Alice and Education

I

‘“IF there’s no meaning in it, that saves a world of trouble, as we need n’t try to find any.” ’ Unfortunately this sage declaration of the King of Hearts, uttered when he was examining the eryptic anonymous document introduced at the historic trial, represents only too accurately the attitude of most readers of Lewis Carroll. They prefer to follow the fantastic adventures and marvelous wanderings of Alice in a mood of otiose enjoyment, untroubled by any glimmer of wonder whether the careless and happy feet of childhood might, not lead them to some glorious kingdom. But the true spirit, in which we ought to read, breathes in the peremptory monarch’s later declaration. ‘“And yet I don’t know,” he went on, spreading out the verses on his knee and looking at them with one eye. “I seem to see some meaning in them after all.”’ Then he proceeds with laudable energy to search for reliable evidence beneath the meaningless surface.

This inspiring example has been constantly before me in the preparation of the present paper, which is the outcome of a long and painstaking examination of the two masterpieces pervaded by the personality of Alice, undertaken in the belief that under the winsome mask of delicious mockery would be found many serious and abiding truths. And I may state forthwith that my study soon led irresistibly to the conclusion that these apparently frivolous fables were really an allegory of education.

Of a general tendency to symbolic presentation we have very definite and unescapable examples in many of Professor Dodgson’s recognized works. The Hunting of the Snark, published in 1876, is accepted by every intelligent commentator as an allegory. It is true that the poem is rather bewildering, and students are not all agreed as to the exact hidden meaning, although there is a preponderance of opinion that ’The Pursuit of Fame’ is the real subject cloaked by this whimsical verse. Again, both parts of Sylvie and Bruno give unmistakable evidence of this same tendency; for beneath all the drollery is a manifest effort to communicate profound theological dogma. Moreover, his inherent incapacity to separate the serious from the lighter vein is seen most strikingly in Euclid and His Modern Rivals (1879). Herein Professor Dodgson made a profound and valuable contribution to Euclidean geometry; but it was thrown into dramatic form, and, despite the advice of all his friends, contained so much apparent levity, so many clutching jokes, that most readers refused to take it seriously.

Space forbids my adducing further arguments of this type; but I am sure that with the foregoing I may count upon the sympathetic toleration of my readers, if not upon their unhesitating acquiescence. For their complete conviction I must await the ineluctable conclusiveness of specific passages and interpretations to which we shall turn in a moment.

I have no desire to blink the fact that Professor Dodgson formally denies that our two books are anything more than they appear on the surface. But no carefully trained investigator will be deceived by this threadbare device, which is as old as literature itself, and was particularly in vogue about the time these volumes were given to the world. The example of Kingsley is enough. Water-Babies appeared in 1863, two years before Alice in Wonderland; and the reverend author goes out of his way to declare that the tale has no moral whatsoever. But nobody is deceived. We all know that Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid represents the old dispensation, and Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby the new, while tiny Tom is nothing less than the human soul.

But in whatever sense we take Tom (I always find pleasure in thinking that he and Alice might have been playmates), it is clear that

is simply the human race in its search, ever eager and ever puzzled, for education and educational methods.

II

With this unavoidable clearing of the ground, I feel that we may now turn to a few of the anticipations that impart to these allegories their real value. In my more ambitious study, which I plan to make as nearly exhaustive as the nature of the subject will permit, I hope to expound Professor Dodgson’s system as a unified and philosophic whole, and to place him in a niche of honor a little below Plato, but well above such pedagogical celebrities as Comenius and Herbert Spencer. In the mean time, I must limit myself to a few of those esoteric cogitations that are obviously relevant to the stage of educational evolution represented by the twentieth century, which William Morris prophesied might well prove to be the Century of Education.

From the many tempting themes we may select first, ‘The Play Element in the Development of the Child.'

We all know the history of the movement. Long prior to the proud and grand doctrine of onto-phylogenetic parallelism, and to the invaluable Teutonic researches on the play of beast and man, we find Rousseau hinting that we must employ the superabundant energy of childhood. From Rousseau it was but a step to the epochmaking conclusion of Froebel, who fixed upon the restlessness of children as the most, potent utilizable factor in their education. From this seed sprang the kindergarten. If their restless activity was to be turned to account, the children would have to play; and from the kindergarten the play-element spread upward and outward until we have reached our present superb devotion to a theory which declares that the child must never do what he dislikes or does not understand, and that whatever is hard is to be shunned. We must not. only utilize the play-impulse, but magnify it.

This stage was clearly anticipated by the chapter on the Lobster Quadrille. In order to emphasize the importance attached thereto by Professor Dodgson I would point out not only that it occupies one fourteenth of the whole Wonderland volume, but also that the author employs a very effective device to quicken our attention; for in the preceding chapter, just as our interest in the subject of lessons was keyed to the highest pitch, the Gryphon interrupted in a very decided tone with instructions to the Mock Turtle to ‘tell her something about the games.’

The Lobster Quadrille itself is evidently intended to represent a kindergarten game that shall entertain the child, improve his knowledge of living creatures, develop the imagination, and bring him to unity with himself, — quite as Froebel demanded. As a matter of pedagogical method, one observes instantly that the Mock Turtle, after vividly describing a part of the dance, proposed that he and the Gryphon should do the first figure. No mere verbal presentation for him. Then, just as in a well-regulated kindergarten, the two creatures executed the interesting movements, while one of them sang, and both waved their forearms to mark the time.

With reference to the song itself, which begins, ‘“Will you walk a little faster,” said a whiting to a snail,’ and could be quoted by any of my readers, I would merely point out that the rhythm is strongly marked, so as to be caught easily by the childish ear; that there is enough repetition to avoid fatiguing the delicate organisms; and that, while many of the thoughts are familiar, there is just enough novelty to stimulate curiosity and thereby insure mental growth. It may be confidently asserted that the most captious of my readers will feel the superiority of this poetry — for it is poetry — to such favorite songs as, ‘My heart is God’s little garden,’ or, ‘The grasshopper green had a game of tag with some crickets that lived near by.’

In passing, we should not neglect the reference to the doctrine of immortality, the comforting assurance of a life hereafter, not formally obtruded, but gently and graciously intimated in that always attractive phrase, ‘ the other shore.’ The sterling moralist in Professor Dodgson is never thrust upon our notice; but he is never quite absent.

At the conclusion of the song, the Gryphon and Mock Turtle skillfully utilized the interest and curiosity now aroused to impart some valuable information as to marine life. I must not quote the passage, but everybody will remember how the Gryphon explained to Alice that the whiting was so-called because it did the boots and shoes under the sea, where they obviously must be done with whiting; and that the shoes were made of soles and eels.

Later on, still with due attention to method, Alice was herself made to repeat a verse, but, like some children, being dimly and half-resentfully aware that she was being taught, she became so confused that the voice of the sluggard turned into the voice of the lobster. (It has always been suspected that the prominence of the lobster throughout the chapter has some special meaning.) Eventually she sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would ever happen in a natural way again.

If it should appear to any teacher that Professor Dodgson goes rather far in the importance assigned to play and the principles of ease and pleasantness in juvenile training, I would suggest that he represents a natural reaction from the formalism then in vogue; and that in particular he is striving to refute a passage in Water-Babies, which had appeared two years before, and was being widely quoted with strong approval. Tom had been playing with lobsters (again that symbolic crustacean) and other aquatic creatures, and had asked to go home with Ellie on Sunday. To his request, the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, replies, ‘Those who go there, must go first where they do not like, and do what they do not like, and help somebody they do not like.’ It is no wonder that such a progressive intellect and tender heart as Professor Dodgson was driven to an extreme in his protests against this benighted and barbarous mediævalism. It is no wonder that we still follow in his gentle footsteps.

From a consideration of the playelement, we have a natural transition to Nature Study. The Alice books not only advocate this pursuit, but breathe about it the charming aura of novelty. I have not been able to determine how directly Professor Dodgson is indebted to Pestalozzi; for, as a matter of fact, even later students have failed to attach due importance to that educator’s substantial service in this field, when he was working at Stanz. But without Pestalozzi, or any other one thinker, this beneficent step of pedagogical evolution was bound to be taken. We could not see children confined forever in mud-walled prisons. Liberation was inevitable. And who can fail to recognize the tremendous gain when, as one of Mr. Punch’s young men has felicitously voiced the change, —

It was only to be expected that our educational Lynceus should grasp the uttermost possibilities of this emancipating movement. It is no accident that one of the first stopping-places of Alice after passing through the lookingglass, was the ‘ Garden of Live Flowers.’ Nor is it merely by hap that she enters into such close communion with these children of Proserpina that she can actually share their thoughts. Would that every child in America might learn the lesson!

‘“O Tiger-lily,” said Alice, “I wish you could talk.”

‘“We can talk,” said the Tiger-lily, “when there’s anybody worth talking to.”’

There is the secret. Furthermore, like all really profound teachers, as distinguished from those who merely seem profound, he shuns the sentimental fallacy of over-idealizing. The flowers have personalities; they are not merely uniform entities of angelic temperament. The regal Rose and the lowly Daisy alike will have their joke, declaring that the tree will take care of them, for it says ‘ Bough-wough,’ and can bark in time of danger. The imperial Tiger-lily loses her temper at the garrulous smaller flowers; while the Violet and the Rose are distinctly rude to Alice, the former snarling out in a severe tone, ’It’s my opinion you never think at all,’ and the latter exclaiming, with even more startling asperity, ‘I never saw anybody that looked stupider.’ This same insistence on the unfriendly possibilities of nature may be marked in the scene in Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird, where the trees are represented as frankly hostile to mankind. And both teachers are right in refusing to darken knowledge with half-truths.

Even more inspiring than the wonderful live flowers are the looking-glass insects. We must learn the fauna as well as the flora. Beginning with the Horse-fly we pass to the Rocking-horsefly; and the importance of drawing for children is driven home by Sir John Tenniel’s copy from life of that domestic insect, to which I have often compared the curious stick-insects of Ceylon. The Snapdragon-fly, with the Bread-and-butter-fly, must likewise appeal to the budding sense of childhood, if only the opportunity is given. But here again our teacher will not have us neglect, the final, bitter truth. If the Bread-and-butter-fly cannot find its proper food it must die. ‘“But that must happen often,” remarked Alice thoughtfully.’ (Children will think if we only let them.) ‘“It always happens,” said the Gnat.’ Nature, that is the universal creator, is also the universal destroyer.

Just a little later comes a real difficulty. The Gnat, you will remember, having made a very silly pun, ‘sighed deeply, while two large tears came rolling down its cheeks.' “’You shouldn’t make jokes,” Alice said, “if it makes you so unhappy.”' One of my Parisian correspondents will have it that the Gnat was unhappy simply because the pun was so bad; but I am inclined to believe, with a fellow investigator at Berlin, that the incident is hinting once more at the idea that all living things feel joy and grief, even as mankind. Life is one. From the lowest forms of protozoa to the godlike genius who passes beyond the flaming battlements of the world to storm their secrets from the stars, life is one.

However, from this tangle, we are carried to the idyllic scene where Alice and the Fawn converse together. They have forgotten their different worlds, have forgotten their very selves, in this moment of complete understanding. I could quote passage after passage dealing with the theme of nature-study, but here, I think, is the supreme lesson; and I prefer to bid farewell to this subject with the picture of our gentle heroine gazing wistfully into the great soulful eyes of this creature of the wild. It is the burgeoning genius of the race learning to read, with love, the manuscript of God.

But the more advanced educational thought of to-day is so completely in accord with the above deductions from my master’s teaching, that there is no occasion to carry the discussion further.

I had planned to continue this part of my paper with a number of other anticipations of our modern theories and practice, including: The Abuse of Memory (cf. Alice and the White Queen and King); Shortening the Period of Formal Study (cf. the Gryphon’s explanation of lesson as that which lessens from day to day); Self-Expression and Vocational Activity (cf. the Cook); Methods in Education (cf. Tweedledum and Tweedledee); Developing the Imagination (passim) ; The Emotions in Education (cf. The Walrus and the Carpenter); and many others. Then, with the light shed by these general discussions, I had hoped to consider the curricula of primary and secondary schools, and to move from them to the college and university.

III

However, I must omit all the intervening stages in order to take up one or two of his anticipations of the problems of higher education; for herein, I think, we shall find some of his most pointed and pertinent reflections. Among these fundamental questions are The Elective System and Original Research; and inasmuch as the former offers an instance of our author’s passing even beyond our position at the beginning of the twentieth century, we may give it prior consideration.

Nobody has failed to observe the triumphant progress of the elective system. It came to many as a glorious ennobling emancipation from the old hide-bound curriculum. To others it seemed to offer the possibility of developing breadth of horizon without exacting depth of thought. It increased the number of students in many instistutions, thereby encouraging state legislatures or generous private benefactors to open the flood-gates of the golden life-giving stream. It evoked reams of debate, always earnest, and often bitter. But somehow the controversy has been softened, until even the most earnest partisan ought to be able to read with keen enjoyment Professor Dodgson’s inimitable description of the elective system, under the guise of the Caucus Race. If a few of my readers have hitherto questioned my interpretations, I look for their instant agreement on this point. If our author was not writing of the elective system, he was writing of nothing serious whatever. On this I am willing to stake my exegetical reputation.

It will be remembered that they formed a damp and queer-looking party on the bank of the pool. ’There was a Duck, and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures.’ The Lory, with his assumption of superiority, and the Mouse, with his technical aridity, may well represent the older curriculum. They have nothing to offer that promises immediate results. But the Dodo proceeds to move for the adoption of more energetic remedies, and, notwithstanding the protests against his long words, he carries the day. His solution comes in the proposal for a Caucus race; and with truly commendable pedagogical instinct he declares that the best way to explain it is to do it.

‘First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle (“the exact shape does n’t matter,” it said), and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no “One, two, three, and away,” but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running halfan-hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out, “The race is over!” and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, “But who has won?”

‘This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakesspeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”

‘“But who is to give the prizes?” quite a chorus of voices asked.

‘“Why, she, of course,” said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, “Prizes! Prizes!”’

So the colleges and universities, like Alice, having no idea what to do, put their hands in their pockets and took out a number of diplomas. These, after being tied with the beautiful and sentimental college colors, were distributed as prizes, and it always ‘turned out that there was one apiece all round.’

There can be no doubt, however, that my revered teacher disapproved of the elective system. His own training had been quite the reverse; and he explicitly states that, ‘Alice thought the whole thing very absurd; but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh.’ Accordingly, despite the eminence of the most distinguished sponsor of the elective system, despite the brilliance and number of its advocates, I can only declare in favor of a group system. Malo errare cum Platone quam cum istis vera sentire.

‘There is nothing more beautiful than a key, as long as we do not know what it opens.’ Readers of Maeterlinck will recognize the suggestive avowal of Aglavaine, which I have borrowed to apply to the thrill of the student when he is introduced by the professor to original research. Only a master symbolist, like Maeterlinck, has a right to attempt to utter in prose our profound emotion, when

Organized work in original investigation by students in our American universities may be said to date from the foundation of Johns Hopkins. Before that event, research was largely a matter of individual initiative and pursuit, while facilities for the publication of original articles were inadequate. In an article on ‘Three Decades of the American University,’ I have already paid generous tribute to the solid, pioneer services rendered by that institution. In the last forty years, however, the spirit of investigation has poured through a million channels. It has been of incalculable benefit; but by its side there has spread a keenness of contention for the recognition of the investigator’s service that is dangerously near to being unphilosophical. Indeed, the proverbial odium theologicum could scarcely exhibit greater acerbity than the rivalry of fellow specialists about priority of discovery, accuracy of observation, or interpretation of minutiæ. The struggle never ends; but occasionally a truce is patched up, with public assurances of good-will and private confidence of complete victory on both sides. Inevitably there has sprung up a certain distrust on the part, of the more aggressive Philistines, although the world at large is generally content with a smiling, tolerant, more or less disdainful, aloofness. All of these phases were manifestly before Professor Dodgson’s mind when he was composing under the caption, ‘It’s my own Invention.’

Turning first to inventive originality and investigation, we are attracted at once by the eager, active persistence of the White Knight. This chevalier of education has the unusual spirit, that can delight in discovery or invention purely for its own sake, without despising practical results. To word the thought in Huxley’s matchless phraseology, he can enjoy a sail over the illimitable ocean of the unknowable, without begrudging to applied science its utilization of the flotsam and jetsam.

As examples of the utilitarian aspect, we have his painful elaboration of the beehive and the mouse-trap, which he has hung to his saddle, in case any bees or mice should come near; and the anklets round the horse’s feet, to guard against the biting of sharks. Equally humane and practical are some of the other results of his investigations, such as the plan for preventing one’s hair from falling out, or the discovery that the great art of riding is to keep your balance properly. Nor should we fail to note that his heart is never daunted by the skepticism of Alice.

But even finer, more professorial, more like Thales, is the unsullied, oblivious, self-effacing devotion to unrewarded research, the final joy of the seeker.

‘“How can you go on talking so quietly, head downwards?” Alice asked, as she dragged him out by his feet, and laid him in a heap on the bank.

‘“What does it matter where my body happens to be?” he said. “My mind goes on working all the same.’”

Then he described his invention of a new pudding, and Alice, like the distrustful Philistine, raised the query as to its practicability. This evokes the superb rejoinder, uttered with bowed head and lowered voice, —

‘“I don’t believe that pudding ever was cooked. In fact, I don’t believe that, pudding ever wall be cooked. And yet it was a very clever pudding to invent.”’

The famous retort of Pasteur to the shoddy French nobility, when he declared that the spirit of science was above thoughts of personal gain, was no finer than this hushed self-revelation, coming straight from the heart.

Herewith, the remaining points of this topic may be promptly dismissed. We have seen that the comments of Alice represent both the carping Philistine and the uncomprehending public. It only remains for us to notice that the bickerings of researchful enthusiasts are depicted both by the quarrel between the two White Knights over the ownership of the helmet, and by the bout between the Red Knight and the first White Knight when they come upon Alice. Indeed, the choice of knights for the leading personæ of this instructive drama hints at the same tendency, although it is doubtless intended also to suggest the chivalrous devotion of the true investigator.

The next question would naturally have been The Study of the Classics in our Colleges, to which a new interest has been given by the agitation at Amherst. Both sides of the controversy are represented in our volume, an excellent starting-point being offered by the different impressions of the Classical Master we receive from the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle. The former maintained that he was an old crab, whereas the latter asserted that he taught Laughing and Grief. Assuredly the Turtle’s phrase has in mind the strong humanistic tendency of classical studies, while the Gryphon’s vigorous but contemptuous designation intimates a belief that such studies lead to ‘progress backwards,’ if I may become indebted to Mr. Cable’s lovable schoolmaster.

Omitting this and many other topics, I may tarry a moment on Professor Dodgson’s surprising references to philosophy; and it must not be taken as an admission either of slothfulness or incapacity, if I confess that a few details are not quite clear to me. Despite the fact that a Kantian discussion of time is placed on the lips of the Mad Hatter; despite the fact that the same problem, together with the non-existence of space and the unsubstantiality of matter, is suggested by the cake that must be served first and cut afterwards, I am nevertheless convinced that the household of the Duchess must represent the penetralia containing the ultimate arcana.

That noble personage herself probably symbolizes the older, more purely metaphysical schools. This is indicated by her dignified vocabulary and stately copious presentation, as well as by her contempt for lower mathematics, and for mere human affections.

The latter aspects are perceived at once in the dialogue following Alice’s uncertainty whether the period required for the earth to revolve on its axis might be twenty-four hours or twelve; for the Duchess exclaims impatiently that she never could abide figures, and begins that most unfeeling of all lullabies: ‘Speak roughly to your little boy and beat him when he sneezes.’ Furthermore, that titled lady’s subsequent treatment of her offspring corresponds very closely to what is recorded of two or three famous representatives of the metaphysical school. This behavior of hers cannot be explained, much less justified, on any other basis.

The former aspects, the characteristic vocabulary and presentation, are so unmistakably set forth in the following passage that I merely transcribe it.

‘“It’s a mineral, I think,” said Alice, in support of her contention that mustard was not a bird.

‘“Of course it is,” said the Duchess, “there’s a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is — ‘The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.’”

‘“Oh, I know!” exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last remark. “It’s a vegetable. It doesn’t look like one, but it is.”

“‘I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess; “and the moral of that is — ‘ Be what you would seem to be ’ — or, if you’d like it put more simply — ‘ Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.’ ”

‘“I think I should understand that better,” Alice said very politely, “if I had it written down; but I can’t quite follow it as you say it.”

‘“That’s nothing to what I could say if I chose,” the Duchess replied, in a pleased tone.’

The Cheshire Cat, on the other hand, most probably anticipates the more optimistic development of pragmatism; and I hope I may be forgiven the personal intrusion, if I point out that I was the first, writer to emphasize the lightly mentioned fact that the cat is part of the household of the Duchess and, therefore, must be interpreted philosophically.

That it pictures optimism in some form is incontrovertible. The insistence that the comfort-giving grin appears before the body of the animal, and remains after the latter’s vanishing, can only be explained by reference to a philosophy that will have all well with the world regardless of disharmonies and defects in the system of things; a philosophy, as is suggested by a clever French litterateur, that strives to erect a world temple with such a beautiful façade that it shall hide the bitter disappointment of mankind within the sanctum. And if we are dealing with some form of optimism, I can only conclude that it is the more hopeful and vigorous phase of pragmatism.

The most pertinent, I might almost say, the most unanswerable, passage in favor of this pragmatic interpretation is the following: —

‘“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

‘“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

‘“I don’t much care where —” said Alice.

‘“Then it does n’t much matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

— so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”’

None of my readers can fail to recognize the essentials of pragmatism in this passage. There is the crucial recognition that philosophy must be connected with actual needs; that it must deal with actual conditions; that it must appreciate human limitations. Indications of the same trend are to be seen in the Cat’s vivid interest in the baby that turned into a pig, as well as in his friendly converse with Alice at the croquet, party.

One argument, suggested to me by a conservative, philosophical friend, I shrink from introducing; but, inasmuch as he insists that it is finally conclusive, I indulge his fancy. You will remember that when the King and Queen order the beheading of the Cat, there springs up an argument as to whether you can cut off a head when there is no body to cut it off from. Then, at the critical moment of the inquisition, the Cat’s head begins to fade away and soon entirely disappears. My colleague maintains most stoutly that this can only represent pragmatism before a searching examination at the hands of an expert dialectician. If he is right, I could set down as final the explanation I have proposed. But in any event the evidence is very strong, and until some other student shall propose a more satisfactory theory, we may continue to regard the Cheshire Cat as a symbol of the more optimistic phases of pragmatism.

IV

Topic after topic crowds upon me like imprisoned birds fluttering toward the door of their cage; but I must leave them all unreleased save one. In both volumes the master leaves the supreme lesson until the end, and in both volumes the lesson is the same. He would have us remember in all education that human creatures are the one thing really important. We spin our theories and weave them into the fabric of a system; but the child and the man are above systems and theories. Bergson has rendered a genuine service by his insistence that life is self-developing and self-comprehending. On ultimate metaphysical analysis, life is the universe discovering itself and creating itself; it is at once natura naturans and natura naturata. Ever and ever it works and plays with the visible and invisible world, to find its highest expression in man. And for this highest manifestation, who shall make a final system of education? But our puny systematizers will have at least a day for their schematic panaceas, not realizing how soon they must cease to be, when mankind, half-smiling, half-angry, bids them go. And this truth, the eternal lesson, the final message, is delivered to us in redoubled clarity. At the close of the Wonderland volume our heroine declares, ‘“Who cares for you? You are nothing but a pack of cards.” ’ Likewise, at the climax of the Looking-Glass allegory, she breaks up the fantastic banquet: ‘One good pull, and plates, dishes, guests, and candles come crashing down together in a heap on the floor.’

So has it fared, so will it ever fare with all systems and theories of education that place their faith in methods or mechanism, and would raise themselves above human nature. Eventually the children of men will eat bread and butter instead of dream-cakes; will shake the Red Queen into a companionable kitten; will come back from Wonderland to the simple natural life of healthful human beings.

V

Here, with reluctance and no little difficulty, I check my eager pen. As I review the paper, I am painfully aware that it is both incomplete and fragmentary. I can only pray that my readers will view the disjecta membra with mercy, and wait with patience for my authoritative and exhaustive treatment. Howbeit, even this popular presentation in simple form may have served to establish the contention with which I began. Nor can I quite resign the hope that, as a result of my efforts, many lovers of Professor Dodgson will read him with enlarged understanding as well as with enhanced pleasure.

If it shall appear to the more practical-minded critics of my paper that I have occasionally discovered a hidden meaning where none existed, I can only point out that in such recondite matters, making constant demands on the creative imagination, a pioneer is bound to go astray at times. But he must persist in his task, strengthening himself with the encouragement of mighty souls like Schiller, whose words seem almost prophetic in the closeness of their application: Wage du zu irren und zu träumen: Hoher Sinn liegt oft in kind’ schem Spiel. My sole aim has been the discovery of the truth; and if I have ever doubted that under some astounding detail of this childish allegory there lay an ultimate lesson, I have always been saved from disheartenment by the comforting assurance of our author himself: —

“‘I can’t tell you now what the moral of that is,” said the metaphysical Duchess, “but I shall remember presently.”

‘“Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice ventured to remark.

“‘Tut, tut, child,” said the Duchess, “everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”’