"_How do you do?_"
and he tells you:
"_Comment ca va-t-il?_"
You call upon him to spell it, and he has no hesitation about it:
"_Comment savaty_?"
You then test his knowledge of grammar by asking him the future of
_vouloir_, and you immediately obtain: "_Je voulerai_."
You tell him that his French is very shaky, and you decide on putting
him with the beginners.
The following day you find a letter awaiting you at school. It is from
his indignant mother. She informs you that she fears her little boy
will not learn much in the class you have put him in. He ought to be in
one of the advanced classes. He has read Voltaire[4] and can speak
French.
[4] Poor little chap!
She knows he can, she heard him at Boulogne, and he got on very well.
The natives there had no secrets for him; he could understand all they
said.
You feel it to be your duty not to comply with the lady's wishes, and
you have made a bitter enemy to yourself and the school.
This boy never takes for granted the truth of the statements you make
in the class-room. What you say may be all right; but when he gets home
he will ask his mamma if it is all true.
He is fond of arguing, and has no sympathy with his teacher. He tries
to find him at fault.
A favorite remark of his is this:
"Please, sir, you said the other day that so-and-so was right. Why do
you mark a mistake in my exercise to-day?"
You explain to him why he is wrong, and he goes back to his seat
grumbling. He sees he is wrong; but he is not cured. He hopes to be
more lucky next time.
When you meet his mother, she asks you what you think of the boy.
"A very nice boy indeed," you say; "only I sometimes wish he had more
confidence in me; he is rather fond of arguing."
"Oh!" she exclaims, "I know that. Charley will never accept a statement
before he has discussed it and thoroughly investigated it."
* * * * *
As a set-off for Charley, there is the boy who has a blind confidence
in you. All you say is gospel to him, and if you were to tell him that
the French word _voisin_ is pronounced _kramshaka_, he would
unhesitatingly say _kramshaka_.
Nothing astonishes him; he has taken for his motto the _Nil admirari_
of Horace. He would see three circumflex accents on the top of a vowel
without lifting his eyebrows. He is none of the inquiring and
investigating sort.
* * * * *
Another specimen of the Charley type is the one who has been coached
for the public school in a Preparatory School for the Sons of
Gentlemen, kept by ladies.
This boy has always been well treated. He is fat, rubicund, and unruly.
His linen is irreproachable. The ladies told him he was good-looking,
and his hair, which he parts into two _ailes de pigeon_, is the subject
of his incessant care.
He does not become "a man" until his comrades have bullied him into a
good game of Rugby football.
* * * * *
On the last bench, right in the corner, you can see young Bully. He
does not seek after light, he is not an ambitious boy, and the less
notice you take of him the better he is pleased. His father says he is
a backward boy. Bully is older and taller than the rest of the class.
For form's sake you are obliged to request him to bring his work, but
you have long ago given up all hope of ever teaching him any thing. He
is quiet and unpretending in class, and too sleepy to be up to
mischief. He trusts that if he does not disturb your peace you will not
disturb his. When a little boy gives you a good answer, it arouses his
scorn, and he not uncommonly throws at him a little smile of
congratulation. If you were not a good disciplinarian, he would go and
give him a pat on the back, but this he dares not do.
When you bid him stand up and answer a question, he begins by leaning
on his desk. Then he gently lifts his hinder part, and by slow degrees
succeeds in getting up the whole mass. He hopes that by this time you
will have passed him and asked another boy to give you the answer. He
is not jealous, and will bear no ill-will to the boy who gives you a
satisfactory reply.
If you insist on his standing up and giving sign of life, he frowns,
loosens his collar, which seems to choke him, looks at the floor, then
at the ceiling, then at you. Being unable to utter a sound, he frowns
more, to make you believe that he is very dissatisfied with himself.
"I know the answer," he seems to say; "how funny, I can't recollect it
just now."
As you cannot waste any more time about him, you pass him; a ray of
satisfaction flashes over his face, and he resumes his corner hoping
for peace.
The little boys dare not laugh at him, for he is the terror of the
playground, where he takes his revenge of the class-room.
His favorite pastime in the playground is to teach little boys how to
play marbles. They bring the marbles, he brings his experience. When
the bell rings to call the boys to the class-rooms, he has got many
marbles, the boys a little experience.
* * * * *
One of my pet aversions is the young boy who arrays[5] himself in
stand-up collars and white merino cravats.
[5] Being a little bit of a philologist, I assume this verb comes
from the common (very common) noun, _'Arry_.
George Eliot, I believe, says somewhere that there never was brain
inside a red-haired head. I think she was mistaken. I have known very
clever boys with red hair.
But what I am positive about is that there is no brain on the top of
boys ornamented with stand-up collars.
Young Bully wears them. He comes to school with his stick, and whenever
you want a match to light the gas with he can always supply you, and
feels happy he is able for once to oblige you.
* * * * *
In some boys I have often deplored the presence of two ears. What you
impart through one immediately escapes through the other. Explain to
them a rule once a week, they will always enjoy hearing it again. It
will always be new to them. Their lives will ever be a series of
enchantments and surprises.
You must persevere, and repeat things to them a hundred times, if
ninety-nine will not do. Who knows there is not a John Wesley among
them?
"I remember," once said this celebrated divine, "hearing my father say
to my mother: 'How could you have the patience to tell that blockhead
the same thing twenty times over?' 'Why,' said she, 'if I had told him
only nineteen times, I should have lost all my labor.'"
* * * * *
I am not sure that the boy with only one ear is not still more
tiresome. He always turns his deaf ear to you, and makes his little
infirmity pay. "He is afraid he did not quite hear you, when you set
the work yesterday." For my part, I met the difficulty by having desks
placed each side of my chair. On my left I had the boys who had good
right ears; on my right, those who had good left ones.
I can not say I ever saw many signs of gratitude in boys for this
solicitude of mine in their behalf.
* * * * *
At dictation time the two-eared boy is terrible, and you need all the
self-control you have acquired on the English shores to keep your head
cool.
Before beginning, you warn him that a mute _e_, or an _s_, placed at
the end of a vowel, gives a long sound to that vowel, that _ie_ is long
in _jolie_, and _i_ is short in _joli_; that _ais_ is long in _je
serais_, and _ai_ is short in _je serai_.
Satisfied that he is well prepared, you start with your best voice:
"_Je serais...._"
The boy looks at you. Is he to write _je serais_ or _je serai_?
To settle his undecided mind, you repeat:
"_Je serais_,"
and you may lay great emphasis on ais, bleating for thirty seconds like
a sheep in distress.
He writes something down at last. You go and see the result of your
efforts. He has written
"_Je serai._"
_Drat_ the boy!
Next time you dictate a word ending in _ais_, he won't be caught
again.
He leaves a blank or makes a blot.
* * * * *
You must never take it for granted that you have given this boy all the
explanations he requires to get on with his work. You will always find
that there is something you have omitted to tell him.
He is not hopelessly stupid, he personifies the _vis inertiae_; he is
indifferent, and takes but one step at a time.
He will tell you he did not know that there were notes at the end of
his French text-books. When he knows that there are such notes, he will
inform you next time that you did not tell him he was to look at them.
He sees things, but at first he does not know what they are for unless
they are labelled, and he will ignore the use of a chair if you do not
point out the flat part of this piece of furniture, or better still,
touch it, saying, "Chair--to sit upon."
The following are bits of conversation you will have with him in the
class-room:
"How is it you have no copy to give me?"
"I thought we only had to prepare the piece."
Of course you know what it means when a boy tells you he has "prepared"
his work, but has not written it down. So you tell him he is to bring a
copy next time. He does, for he is most anxious to do as he is told.
When you ask him to give you the translation of the piece _viva voce_,
he tells you:
"Please, sir, you did not tell us we were to learn the piece."
"But, my boy, don't you understand that you are doing a piece of French
twice a week in order to learn the language?"
He never thought of that. He had to write out the translation of a
piece of French, and he has done it. He did not know he had to draw
such bewildering conclusions as you have just mentioned.
He does as he is told, and he marvels you do not consider him a model
of a boy.
If he were placed at the door of the reading-room of the British
Museum, with orders to inform people that they must take their
umbrellas or sticks to the cloak-room, he would carry out the
intentions of the librarians with a vengeance.
"Take your stick or your umbrella to the cloak-room," he would say to
the first person presenting himself at the door.
"But I have not got either," might reply the visitor.
"That's no business of mine; go and fetch them," he would naturally
suggest.
He can grasp but one idea at a time, and this one idea does not lead to
another in his mind. There it remains like the buried talent.
* * * * *
Master Whirligig is a light-headed boy. It requires very little to
entertain him. The falling of a book, a cough, a sneeze, an organ in
the street, will send him into fits of hilarity behind his
pocket-handkerchief, and when the school breaks up for the Midsummer
holidays, he will be able to tell you the exact number of flies that
passed through the class-room during the term.
He is never still for a moment. Always on the look-out for fresh
events, he is the nearest approach to perpetual motion yet discovered.
The cracks in this boy's cranium may be explained physiologically.
Matter subjected to constant motion gets heated, as we all know. Now
young Whirligig's skull is but scantily furnished with brain matter,
and it would be wise of him to keep it still. This he seems to be
incapable of doing. He is for ever jerking and shaking it, churning the
contents in fact. The churn heated, hot vapors are generated; they
expand, the pressure is too great, they must escape--they force an
outlet--hence the cracks.--Q.E.D.
* * * * *
If you want to see the good average English schoolboy in all his glory,
make him write out a rule of French grammar, and tell him to illustrate
it with an example.
Nine times out of ten his example will illustrate the contrary to the
rule.
He has heard over and over again, for instance, that a French past
participle, conjugated with the auxiliary _avoir_, sometimes agrees
with its direct object and sometimes does not. This he thinks very hard
upon him. Funny temper these past participles have! You never know when
they will agree. It is not fair, now, is it? By consulting his grammar,
he would be enabled to satisfy his master. But he does not do that. He
trusts to his luck, and has a shot. After all, his chance is 50 per
cent. He generally fails to hit.
Is he not a most unlucky little creature?
Ask this boy to give you the French for "this woman is good," he will
answer you: "_Bonne est cette femme_." He has heard that _bon_ was one
of those few adjectives that have to be placed before the noun, and
that is very unfair to him, isn't it?
* * * * *
If you set an exercise to English boys, to be written out on the spot,
they all set off quickly, the question being, as they look at one
another:
"Who shall have finished first?"
This I hold to be due to the influence of athletics.
"Please, sir, I've done!" will exclaim the winner triumphantly, as he
looks at the rest of the class still busy scratching their paper.
You generally like to know what boys intend to be, in order to direct
your attention more specially to the subjects they will require to be
grounded in for such or such an examination.
Most boys from twelve to fourteen years old will tell you "they do not
know," when you ask them what they will be. Many of them are undecided,
many indifferent; some are shy, and afraid you will think it conceited
of them to believe they are fit to be one day doctors, officers,
barristers, clergymen, etc.