§ 2. The Kindergarten

"I know what will happen," Mr Brainer went on to say. "You'll send Bobbie to what Germans call a Kindergarten. And it's a good thing for Germany, because all a German knows is what one tells him; and his graduation papers are a certificate that he needn't think any more. But we have introduced it into this country, and one day I dropped in on Mary Ellen and saw her Kindergarten. The children were sitting around on the floor and some were molding dogs out of mud and wiping their hands on their hair, and some were carving figures of a goat out of pasteboard, and some were singing, and some were sleeping and a few were dancing. And one boy was pulling another boy's hair.

'Why don't you punish the little savage, Mary Ellen?' said I.

'We don't believe in corporal punishment,'* said she. 'School should be pleasant for the children,' she said. 'The child whose hair is being pulled is learning patience, and the child that is pulling the hair is discovering the futility of human endeavour.'**

'Oh, well,' I said, 'that's very interesting, indeed. Times have certainly changed since I was a boy,' I said. 'Put them through their exercises,' I said, 'Tommy, spell "cat," I said.

'Go to the devil,' said the little angel.

'Very smartly said***," said Mary Ellen. 'You should not ask him to spell,' she said. 'They don't learn that till they go to college,' she said, 'sometimes not even then,' she said.

'And what do they learn?' I said.

'Playing,' she said, 'and dancing, and independence of speech, and beauty songs, and sweet thoughts, and how to make home homelike,' she said.

'I won't put them through any exercise today,' I said.

'...whisper, Mary Ellen,' I said. 'Do you never feel like whipping them?'****

'The teachings of Freebull and Pitzotly***** are contrary to that,' she said. 'But I'm going to be married and leave school on Friday the 22nd of January and on Thursday the 21st I'm going to ask a few of the darlings to the house and stew them over a slow fire.'"******

_____________________

* corporal punishment – телесные наказания

** the futility of human endeavour – тщетность человеческих усилий

*** very smartly said – очень умный ответ

**** Do you never feel like whipping them? – И вам никогда не хочется отшлепать их?

***** искаженное от Froebel – немецкий педагог, основатель детских садов, Pestallozi – выдающийся швейцарский педагог

****** to stew over a slow fire – зажарить на медленном огне

§ 3. College

"Well, after they have learned at school they are ready for college. Mamma packs a few things into her son's bag and the lad trots off to college. If he is not strong enough to look for high honours as a boxer he goes into the thought department.* The President** takes him to his study, gives him a cigarette and says: 'My dear boy, what special branch of learning would you like to study to become one of our professors? We have a Chair of Beauty and a Chair of Puns, a Chair of Poetry on the Setting Sun, and one on Platonic Love, and one on Sweet Thoughts and one on How Green Grows the Grass.*** This is all you will need to equip you for perfect life, unless you intend being a dentist; in which case,'**** he says, 'we won't think much of you but we have a good school where you can learn that disgraceful trade,' he says.

And the lad makes his choice, and every morning when he is up in time he takes a glass of whiskey and goes off to hear Professor Marianna tell him that if the data of human knowledge must be rejected as subjective, how much more must they be subjected as rejective..."*****

"I don't understand a word of what you are saying," said Mr Smith.

"Nor do I," said Mr Brainer. "But believe me it is as my father used to say: 'Children shouldn't be sent to school to learn but to learn how to learn. I don't care what you teach them, so long as it is unpleasant to them.' It's training they need, Smith. That's all. I never could make use of what I learned in college about trigonometry and grammar; and the bumps I got on my head from the schoolmaster's cane I have never been able to make use of either. But it was the being there and having to learn things by heart, without asking the meaning of them, and going to school cold and coming home hungry, that made the man of me you see before you. Our children must be taught toughness, that's what they need in life."

_________________________

* the thought department– (зд.) философский факультет

** the President – the Head of the College

*** Перечисляются вымышленные названия кафедр.

**** in which case– в таком случае

***** Дается сатирическая иллюстрация высокопарного псевдонаучного стиля философского факультета.