It was reserved for Miss Twinkleton to tone down the public mind of the Nuns’ House. That lady, therefore, entering in a stately manner what plebeians might have called the schoolroom, but what, in the patrician language of the head of the Nuns’ House, was euphuistically, not to say roundaboutedly, denominated “the apartment allotted to study,” and saying with a forensic air, “Ladies!” all rose. Mrs. Tisher at the same time grouped herself behind her chief, as representing Queen Elizabeth’s first historical female friend at Tilbury Fort. Miss Twinkleton then proceeded to remark that Rumour, ladies, had been represented by the Bard of Avon—needless were it to mention the immortal Shakespeare, also called the Swan of his native river, not improbably with some reference to the ancient superstition that that bird of graceful plumage (Miss Jennings will please stand upright) sung sweetly on the approach of death, for which we have no ornithological authority—Rumour, ladies, had been represented by that bard—hem!—
“Who drew
The celebrated Jew,”
as painted full of tongues. Rumour in Cloisterham (Miss Ferdinand will honour me with her attention) was no exception to the great limner’s portrait of Rumour elsewhere. A slight fracas between two young gentlemen occurring last night within a hundred miles of these peaceful walls (Miss Ferdinand, being apparently incorrigible, will have the kindness to write out this evening, in the original language, the first four fables of our vivacious neighbour, Monsieur La Fontaine) had been very grossly exaggerated by Rumour’s voice. In the first alarm and anxiety arising from our sympathy with a sweet young friend, not wholly to be dissociated from one of the gladiators in the bloodless arena in question (the impropriety of Miss Reynolds’s appearing to stab herself in the hand with a pin is far too obvious, and too glaringly unladylike to be pointed out), we descended from our maiden elevation to discuss this uncongenial and this unfit theme. Responsible inquiries having assured us that it was but one of those “airy nothings” pointed at by the poet (whose name and date of birth Miss Giggles will supply within half an hour), we would now discard the subject, and concentrate our minds upon the grateful labours of the day.
The unnatural formalism of her manner and her language are properly held up to ridicule by Dickens.
He incidentally shows the great blunder of interrupting a lesson to censure a pupil, the weakness of having to demand attention, and the error of punishing by impositions to be memorized or written. What a terrible misuse it is of the literature that should always be attractive and inspiring to have it associated with punishment! He exposes the greater crime of making children commit to memory selections from the Bible as a punishment in Dombey and Son, and the association of the Bible with tasks in Our Mutual Friend.
The Schoolboy’s Story deals with the problems of nutrition, coercion, robbing a boy of his holidays, the declaration of perpetual warfare between pupils and teachers in the olden days, and the surprise of the boys when they found that one of their teachers had a true and tender heart (what a commentary on teachers that boys should be surprised at their being true and good!), and how to treat children as Old Cheeseman did, when he inherited his fortune and married Jane, and took the disconsolate boys home to his own house, when they were condemned to spend their holidays at school.
In Our School the chief pedagogical lessons are: the man’s remembrance of the pug dog in the entry at the first school he attended, and his utter forgetfulness of the mistress of the establishment; the folly of external polishing or memory polishing on which “the rust has long since accumulated”; the gross wrong of allowing an ignorant and brutal man to be a teacher—“The only branches of education with which the master showed the least acquaintance were ruling and corporally punishing”; the deadening injustice of showing partiality, whether on account of a boy’s parentage or for any other reason; sympathy for “holiday stoppers”; the interest all children should take in keeping and training pet animals; the advantages to boys of having to construct “houses and instruments of performance” for these pets—“some of those who made houses and invented appliances for their performing mice in school have since made railroads, engines, and telegraphs, the chairman has erected mills and bridges in Australia”; the fact that “we all liked Maxby the tutor, for he had a good knowledge of boys”; and that teachers should be very particular about their personal neatness, because children note so accurately every detail of dress and manner. This is shown by the reminiscences about Maxby, the Latin master, and the dancing master. The ungenerous rivalry often existing between schools, and schools of thought, too, was pointed out: “There was another school not far off, and of course our school could have nothing to say to that school. It is mostly the way with schools, whether of boys or men.”
“The world had little reason to be proud of Our School, and has done much better since in that way, and will do far better yet.” This closing sentence of the sketch is very suggestive.
Dickens described one school that he visited in America in his American Notes, evidently in order to show the need of more care than was then taken in the choice of matter for the pupils to read.
I was only present in one of these establishments during the hours of instruction. In the boys’ department, which was full of little urchins (varying in their ages, I should say, from six years old to ten or twelve), the master offered to institute an extemporary examination of the pupils in algebra, a proposal which, as I was by no means confident of my ability to detect mistakes in that science, I declined with some alarm. In the girls’ school reading was proposed, and as I felt tolerably equal to that art I expressed my willingness to hear a class. Books were distributed accordingly, and some half dozen girls relieved each other in reading paragraphs from English history. But it seemed to be a dry compilation, infinitely above their powers; and when they had blundered through three or four dreary passages concerning the treaty of Amiens, and other thrilling topics of the same nature (obviously without comprehending ten words), I expressed myself quite satisfied. It is very possible that they only mounted to this exalted stave in the ladder of learning for the astonishment of a visitor, and that at other times they keep upon its lower rounds; but I should have been much better pleased and satisfied if I had heard them exercised in simpler lessons, which they understood.