Practical Education, Volume I

by Maria Edgeworth; Richard Lovell Edgeworth

H——. A bee.

Father. Yes.

The story says that Solomon, seeing some bees hover about the window, ordered the window to be thrown open, and watched upon which wreath of flowers the bee settled.

August 1st, 1796. S—— (nine years old) when he was reading in Ovid the fable of Perseus and Andromeda, said that he wondered that Perseus fought with the monster; he wondered that Perseus did not turn him into stone at once with his Gorgon shield. We believe that S—— saw that his father was pleased with this observation. A few days afterwards somebody in the family recollected Mr. E——'s having said, that when he was a boy he thought Perseus a simpleton for not making use of the Gorgon's head to turn the monster into stone. We were not sure whether S—— had heard Mr. E—— say this or not; Mr. E—— asked him whether he recollected to have heard any such thing. S—— answered, without hesitation, that he did remember it.

When children have formed habits of speaking truth, and when we see that these habits are grown quite easy to them, we may venture to question them about their thoughts and feelings; this must, however, be done with great caution, but without the appearance of anxiety or suspicion. Children are alarmed if they see that you are very anxious and impatient for their answer; they think that they hazard much by their reply; they hesitate, and look eagerly in your face, to discover by your countenance what they ought to think and feel, and what sort of answer you expect. All who are governed by any species of fear are disposed to equivocation. Amongst the lower class of Irish labourers, and under-tenants, a class of people who are much oppressed, you can scarcely meet with any man who will give you a direct answer to the most indifferent question; their whole ingenuity, and they have a great deal of ingenuity, is upon the qui vive with you the instant you begin to speak; they either pretend not to hear, that they may gain time to think, whilst you repeat your question, or they reply to you with a fresh question, to draw out your remote meaning; for they, judging by their own habits, always think you have a remote meaning, and they never can believe that your words have no intention to ensnare. Simplicity puzzles them much more than wit: for instance, if you were to ask the most direct and harmless question, as, "Did it rain yesterday?" the first answer would probably be, "Is it yesterday you mean?" "Yes." "Yesterday! No, please your honour, I was not at the bog at all yesterday. Wasn't I after setting my potatoes? Sure I did not know your honour wanted me at all yesterday. Upon my conscience, there's not a man in the country, let alone all Ireland, I'd sooner serve than your honour any day in the year, and they have belied me that went behind my back to tell your honour the contrary. If your honour sent after me, sure I never got the word, I'll take my affidavit, or I'd been at the bog." "My good friend, I don't know what you mean about the bog; I only ask you whether it rained yesterday." "Please your honour, I couldn't get a car and horse any way, to draw home my little straw, or I'd have had the house thatched long ago." "Cannot you give me a plain answer to this plain question? Did it rain yesterday?" "Oh sure, I wouldn't go to tell your honour a lie about the matter. Sarrah much it rained yesterday after twelve o'clock, barring a few showers; but in the night there was a great fall of rain any how; and that was the reason prevented my going to Dublin yesterday, for fear the mistress's band-box should get wet upon my cars. But, please your honour, if your honour's displeased about it, I'll not be waiting for a loading; I'll take my car and go to Dublin to-morrow for the slates, if that be what your honour means. Oh, sure I would not tell a lie for the entire price of the slates; I know very well it didn't rain to call rain yesterday. But after twelve o'clock, I don't say I noticed one way or other."

In this perverse and ludicrous method of beating about the bush, the man would persist till he had fairly exhausted your patience; and all this he would do, partly from cunning, and partly from that apprehension of injustice which he has been taught to feel by hard experience. The effects of the example of their parents is early and most strikingly visible in the children of this class of people in Ireland. The children, who are remarkably quick and intelligent, are universally addicted to lying. We do not here scruple or hesitate in the choice of our terms, because we are convinced that this unqualified assertion would not shock the feelings of the parties concerned. These poor children are not brought up to think falsehood a disgrace; they are praised for the ingenuity with which they escape from the cross examination of their superiors; and their capacities are admired in proportion to the acuteness, or, as their parents pronounce it, 'cuteness, of their equivocating replies. Sometimes (the garçon[53]) the little boy of the family is despatched by his mother to the landlord's neighbouring bog or turf rick, to bring home, in their phraseology, in ours to steal, a few turf; if, upon this expedition, the little Spartan be detected, he is tolerably certain of being whipped by his mother, or some of his friends, upon his return home. "Ah, ye little brat! and what made ye tell the gentleman when he met ye, ye rogue, that ye were going to the rick? And what business had ye to go and belie me to his honour, ye unnatural piece of goods! I'll teach ye to make mischief through the country! So I will. Have ye got no better sense and manners at this time o'day, than to behave, when one trusts ye abroad, so like an innocent?" An innocent in Ireland, as formerly in England, (witness the Rape of the Lock) is synonymous with a fool. "And fools and innocents shall still believe."

The associations of pleasure, of pride and gayety, are so strong in the minds of these well educated children, that they sometimes expect the very people who suffer by their dishonesty, should sympathise in the self-complacency they feel from roguery. A gentleman riding near his own house in Ireland, saw a cow's head and fore feet appear at the top of a ditch, through a gap in the hedge by the road's side, at the same time he heard a voice alternately threatening and encouraging the cow; the gentleman rode up closer to the scene of action, and he saw a boy's head appear behind the cow. "My good boy," said he, "that's a fine cow." "Oh, faith, that she is," replied the boy, "and I'm teaching her to get her own living, please your honour." The gentleman did not precisely understand the meaning of the expression, and had he directly asked for an explanation, would probably have died in ignorance; but the boy, proud of his cow, encouraged an exhibition of her talents: she was made to jump across the ditch several times, and this adroitness in breaking through fences, was termed "getting her own living." As soon as the cow's education is finished, she may be sent loose into the world to provide for herself; turned to graze in the poorest pasture, she will be able and willing to live upon the fat of the land.

It is curious to observe how regularly the same moral causes produce the same temper and character. We talk of climate, and frequently attribute to climate the different dispositions of different nations: the climate of Ireland, and that of the West Indies, are not precisely similar, yet the following description, which Mr. Edwards, in his history of the West Indies, gives of the propensity to falsehood amongst the negro slaves, might stand word for word for a character of that class of the Irish people who, until very lately, actually, not metaphorically, called themselves slaves.

"If a negro is asked even an indifferent question by his master, he seldom gives an immediate reply; but affecting not to understand what is said, compels a repetition of the question, that he may have time to consider, not what is the true answer, but what is the most politic one for him to give."

Mr. Edwards assures us, that many of these unfortunate negroes learn cowardice and falsehood after they become slaves. When they first come from Africa, many of them show "a frank and fearless temper;"[54] but all distinction of character amongst the native Africans, is soon lost under the levelling influence of slavery. Oppression and terror necessarily produce meanness and deceit in all climates, and in all ages; and wherever fear is the governing motive in education, we must expect to find in children a propensity to dissimulation, if not confirmed habits of falsehood. Look at the true born Briton under the government of a tyrannical pedagogue, and listen to the language of in-born truth; in the whining tone, in the pitiful evasions, in the stubborn falsehoods which you hear from the school-boy, can you discover any of that innate dignity of soul which is the boasted national characteristic? Look again; look at the same boy in the company of those who inspire no terror; in the company of his school-fellows, of his friends, of his parents; would you know him to be the same being? his countenance is open; his attitude erect; his voice firm; his language free and fluent; his thoughts are upon his lips; he speaks truth without effort, without fear. Where individuals are oppressed, or where they believe that they are oppressed, they combine against their oppressors, and oppose cunning and falsehood to power and force; they think themselves released from the compact of truth with their masters, and bind themselves in a strict league with each other; thus school-boys hold no faith with their schoolmaster, though they would think it shameful to be dishonourable amongst one another. We do not think that these maxims are the peculiar growth of schools; in private families the same feelings are to be found under the same species of culture: if preceptors or parents are unjust or tyrannical, their pupils will contrive to conceal from them their actions and their thoughts. On the contrary, in families where sincerity has been encouraged by the voice of praise and affection, a generous freedom of conversation and countenance appears, and the young people talk to each other, and to their parents, without distinction or reserve; without any distinction but such as superior esteem and respect dictate. These are feelings totally distinct from servile fear: these feelings inspire the love of truth, the ambition to acquire and to preserve character.