CHAPTER VI.
PROFESSOR HAMBLIN CHANGES HIS MIND.
Professor Hamblin went on deck, walked up and down, and made himself as miserable as possible. He was the senior instructor of the Josephine, and was the superintendent of her academic department. He had been a schoolmaster or a professor for forty years, and was fully steeped in the dogmatism of the pedagogue. He was disposed to be overbearing and tyrannical, though perhaps his profession, rather than his nature, had implanted this tendency in his character. Certainly the almost absolute sway of the schoolmaster encourages such an unfortunate development of the lower faculties of human nature.
It is necessary that the parent or the teacher should have this absolute sway. Practically, his will is law, and the child has no alternative but to rebel or obey. The limit to his authority is only placed on the line where tyranny ends and actual abuse begins. It is true that public opinion has its influence upon the teacher or parent; but there is room for much petty oppression before the limit of endurance is reached. A man may be an efficient teacher, and produce splendid intellectual results, while he is a tyrant and an oppressor; indeed, his tyranny and oppression may be the very means by which his success is accomplished.
The rights of the pupil are not recognized by such men. The scholar is regarded as a machine, rather than an immortal soul. Though Mr. Hamblin was a very pious man, in his own way, and was very careful in his observance of all the forms of law and tradition, he was a tyrant at heart. He ruled with an iron will, and willingly suffered no one in the school-room to hold an opinion different from his own. He was not popular in the Josephine; he had never been a popular teacher anywhere, though he had been a successful one, so far as intellectual results were concerned. His success seemed to justify him, and certainly it added to the strength of his tyrannical will.
The good schoolmaster recognizes and respects the rights of the scholar. While he is an unflinching disciplinarian, expecting an unquestioning obedience, he does not believe in his own infallibility. He is kind and considerate, and regards his pupil as an embryo man, "endowed with certain inalienable rights," which none may trample upon with impunity. He is both just and merciful, his heart being filled with love to God and love to man.
Such was not Mr. Hamblin. The greatest sin of a student was to have a will of his own. He had not the power or the inclination to harmonize that will with the requirements of duty, and he broke it down, not by coarse abuse, but by making the pupil so uncomfortable that a total submission was better than a reasonable independence. In mild-tempered boys, like Paul Kendall, the task was an easy one, when no principle was at stake.
The professor walked up and down the deck, brooding over his grievances. He could not afford to abandon his situation on the one hand, and it seemed impossible to acknowledge that he was wholly wrong on the other hand. When he had thoroughly cooled off, he was willing to own that it was necessary for the captain to go on deck, and that if he had comprehended the situation he should have given him permission to do so. But he knew nothing about the management of a vessel. How should a professor of Greek and Latin be expected to understand a matter which even the most ignorant could comprehend, and of which even a boy of sixteen had made himself master? Boys could play base-ball, but he did not know how; and it seemed just as much beneath his dignity to be familiar with practical navigation.
He was sorry now that he had not given Captain Kendall permission to go on deck; for it was impossible to refute the arguments of the principal; but at the same time he had not overstepped the duties of his office. He had been informed that all the students, even to the captain, were subject to his will and pleasure during school hours, and therefore he had a perfect right to detain the captain. It was not his fault that a blunder had been made; he had not made it.