greek. I used to thank God, in Xenophon
lessons, when a bit was all about stages and parasangs, because there were
fewer words to look out. The idea of teaching languages like that! If I had
a clever boy to teach a language, I would read some interesting book with
him, telling him the meaning of words, until he got a big stock of ordinary
words; I would just teach him the common inflexions; and when he could read
an easy book, and write the language intelligibly, then I would try to
teach him a few niceties and idioms, and make him look out for differences
of style and language. But we begin at the wrong end, and store his memory
with exceptions and idioms and niceties first. No sensible human being who
wanted, let us say, to know enough Italian to read Dante, would dream of
setting to work as we set to work on classics. Well then," Father Payne
went on, "I should cultivate the imagination of children a great deal more.
I should try to teach them all I could about the world as it is--the
different nations, and how they live, the distribution of plants and
animals, the simpler sorts of science. I don't think that it need be very
accurate, all that. But children ought to realise that the world is a big
place, with all sorts of interesting and exciting things going on. I would
try to give them a general view of history and the movement of
civilisation. I don't mean a romantic view of it, with the pomps and shows
and battles in the foreground; but a real view--how people lived, and what
they were driving at. The thing could be done, if it were not for the
bugbear of inaccuracy. To know a little perfectly isn't enough; of course,
people ought to be able to write their own language accurately, and to do
arithmetic. Outside of that, you want a lot of general ideas. It is no good
teaching everything as if everyone was to end as a Professor."
"That is a reasonable general scheme," said Barthrop, "but what about
special aptitudes?"
"Why," said Father Payne, "I should go on those general lines till boys and
girls were about fourteen. And I should teach them with a view to the lives
they were going to live. I should teach girls a good deal of house-work,
and country boys about the country--we mustn't forget that the common work
of the world has to be done. You must somehow interest people in the sort
of work they are going to do. It is hopeless without that. And then we must
gradually begin to specialise. But I'm not going into all that now. The
general aim I should have in view would be to give people some idea of the
world they were living in, and try to interest them in the part they were
going to play; and I should try to teach them how to employ their leisure.
That seems entirely left out at present. I want to develop people on simple
and contented lines, with intelligent interests and, if possible, a special
taste. The happy man is the man who likes his work, and all education is a
fraud if it turns out people who don't like their work; and then I want
people to have something to fall back upon which they enjoy. No one can
live a decent life without having things to look forward to. But, of
course, the whole thing turns on Finance, and that is what makes it so
infernally dull. You want more teachers and better teachers; you want to
make teaching a profession which attracts the best people. You can't do
that without money, and at present education is looked upon as an expensive
luxury. That's all part of the stodgy Anglo-Saxon mind. It doesn't want
ideas--it wants positions which, carry high salaries; and really the one
thing which blocks the way in all our education is that we care so much for
money and property, and can't think of happiness apart from them. As long
as our real aim in England is income, we shall not make progress; because
we persist in thinking of ideas as luxuries in which a man can indulge if
he has a sufficient income to afford to do so."
"You take a gloomy view of our national ideals, Father," said Vincent.
"Not a gloomy view, my boy," said Father Payne; "only a dull view! We are a
respectable nation--we adore respectability; and I don't think it is a
sympathetic quality. What I want is more sympathy and more imagination. I
think they lead to happiness; and I don't think the Anglo-Saxon cares
enough about happiness; if he is happy, he has an uneasy idea that he is in
for a disaster of some kind."