NEITHER Royal nor Lucy thought any thing more of their arithmetic for several days. Lucy’s slate got put up upon a shelf in the closet, and was entirely forgotten. One day, however, when Rollo and Lucy were walking in a little lane by the side of the garden, they found a beautiful flower, growing near a large, flat stone.
“O, what a beautiful blue flower!” said Lucy.
“Yes,” said Royal; “give it to me.”
“No,” said Lucy, “I want to carry it home to my mother.”
“O, mother won’t care about it,” said Royal; “give it to me, and I will press it in a book.”
“No,” said Lucy.
“And then,” continued Royal, “we can draw a copy of it, and paint it.”
“We haven’t got our paint-box yet,” said Lucy.
“No, we haven’t,” said Royal. “And that’s because I haven’t finished teaching you arithmetic. Come, let us go and take a lesson now.”
Lucy, however, was not much inclined to take her lesson. After some conversation, however, Royal, finding that Lucy had no inclination to study arithmetic at all, and reflecting that this aversion was his own fault, concluded that he must win her back again to the work by dexterous management.
So he said,—
“Well, Lucy, I’ll tell you what we will do. We’ll carry this blue flower to the house, and I’ll make a drawing of it upon your slate.”
“So we will,” said Lucy. In fact, she was very much pleased with this plan; and the two children set off accordingly for the house, to make the drawing. After some search, they found the slate, but the pencil was gone. Royal, however, had a pencil of his own, in a little box, which he kept under a sky-light in the garret, and he and Lucy went up into the garret in pursuit of it.
This box, or chest,—for it was properly a small chest,—was the place where Royal kept a considerable number of his old playthings, especially such as were somewhat out of use. He called it his magazine. His father had told him that a magazine was a place where people kept things in store; and so he thought that magazine would be a good name for this depository of his.
Royal lifted up the lid of his magazine, and there, among a great number of other things, there was a small pasteboard box, without a cover. In this box were several slate and lead pencils, wafers, and pieces of India rubber; also the handle of a knife, and one half of a pair of scissors. Royal called it his scissor. He said he meant one day to grind the blade down to an edge, and then it would make a good knife, which he meant to call his scissor-knife. Lucy wanted to look at it, and at a great many other curious things, which she saw in the magazine; but Royal said no, and, putting down the lid of the chest, after he had taken out the pencil, he sat down upon it, and asked Lucy to sit down by his side.
He immediately began, according to his promise, to draw Lucy the picture of the flower. First he made the stem, then a little root at the bottom of it, then a few long, slender leaves growing out around the stalk, and finally the flower.
The flower was the most difficult part; but Royal succeeded in representing it to Lucy’s entire satisfaction; and, when he had finished it, he said,—
“Now, Lucy, that we are here, you’d better let me teach you one of the figures. I’ll just teach you the figure one; that’s very easy. It’s nothing but a mark.”
So Royal made a mark upon the slate for the figure one, and then put the pencil into Lucy’s hands, that she might attempt to imitate it. Lucy made a mark as nearly as she could like Royal’s, only it was a great deal too long.
“That’s very well, Lucy,” said Royal, “very well indeed for the first, only it isn’t necessary to make it quite so long. You must make the next one shorter.”
Lucy accordingly made another; and she stopped sooner than she had done before, so as to make the mark shorter than she had done at first. Royal said it was a very good one indeed. Lucy, finding that Royal, instead of upbraiding or ridiculing her, was pleased and satisfied with her attempts, began to feel gratified herself; and she said that she should like much to make some more ones; and Royal accordingly told her to make a row of them quite across the slate near the top. She made them, on the whole, very well, though some of them were crooked.
“It is very hard to make straight letters,” said she.
“Straight figures, you mean,” said Royal.
“Yes,” said Lucy, “straight figures. Crooked figures are much easier to make. I can make a three. I’m going to make a three.”
“No,” said Royal, “two comes next.”
“I don’t care,” said Lucy; “I can’t make a two, but I can make a three, and so I am going to make that next.”
“No,” said Royal, “you mustn’t make a three next; that is out of order. Besides, I am your teacher, and you must mind me.”
“No,” said Lucy, “I am going to make what I choose.”
Royal and Lucy were both wrong in this discussion.
Lucy was wrong, for the last of the reasons which Royal assigned, namely, that he was her teacher, and therefore she ought to have obeyed him. The first of Royal’s reasons, however, was not valid,—namely, that, because two comes before three in numeration, therefore it ought to be made first. The successive steps of a study ought to be taken in their natural order, when one depends upon another. For instance, a child ought to learn how to subtract before undertaking to learn how to divide, for division depends upon subtraction. You cannot well divide without subtracting. But in merely learning the forms of the figures, there is no dependence of one upon the other, and therefore they may be taught in any order which the teacher thinks best.
Therefore, if Royal, who was the teacher, had thought it best to have taught Lucy to make the figure nine, or eight, or the cipher, next to one, because he supposed that those characters would be more easy for Lucy to form, it would not have been at all improper; and therefore his argument, that two ought to be made next to one, simply because it comes next to it as a number, was not a valid argument. But his second reason was valid; for it is always the duty of a pupil to follow the directions of the teacher, whether the pupil approves of the directions or not.
But, then, although Lucy did very wrong in resisting and disobeying the will of her teacher, Royal himself acted very unwisely, in being so strenuous in requiring a compliance with it. His whole hope of success in his efforts to teach his sister, and so to gain the paint-box, depended necessarily upon keeping on good terms with her, and making her willing to follow his instructions. If Miss Anne had been in Royal’s place, she would not have had any contention with her upon the subject. She would have allowed her to make the three next, and then, after the lesson was over, she would have said, perhaps,—
“Now, Lucy, you have been a pretty good scholar. You have obeyed my directions very well generally, and I am therefore going to let you see the things in my magazine. Only there was one time that you didn’t obey me. When I wanted you to make twos, you would make threes, and so I can’t let you see all the things in my magazine. There are some little pictures in a pocket-book, which I cannot let you see; but the next time you study, if you obey me perfectly, then I will let you see the pictures in my pocket-book.”
Or, if Miss Anne had thought that this would have made Lucy cry, and so have been the cause of making disturbance in the family, then she would have had some slighter punishment, just enough not to make her cry. She did so once, when Lucy was younger and more ready to cry. She was taking a walk with her, and Lucy did not come back quick when she called her away from the shore of a brook. Accordingly, when they were going home, and Lucy asked Miss Anne to tell her a story, Miss Anne said,—
“A short or a long one?”
“O, a long one,” said Lucy.
“Well,” replied Miss Anne, “I will tell you a pretty long one, because you have obeyed me pretty well while we have been walking; but I cannot tell you a very long one, because you did not obey me all the time.” By always doing something like this, Miss Anne soon succeeded in making Lucy disposed to obey her at all times.
Royal, however, by his opposition to Lucy’s desire, only disturbed and ruffled her mind, and made her less inclined to comply with his wishes on the next occasion which might occur. And, in fact, another occasion came very soon.
For it happened that Lucy, in making her figure three, reversed the form of it, so as to have the open part come to the right, instead of to the left, as it ought to do. Children very often make this mistake, when they first attempt to form the figure three. Royal, seeing the figure which she made, began immediately to laugh at it. This disturbed Lucy’s mind more than what had taken place before. She looked up to Royal as if wondering what he was laughing at, and said,—
“You needn’t laugh, Royal; that is a three.”
“No, it isn’t a three,” said Royal.
“I tell you it is a three,” replied Lucy. “Miss Anne showed me how to make it one day.”
“O Lucy,” said Royal, “Miss Anne never made such a three as that in her life. That is an E.”
In fact, the letter E is often made, in writing, of very much such a form as Lucy’s reversed figure assumed; but Lucy insisted that it was right, and that she meant to make a whole row of them. Royal, who now began to feel somewhat out of humor himself, lost sight entirely of the principle with which he had begun, of making amends for his former roughness by kind and dexterous management. He insisted that Lucy should let him have the pencil, and he would show her how the figure ought to be made. But she would not; she said that she knew that that way was right, and she was going to make a whole row of them.
Then Royal said that she should not have his pencil any more, for he wouldn’t have his pencil used to make such ridiculous threes as those were, which, as he said, looked like threes turned wrong side out. So Lucy gave him his pencil, and got up from the chest, and walked away down stairs. Royal remained behind, to put his pencil back into his box. Then he began to look over and rearrange the various articles which were stored in his magazine. He found the wheels and body of a small wagon, and he went to work to put them together; and he remained occupied in this work for nearly half an hour.
Before this time had expired, however, he had opportunity to reflect upon his conversation with Lucy, and he saw that he had not managed wisely. He began to feel quite sorry that he had not treated her with more tenderness and consideration. While he was in this state of mind, he suddenly began to hear footsteps upon the garret stairs. He knew at once, by the sound, that it was Lucy coming up again. When she reached the head of the stairs, he found that she had her slate in her hand.
Lucy walked along towards Royal, with a good-natured and pleasant expression of countenance, and held out the slate for him to see what was written upon it. Royal saw that there was a row of threes, all made very neatly and correctly, and with the open part turned the right way.
“Ah,” said he, “Lucy, who made them?”
“I,” replied Lucy.
“Who showed you how?” asked Royal.
“Miss Anne,” replied Lucy.
“Those are right,” said Royal. He was just ready to say, I told you you made them wrong before; but, then, he reflected that it would not be pleasant to her, for him to triumph over her, and so he only said, “Those are right.”
“And now, Lucy,” he continued, “you may see me put my wagon together, and then to-morrow you shall learn to make twos.”
That afternoon, Miss Anne questioned Royal about the lesson he had been giving Lucy, and Royal repeated to her, as nearly as he could recollect, all that took place.
“I got along a little better,” he said, when he had finished his account, “than I did the first time.”
“Yes,” replied Miss Anne, “you have learned something. You have got along just about as far in the art of teaching, as Lucy has in arithmetic. If you both persevere, you’ll learn after a time.”