“Granted, if you go down hill. But out of thine own mouth art thou convicted, most learned Master! What hast thou talked all this night but progress? But one thing more: tell us, do you find these Admirable Crichtons of yours the least in the world priggish? Or are they namby-pamby youths, who do as they’re bid, and haven’t much taste for unlawful adventure?”
“Taste for adventure! Why, little fellows of nine come, able to swim, row, ride, do everything man or boy needs do, and how are fellows of that sort to be kept out of adventures? But they do as they’re bid, I grant you, and the way they do it shows fifty times the spirit of the fellows who shirked. Mind, I’m speaking of the boys who have been brought up at home, not of those who have ‘growed.’ But don’t run away with the notion that the best of them are perfect. We must be at it all the time, or the ground gained is gone from under our feet.”
“Look, look! do look at Brenton: something will happen if he doesn’t get an innings.”
“Gentlemen, you must, you really must, hear me on this matter! You must let me show Dr. Oldcastle the ‘reason why’ of what he observes.”
“Hear, hear! Let’s have it, Doctor. Don’t spare a word.”
“Well, to begin at the beginning (no! not with Adam, nor even with the Dark Ages); some five-and-twenty or so, years before Clough’s EVENT, men of science began to grope for a clue to the understanding of this queer riddle of human nature. That action (including speech) depends on thought, and that action—repeated action—forms character, had long ago been got at by inductive processes. Now, these meddling scientific fellows were not content with, It is, because it is! they must needs come poking round with their everlasting—‘Why?’ This particular ‘Why’ proved a most hard nut to crack; indeed, it is only within living memory that their guesses at truth have become entirely demonstrable; but, as early as I said, they had thus much ground under their feet—analogy and probability were altogether on their side, and it was impossible to prove, or even to show a fair case for, the contrary view. These scientists perceived that they were undermining the methods, the aims, the very idea of education as popularly held. They indicated new lines, suggested new principles. But their discoveries were to be like that corn of wheat—first they must fall into the ground and die. Years passed before educationalists woke up to what had been done. At last it dawned upon them that it was now possible to formulate a science of education; to propose laws which should work out definite ends with mathematical certainty. The days of casual bringing-up were numbered. A basis, and that a physical basis, was found. The principle which underlies the possibility of all education was discovered to them as it is to us to-day. They were taught that the human frame, brain as well as muscle, grows to the uses it is earliest put to. In a hundred years, we have advanced no further in principle, but we have applied the principle in many directions. It is, indeed, hardly possible to get beyond the ground covered by this so simple sounding axiom: that is, it is hardly within our power to overstate the possibilities of education. Anything may be made of a child by those who first get him into their hands. No doubt, propagandism becomes the immediate duty of any who have perceived a saving principle for the race. And efforts were made in many directions to bring before parents of all classes the notion that the formation of habits is among the chief aims of education. Our host’s EVENT is one of these efforts, and the Parents’ Club spread like wildfire; every one was ready for it, because people were beginning to feel the wretched uncertainty of the casual method. How is it, they asked, that, bring up two boys in the same way, and one turns out a villain, the other, a credit to his family? Now, the ‘New Education’ deals entirely with individuals; not with children, but with the child; the faulty habit is supplanted, observe the word, the desirable habit produced, within a definite period, say a month or so, and then the parents’ easy work is to keep the child upon the lines of habit thus produced.”
“Now, stop a minute, Doctor, stop a minute! I’m afraid I’m about to lose my easily won laurels. You, who are a classical scholar, must know how familiar to the mind both of Roman and Greek was this doctrine of habit. Again, a poet of our own, an eighteenth-century man—wasn’t he Dryden?—expresses capitally the time-out-of-mind English feeling on this subject—
“‘Children, like tender osiers, take the bow,
And, as they first are fashion’d, always grow;
For what we learn in youth, to that alone