From "Little Masterpieces of Fiction," Vol. VII (Doubleday, Page & Co).
II. The Pedagogical Narrative
Some famous pedagogical books
The pedagogical narrative can hardly be called "story," not only because of the intent of the writer to instruct, but also because of the specialness of the subject-matter itself. "Leonard and Gertrude," however, has continued to be read as story in an interpreted form for many years. "Interpreted" connotes what the modern versions of "Leonard and Gertrude" really are, redactions. When the cumbersome and somewhat eccentric sentences of the original were made over, the plot was found to be of a good deal of interest, the character-sketching peculiarly fine, and the lessons taught high and noble and practical as well. Pestalozzi himself had gradually learned how to teach children, and he not only told, but showed others. For that is what a pedagogical story is—a working theory of instruction set up in scenes and actions: it is exposition made narrative. Do you want to know how to teach Jimmy and Margaret? This good old Swiss pedagogue will show you how Gertrude taught her children, mother and school mistress, priest and village reformer as she was. If you had lived in Queen Elizabeth's day and wanted to know how and what to teach your boy or girl, you could have asked the gentle Roger, the queen's own schoolmaster. You can ask him now how he taught; for he put his thoughts down in a volume which bears the name of his professional office—quaintly spelled "Scholemaster"—and shows you his methods of work in forming the mind of the perfect gentleman. This sober pedagogical treatise, which is not narrative, not story, was published only after Ascham's death; but many years before, when he was a very young man and much gayer but hardly less wise, he set forth in "Toxophilus," the archer, a picture of how amusement and learning can be combined. The exposition proceeds in the form of a dialogue (the old fashioned literary type called débat) between a lover of books and a lover of exercise. "Toxophilus" is not exactly story either, but it approaches story, and is important to our type because of the intense and far-reaching influence it has had on modern pedagogy in inspiring a looking-out for the development of the body as well as the mind, and in emphasizing the giving of instruction in an interesting form.
From Ascham's "Schoolmaster" John Lyly got the suggestion for his two famous romances of Euphues, the "well-formed" one. A young man should be euphues in all things, said Ascham, and Lyly undertook to show a Briton thus as he moved about in society, at home, abroad, in friendship and love. So popular did Euphues become that all the ladies and gentlemen of Elizabeth's court modelled their speech on his.
Charming old Sir Isaac Walton joined the pedagogues and gave us a set of delightful walks and talks on angling. He teaches one to be a "complete" angler—an artist at his pastime.
A sort of hand-book of etiquette for the golden youths of the Renaissance was Castiglione's "Courtier," "a sketch of a cultivated nobleman in those most cultivated days." The author shows by what precepts and practice a fine gentleman is made. So well did he write that his own name ever since has been a synonym for nobility and manliness. He gives us a picture of the purest and most elevated court in Italy, that of Guidobaldo da Montefeltra, duke of Urbino. A discussion is held in the duchess's drawing-room to settle the question, what constitutes a perfect courtier. The type selected differs in no material way from the ideal gentleman of the present day.
All of these books are the work of persons who set out seriously to teach—except perhaps the gentle Isaac, who probably wrote what he wrote for sheer pleasure and taught by the way. And they all include what the modern pedagogical narrative includes—disguised exposition. For the most part the modern species is short. A publisher now-a-days, I suppose, could hardly be induced to present an educational system thinly disguised in a long romance. Consequently most of such stories come out in our educational periodicals as better or poorer literature, better or poorer teaching.
Rousseau's "The New Héloise" and "Emile" might be mentioned here were they not more nearly harangues than stories. Their effect in renovating France domestically, though, will forever connect them with the word pedagogy. They are surely a pedagogue's "fiction," since their author took no care of his real children.