§ 1
So it was that a systematic intention took hold of the lives of Joan and Peter. They had been snatched apart adventurously and disastrously out of the hands of an aimless and impulsive modernism and dragged off into dusty and decaying corners of the Anglican system. Now they were to be rescued by this Empire worshipper, this disfigured and suffering educational fanatic, and taught——?
What was there in Oswald’s mind? His intentions were still sentimental and cloudy, but they were beginning to assume a firm and definite form. Just as the Uganda children were being made into civilized men and women according to the lights and means of the Protectorate government, so these two children had to be made fit rulers and servants of the greatest empire in the world. They had to know all that a ruling race should know, they had to think and act as befitted a leading people. All this seemed to him the simple and obvious necessity of the case. But he was a sick man, fatigued much more readily than most men, given to moods of bitter irritability; he had little knowledge of how he might set about this task, he did not know what help was available and what was impossible. He made enquiries and some were very absurd enquiries; he sought advice and talked to all sorts of people; and meanwhile Joan and Peter spent a very sunny and pleasant November running wild about Limpsfield—until one day Oswald noted as much and packed them off for the rest of the term to Miss Murgatroyd again. The School of St. George and the Venerable Bede was concentrating upon a Christmas production of Alice in Wonderland. There could not be very much bad teaching anyhow, and there would be plenty of fun.
How is one to learn where one’s children may be educated?
This story has its comic aspects: Oswald went first to the Education Department!
He thought that if one had two rather clever and hopeful children upon whom one was prepared to lavish time and money, an Imperial Education Department would be able to tell an anxious guardian what schools existed for them and the respective claims and merits and inter-relationships of such schools. But he found that the government which published a six-inch map of the British Isles on which even the meanest outhouse is marked, had no information for the enquiring parent or guardian at all in this matter of schools. An educational map had still to become a part of the equipment of the civilized state. As it was inconceivable that party capital could be made out of the production of such a map, it was likely to remain a desideratum in Great Britain for many years to come.
In an interview that remained dignified on one side at least until the last, Oswald was referred to the advertisement columns of The Times and the religious and educational papers, and to—“a class of educational agents,” said the official with extreme detachment. “Usually, of course, people hear of schools.”
So it was that England still referred back to the happy days of the eighteenth century when our world was small enough for everybody to know and trust and consult everybody, and tell in a safe and confidential manner everything that mattered.
“Oh, my God!” groaned Oswald suddenly, giving way to his internal enemies. “My God! Here are two children, brilliant children—with plenty of money to be spent on them! Doesn’t the Empire care a twopenny damn what becomes of them?”
“There is an Association of Private Schoolmasters, I believe,” said the official, staring at him; “but I don’t know if it’s any good.”