Suddenly he broke off and hurried across the room, for the door had opened once more, and those entered for whom apparently he had been waiting--old Green, led by Karl Vangen.
Yes, now he was _old_ Green; a bowed old man who walked cautiously forward, led by tall Pastor Vangen. Karl's face was one of those which do not easily alter; the large forehead, the honest eyes, the deep eye-sockets, and the wide mouth with its slight smile, which Tomas had in his time made such fun of, were all just the same as before, only on a taller body. Tomas came forward to salute the old man, and walked respectfully beside him to where an armchair had been placed for him, beside Fru Rendalen, upon the platform. Karl Vangen sat down beside him, and Tomas Rendalen mounted the tribune.
He pushed his nervous, freckled hands through his red hair, making it stand still higher up; felt for his pocket-handkerchief, took hold of the water bottle, then moved some things off the desk; he was a dreadfully restless fellow.
He peered through his half-closed grey eyes, now here, now there, finally at his mother and old Green, smiled at Karl and began. His voice was a tenor, full, mellow, and practised, so that it sounded pleasantly.
To the utter astonishment of the assembled company, he said that it was principally on the subject of morality that he wished to speak; it was principally for a moral object that this hall had been built.
The whole course of education in the school would, still more than before, have morality for its aim.
In order that he might speak freely on the subject, it had been necessary to restrict the audience entirely to parents, or those who stood in their stead, and who might be expected, for that reason, to treat a serious matter in a serious spirit.
There was a seriousness about himself which was combined with but little acuteness: he almost threatened them. He did not in the least perceive how horrified this meeting of provincial townspeople at once became; he took their embarrassment for a kind of awe, for something of the solemn feeling of a meeting in church. He continued:
"Not alone for woman's sake must this subject be seriously approached, but for man's sake as well. All take care of themselves, men as well as women, but women had the incentive to watch over her own interests, so she stood higher as a companion and in society.
"It was in this that the school ought, better than before, to aid her.
"The venerable man who sat on his right once said to him, that only those families succumbed to drunkenness whose nerves had first been thoroughly weakened by a dissolute life. In such families the habit of drunkenness very easily becomes hereditary; I think that more than this can be traced to the same cause. Addiction to pleasure--that undoubtedly often grows in vigorous soil; but a man may appear vigorous enough and still be excessively enervated. That characterlessness which is incapable of overcoming opposition is, as a rule, the result of the forefathers' sensuality with the addition of his own; every kind of moral and intellectual looseness and dulness, when it spreads in a family which has at one time taken a foremost place, can, for the most part, be traced back to this cause. At all events, it is the strongest among several. Our passion, our hastiness, our impatience, our exaggeration, our irritability--unless, indeed, they can be traced to some accident in our bringing up, some purely accidental state of health--find their strongest cause here.
"All such are weaknesses contracted in the course of several generations; perhaps increased in the later ones.
"The investigations on this subject are so recent that we cannot yet bring forward such strong proofs as we believe to exist; it is only lately that the work of seriously minded men and women has been concentrated on this object, as the most important possible. But those who realise that this is the case are still few. Therefore schools are not by any means able to cope with the subject; especially girls'
schools, which are absolutely bad.
"The girls' school which we are now in is, as a place of education, as good as any in the country. I have satisfied myself on that point, but it has been the greatest regret of the principal, during the whole course of her labours, that the aim which she originally set before herself, that of giving a _larger_ share to moral than to general education, has not been attained to. It is on this point that my mother has conferred with me more than on any other, so that at last it became my daily thought.
"My parentage, my education, my career have, in more ways than one prepared this work for me."
[His voice trembled a little, and he was obliged to pause, his mother was affected: general wonderment.]
"'Woman's moral training'? most of you will object, 'is there anything amiss with it? Among the lower orders perhaps, but in the refined classes of the town is it not excellent? Protected by religion, in the pure atmosphere of home, in the regular work of school, in a guarded life passed among those of the same age and sex.' Yes, and what results from all this?
"Let me merely in passing take the pure atmosphere of home. In a seaport town--all will admit it--the strongest current is by no means a moral one. Traders and sailors, as is unavoidable from their mode of life, are among the worst in respect to morality. No one dare deny it.
An early wandering life takes the morals on to very slippery ground, and a merchant's business, where the percentage of profit fluctuates as it is honestly, or dishonestly gained, does not strengthen the moral life. His cultivation is, as a rule, very slight, his reading confined to a few newspapers, or perhaps novels; his intercourse, outside his own occupation and family, next to nothing, so that here there is little counterpoise. A sailor's life is, as a rule, one without ties, passed in every sort of country, in all parts of the world; in nine cases out of ten the master is an uncultivated man, perhaps a rough one, often tyrannised over by his 'owners,' and almost always tyrannical himself when opportunity offers. As things stand with us at present, when the skipper has learned to filch a percentage from the freight, as well as from everything he buys for the use of the ship, even to the very water--I know such cases!--systematic robbery, one may say--we can understand that high principles will not be cultivated in such a life. And but a rough example is given, as a rule, to the subordinates.
"The return of men such as these by no means strengthens the desire for morality in the town, or increases its stock of character. As regards the homes, those of the skippers especially, we can conceive that the children's bringing-up must have received a strong bias; or, if every one cannot imagine it, I will lay it out before you."
[I wish that my readers could have seen the horror, the confusion, the shamefacedness of the assembly, the rage of some, of three sunburnt skippers, for example! Others gazed uneasily into their hats, or at the backs of those before them. Some there were, however, who delighted in the scandal! They alone ventured to look up, their eyes turned eagerly towards the smiling Engel, the skippers, the tradesmen, the sheriff, and their wives--towards all, indeed, who on one account or another must sit on the stool of repentance. There were women ready to cry with shame, anger, and vexation at being there; they were prepared to fly at any moment, but dared not actually do so. There were men who thought, "If this goes half an inch further--by all the devils I shall be off."
But they did not move. When the doctor blew his nose, they were all as startled as though it had lightened.]
"Many people firmly believe that if a child sees nothing indecent at home, and hears no doubtful stories, everything has been done which can be done, especially if they are heedful that the child himself does nothing improper. I contend that if no more than this is done, a child is exposed to every possible evil. Here people rave about the innocence of ignorance; there is something concerning that subject which I cannot now speak about--I shall take an opportunity of doing so later; I confine myself at present to saying that that innocence which knows what the danger is, and has fought against it from youth up, that innocence _alone is strong_. All education which tends to further this object must have, as an absolute condition, _full confidence between the child and its parents_--at any rate, between the child and its mother; or, to carry out the whole of my idea, between the child and that parent who is most fitted to gain its confidence; for this is, in itself, a special gift, and if neither of the parents has it, which may easily happen, then find some one who has. Use all means to accomplish this.
"If the child's father be a man who has not honourably fought the fight (it must come to him sooner or later), he is then, not only the fifth wheel in the coach, which would go all the same, but, as a rule, an actual hindrance. For there is often something in his manner, his speech, his ways which wounds or tempts; those subjects which should be seriously and firmly dealt with become with him almost amusing; they are treated as things to be lightly touched upon.
"In this town, such as I know it, and indeed as you know it who have grown up in the place and become sharp-sighted in regard to it--in this town, I think, most houses are weak in this respect. The fathers give no help, the attempts of the mothers to keep up a thorough confidence as between comrades, are certainly great, but they rarely succeed, they do not understand how to do it. Till this is altered, the work at school for the cause of morality will prove deceptive, for it can easily place a child between noble teaching and evil practice; a knowledge of evil unsupported by watchful confidence may easily itself become a temptation. St. Paul has pointed this out.
"I forewarn you for this reason: our work at first will often rise up in witness against us, but for all that there is no other course open to us--no, no other. Do we not know that there is one particular epoch of life for which, more than for any other time, it is necessary to provide and to secure means of helping? How to do this is the question.
Ask any doctor, ask any experienced teacher, if this is not the case.
"My mother, whom I am justified in calling an experienced teacher, can bear witness that at this period of change most girls deteriorate in that they lose their openness, and much of, or all their industry and sense of order; something strange and of a mixed nature seems to enter into their composition--very different, however, with different individuals. Remember, she says, 'that this is the case with the majority; there are exceptions, but this is the rule.'"
[Looking at the audience, you would have thought that these remarks applied only to women, and not to men. For the men looked openly and unblushingly at the women, which only made the moment more painful for the latter, especially for those who were known to all the world as having been pupils of Fru Rendalen.]
"Therefore it is precisely on this point that our work must be brought to bear, it must be completely prepared to meet this physical change, and everything must be directed to this end.
"For it is no use denying that this exists, or shutting one's eyes to it. It is the most important thing that a teacher can be concerned with. What, compared to this, which really means the preservation of body and soul, are, say, a knowledge of languages, instruction in the piano or in feminine neatness, but mere luxuries. History, geography, arithmetic, writing, are of rather more value, but even they are of secondary or even third-rate importance.
"Well, but religion, you will say, does not that often help? Ah! what do you understand by that word? Knowledge of God and of the moral laws is, of course, a most needful knowledge, but it is only when such knowledge influences the conduct that it becomes effective. _It is very rarely_ that it does this. Do not build too much on a faith that may be lost. It is only a minority on whom religious belief has a lasting effect. We do not realise this, because with us religion is almost the only thing which holds its own--outside, that is, of our large towns.
Religion appears to us to be powerful, because we have not yet acquired the habit of looking about us, and because most of us are a good deal given to deceiving ourselves.
"Children, in matters of this sort, do not really stand on a different level from adults; do not imagine that they do so. They can, it is true, be very easily led, but they can be brought with even more ease and more completely to forget one thing and take up another. It takes very little to make them believe, but it takes still less to make them doubt, so that the ratio between belief and unbelief remains the same.
Those whose religious belief forms a lasting restraint on their moral character are, among children as among adults, but few.
"There are four clergymen present. I ask them if they can rise and contradict me? I do not believe that they feel any inclination to do so."
[A short pause. All eyes were fixed upon such of the clergymen as they could see. The four reverend gentlemen sat as unmovable as graven images.]
"Do I hold then, you ask, that religion is of no importance in a school? Much the contrary? But there should be no class of religious instruction which does not partake of the thorough earnestness of a religious lecture. Let it as often as possible be given by the person who will have the preparation of the child for confirmation--that is to say, generally by the clergyman. I would say entirely by him, if that could be arranged. Thus the relation of the clergyman to the teacher would be that of a support to the latter.
"I cannot go further into this question: I will only add that this is the arrangement adopted for our school. The friend of my youth, my brother, Pastor Karl Vangen, will take the children between six and sixteen every morning for religions instruction and edification, and the intention is that he shall conduct their whole religious training until their confirmation. But it follows from what I have said that he can only hope to make the relationship of deep and lasting value _for a very few_. It is only right that this fact should be realised in schools."
"Lately," continued the speaker after another very short pause, "an attempt has been made to set up the study of history and of general literature as branches of knowledge which have an influence in the formation of character. When these studies have been more fully adapted as subjects of instruction than they have yet been, they will have more importance in this respect.
"Undoubted assistance was, of course," he went on, "always to be gained from these studies. The child learned to know of good, great, and noble thoughts, and obtained a grasp, if only a slight one, of the course of human history, as well as the history of single peoples or great men.
But it can never be a matter of the _first_ importance to hear about others."
[The audience now became curious. Where would he get to at last? They felt that something important was coming.]
He leaned forward over the tribune and said slowly:
"'The most important form of knowledge which a man can acquire, is the knowledge how to regulate his own life; the next, how to regulate the lives of those who come after him.'
"These words of Herbert Spencer may be taken as a rule of life for the whole world. Until this also is made the thing of most importance in schools, other subjects will not fall into their right places in the whole scheme of instruction or the arrangements subsidiary thereto. But the task of learning self-restraint, of learning to guide our offspring, this is the moral aim and the only stable ground of all instruction.
"If at an early age you obtain adequate knowledge of how your body is constructed and how it works, and if you also learn to know how you can benefit or injure it, and through yourself those who will be born to you, or who may be dependent on you, this knowledge not only becomes your greatest safeguard if you _will_ use it, but as a rule it gives you a desire to do so.
"A feeling of self-respect is aroused more strongly by knowledge than in any other way, but that this may be the result, the knowledge must not be imparted too late. I need not say that ordinary schools give far too little instruction of this kind, and that little not as it should be given. The pupils must understand why it is given; the teacher must be open, thorough, with no concealments, for the very things which are usually kept out of sight _are the most important_.
"I speak of that period of life to which I have before alluded. Is the child ever told what that is which is beginning? I mean, has it full, absolute knowledge? does it know what temptations will come, or why they will come? Has it learned how they are to be met? or how at that time it can create conditions for health, and through its health its character, good-humour, happiness?--that on that time hangs its future life, nay, that of its offspring? Is that taught in such a way as to be branded, so to say, into the child's will? Have the subjects of which I spoke been raised to a level of one which here, and now, might guide the scholar's fancy by noble incentive, strong purpose, enthusiasm? for children, especially young girls, can be made enthusiastic.
"Or, to come down to what every one is capable of forming a judgment about, do the parents at home know that at that age certain sorts of food, certain seasonings, are baneful to some natures? That for some a special diet is necessary? What sort of diet that should be? Is it known in schools that a special course of gymnastics may be of great assistance? Children are not all alike in respect to the amount of watchfulness and management which they require; some few require no special attention. But that most do need it, is a fact upon which I confidently appeal to the experience of this meeting, whose members have all been young once and have had young companions."
[He made a pause and looked round the room; a little bird could be heard twittering in the distance.]
"A further question: Is it not at that period of life that those, who had not learned to do so before, now learn to deceive? To act secretly, with a bashfulness which wounds the sense of honour and thus injures the character? If one thing can be admitted, another cannot--to the destruction of the character. Quietly, and as a rule quite unsuspected, at that age the powers of self-destruction begin to work in body and character; no one will dare to contradict me."