Pedantry

“ The superior branch of the Faculty invited in many ways the same satire. Indeed, pedantry was the prevalent fault of the manners of the eighteenth century. The physician, the divine, the lawyer, the parliament-man, the country gentleman, the author by profession—all had peculiarities of style, costume, speech, or intonation, by which they were well pleased they should be recognised. In one respect, this was well; men were proud of being what they were, and desired to be known as belonging to their respective vocations. ”

“ Physiology does not teach us how to digest, nor logic how to discourse, nor esthetics how to feel beauty or express it, nor ethics how to be good. And indeed it is well if they do not teach us how to be hypocrites; for pedantry, whether it be the pedantry of logic, or of esthetics, or of ethics, is at bottom nothing but hypocrisy. ”

“ Narrow-minded pedantry and injudicious ignorance often rush in, to responsibilities and duties that angels might well tremble to assume—the moulding for good or evil, the flexile souls of children during the most vital years of their lives. ”

“ But if an exaggerated estimate of his own importance sometimes gives rise in him to an offensive pedantry, it supplies him with the sort of devotion that enables a humble functionary to rise to the height of the duties to which he has been called. ”

“ In science the jest at pedantry is analogous to that in religion which lies against superstition. A classification or nomenclature used by the scholar only as a memorandum of his last lesson in the laws of nature, and confessedly a makeshift, a bivouac for a night, and implying a march and a conquest to-morrow, becomes through indolence a barrack and a prison, in which the man sits down immovably, and wishes to detain others. ”

“ We see that pedantry has never been held in such esteem for the government of the world as in our times, and it offers as many paths of the true intelligible species and objects of infallible and sole truth as there are individual pedants. ”

“ SEVERAL young Men at the Universities, terribly possed with the fear of Pedantry, run into a worse Extream, and think all Politeness to consist in reading the daily Trash sent down to them from hence: This they call knowing the World, and reading Men and Manners. ”

“ It is indispensable that the young man of to-day shall step, walk, stand properly, and be able to bow and dance, and not betray at once, on his appearance, that he has come from some school of pedantry. ”

“ The cause of learning declines with the reputation of its friends. And if we enquire, why the character of an Academy-Keeper is treated with such general contempt, we shall not find the true causes to be either superciliousness, pedantry, ignorance, or venality, as the world maliciously insinuates, but the modesty of these people, and their disinterested probity ”

“ If I am not misinformed, pedantry consists in the use of words unsuitable to the time, place, and company. ”

“ Conscious of his acquirements, with the certainty of faithful perseverance, and distrusting the teachers of the day, my father undertook to instruct his own children, allowing them to take particular lessons from particular masters only so far as seemed absolutely necessary. A pedagogical /dilettantism/ was already beginning to show itself everywhere. The pedantry and heaviness of the masters appointed in the public schools had probably given rise to this evil. ”

“ Before entering into topographical details concerning pederasty, which I hold to be geographical and climatic, not racial, I must offer a few considerations of its cause and origin. We must not forget that the love of boys has its noble, sentimental side. The Platonists and pupils of the Academy, followed by the Sufis or Moslem Gnostics, held such affection, pure as ardent, to be the beau ideal which united in man's soul the creature with the Creator. ”

“ Of course, it is intended that a boy who is sent to school should gain by precept and example; but is he to learn benevolence by the angry look and the flourish of the vindictive birch,—or forbearance, by the cruelty of the ushers,—or patience, when the masters over him are out of all patience, or modesty, when his nether parts are exposed to general examination? Is he not daily reading a lesson at variance with that equality which we all possess, but of which we are unjustly deprived? ”

“ The pedant assured his honour, that the boy's abilities was more owing to his genius than to any instruction he received; that if he would empower him to disable his fingers, he should endeavour to prevent his future improvement. ”

“ From her father, who had been for thirty years the arbiter of affairs both great and small in a country parish and had yet succeeded in retaining the undivided affection of his flock, she had inherited a spice of humorous philosophy, and this, combined with a very practical sense of justice, enabled her to accept human nature as she found it—without contempt, without censoriousness, and sometimes with a breathless admiration for its unexpectedly heroic qualities. ”

“ The name of a pedant is so formidable to young men when they first sally from their colleges, and is so liberally scattered by those who mean to boast their elegance of education, easiness of manners, and knowledge of the world, that it seems to require particular consideration; since, perhaps, if it were once understood, many a heart might be freed from painful apprehensions, and many a tongue, delivered from restraint. ”

“ Licens’d Pederasty, you say, would at least defeat Nature’s manifest Design of continuing Mankind. This is the scarce specious Rant of those, who, by Reflection, know not themselves; nor by Observation the wide World. Man’s ruling Passion is the Love of Variety; you might safely trust this single Principle with peopling the Globe. But are we not Self-Admirers? ”

“ But I was thinking then, and I may tell you now, that you remind me not of the women of my own Earth, but of petted children suddenly transferred to a harsh school. You speak and look like such a child, as if you expected each moment at least to be severely scolded, if not beaten, without knowing your fault. ”

“ We allow the obscure pedant to talk high of the dignity of his office, and magnify, as much as he pleases, the importance of his speculations. Such an indulgence serves to keep him in humour with himself, and may be a means to convert a low and plodding genius to the only use of which it is capable. ”

“ A smile peeped from the dimple in her cheek. “What would you think, watch-dog, were I to give thick folk lessons in myself—expound myself to dunces as your pedagogue gives lessons in a book?”
“The lessons you propose should be marvellously sweet,” said I. Then, with some tincture of my better courage: “By my soul's hope! I should be sure to go to school for those lessons.”
“Ah! do you challenge me?” cried Peg. Now it would be the old Peg. “From this hour you begin your studies. Life shall be a never-ending lesson, and Peg the lesson.” ”

“ When I was young that pedlar that you’ve heard me speak of—who used to look two ways out of his eyes, you know—why, I’ve known him bring round stuffs with colours in them that shamed the very Creator of the world! ”

“ The laws of cause and effect operate in penmanship as surely as they operate elsewhere. What is the cause of incorrect slant, a heavy stroke or a careless form? Pupils who know how to think may be put on the right road by being taught to criticize their own work.
It is one thing to impart the knowledge one may possess of correct execution; the obtaining of results is quite another. Many a teacher has been greatly discouraged when a view of the results was obtained because close observation revealed that pupils had not comprehended the idea which the teacher intended to convey. ”

“ At the top of the first form--the post of honour in the school-- was the vacant place of the little sick scholar, and at the head of the row of pegs on which those who came in hats or caps were wont to hang them up, one was left empty. No boy attempted to violate the sanctity of seat or peg, but many a one looked from the empty spaces to the schoolmaster, and whispered his idle neighbour behind his hand. ”

“ Every educator who is alive to the objects and interests of his profession knows too well the baneful influence of these premature and pernicious tendencies. Many times has the teacher watched with a sad heart the withering of all his hopes for the intellectual progress of a naturally gifted scholar by this blighting influence. The most dangerous period for boys and girls exposed to temptations of this sort is that just following puberty, or between the ages of twelve and eighteen or twenty. ”

“ Throw not aught on the Street, as Dirt or Stones. If thou meetest the scholars of any other School jeer not nor affront them, but show them love and respect and quietly let them pass along."
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Boys took a good deal from their preceptors, and took it patiently and respectfully; but I can well imagine the roar of disgust with which even a much-hampered, eighteenth-century schoolboy read the instructions to show love and respect to the boys of a rival school and not to jeer or fire stones at them.
This book of manners was reprinted in Worcester by Isaiah Thomas in 1787. ”

“ All are called to the practice of penance in some shape or form, the best usually being the exact performance of duty. The young of school age will find a strong shelter from temptation in the scrupulous and enthusiastic performance of their daily tasks and lessons. ”

“ Royalist and Puritan, each had his lesson to learn, as I said before. Each marked the pendulum swing to a wrong extreme, and the pendulum was beating time for your younger generations to march by. And so I say to you who are wiser by the follies of your fathers, look not back too scornfully; for he who is ever watching to mock at the tripping of other men's feet is like to fall over a very small stumbling-block himself. ”

“ Let the fate of this boy be a warning to those parents who, discovering in their children a precocious inclination for some branch of human learning, encourage and force this fatal cleverness for the gratification of their own pride, instead of moderating it in accordance with the physical power and development of youth. ”

“ Instinctively he knew all was won or lost in the first few words, but he could only blurt out: "Have mercy on a fool."
"Now, now, Ridly," protested the president in icy disapproval. "How many times have you young gentlemen been told that the way of the transgressor is hard? How many times have you been informed it is useless to appeal to me and seek to take advantage of my sympathies once the faculty has joined with me in taking a certain course of action? What I may personally feel toward any misguided student must not deter me from being just. ”

“ Take the child who sits intensely listening to some story related between grown-up people, when suddenly his presence is recollected and the peremptory summons "to bed," is promulgated without a thought of the wise clemency of a reprieved ten minutes. I well remember in my days of pinafore and pantalettedom, an old maid who used to say "that child," in a tone that made all my curls stand on end. ”

“ They taught their children to write and read, to obey the magistrates, to endure labour, and to be bold in danger: the teachers of other sciences were not so much as admitted in Lacedæmonia.—They had but one garment, and that new once a year. They rarely used baths or oil, the custom of those parts of the world.—They accustomed their youth to travel by night without light, to use them not to be afraid.—The old governed the young; and those of them who obeyed not the aged, were punished.—It was a shame not to bear reproof among the youth; and among the aged, matter of punishment not to give it. ”

“ When all who stand with me in this calling consider rightly how dear such young souls are in the eyes of God, and that we must give an account of our housekeeping, although they may have the power to punish, they will much rather work with me to bring the young into such a state that they will do willingly out of love what before they had to be driven to with the rod. ”

“ I would satisfy their desire, chattering as eagerly as the children themselves, and often, in spite of the self-assurance of youth and the ridiculous pride which it takes in the miserable crumbs of worldly wisdom it possesses, I would feel like a twenty-year-old child in a conclave of sages. ”

“ They concern all ethical teachers, who must realize that it is at puberty that they are called upon to inspire or to fortify the great ideal aspirations which at this period tend spontaneously to arise in the youth's or maiden's soul. ”

“ From a young girl-student, one insignificant person among scores of others similarly insignificant, she had become a prominent personality, some one in whom even the great, busy, hurrying world paused to take an interest, and of whom the newspapers wrote eulogistic notices, heralding her as the coming English prima donna. ”

“ And how the king would listen to the creed of such a piquant disciple! What a task the conversion would be. He began even to wonder who would marry her when the royal ears were weary of her platitudes, and the spell of debauchery had chilled her zeal. ”

“ By these trifling side-lights we discern a vigorous, wholesome discipline, striving to counteract the enervating influences of rank and power, and their attendant flattery and self-indulgence. 'One of the main principles observed in the education of the royal children was this—that though they received the best training of body and mind to fit them for the high position they would eventually have to fill, they should in no wise come in contact with the actual court life. ”

“ We must therefore so order our inner being that manner, voice, dress, should express self-respect and unselfishness, right feeling, love of order, good taste.
If I were writing a treatise on psychology, I might insist on the teacher’s gaining an insight into the contents of the child’s mind—what Herbart calls apperception-masses, but in this short introduction I can only touch on the subject. I subjoin a short list of books not too difficult for teachers. I conclude with a few common rules derived from psychological observation and a few practical hints for the schoolroom. ”