School Highways

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22955, 5 February 1938, Page 5 (Supplement)

School Highways

LOOKING BACK ALONG THE PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE

WHETHER we merely notice that the children are away , from their holiday play-haunts, or are called upon to assist them in their school preparations I suppose that most of us are prompted at this time into assessing just what we got out of our own school life. And in our more cynical moments we decide that it is something to be able to rend and write, and, for tho rest, we have educated ourselves. Lewis Carroll transposed tho subjects of the average school curriculum thus:— Reeling, Writhing and Mystery; the different branches of Arithmetic as Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, Derision; Seaography, and Drawling. Truly, this is the effect produced on the child mind by even the most earnest of -educationists; and over everything it is safe to say that there is more mystery, for who but a magician could reveal to little new minds tho fullness of knowledge? Indeed, we writhed and curled our tongues in an endeavour to produ 09 tho prize pot-hook of the day, and 4 reeled before tho manifold meanings of tho English tongue. As for arithmetic', in Bpite of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's strauge verdict that tho knowledge of numbers is one of the chief distinctions between us and thd brutes, it above all deserves the Alice- in Wonderland verdict. In childhood, in spite of the supposed exactness of this cult, we were most of us in the condition of the little boy who when asked how he was getting on, said, "I'm as far as the goesinters." And asked for further explanation, added, "You know—two goesinter four two times!" Knowledge at First Hand History, though a mystery, was perhaps beloved moab by many of us because of its stories. Seeing that most adults differ in its interpretation, it is perhaps Tiot surprising that no teacher in the world could set the infant mind in a state of judgment and relativity regarding the actions of men. One.had natural affinities to certain characters and stories, affinities born of romance and not of reason. For myself, I overlooked Matilda's stirring np of the English nation, for the thrill of heir escape over the snpw at Oxford, in a nightdress or sheet, or whatever it was. This I consider one of the cute

By BART SUTHERLAND

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deeds of history. Modern history was more personal and accountable; it was Kfe's ultimate tragedy to me to be told that a child's father had been killed at the Boer War. I was rather lucky in my mystery and seaographv, however, learning them from no mortal teacher, but in strange wanderings round the world. My first school was at Dover Castle, one of the eyes of England since her history began. PVom there we went to Canterbury, with the cathedral near by, where Thomas a Becket was murdered, and the Black Prince slept in * a strange, long peace after the French Ware. Ceylon came next, and a realisation that there were other peoples in the world besides the English; that they were colourful and lovable, though they worshipped strange gods, past understanding. A very interesting world it was, but a world of snakes, sunstroke, and sudden death; and it brought a strange unaccountable sorrow that came even to a child's heart at times—a yearning for the v/ild roses of England, and her then peaceful ways. Then home to the miraculous gTeen of Ireland, the torturing cold of her linen sheets, the old school subjects, and another stratum of sad knowledge—how dissension and strange ideas will harden and make cruel the faces of the kindliest people. Once, in the very Irish city of Limerick, I wandered alone and lost my w»y, I knocked at the door of a erey stone cottage to be put right. Two very unsmiling elderly women came to the door; carved out- of Rrnnite their faces were. "Could you please tell me?" I said in mv very politest "English; but they chattered unfeelingly to each other in their native tongue, which I could not understand. J could understand their tone, however; I was one of the hated I'mgand not all my would-be politeness could wipe out what the English had done, Layer after layer of knowledge, 'ii| our contacts with people 18 fused at last into the great knowMrb that only understanding and kindliness are worth- while. A Ji mbh of Memories * Memories of teaeherß aro just as netting. Whenever I road of great teachers, and their turning of footsteps ifltb the right paths, I yearn to think ?ll*t there might have beep some great "Wiejice in my lifo, But my memories a?fl episodical, rather than academic — of an understanding lass, at jjW first school, who allowed me to take °owe a wonderful colour scheme of lining by myself, to show my ®%Urlng family; of an exceedingly sto it Imtch lady who fell, on top of m ® when the bullock bandy in which were all riding to school in Ceylon ovwturned; of a peppery Irish .headwho threatened to cane me if I *o'l|l<l not sing that hateful song. JSlWelsior." I neither liked nor disit; but I considered myself as oeljnging to another world, and if T c °UJd possibly harry and annoy the features I did. I have been astonished find that until very lately my idea ;.®f teachers has been colourod by tliia •noient feud. dii L*'" saif l ft 'ittlo girl, prancing a li * dly round me the other day. pointing to her firm, whereon there ** illustrated a rubber-stamped clflMiant. "I got it for good readin'; Mfr put it there!" Well," I thought, "that's rather. jjjttl'SOcial of teacher: it will take the JWwB mother a good half-liour to it off, even with pumico stone." nti] I was enlightened by a matter"*Bct little boy,, who showed mo lots £ luce "ellephums" stamped in his re Wn E book. y' see." said the bland child, spit on v'r hand like this, while stamp's wet. v* can get another *i»n on y'r hand." It led me into ting poor teacher, reflecting on 'SjeMBW "S They Really Are. and that these is apxctethinfs the

adult theory that one may pounce upon any small child at any moment of tho day, and without detriment to himself, oneself, or the nation, scrub him into a semblance of angelhood, preferably in a ly6ol solution! In brief moments, when we endure the pang of parting with those who go on the school road, xve are inclined to agree with that arch-purveyor of angel px-opaganda, Algernon Charles Swinburne, who asserted of children that "If of such be the Kingdom of Heaven, then Heaven is Heaven indeed!'' But in the long, lucid intervals wo realise that Swinburne was a bachelor, his only knowledge of children that of well-washed and brushed one* out for their afternoon walk with nurtfo on Hampstead Heath. You may remember that Mrs. Haines, in "The Old Wives' Tale," when her daughter Sophia proposed an excursion into the realms of tutelage, thought that there was something wrpng with tho girl and threatened a dr«o of castor oil. Mrs. Baines was a pretty shrewd woman. The teacher's lot cannot be an easy one, and if we can't love our teachers, we might at least treat them with regard.