A Pedagogue Primeval [pp. 409-416]

414 A Pedagogue Primeval. [April,
While his mind composed itself, his eyes "That durned thing stafis me-it does."
dwelt alternately and adoringly upon Glori- Then I went back on the lesson, iterating
ana and the sky. and reiterating. He could repeat after me,
Clay Banks was only a year younger than but he could not or would not once discrimiGloriana, hut he seemed at least a decade nate among the letters. For a full hour I
behind her in intelligence. She was un- rolled that Sisyphean stone. Never was
awakened, but he had almost nothing to mortal patience more faithfully exercised;
awake. His hair was yellow and a mane; never was it more flilly exhausted. When
his face was yellow and lumpy; his eyes none whatever was left, I said to him as I
were tawny and feral. Broad horse-teeth, whittled the shingle end into a handle:
set in an open, unmeaning mouth, formed "My boy,-instruction is imparted in two
the only color relief to that yellow, sodden ways-by mind or through matter. If one
face. His one possession that fitted any- is useless, the other remains. The general
thing was his name. I soon found him to who has failed in direct attack may still
be, in doggedness and even stupid malig- succeed by proper movements upon the
nancy, a slowly maturing diabolian. How flank or rear. If the letter chalked upon this
to batter at such material was the problem. shingle which I now hold up before you does
His replies to my questions showed that he not imprint itself correctly upon your eye, I
knew absolutely nothing except to talk about shall imprint it elsewhere, all over your back,
horses and cattle. He had never seen the and with such force that it may strike through
alphabet. I began to teach him the letters you correctly to the eyes at last. The Rofrom my Shakspere, but it was a pocket edi- man pedagogues described this scientific
tion in diamond type, and he blinked at the method as a vi~ a tergo. It is not pleasing,
page, saying that he "couldn't see them but we must be always glad to sacrifice to
durned little curlicues apart." Fortunately, science. Now, name this letter."
coarser appliances for learning were at hand. He knuckled his eyes, and said sullenly,
"Go into that field, Clay, where they are "Dunno." I transferred with befitting inbuilding a shanty about a hundred yards off. dustry the chalked letter from the shingle all
Get them to give you a piece of chalk and over his back. He did not wince, but rehalf a dozen split shingles that they can't use. marked profanely, whenever the blow laid
We'll find a use." the foundation for a blister.
When he had lurched back', bringing in Suddenly, I heard a solemn, horrified
his hands his only intellectual apparatus, I voice behind me:
chalked each shingle with a letter. Then "Ah, that beastly indriving again! It was
holding them up, one at a time, I made him always too much for me. Heavens! w/~y
repeat after me the sound of the letter, and not spare the rod and spoil the child? A
strove to impress upon him its form. Then long farewell!"
I made him chalk the same letter elsewhere After an ineffectual parting look at the
on the shingle. This consumed an infinity dewy eyes of Gloriana, through the apron
of patience, but I finally succeeded in get- she had thrown over her face, my unknown
ting a series of hieroglyphics, out of which visitor stalked away with the haughty humilChampollion might perhaps eventually de- ity of a Spanish fidalgo profaned. I never
cipher a meaning. After thus teaching him saw him again.
three or four letters, I selected one of the In the next &w days, seven new pupils
shingles and told him to name it. He glar- came into the fold. They were mostly imed at it with ursine ferocity. An enemy ported Oregon boys, bred in-and-in with a
blocked his path. I waited, and he contin- dash of Cayuse strain. Their ages varied
ued to glare. Then his fists unclenched, and between ten and twenty-one years, and all
his shoulders fell with a limp, invertebrate were at different stages of the alphabet.
hopelessness. Gloriana alone was above the lowest level of