The Lesson (Pain)

by Barry Pain

THE LESSON.

By BARRY PAIN.

TEACHER: Pray, can you tell me how bread is made?

Child: No. Nor do I see any necessity for the assimilation of knowledge which will almost certainly be useless to me in my subsequent career.

Teacher: Oh, hush! You must say your lesson nicely out of the pretty book mama gave you.

Child: Pardon me. The little work to which you refer is simple, though probably inaccurate. And, as I have the book, the information is always at my disposal, if by some unlikely chance I should ever require it. There is no necessity for me to learn it by heart. Let me put you just one question, Miss Witherspoon, Did you yourself know how bread was made until an over-sensitive conscience made you believe that it was necessary I should learn about it?

Teacher: Of course I did. I knew that bread was made from flour.

Child: But how slight and worthless is such knowledge! Do you know anything at all of the chemistry of fermentation, a subject on which this book barely touches? Do you know anything of the conditions under which bakers work in London? Can you tell me what legal guarantees we have to prevent adulteration and short weight? Do you know what the Trades Union rate for wages of bakers is? When a baker, in advertising for a place, says that he “can do a few smalls,” do you know what he means?

Teacher: My dear child, you are far too young to learn such things at present. You must begin at the beginning.

Child: That may be true, if in this case it is necessary for me to begin at all. But certainly, if I begin, I must go on to the end. And the same person who teaches me the beginning must know the end and be able to teach that also. Otherwise there is certain to be something in the early lessons which will be futile and with greater knowledge require correction. I do not wish to make a personal matter of this at all, but the education of children Is a subject upon which I have reflected considerably, and I have come to the conclusion that most children are taught many things which have no practical or even educative value for them. And, secondly, their education is too often entrusted to women who do not really know the subjects which they teach, but only know such scraps of the subjects as are to be found in a child’s elementary primer.

Teacher: But perhaps I do know all these things, about chemistry and wages and so on.

Child: Quite so. And perhaps the moon is made of green cheese. But, in the absence of any satisfactory evidence that this is the case, I shall continue to believe the contrary. The fact of the matter is, that you know very little, Miss Witherspoon.

Teacher: You are not to talk to me like that. You are a very naughty, rude little boy. I shall make you stand in the corner.

Child: My dear Miss Witherspoon, I had no intention whatever of being rude. I merely thought it better that you and I should face the facts simply and without affectation. Knowledge has always its money value. Intelligence has also its money value. For the extremely wretched stipendium which my short-sighted father pays you he has no right to expect very much knowledge or very much intelligence, nor have I any reason to believe that he gets them. Undoubtedly the very highest salaries paid for teaching should be paid to those who teach children between the ages of three and eight. Professors at universities, on the other hand, instructing those who have already learned to learn, are never worth more than a pound a week, and should not be paid more. The most important part of education for good or evil—and generally for evil—takes place between the ages of three and eight.

Teacher: What funny ideas you do get into your little brain! Possibly there is some sense in some of them. You think, then, I ought to be paid a very high salary for teaching you?

Child: My dear lady, I must have expressed myself very badly if that is what you suppose. I think an adequate teacher for me should certainly be paid very highly. But, if I may speak frankly, I doubt if you are even worth the extremely paltry salary that you receive. You are not teaching because you like teaching. I should imagine that you disliked it. But you wish to make a livelihood. You may possibly be fond of children in a way, but you do not in the least understand them. Your whole attitude towards children is purely a matter of tradition, and based on no original thought or observation of your own. Take, for instance, that absurd punishment you suggested just now: unless one chooses to think so, it is not a punishment—not even an indignity. The particular part of the floor-space of this room where two walls converge at right-angles is not intrinsically worse than any other part of it. The attitude of standing is not more shameful than the attitude of sitting. Unless I am prepared to accept the tradition as you do—and I certainly am not—you cannot punish me in that way. You can make me stand in the corner, but to me it will be no punishment at all.

Teacher: Jabber, jabber, jabber—I never heard anything like it! I can find plenty of punishments that would punish you. How would you like to have your pudding stopped at luncheon?

Child: I should dislike it extremely. But that punishment is characterised by exactly the same stupidity as the other, At any time of life regular nutrition is of the first importance. The pudding supplies a physiological need which it would be foolish and even dangerous to thwart.

Teacher: Now do stop it, there’s a good boy! Look at this nice book mama’s given you. She will be so disappointed if you have not learnt anything about it. If you don’t want to know how bread is made, suppose we see where coffee comes from. Coffee, you know, is a berry, and— Why, there’s the clock. Your lesson-time is done for to-day.

Child: And yours also.