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'What a great idea! This really should be commemorated. At the very least, we can give a little dinner in honor of it. Who shall we invite?'
'Dr. and Mrs. Oldcastle, and Harry's teacher, young Mr. Hilyard and his wife, will represent school lessons. We'll be there to stand for parents in general. If we add Dr. and Mrs. Benton as our medical advisors and the Dean and Mrs. Priestly to be our spiritual witnesses, then we'll have quite a representative gathering! Will my list work?'
'It'll work great! It couldn't be better. We all know the subject, and we all know each other, so I imagine there will be some good things said.'
Mr. Clough was a merchant in the city, just like his fathers had been for four or five generations before him. He was considered to be wealthy, and he was a rich man, but he held his wealth as a public trust. He used only as much of his money for his own personal uses that was needed to maintain his family in comfortable and refined living. Not that this was unusual, since he and others like him detested luxurious living and anything that smacked of the barbaric opulence of previous days. Dr. Oldcastle was
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the principal of an old, established foundation school. The other guests have already been introduced by Mrs. Clough.
During dinner, there was the usual cheerful talk, and some light discussion about more serious subjects, until the ladies went into the living room to discuss practical matters among themselves. Then one of the men began,
'Gentlemen, have you wondered why my wife and I were so persistent about trying to get you here tonight?'
Everyone's expression showed that he was remembering an interesting, though vague, memory.
'There was a little circumstance related to this room, and a certain date that I'm afraid I might have mentioned more than once or twice.'
'Oh, yes,' said the Dean. 'I've told my wife a dozen times, there's one thing that Clough prides himself on--that the Fathers' and Mothers' Club was born in his dining room!'
'But why tonight more than any other night?'
'Why, tonight is the hundredth anniversary of that great event!' They all exchanged a good-humored smile. 'Yes, gentlemen, I know I'm proud of the fact that it happened in my own house, and I give you permission to laugh. But wouldn't you cherish an old-fashioned house in a side street if it was the one thing that linked you to history?'
'But, my friend, why in the world should this club with the stuttering FMC initials (I so hate initials!) be glorified? It doesn't bother me, as a school principal, that's true. ["A man can't play up to his Busby in the face of it! There was a man for his calling! How he'd walk over your 'F. M. C.'s.'" The allusion here is unclear.] Fumble--yes, that's the word it sounds like! I knew FMC reminded me of something!'
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'I don't see how our club links us with history,' said Dr. Benton reflectively.
'In this way. If the club didn't initiate it, it at least marked a stage in the progress of the great educational revolution that we've seen moving for the last hundred years. Just wait another two or three hundred years, and this revolution of ours will be recorded as the great period of the 'Children's Great Charter.''
'I hate to disappoint you, but I don't think any of us will be waiting around for more than a century, even if it's to confirm the statement of his best friend. But continue, my friend, I'm with you! Explain the 'revolution' so we can all understand it.'
'Thanks, Hilyard. Your approval gives me confidence. But which shall I continue with, the word revolution, or the revolution itself?'
'Those two do have a distinction with a difference, don't they? If I say 'the revolution itself,' we'll be dragged off to the Dark Ages and come out to find our wives waiting for us in the hall with their coats and hats on, ready to leave.'
'And that's tolerable to us elder Benedicts.'
'Now, Doctor! We all know that you're practically tied to Mrs. Oldcastle's apron-string every minute that you aren't in school. Fanny and I follow your example when our marriage bond needs a boost.'
'Order, gentlemen! We must have order, or else we won't get to either the word or the thing. Now every one of us is going to want to say something about his wife.'
'Benton's right. Okay, prophet, take up your parable and go ahead. We're all listening.'
'Who would dare deny the request of the Church?' This was said with a bow that almost knocked off the shade of the candle, but Hilyard made a quick save. 'I'll go ahead. And I'm not supposed to talk
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about the revolution itself, just the name. Why do I call this phenomenon that's been working itself out for the last hundred years an educational revolution? Well, in the first place, what was called 'education' a century ago, and what we call 'education' now, are essentially different things.'
Dr. Oldcastle said, with a snort that epitomized a lot of the worst manners of the reformers, 'Come on! Isn't that rather strong? So we teach the classics and math. So did schools a hundred years ago--or, for that matter, five hundred years ago! It's true, we have to cover more in the area of modern languages, natural science and other subjects that we can only give a small smattering of exposure to--which only makes students and teachers confused. I prefer a solid classical education, or, in default, a math-based education. That's what trains them! My vote goes with the pre-revolutionists, if that's what you want to call them.'
'Good heavens, we have to clear the decks so much just so we can have a friendly discussion! Gentlemen, both of you tell us what you mean when you say education.'
'What do I mean by education, Doctor? I never would have thought that all of our intelligent minds would have to define that. A boy is educated when he knows what every gentleman should know, and when he's trained to take his place in the world.'
'Dr. Oldcastle's definition suits me as well as any other one would. If we set aside the polite requirements, what we have left is the issue of training--how much is included in this training, and how we're supposed to give it.'
'There you have it, Clough,' said Dr. Benton. 'My contention is that you owe the immeasurable progress in character that we've seen in the
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last hundred years totally to us doctors. After all, weren't we the ones who found out that you were all blundering in the dark, and that you hadn't even touched education's scientific foundation, and that everything you were doing was tentative? A hundred years ago, young men spent a third of their lifetime on math to earn the title of senior wrangler at Cambridge, and maybe the special distinction was worth all that hard work. But the world, using its weighty voice, said 'Math builds a mental discipline and gives fortifying of character that no other study can give.' Now, I don't deny that math is an integral part of education, but take a look at real mathematicians. Are they more able or self-controlled than other people? No; more often, they're irritable and stubborn, and the more right they are, the more pigheaded they are, too. But now we (notice the we; we're more proper than royalty!) see you fumbling around blindly, grasping first at this tool, and then that one--natural science, foreign language, or whatever, as a means to work on material that you don't know anything about. You don't even know whether you're working on the mind, or the morals, or what! And you're not sure what issues you want to effect--intellectual ability, maybe? Or strength of character? We found all of you--parents, teachers, pastors, all of you whose job is to bring up children--in a muddy pit. And what have we done for you? We've found the nature of the material that you're working on and told you what it is as well as the laws that need to be followed as you do your work. We've placed it into your hands as if it was clay being put into the potter's hands. We've shown you what the one possible thing is that you can achieve, and it's this: to elevate the character. Education that doesn't do this, does nothing. There you have it--that's what we've done for you.
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Every man should stick to his own trade, and I plan to stick to mine like a tanner who knows that his material is leather.'
'Well, fine, but--this is all very fine talk, but what evidence can you give? And where was I when all of this was going on? Pooh! I think you're deluding yourselves, my friends. This vague, airy talk is fine for developing flighty minds, but I've been a teacher for forty years of the time that all of this has supposedly been going on, and I never heard anything about it.'
'That's what you get for fumbling over our FMC group instead of hanging onto it. But, truthfully, Dr. Oldcastle, do you see any changes in the manners of youths these days who arrive straight from home?'
'Oh, yes! Very much so!' said Mr. Hilyard.
'If Mr. Hilyard had been polite enough to let me answer for myself, I would have said yes myself. I've seen a remarkable change, and I congratulate society for it. But what do you expect? Of course civilization and education will get results that are noticable even in a single lifetime.'
'Doctor, you should have made it a trilogy--civilization, education and Christianity,' added the Dean in kind, gentle tones. 'I personally agree with Dr. Brenton--'every man for his master,' and I would hesitate to claim credit for every advance.'
'I hope the Dean will overlook a little bit of assumed hostility. Rest assured, we all agree with you, and this is why: every other method towards perfection, after weeks or months or even years of pleasant effort, leads to a blank wall. You can't see anything beyond it. The only thing left to do is to retrace your steps, and the going back is always bitter. But then you try
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through Christ, and find that you're on the path of progress that will keep on going, encouraged by a constant living hope. But our discussion is becoming serious. We FMC members deserve some of the credit that Dr. Oldcastle claims for himself. Since the testimony of an outside third party can be very useful, maybe he won't mind telling us what differences he's noticed in today's young boys, compared to young boys of forty years ago.'
'Let me think about that for a minute. It's not easy to answer your question in a few short sentences. Let's see . . . well, for one thing, they're more apt to learn. I really think there's been an unusual advance in intelligence in the last fifty years. The lessons that used to take hours of tedious work when I was in school can be whipped out in a half hour by today's students, and they're still alert for more! I believe they have a real hunger for knowledge--and that's a 'weakness' that only one or two students out of a hundred had when I was a boy.'
'Will you listen to my explanation of this, even though I'm just a parent? With all due respect to Dr. Brenton, who is justified in claiming so much for his craft, I think we parents deserve some credit, too. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. I don't think the progress is due to increased intelligence; I think it's in the ability to pay attention. This Fathers' and Mothers' Club recognizes that paying attention is a practical ability that people have. It makes all the difference between a person who's capable and successful, and a poor straggler trying to keep up. Attention is the ability and habit of concentrating everything within yourself on the task at hand. Parents, especially mothers, are taught to cultivate and encourage attention in their children from the time they're infants. Anything that a person regards with full attention,
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even if it's only for a minute, will be known and remembered forever. Think about some of the scenes and conversations that are so vividly fixed in your mind that you can't possibly forget them. Why is that? Because at the moment of that incident, your attention was strongly stimulated. Early training reaps direct benefits as soon as the child starts school. Psychologists--sorry, that's not your field of expertise, Doctor--say that this enormous curiosity and ravenous appetite for knowledge is as natural to children as hunger for bread and milk. The two can work together--attention and curiosity. If the child has an eager craving to know, combined with the ability to focus his whole mind on the new thoughts that are presented to him, then it's as easy as A B C--it's inevitable that he'll learn so quickly that it seems like magic. The field of his mind has been plowed by his parents, and now teachers merely have to sow their seed.'
'Hmmm. That sounds logical; I'll need to think about that. At any rate, the results certainly seem beneficial. Four hours of lessons a day instead of the usual six or seven--and more work done, besides--is good for both the teachers and the students. And most of these students have their own internal resources, so they don't need to be entertained during their off hours. You'd be surprised to hear how much these kids know. Each one has some special hobby. One little guy, for example, loves butterflies. And that reminds me--don't tell anyone, or I might be forced to resign--but, to this day, I don't know the difference between a moth and a butterfly. It's the kind of thing everybody ought to know, so I designed a way to classify them in my own mind. And it's correct because it's my own! This is what happened recently: I asked a little guy who had evidently caught something in a net, 'What do you have there?' 'A moth, sir,' and he gave me the scientific name without hesitation. 'A moth, son! That beautiful creature can't be a moth, moths live in houses!' You should have seen that little boy try not to smile! I
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couldn't ask, so I still don't know, but I make it a point not to look that little boy in the eye. A friend of mine who was a "Fellow" at his college, was even worse. 'Hey, Oldcastle, the poets go on and on about the song of the lark. Tell me--would you know a lark's song if you heard it?' But the students entering college these days, they both recognize and know all about almost any natural object. Their collections have scientific value--at least, that's what Hilyard thinks, so we're going to try to open a museum of local natural history!'
'My goodness, Dr. Oldcastle! You're like the man in that play who talked in beautiful prose all his life, and finally realized it! You're our closest friend, even though you would never admit it. This is exactly what I'm talking about--the efforts of mothers putting our scheme of thought into effect. We strongly emphasize mothers encouraging their children's intelligent curiosity about everything that lives and grows within their environment. For instance, I imagine that most of the mothers in our group would feel disgraced if her child was six years old and couldn't recognize a common local tree from looking a twig that only had its leaf-buds. It's nature lore, and children take it to it like ducks take to water. The first six or seven years of their lives are spent outside (when weather permits) learning this kind of thing, instead of frittering their time with picture books and ABC's. But tell us more of your first-hand observations. This is so interesting. An outsider who can speak from actual experience is worth more than twenty of our own members who are still learning.'
'I'm very grateful, Clough, for the flattering things you're nice enough to say. Of course, my impartial testimony would be just as valuable if it refuted what you're teaching. Well, Hilyard, you're a nobody today! I'm the man of the hour! Not really--he's really the progressive do-er, and I'm the tagalong. Still, even a tagalong has his uses.'
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'Yeah--when you go down a hill! But your own mouth convicts you, 'most learned Master.' Isn't progress what you've been talking about all night? But just tell us one more thing. Do you think that these students are priggish like Admiral Crichton? Or are they dull, lackluster kids who only do what they're told and have no taste for reckless adventure?'
'Taste for adventure! I see little guys, nine years old, who can swim, row, ride, do everything that a man or boy needs to do. How can you keep a kid like that out of adventures? But I have to admit, they do do what they're told, and they do it with fifty times the enthusiastic spirit of boys who shirk. Mind you, I'm talking about boys who have been deliberately brought up at home, not just allowed to grow free and easy. But don't get the idea that even the best of them are perfect. We have to be on top of them all the time, so that the gains we've won don't disappear from under us.'
'Look, look at Brenton! He looks like he'll explode if he doesn't get a chance to say something!'
'Gentlemen, you must--really must hear what I have to say about this issue! You need to let me explain to Dr. Oldcastle the 'reason why' the things he's observed are happening.'
''All righty, then! Let's hear it, Doctor--don't spare a word!'
'Well, to begin at the beginning (no, I don't mean with Adam and Eve, or even the Dark Ages!), about twenty five years ago before Clough's 'event,' scientific men began to grope for some kind of clue to understand the queer riddle of human nature. It had already been determined by inductive reasoning that action and speech depend on thought, and action, if it's repeated often enough, forms character. Now,
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those meddlesome scientific fellows weren't satisfied to accept, 'It is, because it is!' No, they had to go poking around with their everlasting 'Why?' And this particular 'why' proved to be a difficult nut to crack. In fact, it's only been within the last few years that their guesses at truth have been able to be demonstrated. But as early as I said (25 years before Clough's dinner), they had already gained this much knowledge. Analogy and probability supported them, and it was impossible to prove or even present a convincing argument against them. These scientists recognized that they were undermining the popular methods, goals and very concept of education. But their discoveries were like the grain of wheat that had to fall on the ground and die. It was years before educationalists woke up and recognized what they had done. It finally dawned on them that it was finally possible to formulate a science of education. Now they could propose laws that could work out definite results with approximate, or maybe even precise, certainty. The days of children being raised in a casual, haphazard way were numbered. A foundation had been found--and it was a physical foundation. They discovered the principle that lies at the foundation of all of education's possibilities, the same principle we're discovering. They learned that the human body--not just the muscles, but the brain, too--grows according to the way it's used earliest. In a hundred years, we haven't discovered anything more about this principle, but we have found lots of different ways to put it to use. It's sounds so simple, yet it's hardly possible to go beyond the ground covered by this principle. I mean, there's no reason to think we've exaggerated the possibilities of education. Whoever has influence over a child first can make anything out of him. Inevitably, propaganda
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makes itself the first priority in the minds of those who see this as a way to save the human race. And various efforts were made to present to parents from all different social classes the idea that habit formation is one of education's most important goals. Mr. Clough's 'event' was one of those efforts, and the Parents' Club spread like wildfire. Everyone was ready for it because people were starting to see the wretched uncertainty of the casual, haphazard method of raising children. People were asking, 'How is it possible to raise two children in the same way, yet one turns out to be a villain, and the other turns out to be a child his family can be proud of?' Education, as far as we understand it, deals with individuals. Education doesn't deal with children collectively, but with the individual child. Within a definite period of perhaps one to six months, his bad habit is displaced, a good habit is developed, and then it's an easy job for the parents to maintain the child's newly produced habits.'
'Now, just a minute, Doctor--wait! I sense that I'm about to lose my easily won credit. You, a classical scholar, surely know that this theory of habit was familiar to Greeks and Romans. And there was an 18th century British poet--Dryden, I think--who wonderfully expressed the eternal English sentiment about this subject. He wrote,
'Charming. But, Dr. Oldcastle, remember that when I first started, I admitted that people have always had the notion that children needed to develop
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good habits and remove bad ones. But now--it's more than a notion. There's scientific evidence to back it up! So now, instead of struggling through the whole period of childhood making sporadic attempts to get a child to keep his shoelaces tied, parents are settling the matter once and for all, and making sure that the habit is ingrained within the child's character. Do you see that this is very different from the halfhearted way that parents let children try habits in an on again, off again manner for years, and the child never got it?'
'Yes, I admit there's a difference. And what I notice in young boys just coming to the school confirms it. So are you saying that their mothers have determined to set aside one to six months to form a habit--first obedience, then truthfulness, then attention, etc.--and that's why boys are coming to school with real character instead of mere disposition?'
'Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying, and it's in that area that we've been making progress for the last century. Education has been advancing in another direction, too, but that direction only has analogy to guide us, nothing certain. We can't predict yet whether we'll turn out to be simple beings, or complex beings. We aren't sure whether one life or several lives are bound up in each of us. For example, it's entirely possible that in the same way that our physical life is sustained because millions of microscopic organisms constantly live, feed, grow, reproduce and die in our substance, so our spiritual/mental life might be sustained by millions of lives such as philosophy has never even dreamed of. For instance: an idea--what is it? We don't know yet. But we do know that every idea we get exists within us in the same way as a living thing. It feeds, grows, reproduces, and then, suddenly, it's gone. There
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are physical bodies, and there are spiritual bodies. Maybe this concept is still too undeveloped to be put to practical use. But regarding the other aspects of us that we call by names that have something like personality associated with them--conscience, the will, our spiritual being--it's safe to conclude that they thrive when they have their appropriate nourishment and activity, and they perish from lack of food and nothing to do. We've also included this in our educational scheme, and had great results.'
The Dean spoke up:
'I, for one, am very grateful to Dr. Brenton for his most enlightening talk. No, don't look so insulted, Doctor. Your talk had weight and value, and it was blessedly brief. As a representative of the church, I'd like to say how much we owe to this educational revolution. A hundred years ago, people accused our Church of showing signs of decadence. But today, even her most remote extremities are alive. And why? Merely because she's kept up with the times as educational thought has progressed. The Church, along with the rest of you, understands that the world has only one thing to do--to bring up the younger generation to be better than the generation before it, and the one single valuable inheritance that our generation has to pass on is elevated national character. That's why the Church has worked steadfastly along the two areas that Dr. Brenton emphasized tonight: that habit is as effective as ten natures, and that spiritual life will thrive or deteriorate depending on whether it's fed and exercised enough, or malnourished and allowed to lie around idle. That's why every church worker is taught, above everything else, to minister to the youth of all social classes in his parish. A growing soul can't thrive on corn husks. That's why truth needs to have the husks of the past removed. It needs to be clothed
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in the living thoughts of today. A young soul needs to learn what its work is: the spiritual exercise of prayer and praise, and the physical exercise of serving others. Since a person can't teach what he doesn't know, anyone who ministers to youth needs to be qualified and constantly active in these things. After seeing these and other similar truths, our church workers are raising up around them a group of enthusiastic young spirits who consider self-devotion a law, and spiritually related work a necessity. And I believe that we owe a lot of this progress to the work of Educationalists, and we're glad to support them whole-heartedly.'
'We're glad to hear it. All along, we've been very aware of the support and help of the clergy, who join us so often. But I had no idea that we were doing them a service all this time! I'd like to offer a comment professionally, like Mr. Dean did. We doctors have reaped where we've sowed--and we've reaped abundant benefits. In the old days, families had their own doctor, who would be called in from time to time to battle some illness that had gotten a foothold. But now, people are beginning to realize that lack of energy, being out of shape, even diseases that are hereditary or caused by germs, are often the results of faulty education, or flawed bringing up, if that's a better way of putting it. And what's the consequence of that new information? Doctors are retained in sickness and in health. The family doctor fills the role of medical advisor for years--often for life. He thrives on wellness and health, not illness. He stops to pay an unexpected visit to his client and finds one girl doubled up reading a book, and another girl standing on one foot. He notices one child's hectic flush and bright eyes, another child's tendency to be sleepy--
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the flabby arms and quick intelligence of a little boy raised in the city, the apathetic dullness of the farmer's son--he sees both rich and poor clients. He doesn't wait for disease to show up. He averts the tendency towards disease. Although he hasn't discovered the fountain of youth, or any way to avert death, he can almost make this promise to his clients: that as long as they live, their eyes won't dim and their strength and energy will last. And all of this is because the doctor knows that the body needs to be educated, too. Its schedule, bones, muscles and vital organs develop and grow according to the habits trained in them.'
Mr. Hilyard had been busy with his pencil. He was apparently preparing to show the different ways in which the schools had also been progressing during this period of revolutions. But suddenly--'Oh, my! It's eleven o'clock, and we've forgotten our wives!' And that brought the discussion to an end.