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In 1867 the University had no especially distinguished teachers. Some of them were merely old decayed tipplers. Others were young immature dilettantes who had obtained advancement through their wives and the modicum of talent which they possessed. The only one who enjoyed a certain reputation was Swedelius. This, however, was rather due to his bonhomie and the anecdotes which gathered round him, then to his own talent. His learned activity was confined to the composition in an austere style of textbooks and memorial addresses. These were not strictly scientific, but showed traces of original research.

On the whole all the subjects of study were introduced from abroad, for the most part from Germany. The textbooks in most departments were in German or French. Very few were in English which was little known. Even the Professor of Literary History could not pronounce English and began his lectures with an apology for not being able to do so. There was no doubt that he knew the language for he had published translations of Swedish poems. "But why did he not learn the pronunciation?" the students asked. Most of the dissertations for degrees were mere compilations from the German; occasionally they were direct translations which caused a scandal.

The fact was that the period had no special feature to characterise it. There is no such thing as Swedish culture any more than there is Belgian, Swiss, or Hungarian. Sweden had indeed produced a Linnaeus and a Berzelius, but they had had no successors.

There is a fish which climbs up trees, and an eel can go on land to look for a pease-field, but both of them return to the water. Fowls have been domesticated so long that their ancestral characteristics have died out, but they preserve the habit of sleeping on a perch which represents the branch on which the black-cock and the wood-grouse roost. Geese become restless in autumn, for an instinct in their blood tells them that it is migrating time. So in spite of accommodation to new circumstances there is always a tendency to go back.

Thus is it also with men. The dweller in the north, so long as he preserves civilised habits, has not been able to acclimatise himself thoroughly, and is still liable to consumption. His stomach, nerves, heart and skin were able to accommodate themselves, but not his lungs. The Eskimo on the other hand, originally a southerner, succeeded in acclimatising himself but had to give up civilised habits.

And what is the meaning of the northerner's longing for the south unless it be the wish to return to his first home, the land of the sun, the bank of the Ganges where he was cradled? And the dislike of children to meat, their longing for fruit and love of climbing, what is it all but "reversion to type?" Therefore civilisation means a continual strain and struggle to combat this backward tendency. Education winds up the clock, but when the mainspring is not strong enough it snaps and the works run down, till quiet ensues. As civilisation advances the strain is ever greater and the statistics of insanity show a perpetual increase. One cannot swim against the stream of civilisation, but one may escape to land. Modern Socialism which wishes to bring down the upper classes with their worthless and dangerous motto "Higher!" is a backward movement in a healthy direction. The strain will decrease as the pressure from above decreases, and thereby a great deal of superfluous luxury will be got rid of. In certain parts of German Switzerland there is already a certain relative quiet. There we find no restless hunting after honours and distinctions because there are none to be had. A millionaire lives in a large cottage and laughs at the bedizened townsfolk,--a good-natured laugh without any envy in it, for he knows that he could buy up their finery for ready cash, if he chose. But he will not, for luxury has no value in his neighbours' eyes.

Men could therefore be happier if competition were not so keen and they will yet be so, for the chief constituent of happiness is peace along with less toil and less luxury. It is not the railways which are to be blamed, but the superabundance of them. In Arcadian Switzerland railways have ruined whole districts where no freightage is required and people usually go on foot. To this day distances are reckoned by pedestrian measures.

"It is eight hours to Zurich," says some one.

"Eight! is it possible?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Oh! by the railway,--that is only an hour and a half."

In Sweden there is a railway which carries regularly three passengers in its three classes, a factory-owner, a bailiff and a clerk. We may live to see them shut up the railway stations for want of coal when the coal strikes have sent up the price, for want of guards when wages rise, and for want of freight when wood and oats can no longer be procured; iron is already too dear to be used for railways, and the old water-ways ought to be tried.

It is no use to preach against civilisation,--that one knows well, but if we observe the currents of the time we shall see that a return to nature is in process of going on. Turgenieff has already described this by the word "simplification." That is the mistake of the evolutionists that in everything which is in motion or course of development they see a progress towards human happiness, forgetting that a sickness may develop to death or recovery.

After all, what a superficial appendage civilisation is! Make a nobleman drunk and he can become like a savage; let a child loose in a wood without any one to look after it and it will not learn to speak of itself. Out of a peasant's son who is generally considered so low in the social scale, one can make in a single generation a man of science, a minister, an arch-bishop, or an artist. Here there can be no talk of heredity, for the peasant-father who stood apparently at such a low level, could not have inherited anything from cultivated brains. On the other hand, the children of a genius inherit usually nothing but used-up brains, except occasionally a skill in their father's line of work, which they have acquired by daily intercourse with their father.

The town is the fire-place whither the living fuel from the country is brought and devoured; it is to keep the present social machinery at work, it is true, but in the long run the fuel will prove too dear, and the machine come to a standstill. The society of the future will not need this machine in order to work or they will be more sparing of the fuel. But it is a mistake to conjecture the needs of a future state of society from the present one.

Our present society is perhaps a natural product, but inorganic; the future society will be an organic product and a higher one, for it will not deprive men of the first conditions for an organic existence. There will be the same difference between these two forms of society as between paved streets and grass meadows.

The youth's dream often left artificial society to wander at large in nature. Society had been formed by men doing violence to natural laws, just as one may bleach a plant under a flower-pot and produce an edible salad, but the plant's capacity to live healthily and propagate itself as a plant is destroyed. Such a plant is the civilised man made by artificial bleaching useful for an anaemic society, but, as an individual, wretched and unhealthy. Must the process of bleaching continue in order to insure the existence of this decayed society? Must the individual remain wretched in order to maintain an unhealthy society? For how can society be healthy when its individual members are ailing? A single individual cannot demand that society should be sacrificed for his sake, but a majority of individuals have a right to bring about such changes in the society, which they themselves compose, as may be beneficial to themselves.

John wished now to realise some result,--an active life which should bring him an income. He looked through many advertisements for teachers in elementary schools. Positions were advertised to which were attached salaries of 300 or 600 kronas, a house, a meadow and a garden. He tried for one of these places after another but obtained no answer.

When the term was over and his 80 kronas spent, he returned home, not knowing whither to turn, what he should become, or how he should live. He had glanced in the forecourt and seen that there was no room in it for him.

BELOW AND ABOVE

"Are you a complete scholar now?" With this and similar questions John was greeted ironically on his return home. His father took the matter seriously and strove to frame plans without coming to any result. John was a student; that was a fact; but what was to follow?

It was winter, and so the white student cap could not bestow on him a mild halo of glory or bring any honour to the family. Some one has asserted that war would cease if uniforms were done away with; and it is certain there would not be so many students if they had no outward sign to parade. In Paris where they have none, they disappear in the crowd, and no one makes a fuss about them; in Berlin on the other hand, they have a privileged place by the side of officers. Therefore also Germany is a land of professors and France of the bourgeois.

John's father now saw that he had educated a good-for-nothing for society who could not dig, but perhaps was not ashamed to beg. The world stood open for the youth to starve or to perish in. His father did not like his idea of becoming an elementary school-teacher. Was that to be the only result of so much work? His ambitious dreams received a shock from the idea of such a come-down. An elementary school-teacher was on a level with a sergeant, oil a plane from which there was no hope of mounting. Climb one must as long as others did; one must climb till one broke one's neck, so long as society was divided into ranks and classes. John had not passed the student's examination for the sake of knowledge, but of belonging to the upper class, and now he seemed to be meditating a descent to the lower.

It became painful for him at home for he felt as though he were eating the bread of charity when Christmas was over, and he could no longer be regarded as a Christmas guest.

One day he accidentally met in the street a school-teacher whom he knew, and whom he had not seen for a long time. They talked about the future and John's friend suggested to him a post in the Stockholm elementary school as suitable for him while reading for his degree. He would get a thousand kronas salary and have an hour to himself daily. John objected "Anywhere except in Stockholm." His friend replied that several students had been teachers in the elementary school, "Really! then he would have companions in misfortune." Yes, and one had come from the New Elementary School where he was a teacher. John went, made an application, and was appointed with a salary of 900 kronas. His father approved his decision when he heard that it would help him to read for his degree, and John undertook to live as a boarder at home. One winter morning at half-past eight, John went down the Nordtullsgata to the Clara School, exactly as he had done when he was eight years old. There were the same streets and the same Clara bells, and he was to teach the lowest class! It was like being put back to learn a lesson of eleven years ago. Just as afraid as then,--yes, more afraid of coming too late he entered the large class-room, where together with two female teachers he was to have the oversight of a hundred children. There they sat,--children like those in the Jakob School, but younger. Ugly, stunted, pale, swollen, sickly, with cast-down looks, in coarse clothes and heavy shoes. Suffering, most probably, suffering from the consciousness that others were more fortunate, and would always be so, as one then believed, had impressed on their faces the stamp of pain, which neither religious resignation nor the hope of heaven could obliterate. The upper classes avoided them with a bad conscience, built themselves houses outside the town, and left it to the professional over-seers of the poor to come in contact with these outcasts.

A hymn was sung, the Lord's Prayer was read; everything was as before; no progress had been made except that the forms had been exchanged for seats and desks, and the room was light and airy. John had to fold his hands and join in the hymn, thus already being obliged to do violence to his conscience. Prayers over, the head-master entered. He spoke to John in a fatherly way and as his superintendent gave him instruction and advice. This class, he said, was the worst, and the teacher must be strict.

So John took his class into a special room to begin the lesson. The room was exactly like that in the Clara School, and there stood the dreadful desk with steps, which resembled a scaffold and was painted red as though stained with blood. A stick was put into his hand with which he might rap or strike as he chose. He mounted the scaffold. He felt shy before the thirsty faces of girls and boys opposite who looked curiously at him, to see if he were going to worry them.

"What is your lesson?" he asked.

"The first commandment," the whole class exclaimed.

"Only one must answer at a time. You, top boy what is your name?"

"Hallberg," cried the whole class.

"No, only one at a time,--the one I ask."

The children giggled. "He is not dangerous," they thought.

"Well, then, what is the first commandment?" John asked the top boy.

"Thou shalt have no other gods but Me." He knew that then.

"What is that?" John asked again, trying to lay as little emphasis as possible on the "that." Then he asked fifteen children the same question and a quarter of an hour had passed. John thought this idiotic. What should he do now? Say what he knew about God? But the common point of view then was, that nothing was known about Him. John was a theist, and still believed in a personal God, but could say nothing more. He would have liked to have attacked the divinity of Christ, but would have been dismissed had he done so.

A pause followed. There was an unnatural stillness while he reflected on his false position and the foolish method of teaching. If he had now said that nothing was known of God, the whole catechism and Bible instruction would have been superfluous. They knew that they must not steal or lie. Why then make such a fuss? He felt a mad wish to make friends and fellow-sinners of the children.

"What shall we do now?" he said.

The whole class looked at each other and giggled.

"This is a jolly sort of teacher," they thought.

"What must the teacher do when he has heard the lesson?" he asked the top boy.

"Hm! he generally explains it," he and one or two others answered.

John could certainly explain the origin and growth of the conception of God, but that would not do.

"You need not do any more," he said, "but don't make a noise."

The children looked at him, and he at them mutually smiling.

"Don't you think this is absurd," he felt inclined to say, but checked himself and only smiled. But he collected himself when he saw that they were laughing at him. "This method would not do," he thought. So he commanded attention and went through the first commandment again till each child had had a question. After extraordinary exertions on his part, the clock at last struck nine, and the lesson was over.

Then the three divisions of the class were assembled in the great hall to prepare for going into the play-ground to get fresh air. "Prepare" is the right word for such a simple affair as going into the play-ground demanded a long preparation. An exact description would fill a whole printed page, and perhaps be regarded as a caricature; we will be content with giving a hint.

In the first place, all the hundred children had to sit motionless, absolutely motionless, and silent, absolutely silent, in their seats as though they were to be photographed. From the master's desk the whole assembly looked like a grey carpet with bright patterns, but the next moment one of them moved the head; the offender had to rise from his seat and stand by the wall. The total effect was now disturbed, and there had to be a good many raps with the cane before two hundred arms lay parallel on the desks and a hundred heads were at right angles with their collar-bones. When quiet was in some degree restored a new rapping began which demanded absolute quiet. But at the very moment when the absolute was all but attained, some muscle grew tired, some nerve slackened, some sinew relaxed. Again there was confusion, cries, blows, and a new attempt to reach the absolute. It generally ended by the female teacher closing one eye and pretending that the absolute had been reached.

Then came the important moment, when, at a given signal the whole hundred must spring from their seats and stand in order, but nothing more. It was a ticklish moment when slates fell down and rulers clattered. Then they had to sit down and begin all over again by keeping perfectly still.

When they had really got on their legs, they were marched off in divisions but on tip-toe without exception. Otherwise they had to turn round and sit down again, get up again and so on. They had to go on tip-toe in wooden sabots and water-boots. It was a great mistake; it accustomed the children to stealthiness and gave their whole appearance something cat-like and deceitful. In the play-ground a teacher had to arrange those who wanted to drink in a straight line before the water-tap by the entrance; at the same time the lavatories at the other end of the play-ground had to be inspected, and games had to be organised and watched over. Then the children were again drawn up and marched into school. If it was not done quietly, they had to go out again.

Then another lesson began. The children read out of a patriotic reading-book the principal object of which seemed to be to instil respect for the upper classes and to represent Sweden as the best country in Europe, although as regards climate and social economy, it is one of the worst, its culture is borrowed from abroad, and all its kings were of foreign origin. They did not venture to give such teaching to the children of the upper classes in the Clara School and the Lyceum, but in the Jakob School they had sufficient courage to make poor children sing a patriotic song about the Duke of Ostgothland. In this occurred a verse addressed to the crew of the fleet, saying victory was sure in the battle they wished for "because Prince Oscar leads us on," or something of the sort.

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