In the Dame School of Experience: An Interview With an Educator

I

IN my journey through the world, I chanced one day on the School of Experience. I had heard of this institution, but it had never been my good fortune to visit it. The schoolhouse was an ancient building, and the withered dame who had presided there for many millenniums stood at the door. She was watching the departure of some of her brighter pupils who had learned the day’s lesson, which had been an unusually hard one even for the School of Experience.

‘May I come in, dame?’ I asked.

‘Do you come to learn ? ’

‘I come to learn about your school. I have heard it highly spoken of. I am much interested in educational methods.’

‘Is that all? I thought you might be interested in education. But that is too much to expect. Nowadays everybody is interested in methods.’

Here she laughed, as if she were recalling some bitter prehistoric joke.

I found the equipment of the schoolroom very primitive. The rude benches were fantastically carved by generations of pupils who had made their mark in the world. I noticed the name of Genghis Khan, and Pompey the Great, and Attila, and Jesse James, and other celebrities. There were also the initials of statesmen and saints who had here obtained the rudiments of education. The ancient blackboard was covered with moral maxims, all of the simplest character. It was evident that the dame did n’t go in for the fancy branches of ethics. Behind the teacher’s desk was a large assortment of rods.

‘I see you believe in corporal punishment.’

‘I did n’t say I believed in it, did I? I don’t use those rods. I only keep them handy. “There they are,” I say to my pupils. “Do as you like with them.” Then they beat each other with them until they learn better.’

‘Doesn’t it injure the pupils?’ I asked,

‘Of course it does. I should think that even you would know that. But if after a while they learn that it does injure them, is n’t that something worth knowing? That’s what I call getting results. As to methods, I have n’t any to speak of. I let them do as they please, as long as they please; and when it does n’t please them any longer,

I wait for them to ask why? Then I don’t tell them. After they have asked a long time, it begins to dawn on them that they never will get an answer till they use their minds. Some of them do. They are the ones I can educate.’

‘It must be a long and expensive process.’

‘I never claimed that my school was cheap.’

I realized that the dame had a peppery temper and the interview must be carried on with discretion.

‘I understand that you have been educating the human race for a long time.’

‘Do I look it?’ ‘No, you look remarkably fresh.’

‘Don’t tell lies. You get found out. That’s the first lesson in my school. It’s a long time since I first set up my school in a cave, and tried to educate a lot of lively young troglodytes who did n’t want to be educated.’

‘That must have been an interesting experiment. What kind of a mind did the troglodyte have?’

‘About the same kind of a mind that you have. The moment I set eyes on you I was struck by the family resemblance.’

I must have betrayed a momentary embarrassment, for she continued in a conciliatory tone, ‘No offense intended. The troglodyte had very much the same sort of a mind you have, though you doubtless use what mind you have better than he did, for you have the advantage of the lessons your ancestors learned in my school. They made a good many mistakes for you. You don’t need to make them over again unless you want to. When I saw you looking at the door, as if to say, “I wonder what that old lady is doing there,” I thought of the first homo sapiens I tried to teach. I said, “He’s a chip of the old block. He does n’t know much, but he has curiosity. He will ask questions.”

‘I knew that when I induced the first homo sapiens to ask questions I’d got him. I said, “If I can keep him asking Why? and How? and Whence? and Whither? I can draw him out.’”

‘Don’t you ever in your school tell the answers to the questions?’

‘What would be the use? They don’t pay attention to what I say. If I tell them a bit of wisdom before they find it out for themselves, they think it is a joke. When they find it out for themselves, they take it seriously.’

‘Oh! I understand your method. You have really modem ideas after all. You believe in learning by doing.’

‘Not exactly. At least, not by doing what they are told to do. My pupils are always doing something or other — and it’s generally wrong. They have more activity than good sense. The world is full of creatures that are doing things without asking why. You can’t educate a grasshopper. He’s too busy hopping. The peculiarity of man is that sometimes you can induce him to stop and think.’

‘I presume, dame, that you use object-lessons in your teaching.’

‘No, I don’t use them. The pupils use them. There they are, good, bad, and indifferent. A pupil sees an object and likes the looks of it. He calls out, “Teacher, may I have that? I want it.” “Very well,” I say, “take it or leave it! But if you leave it you can’t take it, and if you take it you must take the consequences that go with it.”

‘“But,” he says, “I don’t see any consequences!” “You ’ll see them soon enough if you take it. Pretty soon there won’t be anything but consequences.”

‘They never pay any attention to moral remarks like that, and they seize the thing they want, regardless of the consequences. But the consequences stick to them like burrs. After a time they see that the two things always go together. That’s a big lesson.’

‘A good many people,’ I said, ‘never learn it.’

‘Quite so: every school has its failures.’

‘ What do you consider the most important branch of learning in your curriculum.’

‘ Gumption.’

‘Is that a required study? They did n’t teach it in my school.’

‘I presume not. Some don’t.’ She pointed to a group of pupils who were bending over their tasks. ‘That,’ she said, ‘is the beginners’ class in common gumption. They have failed in the first lesson, and I’m keeping them after school.’

‘But they look unusually intellectual.’

‘Very,’ she said; ‘they look that way, and they feel that way. They are good on all the advanced lessons, but they have n’t got gumption.’

Just then one of the pupils jumped up, snapped his fingers to attract attention, and cried, ‘Teacher! I got it! May I go home?’

‘What’s gumption? ’

‘It’s what we have n’t got enough of yet to know what’s the matter with us.’

‘Good,’ she said, ‘you are coming on. You have learned enough for one day. You may go now. To-morrow we will have another lesson.’

She turned to me triumphantly.

‘You see he’s learning something. It’s the first time he has got the idea that there is something the matter with him. He does n’t know what it is, but he’s on the right track.’

‘I should like to know, dame, what are your ideas on educational values?’

‘The chief educational value,’ she said, ‘is something to eat. When you don’t know where you are going to get it, it stimulates the questions, Why? Where? How? When? How are you to get your breakfast? This is a question you can’t put off till to-morrow. It quickens your wits. Examination comes every day. If you fail to get your breakfast, you know it. This tends to thoroughness.’

‘But that seems to me to be a materialistic basis for education. A person may get plenty to eat and yet not be what you would call an educated man — at least, not liberally educated.’

‘I didn’t say he was. Getting enough to eat is only the first lesson. Getting it honestly takes you pretty far on in ethics. It introduces a good many hows. Many of these problems are not yet solved in my school. To begin with, the table-manners of my pupils were awful. In my first cave the answers to the foodquestions were very crude.

‘When a healthy young troglodyte was hungry, he snatched his food from somebody who was weaker. This was very convenient for the snatcher, and the snatchee did n’t count. But the time came when the snatcher came with a good healthy appetite and there was no one to snatch from.

‘After a while it dawned upon the brighter snatchers that, if they were to make their business profitable, they must leave the snatchee enough to keep him alive. This was the first lesson in political economy. Then, after a while, a revolutionary doctrine was broached which you see on the blackboard: “Thou shalt not steal.” The idealists who accepted this theory were confronted with the question, “If you are not allowed to live by stealing, how can you live?” That’s a puzzler.’

‘I’m surprised, dame, that you have n’t got beyond the Eighth Commandment.’

‘Have you? Maybe you are among those who think they have solved the problem when they let other people do their stealing. Here are some exercises of my pupils in the seventeenth century. They were printed in the Westminster Larger Catechism. Ever hear of it?’

‘I learned the Shorter Catechism as far as “What is Effectual Calling?”’

‘This is the Larger Catechism. It is more thorough.’

She opened her desk and brought out an old volume and read, —

‘“What is the Eighth Commandment?”

‘“ The Eighth Commandment is, Thou shalt not steal.”

‘“ What are the duties required in the Eighth Commandment?”

‘“The duties required in the Eighth Commandment are truth, faithfulness, and justice in contracts and commerce between man and man; rendering to every man his due; restitution of goods unlawfully detained from the right owners thereof; giving and lending freely according to our abilities and the necessities of others; moderation of our judgments, wills, and appetites concerning worldly goods; a prudent care and study to get, keep, use, and dispose of those things that are necessary for the sustentation of our nature and suitable to our condition; a lawful calling and diligence in it; frugality, and an endeavor by all just and lawful means to procure and preserve and further the wealth and outward estate of all others as well as ourselves.”

‘That’s a pretty big contract, isn’t it? You have to do all that just to prevent stealing. It’s a lesson in preventive honesty. It’s a big, coöperative undertaking. You are not really honest unless you “endeavor by all just and lawful means to procure and preserve and further the wealth and outward estate of all others as well as ourselves.” ’

‘I’m afraid we have n’t got very far yet,’ I said.

‘Good for you,’ said the dame. ‘We’ll have an honest world yet when ordinary men like you see how much has to be done.’

‘What kind of ability do you value most in your school?’

‘Adaptability. I have pupils who have a great deal of ability, but they stand around helplessly waiting for someone to tell them how to use it. They look for a job that can fit them. It never occurs to them that they are being measured by the job, and must submit to a few necessary alterations before they can be accepted.’

II

‘You are educating the aggregate mind,’ I said, ‘What difference do you find between it and the individual mind — mine for example?'

‘There’s more of it,’ she said, ‘but it works in much the same way. The hard thing is to fix its attention on anything long enough to have something happen. The chief necessity is drill. It’s line upon line, precept upon precept. I have to drill perpetually on the fundamentals. I have to teach the parts of speech over and over again. I don’t care much for nouns, but I’m great on verbs — active verbs in the present tense.

‘I put most of my time on two big verbs — the verb “to hurt” and the verb “to help.” I call these two my civilizers.

‘I begin with “to hurt.” This is the first thing that makes my pupils sit up and take notice. At first they take it only in a vaguely impersonal way. They say, “It hurts.” They don’t stop to ask what “it” is. That lesson has n’t a great deal of educational value. But when they begin to ask why, we get results. When one is hurt and asks why, the answer is quite personal. He sees the other fellow and lays all the blame on him. “He hurt me.” Then without need of prompting he goes on with, “I hurt him.” This makes a lively lesson. These retaliatory exercises make a large part of human history.

‘It takes some time before I can get them to take up the plural in the passive. But at last they come to see the consequences of their efforts — and say, “We are hurt.” They suddenly realize that they are partners in suffering. When they realize that, they have learned a mighty good lesson. They have to share the consequences.’

‘That,’ I said, ‘is what the Greeks had in mind when they gave us the word sympathy — feeling together.’

‘Yes, the Greeks found out a great deal. You see they did n’t have to spend so much time learning ancient languages. So they learned from experience. The first thing people feel together is pain. It takes longer to feel joy together. They are more selfish about that and try to keep it to themselves.

‘When the pupils have mastered the verb “to hurt,” I put them on the verb “to help.” That’s hard too.

‘The first lesson is the one each one likes best. “I — help — myself.” The verb is in the reflexive form and reflects pleasantly on the actor. “When I help myself, I feel that I am doing good to a person who deserves it.” This puts the scholar in a good humor, and he’s ready for the next lesson. “ I — help — him. In the first class in philanthropy, the pupil insists on being very pernickety about the object. The pupil says, “I’ll help him, if I know who he is, and if I’m sure he is worthy of my help, and if he will be grateful.” This condescending attitude of the benefactor enrages the beneficiary, who does n’t want to be helped that way, and looks upon it as but a variation of the exercises in the verb “to hurt.” Sometimes these philanthropic lessons go on for centuries, till I find that both sides are repeating the verb “to hate.’”

‘It’s too bad,’ I said, ‘that the beneficiaries are so ungrateful. When most people are so selfish, it’s good to find those who are ready to take up other people’s burdens without so much as saying, “By your leave.” I’m thrilled by the white man’s burden.’

‘Yes, I noticed that you were a white man. But if you were a black man. or a yellowish man, or a light-brownish man you would n’t feel that way?’

‘No, then I suppose I should make trouble.’

‘ Of course you would. A person who tried to help you by hurting your selfrespect would hurt you more than he helped you. You would know that you were hurt, and he would n’t.

‘It’s only after a great deal of misunderstood suffering that a higher lesson is learned and the verb is taken up in the plural: “We — help — another.” Here there is no permanent distinction between the benefactors and beneficiaries. It is a simple matter of give and take. When human beings get this far, they are beginning to be civilized.

‘But after the verb, the most important part of speech is the adverb. An adverb qualifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb. A great number of practical failures are adverbial. An unlucky adverb can queer the best verb in the dictionary. It’s a regular hoodoo. I say to my scholars, “Mind your adverbs.”

‘It is not enough to do the right thing — you must do it rightly. It is not enough to do a generous thing — you must do it generously. To do a right thing wrongly is as bad as to do a wrong thing rightly. It mixes up the results.

‘ You can say anything you please if you say it pleasantly. There arc people who can’t say, “How do you do? ” without having it sound like an insult. They say it so inquisitorially.

‘They tell me that there are clubs where, in order to keep the peace, the members are not allowed to talk about the two most interesting subjects in the world — politics and religion. Now this is not because either of these subjects is in its nature quarrelsome — it’s the people who discuss these things quarrelsomely. Nothing is more delightful and illuminating than to talk politics with one who disagrees with you. What you object to is to have him disagree with you disagreeably. To talk religion sanctimoniously is intolerable, but the most worldly-minded man will enjoy the conversation of one who without pretense talks religiously.’

‘I’ve noticed that recently,’ I said. ‘During the war we have been drilling ourselves in a set of necessary adverbs. In order to meet the crisis, we had to eat sparingly, and dress economically, and speak guardedly, and endure stoically, and obey conscientiously, and look at our neighbor suspiciously.

‘Then suddenly victory came on such a stupendous scale that our imagination could not conceive what had taken place. Somebody with a loud voice ought to go through the car of war calling out, “End of this route. Change adverbs!”

‘I like the song of Miriam at the Red Sea. Then “Miriam the prophetess . . . took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.” That has the right sound. Don’t triumph economically or conscientiously — triumph gloriously.’

‘I remember the circumstance well,’ said the dame. ‘But Miriam’s conduct caused adverse criticism among some of the more sober-minded Israelites. They wondered where she got so many timbrels. Instead of giving them a song, she would have shown more seriousness if she had given them another talk on the plagues they had been through in Egypt.

‘This negligence about the adverb causes many excellent people to draw the false lesson from their failures. They think that what they did was wrong, and get discouraged. What their failure really taught was that the thing could n’t be done that way, and they should try again.

‘There was Aristides, who was called “the Just” till it got on the nerves of the Athenians. He could n’t understand it. Now the trouble was n’t that he was too just, but that he did justice too monotonously.

‘I used to say, “Aristides, I don’t mean to suggest, but can’t you let your justice break out in a new spot? You have been doing justice to the free-born citizens till they can’t stand it anymore. Their consciences have reached the saturation point. Why don’t you practise justice on a new set who are not used to it ? Why not try it on the slaves ? It would be a real treat to them. The Athenians would n’t know what to make of it and would quit calling you the Just.”

‘“What would they call me then?”

‘“I’m sure I don’t know, but it would be interesting for you to find out.’”

‘What you say about adverbs reminds me of a saying of Lord Bacon’s. He said something to the effect that when people who had tried to do a desirable thing and failed told him that their experiment proved that it could n’t be done, it only proved that it could n’t be done that way.’

‘Yes, Francis was one of my star pupils. He used to say that my school was the only one in which he learned anything. I suppose I favored him, for they used to call him Teacher’s Pet. He was always doing things with his mind. When anything occurred that was suspiciously intellectual, they always laid it on Francis.

‘Excuse me, sir, I must listen to the spelling-class in words of one syllable.’ She rapped for attention and said, ‘Spell war.’

There was a long roar, increasing as one after another took up the sound, and it kept up as if it would never end.

‘Say it! and then stop it. This is not a long-drawn-out, polysyllabic word like “hypochondriachal.” It’s a word of one syllable. Say it sharply and decisively. Don’t keep on snarling and growling as if you were worrying the dictionary. Stop rolling your r’s. I don’t object to those who don’t know when they are beaten, but not to know when you are victorious sounds weakminded. When you’ve got all you fought for, why do you want to keep on fighting? It’s a bad habit your ancestors got into, snarling over bones in the cave. When they got into a fight, they never knew when it was ended. When you have to say war, say it sharply and decisively — and cut it short.’

‘Teacher! We can’t help it. We’ve got going!’

‘ Very well, then! Get going on something else. Spell peace!’

There was a soft purring murmur, ending in an apologetic whisper.

‘That’s worse than the other. Don’t say peace timidly, or petulantly, or apprehensively. That’s what makes people throw things at you. Say it manfully, and boldly, and as if you expected something to happen. And if you can say it intelligently—why all the better.’

I thought it was time to change the subject. ‘Dame! What class of pupils gives you the most trouble?’

‘Some of the advanced thinkers are about as troublesome as any. Their minds get going so fast on some slippery subjects that they skid. Before they know it they are advancing backward. They have a delightful sensation of going as they please till they collide with some fact they did n’t know was there.

‘When a new idea gets control of an unfurnished mind, it has the time of its life. There is nothing inside to molest it or make it afraid. I have pupils who are bubbling over with modernness. They are effervescing with contemporaneousness. But they are continually repeating the blunders of their greatgreat-grandfathers. They call old sins by new names, and they pride themselves on their up-to-date primitiveness. They have learned a few things that other people don’t know; and they have never found out some things that the race found out long ago. They are pleased to think that they are original. So they are — aboriginal. These artificial aborigines are harder to civilize than the natural aborigines, because they think that civilization is a stage that they have gone through.’

‘They have been through it, have n’t they? They were civilized to begin with.’

‘Their parents were — more or less.’

‘Still, it’s a good thing to go back to first principles.’

‘Of course it is. But they don’t go back to first principles. Principles arc n’t in their line. All they care for is sensations. They go back to a state of mind where there arc n’t any principles to speak of. When they come to a “Thou shalt not,” they go and do it. They call every prohibition a taboo. They think their first duty is to break every taboo they come across. It gives them a creepy feeling of not doing their duty. They like to feel that way.’

‘But there are a great many taboos that ought to be broken,’ I said.

‘Of course there are. But there’s a difference between a taboo and something which people have found out in the hard school of experience. What’s an education good for if it does n’t enable people to make just such distinctions as that? A crow sees an object in the field that may turn out to be only a harmless scarecrow. But if he is a sensible crow, he will make an investigation before committing himself. He has seen too many men who look like scarecrows to take chances.’

I saw that the old dame’s nerves were on edge, and I thought it was time to draw the interview to a close.

‘I have greatly enjoyed my visit,’ I said. ‘Your school seems to be thorough. There is just one criticism I might make, and that is about the length of time it takes to learn anything in particular. The curriculum seems adapted to persons whose longevity is abnormal. There was Methusaleh, for example. By the time he was five or six hundred years old he must have accumulated a good deal of valuable experience. He had still several centuries in which to apply the lessons he had learned. But in a beggarly four-score 3-ears you can’t get on far. The world is getting frightfully complicated, and it’s going faster all the time. There should be some way of expediting the educational process. We get confused: when a new idea gets into our heads, it drives out those that were already there.’

‘Your heads aren’t very roomy; that’s a fact. But what can I do about it? I suppose you want me to put up a sign — “Painless Educator, Prejudices Removed Without Your Knowing It.” Perhaps 3 011 want me to start a. correspondence school, and advertise: “The lessons of Experience furnished without the Experience.”You want some kind of a get-wise-quick scheme.’

‘Why not?’ I said. ‘If you can’t gel wise quickty, what’s the use of getting wise at all?’

‘Now you’ve asked a worth-while question. Why not? Hold on to that question. If 3x311 intend to get wise, you must lose no time. What did I tell you about the parts of speech? Experience is n’t a noun. You can’t accumulate experiences as if they were thrift stamps to be pasted in a book. Why not treat me as a verb? If you get the right adverb, you will find that I’m not so slow as you think. You can experience a good deal if you use your mind. But you must make up your mind to step lively if you are to experience anything much. But this is my busy day. Good afternoon, sir. Mind your adverbs!’

As I walked down the ancient path, I heard her repeating, ’I experience, thou experiencest, he experiences. We experience, you experience, they experience. I wonder if they will ever learn to do it quickly enough to do them any good.’