The youthful scholar, in his quest for knowledge and truth and the freedom that is truth’s guerdon, has not, as a rule, to face this literal isolation in drudgery and painfulness. For him the social instinct and the companionship of fellow-victims, not to say the healthy stimulus of friendly rivalry and competition, are present to lighten his burden and sweeten his lot. Yet each, after all, has to tackle the drudgery and the difficulties for himself. There is no Royal Road. The Master may spur him on with the vision of the “gladsome mountain which is the origin and source of all joy.”
Dilettoso monte
Ch’ è principio e cagion di tutta gioia;
may encourage him to face the flames by the thought of the welcoming smile of Beatrice on the other side: “as you tempt a child with an apple!” “Mark you, my son, this barrier separates thee from Beatrice.”
Or vedi, figlio:
Tra Beatrice e te è questo muro;[238]
but, none the less, the grim journey has to be undertaken, the distasteful plunge to be made. It is largely the Teacher’s attitude and example that make this effort possible; that evoke the manly spirit in the pupil, and encourage him to persevere in face of difficulties.
All this is recognised by the best modern theory and practice. “The New Teaching,” says Professor Adams,[239] “does not seek to free the pupils from effort”—we have seen that this is really the case, even in its extremest form of Montessorianism, with its individualistic charter of Child-liberty—“not ... to free the pupils from effort, but to encourage them to strenuous work”; it “does not seek to get rid of drudgery, but to make it tolerable by giving it a meaning, and shewing its relation to the whole learning process in school, and to the whole process of living in the world.” This is exactly Virgil’s attitude towards Dante. He is, first of all, alert to cheer and encourage him in moments of special difficulty. He encourages Dante both by example and by precept to mount the grisly back of the monster Geryon, their sole means of descent into the Abyss[240]; and later, when the flame has to be faced before entering the Earthly Paradise,[241] he reminds him of the success of that past experiment of faith, much in the manner of the noble self-encouragement of that Homeric hero, who, known to Dante only at second-hand, yet captured his imagination. “Be of good cheer, my heart, we have suffered worse things ere this.”
τέτλαθι δὴ κραδίη, καὶ κύντερον ἄλλος ποτ’ ἔτλης.[242]