most curious of circumstances into the business of teaching little
children to read. I held the novel position of being besought to bring
all my heresies and all my notions, and join the influenza-thinned ranks
of the teaching profession. The Board of Education said that it was
desperate. It must have been.
I suppose that no other power on earth could have converted me so
quickly to the decried method, as my being forced, out of loyalty to my
employers, to support it. I was plunged on the first day--not into
"clickety-clack," but "slippety-slip." It was my first object lesson to
hear the laughter of many little children, as the small gray cat
swallowed slippety-slip in rapid succession the white goose, the
cinnamon bear, the great, big pig, and others which have
"slippety-slipped" my mind just now. It was easy to teach them which
fantastic word said "slippety-slip." It was very hard to teach them
which plain-faced word said "and." I was happy to find many fine old
words ranging themselves in the same category as "slippety-slip."
"Goose" is intrinsically easier to learn than "duck"; "red" is a
bagatelle beside "blue." But the easiest word of all is "slippety-slip."
I took notes of phenomena like these, for use later in dealing with
critics who theorized as I had theorized on the day previous. I was not
quite ready with any solution on this first day when a visiting mother
assured me that she, when a girl, was wont to read much better when her
book was open before her. Her son, on the contrary, read better, she
told me, and with more interpretation and fine feeling, without his
book. "People think," said my visitor, "that when a child has his book
open and says aloud the words printed on that page, that he is reading.
He may be," she added mildly, "and then again, of course, he mayn't."
I determined that, when this logical lady should come again, her son
should be reading. So I taught him to read. I taught him via the method
I had disparaged; via "Mrs. Teapot," "Goosey-Poosey-Loosey," and the
goat that would not go home, without once mentioning the names of A, B,
or C. This boy is in the third grade now, skimming the "Literary Digest"
for material for his oral language.
The second step in my conversion occurred when one of the overworked
teachers showed me hastily how to teach Phonics. She drew a flight of
stairs on the blackboard, and on each step she placed a letter of the
alphabet. I did not find "A" among them, but I discerned both B and C.
To my surprise, the little children knew these, but they called them (as
nearly as the printed page can convey the sound) _buh_ and _kuh_. They
called "R" _err_, and "H" they called _huh_.
When I reached home, I looked up a few letters in the Dictionary, and
received new light. Of what use is it, after all, to know that "W" is
called "Double-you," unless you know first the sound for which it
stands? The Dictionary, in fact, explains that the proper sound of this
letter is really a "half u" instead of a "double u." Certainly "W" is a
more helpful tool to a child when he has been taught to pucker up his
lips like the howling wind when he sees this letter coming, than when he
has been taught to get set for a "d" sound which is not there. Why
confuse a child's mind at first with what a letter is arbitrarily called
by some one else? Surely it is more sensible to show him what noise to
make when he sees it.
But I found that some of the children did not connect the delightful
game of the blackboard stairs with their reading at all. Tony was among
this number. Right here I was electrified to find out the real trouble
with Tony. I found that it had not occurred to him that the letter "g,"
at the beginning of the word "good," for instance, could have any part
in distinguishing this word from the Little Red Hen. I found also that
many of the children were recognizing "good-day to you" wholly by the
quaint little dash in the middle of "good-day." They shouted heartily
"good-day to you" whenever I showed them any word containing a hyphen.
To remedy this difficulty, I abstracted Phonics bodily from my afternoon
session, and inserted it directly before the reading period in the
morning. In fact, I allowed a few Phonics to spill over into Reading,
and commenced to read a little before the children were quite finished
with the staircase. I can say that the greatest triumphal moment of my
life was when an entire class saw, independently and suddenly and of
themselves, that "ice-cream" could not possibly be "good-day to you."
And the fact that the children now knew these apart by a phonetic tool
did not prevent them from saying "good-day to you" just as cordially and
just as fast as before. Moreover, they had not compelled the school
system to wait for them to spell out the words letter by letter.
This is the only stage in a modern phrase-and-sentence method which
contains a pitfall. If this is solidly bridged, most children will learn
to read more understandingly than we used to. They will read twice as
well, and three times as fast.
At the end of the school year, after Tony had read nineteen books, I did
throw in the alphabet itself as a classic. We even sang it to the good
old-fashioned tune.
Tony will use A, B, and C, in the Second Grade to spell with, and in the
Fourth Grade to look up words in the Dictionary with; but he did not
need them, after all, in the First Grade, to learn to read with.
UNDERSTANDING THE HEALTHY
The healthy in all centuries have misunderstood the sick. In the days
when sickness was supposed to be the result of possession by devils, the
healthy gathered around the invalid, beating upon drums. When all
disease was supposed to be the chastening of the Lord, they gathered at
the bedside again, teaching repentance of sins. And in our own
generation, they come again around the sufferer telling him to take his
mind off himself.
I myself, being healthy, have never been the victim of that form of
ministration. I have simply observed the effect of it on others. And
since there is no hope of converting the healthy from this habit, the
next best thing is to explain the obscure workings of the healthy mind.
Of course, no two healthy people are quite alike, and general statements
about any great composite type are dangerous. But no matter how
divergent their styles, all up-to-date, unspoiled, healthy persons can
be trusted to make certain stock remarks to or about the sick. The
context may vary, but sooner or later the following phrases will crop
up: "pulling yourself together"; "bracing up"; "standing a little real
hardship"; "forgetting all about your aches and pains"; "people who
never have _time_ to be sick"; "people who are worse off than you are";
and, "taking your mind off yourself."
At any one of these cheery phrases, the spirited sick man feels his
gorge begin to rise. He knows that if his gorge rises, so will his
temperature. With a mighty effort he swallows his temper, and his
temperature goes up anyway at the exertion. All this time he knows that
his visitor meant well, and he despises himself for his irritation. He
has no way of defending himself, for, if he should describe how ill he
really is, would not that convict him of having his mind on himself, of
craving sympathy, of "enjoying poor health"? Over and over the words of
his visitor go ringing in his ears--words intended tactfully to
stimulate recuperation. "It's fine to see you looking so well. All you
need to do now is to get something to take up your mind. I know how hard
it will be, for I have been there myself, but circumstances were such
that _I_ just _had_ to brace up. It would be the best thing in the world
for you if you only had to rough it a little."
Any one of these remarks is guaranteed to leave the person who is really
suffering in a very storm-beaten state of mind, unless by the luckiest
chance he understands two basic facts about the healthy: first, our
healthy imagination; second, our healthy ignorance.
The healthy imagination, in the first place, cannot bear to move in
circles. Any novelist knows that a story must progress. If the action is
dramatic, the final downfall or the final victory must follow swiftly
upon the heels of conflict. The attention wanders if the story goes
monotonously along in the style of "Another grasshopper came and brought
another grain of corn. And then another grasshopper came and brought
another grain of corn."
On the same principle, the general public gives intelligent
understanding to the great dangerous diseases where there is a grand
struggle of life and death, where the sufferer grows rapidly worse,
reaches the crisis, hangs for a moment between time and eternity, and
then either dies or gets well. Here is the stuff of contest, the essence
of Greek drama: pity and fear, unity of action, and dignity of conflict.
The imagination rises to it as to whirlwinds and the noise of
waterspouts. But when it comes to the good friend who neither dies nor
gets well, who begins to recover and succumbs again, travelling the
monotonous round of one ill after another, none of them fatal,--then the
healthy imagination stops following the circles.
It is time by every calculation that our friend recovered. We hope that
he will soon be well and strong. He hopes so, too, we admit
broad-mindedly. But most of us fall into generalities at this point. We
are not impatient _with_ our friend; we are impatient for him. A delayed
convalescence, we have heard, is usually the result of mismanagement
somewhere; the wrong doctor, perhaps, a family inclined to spoil by
kindness, or mind over matter imperfectly understood. Suppose our sick
friend could get away from his anxious relatives, and be suddenly cast
upon a desert island; would he not have to brace up and rattle down his
own cocoanuts with a will? We have known such cases--paralytics who got
thrown overboard and nimbly swam ashore, rescuing women and children on
their way. Our friend is not an extreme case like that, but, if he
actually had to get to work, would he not forget all about his troubles,
and suddenly find himself cured?
Once having put him into the class of needless suffering, we roll along
merrily to the moment when we decide that it is time for us to speak.
Let us speak tactfully, by all means. Let us auto-suggest as it were!
Let those of us who are amateurs do what we can in a quiet way.
At this point, the healthy do three things. We diagnose, we prescribe,
and we tell you to take your mind off yourself.
This is where the healthy ignorance comes in. When we are well, we think
of the mind as a convenient tool; in Huxley's words, "a cool, clear,
logic engine." We know that minor ailments of our own have vanished when
we have vigorously taken our mind off our symptoms and gone to the
movies. We are at our best, we know, when we have given our whole
attention to something absorbing, quite outside ourselves; business,
friendship, good works. We feel that our acquaintance will be the better
for this valuable thought. We do not know that every other healthy
person in town has also decided that it is time to pass on the same
idea. Neither do we realize that the ability to do as we suggest is the
sick person's idea of heaven.
Thinking thus masterfully of the mind, we speak glibly of doing things
with it. We do not know how slippery and complex a thing the mind is
when assailed by suffering. "Take off your mind." Take off your hat. We
do not know what long hours every invalid spends driving his mind along
on every pleasant topic under the sun, only to feel it skidding,
skidding, from side to side, just as you feel yourself steering for the
nearest tree when you begin to drive a car. And after all this effort,
what has he been doing but putting his mind on his mind? Less exhausting
to put it on the pain and be done with it. When we urge our friend not
to steer for the tree, we feel that we are presenting him with a new
idea.
Healthy ignorance, in the second place, assumes that the mind of a sick
person is more than normally susceptible to suggestion. We have heard
that, if you say to a patient, "How thin you are," he will instantly
feel thinner and thinner, will droop and wilt and brood morbidly upon
his state. Very well, then. We go to visit our friend resolved to make
no such unfortunate remark. We conceal our shock at the changed
appearance of our friend, but we cannot help thinking about it. Every
healthy person is a trifle taken aback when he sees anybody else laid
low. The neat white corners of the counterpane lend an awe-inspiring
geometrical effect; if the patient is a man, he looks subtly changed
without his high collar; if the patient is a lady, she is transformed
with her hair in braids. We know that we must not cry, "How changed you
are, Grandmother," lest we send the patient into a relapse. It is a poor
rule that will not work both ways. If a comment on frail appearance
would thus depress our friend, surely the contrary assurance ought to
chirk him up in proportion. We therefore say blithely, "Well, you
certainly do look fine!" Then later we perhaps repeat it, to make sure
that auto-suggestion has a chance to set in.
Now, personally, if somebody told me that I looked well, I feel that I
could manage to bear up. But in the sick-room, the remark seldom makes a
hit. Nine chances out of ten the patient does not understand the
healthy. He feels that we suspect him of rusticating in bed under false
pretences. He does not want to be ill, nor to look ill; but since he
_is_ ill, he would be sorry to have us think that he might as well be up
and about. He does not know that we adopt the cheery note to avoid the
fatal opposite, and to encourage him. He does not know how helpless we
are, nor how sure of the susceptibility of the stricken mind.
All these traits of the healthy imagination and the healthy ignorance
are magnified tenfold if the invalid's disorder is nervous. To the
untutored layman, a nervous disorder means an imaginary disorder. What
nervous wreck has not prayed to exchange his baffling torments for
something showy and spectacular, like broken bones or Spotted Fever? The
healthiest imagination can grasp a broken leg. The healthiest ignorance
can see that it should lie for a while in splints, and that we cannot
help our friend by urging him, however tactfully, to forget all about
his fracture and join us on a hike. But disordered nerves are different.
Everybody admits that. We feel instantly competent to prescribe. We have
read up on psychotherapy, in the magazines.
Having diagnosed the case, having prescribed remedies, we feel a trace
of impatience if our friend seems not quite cured.
In addition to our eager way of giving advice, we who are healthy have
also a way of confusing cause and effect. When our patient finally does
succeed in building up his vitality to the point where he can resume his
work, when we see him going busily about the world again taking his
share of hard knocks without flinching, then we say, "There! Didn't we
say he'd be better the minute he had something to do?" We know nothing
about the times when he hoped that he had recovered, attempted to take
up work again, and succumbed. We see only the triumphant emerging of his
renewed vitality. To us the cause is obvious, just what we had been
prescribing all along. When he was idle, he was ill. Now that he is
busy, he is well. Could anything be more logical? Therefore, when we
find him working hard at his old profession, we smile indulgently upon
him and we say, "That's right! It will do you good! _Now_ you have
something to take your mind off your--"
But I will not repeat it. Never in all my life shall I say that
beautiful and grammatical phrase again. There is probably a good deal in
it--how much, I, for one, have not the least idea. Probably there are
invalids in the world who would be completely cured if they could be
worried into hard work at all costs, "roughing it" with a vengeance. We
stray perilously near the fields contested by experts when we come to
that. The point is that the subject will always be a field for experts,
and that never in the long history of suffering was very much
accomplished by the well-meant exhortations of friends. As far back as
Old Testament days, friends came to see a patient man, and reasoned at
length with him. And he cried unto the Lord.
Nearly every invalid loves his friends. He cannot bear to have them
misunderstand him. And yet, if he only understands _them_--if he
understands the healthy as a class, with our healthy imaginations, our
healthy ignorance, our superstitions, and all our simple ways, the most
desolate Job in a friend-strewn world can afford to brandish his
potsherd and take cheer. He will know the explanation of our kindly
words, and their proper discount at the bank. And perhaps he may be able
finally, with a prodigious effort of his will, to take them off his
mind.
CARVING AT TABLE
Carving at table is one of the most virile things that a man can do, and
yet it usually has to be done according to feminine standards. It is a
primitive art overlaid with a complex technique, a pioneer act in a
dainty environment. For so masterful a deed with an edged tool, a man
should be allowed the space and freedom of the Maine woods. Environed by
the modern tablecloth, he must be not only masterful but cautious; not
so much fearless as adroit.
The process tests not only the man himself, but also his relations with
his wife. When a married couple feel equally responsible for an act at
which only one of them can officiate, they are tempted to exchange
remarks. The most tactful wife yields now and then to the impulse to do
a little coaching from the side-lines, and many husbands have been known
to reply with a few well-chosen words about the knife. They sometimes
carry on quite a little responsive service. This happens occasionally
even when the husband is an artist at his work. The ideals of two
artists will occasionally conflict. And even the model wife, who ignores
the carving and engages the guests in conversation until the worst is
over, will at times find herself clutching the tablecloth or holding her
breath at the critical points--when the drum-stick is being detached
from the second joint, for instance, or when the knife hovers over the
guest's portion of the steak. These two crises are the great moments for
the man who carves.
In fact, you have not taken the complete measure of a man until you have
seen him carve both steak and fowl. These two make totally different
demands upon the worker. The chicken calls for a sense of structure, a
versatile skill in manoeuvring for position, and the delicate wrist of
the violinist. But your true porterhouse calls for shrewd judgment and
clear-cut decisions, with no halfway measures or reconsiderations at
all. With the chicken, you can modify, slice, combine, arrange to best
advantage on the plate. With the steak, you work in the flat and in one
color; every stroke must count. There are men who would rather parcel
out the Balkans than map a steak.
Great artists in carving are of several classes: those who stand up to
their work and those who remain seated; those who talk and those who do
not. I recall one noble old aristocrat, with the eye of a connoisseur
and the suavity of an Italian grandee, who stood above the great turkey
that he had to carve and discoursed with us as follows, pronouncing
every word with the dramatic vigor that I try to indicate by the
spelling, and illustrating each remark with one deft motion of his
knife; this was his monologue: "Now, we cut off his Legg.... Now, we
take his Winng!... And now,--we _Slice_ him."
To my mind, this conversation is about the only sort in which the
successful carver can afford to indulge. The nervous amateur thinks it
necessary to keep up a run of wise comment on the topics of the day to
show that he is at ease; or perhaps he does it as the magician talks
when he puts the rabbits into his hat, to distract the spectators'
attention from his minor tactics. But he might as well learn that he
cannot distract us. The matter is too close to our hearts. It is natural
to watch the carving intently, not necessarily with an eye to our own
interests, but because for the moment the platter is the dramatic centre
of the group. Action, especially in an affair demanding skill,
irresistibly holds the eye. The well-bred guest chats along of one thing
and another, but his eye strays absently toward the roast.
This is very hard upon the newly married husband. Spectators add
immensely to his difficulties. Some years ago, one such bridegroom, now
an experienced host and patriarch, was about to carve a chicken for his
bride and her one guest. I was the guest, and at that time I held
theories about the married state. While we were setting the table, I had
mentioned a few of these, among them my belief that all little boys
should be taught the rudiments of carving, so that when married they
would know how to preside correctly at their own tables. My friend the
bride agreed with me, and supported my views by anecdotes from real
life. The anecdotes were about boys who had not been so trained.
Meanwhile the bridegroom listened intently from his post on the kitchen
table. Young women are likely to forget that young men have feelings,
especially if they have been trained by brothers who displayed none. We
therefore went on at great length. Carving, we said, was not an
instinct, but a craft.
As we sat at soup, the young husband became more and more uneasy, and
when the chicken made its appearance he leaned back with beads of
perspiration on his brow. "After all this," said he, "I hope nobody
expects me to carve that chicken. I'll just pass it around, and you
girls chip off what you like."
The central difficulty in carving, however, is found not so much in the
actual chipping as in the tactful distribution of choice parts. This
matter is complicated by the fact that unselfish people will lie about
their preferences, polite people will refuse to disclose them, and
critical people expect you to remember them. Even the expert carver,
therefore, looks with favor on those convenient meats that come
naturally in individual units--croquettes, cutlets, chops, sausages;
here the only difficulty is the choice between brown and not so brown,
large and small. There is only the mathematical matter of making the
food go around, and the man with the vaguest sense of proportion can
count chops and divide by the number of guests.
But when the company is large, and the platter of steak just adequate,
there really is cause for anxiety. Some carvers, under such
circumstances, begin cautiously, serving small helpings at first until
they are sure they are safe, and then becoming gradually more lavish.
Others begin recklessly, and have to retrench. A group of college
students once made a study of this matter with data and statistics that
would have adorned a doctor's degree. The object was to locate the seat
at any table of fourteen where one could count on the most even diet,
the golden mean between feast and famine, no matter which member of the
faculty chanced to carve. There were many variables to be considered:
some members of the faculty habitually carved with giant portions at
first, and then dwindled suddenly; others varied from day to day,
profiting at one meal by what they learned at the last. A few were
expert dividers by fourteen. The conclusion was reached after weeks of
minute toil. Like all great investigators, these students were prepared
to warrant their findings for all time. The best seat at a table of
fourteen--the one where you can count on the least fluctuation and the
largest security--in short, Whitman's Divine Average--is the fifth seat
from the professor, left. Things in that position run, barring
accidents, quite well. If caution was the slogan at the outset, the
plentiful supply on the platter has by that time begun to tell upon the
mind of the carver, and things are looking up. If the first helpings
were extravagant, there has still not been quite time to feel the real
pinch of want. Fifth seat from the professor, left.
Of course, fourteen is too large a number to divide by. When it comes to
long division, brain-fag is bound to set in. Since those days, I am
told, food in that college is sent in ready apportioned in advance.