Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 334
And women? The arrangements in my college for the women students, and the women’s dormitories? Oh no — no, thank you. There aren’t any women. Co-education is a wonderful thing for women: college girls under co-education leave college more fit to leave college than any others. College girls are better companions, better wives (as your own or as someone else’s) than any others. It’s the women who have made our college life the bright happy thing it is — too bright, too happy.
But men can’t study when women are around. And it’s not only the students. If I let the women in, they get round some of my dusty old professors, and marry them — and good-bye to Machiavelli, and the higher thought.
REMOVAL PROBLEM SOLVED
Having retired from the service of McGill University, I was invited a little while ago to go out and join the staff of the University of British Columbia.
News of the invitation appeared in the papers and the manager of a removal company called me up by telephone and said:
‘Mr. Leacock, we understand that you are making a move to British Columbia. Now you just leave it to us and we’ll arrange to move you the whole way out there.’
I answered, ‘Oh, no, I’m not going. When I move next it will be much further than that.’
‘All right,’ he said, ‘we’ll take you. Where is it?’
‘Eternity,’ I answered. I thought I had him floored, but not at all. He came back, almost instantly:
‘All right. You leave that to us.’
I am still wondering just what he meant. Wonderful thing a removal van, isn’t it?
TURN BACK THE CLOCK
OR, AT LEAST, MAKE IT SLOWER
ALL OF US who are old look back with a sort of wistful admiration to the education that we received long ago — so different from the education of to-day. I remember many years ago, when I was a junior professor at McGill University, meeting an elderly Scottish divine who questioned me about the nature of our curriculum. He was horrified to find that the students were actually allowed a certain amount of choice, or election, in making up the programme of their studies. ‘When I was at Edinburgh,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘the whole of the studies were absolutely compulsory.’ With that he shuffled off, smacking his lips over the word compulsory, and musing, no doubt, on the degeneracy of the time.
A similar point of view, as I have mentioned in another connection, was expressed once in a discussion at my club about education, involving the topic of the classics. A scholarly English visitor to the club, a bishop, said very emphatically— ‘Well, all I can say is that I regard Greek as having practically made me what I am.’ There was a silence, and then an American present said, ‘Exactly!’ But the bishop didn’t see it — one of the advantages, no doubt, of learning Greek.
Such views of our own past education belong, I do not doubt, to the illusions of retrospect. They have all the soft colour and mellow tints that surround the ‘good old times,’ and the ‘old school’ and reach away back to the distant past of ‘Merrie England’ and the ‘brave days of old.’ The pain and distress dies out of our human record as we look back on it.
But even if we grant that modern education has in the main meant progress, we may still note many things of value that have somehow been dropped by the way — and the faster the pace of progress the larger the likelihood of such losses. One grants, I said, the progress, the improvement. The ‘little red school house’ of sixty years ago, taken as a reality, looks but a poor structure, ill-lighted and unventilated beside the ‘academy’ of to-day — its windows all to the sun, its rooms as neat and bright as day, its wide corridors decorated with the framed pictures of great men. In it is its teacher, as highly certified and as guaranteed as a patent pump, and at his command a whole battery of instruction by radio and screen, and loud speaker, with apparatus to illustrate everything so clearly as to obviate all thought.
More than that. The new teacher is very different from the old ‘dominie’ and the bye-gone ‘school-marm,’ in that he is a ‘pedagogue’ with a pedagogical certificate to prove it. He knows the principles of education, whereas sixty years ago none of us dreamed that there were any. He knows that education must proceed from the known to the unknown and from the concrete to the abstract. He knows, or he thinks he knows, that learning things is of no value unless you clearly understand what they mean: otherwise your knowledge is just that of a parrot. He does not realize that the bishop and I — I mean the bishop of whom I just spoke — having been very largely trained as ‘parrots’ along with a whole generation of other young parrots, would regret very much to admit that there is absolutely nothing in the bird at all.
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The field that is suggested is so wide — this problem as to what our rational education may have lost in becoming so — that one can do no more than skirt its outline, or indicate one or two of the eminences or depressions of its landscape that seem of peculiar significance. Here is one broad feature of the prospect — the element of hardship, of compulsion, of disagreeableness. Modern education has set itself to make its processes attractive, to substitute the element of spontaneous interest for the element of compulsion by force. Learning at the point of a stick, corporal punishment, and learning under the threat of detention — the school-world equivalent of the gallows and the jail — are out of fashion now. It is the idea of our education that learning must be free and happy, carrying its own interest, and at least relying more on rewards than on punishments. Seen thus the interest of each bright little school building becomes for the child a vision of what the world might be, could we so order it; and above all, for the children of poverty, some little taste of the warmth and amenity of life.
These tendencies and these ideas must in the main be true. I may say, indeed, that I am sure they are, for I can look back over sixty-four years of school and college classrooms and I have seen the change. I recall that when I first went to school in England, as a child of four, there had newly come into use a little text called Reading Without Tears. Observe the revolutionary title. Older people shook their heads at it. Till then, the tears that fell upon the page softened it to its value. The Beth-el of education was built of the stone blocks of hardship. The steeper the road to Parnassus the more was the body fortified in climbing it.
We are at too great pains now to make our education easy, at too great pains to avoid sustained hardship. We prefer to give to the children the pretty little mechanical fancies that belong to the nursery in place of tears. Our text-books multiply the devices of ease — the little résumé that replaces the ensemble, the quick and easy ‘selection’ that reduces a poem to a verse and a stanza to a line; the total omission of factors that seem ‘too difficult,’ such as the ‘quantities’ of Latin words. In place of Plato, students study a ‘Plato-made-easy’ — by ceasing to be Plato. I know of a great university — I won’t name it; it begins with an ‘M’ — which gave up first year physics as a compulsory subject because ‘the girls couldn’t learn it.’
Every foot of this ground, of course, is uncertain with doubt, and undermined with controversy. But I incline to think that we overdo now the elements that were of such high value when they came as over-needed innovations. The point is that our new mechanical environment — radio, motion pictures, the voices in the air and the figures on the screen — make presentation so direct, so easy, so physical that they tend to put the human imagination to sleep. The sheer rapidity of them precludes depth; the multiplicity of them defies memory. There are no ‘indelible impressions’ left.
To the child of fifty years ago the world of books was one of intense imaginative creations — the work of its own responsive mind. What child could forget its conjured vision of Robinson Crusoe bending over the yellow sand that bore the imprint of Friday’s foot? What reader of Tom Sawyer could forget the gloomy horror of the great cave — with Indian Joe walled up in it — the great cave of which he himself — his own imagination — was, under Mark Twain’s guidance — the sole architect? All of our pictured world was ours. But compare with it the typical modern child of the cities, lolling at his movies, saturated and unsurprisable, impervious, after the age of about ten, to further impressions of scenery, an expert in murder, a cynic on women — for whom all the world’s masterpieces have been done over into flickered sensationalism.
What such a child needs when he goes to school is not the primrose path of ease, the escalator to Parnassus, but a touch of the good old hard stuff such as the bishop and I got, and the Edinburgh divine. If he doesn’t, there will soon be no more men left like us, and that would be too bad.
QUALITY DOES IT
A MAN WHO had served in the War once said to me— ‘Your books were just a godsend to us in the hospital!’
I thanked him.
He then added— ‘You see, in the shape we were in, we could only read rot.’
A parallel compliment was once paid to me years ago, by that charming and courtly scholar, Dr. B —— t W —— l, of Harvard. He himself moved on such an exalted plane of English literature that it was difficult for him to descend to the level of a mere writer of burlesque and such nonsense. But he did his best, when I was introduced to him, to recognize my merit.
‘I’m so glad to meet you,’ he said, as he shook hands, ‘my children love your books.’
‘And my mother,’ I answered enthusiastically, ’is just crazy over yours.’
IX
COME OUT INTO THE GARDEN
PART ONE: A MEMORY OF SPRING
NO, DON’T TROUBLE me with the afternoon newspaper. I’ve no time to read it. I want to get out into the garden and get in some good licks before it gets too dark. You say the news from Czecho-Slovakia looks pretty ominous, eh? Well, let it. You tell me that the Czechs will very likely declare war against the Latts? Did you say the Latts or the Slatts? I mix these people up. But it doesn’t matter, I want to hustle out into the garden. Wait till I tie these trousers up: no, I never use braces in the garden; just trousers like these tied up with an old necktie.
You just sit there, Bill, and take a drink while I finish getting ready; there’s soda just near you on that tray.... And light your pipe, and then come out with me to the garden and you can get a smoke out there while I work.
Yes, this is my garden suit. No, I didn’t buy it. You can’t buy suits like this. Oh, I know that makers advertise what they call garden suits but they’re not the real thing. You see this suit was originally made much too large by mistake, so I didn’t care to wear it and then by accident the moths got at it — not much, I don’t mean they really hurt it — and then when it was out on a clothes line someone put a charge of bird-shot through it, and so I thought I would just keep it for the garden. See the way it sets behind — look — you see when you’re working on your hands and knees a suit gets bulged like that, in the seat, I mean, and at the knees. There’s no waistcoat, of course, just a loose shirt. Now if you get that suit on and then take the coat off, why, there you are! Get right down on your hands and knees and you can move! You’re free, you don’t choke.
Say, don’t fidget with that darned newspaper, Bill. You say it looks as if Che-Foo would have to fall? Fall where? Oh, Che-Foo in China — going to fall, eh? Too bad. Mind you the Chinese are darned good gardeners. Did you ever hear of the way they plant seeds? I’m trying it out this year. They crumble earth up between their fingers, fine, ever so fine, and keep crumbling it till it’s like dust, and put the seeds into that. I heard about that last winter, one night at a banquet. I sat next a man who was a Ph.D. — no a D.D., or a D.D.F. — anyway he’d been a college missionary in China — seemed dumb as a nut, till he got talking about how to grow cucumbers, and then he was fine and told me about how the Chinese plant seeds and all about bird manure. These missionaries learn a lot, eh — I guess we ought to support them.
There, I’m ready. Finish your drink and leave your paper there — all right, stick it in your pocket, if you like. Now, we’ll go out through the kitchen and by the back door, if you don’t mind, and into the garden.... You might just pick up that spade, if you will, and I’ll take this hoe.... I’ll hold the door for you.... Oh, thanks.
Now, this little space you see behind the kitchen, I fenced off so as to have it for a sort of yard for drying clothes, and that sort of thing, and then I ran the hedge and fence across to separate off the rest of the ground as a garden. This hedge — of course it doesn’t show to much advantage yet as the leaves are only starting to bud — this hedge is quick-set, or quick-something, I forget what. I put it in five years ago; it hasn’t come along very fast, but when it does — it’ll reach high up overhead — away up as high as my hand or higher — fine, isn’t it?
Just excuse me a minute, this darn gate doesn’t seem to be working this spring — you have to pick it up and lift it. There! I’ve been meaning to fix up a patent rig so that the gate would pull open and then shut of itself. I thought it out one day in church last winter.
Now, there we are! Quite a lay-out, isn’t it? I forget how many feet this way and how many that. But, of course, at this time of year, before the leaves are out, it doesn’t look so large. The first evening — five nights ago when I started work — Gee! it looked small. But it’s getting bigger now. And, you see, later on you don’t see the other premises at all. All those bushes are right out in leaf, and the apple tree at the end — you wait and see it in blossom in June — in fact, the whole place is literally what you’d call a bower. And I always put a heavy row of sunflowers across that end! — just what you’d call a blaze of colour. But hold on now, sling down that spade and you sit down on this rustic bench and light up a pipe and just make yourself easy. I made the bench myself — I like making things like that — solid and heavy, no pretence at art, but — oh, say, I’m sorry — you’re not hurt? — it’s that darn end leg. It did that last spring, too. Wait, I know how to fix it in a minute; or, all right, sit at the other end, it’s as solid as anything.
Now, you light up your pipe and be comfortable and I’ll just smoke a cigarette while I sort out some seeds before I get to work — no, no, you keep the bench, I’ll just turn this box up and sit on it.... There!
Do I do all the garden myself? Oh, yes! there isn’t any fun in it if you don’t do it yourself. That’s the whole idea of gardening. Dig it? No, I didn’t dig it. That’s pretty darn heavy work. Every spring I get a man to dig it. Of course everybody finds that there are different things round a house you have to get a man for. I tried last week fixing the tap in the kitchen sink but I had to get a man; and for the electric stuff, it’s always best to get a man, and for anything round a garage you need a man — in fact, for anything, don’t you know, that’s a little complicated or needs brain, it pays to get a man. So you see even round a garden, for a thing like heavy digging — it’s really back-breaking work — I get a man. He’s a queer old character, old William, sort of crooked-backed old fellow, I don’t know how old he is — but you should see him dig! He’s not round here to-night or I’d show him to you. I suppose old fellows like that they just don’t mind digging, eh? Anyway I get him to come and do the digging, and then a boy for the weeding — it’s mean work, you need a boy for it — and perhaps now and then I get a woman in to do the picking — you know, gooseberries and currants — and things like that. It’s tiresome work — you need a woman for it. But beyond that I do the whole thing myself: especially the planning. You see in a garden there’s a whole lot of planning to do; where everything is to go and a sort of timing and rotation. I made out a whole card of it one night last winter but I can’t find it. I made it out one evening during a show given by our Repertory Theatre Company — ever see them? — they’re great! I took nearly the whole evening to do it, on the back of the programme, and I put it in my dinner-jacket pocket, and I forgot it and I suppose it got thrown away. Anyway, I know it pretty well.
Now these seeds — look at the packet — see these are Bordigiana! They’re for flowers all along the path (to make a border) and they come out in those beautiful masses of dense flowers low and close to the ground — no, I never grew them before, never heard of them till a fellow told me about them one day last winter at a funeral — but look what it says— ‘form a heavy border of deep calceolaria’ — what the hell is it? Latin, perhaps — anyway you can see the effect. It explains, see, that you make a sort of little trench by pulling out all the stones — William’s doing it to-morrow — and that’s where they go. So I have to get this packet out marked ready, as you see, with a label Bordigiana, and such and such a date — that’s to-morrow — he’ll put them in then — and that’s what you call system.
I wonder if you’d like some kind of a cool drink, eh! perhaps something with a stick in it? You take these packets of seed, if you don’t mind, and mark the date on each — no, not to-night, to-morrow: I’ll let the old fellow plant them; he’ll be flattered to death. And I’ll just go back into the house and fetch out something to drink. Just a second....
Now, I’ll put the glasses and the bottle on this rustic table — neat, isn’t it? Solid but sort of artistic too — I made it myself — stop, steady! I’m afraid the damn thing’s a little shaky. You don’t mind if I set the stuff on the ground? There! Ice in it, or not? Say when! Right! ... You see, I always feel when I get out for an evening’s gardening, there’s nothing like an odd drink, just to keep a man from feeling tired: and anyway it’s nice to have it here out of doors in the evening, among all the foliage, or where it’s going to be — I just love nature, don’t you? — Here’s luck!
