SOME MODERN CHILDREN ARE PROVIDED WITH SOME VERY CONGENIAL MATERIAL
FOR LAUGHTER
On a fine Sunday afternoon Naomi and I walked through three parks and
Kensington Gardens to have tea with the Estabrooks. On Sunday they
have a sit-down tea round the schoolroom table: a meal notable for
cake and noise.
I put into my pocket a recent discovery at Bemerton's--a little
manual for children belonging to the early eighteenth century,
entitled _The Polite Academy, or School of Behaviour for Young
Gentlemen and Ladies, intended as a foundation for good manners and
polite address in Masters and Misses_.
"Do you want to hear me read something?" I asked after tea, and in
response to a by no means frenzied appeal (for reading aloud is not
the joy it was in my childhood) I began, after first explaining the
purpose of the book.
I wish the original authors could have been present, not for their
happiness, I fear, but for their amazement at the change that has
come over children and parents; for I have no doubt they wrote it
quite earnestly and believed in its rightness, and to hear Kenneth's
comments alone would have startled them more than it would startle
that modern boy if the family Aberdeen terrier stood up and publicly
said grace in a loud voice.
The perfect child, as formed by this book, would be unbearable, and
probably never existed; but we must suppose that such works had their
place, and not so long ago either, although it is difficult to
project the imagination to that period, certain lines of thought
having so completely gone out. For example, what point is there now
in such a counsel as this:--
"Be not proud because you are above the vulgar, for there are others
above you."
It is probable that not even the poor put the case so baldly any
more, while as for what are called the middle-classes (if such exist,
but one can never find any one to admit belonging to them), they
certainly do not agree that they owe homage to any one, whatever they
may do in the presence of the titled.
The fact probably is that there is no longer any accessible
aristocracy. The old nobility is in hiding, while the new increases
so swiftly and apparently so capriciously that the ordinary citizen
no longer accepts it with the uncritical reverence as of old, but
looks the gift horse, so to speak, in the mouth. A lord is no
longer, as he used to be, a lord: he is a law-lord, or a life-peer,
or an ennobled brewer; something devilish like ourselves--we know his
woof and texture.
Again, with money now able to do so much more than blood, aristocrats
lose in that way too, to say nothing of their loss through blood
doing as much to get money as it has sometimes had to do.
England is still largely feudal, but it no longer includes among its
instructions to the young a section entitled, "Of Behaviour to
Superiors."
"Take off your hat when any great person passes by, though you do not
know him; it is a respect due to his rank."
That is meaningless to-day, and very happily so, I think; but I would
rather see it restored to the curriculum than such a disgusting
counsel as the following:--
"Be always pliable and obliging; for obstinacy is a fault of vulgar
children."
The next section treats of "Behaviour to Equals"--who again are no
longer mentioned among English people and cannot easily be found. It
is an odd position to recognise neither superiors nor equals; but we
can, most of us, fill it with distinction.
"Love all your equals and they will all love you."
"Always speak to them with respect, that they may treat you with
respect again."
"If any of them are cross, be you civil nevertheless: his
churlishness will disgrace him, while your good nature will gain you
love and esteem."
The section, "Of Behaviour at School," made Kenneth and Christopher,
the two Westminsters, very merry:--
"Behave to your teachers with humility and to your schoolfellows with
respect."
"Make your bow or courtesy when you enter, and walk straight to your
seat."
"Never quarrel at school, for it shows idleness and bad temper."
"When the master speaks to you, rise up to hear him, and look him in
the face as he speaks, with modesty and attention. Begin not to
answer him before he has done speaking, then bow to him with respect
and answer him with humility."
"If you have occasion to complain of a school-fellow, first speak to
him softly and desire him to desist. If he will not, then rise up
and wait an opportunity; and when the master's or usher's eye is upon
you bow and say softly, and in a few words, what your complaint is."
This was too much.
"Did they really ever behave like that?" Kenneth asked.
"I suppose so," I said. "This is a book that seems to have been
popular, for it has gone into many editions."
Kenneth stated himself to be jiggered.
I went on:--
"If you see your play-fellows do anything wrong, tell them of it."
"Return a jest with another, but always with good manners."
"Never call anyone by a reproachful name."
It is odd to think that anybody at any period could seriously have
set down such mandates; but there they are in black and white--a kind
of Sermon on the Mount by a dancing-master. It is when one reads
counsels of something more than perfection--counsels of pedantic
priggishness, shall we say--to natural, healthy children, that one
realises how necessary compromise is to daily life and how far
removed perfection is from the natural human being.
This little book may of course have been, even in its own day,
excessively proper and inhuman: but I have seen others hardly less
so. We have to remember that children, as creatures of delight, are
of comparatively recent discovery. They were for many years merely
the young of man, to be broken in like dogs. Not even the men of
imagination knew any better. No child was, as far as I have read,
thought a fit subject for introduction into a novel until Henry
Brooke's _Fool of Quality_, and even there, although there are the
high spirits of the two schoolboys, there are no infant-like
tendernesses and natural gaiety. A few poets had praised the young
very gaily--Prior and Ambrose Phillips, for example--but rather as
courtiers than human beings: it was left for Blake first to see that
the child was not merely the young of man but a separate creature,
filled with fugitive and exquisite charm.
To-day, of course, we are overdoing the discovery. The child is set
in the midst, and we sit around worshipping and applauding and vying
with each other in detecting and celebrating darlingnesses.
I went on to the section on "Behaviour to Parents and the Family ":--
"As soon as you come into the room to your parents and relatives,
bow, and stand near the door till you are told when to sit."
"Never sit down till you are desired, and then not till you have
bowed, and answered what was asked of you."
"When in the room with your parents and relatives, never slip out
privately, for that is mean and unhandsome."
"If you have sisters or brothers it is your duty to love them: they
will love you for it and it will be pleasing to your parents and
pleasure to yourselves."
"Be ready to give them anything they like, and they will give you
what you desire."
"Will they?" said Norah, with bitter sarcasm; for Norah, as I have
said, is the nursery drudge.
"If you think they are cross to you, be silent and gentle: and if
that does not make them kind, complain to your father, mother, and
relatives."
"Never revenge yourself, for that is wicked; your relatives will
always take your part, when you behave with quietness."
If the child has been allowed to become human and individual, it is
no less true that the parents and relatives have lost their godhead
too. At the time of this book, parents could make no mistake, and
every child had to be like every other child. No wonder that
anthropomorphism crept in: it began with the first child; it began
with Cain. Ever since then, God has been merely a larger man and a
father.
But as fathers, under the new régime, become more companionable (as I
see them becoming every day), this old ideal must weaken, for God
will smile again--or rather will begin to smile.
The contrast between the unimaginative joylessness of these counsels
of perfection and the laughter with which they were received brought
home to one with curious vividness the difference, not only between
the children of a hundred and fifty years ago and to-day, but between
the parents too. Where the old parent admonished, the modern parent
jokes. A kind of light banter has become the language of fathers and
children in place of the ancient minatory formality.
Next came "Behaviour at Meals":--
"Nothing shows the difference between a young gentleman and a vulgar
boy so much as their behaviour in eating."
"Sit patiently till the company are helped, and you will not be
forgotten."
"Do not ask till you see the company are all helped: then if it
happens you have been forgot, you will be served."
"Whatever is given you, be satisfied it is good, and desire no other."
"In eating fruit, do not swallow the stones, but lay them and the
stalks on one side of your plate, laying one of the leaves that came
with the fruit over them."
"Mightn't they see who they were going to marry?" Winifred asked.
"Never regard what another has on his plate: it looks as if you
wanted it."
"When you drink, bow to some one of the company and say Sir or Madam."
This set them all shouting.
"Chew your meat well before you swallow it; but do this decently,
without making faces."
"One for you, Sam," said Winifred.
The next section took us into the street:--
"When the school hours are over go out, as you came in, quietly,
softly, and decently."
"When you come near a mob, walk to the other side of the street, and
never concern yourself what's the matter."
"Oh, I like that!" said Kenneth. "What about a horse down?"
"I saw a chap being run in the other day," said Christopher.
"Never whistle or sing as you walk alone; for these are marks of
clownishness and folly."
My own childhood is not so very remote, but it is far enough away for
vast changes to have occurred in the relations of parents and
children. We were all happy and familiar enough, but there was none
of the freedom of speech between young and old that is now
encouraged. Dignity and age are equally out of fashion. We are all
young to-day and almost more terrified of being out of things than of
being accused of a want of humour. The last thing to go is
juvenility.
Afterwards, I told the children a little about the Chinese pride in
their parents and the high honour in which good sons are held in
China. Not the least entertaining part of my Chinese book deals with
filial piety, of which that people have Twenty-four Examples for the
edification of youth. I told them about Lao Lai Tzŭ, of the
sixth century B.C., who "at seventy was still accustomed"--"still" is
good--"to divert his aged parents by dressing himself up and cutting
capers before them."
Christopher at once said that they did that very often, but he had to
admit that the prime object was to divert themselves.
Huang Hsiang, another of the Twenty-four Examples, who died A.D. 122,
greatly delighted their sense of the ridiculous, for he "used to fan
his parents' pillow in summer to make it cool, and get into their bed
in winter to take the chill off."
Other examples I kept to myself, such as Tsing Tsan of the fifth
century B.C., who maintained that one should remain single, since
"with the possession of wife and children, the earnestness of a pious
son would be likely to wane." None the less he married, but regained
consistency by divorcing his wife "for serving up to his
mother-in-law some badly-stewed pears." This would have been beyond
them; but I sent Kenneth into roars of laughter by the story of the
youthful Emperor who amused himself by shooting blunted arrows at the
stomach of the sleeping Regent--an indiscretion which led to a speedy
succession.
There was a beautiful evening light when Naomi and I walked back: the
light that always makes me sad, and I was sad too to think of the
contrast between that noisy, happy home, so very full of life and
high spirits, and my own solitary silent rooms; yes, and Naomi's too.
There is something wrong in a civilisation which makes it so easily
possible for so sweetly maternal a woman never to have children of
her own.
I slipped my arm through hers and we walked without speaking.