8. English

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"If Chaucer, as has been said, is Spring, it is a modern, premature Spring, followed by an interval of doubtful weather. Sidney is the very Spring—the later May. And in prose he is the authentic, only Spring. It is a prose full of young joy, and young power, and young inexperience, and young melancholy, which is the wilfulness of joy; . . .

"Sidney's prose is treasureable, not only for its absolute merits, but as the bud from which English prose, that gorgeous and varied flower, has unfolded."—FRANCIS THOMPSON, "The Prose of Poets."

The study of one's own language is the very heart of a modern education; to the study of English, therefore, belongs a central place in the education of English-speaking girls. It has two functions: one is to become the instrument by which almost all the other subjects are apprehended; the other, more characteristically its own, is to give that particular tone to the mind which distinguishes it from others. This is a function that is always in process of further development; for the mind of a nation elaborates its language, and the language gives tone to the mind of the new generation. The influences at work upon the English language at present are very complex, and play on it with great force, so that the changes are startling in their rapidity. English is not only the language of a nation or of a race, not even of an empire; and the inflowing elements affirm this. We have kindred beyond the empire, and their speech is more and more impressing ours, forging from the common stock, which they had from us, whole armouries full of expressive words, words with edge and point and keen directness which never miss the mark. Some are unquestionably an acquisition, those which come from States where the language is honoured and studied with a carefulness that puts to shame all except our very best. They have kept some gracious and rare expressions, now quaint to our ear, preserved out of Elizabethan English in the current speech of to-day. These have a fragrance of the olden time, but we cannot absorb them again into our own spoken language. Then they have their incisive modern expressions so perfectly adapted for their end that they are irresistible even to those who cling by tradition to the more stable element in English. These also come from States in which language is conscious of itself and looks carefully to literary use, and they do us good rather than harm. Other importations from younger States are too evidently unauthorized to be in any way beautiful, and are blamed on both sides of the ocean as debasing the coinage. But these, too, are making their way, so cheap and convenient are they, and so expressive.

It is needful in educating children to remember that this strong inflowing current must be taken into account, and also to remember that it does not belong to them. They must first be trained in the use of the more lasting elements of English; later on they may use their discretion in catching the new words which are afloat in the air, but the foundations must be laid otherwise. It takes the bloom off the freshness of young writers if they are determined to exhibit the last new words that are in, or out of season. New words have a doubtful position at first. They float here and there like thistle-down, and their future depends upon where they settle. But until they are established and accepted they are out of place for children's use. They are contrary to the perfect manner for children. We ask that their English should be simple and unaffected, not that it should glitter with the newest importations, brilliant as they may be. It is from the more permanent element in the language that they will acquire what they ought to have, the characteristic traits of thought and manner which belong to it. It is not too much to look for such things in children's writing and speaking. The first shoots and leaves may come up early though the full growth and flower may be long waited for. These characteristics are often better put into words by foreign critics than by ourselves, for we are inclined to take them as a whole and to take them for granted; hence the trouble experienced by educated foreigners in catching the characteristics of English style, and their surprise in finding that we have no authentic guides to English composition, fend that the court of final appeal is only the standard Of the best use. The words of a German critic on a Collection of English portraits in Berlin are very happily pointed and might be as aptly applied to writing as to painting.

"English, utterly English! Nothing on God's earth could be more English than this whole collection. The personality of the artist (it happened that he was an Irishman), the countenances of the subjects, their dress, the discreetly suggestive backgrounds, all have the characteristic touch of British culture, very refined, very high-bred, very quiet, very much clarified, very confident, very neat, very well-appointed, a little dreamy and just a little wearisome—the precise qualities which at the same time impress and annoy us in the English."

This is exactly what might be said of Pater's writing, but that is full-grown English. Pater is not a model for children, they would find him more than "just a little wearisome." If anyone could put into words what Sir Joshua Reynolds' portraits of children express, that would be exactly what we want for the model of their English. They can write and they can speak in a beautiful way of their own if they are allowed a little liberty to grow wild, and trained a little to climb. Their charm is candour, as it is the charm of Sir Joshua's portraits, with a quiet confidence that all is well in the world they know, and that everyone is kind; this gives the look of trustful innocence and unconcern. Their writing and talking have this charm, as long as nothing has happened to make them conscious of themselves. But these first blossoms drop off, and there is generally an intermediate stage in which they can neither speak nor write, but keep their thoughts close, and will not give themselves away. Only when that stage is past do they really and with full consciousness seek to express themselves, and pay some attention to the self-expression of others. This third stage has its May-day, when the things which have become hackneyed to our minds from long use come to them with the full force of revelations, and they astonish us by their exuberant delight. But they have a right to their May-day and it ought not to be cut short; the sun will go down of itself, and then June will come in its own time and ripen the green wood, and after that will come pruning time, in another season, and then the phase of severity and fastidiousness, and after that—if they continue to write—they will be truly themselves.

In every stage we have our duty to do, encouraging and pruning by turns, and, as in everything else, we must begin with ourselves and go on with ourselves that there may be always something living to give, and some growth; for in this we need never cease to grow, in knowledge, in taste, and in critical power. The means are not far to seek; if we really care about these things, the means are everywhere, in reading the best things, in taking notes, in criticising independently and comparing with the best criticism, in forming our own views and yet keeping a willingness to modify them, in an attitude of mind that is always learning, always striving, always raising its standard, never impatient but permanently dissatisfied.

We have three spheres of action in the use of the language—there is English to speak, English to write, And the wide field of English to read, and there are vital interests bound up in each for the after life of children. As they speak, so will be the tone of their intercourse; as they write, so will be the standard of their habits of thought; and as they read so will be the atmosphere of their life, and the preparation of their judgment for those critical moments of choice which are the pivots upon which its whole action moves.

If practice alone would develop it to perfection, speaking ought to be easy to learn, but it does not prove so, and especially when children are together in schools the weeds grow faster than the crop, and the crop is apt to be thin. The language of the majority holds its own; children among children can express with a very small vocabulary what they want to say to each other, whereas an only child who lives with its elders has usually a larger vocabulary than it can manage, which makes the sayings of only children quaint and almost weird, as the perfection of the instrument persuades us that there is a full-grown thought within it, and a child's fancy suddenly laughs at us from under the disguise.

There is general lamentation at present because the art of conversation has fallen to a very low ebb; there is, in particular, much complaint of the conversation of girls whose education is supposed to have been careful. The subjects they care to talk of are found to be few and poor, their power of expressing themselves very imperfect, the scanty words at their command worked to death in supplying for all kinds of things to which they are not appropriate. We know that we have a great deal of minted gold in the English language, but little of it finds its way into our general conversation, most of our intercourse is carried on with small change, a good deal of it even in coppers, and the worst trouble of all is that so few seem to care or to regret it. Perhaps the young generation will do so later in life, but unless something is done for them during the years of their education it does not seem probable, except in the case of the few who are driven by their professional work to think of it, or drawn to it by some influence that compels them to exert themselves in earnest.

Listening to the conversation of girls whose thoughts and language are still in a fluid state, say from the age of 17 to 25, gives a great deal of matter for thought to those who are interested in education, and this point of language is of particular interest. There are the new catch-words of each year; they had probably a great piquancy in the mouth of the originator but they very soon become flat by repetition, then they grow jaded, are more and more neglected and pass away altogether. From their rising to their setting the arc is very short—about five years seems to be the limit of their existence, and no one regrets them. We do not seem to be in a happy vein of development at present as to the use of words, and these short-lived catch-words are generally poor in quality. Our girl talkers are neither rich nor independent in their language, they lay themselves under obligations to anyone who will furnish a new catch-word, and especially to boys from whom they take rather than accept contributions of a different kind. It is an old-fashioned regret that girls should copy boys instead of developing themselves independently in language and manners; but though old-fashioned, it will never cease to be true that what was made to be beautiful on its own line is dwarfed and crippled by straining it into imitation of something else which it can never be.

What can be done for the girls to give them first more independence in their language and then more power to express themselves? Probably the best cure, food and tonic in one, is reading; a taste for the best reading alters the whole condition of mental life, and without being directly attacked the defects in conversation will correct themselves. But we could do more than is often done for the younger children, not by talking directly about these things, but by being a little harder to please, and giving when it is possible the cordial commendation which makes them feel that what they have done was worth working for.

Recitation and reading aloud, besides all their other uses, have this use that they accustom children to the sound of their own voices uttering beautiful words, which takes away the odd shyness which some of them feel in going beyond their usual round of expressions and extending their vocabulary. We owe it to our language as well as to each individual child to make recitation and reading aloud as beautiful as possible. Perhaps one of the causes of our conversational slovenliness is the neglect of these; critics of an older generation have not ceased to lament their decay, but it seems as if better times were coming again, and that as the fundamentals of breathing and voice-production are taught, we shall increase the scope of the power acquired and give it more importance. There is a great deal underlying all this, beyond the acquirement of voice and pronunciation. If recitation is cultivated there is an inducement to learn by heart; this in its turn ministers to the love of reading and to the formation of literary taste, and enriches the whole life of the mind. There is an indirect but far-reaching gain of self-possession, from the need for outward composure and inward concentration of mind in reciting before others. But it is a matter of importance to choose recitations so that nothing should be learnt which must be thrown away, nothing which is not worth remembering for life. It is a pity to make children acquire what they will soon despise when they might learn something that they will grow up to and prize as long as they live. There are beautiful things that they can understand, if something is wanted for to-day, which have at the same time a life that will never be outgrown. There are poems with two aspects, one of which is acceptable to a child and the other to the grown-up mind; these, one is glad to find in anthologies for children. But there are many poems about children of which the interest is so subtle as to be quite unsuitable for their collection. Such a poem is "We are seven." Children can be taught to say it, even with feeling, but their own genuine impression of it seems to be that the little girl was rather weak in intellect for eight years old, or a little perverse. Whereas Browning's "An incident of the French camp" appeals to them by pride of courage as it does to us by pathos. It may not be a gem, poetically speaking, but it lives. As children grow older it is only fair to allow them some choice in what they learn and recite, to give room for their taste to follow its own bent; there are a few things which it is well that every one should know by heart, but beyond these the field is practically without limits.

Perfect recitation or reading aloud is very rare and difficult to acquire. For a few years there was a tendency to over-emphasis in both, and, in recitation, to teach gesture, for which as a nation we are singularly inapt. This is happily disappearing, simplicity and restraint are regaining their own, at least in the best teaching for girls. As to reading aloud to children it begins to be recognized that it should not be too explicit, nor too emphatic, nor too pointed; that it must leave something for the natural grace of the listener's intelligence to supply and to feel. There is a didactic tone in reading which says, "you are most unintelligent, but listen to ME and there may yet be hope that you will understand." This leaves the "poor creatures" of the class still unmoved and unenlightened; "the child is not awakened," while the more sensitive minds are irritated; they can feel it as an impertinence without quite knowing why they are hurt. It is a question of manners and consideration which is perceptible to them, for they like what is best—sympathy and suggestiveness rather than hammering in. They can help each other by their simple insight into these things when they read aloud, and if a reading lesson in class is conducted as an exercise in criticism it is full of interest. The frank good-nature and gravity of twelve-year-old critics makes their operations quite painless, and they are accepted with equal good humour and gravity, no one wasting any emotion and a great deal of good sense being exchanged.

Conversation, as conversation, is hard to teach, we can only lead the way and lay down a few principles which keep it in the right path. These commonplaces of warning, as old as civilization itself, belong to manners and to fundamental unselfishness, but obvious as they are they have to be said and to be repeated and enforced until they become matters of course. Not to seem bored, not to interrupt, not to contradict, not to make personal remarks, not to talk of oneself (some one was naive enough to say "then what is there to talk of"), not to get heated and not to look cold, not to do all the talking and not to be silent, not to advance if the ground seems uncertain, and to be sensitively attentive to what jars—all these and other things are troublesome to obtain, but exceedingly necessary. And even observing them all we may be just as far from conversation as before; how often among English people, through shyness or otherwise, it simply faints from inanition. We can at least teach that a first essential is to have something to say, and that the best preparation of mind is thought and reading and observation, to be interested in many things, and to give enough personal application to a few things as to have something worth saying about them.

By testing in writing every step of an educational course a great deal of command over all acquired materials may be secured. As our girls grow older, essay-writing becomes the most powerful means for fashioning their minds and bringing out their individual characteristics.

It is customary now to begin with oral composition,—quite rightly, for one difficulty at a time is enough. But when children have to write for themselves the most natural beginning is by letters. A great difference in thought and power is observable in their first attempts, but in the main the structure of their letters is similar, like the houses and the moonfaced persons which they draw in the same symbolic way. Perhaps both are accepted conventions to which they conform—handed down through generations of the nursery tradition—though students of children are inclined to believe that these symbolical drawings represent their real mind in the representation of material things. Their communications move in little bounds, a succession of happy thoughts, the kind of things which birds in conversation might impart to one another, turning their heads quickly from side to side and catching sight of many things unrelated amongst themselves. It is a pity that this manner is often allowed to last too long, for in these stages of mental training it is better to be on the stretch to reach the full stature of one's age rather than to linger behind it, and early promise in composition means a great deal.

To write of the things which belong to one's age in a manner that is fully up to their worth or even a little beyond it, is better than to strain after something to say in a subject that is beyond the mental grasp. The first thing to learn is how to write pleasantly about the most simple and ordinary things. But a common fault in children's writing is to wait for an event, "something to write about," and to dispose of it in three or four sentences like telegrams.

The influences which determine these early steps are, first, the natural habit of mind, for thoughtful children see most interesting and strange things in their surroundings; secondly, the tone of their ordinary conversation, but especially a disposition that is unselfish and affectionate. Warm-hearted children who are gifted with sympathy have an intuition of what will give pleasure, and that is one of the great secrets of letter-writing. But the letters they write will always depend in a great measure on the letters they receive, and a family gift for letter-writing is generally the outcome of a happy home-life in which all the members are of interest to each other and their doings of importance.

What sympathy gives to letter-writing, imagination gives to the first essays of children in longer compositions. Imagination puts them in sympathy with all the world, with things as well as persons, as affection keeps them in touch with every detail of the home world. But its work is not so simple. Home affection is true and is a law to itself; if it is present it holds all the little child's world in a right proportion, because all heavenly affection is bound up with it. But the awakening and the rapid development of imagination as girls grow up needs a great deal of guidance and training. Fancy may overgrow itself, and take an undue predominance, so that life is tuned to the pitch of imagination and not imagination to the pitch of life. It is hardly possible and hardly to be desired that it should never overflow the limits of perfect moderation; if it is to be controlled, there must be something to control, in pruning there must be some strong shoots to cut back, and in toning down there must be some over-gaudy colours to subdue. It is better that there should be too much life than too little, and better that criticism should find something vigorous enough to lay hold of, rather than something which cannot be felt at all. This is the time to teach children to begin their essays without preamble, by something that they really want to say, and to finish them leaving something still unsaid that they would like to have expressed, so as not to pour out to the last drop their mind or their fancy on any subject. This discipline of promptitude in beginning and restraint at the end will tell for good upon the quality of their writing.

But the work of the imagination may also betray something unreal and morbid—this is a more serious fault and means trouble coming. It generally points to a want of focus in the mind; because self predominates in the affections feeling and interest are self-centred. Then the whole development of mind comes to a disappointing check—the mental power remains on the level of unstable sixteen years old, and the selfish side develops either emotionally or frivolously—according to taste, faster than it can be controlled.

There are cross-roads at about sixteen in a girl's life. After two or three troublesome years she is going to make her choice, not always consciously and deliberately, but those who are alive to what is going on may expect to hear about this time her speech from the throne, announcing what the direction of her life is going to be. It is not necessarily the choice of a vocation in life, that belongs to an order of things that has neither day nor hour determined for it, but it is when the mental outlook takes a direction of its own, literary, or artistic, or philosophical, or worldly, or turning towards home; it may sometimes be the moment of decisive vocation to leave all things for God, or, as has so often happened in the lives of the Saints, the time when a child's first desire, forgotten for a while, asserts itself again. In any case it is generally a period of new awakenings, and if things are as they ought to be, generally a time of deep happiness—the ideal hour in the day of our early youth. All this is faithfully rendered in the essays of that time; we unsuspectingly give ourselves away.

After this, for those who are going to write at all, comes the "viewy" stage, and this is full of interest. We are so dogmatic, so defiant, so secure in our persuasions. It is impossible to believe that they will ever alter. Yet who has lived through this phase of abounding activity and has not found that, at first with the shock of disappointment, and afterwards without regret, a memorial cross had to be set by our wayside, here and there, marking the place of rest for our most enthusiastic convictions. In the end one comes to be glad of it, for if it means anything it means a growth in the truth.

The criticism of essays is one of the choice opportunities which education offers, for then the contact of mind with mind is so close that truth can be told under form of criticism, which as exhortation would have been less easily accepted. It is evident that increasing freedom must be allowed as the years go on, and that girls have a right to their own taste and manner—and within the limits of their knowledge to form their own opinions; but it is in this period of their development that they are most sensitive to the mental influence of those who are training them, and their quick responsiveness to the best is a constant stimulus to go on for their sakes, discovering and tasting and training one's discernment in what is most excellent.

From this point we may pass to what is first in the order of things—but first and last in this department of an English education—and that is reading, with the great field of literature before us, and the duty of making the precious inheritance all that it ought to be to this young generation of ours—heiresses to all its best.

English literature will be to children as they grow up, what we have made it to them in the beginning. There will always be the exceptional few, privileged ones, who seem to have received the key to it as a personal gift. They will find their way without us, but if we have the honour of rendering them service we may do a great deal even for them in showing where the best things lie, and the way to make them one's own. But the greater number have to be taken through the first steps with much thought and discernment, for taste in literature is not always easy to develop, and may be spoiled by bad management at the beginning. We are not very teachable as a nation in this matter—our young taste is wayward, and sometimes contradictory, it will not give account of itself, very likely it cannot. We have inarticulate convictions that this is right, and suits us, and something else is wrong as far as our taste is concerned, and that we have rights to like what we like and condemn what we do not like, and we have gone a considerable way along the road before we can stop and look about us and see the reason of our choice. English literature itself fosters this independent spirit of criticism by its extraordinary abundance, its own wide liberty of spirit, its surpassing truthfulness. Our greatest poets and our truest do not sing to an audience but to their Maker and to His world, and let anyone who can understand it catch the song, and sing it after them. No doubt many have fallen from the truth and piped an artificial tune, and they have had their following. But love for the real and true is very deep and in the end it prevails, and as far as we can obtain it with children it must prevail.

Their first acquaintance with beautiful things is best established by reading aloud to them, and this need not be limited entirely to what they can understand at the time. Even if we read something that is beyond them, they have listened to the cadences, they have heard the song without the words, the words will come to them later. If there is good ground for the seed to fall upon, and we sow good seed, it will come up with its thirtyfold or more, as seed sown in the mind seems always to come up, whether it be good or bad, and even if it has lain dormant for years. There are good moments laid up in store for the future when the words, which have been familiar for years, suddenly awake to life, and their meaning, full-grown, at the moment when we need it, or at the moment when we are able to understand its value, dawns upon the mind. Then we are grateful to those who invested these revenues for us though we knew it not. We are not grateful to those who give us the less good though pleasant and easy to enjoy. A little severity and fastidiousness render us better service. And this is especially true for girls, since for them it is above all important that there should be a touch of the severe in their taste, and that they should be a little exacting, for if they once let themselves go to what is too light-heartedly popular they do not know where to draw the line and they go very far, with great loss to themselves and others.

One of the beautiful things of to-day in England is the wealth of children's literature. It is a peculiar grace of our time that we are all trying to give the best to the children, and this is most of all remarkable in the books published for them. We had rather a silly moment in which we kept them babies too long and thought that rhymes without reason would please them, and another moment when we were just a little morbid about them; but now we have struck a very happy vein, free from all morbidness, very innocent and very happy, abounding in life and in no way unfitting for the experiences that have to be lived through afterwards. No one thinks it waste of time to write and illustrate books for children, and to do their very best in both, and the result of historical research and the most critical care of texts is put within the children's reach with a real understanding of what they can care for. A true appreciation of the English classics must result from this, and the mere reading of what is choice is an early safeguard against the less good.

Reading, without commentary, is what is best accepted; we are beginning to come back to this belief. It is agreed almost generally that there has been too much comment and especially too much analysis in our teaching of literature, and that the majesty or the loveliness of our great writers' works have not been allowed to speak for themselves. We have not trusted them enough, and we have not trusted the children so much as they deserved. The little boy who said he could understand if only they would not explain has become historical, and his word of warning, though it may not have sounded quite respectful, has been taken into account. We have now fewer of the literary Baedeker's guides who stopped us at particular points, to look back for the view, and gave the history and date of the work with its surrounding circumstances, and the meaning of every word, while they took away the soul of the poem, and robbed us of our whole impression. We realize now that by reading and reading again, until they have mastered the music, and the meaning dawns of itself, children gain more than the best annotations can give them; these will be wanted later on, but in the beginning they set the attitude of mind completely wrong for early literary study in which reverence and receptiveness and delight are of more account than criticism. The memory of these things is so much to us in after life, and if the living forms of beautiful poems have been torn to pieces to show us the structure within, and the matter has been shaken out into ungainly paraphrase and pursued with relentless analysis until it has given up the last secret of its meaning, the remembrance of this destructive process will remain and the spirit will never be the same again. The best hope for beautiful memories is in perfect reading aloud, with that reverence of mind and reticence of feeling which keeps itself in the background, not imposing a marked per-Bonal interpretation, but holding up the poem with enough support to make it speak for itself and no more. There is a vexed question about the reading allowed to girls which cannot be entirely passed over. It is a point on which authorities differ widely among themselves, according to the standard of their family, the whole early training which has given their mind a particular bent, the quality of their own taste and their degree of sensitiveness and insight, the views which they hold about the character of girls, their ideas of the world and the probable future surroundings of those whom they advise, as well as many other considerations. It is quite impossible to arrive at a uniform standard, or at particular precepts or at lists of books or authors which should or should not be allowed. Even if these could be drawn up, it would be more and more difficult to enforce them or to keep the rules abreast of the requirements of each publishing season. In reading, as in conduct, each one must bear more and more of their own personal responsibility, and unless the law is within themselves there is no possibility of enforcing it.

The present Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, when rector of St. John's Seminary, Wonersh, used to lay down the following rules for his students, and on condition of their adhering to these rules he allowed them great freedom in their reading, but if they were disregarded, it was understood that the rector took no responsibility about the books they read:—

1. "Be perfectly conscientious, and if you find a book is doing you harm stop reading it at once. If you know you cannot stop you must be most careful not to read anything you don't know about."

2. "Be perfectly frank with your confessor and other superiors. Don't keep anything hidden from them."

3. "Don't recommend books to others which, although they may do no harm to you, might do harm to them."

These rules are very short but they call for a great deal of self-control, frankness, and discretion. They set up an inward standard for the conscience, and, if honestly followed, they answer in practice any difficulty that is likely to arise as to choice of reading. [1—In the Appendix will be found a pastoral letter by Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster, then Bishop of Southwark, bearing on this subject and full of instruction for all who have to deal with it.]

But the application of these rules presupposes a degree of judgment and self-restraint which are hardly to be found in girls of school-room years, and before they can adjust themselves to the relative standard and use the curb for themselves, it is necessary to set before them some fixed rules by which to judge. While life is young and character plastic and personal valuations still in formation, the difficulty is to know what is harmful. "How am I to know," such a one may ask, "whether what seems harmful to me may not be really a gain, giving me a richer life, a greater expansion of spirit, a more independent and human character? May not this effect which I take to be harm, be no more than necessary growing pains; may it not be bringing me into truer relation with life as it is, and as a whole?"

There will always be on one side timid and mediocre minds, satisfied to shut themselves up and safeguard what they already have; and on the other more daring and able spirits who are tempted beyond the line of safety in a thirst for discovery and adventure, and are thus swept out beyond their own immature control. Books that foster the spirit of rebellion, of doubt and discontent concerning the essentials and inevitable elements of human life, that tend to sap the sense of personal responsibility, and to disparage the cardinal virtues and the duty of self-restraint as against impulse, are emphatically bad. They are particularly bad for girls with their impressionable minds and tendency to imitation, and inclination to be led on by the glamour of the old temptation; "Your eyes shall be opened; you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

To follow a doubt or a lie or a by-way of conduct with the curiosity to see what comes of it in the end, is to prepare their own minds for similar lines of thought and action, and in the crises of life, when they have to choose for themselves, often unadvised and without time to deliberate, they are more likely to fall by the doubt or the lie or the spirit of revolt which has become familiar to them in thought and sympathy.

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