10
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.
TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1937.
What I LOATHED in
Childhood
by E. Arnot Robertson
ANYONE would think that all the troubles of . childhood had just
blown away together оп + kindly official breeze, Judging from the fuss made over the Board of Education's decision that home- work should be reduced in future.
In school convocations, letters to the papers, and editorials, teachers, parents and Journal- ists have been giving the impression that a child who in not now making the welkin ring with joy (except when told to be quiet) is plainly an ungrateful
brat.
Gluted with leisure, at least In prospect, pampered with free aues of milk, titillated by the possibility that the milk may even become ice-cream in the summer-if the Ministry of Health accepts a recommenda- tion that has already been made ---well, what more can the little creature want in the best of all possible worlds-that of youth?
Why is it that becoming a Leacher, a parent, or a journal- ist so often seems to make people forget how it felt to be very young? You remembered, don't you, that too much home- work was certainly foul, in those days, and so was not getting enough lee-cream, come to that.
BUT the righting of these things is not going to have much effect on the essential un- pleasantness of being helpless, mentally and physically.
In other people's hunds; of being the prisoner of inexperience, as one was in those early years; of being desperately vulnerable, so that one's whole world might suddenly go black, at any time, over the most trivial disappoint- ment, or the best-intentioned remark of an older person.
That blackness was never again so complete, or so hope- less-seeming, once one had got through the worst of childhood into the early teens. But none of the much over-rated joys of
youth, in my opinion, made up for the feeling of insecurity..
I detested being very young, because when I was not natur- ally at a disadvantage with all those whom I considered im- portant (1.e., older than myself) through their greater know- ledge of life, they did their utmost, consciously or uncon- sclously, to make me feel at a disadvantage. They did the same to you, I expect. Or have you forgotten like the majority of people, and are you saying and doing to the children of to- day just the humiliating things that you resented in your time?
THEY the adult world talked down to us, for Can one thing.
recall you
the passion with
which
we
used to dislike the people who fan- cled themselves as being "good with children "?
This meant that they embar- rassed us agonisingly by pre- tending to be more childish than we were. They insisted on spoiling our favourite, rather sly, games by entering into them, in such a way that the silliness became apparent, and we were never able to be quite happy playing them again, even by ourselves.
From eight years old I have kept a hatred for a female rela- tive whom I trusted at the time. She tried by example, winking at my mother, to make me go on. mispronouncing in public a word that I had just discovered with shame was not pronounced ns I had said it. No present betrayal could hurt so much.
Something almost exactly like that happened to you, didn't it? And was bitter out of all propor- tion to its Importance, of course. I gather, from friends, that this sort of experience is inseparable from growing up-from what short-memoried people call "the happiest period of life." If childhood were really happier than adult life I should now commit suicide.
At other times they laughed more openly, and said things like Listen to the child-try- ing to sound grown-up!" when
MISS ROBERTSON, AGED 8
"One's whole world might suddenly go black."
all we were trying to do was to be not too sound, but just to be as Intelligent as our wretched age allowed.
Then, do you remember how they expected us to belleve things which they obviously did The not believe themselves? importance of truth, for in- stance, (Bewilderment Added to the sense of inse- curity.) Half a dozen times a day we heard them lie, socially. brazenly or by implication. But if we led, that was different.
was
IT was the same with religious observance. How parents many who never go to church them- selves are sur- prised later on to their And that
con- children think it rather
to have temptible of them served up religion, like milk- pudding, as something. that need not be accepted later on," but is good fare for the Imma- ture? Was that one of the things that bothered you?
One of the main drawbacks to being young was that inevit- ably we were much in the care of women.
I don't know what your view
Interiews with Modern
"Mar Winchester" was born in 1914. He has had a public school education und now works in his father's office. His friends call him Jonal" on account of his ploomy Mar be- forebodings about life.
lieves that he has found the cause of most troubles to-day. llls Andings
"An Effeminate and Spineless Generation"
will surprise women readers in parti- Says Modern Youth No. 4.
cular.
OOKING ot present-day life my chief impression is best summed up in words more usually attributed
Youth
rendering them vulnerable to their
nemies.
It is also said that the influence of women in France greatly increased during the reign of Louis XIII., and that the subsequent Revolution was caused through their corruption of the Government and Cour!. These
examples should suffice to illustrate
my point, but seepties might do well effeminate and spinetess generation. to study the corruptive influence of Gone ure the days whon youth Roman women and their sisters in walked hand in hand with advance. other empires. The pioneer has been replaced by the lounge lizard, and the lad fresh from Making Pacifists
to the old and crusty: Britain is school prefers to accept a miserable
In recent years women in This their
ing to the dogs. So 'much evidenced by the degeneracy of her pittance from the State rather than country have emerged from people. It my generation does not strike out for himself in the un homes in increasing numbers, and Em have established themselves in the pull itself together in the near future developed lands of the British
social, industrial and, political life of our civilisation will end in complete pire.
country. This transition hus Countless young married couples the disaster.
I am sufficiently old-fashioned in decide to have a motor car in pre- been welcomed in many quarters us cannot being in keeping with civilisation and sentiment-though young in actual ference to a baby, if they
patriot, and afford to maintain both. In every progress. But actually it threatens years to call myself
of my walk of life natural instincts are the whole existence of the British to admit that the welfare
artifelalities. Empire. country is my chief concern in life. being replaced by
I say that this emancipation That is why I hate to see young men Physique is deteriorating, the birth- and women devoting their lives to the rate is falling, and debauchery is women is the direct cause pursuit of cheap pleasure, and our rife. All these features of the day decadence of the times. Women are parents trying to anash the ideals are typical of the decadence of the that were held sacred by our fore- times. fathers. That is why I am full of Women Blamed fears for the future.
So far as I can see we are loading
own
of
tre
Is about women in relation to other people's children; but from an entirely useless 'educa- tion at a private school, a public school and Anishing school (how to read and write was the Arst and last thing I learned in any of them which has since come in handy), I have brought nway the certainty that I have yet to meet a woman in charge of children who is spiritually fit for the job. There must be some, I suppose; but I just do not happen to have run across
My experience
men of teachers is small. (Can you say If they are any more trust- worthy, on the whole?) But J do think it unlikely, at any rate, that even the wrong kind of man would lose all sense of pro- portion as rapidly as the wrong kind of woman, in the un- naturally segregated life of the ordinary school.
them.
"What would your brother who was killed think of a little sister who couldn't even keep her desk tidy?" This, not said to me, but In my presence, to a school friend during the war, is typical of my personal experience of the kind of women-highly qualified in all but humanity -who are allowed to look after the young in the forma- tive years.
Resentful against youth because they have lost it, and sentimental about it for the same reason, they will always gravitate towards it unless prevented by emotional tests which we are at present unable to devise,
was. a
THERE funny side to the tribulations of later school to. If you happened to be a girl you must re- member, at least, the
of attitude authority, "Run about, girls, like boys, and then you won't think of them," and all that idiotic pre- tence that sex did not matter.
Ugh, horrid, don't think of it! It was never going to get us any- where. Algebra was the stuff... algebra and hockey, We knew jolly well from the age of about fifteen that pretty hair would take us further than brilliance at maths.. or quickness at games; it was
didn't, annoying to have to act as if we
But very few of the necessary pretences of childhood, the long- ings and fears and resentments, are even remotely funny at the time; and most of the wretched- nesses are intense and inescap- able. Give the children less home- work by all means: nine times out of ten It's a waste of time, any- And give them lots of way. аге ice-cream,
health the too, if authorities approve. But in common sense don't expect the poor little things to be grateful about it. They're young, worse luck for them; and thank heaven we aren't, any longer.
of the
In unmanly leading us to indulge pleasures, they are turning us into pacifists and defeatists, they corrupting our outlook on life.
Women have little sense of juailee Some people say that the wides- the dice against ourselves. We are prend unemployment and economic and have very limited reasoning
Their heads cupabilities. working out our destruction. difficultles of recent years have been
the governed by their hearts. As of slowly breaking the spirit of On every hand there are traces
said: "The most decadence. Surely there is ground nation. Others declare that the con- Schopenhauer
stant menace of war has removed all eminent of the whole sex" (ho wan for alarm..
from life. purpose
nover Others, again referring to women) "have refuse to recognise the fatal sym- accomplished anything in the Ane Pampered Children
toms, and some people even say that aris that is really great, genuine, and This is an age of false values and the race has never been more virile original, or given to the world any
chil- than it is to-day.
kind of work of permanent value." quack doctrines. Millions of
It is, however, my firm belief that dren are brought up in cotton wool;
My generation must, therefore, put: they are pampered and petted by this widespread destructiveness is women back in their place I mean, over-indulgent parents; they grow being caused by the growing in of course, the home. If it falls to do of women outside the this there is a grave danger that the up undisciplined and untrained for fluence
wild constitution will be no corrupted the parts they have to play as men domestic circle. This is no and women in a hard world. They conjecture, as some people might that Britain will share the fate turn into defentiais and pacifists; think. It is theory based upon the their outlook on life is warped by fate of bygone dynasties. self-pity and the spirit of surrender. Aristotio points out, for example, Men of my generation have been that the fall of Sparta was largely bolstered on illusions and have be due to the induence of women, who come weak in the knees. They are had assumed positions of resport afraid to look life in the face, they sibility and importance in that State, try to bury their heads In amuse- The Spartan women undermined the ment. In a
word,
thereby this is an morale of their menfolk,
Sparta.
of
It must not be thought that I am of
a misogynist. I am as capable feeling a tenderness towards women
as any man; but I have seen enough
-To-day's Thought-
OUR youth bepan with tears
and sighs With seeking that we could
not And.
-ANDREW LANG.
of them in my father's office, to re-hear nowadays about-war-and-pease gard them as a menace to order and should be replaced by a subject of far greater moment-the encroach- a handicap la business.
It seems to me that all this talk we ment of women. For, should war
LONDON Was A WRITER'S TOWN
I'
IT MAKES a curlous reflection that neither Jolinson, Dickens, har Londoner born. Thackeray was a The "great lexicographer" came from the somnolent cathedral city of Lichfield, tramping down to London la his with twopence-halfpenny pocket, accompanied by his friend and pupil, David Garrick; Dickens. was a native of Portsmouth; while Thackeray first saw the light under
the burning skies of India.
But each in heart was to become a faithful and devoted son of the great city, and two of them to endow it
real with scenes which are ns living history.
It was at St. James's Palace at the age of two years that Samuel John- non had been "touched for the King's evil" by Queen Anne, and at Bucking-
House, ham Palace, then Buckingham Hous that he talked to King George "profound respect," as well he night have done, zeeing that the guineas of the royal pension were rattling in the packet of the erstwhile Jacobite who is said to have been "out in the forty-five."
10
But Johnson had a hard struggle before he attained to the position of a royal pensioner and was independent of Grub Street. If you go
facing St. Clerkenwell and stand John's Gate, you may see the room In the gate where he wrote
those articles for
Gentleman's the Magazine in which he never let the While dogs have the best of the argu- ment, and where he sat eating his dinner behind a screen because he was too shabbily dressed to appear in company.
In Holborn, half a mile away. The sicepy little square known
week be Staple Inn, where in a wrote "Rasselas," and passing fur- ther west you may still see the buck: Eight Russell Street, Covent Garden, then occupied by Thomas Davies the actor, where Johnson lind that first meeting with Boswell.
#OOM,
af
It dimcult in Koing round Dickens's London to disentangle the facts in his own life from the in- cidents in the lives of his characters, The first London home of Dickens, in Bayham Street, Camden Town, has been pulled down, so, too, lina Furnival's Inn, where he had his first married home, and where he wrote part of "The Pickwick Papers; but hard across the street, in Holborn, is that Staple Inn where Johnson lived, and where Dickens placed the home of Mr. Grewgious in "Edwin Drood."
na
Back across Holborn you may take a cursory glance at Southampton has absorbed the Row, which
ጌ Gamp, and dwelling of Sairey
you brings
to narrow turning Lincoln's Inn Fields. Make a note of Number 58, a house famous that of Mr. Tulkingborn in "Blenk House," though the old Roman longer looks down from the painted ceiling; and it has a more hillmate Dickens from the Association with fact that that "arbitrary gent," his friend John Forster, lived there. It read the was here that Dickens manuscript of "The Chimes" to a group of his Intimate friends, among them Thomas Carlyle.
The White Hart in Southwark, in the yard of which Mr. Pickwick made his first acquaintance with Sain Weller, has vanished, but the George near by, to which Dickens did fre- quently resort, gives you a good galleried inn that example of the used to abound in old London.
was
#
05 familiar Thackeray figure in the West End as Johnson was in Fleet Street. His lovable character is still cherished at f Athaeneum Club, where his name appears on the roll of members ns a barrister, and no one will have any difficulty in finding "Gaunt Square" (Berkeley Square) and Gaunt House in the neighbouring Mayfair.
Not one of his characters bas lent more interest to Mayfair than Becky Curzon Sharp, and her house in Street cannot be mistaken by any- one who has faithfully absorbed the pages of "Vanity Fair."
und
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ACKOBE
i Queer chaps, truly to be seen in
a lodge.
Saddling entrance.
9 Perform magle with the tail of
an Insecl.
11 Nol bad score in meals.
for
a
cricket
12 Good shape enthusiast. 13 A factor that has to be con- sidered In many business trans- actions.
14
Naturalist's birds
leaves.
Among the
"Esmond," "Vanity Fair," "Pendennis were all written in that little double-bow-windowed house in Young Street, Kensington, which is ane of the most interesting of Thack-
17 Polar cap, though it is, apparent- wns London. It cray's homes in
to
ly, another article of dress. here that he gave the party Charlotte Bronte from which he was driven by its insufferable dullness to Beck the solace of his club.
He was in the doldrums that night: but in Young Street he was not al- ways no. It is recorded that he once took James Fields of Boston down there, and as they arrived in sight of its hospitable door Thackeray ex-
"Down on claimed:
your knees, *Vanity you rogue, for here
Fair was penned."
E, I. R.
occur, our success must depend very largely upon the type of man bred during peace.
At present we are allowing wo- men to undermine our manhood and to jeopardise the safely of the entire structure of society. But. I, for one, "man is own star" and that he can command all influrnce and all tate.
19 These are not rare, they are to
be seen on every hand." 20 Um! Hal (anng.).
21 Good news. «
23 Though not partial to noise, those in charge of them welcome your shouts,
24 Upset? Well, put this to your
pipe, but don't smoke It.
26 Pieces for horses.
20 Nan back to the rat, when there
was little left to tell.
there fairies at the Sh! are bottom of the garden? No, but what about the book-case?'
7 This makes excellent alde-dish
tables.
8 Fundamentaly sectarian, withstanding Its ending.
10 Got up.
not-
15 Here the puzzle lles in the
plcture.
16 It's essential to start as a visitor,
winding up in hospital.
18 Always gets the wind up, thanks
to which it keeps going.
20 Only Ave scare here.
22 Make a face.
25 There's nothing in what the
captain writes.
27 A sound cause,
20 It's 馥
America.
masculine.
name in
Yesterday's Solution
از
30 Bubbish it must not be conE A ANOTHER E E
fused with clothing.
31 Just the boy to give the ladies
a start.
32 Sights for poor eyce,
2 DCC.
DOWN-
3 Here you want an order for a
ear.
4 Another order.
They are seasons.
under ВСА
in
all
İF INTB HD FRACA SI 1EARENA TRUGAL V BOABUE TIN DRIFT"= AR ERRATA Ä SPAVIN
NELLTE E TOTLE'R
BUTTORM ORARGE ON REVERTEE LATESTE BTUUP B OT E OUTET" ON MAGYAR T BLIVEN OTY, TENOR NURSEBO ROODLE
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