Part 5

"Why, to tell you the truth, I am apt to take a little snooze. I have done my part in the service, made the responses and that sort of thing, you know, and when it comes to the sermon, that's parson's job. He has to do something, and I take it for granted he knows his business and pay no attention to him. But if I once started in to consider whether he was right or wrong, where should I end? I know jolly well that Sunday would be no day of rest! Look at your husband, now--he is all worked up over the sermon this morning, but it did me no harm. To tell you the truth, I don't think I ever met a man before who cared what a parson says. Well, perhaps I don't quite mean that, but what surprised me was that he talked as if he had been listening to a speech by Lloyd George or Asquith, or one of those men, on a subject that really matters."

"But you think the clergy ought to talk on things that really matter?"

"In a way, yes. But not as a regular thing. That is the mistake the Non-conformists make. I have a son-in-law who goes to chapel, and at Sunday dinner the family talk over the sermon as if they had been to a political meeting. I don't call that making Sunday a day of rest. Why should I want to have a parson tell me what to think or what to do? What does he know about the life of _men_? I expect I know what I ought to do as well as he does."

"Why then have a sermon at all?"

"Well, it's the custom, and I believe in keeping up the old customs. And, besides, the parson ought to have something to do. Of course in a large town where there are working people, with a lot of drunkenness and fighting and that sort of thing, the parsons are pretty busy. As I said to my son-in-law a fortnight ago, when he was saying the Established Church ought to go, the money ought to be taken for other purposes, and all that sort of thing which the radicals are always saying, well, I said to him, 'You don't look deep enough. Think what the church saves the country every year in police alone! The Established Church is the bulwark of society,' I said, 'and if you break that down, what will take its place? The people who need it least will build churches for themselves, and those who need it most will have none. And, let me tell you, when that day comes, you will soon learn whether you are paying less or more to maintain order. And that is not all,' I said, for by this time I was pretty hot, 'the Established Church keeps alive the spirit of the empire. But in your chapels your ministers talk as if there were other countries as good as England. They are a lot of radicals and have no respect for land, yet it is on the land England depends, and the church knows that and never offends the landlord.' He didn't like this over-much, and I doubt if I go there soon again. No, I am all for the church; what I say is: 'As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen!'"

And with that confession of faith he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and stumped off to bed.

How will it all end? Will the church set its face against the rising tide of democracy and make Canute its patron saint? I don't dare ask John. I wish you were here that we might talk things over! You would be so sympathetic, for you love England dearly, which I fear John does not, and therefore, I feel, cannot understand her. Well, I comfort myself by thinking what I believe you would say: "England has the 'root of the matter' in her, and if a great crisis were to arise, Englishmen will show that they are to-day what they have always been, and the church will follow the higher call. England will never do penance and sit in a sheet, in the face of the nations confessing the 'sins and offenses of her youth,' but she will set her house in order and meet the new age with courage and faith and hope, as she has ever done, and the 'glory of the latter house will be greater than that of the former'! 'As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,' embodies a great truth which your muddle-headed friend was trying to express. He thought, and alas! he is not alone in so thinking, that the _form_ makes the stability, whereas it is the eternal stability of the English character in which he believes, and so do I."

So with these comforting thoughts I am going to bed. My Tory friend was right in one respect--it has not been a restful day!

XIV

RURAL ENGLAND

On leaving "Barchester" we took the road to Gloucester. I think it safe to say that it is the finest road for motoring in England, which is equivalent to saying in the world. The French roads, I am told, are in some ways superior, but so straight and hard and white that travelling on them soon becomes monotonous. Then they are so artificial, running like the road the Tsar is said to have laid out with a ruler, between Petersburg and Moscow! But the English roads run naturally, with many a turn from town to town, just as man first found it easy to walk. Of course we now have roads at home equal to any--for the first year or two--but think how many generations have used these roads, and always, I imagine, kept them in repair. The difference is like that between a granite bridge and one of our new concrete ones. At first there seems nothing to choose between them; but when the rain and frost of a few seasons have done their work, the one has begun to look dingy and shabby, while the other has gained in dignity.

Of course it is not only the surface of the road which makes motoring on it so delightful; it is the continuous succession of lovely rural scenes. For example, we had not gone many miles when we met a horseman--an ancient groom we supposed--riding along the grass by the roadside and followed by a pack of hounds, which he was "walking." Ruth jumped from the car and begged to be allowed to take a kodak of them. He smilingly called them together, the older ones looking up into his face and the pups still nosing about the grass. The light was good and the promise of a satisfactory picture excellent.

The "groom" asked if he might have a picture when the film had been developed, which Ruth said she would be delighted to send if he would give her his address.

"Just address it, ma'am, to 'James the Huntsman, The Kennels, Blankshire.'"

"But your last name?" she asked.

"That is my name, ma'am, James the Huntsman."

So we learned that not only was he not a groom but that we were not in the twentieth century but still in feudal England, where a man's occupation was his designation--the individual not having yet emerged! That his status should be fixed for life was evidently as satisfactory to "James the Huntsman" as, it is to be presumed, was his master's, whether knight or baronet, to him.

"It is like a scene from 'Ivanhoe,'" said Ruth, when we were again under way. "If we were a little farther to the east, in Northamptonshire, where Sherwood Forest lies, I have no doubt we should meet Gurth the serf, or Robin Hood!"

"No," said I, "the serfs are working in factories, and Robin Hood is in the 'city.'"

"You talk like William Jennings Bryan," mocked Ruth.

A few miles farther on we came to another England. Again we met a horseman. I said this time a "groom," but Ruth said she was sure he would call himself "chevalier."

Whoever he was he looked noble enough to be a duke. He was riding a seal-brown horse whose coat shone like a chestnut in the sunlight. I noticed that the horse was restive, and so shut off the engine till he should pass. The rider thanked me, touching his cap--so I suppose he could not have been a duke--and remarked that the horse was "full of beans."

I said it was a superb animal, and the groom, leaning forward to pat his neck, for the horse was still nervous, replied: "He ought to be, sir, for he's own brother to"--I am sorry to say I have forgotten the name--"winner of the Derby." So we had met the aristocracy, after all!

Not long after this we met a flock of sheep. Again we stopped. But we got no thanks from the surly shepherd--Ruth said because he was so tired--but the panting dog, who ran from side to side on the road, gave us a grateful glance, as much as to say: "I am glad you did that, for had you kept on, these fools would have been all over the road, and I should have been beaten."

But it was not only the passengers on the "king's highway" who kept us entertained--not to say entranced--but houses and gardens on either side made it hard to keep the tenth commandment!

When I said this to Ruth, she replied that it could hardly be my neighbor's wife whom I coveted, which was true, if cattish, for the ones we saw were more worthy than alluring! The ox and the ass were not in evidence, but I suspect Ruth coveted the man servant, and specially the maid servant, of whom we caught glimpses from time to time, flitting across the well-trimmed lawns or standing at the servants' entrance, gossiping with the butcher or the baker or the candlestick-maker--what difference can it make to a young woman who is forbidden to have "followers"?

It was the houses which tempted me. There was an infinite variety to choose from--Elizabethan, Tudor, Jacobean (I am not sure I am always right about the period)--but I recognized the real Queen Anne. Here was a "gentleman's residence" and there a tiny cottage covered with climbing roses. I noted scores of Elizabethan houses with chimneys as graceful as the smoke which curled from them. Why cannot a modern architect design a chimney which will draw the eye as well as the smoke? And the gardens! Those of the poor as well as of the rich were a riot of color. There were dogs and ponies and "governess-carts," and all the things we are familiar with in the illustrated papers. As I looked at all these delectable things, it seemed to me that England was an earthly paradise; as old Gaunt says, "A second Eden." I grew melancholy as I remembered the "L" and the crowded subway, and the noise and the dirt of our chief city, the struggle for existence and the prevailing discontent--every man striving to surpass his neighbor--no one content with that station in life to which "it had pleased God to call him." How many Americans, I said to myself, believe God has called them to anything? Here, I continued, is peace and contentment. Would God that I were there!

Now Ruth has an uncanny way of knowing of what one is thinking, so I was not startled when she broke into my revery by saying:

"Yes, it is all beautiful, but how long could you stand it? I do not mean what you now see, but what you do not see! How many people have taken off their caps to us this morning simply because they believe us to belong to the 'gentry'? In that last village through which we passed, did the children 'bob' to us because they recognized our superiority in character or education? You would not have been the vicar of that lovely Norman church we passed five miles back one month before there would have been trouble! The 'servility' of the 'lower classes' would so have gotten on your nerves that you would have insulted some laborer for the satisfaction of having him answer you like a man! You would find another thing, which is that 'kowtowing' is not confined to one class. If the laborer 'kowtows' to the vicar, the vicar must 'kowtow' to the lord of the manor."

"Why, Ruth," I cried, "where is Bryan now? You talk like the ladies on the soap-boxes in Union Square!"

"You forget," she said, "that I am not talking about myself. I should adore to have the school children 'bob' to me, and would be quite willing in turn to 'bob' to the Lady Emeline or to the Dowager Countess. But you! Really, John, I sometimes think you know yourself less than any one I ever met!"

"It's lucky I have you to show me what I am like," I growled.

"Indeed it is," she cheerfully replied. "I'll tell you whom you are like: you are exactly like Crugan!"

To show you how absurd the comparison is, I must tell you something about Tom Crugan. He lived in our ward before he made his fortune, and was a good fellow--is still, so far as I know! More than once he had helped me when some poor wretch had got into trouble and needed a little "influence." When he got the contract for a section of the subway, he made a lot of money--I hope honestly! Then he made a lucky investment in real estate, which, curiously enough, the city found it must have--at an advance in price--and then Tom and his family made the grand tour. Mrs. Crugan kept herself in the background, but the girls, who were real Irish beauties, had a _succès fou_. One of them married an Italian prince, and the other a German count. Well, Tom stayed abroad about two years and then suddenly returned. He came down to our part of the town soon after, to look after some property he held there, and I saw him.

"Hello, Crugan," I said. "I am glad to see you back. Did you like Europe?"

"I did for a while," he replied, "but the best day of the trip was when I set foot in Hoboken. The carriage was there to meet us, and when I had put my wife in, she says to me: 'Ain't you comin' too, Tom?'

"'Not in a carriage, I ain't,' says I. 'And what is more, if that coachman touches his hat to me again, I'm liable to do him an injury! You go on up, mother, and I'll be there most as soon as you, anyway.'

"So I got onto a Christopher Street ferry, and caught a crosstown and swung onto a Fourth Avenue and went out onto the front platform to smoke a cigar and watch the driver handle his team. Pretty soon a mail-wagon got across the tracks, and he had to pull up pretty sharp, and the handle of his brake caught me in the stomach. Did he throw a fit because he had hit a man who was smoking a twenty-five-cent cigar? He did not. He turns to me and says: 'Why the hell can't you keep your belly out of my brake?' Say, I could have kissed that man!"

XV

EDUCATION

One day at Gloucester and one at Wells enabled us to get only hasty impressions of each. The west front of the latter was not so impressive as the pictures of it had led me to expect. Indeed, it looks like a sort of afterthought, and might as well have been put a hundred feet farther away for all the connection it has with the cathedral. However, when I am made an English bishop, it is Wells I shall choose for the bishop's garden!

But Gloucester, like Rome, would require a lifetime to exhaust. The whole history of western ecclesiastical architecture is built into its walls. Like the English constitution, it is neither an evolution nor a revolution. It is a series of new things put onto the old. Perhaps for that reason it is so impressive. It is not logical, but it works! The rough Saxon stonework was not torn down when the more stately Norman was added but left standing to bear witness to the past. And so the various styles of Gothic, from the early pointed to the highly decorative, have in turn been added, and the result is a structure in some ways the most impressive in England and perfectly representative of the English people. I thought of "The Chambered Nautilus":

"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll: Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast-- Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea."

From Wells we returned to Bath, crossing the Mendips, or are they the Cotswolds? On the steep ascent we passed two bicyclists, a parson and a very pretty girl, evidently his daughter. I wished we had two vacant seats to offer them, for it is a stiff climb. We did offer the one we had to the pretty girl, but though she looked tired, she was a good sport, and declined to leave her father to toil up the hill alone. I hope he was grateful, but Englishmen have a way of accepting sacrifices from their womenfolk which we do not understand. At any rate, it was pleasant to see the companionship between the two.

We spent the night at Bath in a pretentious and uncomfortable hotel, and moralized on Beau Brummel and his preposterous patron. I can never forgive Sir Walter Scott for his laudation of the Prince Regent, but, on the other hand, Thackeray's picture is as relentless as a portrait by Sargent.

From Bath we passed over to Winchester, taking in a corner of the New Forest _en route_.

After we had seen the great cathedral and college at Winchester, we walked to St. Gross, which is a home for old men. I have forgotten how old it is, but the custom of receiving pilgrims remains unchanged through all the many years. Each "pilgrim" is given a piece of bread and a mug of ale at the porter's lodge. We pilgrims were not hungry enough to enjoy either.

I had a letter to the head master, who, unfortunately, was away, but one of the house masters received us kindly and showed us about.

Of course the talk turned on education and the relative merits of English and American schools. Our guide had never been in America, but if you think that prevented him from having definite views on American methods of education, you do not know the English! He was inclined to admit that what he called our "board schools" were, perhaps, in some respects better than the English, but when it came to the question of "public" schools--such as the Phillips Academies at Exeter and Andover, or St. Paul's or Groton, he found it difficult to speak what he believed to be the truth and at the same time be polite. So he contented himself with saying that the English standard is much higher; which, I fear, cannot be denied. I asked him what boys of fifteen were reading in Latin, and when he replied, "Cæsar and the first books of Virgil," I said it would be the same with us. But when he explained that by "reading" he did not mean merely translation into English, but also retranslation into Latin in the style of the author, and added that boys must be able to write good Latin prose of their own composition, I gave up!

I asked him how he accounted for the fact that the standard was higher with them than with us. He said because English boys studied harder and longer hours than our boys do. He thought the three months' holiday fatal to continuous progress. "Then," he added, "your boys go to school too late. English boys are sent to a preparatory school at nine--often at eight--years of age, so they acouire habits of study before yours begin."

Much of this is no doubt true, but there are some things he does not know and which, _mirabile dictu_, I did not tell him! Do you ask "why"? Well, to tell you the truth, I did begin, but soon found he was one of those Englishmen who, having made up his mind, does not care to listen to new evidence. Moreover, the schoolmaster the world over is in the habit of teaching and does not care to be taught--certainly not by one not of the guild. No doubt you will say to yourself that this is not a peculiarity of the schoolmaster but is true of the clergy as well. However, in this case there were some things not taken into account. For instance, the holidays may be too long, but in our climate the boy who was kept at work till the 1st of August would not learn much more than he does now. Moreover, I question if the American boy, with his nervous temperament, is capable of the long hours of application which the more stolid English lad bears with ease. Whether it is an advantage, from the standpoint of scholarship, for a boy who has just emerged from infancy to be sent from home, I do not know. But the reason it can be done in England and could not be done in America--except in the case of those poor little unfortunates whose mothers and fathers have been divorced--is that in England the decision lies with the father, whereas with us it is the mother who has the final word. That it is desirable to send a child from home before there has been time to instil lasting principles, I fancy few American mothers would admit. Will English mothers when they have gained the independence of their transatlantic sisters continue the custom? Who can say?

I admit that all this sounds like what the lawyers call "confession and avoidance," but I believe there is a reason for the higher standard in England which perhaps our guide did not know, or was too polite to mention, but which, were it recognized, would lift our standard without resorting to the remedies he suggested. I suspect the real difficulty is that we have no such large body of well-trained university men to draw upon for teachers as England has. We find it difficult with so many attractive and lucrative careers open to young men to find many who are willing to make teaching a life-work, and therefore must do the best we can with the material we have. In other words, before we change our system would it not be well for us to make the profession of teaching as attractive with us as it is in England? What college president with us has such a position of influence, such a house and salary, as has the head master of Winchester, Eton, or Harrow?

You will be inclined to say as Prof. Corson did when I asked him, when I was a freshman, what subject he would suggest for a "composition." "Any except 'Education'!"

XVI

A BY-ELECTION