In Public Elementary Schools the study of Natural History is still in its infancy. But there are signs of its assuming practical importance. In one school in the county in which I write, it has developed energy in a truly surprising manner. Our county paper recently informed us that the boys attending that place of learning had caught and killed an astonishing number of “worbles” in the past year; I think over 63,000.

This is a mere plagiarism from the methods of Dotheboys Hall. I turn to the chronicles thereof, and I read:

What is a worble? That I know not: the worble-hunters were not in my district. Nor is the creature traceable in Miss Ormerod’s “Manual of Injurious Insects.”[39] I think it molests cattle, and therefore the farmers’ sons are keen to “take away that worble.” And as the school is in the middle of a great hunting district, the desire for the chase is instinctive.

There is, however, no need to limit children to worbles. In London, for instance, the supply of this prey would be insufficient; but in so large a town there would be little difficulty in establishing a special entomological “line.” There would be room for research of the most varied kind. The names of several species will instantly occur to the reader. If Marylebone and Westminster could be induced to make competitive collections of the best known, the sympathy of all London would be enlisted, and education would enjoy a popularity which it has hitherto failed to attain.

To tell the truth, we did not profess to teach natural history as a part of the regular course. But we gave object-lessons; that is, lessons on an object placed before a class; and as the object was usually a picture, and as the pictures usually represented either Scripture scenes, or animals, it followed that—after 10 a.m.—most of the lessons were on animals. Our ménagerie was a small one, and, the remarkable habits and properties of the creatures being traditional, there was little chance of its extension. A new beast would require study. Moreover, the managers did not like buying too many pictures.

Will you accompany me through a large infant school? The head mistress greets me: “The first class was going to have a lesson on the elephant: will that do?” Oh yes; let us have the elephant.

“Loungin’ around and sufferin’,” said Uncle Remus. The elephant is painfully familiar. When the visitor to Continental picture galleries catches sight of S. Sebastian—“arrowed, but unharrowed”—he hastily turns away in search of novelty: and so would we gladly do here. Bitter constraint and sad occasion compel us to listen for a decent time, though our thoughts wander to pity for the unhappy fate of the huge beast. To be as big as that, and yet because of “a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip,” as Falstaff puts it, to be in the estimation of infant schools a compound of the clown and the pantaloon; and to be lectured on by pupil-teachers,

“Ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fias,”

it is a cruel destiny. But who could respect an animal with that tail?

The lesson is devoid of interest. How do I know, when admittedly my thoughts have been wandering? Because the children are better judges than I, and they have damned it by entire indifference. Would the Inspector like to ask any questions at the end? Only one:

“What does the elephant eat?”

“Buns.”

Will I take the second class? Certainly. I am offered the camel. The camelus scholasticus is as well known to me as my dog. I know his whole history, his habitat, his food-and-water arrangements, his disposition. He differs considerably from the Camelus Kiplingicus, or Melancholy ’Oont:

“The ’orse ’e knows above a bit, the bullock’s but a fool,
The elephant’s a gentleman, the battery-mule’s a mule;
But the commissariat cam-u-el, when all is said and done,
’E’s a devil an’ a ostrich an’ a orphan child in one.”

But our camel is gentle, meek, anxious to oblige. The lesson is going on, while I make these valuable reflections, and the beast’s picture hangs on the easel: if he is at all like his picture, mallem errare cum Platone, I side with Mr. Kipling. The camel has been called the ship of the desert. He is very useful; he lives in very hot countries, where it is very hot. Tommy Jones, don’t fidget; listen to teacher. And he lives in the desert, where there is nothing but sand all round. Mary Smith, if you don’t give over talking, teacher will be very cross with you: yes, my word, &c., &c.

When the stream of drivel has run dry, I ask:

“Where does the camel live?”

“In very ’ot coontries.”

“Yes: but whereabouts?”

“In the desert.”

“And what does he live on there?”

“Sahnd.”

“Sand? Yes; but I mean, what does he get to eat?”

“Sahnd.”

“And what does he get to drink in the desert?”

“Water.”

“And where does he get that from?”

“Out of the taps.”

I had not thought of that. There comes up a recollection of a Norfolk country school, where, after hearing all the uses and the virtues of the camel, I asked whether there were any of these precious beasts in Norfolk? None. And if the camel was so useful, why not? The answer came from the gamekeeper’s son:

“’Cos that ’ud tread on th’ young pheasants.”

I looked at its sprawling feet as shown in the picture, and understood their unfitness for a game-preserving county.

We must move on again. The third class is hearing about the mole, and I pause for a minute on the way:

Good old mole! “Well said, old mole! can’st work i’ the ground so fast?” Let us try the next class. It is engaged on the lion, and an elderly dame has got to thirdly and lastly. Etiquette requires that the lesson should conclude with some remarks on the use of the lion.

“What is the use of the lion? The use of the lion is to ’unt. What is the use of the lion, children?”

Chorus: “To ’UNT, teacher.”

I find she means “to be hunted”: and, when the children are gone out to play, I put it to her whether she really thinks that beneficent Providence has created the lion on purpose that man should hunt him. She is a little staggered by this presentment of her own doctrine, but pleads that it is so stated in her book, and produces it. There it is in black and white! I have little doubt that a similar belief is held by fox-hunters and other sportsmen. “Crewel,” said an old keeper, when reproached for badger-baiting, “why, whativer do yo think as badgers was made for?”

In ten minutes the children return from the playground, and I am implored not to forget the babies: they are going to have an object-lesson, and the pupil-teacher is waiting for me. It is Mary Williams, whose pretty face and pretty ways make her the idol of the babies, and even draw a smile from my grimmest Sub. I yield to pressure. The babies are hot and dusty, and riotous, and have to be relieved with a song, just to blow off steam. What is next on the agenda paper? The cow? Let us have the cow. The whole class sees the picture of the cow brought down from the wall, but nevertheless we must approach the subject as tradition dictates:

P.T.: As I was coming to school this morning along High Street I heard a great noise, and there was a man in a blue frock, driving a great big animal down the road. What do you think it was, babies?

Chorus: A kyow, teacher.

(H.M.I. to head mistress, sotto voce: “If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.” Head-mistress, uncertainly: “Ye-es.”)

P.T.: Yes, a cow, and here’s a picture of a cow. (The class regard it with blank indifference born of familiarity.) Now the cow is a very useful animal:——

Billy Jones (Amicus curiæ): I seen a kyow this mornin’ as I was comin’, an’ it was a bull: and it run at a mon an’ ’orned ’im nearly, only ’ee got away—”(pauses for want of breath).

P.T. (coldly): That will do, Billy, you mustn’t talk now till teacher has done. And it gives us milk. What little boy or girl had milk for their breakfast this morning, I wonder? (Alarums and excursions, many competing claims to have had two moogs full.) Yes, and that came from the cow. What has it got on its head? Horns, yes. And what can it do with its horns, Jenny?

Jenny: Hike yer. (i. e. toss you.)

P.T. (much shocked): Oh, Jenny! I told you never to say “hike.” The cow would give you a great knock. And how many legs has it got?

My attention wanders, as if I were sitting under a dull preacher, and in the absence of mural tablets I study the pictures and general exhibits. With joy I hail a reading sheet for infants:

I infer that Bill succumbed to this novel treatment at 5.55, and that they fled in haste, when they were quite sure, you know. But I think if they had given him the ham, too, he would have gone off quicker, if that was all they wanted.

Over the fireplace is the time table for the babies’ class. It is “approved by me as satisfying the Conscience Clause.” (In those days our control over time tables went no further.) The babies have two lessons a week, each of fifteen minutes, on “threading a needle.” I think the Conscience Clause might come in here. On Friday afternoon they have a lesson on riddles! And I never knew that! “Why does a miller wear a white hat?” “When is a door not a door?” For children who have gone through a year of this course of instruction, including the cow, the camel, and the cat, life has no further terrors, and death comes as a happy release.

The cow is nearly exhausted. “And it has a very, very long tongue, and when it wants to get some grass to eat, it wraps its tongue round the grass, and tears it off. Isn’t that clever? Yes, Sally, you shall go home directly, if you are a good girl.”

The closure is applied: the lesson ends, and the cow “winds slowly” to its place on the wall. As I go, I mutter to myself the old tag—

“Claudite jam rivos, pueri, sat prata biberunt,”[40]

and it reminds me of a familiar Swiss scene. The Matterhorn, the Zmutt glacier, and the Dent Blanche make the background: in the foreground daddy with a spade is diverting the runnels to feed another meadow, and Anastasia, aged seven, is not embittering life in Standard I., but superintends the prolonged meal of a tethered cow, and at the same time “minds” Seraphina and Claudinus, aged three and four respectively, who sprawl contentedly on the Alp, and pull to pieces what I call crocus, and the gods call Colchicum Alpinum. They toil not, nor do they thread needles, but they know a good deal about a cow.

Where is Mary? “Oh! Mary, Mary, quite contrairy, did you tell those babies any mortal thing about the cow that they didn’t know before they came in?”

“Well, Mr. Kynnersley, there was that about the tongue.”

“Mary, Mary, did you ever hear of the book—” (I pause, trying to remember the details)—

“Do you mean the Bible, Mr. Kynnersley?”

“No, Mary, nor ‘Bradshaw’: the book that contained things that are true and things that are new: but the things that are true are not new, and the things that are new are not true?”

Mary looks at me in utter bewilderment. I box her pretty ears, pull her pretty hair, and dismiss her, quite unrepentant, to her dinner. The teacher of the second class stands where I left her—“Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves.”

She thinks I was not pleased with her presentment of the camel. I soothe her, and at that moment appears from the end class-room a bright-eyed little body, with a model, and a pile of literature. “Why, Miss Miranda!” I exclaim, “where have you been all the morning?”

“In the class-room with Standard I., Mr. Kynnersley, and you never came near my class.”

How was I to know that there was a class in there? What has she got in her hands? There is a model of a camel, a sketch of its internal arrangements, “Wood’s Natural History,” and rough notes of the lesson. Oh, Miss Miranda!

“Excellent wench!
Perdition catch my soul but I do——”

wish there were more teachers like you.