A SENSE OF HUMOR
=An American story.=--There is a story to the effect that a certain Mr.
Jones was much given to boasting of his early rising. He stoutly
maintained that he was going about his work every morning at three
o'clock. Some of his friends were inclined to be incredulous as to his
representations and entered into a kindly conspiracy to put them to the
test. Accordingly one of the number presented himself at the kitchen
door of the Jones residence one morning at half-past three and made
inquiry of Mrs. Jones as to the whereabouts of her husband, asking if he
was at home. In a very gracious manner Mrs. Jones replied: "No, he isn't
here now. He was around here early this morning but I don't really know
where he is now." This is a clean, fine, typical American story, and, by
means of such a story, we can test for a sense of humor. The boy in
school will laugh at this story both because it is a good one and
because he is a normal boy. If he does not laugh at such a story, there
is cause for anxiety as to his mental condition or attitude. If the
teacher cannot or does not laugh, a disharmony is generated at once
between teacher and pupil which militates against the well-being of the
school. If the teacher reprimands the boy, the boy as certainly
discredits the teacher and all that she represents. If she cannot enjoy
such a wholesome story, he feels that her arithmetic, geography, and
grammar are responsible, and these studies decline somewhat in his
esteem. Moreover, he feels that the teacher's reprimand was unwarranted
and unjust and he fain would consort with people of his own kind. Many a
boy deserts school because the teacher is devoid of the saving grace of
humor. Her inability to see or have any fun in life makes him
uncomfortable and he seeks a more agreeable environment.
=Humor in its manifestations.=--A sense of humor diffuses itself through
all the activities of life, giving to them all a gentle quality that
eliminates asperities and renders them gracious and amiable. Like
fireflies that bespangle the darkness of the night, humor scintillates
through all life's phases and activities and causes the day to go more
pleasantly and effectively on. It twinkles through the thoughts and
gives to language a sparkle and a nicety that cause it to appeal to the
artistic sense. It gives to discourse a piquancy that stimulates but
does not irritate. It is the flavor that gives to speech its undulatory
quality, and redeems it from desert sameness. It pervades the motives
and gives direction as well as a pleasing fertility to all behavior. It
is pervasive without becoming obtrusive. It steals into the senses as
quietly as the dawn and causes life to smile. Wit may flash, but humor
blithely glides into the consciousness with a radiant and kindly smile
upon its face. Wit may sting and inflame, but humor soothes and
comforts. The man who has a generous admixture of humor in his nature is
an agreeable companion and a sympathetic friend to grown-up people, to
children, and to animals. His spirit is genial, and people become kindly
and magnanimous in his presence.
=One of John B. Gough's stories.=--The celebrated John B. Gough was wont
to tell a story that was accounted one of his many masterpieces. It was
a story of a free-for-all convention where any one, according to
inclination, had the privilege of freely speaking his sentiments. When
the first speaker had concluded, a man in the audience called lustily
for a speech from Mr. Henry. Then another spoke, and, again, more
lustily than before, the man demanded Mr. Henry. More and more
vociferous grew the call for Mr. Henry after each succeeding speech
until, at last, the chairman with some acrimony exclaimed: "The man who
is calling for Mr. Henry will please be quiet. It is Mr. Henry who is
now speaking." The man thus rebuked was somewhat crestfallen, but
managed to say, as if in a half-soliloquy: "Mr. Henry! Why, that ain't
Mr. Henry. That's the little chap that told me to holler."
At the conclusion of one of his lectures in which Mr. Gough told this
story in his inimitable style, a man came to the platform and explained
to him that he had a friend who seemed to lack a sense of humor and
wondered if he might not prevail upon Mr. Gough to tell him this
particular story in the hope that it would cause him to laugh. In a
spirit of adventure Mr. Gough consented, and at the time appointed told
the story to the old gentleman in his own best style. The old gentleman
seemed to be deeply interested, but at the conclusion of the story,
instead of laughing heartily as his friend had hoped, he solemnly asked,
"What did he tell him to holler fur?"
=The man who lacks a sense of humor.=--There was no answer to this
question, or, rather, he himself was the answer. Such a man is obviously
outside the pale, without hope of redemption. If such a story, told by
such a _raconteur_, could not touch him, he is hopeless. In his
spiritual landscape there are no undulations, but it reveals itself as a
monotonous dead-level without stream or verdure. He eats, and sleeps,
and walks about, but he walks in a spiritual daze. To him life must seem
a somber, drab affair. If he were a teacher in a traditional school, he
would chill and depress, but he might be tolerated because a sense of
humor is not one of the qualifications of the teacher. But, in the
vitalized school, he would be intolerable. If children should go to such
a teacher for spiritual refreshment, they would return thirsty. He has
nothing to give them, no bubbling water of life, no geniality, no such
graces of the spirit as appeal to buoyant childhood. He lacks a sense of
humor, and that lack makes arid the exuberant sources of life. He may
solve problems in arithmetic, but he cannot compass the solution of the
problem of life. The children pity him, and no greater calamity can
befall a teacher than to deserve and receive the pity of a child. He
might, in a way, teach anatomy, but not physiology. He might be able to
deal with the analytic. He might succeed as curator in a museum of
mummies, but he will fail as a teacher of children.
=Story of a boy.=--A seven-year-old boy who was lying on his back on the
floor asked his father the question, "How long since the world was
born?" The father replied, "Oh, about four thousand years." In a few
moments the child said in a tone of finality, "That isn't very long."
Then after another interval, he asked, "What was there before the world
was born?" To this the father replied, "Nothing." After a lapse of two
or three minutes the child gave vent to uncontrollable laughter which
resounded throughout the house. When, at length, the father asked him
what he was laughing at, he could scarcely control his laughter to
answer. But at last he managed to reply, "I was laughing to see how
funny it was when there wasn't anything."
=The child's imagination.=--The philosopher could well afford to give
the half of his kingdom to be able to see what that child saw. Out of
the gossamer threads of fancy his imagination had wrought a pattern that
transcends philosophy. The picture that his imagination painted was so
extraordinary that it produced a paroxysm of laughter. That picture is
far beyond the ken of the philosopher and he will look for it in vain
because he has grown away from the child in power of imagination and has
lost the child's sense of humor. What that child saw will never be
known, for the pictures of fancy are ephemeral, but certain it is that
the power of imagination and a keen sense of humor are two of the
attributes of childhood whose loss should give both his father and his
teacher poignant regrets.
=The little girl and her elders.=--The little girl upon the beach
invests the tiny wavelets not only with life and intelligence, but,
also, with a sense of humor as she eludes their sly advances to engulf
her feet. She laughs in glee at their watery pranks as they twinkle and
sparkle, now advancing, now receding, trying to take her by surprise.
She chides them for their duplicity, then extols them for their prankish
playfulness. She makes them her companions, and they laugh in chorus. If
she knows of sprites, and gnomes, and nymphs, and fairies, she finds
them all dancing in glee at her feet in the form of rippling wavelets.
And while she is thus refreshing her spirit from the brimming cup of
life, her matter-of-fact elders are reproaching her for getting her
dress soiled. To the parent or the teacher who lacks a sense of humor
and cannot enter into the little girl's conception of life, a dress is
of more importance than the spirit of the child. But the teacher or the
parent who has the "aptitude for vicariousness" that enables her to
enter into the child's life in her fun and frolic with the playful
water, and can feel the presence of the nymphs among the wavelets,--such
a teacher or parent will adorn the school or the home and endear herself
to the child.
=Lincoln's humor.=--The life of Abraham Lincoln affords a notable
illustration of the saving power of humor. Reared in conditions of
hardship, his early life was essentially drab and prosaic. In
temperament he was serious, with an inclination toward the morbid, but
his sense of humor redeemed the situation. When clouds of gloom and
discouragement lowered in his mental sky, his keen sense of humor
penetrated the darkness and illumined his pathway. He was sometimes the
object of derision because men could not comprehend the depth and
bigness of his nature, and his humor was often accounted a weakness. But
the Gettysburg speech rendered further derision impossible and the
wondrous alchemy of that address transmuted criticism into willing
praise.
=Humor betokens deep feeling.=--Laughter and tears issue from the same
source, we are told, and the Gettysburg speech revealed a depth and a
quality of tenderness that men had not, before, been able to recognize
or appreciate. The absence of a sense of humor betokens shallowness in
that it reveals an inability to feel deeply. People who feel deeply
often laugh in order to forestall tears. Lincoln was a great soul and
his sense of humor was one element of his greatness. His apt stories and
his humorous personal experiences often carried off a situation where
cold logic would have failed. Whether his sense of humor was a gift or
an acquisition, it certainly served the nation well and gave to us all
an example that is worthy of emulation.
=The teacher of English.=--Many teachers could, with profit to
themselves and their schools, sit at the feet of Abraham Lincoln, not
only to learn English but also to imbibe his sense of humor. Nothing is
more pathetic than the efforts of a teacher who lacks a sense of humor
to teach a bit of English that abounds in humor, by means of the textual
notes. The notes are bad enough, in all conscience, but the teacher's
lack of humor piles Ossa upon Pelion. The solemnity that pervades such
mechanical teaching would be farcical were it not so pathetic. The
teacher who cannot indulge in a hearty, honest, ringing laugh with her
pupils in situations that are really humorous is certain to be laughed
at by her pupils. In her work, as in Lincoln's, a sense of humor will
often save the day.
=Mark Twain as philosopher.=--Mark Twain will ever be accounted a very
prince of humorists, and so he was. But he was more than that. Upon the
current of his humor were carried precious cargoes of the philosophy of
life. His humor is often so subtle that the superficial reader fails to
appreciate its fine quality and misses the philosophy altogether. To
extract the full meaning from his writing one must be able to read not
only between the lines but also beneath the lines. The subtle quality of
his humor defies both analysis and explanation. If it fails to tell its
own story, so much the worse for the reader. To such humor as his,
explanation amounts to an impertinence. People can either appreciate it
or else they cannot, and there's the end of the matter.
In the good time to come when the school teaches reading for the purpose
of pleasure and not for examination purposes, we shall have Mark Twain
as one of our authors; and it is to be hoped that we shall have editions
devoid of notes. The notes may serve to give the name of the editor a
place on the title page, but the notes cannot add to the enjoyment of
the author's genial humor. Mark Twain reigns supreme, and the editor
does well to stand uncovered in his presence and to withhold his pen.
=A Twain story.=--One of Mark Twain's stories is said to be one of the
most humorous stories extant. The story relates how a soldier was
rushing off the battlefield in retreat when a companion, whose leg was
shattered, begged to be carried off the field. The appeal met a willing
response and soon the soldier was bearing his companion away on his
shoulder, his head hanging down the soldier's back. Unknown to the
soldier a cannon ball carried away the head of his companion. Accosted
by another soldier, he was asked why he was carrying a man whose head
had been shot away. He stoutly denied the allegation and, at length,
dropped the headless body to prove the other's hallucination. Seeing
that the man's head was, in truth, gone, he exclaimed, "Why, the durn
fool told me it was his leg."
=Humor defies explanation.=--The humor of this story is cumulative. We
may not parse it, we may not analyze it, we may not annotate it. We can
simply enjoy it. And, if we cannot enjoy it, we may pray for a spiritual
awakening, for such an endowment of the sense of humor as will enable us
to enjoy, that we may no longer lead lives that are spiritually blind.
Bill Nye wrote:
"The autumn leaves are falling,
They are falling everywhere;
They are falling through the atmosphere
And likewise through the air."
Woe betide the teacher who tries to explain! There is no
explanation--there is just the humor. If that eludes the reader, an
explanation will not avail.
A teacher of Latin read to his pupils "The House-Boat on the Styx" in
connection with their reading of the "Æneid." It was good fun for them
all, and never was Virgil more highly honored than in the assiduous
study which those young people gave to his lines. They were eager to
complete the study of the lesson in order to have more time for the
"House-Boat." The humor of the book opened wide the gates of their
spirits through which the truths of the regular lesson passed blithely
in.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. What is the source of humor in a humorous story?
2. When should the teacher laugh with the school? When should she not do
so?
3. How does the response of the school to a laughable incident reflect
the leadership of the teacher?
4. What can be done to bring more or better humor into the school?
5. Compare as companions those whom you know who exhibit a sense of
humor with those who do not.
6. Compare their influence on others.
7. What can be done to bring humor into essays written by the students?
8. Distinguish between wit and humor. Does wit or humor cause most of
the laughter in school?
9. What is meant by an "aptitude for vicariousness"?
10. How did Lincoln make use of humor? Is there any humor in the
Gettysburg speech? Why?
11. What is the relation of pathos to humor?
12. Give an example from the writings of Mark Twain that shows him a
philosopher as well as a humorist.
13. What books could you read to the pupils to enliven some of the
subjects that you teach?