“You’ll have Keyser turning school-mistress, yet,” she suggested. But her smile showed that she had no such fear.
“And why not!” Blynn seized the idea. “Oh, I don’t mean the regular kind; normal training, public school and all that sort of thing. That’s fine, too; but it’s overcrowded with women, and the whole business is set like a plaster cast. I almost despair of seeing any development there; routine and habit have fastened themselves upon the institution. I have dreams of another kind of teacher, something like Pestalozzi, gathering his little ones about him and teaching them without ever their being aware.”
He told them about Pestalozzi. When the scourge of war swept over Switzerland in 1798 neither men nor women were spared. It was a massacre. Pestalozzi’s heart went out to the children. In a ruined convent on the shores of Lake Lucerne, he gathered the deserted little ones about him and shared their sufferings. They had neither home nor parents, and they were hungry. “I cannot fight,” he said; “I cannot raise my hand against my brother; but the children of my brother, the fatherless children, these I can serve, their piteous little bodies I can save, and their starving desolate souls.” Blynn darted into the library and brought out a book and read them Pestalozzi’s own story. “‘My hand lay in their hand, my eye was their eye, my tears flowed with their tears, and my laughter mingled with their laughter. They were out of the raging world; they were with me, and I was with them. Their meat was mine, their drink was mine. I had nothing, no friends, no servants; I had them alone. When they were well I stood in their midst; when they were ill I was at their side. I was the last who went to bed at night, the first who rose in the morning. Even in bed I prayed and talked with them until they were asleep,—they wished it to be so.’”
Blynn closed the book reverently. “They say he was an unhandsome man, but that he had a wonderful transforming smile. He saw into the heart of children. I should be happy if I were that sort.
“My dream is to have just such a school,” Blynn continued. “I have even gone as far as to pick out the site—off in Cresheim Valley. We should have to select our teachers with the utmost care. They must be gifted to communicate freely with children. Communication is everything. I don’t care much about what they know, although we must have skill there, too, especially in art work and languages; but the main thing in teaching is not knowledge, but wisdom.”
Mrs. Levering voiced the discontent of parents with schools as they are and expressed the belief that there would be no difficulty in securing paying pupils.
“It would be a great joy to spend one’s life at that task,” he mused.
“Why don’t you?” Kate inquired quietly.
Well, he was a professor of English; that was the first reason. His studies had all been to prepare him for scholarship. One could not go against one’s life preparation. The main reason seemed to be the matter of expense. Elisha might begin such an undertaking, but not without the ravens. It costs money even to do good. To open such a school and keep it going would require a never-ending store of health and good cheer. The vitality of the staff would be absolutely essential to its life. Worry over money or, worse, the necessity of putting good energy into outside work—that would wear down the most courageous spirit and would mean slow failure.
But his mind was on the theme. He sketched the ideal environment for children as he saw it clear before him. There should be much out-of-doors, and glorious muscle-stretching play; health should come first, and then the searching discovery of individual aptitude. The world’s store of necessary information would be transferred as naturally and as imperceptibly as growth. The children would never once object; the enormous turbines of curiosity would actually drive them along; give a child half a chance and he will question himself into intelligence.