Our next point of interest was the old castle, which is still a public school. Finding the caretaker, we visited first the museum and library—a small collection of curiosities, books, and mementoes, various portraits of Pestalozzi and his wife, manuscripts and so forth. The simple-hearted woman who did the honours was quite overcome by our knowledge of and interest in her pedagogical hero, but she did not return the compliment. I asked her if the townspeople knew about Friedrich Froebel, but she looked blank.
“Froebel? Froebel?” she asked; “qui est-ce?”
“Mais, Madame,” I said eloquently, “c’était un grand homme! Un héros! Le plus grand élève de Pestalozzi! Aussi grand que Pestalozzi soi-même!”
(“Plus grand! Why don’t you say plus grand?” murmured Salemina loyally.)
“Je ne sais!” she returned, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. “Je ne sais! Il y a des autres, je crois; mais moi, je connais Pestalozzi, c’est assez!”
All the younger children had gone home, but she took us through the empty schoolrooms, which were anything but attractive. We found an unhappy small boy locked in one of them. I slipped behind the concierge to chat with him, for he was so exactly like all other small boys in disgrace that he made me homesick.
“Tu étais méchant, n’est ce-pas?” I whispered consolingly; “mais tu seras sage demain, j’en suis sûre!”
I thought this very pretty, but he wriggled from under my benevolent hand, saying “Va!” (which I took to be, “Go ’long, you!”) “je n’étais méchant aujourd’hui et je ne serai pas sage demain!”
I asked the concierge if the general methods of Pestalozzi were still used in the schools of Yverdon, “Mais certainement!” she replied as we went into a room where twenty to thirty girls of ten years were studying. There were three pleasant windows looking out into the street; the ordinary platform and ordinary teacher’s table, with the ordinary teacher (in an extraordinary state of coma) behind it; and rather rude desks and seats for the children, but not a single ornament, picture, map, or case of objects and specimens around the room. The children were nice, clean, pleasant, stolid little things with braided hair and pinafores. The sole decoration of the apartment was a highly-coloured chart that we had noticed on the walls of all the other schoolrooms. Feeling that this must be a sacred relic, and that it probably illustrated some of the Pestalozzian foundation principles, I walked up to it reverently,
“Qu’est-ce-que c’est cela, Madame?” I inquired, rather puzzled by its appearance.
“C’est la méthode de Pestalozzi,” the teacher replied absently.
I wished that we kindergarten people could get Froebel’s educational idea in such a snug, portable shape, and drew nearer to gaze at it. I can give you a very complete description of the pictures from memory, as I copied the titles verbatim et literatim. The whole chart was a powerful moral object-lesson on the dangers of incendiarism and the evils of reckless disobedience. It was printed appropriately in the most lurid colours, and divided into nine tableaux.
These were named as follows:—
I—La Vraie Gaîté
Twelve or fifteen boys and girls are playing together so happily and innocently that their good angels sing for joy.
II—Une Proposition Fatale!
Suddenly “le petit Charles” says to his comrades, “Come! let us build a fire!” Le petit Charles is a typical infant villain and is surrounded at once by other incendiary spirits all in accord with his insidious plans.
III—La Protestation
The Good Little Marie, a Sunday-school heroine of the true type, approaches the group and, gazing heavenward, remarks that it is wicked to play with matches. The G. L. M. is of saintly presence,—so clean and well groomed that you feel inclined to push her into a puddle. Her hands are not full of vulgar toys and sweetmeats, like those of the other children, but are extended graciously as if she were in the habit of pronouncing benedictions.
IV—Insouciance!
Le petit Charles puts his evil little paw in his dangerous pockets and draws out a wicked lucifer match, saying with abominable indifference, “Bah! what do we care? We’re going to build a fire, whatever you say. Come on, boys!”
V—Un Plaisir Dangereux!
The boys “come on.” Led by “le petit vilain Charles” they light a dangerous little fire in a dangerous little spot. Their faces shine with unbridled glee. The G. L. M. retires to a distance with a few saintly followers, meditating whether she shall run and tell her mother. “Le petit Paul,” an infant of three summers, draws near the fire, attracted by the cheerful blaze.
VI—Malheur et Inexpérience
Le petit Paul somehow or other tumbles into the fire. Nothing but a desire to influence posterity as an awful example could have induced him to take this unnecessary step, but having walked in he stays in, like an infant John Rogers. The bad boys are so horror-stricken it does not occur to them to pull him out, and the G. L. M. is weeping over the sin of the world.
VII—Trop Tard!!
The male parent of le petit Paul is seen rushing down an adjacent Alp. He leads a flock of frightened villagers who have seen the smoke and heard the wails of their offspring. As the last shred of le petit Paul has vanished in said smoke, the observer notes that the poor father is indeed “too late.”
VIII—Desespoir!!
The despair of all concerned would draw tears from the dryest eye. Only one person wears a serene expression, and that is the G. L. M., who is evidently thinking: “Perhaps they will listen to me the next time.”
IX—La Fin!
The charred remains of le petit Paul are being carried to the cemetery. The G. L. M. heads the procession in a white veil. In a prominent place among the mourners is “le pauvre petit Charles,” so bowed with grief and remorse that he can scarcely be recognized.
It was a telling sermon! If I had been a child I should never have looked at a match again; and old as I was, I could not, for days afterwards, regard a box of them without a shudder. I thought that probably Yverdon had been visited in the olden time by a series of disastrous holocausts, all set by small boys, and that this was the powerful antidote presented; so I asked the teacher whether incendiarism was a popular failing in that vicinity and whether the chart was one of a series inculcating various moral lessons. I don’t know whether she understood me or not, but she said no, it was “la méthode de Pestalozzi.”
Just at this juncture she left the room, apparently to give the pupils a brief study-period, and simultaneously the concierge was called downstairs by a crying baby. A bright idea occurred to me and I went hurriedly into the corridor where my friend was taking notes.
“Salemina,” said I, “here is an opportunity of a lifetime! We ought to address these children in their native tongue. It will be something to talk about in educational pow-wows. They do not know that we are distinguished visitors, but we know it. A female member of a School Board and the Honorary President of a Froebel Society owe a duty to their constituents. You go in and tell them who and what I am and make a speech in French. Then I’ll tell them who and what you are and make another speech.”
Salemina assumed a modest violet attitude, declined the honour absolutely, and intimated that there were persons who would prefer talking in a language they didn’t know rather than to remain sensibly silent.
However the plan struck me as being so fascinating that I went back alone, looked all ways to see if any one were coming, mounted the platform, cleared my throat, and addressed the awe-struck youngsters in the following words. I will spare you the French, but you will perceive by the construction of the sentences, that I uttered only those sentiments possible in an early stage of language-study.
“My dear children,” I began, “I live many thousand miles across the ocean in America. You do not know me and I do not know you, but I do know all about your good Pestalozzi and I love him.”
“Il est mort!” interpolated one offensive little girl in the front row.
Salemina tittered audibly in the corridor, and I crossed the room and closed the door. I think the children expected me to put the key in my pocket and then murder them and stuff them into the stove.
“I know perfectly well that he is dead, my child,” I replied winningly,—“it is his life, his memory that I love.—And once upon a time, long ago, a great man named Friedrich Froebel came here to Yverdon and studied with your great Pestalozzi. It was he who made kindergartens for little children, jardins des enfants, you know. Some of your grand-mothers remember Froebel, I think?”
Hereupon two of the smaller chits shouted some sort of a negation which I did not in the least comprehend, but which from large American experience I took to be, “My grandmother doesn’t!” “My grandmother doesn’t!”
Seeing that the others regarded me favourably, I continued, “It is because I love Pestalozzi and Froebel, that I came here to day to see your beautiful new monument. I have just bought a photograph taken on that day last year when it was first uncovered. It shows the flags and the decorations, the flowers and garlands, and ever so many children standing in the sunshine, dressed in white and singing hymns of praise. You are all in the picture, I am sure!”
This was a happy stroke. The children crowded about me and showed me where they were standing in the photograph, what they wore on the august occasion, how the bright sun made them squint, how a certain malheureuse Henriette couldn’t go to the festival because she was ill.
I could understand very little of their magpie chatter, but it was a proud moment. Alone, unaided, a stranger in a strange land, I had gained the attention of children while speaking in a foreign tongue. Oh, if I had only left the door open that Salemina might have witnessed this triumph! But hearing steps in the distance, I said hastily, “Asseyez-vous, mes enfants, tout-de-suite!” My tone was so authoritative that they obeyed instantly, and when the teacher entered it was as calm as the millennium.
We rambled through the village for another hour, dined at a quaint little inn, gave a last look at the monument, and left for Geneva at seven o’clock in the pleasant September twilight. Arriving a trifle after ten, somewhat weary in body and slightly anxious in mind, I followed Salemina into the tiny cake-shop across the street from the station. She returned the tumbler, and the man, who seemed to consider it an unexpected courtesy, thanked us volubly. I held out my hand and reminded him timidly of the one franc fifty centimes.
He inquired what I meant. I explained. He laughed scornfully. I remonstrated. He asked me if I thought him an imbecile. I answered no, and wished that I knew the French for several other terms nearer the truth, but equally offensive. Then we retired, having done our part, as good Americans, to swell the French revenues, and that was the end of our day in Pestalozzi-town; not the end, however, of the lemonade glass episode, which was always a favourite story in Salemina’s repertory.
II
PENELOPE IN VENICE
This noble citie doth in a manner chalenge this at my hands, that I should describe her also as well as the other cities I saw in my journey, partly because she gave me most louing and kinde entertainment for the sweetest time (I must needes confesse) that euer I spent in my life; and partly for that she ministered vnto me more variety of remarkable and delicious objects than mine eyes euer suruayed in any citie before, or euer shall . . . the fairest Lady, yet the richest Paragon and Queene of Christendome.
Coryat’s Crudities: 1611
I
Venice, May 12Hotel Paolo Anafesto.I have always wished that I might have discovered Venice for myself. In the midst of our mad acquisition and frenzied dissemination of knowledge, these latter days, we miss how many fresh and exquisite sensations! Had I a daughter, I should like to inform her mind on every other possible point and keep her in absolute ignorance of Venice. Well do I realize that it would be impracticable, although no more so, after all, than Rousseau’s plan of educating Émile, which certainly obtained a wide hearing and considerable support in its time. No, tempting as it would be, it would be difficult to carry out such a theory in these days of logic and common sense, and in some moment of weakness I might possibly succumb and tell her all about it, for fear that some stranger, whom she might meet at a ball, would have the pleasure of doing it first.
The next best woman-person in the world with whom to see Venice, barring the lovely non-existent daughter, is Salemina.
It is our first visit, but, alas! we are, nevertheless, much better informed than I could wish. Salemina’s mind is particularly well furnished, but, luckily she cannot always remember the point wished for at the precise moment of need; so that, taking her all in all, she is nearly as agreeable as if she were ignorant. Her knowledge never bulks heavily and insistently in the foreground or middle-distance, like that of Miss Celia Van Tyck, but remains as it should, in the haze of a melting and delicious perspective. She has plenty of enthusiasms, too, and Miss Van Tyck has none. Imagine our plight at being accidentally linked to that encyclopædic lady in Italy! She is an old acquaintance of Salemina’s and joined us in Florence, where she had been staying for a month, waiting for her niece Kitty Schuyler,—Kitty Copley now,—who is in Spain with her husband.
Miss Van Tyck would be endurable in Sheffield, Glasgow, Lyons, Genoa, Kansas City, Pompeii, or Pittsburg, but she should never have blighted Venice with her presence. She insisted, however, on accompanying us, and I can only hope that the climate and associations will have a relaxing effect on her habits of thought and speech. When she was in Florence, she was so busy in “reading up” Verona and Padua that she had no time for the Uffizi Gallery. In Verona and Padua she was absorbed in Hare’s “Venice,” vaccinating herself, so to speak, with information, that it might not steal upon, and infect her, unawares. If there is anything that Miss Van abhors, it is knowing a thing without knowing that she knows it; while for me, the most charming knowledge is the sort that comes by unconscious absorption, like the free grace of God.
We intended to enter Venice in orthodox fashion, by moonlight, and began to consult about trains when we were in Milan. The porter said that there was only one train between the eight and the twelve, and gave me a pamphlet on the subject, but Salemina objects to an early start, and Miss Van refuses to arrive anywhere after dusk, so it is fortunate that the distances are not great.
They have a curious way of reckoning time in Italy, for I found that the train leaving Milan at eight-thirty was scheduled to arrive at ten minutes past eighteen.
“You could never sit up until then, Miss Van,” I said; “but, on the other hand, if we leave later, to please Salemina, say at ten in the morning, we do not arrive until eight minutes before twenty-one! I haven’t the faintest idea what time that will really be, but it sounds too late for three defenceless women—all of them unmarried—to be prowling about in a strange city.”
It proved on investigation, however, that twenty-one o’clock is only nine in Christian language (that is, one’s mother tongue), so we united in choosing that hour as being the most romantic possible, and there was a full yellow moon as we arrived in the railway station. My heart beat high with joy and excitement, for I succeeded in establishing Miss Van with Salemina in one gondola, while I took all the luggage in another, ridding myself thus cleverly of the disenchanting influence of Miss Van’s company.