My dear Hermione,—Your letter was something like a knock-down blow. I am sorry you have abandoned your old friends, and I felt that you intended to rebuke me for trifling. A great deal of what you say I am sure is true, but I cannot write about it. Whether Greek and Latin ought to be generally taught I am unable to decide. I am glad I learned them. My apology for my little Musæ must be that it is too late to attempt to alter the habits in which I was brought up. Remember, my dear child, that I am an old bachelor with seventy years behind me last Christmas, and remember also my natural limits. I am not so old, nevertheless, that I cannot wish you God-speed in all your undertakings.
Your affectionate godfather,
G. L.
My dear Godfather,—What a blunderer I am! What deplorable want of tact! If I wanted your opinion on classical education or my scheme I surely might have found a better opportunity for requesting it. It is always the way with me. I get a thing into my head, and out it comes at the most unseasonable moment. It is almost as important that what is said should be relevant as that it should be true. Well, the mistake is made, and I cannot unmake it. I will not trouble you with another syllable—directly at any rate—about Latin and Greek, but I do want to know what you think about the exclusion of theology and metaphysics from the education of the young. I must have debate, so that before publication my ideas may become clear and objections may be anticipated. I cannot discuss the matter with my father. You were at college with him, and you will remember his love for Aristotle, who, as I think, has enslaved him. If I may say so without offence, you are not a philosopher. You are more likely, therefore, to give a sound, unprofessional opinion. You have never had much to do with children, but this does not matter; in fact, it is rather an advantage, for actual children would have distorted your judgment. What has theology done? It is only half-believed, and its rewards and punishments are too remote to be of practical service. They are not seen when they are most required. As to metaphysics, its propositions are too loose. They may with equal ease be affirmed or denied. Conduct cannot be controlled by what is shadowy and uncertain. We have been brought up on theology and metaphysics for centuries, and we are still at daggers drawn upon matters of life and death. We are as warlike as ever, and not a single social problem has been settled by bishops or professors. I wish to try a more direct and, as I believe, a more efficient method. I wish to see what the effect will be of teaching children from their infancy the lesson that morality and the enjoyment of life are identical; that if, for example, they lie, they lose. I should urge this on them perpetually, until at last, by association, lying would become impossible. Restraint which is exercised in accordance with rational principles, inasmuch as it proceeds from Nature, must be more efficacious than an external prohibition. So with other virtues. I should deduce most of them in the same way. If I could not, I should let them go, assured that we could do without them. Now, my dear godfather, do open out to me, and don’t put me off.
Your affectionate godchild,
Hermione.
My dear Hermione,—You terrify me. These matters are really not in my way. I have never been able to tackle big questions. Unhappily for me, all questions nowadays are big. I do not see many people, as you know, and potter about in my garden from morning to night, but Mrs. Lindsay occasionally brings down her friends from London, and the subjects of conversation are so immense that I am bewildered. I admit that some people are too rich and others are too poor, and that if I could give you a vote you should have one, and that boys and girls might be better taught, but upon Socialism, Enfranchisement of Women, and Educational Reform, I have not a word to say. Is not this very unsatisfactory? Nobody is more willing to admit it than I am. It is so disappointing in talking to myself or to others to stop short of generalisation and to be obliged to confess that sometimes it is and sometimes it is not. I bless my stars that I am not a politician or a newspaper writer. When I was young these great matters, at least in our village, were not such common property as they are now. A man, even if he was a scholar, thought he had done his duty by living an honest and peaceable life. He was justified if he was kind to his neighbours and amused himself with his bees and flowers. He had no desire to be remembered for any achievement, and was content to be buried with a few tears and then to be forgotten. All Mrs. Lindsay’s folk want to do something outside their own houses or parishes which shall make their names immortal. . . . I was interrupted by a tremendous thunderstorm and hail. That wonderful rose-bush which, you will recollect, stood on the left-hand side of the garden door, has been stripped just as if it had been scourged with whips. If you have done, quite done with the Orelli you borrowed about two years ago, please let me have it. Why could you not bring it? Mrs. Lindsay was saying only the other day how glad she should be if you would stay with her for a fortnight before you return to town.
Your affectionate godfather,
G. L.
My dear Godfather,—I have sent back the Orelli. How I should love to come and to wander about the meadows with you by the river or sit in the boat with you under the willows. But I cannot, for I have promised to speak at a Woman’s Temperance Meeting next week, and in the week following I am going to read a paper called “An Educational Experiment,” before our Ethical Society. This, I think, will be interesting. I have placed my pupils in difficult historical positions, and have made them tell me what they would have done, giving the reasons. I am thus enabled to detect any weakness and to strengthen character on that side. Most of the girls are embarrassed by the conflict of motives, and I have to impress upon them the necessity in life of disregarding those which are of less importance and of prompt action on the stronger. I have classified my results in tables, so that it may be seen at a glance what impulses are most generally operative.
But to go back to your letter. I will not have you shuffle. You can say so much if you like. Talk to me just as you did when we last sat under the cedar-tree. I must know your mind about theology and metaphysics.
Your affectionate godchild,
Hermione.
My dear Hermione,—I am sorry you could not come. I am sorry that what people call a “cause” should have kept you away. If any of your friends had been ill; if it had been a dog or a cat, I should not have cared so much. You are dreadful! Theology and metaphysics! I do not understand what they are as formal sciences. Everything seems to me theological and metaphysical. What Shakespeare says now and then carries me further than anything I have read in the system-books into which I have looked. I cannot take up a few propositions, bind them into faggots, and say, “This is theology, and that is metaphysics.” There is much “discourse of God” in a May blossom, and my admiration of it is “beyond nature,” but I am not sure upon this latter point, for I do not know in the least what φυσις or Nature is. We love justice and generosity, and hate injustice and meanness, but the origin of virtue, the life of the soul, is as much beyond me as the origin of life in a plant or animal, and I do not bother myself with trying to find it out. I do feel, however, that justice and generosity have somehow a higher authority than I or any human being can give them, and if I had children of my own this is what I should try, not exactly to teach them, but to breathe into them. I really, my dear child, dare not attempt an essay on the influence which priests and professors have had upon the world, nor am I quite clear that “shadowy” and “uncertain” mean the same thing. All ultimate facts in a sense are shadowy, but they are not uncertain. When you try to pinch them between your fingers they seem unsubstantial, but they are very real. Are you sure that you yourself stand on solid granite?