Mr. Estlin Carpenter wrote lately to me to say that he does not know of any evidence to prove that Newman and Martineau were "acquainted, or at least intimate," before the former became tutor of Manchester College. He says their correspondence ended in 1892, and he imagines that Newman's "declining health during the last two or three years made further writing impossible," but that their warm regard for each other, up to the very end, was unalterable.
CHAPTER VI
FRANCIS NEWMAN AS A TEACHER
Francis Newman was certainly one of the greatest mathematical and classical scholars of his day. So that when the authorities of University College secured him for their staff, they knew that they could have obtained no better man for their purpose.
As a teacher he showed an infinite fertility of method in dealing with the young men who, there for the purpose of learning, yet did not always want to learn! He had, in especial, that rather vague and narrow definition of genius—"an infinite capacity for taking pains." He "took" them always with any scholar who had failed to grasp his meaning in some one of his instructions. He could put the whole matter in some absolutely new light—take it from an utterly different point of view; so that, while giving another chance to the slow-witted, he did not keep his whole class waiting. The quality of teaching is not strained. It is doubtful if it is capable of being learnt, if not in the first instance, in some measure, innate. Lying dormant in a man's being—even if, perhaps, its presence is unrecognized by its owner—it can certainly be developed by him when he is conscious of it. But if the power in embryo be absent, it is a difficult matter indeed to attain by effort any capacity of which one has not already the beginnings in oneself. Indeed, a famous writer of another age has written the word "impossible" against this attempt.
Frank Newman could, and would, take any trouble to help any dull student over some mathematical or classical stile, but he was not an adept at quickly getting into touch with that Presence which has moved, in whimsical measure, through the ways and by-ways of this life since the world began with coat of many colours, upon which the sun of merry imagination was always sparkling, and cap and bells which could for the moment ring sudden, spontaneous mirth across the shadows of the darkest day. If in medieval days it could cross the cell of some grave and reverend monastery, and guide the hand of some sculptor busy at his gargoyle for some majestic church, surely it could, with the greatest ease in the world, cross the threshold of some crowded class-room where a learned, absorbed professor was endeavouring to gain the attention of a number of young men rejoicing in their youth and on the look-out for the first suggestion of the Spirit of Humour. Frank Newman was not quick at appreciating the quips and cranks, the—to others—irresistibly mirth- provoking sallies of humour. He was not quick at seeing a joke. And when middle age was well past with him, he did not always see when he had himself been provocative of an upset of gravity on the part of the students. He did not always discover in time the pranks and designs for diverting the course of true knowledge in which the average young Englishman loves to indulge. He had not a very close focus for this sort of thing, and probably the reason was, that he was so absolutely absorbed in the subject which he was teaching or upon which he was lecturing. But in teaching a mixed class of boys or young men it is a sine quâ non that one possesses a "mind's eye" with easily adjustable focus, as in a photographic camera; otherwise one cannot keep in mental touch with those members of the class who "come to" play "and remain to" distract the attention of fellow-students. Another reason why Newman did not appeal to these non-studious ones was attributable to the fact that he was, in many ways, very eccentric both in manner and dress. Now, everyone who knows the average English boy at all, knows that if there is one thing he cannot stand it is eccentricity. To be eccentric is to be taboo. As regards the "correct" thing to wear, and the "correct" thing to do and how to do it, he is generally quite as particular as the average young woman over fashion. And anyone who offends in these respects has his name written upon the ostracisic shell. If it happens to be a master—well, his peculiarities are quite enough to divert the boy's attention successfully from the weightier matters in which the master is vainly endeavouring to instruct him.
Sir Alfred Wills, Mr. Winterbotham, Sir Edward Fry, Mr. William de Morgan, and others, to whose kindness I am indebted for many reminiscences of Professor Newman as a teacher, tell me that he had many eccentricities which perpetually aroused their sense of humour. Sir Edward Fry tells me that his manner, when he himself was at college in 1848, was "somewhat nervous, perhaps even a little irritable, and he was not exactly popular as a professor. But his lectures were very interesting and stimulating." He adds that he was "a very brilliant scholar, with a tendency towards eccentricity."
This eccentricity showed itself in various forms, but one very noticeable one was that of dress. I am told by a friend that he often dressed in the onion fashion—three coats one over the other, and the last one—green! That he often wore trousers edged with a few inches of leather, and that his hats were not immaculate. Well, perhaps it has never been quite understood from what part of old and unfashionable attire the Spirit of Humour winks at one with such twinkling fun in the corner of its eye that laughter is irresistible. But none the less, few there are of us who have not—though it may be against our steadier and wiser judgment—at some time or other caught sight of that wink, and laughed spontaneously. To everyone who saw it, when the relics were collected and placed in his old house in Cheyne Row, Carlyle's old 'top' hat was irresistibly funny. Nothing loses caste more completely than a top hat when it is behind the time, and the shine is off the silk.
Sir Alfred Wills mentions, in the reminiscences which follow, which he has kindly sent me, that at one time Newman "took to walking from his house" (in town) "to the college and back in cap and gown." This, however, was not such a startling vagary of costume in a London street as was that of a certain professor of my acquaintance, very absent-minded and dreamy, who, intent on making some abstruse point clear to a young lady pupil, walked one evening round and round a London square with her, talking earnestly, and attired in his top hat and dressing-gown!
As regards Newman's teaching of Latin, Sir Alfred Wills says that "much the best thing that" he "got from" him "was the practice in writing" it. He tells us that his lectures showed signs of the most profound research, and that he took untiring trouble in explaining any difficulty which had arisen. If the difficulty had been that of some member of one of his classes, he would not keep the whole class waiting while he went over the difficult part of the lesson again, but he would approach the subject from an altogether different point of view, and throw, for the class in toto, a new light upon it.