“Good old Brocky,” said Swazey with a chuckle. “Just what I like; stormy outside, warm inside, and Brocky at the bat. Serve ’em up.”
Brockhurst, who was used to this reception of his pointed generalizations, paid no heed. He, too, had grown in mental stature and in control. A certain diffidence was over him, and always would be; but when a subject came up that interested him, he forgot himself, and rushed into the argument with a zeal that never failed to arouse his listeners.
Brockhurst turned on Swazey with the license that was always permissible.
“Well, what do you know? You’ve been here going on three years. You are supposed to be more than half educated. And you’re not a fair example either, because you really are seeking to know something.”
“Well, go on,” said Swazey, thoroughly aroused.
“What do you know about the Barbizon school, and the logical reasons for the revolt of the impressionists?”
Instantly there was an outcry:
“Not fair.”
“Oh, I say.”
“That’s no test.”
“Finishing your third year, gentlemen,” said Brockhurst triumphantly, “age over twenty; the art of painting is of course known to the aborigines only in its cruder forms. Well, does anyone know at least who Manet is, or what he’s painted?”
There was an accusing silence.
“Of course you’ve an idea of the Barbizon school—one or two of you. You remember something about a Man with a Hoe or the Angelus—that’s Sunday supplement education. Now let me try you. Please raise hands, little boys, when you know the answer to these questions, but don’t bluff teacher. I’m not contending you should have a detailed knowledge of the world in your eager, studious minds. I am saying that you haven’t the slightest general information. I’ll make my questions fair.
“First, music: I won’t ask you the tendencies and theories of the modern schools—you won’t know that such a thing as a theory in music exists. You know the opera of Carmen—good old Toreadore song. Do you know the name of the composer? One hand—Bob Story. Do you know the history of its reception? Do you know the sources of it? Do you know what Bach’s influence was in the development of music? Did you ever hear of Leoncavallo, Verdi, or that there is such a thing as a Russian composer? Absolute silence. You have a hazy knowledge of Wagner, and you know that Chopin wrote a funeral march. That is your foothold in music; there you balance, surrounded by howling waters of ignorance.
“Take up architecture. Do you know who built the Vatican? Do you know the great buildings of the world—or a single thing about Greek, Roman and Renaissance architecture? Do you know what the modern French movement is based upon? Nothing.
“Take up religion. Do you know anything about Confucius, Shintoism, or Swedenborg, beyond the names? Of course you would not know that under Louis XVI a determined movement was made to reunite the Catholic and Protestant branches, which almost succeeded. That’s unfair, because of course it is the forerunner of the great religious movement today. Do you know the history of the external symbols of the Christian religion, and what is historically new? Darkness denser and denser.
“Take literature. You have excavated a certain amount of Shakespeare, and grubbed among Elizabethans, and cursed Spenser. Who has read Taine’s History of English Literature, or known in fact who Taine is? Only Bob Story. And yet there is the greatest book on the whole subject; you could abolish the English department and substitute it. Beside Story, who else has had even a fair reading knowledge of any other literature—Russian, Norwegian, German, French, Italian? Who knows enough about any one of these writers to look wise and nod; Renan, Turgeniev, Daudet, Björnson, Hauptman, Suderman, Strindberg? Do you know anything about Goethe as a critic, or the influence of Poe upon French literature? What do you know? I’ll tell you. You know Les Misérables and The Three Musketeers in French literature. You know Goethe wrote Faust. You’re beginning to know Ibsen as a name, and one may have read Tolstoy, and all know that he’s a very old man with a long white beard, who lives among his peasants, has some queer ideas, and has started to die three or four times. The papers have told you that.
“Take another field, of simple curiosity on what is doing in a world in which by opportunity you are supposed to be of the leading class. What do you know about the strength and spread of socialism in Germany, France and England? In the first place no one of you here probably has any idea of what socialism is; you’ve been told it’s anarchy, and, as that only means dynamite to you, you are against socialism, and will never take the trouble to investigate it. What do you know about the new political experiments in New Zealand?—nothing. What do you know about the labor pension system in Germany, or the separation of the church and state in France?—all subjects dealing with the vital development of the race of bipeds on this earth of which you happen to be members.
“Now here is a catch question—all candidates for the dunce-cap will take a guess. The Botticelli story is such a chestnut now that you all know that it isn’t a cheese or a wine—credit that to ridicule. I’m going to give you a few names from all the professions, and let’s see who can tag them. What was Spinoza, Holman Hunt, Dostoiefski, Ambrose Thomas, Savonarola (if you’ve read the novel you’d know that), Bastien Le Page, Zorn, Bizet, Bossuet! Unfair?—not at all. These things are just as necessary to know to a man of education and
