Penelope\'s Postscripts
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Kate Douglas Wiggin >> Penelope\'s Postscripts
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7 This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
from the 1915 Hodder and Stoughton edition.
Penelope's Postscripts
by Kate Douglas Wiggin
Contents:
Penelope in Switzerland
Penelope in Venice
Penelope's Prints of Wales
Penelope in Devon
Penelope at Home
PENELOPE IN SWITZERLAND
A DAY IN PESTALOZZI-TOWN
Salemina and I were in Geneva. If you had ever travelled through
Europe with a charming spinster who never sat down at a Continental
table d'hote without being asked by an American vis-a-vis whether
she were one of the P.'s of Salem, Massachusetts, you would
understand why I call my friend Salemina. She doesn't mind it.
She knows that I am simply jealous because I came from a vulgarly
large tribe that never had any coat-of-arms, and whose ancestors
always sealed their letters with their thumb nails.
Whenever Francesca and I call her "Salemina," she knows, and we
know that she knows, that we are seeing a group of noble ancestors
in a sort of halo over her serene and dignified head, so she
remains unruffled under her petit nom, inasmuch as the casual
public comprehends nothing of its spurious origin and thinks it was
given her by her sponsors in baptism.
Francesca, Salemina, and I have very different backgrounds. The
first-named is an extremely pretty person of large income who is
travelling with us simply because her relatives think that she will
"see Europe" more advantageously under our chaperonage than if she
were accompanied by persons of her own age or "set."
Salemina is a philanthropist and educator of the first rank, and is
collecting all sorts of valuable material to put at the service of
her own country when she returns to it, which will not be a moment
before her letter of credit is exhausted.
I, too, am quasi-educational, for I had a few years of experience
in mothering and teaching little waifs and strays of the streets
before I began to paint pictures. Never shall I regret those
nerve-racking, back-breaking, heart-warming, weary, and beautiful
years, when, all unconsciously, I was learning to paint children by
living with them. Even now the spell still works and it is the
curly head, the "shining morning face," the ready tear, the
glancing smile of childhood that enchains me and gives my brush
whatever skill it possesses.
We had not been especially high-minded or educational in
Switzerland, Salemina and I. The worm will turn; and there is a
point where the improvement of one's mind seems a farce, and the
service of humanity, for the moment, a duty only born of a diseased
imagination.
How can one sit on a vine-embowered balcony facing lovely Lake
Geneva and think about modern problems,--Improved Tenements, Child
Labour, Single Tax, Sweat Shops, and the Right Training of the
Rising Civilization? Blue Lake Geneva!--blue as a woman's eye,
blue as the vault of heaven, dropped into the lap of the green
earth like a great sparkling sapphire! Mont Blanc you know to be
just behind the clouds on the other side, and that presently, after
hours or days of patient waiting, he may condescend to unveil
himself to your worshipful gaze.
"He is wise in his dignity and reserve," mused Salemina as we sat
on the veranda. "He is all the more sublime because he withdraws
himself from time to time. In fact, if he didn't see fit to cover
himself occasionally, one could neither eat nor sleep, nor do
anything but adore and magnify."
The day before this interview we had sailed to the end of the
sapphire lake and visited the "snow-white battlements" of the
Castle of Chillon; seen its "seven pillars of Gothic mould," and
its dungeons deep and old, where poor Bonnivard, Byron's famous
"Prisoner of Chillon," lay captive for so many years, and where
Rousseau fixes the catastrophe of his Heloise.
We had just been to Coppet too; Coppet where the Neckers lived and
Madame de Stael was born and lived during many years of her life.
We had wandered through the shaded walks of the magnificent chateau
garden, and strolled along the terrace where the eloquent Corinne
had walked with the Schlegels and other famous habitues of her
salon. We had visited Calvin's house at 11 Rue des Chanoines,
Rousseau's at No. 40 on the Grande Rue, and Voltaire's at Ferney.
And so we had been living the past, Salemina and I. But
"Early one morning,
Just as the day was dawning."
my slumbering conscience rose in Puritan strength and asserted its
rights to a hearing.
"Salemina," said I, as I walked into her room, "this life that we
are leading will not do for me any longer. I have been too much
immersed in ruins. Last night in writing to a friend in New York I
uttered the most disloyal and incendiary statements. I said that I
would rather die than live without ruins of some kind; that America
was so new, and crude, and spick and span, that it was obnoxious to
any aesthetic soul; that our tendency to erect hideous public
buildings and then keep them in repair afterwards would make us the
butt of ridicule among future generations. I even proposed the
founding of an American Ruin Company, Limited,--in which the
stockholders should purchase favourably situated bits of land and
erect picturesque ruins thereon. To be sure, I said, these ruins
wouldn't have any associations at first, but what of that? We have
plenty of poets and romancers; we could manufacture suitable
associations and fit them to the premises. At first, it is true,
they might not fire the imagination; but after a few hundred years,
in being crooned by mother to infant and handed down by father to
son, they would mellow with age, as all legends do, and they would
end by being hallowed by rising generations. I do not say they
would be absolutely satisfactory from every standpoint, but I do
say that they would be better than nothing.
"However," I continued, "all this was last night, and I have had a
change of heart this morning. Just on the borderland between
sleeping and waking, I had a vision. I remembered that to-day
would be Monday the 1st of September; that all over our beloved
land schools would be opening and that your sister pedagogues would
be doing your work for you in your absence. Also I remembered that
I am the dishonourable but Honorary President of a Froebel Society
of four hundred members, that it meets to-morrow, and that I can't
afford to send them a cable."
"It is all true," said Salemina. "It might have been said more
briefly, but it is quite true."
"Now, my dear, I am only a painter with an occasional excursion
into educational fields, but you ought to be gathering stories of
knowledge to lay at the feet of the masculine members of your
School Board."
"I ought, indeed!" sighed Salemina.
"Then let us begin!" I urged. "I want to be good to-day and you
must be good with me. I never can be good alone and neither can
you, and you know it. We will give up the lovely drive in the
diligence; the luncheon at the French restaurant and those heavenly
little Swiss cakes" (here Salemina was almost unmanned); "the
concert on the great organ and all the other frivolous things we
had intended; and we will make an educational pilgrimage to
Yverdon. You may not remember, my dear,"--this was said severely
because I saw that she meditated rebellion and was going to refuse
any programme which didn't include the Swiss cakes,--"you may not
remember that Jean Henri Pestalozzi lived and taught in Yverdon.
Your soul is so steeped in illusions; so submerged in the Lethean
waters of the past; so emasculated by thrilling legends, paltry
titles, and ruined castles, that you forget that Pestalozzi was the
father of popular education and the sometime teacher of Froebel,
our patron saint. When you return to your adored Boston, your
faithful constituents in that and other suburbs of Salem,
Massachusetts, will not ask you if you have seen the Castle of
Chillon and the terrace of Corinne, but whether you went to
Yverdon."
Salemina gave one last fond look at the lake and picked up her
Baedeker. She searched languidly in the Y's and presently read in
a monotonous, guide-book voice. "Um--um--um--yes, here it is,
'Yverdon is sixty-one miles from Geneva, three hours forty minutes,
on the way to Neuchatel and Bale.' (Neuchatel is the cheese place;
I'd rather go there and we could take a bag of those Swiss cakes.)
'It is on the southern bank of Lake Neuchatel at the influx of the
Orbe or Thiele. It occupies the site of the Roman town of
Ebrodunum. The castle dates from the twelfth century and was
occupied by Pestalozzi as a college.'"
This was at eight, and at nine, leaving Francesca in bed, we were
in the station at Geneva. Finding that we had time to spare, we
went across the street and bargained for an in-transit luncheon
with one of those dull native shopkeepers who has no idea of
American-French.
Your American-French, by the way, succeeds well enough so long as
you practise, in the seclusion of your apartment, certain assorted
sentences which the phrase-book tells you are likely to be needed.
But so far as my experience goes, it is always the unexpected that
happens, and one is eternally falling into difficulties never
encountered by any previous traveller.
For instance, after purchasing a cold chicken, some French bread,
and a bit of cheese, we added two bottles of lemonade. We managed
to ask for a glass, from which to drink it, but the man named two
francs as the price. This was more than Salemina could bear. Her
spirit was never dismayed at any extravagance, but it reared its
crested head in the presence of extortion. She waxed wroth. The
man stood his ground. After much crimination and recrimination I
threw myself into the breach.
"Salemina," said I, "I wish to remark, first: That we have three
minutes to catch the train. Second: That, occupying the position
we do in America,--you the member of a School Board and I the
Honorary President of a Froebel Society,--we cannot be seen
drinking lemonade from a bottle, in a public railway carriage; it
would be too convivial. Third: You do not understand this
gentleman. You have studied the language longer than I, but I have
studied it more lately than you, and I am fresher, much fresher
than you." (Here Salemina bridled obviously.) "The man is not
saying that two francs is the price of the glass. He says that we
can pay him two francs now, and if we will return the glass to-
night when we come home he will give us back one franc fifty
centimes. That is fifty centimes for the rent of the glass, as I
understand it."
Salemina's right hand, with the glass in it, dropped nervelessly at
her side. "If he uttered one single syllable of all that
rigmarole, then Ollendorf is a myth, that's all I have to say."
"The gift of tongues is not vouchsafed to all," I responded with
dignity. "I happen to possess a talent for languages, and I
apprehend when I do not comprehend."
Salemina was crushed by the weight of my self-respect, and we took
the tumbler, and the train.
It was a cloudless day and a beautiful journey, along the side of
the sapphire lake for miles, and always in full view of the
glorious mountains. We arrived at Yverdon about noon, and had
eaten our luncheon on the train, so that we should have a long,
unbroken afternoon. We left our books and heavy wraps in the
station with the porter, with whom we had another slight
misunderstanding as to general intentions and terms; then we
started, Salemina carrying the lemonade glass in her hand, with her
guide-book, her red parasol, and her Astrakhan cape. The tumbler
was a good deal of trouble, but her heart was set on returning it
safely to the Geneva pirate; not so much to reclaim the one franc
fifty centimes as to decide conclusively whether he had ever
proposed such restitution. I knew her mental processes, so I
refused to carry any of her properties; besides, the pirate had
used a good many irregular verbs in his conversation, and upon due
reflection I was a trifle nervous about the true nature of the
bargain.
The Yverdon station fronted on a great open common dotted with a
few trees. There were a good many mothers and children sitting on
the benches, and a number of young lads playing ball. The town
itself is one of the quaintest, quietest, and sleepiest in
Switzerland. From 1803 to 1810 it was a place of pilgrimage for
philanthropists from all parts of Europe; for at that time
Pestalozzi was at the zenith of his fame, having under him one
hundred and sixty-five pupils from Europe and America, and thirty-
two adult teachers, who were learning his method.
But Yverdon has lost its former greatness now! Scarcely any
English travellers go there and still fewer Americans. We fancied
that there was nothing extraordinary in our appearance;
nevertheless a small crowd of children followed at our heels, and
the shopkeepers stood at their open doors and regarded us with
intense interest.
"No English spoken here, that is evident," said Salemina ruefully;
"but you have such a gift for languages you can take the command
to-day and make the blunders and bear the jeers of the public. You
must find out where the new Pestalozzi Monument is,--where the
Chateau is,--where the schools are, and whether visitors are
admitted,--whether there is a respectable hotel where we can get
dinner,--whether we can get back to Geneva to-night, whether it's a
fast or a slow train, and what time it gets there,--whether the
methods of Pestalozzi are still maintained,--whether they know
anything about Froebel,--whether they know what a kindergarten is,
and whether they have one in the village. Some of these questions
will be quite difficult even for you."
Well, the monument was not difficult to find, at all events. We
accosted two or three small boys and demanded boldly of one of
them, "Ou est le monument de Pestalozzi, s'il vous plait?"
He shrugged his shoulders like an American small boy and said
vacantly, "Je ne sais pas."
"Of course he does know," said Salemina; "he means to be
disagreeable; or else 'monument' isn't monument."
"Well," I answered, "there is a monument in the distance, and there
cannot be two in this village."
Sure enough it was the very one we sought. It stands in a little
open place quite "in the business heart of the city,"--as we should
say in America, and is an exceedingly fine and impressive bit of
sculpture. The group of three figures is in bronze and was done by
M. Gruet of Paris.
The modelling is strong, the expression of Pestalozzi benign and
sweet, and the trusting upturned faces of the children equally
genuine and attractive.
One side of the pedestal bears the inscription:-
A
Pestalozzi
1746-1827
Monument erige
par souscription populaire
MDCCCXC
On a second side these words are carved in the stone:-
Sauveur des Pauvres a Neuhof
Pere des Orphelins a Stanz
Fondateur de l'ecole
populaire a Burgdorf
Educateur de l'humanite
a Yverdon
Tout pour les autres, pour lui,--rien!
An older monument erected in 1846 by the Canton of Argovia bears
this same inscription, save that it adds, "Preacher to the people
in 'Leonard and Gertrude.' Man. Christian. Citizen. Blessed be
his name!"
On the third side of the Yverdon Monument is Pestalozzi's noble
speech, fine enough indeed, to be cut in stone:-
"J'ai vecu moi-meme
comme un mendiant,
pour apprendre a des
mendiants a vivre comme
des hommes."
We sat a long time on the great marble pedestal, gazing into the
benevolent face, and reviewing the simple, self-sacrificing life of
the great educator, and then started on a tour of inspection.
After wandering through most of the shops, buying photographs and
mementoes, Salemina discovered that she had left the expensive
tumbler in one of them. After a long discussion as to whether
tumbler was masculine or feminine, and as to whether "Ai-je laisse
un verre ici?" or "Est-ce que j'ai laisse un verre ici?" was the
proper query, we retraced our steps, Salemina asking in one shop,
"Excusez-moi, je vous prie, mais ai-je laisse un verre ici?",--and
I in the next, "Je demands pardon, Madame, est-ce que j'ai laisse
un verre dans ce magasin-ci?--J'en ai perdu un, somewhere."
Finally we found it, and in response not to mine but to Salemina's
question, so that she was superior and obnoxious for several
minutes.
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'etait un grand homme! Un
heros! Le plus grand eleve de Pestalozzi! Aussi grand que
Pestalozzi soi-meme!"
("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 etais mechant, n'est ce-pas?" I whispered consolingly; "mais tu
seras sage demain, j'en suis sure!"
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'etais mechant 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 methode 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 GAITE
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 INEXPERIENCE
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 methode 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?"
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