"We'll go with you another time, when we haven't to trail all this crew along!" sighed Beata, as she bade good-bye to her friends. "Children are a nuisance if you want to get on quickly. I'd have left them in the garden if I could! Come and see us again at The Haven, won't you? I wish Claudia and Morland were at home and we'd have some music. Well, I shall see you next week, I suppose. I'm to have my first violin lesson on Monday. I don't know whether I'm glad or not. I expect I shall be terrified of Mr. Barlow. I learnt from a lady before. How I'm going to practise and do all the home lessons Miss Mitchell sets us I can't imagine! I think I shall strike like the 'donk' and refuse to stir unless they give me peppermints!"
CHAPTER V
Miss Mitchell, B.A.
Naturally at present the most prominent person at 'The Moorings' was Miss Mitchell. Hers was a task which required a combination of a number of very high qualities. It needed force of character and tact, initiative and patience, energy and experience. To reorganise an old school is a far more difficult matter than to start an entirely new one, especially when those responsible for the former régime have not absolutely retired. To a certain extent the Misses Pollard had given their teacher a free hand, but she realised that at first it would be wise to go slowly and not make the changes too drastic. She did not yet know what stuff she had to work upon, the characters or capacities of her pupils, or their readiness to adopt her ideas. While leading the school, she wished it to be self-developing, that is to say, she thought it better to give the girls a few general directions, and allow them to run their own societies, than to arrange all such matters for them.
"Never mind if they make a few mistakes," she said to Miss Fanny, who held up her hands in horror at some of the names chosen to serve on committees. "If a secretary proves inefficient, the others will very soon call her a 'slacker,' and she will have to reform or resign. It will be a question of public opinion. A girl may shirk her lessons in school and her classmates don't much care, but if she shirks the work she has undertaken to do for a society they will be very indignant. These clubs are an elementary object-lesson in community life, and will teach that each individual must do something for the general good. The girls must 'feel their feet' before they can run; they'll probably have difficulties but they'll learn by experience, and in the meantime they'll be shaping their own traditions."
"Ye-es; I suppose you're right," dubiously agreed Miss Fanny, whose ideal of management was to trust everything in the hands of a few girls whom she knew best and discourage any signs of individuality on the part of the others.
As regards the work of the various forms Miss Mitchell, helped by her assistant mistress Miss Barnes, made many innovations. She introduced new subjects and fresh modes of teaching, and fixed a very high standard of efficiency. She expected great concentration, and exacted hard work, especially in the matter of home preparation, but she was an exceedingly interesting teacher and put much enthusiasm into her lessons. She had a theory that no subject was really absorbed unless it was vividly realised by the pupils.
"Imagination is half the value of education" was her favourite saying. "A child may reel off a string of facts, but unless it can apply them they are undigested mental food and of no use. What I want to do is to find out how far each girl understands what she has learnt. Mere parrot repetition is quite valueless in my opinion, and most public examinations are little better."
Miss Mitchell's method of testing the knowledge of her pupils was undoubtedly modern. She would teach them certain episodes of history, explaining particularly the characters of the various personages and the motives for their actions, then, instead of a verbal or written catechism on the lesson, she would make the girls act the scene, using their own words, and trying as far as possible to reproduce the atmosphere of the period. Free criticism was allowed afterwards, and any anachronisms, such as tea in the times of Queen Elizabeth, or tobacco during the Wars of the Roses, were carefully pointed out. Most of the girls liked this new method immensely. It encouraged their dramatic instincts, and resembled impromptu theatricals. It was a point of honour to throw themselves thoroughly into the parts, and they would often prepare themselves at home by reading up various points in histories or encyclopaedias. This was exactly what Miss Mitchell aimed at.
"They're educating themselves!" she explained to Miss Fanny. "They'll never forget these facts that they have taken the trouble to find out. Once a girl has realised the outlook of Mary Queen of Scots or Elizabeth, and has learnt to impersonate her without glaring mistakes, she has the keynote to the history of the times. When she has spoken to 'Darnley,' 'Black Both-well,' 'Rizzio,' 'John Knox,' or to 'Bacon,' 'Raleigh,' 'Essex,' and 'Sidney,' she has turned mere names into real personages, and will be no more likely to confuse them than to mix up her friends. By supplying her own dialogue she shows exactly how much she knows of the character, and I am able to judge how far the lesson has been assimilated. Fifteen years hence I venture to think Scottish Mary or Queen Elizabeth will still be vivid remembrances to her; but would she be able to tell the date of the battle of Pinkie? And would it be of very vital importance whether she did or not? In my opinion to grasp the main motives of history and to follow the evolution of the British nation is far more necessary than memorising dates. Of course, a few must be insisted on, or there would be no means of relative comparison, but these few, accurately learnt, are better than a number repeated glibly without any particular conception of their importance."