THE PUPIL TEACHER: AVIGNON (1841–43)
The stroke of misfortune which suddenly interrupted Jean-Henri’s
studies at the Rodez lycée made him an exile from his father’s house
and banished him from his native countryside.
For the second time he was, as it were, dropped upon the road like
Perrault’s Tom Thumb. And the fairy-tale comes to life again in the
Odyssey of the poor boy who wandered at random, picking up his food at
hazard, facing misfortune with a stout heart, and smiling whenever he
could at the poem of Nature, who always had some fresh surprise in
store for him.
Who can fail to be moved by pity and admiration, beholding him set
forth upon the broad, white highroads, a wandering child, all but lost,
seeking his way, seeking his livelihood even, without other relief, in
his extremity of distress, and almost without other food than his love
of Nature and his passion for learning? See him, for example, on the
day when, between Beaucaire and Nîmes, he contrived to make his dinner
off a few bunches of grapes “plucked furtively at the edge of a field,
after exchanging the poor remnant of his last halfpence for a little
volume of Réboul’s poems; soothing his hunger by intoxicating himself
with the verses of the workman poet,” [29] whose inspiration was of so
noble and Christian a character.
The whole Fabre is in this trait of the needy, enraptured youth, who
thinks nothing of hardships or of money provided he can find the
wherewithal to assuage his thirst for knowledge and the ideal.
Nevertheless, it is true that he passed through many dark and painful
hours at that period. But in the end “the good fortune that never
deserts the valiant” opened the doors of the Normal College of Avignon
for him. Having ventured to face the examination for a bursary, he won
the latter with the greatest ease. There he found a first refuge from
the uncertainties of the morrow, although he had not yet achieved his
ideal, nor even that place in the sun which he was striving to prepare
for himself. Imagine “between four high walls a courtyard, a sort of
bear-pit in which the scholars contend for room beneath the boughs of a
plane-tree; and opening on to it, on every side, the class-rooms, like
so many cages for wild beasts, devoid of daylight or air.” This was the
Normal College of Vaucluse.
The description recalls, in some respects, that which was given by a
sometime pupil of the Normal College of Paris, M. René Doumic, on
taking his seat in the Academy, in the place of Gaston Boissier: “I
loved the Normal College, and I am still faithful in my attachment to
it. I hope my recollections of it will not be thought lacking in piety
if I state that the building in which they penned us up, young fellows
of twenty, was the most dismal place that I have ever seen anywhere.
This extraordinary building, by an architectural prodigy which I will
not attempt to explain, turned all four sides to the north. In three
years I do not think I ever saw a single ray of sunlight enter our
lecture-rooms or the cloisters in which we used to wander like so many
shades. A mournful daylight expired upon the grey, grimy walls. In
short, it was not a cheerful place. But at Boissier’s lectures all
became bright, full of animation and renewed life. It was a sudden
metamorphoses.”
At the Normal College of Vaucluse it was not the lectures given by the
masters that transformed the abode of shades or the bears’ cage into a
centre of light and life for the budding biologist. It was something
better than that. By good fortune the director of the College was
broad-minded enough to allow him to employ in his own fashion all the
time that was left to him after he had prepared his lessons and his
exercises. We may imagine that he did not loiter over his classics. The
school programme, for that matter, was not very heavy; the orthographic
difficulties which complicated most of the exercises of the future
schoolmasters were mere play to the ex-Latinist of the Rodez lycée. And
“while all around him dictated passages were being minutely scanned
with much searching of the dictionary, he examined, in the secrecy of
his desk, the fruit of the oleander, the flower of the snapdragon, the
sting of a Wasp, the wing-cover of a gardener-beetle.” Thus he treated
himself to a lecture of his own fashion whose charm and fascination
greatly exceeded that of anything that the college could teach him.
So much so that he left the College more in love than ever with insects
and flowers, and thoroughly determined to fill what he considered to be
one of the most serious deficiencies of official instruction.
Alas! there were many deficiencies in the education received by his
masters which would have to be made good in order to complete the
literary education which the professors of the Rodez lycée had begun to
give him, and the scientific training which he had hardly commenced at
the Normal College.
We must listen to his reminiscences of his career as pupil teacher, to
the inventory of the scientific equipment of a schoolboy of 1840, to
the story of his first and last lesson in chemistry, to see how poor he
was in acquired knowledge and how rich in the desire for knowledge,
before we can estimate the length of the road which he had to travel
when he had passed through the classes of the College.
In my normal school, the scientific teaching was on an exceedingly
modest scale, consisting mainly of arithmetic and odds and ends of
geometry. Physics was hardly touched. We were taught a little
meteorology, in a summary fashion: a word or two about a red moon,
a white frost, dew, snow and wind; and, with this smattering of
rustic physics, we were considered to know enough of the subject to
discuss the weather with the farmer and the ploughman.
Of natural history, absolutely nothing. No one thought of telling
us anything about flowers and trees, which give such zest to one’s
aimless rambles, nor about insects, with their curious habits, nor
about stones, so instructive with their fossil records. That
entrancing glance through the windows of the world was refused us.
Grammar was allowed to strangle life.
Chemistry was never mentioned either: that goes without saying. I
knew the word, however. My casual reading, only half-understood for
want of practical demonstration, had taught me that chemistry is
concerned with the shuffle of matter, uniting or separating the
various elements. But what a strange idea I formed of this branch
of study! To me it smacked of sorcery, of alchemy and its search
for the philosopher’s stone. To my mind, every chemist, when at
work, should have had a magic wand in his hand and the wizard’s
pointed, star-spangled cap on his head.
An important personage who sometimes visited the school, in his
capacity as an honorary lecturer, was not the man to rid me of
those foolish notions. He taught physics and chemistry at the
grammar-school. Twice a week, from eight to nine o’clock in the
evening, he held a free public class in an enormous building
adjacent to our schoolhouse. This was the former Church of
Saint-Martial, which has to-day become a Protestant meeting-house.
It was a wizard’s cave certainly, just as I had pictured it. At the
top of the steeple, a rusty weathercock creaked mournfully; in the
dusk great Bats flew all around the edifice or dived down the
throats of the gargoyles; at night Owls hooted upon the copings of
the leads. It was inside, under the immensities of the vault, that
my chemist used to perform. What infernal mixtures did he compound?
Should I ever know?
It is the day for his visit. He comes to see us with no pointed
cap: in ordinary garb, in fact, with nothing very queer about him.
He bursts into our schoolroom like a hurricane. His red face is
half-buried in the enormous stiff collar that digs into his ears. A
few wisps of red hair adorn his temples; the top of his head shines
like an old ivory ball. In a dictatorial voice and with wooden
gestures, he questions two or three of the boys; after a moment’s
bullying, he turns on his heel and goes off in a whirlwind as he
came. No, this is not the man, a capital fellow at heart, to
inspire me with a pleasant idea of the things which he teaches.
Two windows of his laboratory look out upon the garden of the
school. One can just lean on them; and I often go and peep in,
trying to make out, in my poor brain, what chemistry can really be.
Unfortunately, the room into which my eyes penetrate is not the
sanctuary, but a mere outhouse where the learned implements and
crockery are washed. Leaden pipes with taps run down the walls;
wooden vats occupy the corners. Sometimes those vats bubble, heated
by a spray of steam. A reddish powder, which looks like brick-dust,
is boiling in them. I learn that the simmering stuff is a dyer’s
root, known as madder, which will be converted into a purer and
more concentrated product. This is the master’s pet study.
What I saw from the two windows was not enough for me. I wanted to
see farther, into the very class-room. My wish was satisfied. It
was the end of the scholastic year. A stage ahead of the others in
the regular work, I had just obtained my certificate. I was free. A
few weeks remain before the holidays. Shall I go and pass them out
of doors, in all the gaiety of my eighteen summers? No, I will
spend them at the school which, for two years past, has provided me
with an untroubled roof and my daily crust. I will wait until a
post is found for me. Employ my willing service as you think fit,
do with me what you will; as long as I can study, I am indifferent
to the rest.
The principal of the school, the soul of kindness, has grasped my
passion for knowledge. He encourages me in my determination; he
proposes to make me renew my acquaintance with Horace and Virgil,
so long since forgotten. He knows Latin, he does; he will rekindle
the dead spark by making me translate a few passages. He does more:
he lends me an Imitation, with parallel texts in Latin and Greek.
With the first text, which I am almost able to read, I will puzzle
out the second and thus increase the small vocabulary which I
acquired in the days when I was translating Æsop’s Fables. It will
be all the better for my future studies. What luck! Board and
lodging, ancient poetry, the classical languages, all the good
things at once!
I did better still. Our science-master—the real, not the honorary
one—who came twice a week to discourse of the rule of three and the
properties of the triangle, had the brilliant idea of letting us
celebrate the end of the school year with a feast of learning. He
promised to show us oxygen. As a colleague of the chemist in the
grammar-school, he obtained leave to take us to the famous
laboratory and there to handle the object of his lesson under our
very eyes. Oxygen, yes, oxygen, the all-consuming gas; that was
what we were to see on the morrow. I could not sleep all night for
thinking of it.
Thursday afternoon came at last. As soon as the chemistry lesson
was over, we were to go for a walk to Les Angles, the pretty
village over yonder, perched on a steep rock. We were therefore in
our Sunday best, our out-of-door clothes: black frock-coats and
tall hats. The whole school was there, some thirty of us, in the
charge of an usher, who knew as little as we did of the things
which we were about to see. We crossed the threshold of the
laboratory, not without excitement. I entered a great nave with a
Gothic roof, an old, bare church through which one’s voice echoed,
while the light penetrated discreetly through stained-glass windows
set in ribs and rosettes of stone. At the back were huge raised
benches, with room for an audience of many hundreds; at the other
end, where the choir once was, stood an enormous chimney-mantel; in
the middle was a large massive table, corroded by the chemicals. At
one end of this table was a tarred tub, lined inside with lead and
filled with water. This, I at once learnt, was the pneumatic
trough, the vessel in which the gases were collected.
The professor begins the experiment. He takes a sort of large, long
glass bulb, bent abruptly in the region of the neck. This, he
informs us, is a retort. He pours into it, from a screw of paper,
some black stuff that looks like powdered charcoal. This is
manganese dioxide, the master tells us. It contains in abundance,
in a condensed state and retained by combination with the metal,
the gas which we propose to obtain. An oily-looking liquid,
sulphuric acid, an excessively powerful agent, will set it at
liberty. Thus filled, the retort is placed on a lighted stove. A
glass tube brings it into communication with a bell-jar full of
water on the shelf of the pneumatic trough. Those are all the
preparations. What will be the result? We must wait for the action
of heat.
My fellow-pupils gather eagerly round the apparatus, cannot come
close enough to it. Some of them play the part of the fly on the
wheel and glory in contributing to the success of the experiment.
They straighten the retort, which is leaning to one side; the blow
with their mouths on the coals in the stove. I do not care for
these familiarities with the unknown.
Suddenly, bang! And there is running and stamping and shouting and
cries of pain! What has happened? I rush up from the back of the
room. The retort has burst, squirting its boiling vitriol in every
direction. The wall opposite is all stained with it. Most of my
fellow-pupils have been more or less struck. One poor youth has had
the splashes full in his face, right into his eyes. He is yelling
like a madman. With the help of a friend who has come off better
than the others, I drag him outside by main force, take him to the
sink, which fortunately is close at hand, and hold his face under
the tap. This swift ablution serves its purpose. The horrible pain
begins to be allayed, so much so that the sufferer recovers his
senses and is able to continue the washing process for himself.
My prompt aid certainly saved his sight. A week later, with the
help of the doctor’s lotions, all danger was over. How lucky it was
that I took it into my head to keep some way off! My isolation, as
I stood looking into the glass case of chemicals, left me all my
presence of mind, my readiness of resource. What are the others
doing, those who got splashed through standing too near the
chemical bomb? I return to the lecture-hall. It is not a cheerful
spectacle. The master has come off badly: his shirt-front, his
waistcoat and trousers are covered with smears, which are all
smouldering and burning into holes. He hurriedly divests himself of
a portion of his dangerous raiment. Those of us who possess the
smartest clothes lend him something to put on so that he can go
home decently.
One of the tall, funnel-shaped glasses which I was admiring just
now is standing, full of ammonia, on the table. All, coughing and
snivelling, dip their handkerchiefs into it and rub the moist rag
over their hats and coats. In this way the red stains left by the
horrible compound are made to disappear. A drop of ink will
presently restore the colour completely.
And the oxygen? There was no more question, I need hardly say, of
that. The feast of learning was over. Never mind: the disastrous
lesson was a mighty event for me. I had been inside the chemist’s
laboratory; I had had a glimpse of those wonderful jars and tubes.
In teaching what matters most is not the thing taught, whether well
or badly grasped: it is the stimulus given to the pupil’s latent
aptitudes; it is the fulminate awaking the slumbering explosives.
One day, I shall obtain on my own account that oxygen which
ill-luck has denied me; one day, without a master, I shall yet
learn chemistry. I do not recommend that method to anybody. Happy
the man who is guided by a master’s word and example! He has a
smooth and easy road before him, lying straight ahead. The other
follows a rugged path, in which his feet often stumble; he goes
groping into the unknown and loses his way. To recover the right
road, if want of success have not discouraged him, he can rely only
on perseverance, the sole compass of the poor. [30]
We shall show what the perseverance of this son of Aveyron peasants was
capable of achieving, and after realising how little he got from his
masters we shall marvel to see what he acquired by dint of personal
industry and application.