Joan glanced at Peter, and then sank noiselessly into a crouching attitude close to Oswald’s knee. He paused to stroke her hair.
“I’ve been trying to get you all that I could get you.... Education.... I’ve had to blunder and experiment. I ought to tell you what I’ve aimed at and what I’ve done, take stock with you of the world I’ve educated you for and the part you’re going to play in it. Take stock.... It’s been a badly planned undertaking, I know. But then it’s such a surprising and unexpected world. All the time I’ve been learning, and most things I’ve learnt more or less too late to use the knowledge properly....”
He paused.
Peter looked at his guardian and said nothing. Oswald patted the head at his knee in return for a caress. It was an evasive, even apologetic pat, for he did not want to be distracted by affection just then.
“This war has altered the whole world,” he went on. “Life has become stark and intense, and when I took this on—when I took up the task of educating you—our world here seemed the most wrapped up and comfortable and secure world you can possibly imagine. Comfortable to the pitch of stuffiness. Most English people didn’t trouble a bit about the shape of human life; they thought it was—well, rather like a heap of down cushions. For them it was. For most of Europe and America.... They thought it was all right and perfectly safe—if only you didn’t bother. And education had lost its way. Yes. That puts the case. Education had lost its way.”
Oswald paused again. He fixed his one eye firmly on a glowing cavity in the fire, as though that contained the very gist of his thoughts.
“What is education up to?” he asked. “What is education?”...
Thereupon of course he ought to have gone on to the passage beginning, “Consider this beast we are, this thing man!” as he had already rehearsed it overnight. But Peter had not learnt his part properly.
“I suppose it’s fitting the square natural man into the round hole of civilized life,” Peter threw out.
This reply greatly disconcerted Oswald. “Exactly,” he said, and was for some moments at a loss.