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.”
§ 2
Joan was rehearsing a special dance in costume and Peter was word-perfect as the White Knight long before Oswald had found even a hopeful school for either of them. He clung for some time to the delusion that there must exist somewhere a school that would exactly meet Peter’s natural and reasonable demand for an establishment where one would learn about “guns and animals, mountains, machines and foreign people,” that would give lessons about “the insides of animals” and “how engines work” and “all that sort of thing.” The man wanted a school kept by Leonardo da Vinci. When he found a curriculum singularly bare of these vital matters, he began to ask questions.
His questions presently developed into a very tiresome and trying Catechism for Schoolmasters. He did not allow for the fact that most private schoolmasters in England were rather overworked and rather under-exercised men with considerable financial worries. Indeed, he made allowances for no one. He wanted to get on with the education of Joan and Peter—and more particularly of Peter.
His Catechism varied considerably in detail, but always it ran upon the lines of the following questions.