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Purabi Mukherji · Atri Mukhopadhyay

History of the
Calcutta School
of Physical
Sciences
History of the Calcutta School of Physical Sciences
Purabi Mukherji Atri Mukhopadhyay
•

History of the Calcutta

School of Physical Sciences

123
Purabi Mukherji Atri Mukhopadhyay
Department of Mathematics Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics
Gokhale Memorial Girls’ College Kolkata, West Bengal
Kolkata, West Bengal India
India

ISBN 978-981-13-0294-7 ISBN 978-981-13-0295-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0295-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018939019

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018

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Dedicated to the memory of Late Sir Asutosh
Mookerjee, the mentor of Calcutta School of
Physics
Foreword

The most glorious years of the Calcutta School of Physics were during the third
decade of the twentieth century. The discoveries of Saha’s ionisation equation,
Bose’s quantum statistics and Raman’s spectroscopic effect made the school
world-famous within a short span of time. It continued with its distinguished record
well through the fourth and fifth decades of the century. However, a key underlying
fact is not so well known to the rest of the world. The school came into existence
owing to the heroic foundational efforts by the great educationist and institution
builder, Sir Asutosh Mookerjee. It is due to Sir Asutosh’s prescient vision and
tireless efforts that the Postgraduate Physics Department of the University College
of Science in Calcutta could become a flourishing centre of path-breaking research.
Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University from 1906 until 1923, Sir Asutosh left no
stone unturned to raise funds from benefactors (such as Sir Rashbehari Ghosh and
Sir Taraknath Palit), develop the necessary infrastructure and initiate frontline
programmes of instruction and research with the best available faculty. Although
not known to the world at large, his persistent and sustained struggles with the
British authorities in his single-minded drive to attain his goals in this respect
became legendary in India.
It is, therefore, befitting that this book by Dr. (Ms.) Purabi Mukherji and Prof.
Atri Mukhopadhyay on the History of the Calcutta School of Physical Sciences has
been dedicated to the memory of Sir Asutosh, and it starts with an article on his
academic life and administrative career. This is followed by the detailed accounts
of the academic lives and main research contributions of C.V. Raman, D.M. Bose,
M.N. Saha, S.N. Bose, K.S. Krishnan and S.K. Mitra. These accounts are filled with
rich details about how the great physicists went about making their extraordinary
contributions, the barriers they had to overcome and the milestones they had to
reach and leave behind. While going through them, I came across many little gems
of facts that were unknown to me: mathematician Sir Asutosh was extremely
knowledgeable about Theoretical Physics; Raman’s experimental research on
musical instruments was accompanied by extensive theoretical work; D.M. Bose
and Bibha Choudhury had discovered the muon before Cecil Powell; Saha provided
the first experimental proof of the existence of photon momentum; S.N. Bose had

vii
viii Foreword

counted his photons (for blackbody radiation) in phase space cells as one in a cell,
two in a cell, etc. without realising he had (profoundly) made them into indistin-
guishable particles and had founded a new statistics that is different from
Boltzmann’s; K.S. Krishnan was but an innocent bystanding victim of the furious
feud between Raman and Saha; and S.K. Mitra had done distinguished work on
electromagnetic waves of optical and ultraviolet wavelengths before acquiring fame
with his breakthrough results on radio waves in the upper atmosphere.
All bibliographies quoted in the text have been clearly written after a thorough
and painstaking research. And yet, the presentation is extremely lucid. In totality,
this book is not only a valuable volume from the scientific biographer’s perspective
but also an eminently readable and instructive tome from the point of view of a
general reader with a broad science background. I am sure it will find its place on
shelves of both bibliothèque as well as on those of many interested laymen.
I express my sincere compliments to the authors and best wishes for the success
of the book.

Prof. Probir Roy, FAPS, FNA, FASc, FNASc

Senior Professor of Theoretical Physics (Retired),
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR),
Mumbai, Maharastra

Indian National Science Academy (INSA)

Senior Scientist,
Astroparticle Physics and Space Science,
Bose Institute, Kolkata, West Bengal
Preface

Through this book, an attempt has been made to highlight the role of Sir Asutosh
Mookerjee, the eminent multifaceted intellectual and one of India’s foremost
educationists, as the builder of the Calcutta School of Physical Sciences. Born in the
middle of the nineteenth century in a country under foreign domination, Sir Asutosh
was a dynamic visionary who had the courage to dream and the ability to convert
those dreams into reality. He developed a fascination for physical sciences at an
early age and was aware of its immense power to explain the aspects of the
mysterious universe that had been considered inexplicable for a long time.
He brought in exceptionally talented scholars with a love for physical sciences
from all parts of India. Great names such as Sir C.V. Raman, Prof. D.M. Bose,
Prof. S.N. Bose, Prof. M.N. Saha and Prof. S.K. Mitra were all chosen by Sir
Asutosh to fulfil his goal of building an outstanding School of Physics in the city of
Calcutta.
In the introductory chapter, a synopsis of the contents of the monograph has
been given. The following seven chapters have detailed discussions in simple
language about the scientific contributions of the great personalities, particularly
during their stay in Calcutta. In the “epilogue”, a few comparisons and reflections
have been highlighted. Difficult technical jargon and mathematical equations have
been avoided to make the reading lucid and enjoyable.
The complete bibliographies of the great scientists have been added at the end.
This has been done to make the readers aware of the vastness of their scientific
work.
The monograph is meant for students, research scholars and general readers with
a love for the history of science. The golden period of the history of physical
sciences in India has been presented in a compact form, and small anecdotes,
unknown to many, have been brought to the fore. The authors sincerely hope it will
be well-received by interested readers.

Kolkata, India Purabi Mukherji

Atri Mukhopadhyay

ix
Acknowledgements

The authors wish to convey their grateful thanks to the directors and librarians
of Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP), Kolkata; Bose Institute, Kolkata;
S. N. Bose Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata; and the Indian Association for the
Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata, for permitting them to freely use their
respective libraries and archives during the preparation of the monograph.
One of the authors (Purabi Mukherji) wishes to express her heartfelt gratitude to
Dr. Reena Bhaduri, Secretary, Asutosh Mookerjee Memorial Institute, Kolkata, for
giving her access to documents and books related to Sir Asutosh.
Both the authors convey their grateful thanks to the following persons for giving
permission and helping them to collect photographs and giving access to documents
of the great academicians discussed in the monograph:
1. Professor Swagata Sen, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic), and Prof. Soumitra
Sarkar, Chief Librarian, University of Calcutta,
2. Shri Tarun Maji, Head of the Publication Division, Bose Institute, Kolkata,
3. Shri Chanchal Kumar Das, Librarian, and Shri Basudeb Dafadar, Library
Assistant, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata,
4. Professor S.C. Roy, Editor-in-Chief, Science and Culture, Kolkata
5. Shri Laxminarayan Dutta, “Studio Memory”, Kolkata.
The authors express their gratitude to Mrs. Prerna Raturi, Mr. Kausik Das and
Dr. Jisnu Basu (SINP) for their assistance in editing. They also express their
gratitude to Current Science for its kind permission. Both the authors express their
sincere gratitude to Prof. Probir Roy, former Senior Professor of Theoretical
Physics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, for painstakingly
reading the monograph and also for writing the Foreword for the same.

xi
Contents

1 Sir Asutosh Mookerjee (1864–1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Childhood, Family History and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3 Teaching and Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Early Science Movement and Institution Building
(The School of Physics) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............ 7
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............ 20
2 Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888–1970) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1 Family History and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2 Raman in Calcutta and His Golden Era of Research . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3 Discovery of the Raman Effect and Winning the Nobel Prize . . . . 53
2.4 Visits and Lectures at Home and Abroad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
2.5 Departure from Calcutta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3 Professor Debendra Mohan Bose (1885–1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.1 Early Life, Family History and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.2 Research and Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.3 Service Profile and Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4 Professor Meghnad Saha (1893–1956) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.1 Family History, Early Life and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.2 Teaching and Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.3 Departure from Calcutta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.4 Visits Abroad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.5 Back to Calcutta, Scientific and Societal Contributions . . . . . . . . . 102

xiii
xiv Contents

5 Professor Satyendra Nath Bose (1894–1974) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

5.1 Early Life, Family History and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.2 Teaching and Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.3 Leaves Calcutta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.4 Visits Abroad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.5 Back to Calcutta, Service Profile and Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
6 Sir Kariamanickam Srinivasa Krishnan (1898–1961) . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6.1 Childhood, Early Life and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6.2 Teaching and Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
6.3 To Calcutta’s School of Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
6.4 Research Career and Service Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
7 Professor Sisir Kumar Mitra (1890–1963) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
7.1 Early Life, Family History and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
7.2 Teaching and Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
7.3 Pioneer Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
7.4 Contributions to Science and Society, Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Epilogue: Comparisons and Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
About the Authors

Purabi Mukherji is a counsellor in mathematics at the Indira Gandhi National

Open University (IGNOU), Kolkata Centre, India, since 1994. Earlier, she was in
the Department of Mathematics at the Gokhale Memorial Girls’ College, Kolkata,
during 1994. She earned her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Jadavpur
University, Kolkata, in 1987. She received two “National Best Paper Awards” for
her work on “Mathematical Modelling” in Geophysics, awarded by the Indian
Society for Earthquake Technology of the University of Roorkee. Since 2010, she
has been seriously pursuing research in the field of History of Science and has
successfully completed two projects funded by the Indian National Science
Academy (INSA), New Delhi. Currently, she is working on another INSA-funded
project entitled “The Development of the School of Research on Number Theory in
India During the 20th Century”. She has published around 40 research papers
in reputed national and international journals and about 20 scientific articles in
Bengali popular scientific magazines. She authored a book titled Pioneer
Mathematicians of Calcutta University published by the Calcutta University Press,
Kolkata. She is a life member of the Indian Science Congress Association, Calcutta
Mathematical Society, Indian Society of History of Mathematics, Indian Society of
Exploration Geophysicists, Indian Society of Nonlinear Analysts and many others.
She is also an editorial board member of the journal Indian Science Cruiser pub-
lished by the Institute of Science, Education and Culture (ISEC), Kolkata.

Atri Mukhopadhyay is a retired professor of the Saha Institute of Nuclear

Physics, Kolkata, India. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of
Calcutta, Kolkata. He was responsible for restructuring and enriching the Meghnad
Saha Archives at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata. His book entitled
Abinash Meghnad Saha (Meghnad Saha the Invincible) in Bengali is an in-depth
analysis of the life and work of Meghnad Saha vis-à-vis the contemporary scientists
in colonial India. He was the General Secretary of the Indian Physical Society for

xv
xvi About the Authors

several consecutive terms. He has authored quite a number of articles in English and
Bengali, including a classical Indian text on Mahabharata and published 40
research papers in international journals. He translated T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
into Bengali. His research has primarily been on electron structure theory of atoms
and molecules.
Introduction

Sir Asutosh Mookerjee (1864–1924) is well known as a great educationist, a legal

luminary and a peerless Vice-Chancellor who transformed the University of
Calcutta from an affiliating and examining centre to an outstanding seat of teaching
and research in Asia. His contributions as a pioneer researcher in Mathematics in
India have also been discussed in several research papers and books by various
authors. But not much has been written about Sir Asutosh’s abiding interest in
Physics and his tireless efforts to build a strong School of Physics in Calcutta. For
the sake of historical records, it is necessary to bring to the fore this aspect of Sir
Asutosh Mookerjee’s creative contributions.
As is widely known, Mookerjee was a brilliant scholar from the early days of his
student life. He was a versatile genius with a special fascination for physical and
mathematical sciences. In 1884, he stood first-class first in BA examination, with
honours in Mathematics. In 1885, he completed MA in Pure and Applied
Mathematics, standing first once again. In 1886, he acquired another MA degree in
Physical Sciences. This was the first such instance of a dual degree being awarded
by Calcutta University. The same year, he won the prestigious Premchand
Roychand Studentship in Mathematical and Physical Sciences. This was the cov-
eted blue ribbon of his university career in Calcutta. Mookerjee specialised in both
Physics and Mathematics.
In this context, it is necessary to mention the contributions of Dr. Mahendra Lal
Sircar (1833–1904) and his associate and friend Reverend Father Eugene Lafont
(1837–1908). They, by establishing the Indian Association for the Cultivation of
Science (IACS) in Calcutta in 1876, initiated the first organised science movement
in India. It inspired the youth community of India in general and Bengal in par-
ticular. Mookerjee was no exception. From his early days in Presidency College, he
had been a voracious reader of books in different disciplines. After the establish-
ment of IACS, he would regularly attend the scientific lectures there and was further
inspired by the Physics lectures delivered by Father Lafont. As a consequence, he
started reading more books and treatises on physical sciences.
The term “Mathematical Physics” was first coined and used by Sir Asutosh
himself. For reasons which have been explained later, Mookerjee had to leave the

xvii
xviii Introduction

arena of science, but all his life he remained grateful to Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar for
inspiring him in the pursuit of scientific research.
From a historical perspective, it is necessary to evaluate Sir Asutosh’s contri-
butions to the ongoing science movement in India. Here, his role in building the
School of Physics in Calcutta has been highlighted. Mookerjee was made the
Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University in 1906. Shortly after that, there were
several important developments in the sphere of science education and research in
Calcutta. With reforms and reorganisations, Sir Asutosh transformed the University
of Calcutta from an examination-holding, degree- and affiliation-giving institution,
to a vibrant and dynamic seat of learning of international repute. As the ruling
colonial government barely gave any financial support, Sir Asutosh had to persuade
and collect funds from individual donors. Sir T.N. Palit handed over his house at 92
Upper Circular Road (present-day Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road) and a princely
sum of money to Sir Asutosh for the development of Calcutta University. With that
amount, Sir Asutosh created two prestigious chair professorships in Physics and
Chemistry. That was the first step in the creation of the School of Physics. The Palit
Professorship in Physics was first offered to Sir J.C. Bose, who was already a
renowned and well-established scientist. However, he turned down the offer since
he was planning to establish the Bose Institute (which was founded in 1917) after
his retirement from the Presidency College in Calcutta. With his unerring knack for
spotting the right talent, Sir Asutosh selected a relatively unknown C.V. Raman for
the post.
Sir Asutosh informed the Syndicate of Calcutta University about this in the
following words:
.....for the chair of Physics created by Sir T.N. Palit, we have been fortunate enough to
secure the services of Mr. C.V. Raman, who has greatly distinguished himself and acquired
a European fame by his brilliant researches in the domain of Physical Sciences, assiduously
carried on, under the most adverse circumstances, amidst the distraction of pressing official
duties. I rejoice to think that many of his valuable researches have been carried on in IACS,
founded by our illustrious colleague Dr. M.L. Sircar, who devoted a lifetime to the
foundation of an institution. I should fail in my duty if I were to restrain myself in my
expression of genuine admiration I feel for the courage and spirit of self-sacrifice with
which Mr. Raman has decided to exchange a lucrative official appointment with attractive
prospects for a University Professorship, which I regret to say, does not carry even liberal
emoluments. This one instance encourages me to entertain the hope that there will be no
lack of seekers of truth in the Temple of Knowledge, which is our ambition to erect.

In 1924, Raman was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

Unfortunately, Sir Asutosh died earlier the same year and could not witness his
favourite protégé’s hour of triumph. But the great visionary must have surely
anticipated that the highest honour in the world, the Nobel Prize, would be
bestowed on his favourite, C.V. Raman. The history of science will certainly
acknowledge the enormous contribution that Sir Asutosh made in building the
School of Physics in Calcutta just by his one act of selecting C.V. Raman as the
Palit Professor and giving him the freedom to do his research in his own way.
Introduction xix

Sir Asutosh’s role in setting up the School of Physics in Calcutta was not limited
to the recruitment of Sir C.V. Raman. Raman was undoubtedly the most towering
personality, but there were others who Sir Asutosh spotted and brought in, and they
made Calcutta a world-renowned seat of physical sciences. The most notable
youngsters recruited by Sir Asutosh for the Department of Physics at Calcutta
University were D.M. Bose, S.N. Bose, M.N. Saha and S.K. Mitra. Sir C.V. Raman
was instrumental in bringing in K.S. Krishnan as a student in the newly set-up
Department of Physics at Calcutta University. Their contributions in the context
of the School of Physics have been discussed in detail in respective chapters.
It is also worth noting here that the lives and works of the above-mentioned
scientists have been discussed in the form of books by many authors. However, the
collective impact of their researches sustained by the dynamic and supportive
leadership of Sir Asutosh Mookerjee has never been projected before. The present
monograph is aimed at unravelling this aspect of the history of Indian scientific
movement’s golden era.
Chapter 1
Sir Asutosh Mookerjee (1864–1924)

1.1 Introduction

Sir Asutosh Mookerjee (1864–1924) is well-known as a great educationist, a legal

luminary, a peerless Vice-Chancellor and, above all, a builder of institutions. He
transformed the University of Calcutta from a provincial affiliating and examination
centre to an outstanding seat of teaching and research in Asia. This is a story of a
man of indomitable courage, his abiding perseverance and dynamic dreaming.
Sir Asutosh’s contributions in Mathematics in India have been discussed in
many research papers and books, but little is known about his abiding interest in
Physics and his tireless efforts to build a strong School of Physics in Calcutta.
Before going into a detailed discussion about his activities in this direction, for the
sake of historical record, it is necessary to bring to fore Mookerjee’s creative
contributions in the area of physical sciences.

1.2 Childhood, Family History and Education

Asutosh Mookerjee was born in Calcutta on 29 June 1864. His father, Dr. Ganga
Prasad Mookerjee, was a well-known doctor of Calcutta, and his mother Jagattarini
Devi was a pious, patriotic and courageous lady. One of his uncles, Radhika Prasad
Mookerjee, was an executive engineer. Mookerjee’s father and uncle were
first-generation Western-educated professionals. It was a notable transformation
from an orthodox Brahmin family of Sanskrit-knowing pandits residing in a village
in the Hooghly District of Bengal, to a family of doctors and engineers who settled
down in Calcutta. Born in an educated family, Mookerjee was exposed to an
intellectual atmosphere at home from an early age. His real education was imparted
to him by his father and two uncles at home. His private tutors, Madhusudan Das,
Pandit Panchanan Palodhi and others, were great scholars who laid a solid

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 1

P. Mukherji and A. Mukhopadhyay, History of the Calcutta School of Physical
Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0295-4_1
2 1 Sir Asutosh Mookerjee (1864–1924)

foundation for his future intellectual life. Mookerjee lived in a traditional Bengali
joint family and had simple upbringing. His only source of joy was his immense
passion for books, a passion which was greatly encouraged by his father, Ganga
Prasad. His love for reading lasted a lifetime and made Mookerjee a man with
immense knowledge and learning (Fig. 1.1).
As is widely known, Asutosh Mookerjee was a brilliant scholar from the early
days of his student life. He was a versatile genius, with a particular fascination for
Physical and Mathematical Sciences. In 1884, he stood first-class first in BA, with
honours in Mathematics. In 1885, he completed his MA in Pure and Applied
Mathematics, standing first yet again. In 1886, he acquired another MA degree in

Fig. 1.1 Sir Asutosh Mookerjee (29 June 1984–25 May 1924)
1.2 Childhood, Family History and Education 3

Physical Sciences. This was the first such instance of a dual degree being awarded
by Calcutta University. The same year he won the prestigious Premchand
Roychand studentship in Mathematical and Physical Sciences. This was the coveted
blue ribbon of his university career in Calcutta. Asutosh Mookerjee specialised in
both Physics and Mathematics.
It would be interesting to note that Mookerjee was equally proficient in Pure as
well as Applied Mathematics right from his student days. In an entry dated
09.02.1884, in his “Diary”, he wrote:
I have got Harish Chandra prize for highest marks in Mathematics. Although I was also first
in Dynamics and Astronomy, I do not get the Herschel Medal, because two prizes on the
same subject cannot be awarded.

To note, Applied Mathematics has a lot in common with Theoretical Physics.

Despite all these preparations, Mookerjee faced a crisis of sorts when it came to
selecting a career path in 1887. A quote from Dr. Reena Bhaduri’s book titled
Asutosh Mookerjee: Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science and Early
Science Movement in India, in this regard, is relevant. She writes:
Sir Alfred Croft, the then Director of Public Instructions, well aware of his exceptionally
brilliant career, offered Asutosh an appointment for teaching in Presidency College. The
Colonial Education Service was divided into two categories (1) Indian Education Service
was meant almost only for Europeans, and (2) Provincial Education Service for Indians.
Starting from pay scale to transfer policy every matter was different between the two
categories. Asutosh was far more qualified and well-known in academic circle than most of
the European teachers, even then he was offered a teaching post in the Provincial Education
Service. He demanded (1) the same status and pay scale enjoyed by the Europeans in the
Indian Education Service (2) his second request was that he should not be transferred from
Presidency College as it might disturb his researches. But both his demands were not
acceptable to Sir Alfred Croft, and Asutosh, of course, was not ready to accept anything
less than that. It is quite obvious that he visualised himself in future as a Research
Professor. [1, Chap. 1, p. 24]

1.3 Teaching and Research

It was in such a scenario that Mookerjee joined the Indian Association for the
Cultivation of Science. In this context, it is necessary to mention the contributions
of Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar (1833–1904) and his friend and associate, Reverend
Father Eugene Lafont (1837–1908). From the middle of the nineteenth century,
there was a growing resentment among Indians owing to the preferential treatment
meted out to Europeans by their colonial rulers, based primarily on racial grounds.
This had two effects on Indians. On the one hand, it gave rise to greater demands for
attaining self-reliance in scientific research and training. On the other, it alienated
the educated Indians from the British rulers and, in the process, helped the cause of
Indian nationalism.
4 1 Sir Asutosh Mookerjee (1864–1924)

In 1869, Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar, a well-known medical practitioner of the time,
wrote an article “On the Desirability of a National Institution for the Cultivation of
Science by the Natives of India”. He wrote:
We want an Institution, which will combine character, scope and objects of the Royal
Institute of London and of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. We
want an Institution which shall be for the instruction of masses………..And we wish that
the Institution be entirely under native management and control.

Sircar felt the main reason for the lack of development in the country was
because Indians lagged behind the rest of the world in science. At the same time, he
was confident the country had enough potential to overcome the challenge and
emerge a winner. After prolonged efforts and relentless perseverance, in 1876,
Sircar, in collaboration with Reverend Father Lafont, finally succeeded in estab-
lishing IACS in Bowbazar Street in Calcutta. It was founded with the money
collected from public subscription. Dr. Reena Bhaduri has put it succinctly in her
book. She wrote:
In 1876 finally Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science saw the light of the day
after a long and persistent groundwork carried on by Dr Mahendra Lal Sircar, one of the
great pioneers of the early science movement in India. It was inaugurated on 29. 07. 1876.
The first meeting of the subscribers was held in the Senate House of the University of
Calcutta on 04. 05. 1876. Dr M L Sircar worked hard for years to initiate a science
movement through an Institution where modern scientific research and training would be
practised, cultivated and pursued by Indian scientists. According to Sircar, what was
lacking in British India was rational and unbiased thinking and assiduous cultivation of
Sciences. Sircar in early 1870 gave a clarion call to all concerned to build up an Institution
where modern scientific research would be carried on by Indians. He received wholehearted
support and active participation in the science movement from the Jesuit Father Eugene
Lafont, an eminent physicist himself and science teacher in St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta.
[1, Chap. 1, p. 14]

The setting up of IACS by Sircar was a bold move that asserted the nascent
nationalism rising amongst the Western-educated intelligentsia of the country. The
colonial rulers were averse and hostile to the idea of progress and development of
science by Indians. To counter that, Sircar made a policy declaration that “basic
sciences must be taught before applied to the teaching of practical art”. To
implement this principle, lectures were arranged from 1885 onwards, on
Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biological Sciences. Along with the two
co-founders, Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar and Father Lafont, scientific luminaries such
as J.C. Bose, Asutosh Mookerjee, Syamadas Mukhopadhyay, Nilratan Sircar,
Prasanna Roy, started taking classes in the Association.
Asutosh Mookerjee joined IACS in 1887 when he had no options left for
continuing a research career. His failure to get a faculty position in Presidency
College under reasonable terms and conditions left him with little choice. Years
later, in a speech delivered before the Senate of the University of Calcutta he
lamented and promised to rectify the system that had forced him to give up his
preferred profession. He said:
1.3 Teaching and Research 5

I began life as a research student in Mathematics when research was practically unknown in
this country and ambition of my life was to be a Research Professor in my University. Mr
Justice Gooroodas Banerjee, who was then Vice-Chancellor of the University, made a
desperate attempt to create a chair for me. But such were the times that he failed to collect
even a sum which would yield a modest income of Rs. 4000/- a year, which was all that he
and I thought would be sufficient to maintain me as a Research Professor. The result was, I
drifted into Law, but I made a determination at that time that, Heaven willing, I would
devote myself to the service of the University, so that in the next generation any aspiring
scholar in my position might not drift into Law, but have full opportunities of research to
serve the cause of Letters and Science. [Speech—C. U. Senate]

Sir Asutosh kept his promise. But more about that later. For now, here is a look
at the three years, 1887–1890, when he worked in IACS as a lecturer and
researcher.
The establishment of IACS in Calcutta was the first step to initiate an organised
science movement in India, which inspired the youth of India in general, and of
Bengal in particular. Mookerjee was no exception. Since his early student days in
Presidency College, he was a voracious reader of books in different disciplines.
After the establishment of IACS, he would regularly attend scientific lectures and
was motivated by the Physics lectures delivered by Father Lafont. Inspired by him,
Mookerjee started reading up more and more on Physical Sciences.
As one goes through Sir Asutosh’s diary, one finds he read books by famous
mathematicians and physicists such as J.L. Lagrange, A.M.L. Legendre, P.S. Laplace,
Sir I. Newton, J. Fourier, H. Lamb, J.C. Maxwell, E.L. Mathieu, S.D. Poisson, J.W.S.
Raleigh, W. Thomson, K.F. Gauss, L. Clerk, L. Cummings, S.P. Thompson. In order
to read some of the books by German and French scientists in the original, Sir Asutosh
even learned the two languages.
Among the many books read by Mookerjee, there are Sir Isaac Newton’s
Principia, Sir Horace Lamb’s A Treatise on the Mathematical Theory of Motion of
Fluids, E.J. Gross’s Kinetics (An Elementary Treatise on Kinematics and Kinetics),
J. Bayman’s The Elements of Molecular Mechanics, Felix Billet’s Trait d’optique
Physique, J. Fourier’s Analytical Theory of Heat, Watson and Burbury’s Treatise
on Electricity, L. Cumming’s An Introduction to the Theory of Electricity with
Numerous Examples”, S.P. Thompson’s Electricity and Magnetism.
Devouring these books and more was just a part of the spadework for his dream
career of teaching and research in Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Alas, that
was not to be. Historically, however, 1887 was an eventful year in the life of
Mookerjee. By then, three of his research papers on Mathematics had been pub-
lished in reputed international journals. He had been elected a Fellow of the Royal
Astronomical Society and was also made a member of several other academic
organisations of England. The same year, he was elected Fellow of London
Physical Society, England. At this time, Dr. M.L. Sircar appointed Mookerjee as an
Honorary Lecturer in IACS.
An idea about newly appointed Mookerjee’s dedication to his academic com-
mitments can be obtained from the records of IACS meetings. In the eleventh IACS
meeting on Monday, 30 April 1888, the report for 1887 was presented by the
secretary of the Association, Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar. He said
6 1 Sir Asutosh Mookerjee (1864–1924)

In 1887 another acquisition………was Asutosh Mookerjee, who delivered lectures on

Physical Optics, Mathematical Physics and Pure Mathematics. His lectures were of
exceptionally high standard. Father Lafont in his course on Light occasionally used to deal
with experimental aspect of interference, diffraction and polarisation of Light. Asutosh
Mookerjee dealt with the same subject entirely from theoretical point of view…….. [2,
(Report 1888)]

Thus, during his lecture, Mookerjee would introduce the concept of elastic solid
and the electromagnetic theory of light. He discussed in detail the mathematics of a
luminiferous medium on the basis of elastic vibrations. In this way, he explained
interference, diffraction and polarisation of light, the laws of Fresnel and Arago,
double refraction of a biaxial crystal, Green and Fresnel’s dynamical theory of
reflection and related topics. He consulted Fresnel’s memoir on double refraction as
explained by Senarmont, to elucidate the topics. Mookerjee also dealt with several
other topics of Physical Optics that includes MacCullagh’s theory of metallic
reflection, Stokes’ dynamical theory of diffraction, Rayleigh’s theory of the colour
of the sky and the theories of rotatory polarisation due to Fresnel, Airy and
MacCullagh. Similarly, while lecturing on the electromagnetic theory of light, he
covered the theory of electric oscillations and of the Hertzian vibrator for detecting
them. He also discussed Maxwell’s dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field,
with applications to the propagation of plane luminous waves, their reflection and
refraction. Needless to say, Mookerjee kept himself well-informed on the subjects
he taught and, as a consequence, the topics on which he lectured represented some
of the most advanced and prestigious areas of Physics during the last half of the
nineteenth century.
The term “Mathematical Physics” was first coined and used by him.
Incidentally, many topics in Physical Optics mentioned above come under the
purview of Mathematical Physics. But young Mookerjee introduced a new course
of lectures under the title of “Mathematical Physics”. In these lectures, he con-
centrated on hydrokinetics and the theory of potentials. In hydrokinetics, Sir
Asutosh discussed in detail Green’s Theorem and its applications, equations of
motion, equations of continuity, vortex motion, Clebsch’s transformation, current
function of Stokes and Earnshaw, Weber’s transformation, Cauchy’s integral of
Lagrange’s equations, Thomson’s theorem, flow and circulation, Stokes’ Theorem,
conjugate functions, uni-polar streamlines, Helmholtz’s Theorems, energy and
potential of vortices, waves and wave motions in liquids. Even today, a number of
these topics are treated as bedrocks of fluid mechanics. Similarly, in the Theory of
Potentials, Mookerjee delivered lectures on general properties of potential, surface
integrals, the potential of shells and Green’s functions. While teaching definite
integrals, he made special reference to their applications to the theory of conduction
of heat and diffraction of light. He discussed Fourier’s theorem and its applications
in Physics. He also delivered lectures on the theories of Elastic Solids in great
detail.
Mookerjee taught at IACS for three years. From 1887 to 1890, he delivered a
total of 85 lectures, which comprised courses in Pure Mathematics and different
topics of Physics, as mentioned above. In 1890, he wrote two research papers on
1.3 Teaching and Research 7

hydrokinetics using Clebsch Transformation, and which were published in the

Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal. In fact, the results he established are useful
and relevant even today. In a span of ten years—from 1880 to 1890, Mookerjee
published 14 research papers of great merit on different topics of Pure Mathematics.
These discussions of facts reflect Sir Asutosh Mookerjee’s mastery over various
topics of Physics, Mathematical Physics and Pure Mathematics.
Just when Mookerjee’s academic life was going at a smooth pace, a disaster
struck his family. His younger brother Hemanta suddenly died in 1887 at the tender
age of 21. His father, Dr. Ganga Prasad Mookerjee, was overwhelmed by grief and
it affected his health. Consequently, in December 1889, Mookerjee’s father
breathed his last. The responsibility of providing for the entire joint family fell on
Mookerjee’s young shoulders. The talented mathematician and mathematical
physicist now had to find a means of earning for the family’s bread and butter. He
considered the law. Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar in the 16th Annual Meeting of the
IACS held in 1893, lamented Asutosh Mookerjee’s departure and said:
Our own University has turned out a graduate who is a genius in mathematics, and whose
mathematical acquirements have been acknowledged even in Europe. But he must earn his
bread by means other than Mathematics, and we have the sad spectacle of this brilliant
genius wasting his energies within the granite walls of the High Court and in uncongenial
and unprofitable pursuits. There are many others who are being similarly wasted. [3]

1.4 Early Science Movement and Institution Building (The

School of Physics)

Although Asutosh Mookerjee had to leave the arena of Science, all his life he
remained grateful to Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar for inspiring him in the pursuit of
scientific research. In 1917, in the convocation address in the University of
Calcutta, he referred to Dr. Sircar as “the spiritual father of every one of us,
however eminent, whose aspirations lie in that direction”.
Before going into the details of the School of Physics, which was born in
Calcutta, it would be reasonable to discuss a little about the science movement
which was initiated by Sircar and carried out through IACS from the middle of the
nineteenth century to early twentieth century. Mookerjee’s strong connection with
the institute, his personal bond with Dr. Sircar and Rev Father Lafont, and other
socio-economic factors influenced him strongly. Almost naturally, the next phase of
science movement was led by him. The establishment of the Calcutta School of
Physics by Sir Asutosh was a successful realisation of one of his dreams.
As is widely known, the first three universities of India, namely Calcutta,
Bombay and Madras Universities were all established in 1857. These universities
barely had any programme for higher studies in science. Dr. Reena Bhaduri
8 1 Sir Asutosh Mookerjee (1864–1924)

analyses the reasons for this in her book Sir Asutosh Mookerjee: Indian Association
for the Cultivation of Science and Early Science Movement in India and states
From nationalist perspective colonial rulers did not make provision for or encourage higher
studies in science subjects. The reason for this negative attitude was obvious – in a country
of such huge natural resources, it would certainly lead to its economic development which
might lead to the possibility of an industrial revolution in future. Thus it would pose a
challenge to Manchester and Sheffield………….The rights and duties of the Universities
were not to impart teaching and research, but to take examination and give affiliation to
junior and undergraduate colleges. Their academic curricula was extremely poor in science
content. Although the Government Colleges were better equipped for teaching, sometimes
even up to Post-Graduate classes, there was no tradition of teaching and research com-
bined”. [1, Chap. 1, p. 13]

The commission appointed by Lord Curzon, the then Governor General of India
in 1902, was an all-British one. Public opinion was strongly against a commission
that was meant for reforms of Indian Universities but which did not include even a
single Indian. In order to pacify the raging public sentiments, Sir Gooroodas
Banerjee, the first Indian Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, was made a
member of the commission. Mookerjee was taken in as a co-opted member to act as
a provincial representative educationist. The Indian Universities Act of 1904 was a
controversial act right from the start. As far as teaching functions of the Universities
were concerned, the Act was merely a permissive one.
Patriotic educationists such as Mookerjee were trying hard to secure a stronger
foothold for science education. Educationist G.K. Gokhale feared that “this is just
the part of the bill which would not come into operation”. Another prominent
philanthropist Sister Nivedita commented, “We have had a University Commission
lately, which has done it’s very best to kill Education, and especially all science
Education”.
At last, on 31 March 1906, Mookerjee was appointed the Vice-Chancellor of
Calcutta University. Till that time, as Gokhale had apprehended, nobody attached
much importance to the clause in the bill enabling universities to conduct post-
graduate teaching. Things had to change, but it wouldn’t be easy, Mookerjee knew.
S.N. Sen, in his book CV Raman: Scientific Work at Calcutta, remarks:
Sir Asutosh had no illusions about the paramount need for funds to carry out his plans for
post-graduate teaching and higher studies. He was equally convinced that the government
would not provide any financial assistance, let alone giving grants to the extent required by
the scheme, and do nothing more than pay lip service from time to time. It was also a stark
reality that without handsome resources any plan of promoting higher education was
doomed to failure. Luckily the University Act of 1904 left one door open, namely ‘to hold
and manage educational endowments’…. [4, Chap. V, pp. 109–110]

As the Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University until 1914, Mookerjee (Fig. 1.2)

seized the opportunity by focusing on this one section of the Universities Act and
used it like a magic wand to convert the University of Calcutta into a great centre
for teaching and research. He had in him a rare combination of deep intellectual
interests and superlative administrative ability and statesmanship. As the famous
Hardinge Professor of Higher Mathematics, Professor R.N. Sen has stated:
1.4 Early Science Movement and Institution Building (The School of Physics) 9

Fig. 1.2 Sir Asutosh Mookerjee as Vice-Chancellor, 1914

In spite of many handicaps inherent in the Act of 1904 and against heavy odds, he carried
the Senate with him to make plans, Schemes and Regulations for stimulating and spreading
education in the country…His crowning achievement was the creation in 1917 of the
Post-Graduate Departments of Teaching in Arts and Science in the University, which
provided opportunity and incentive for higher study and research. To achieve all these
objectives he was able to raise generous princely donations and to attract the most learned
and talented persons in science, humanities and letters from all over India to run the
10 1 Sir Asutosh Mookerjee (1864–1924)

Fig. 1.3 Sir Asutosh Mookerjee at the Calcutta University Commission, Darjeeling, on 25 June
1918 (Standing: Ramsay Muir, Ziauddin, Gregory, Zacharia; Sitting: Mookerjee, Sadler, Hartog;
Front: Anderson, Hornell)

Post-Graduate Departments. The University was transformed from being merely an affili-
ating and examining institution into an organisation with the added responsibility of dis-
seminating and unfolding knowledge with the motto ‘Advancement of learning’. [5]

Like in all other subjects, the Post-Graduate Department of Physics focused on

higher study and research in Physics. This turned out to be a step with far-reaching
consequences and a consequent period of “Renaissance” followed. Mookerjee, with
single-minded devotion, nurtured the Department of Physics. He gave all possible
help to the faculty members he brought in, for the betterment of their respective
careers and, in the process, realised his dream of creating a world-renowned School
of Physics in Calcutta. This was true for the other sciences as well (Fig. 1.3).
He directed all his energies to collect funds through endowments. Luckily for
him, two leading legal luminaries of Calcutta High Court came forward and made
handsome donations to the Calcutta University for the advancement and propaga-
tion of scientific and technical education and knowledge (Fig. 1.4).
Sir Taraknath Palit, a noted legal expert of Calcutta, made a handsome
endowment to the University of Calcutta. From the records of the university, it is
seen that “On June 15 and October 8 of 1912, Sir Taraknath Palit executed in
favour of the Calcutta University two trust deeds to make available to the
University money and land of the aggregate value of Rs. 15 lakhs”.
The purpose of the endowment was mentioned in the trust deed. It was for “the
promotion and diffusion of scientific and technical education in Bengal and the
1.4 Early Science Movement and Institution Building (The School of Physics) 11

Fig. 1.4 Sir Ashutosh Mookerjee as an advocate

cultivation and advancement of Science, Pure and Applied”. The deed further
recommended the establishment of “University Professorships of Science as first
steps towards the foundation of a University College of Science and Technology”.
The deed also had specific provisions for “two Professorships or Chairs, one of
Chemistry and the other of Physics”. In this context, it was mentioned that “Such
Chairs shall be filled by Indians (that is, persons born of Indian parents as con-
tradistinguished from persons who are called Statutory Natives of India)”.
According to the trust deed, the duty of the professor would be:
12 1 Sir Asutosh Mookerjee (1864–1924)

1) to carry on original research with a view to extending the bounds of knowledge,

2) to stimulate and guide research by advanced students and as an essential preparation for
the purpose,
3) to arrange for adequate instruction of students for the degree of Bachelor of Science
with Honours, Master of Science and Doctor of Science and also of other students who
may be exceptionally qualified in any of the subjects of study.”

The trust deed also made suggestions regarding the buildings and infrastructures
of the proposed College of Science. It specified that the university, “shall from its
own funds provide suitable lecture rooms, libraries, museums, laboratories, work-
shops and other facilities for teaching and research and that it shall out of its own
funds earmark and set apart a sum of two lakhs and fifty thousand rupees and apply
the same to and towards the construction of the same premises No. 92 Upper
Circular Road (now called A.P.C. Road)….of permanent and substantial structures
and their proper and adequate equipment such as lecture rooms, libraries, museums,
laboratories, workshops etc. as aforesaid”.
On 8 August 1913, Sir Rash Behary Ghose, yet another legal luminary of
Calcutta High Court, donated to the University of Calcutta “a sum of ten lakhs of
rupees in furtherance of the University College of Science” as proposed by Sir
Asutosh Mookerjee. In this trust deed, the donor also suggested that the donated
money be spent “for the promotion of scientific and technical education and for the
cultivation and advancement of Sciences, Pure and Applied, amongst my coun-
trymen by and through the indigenous agency”. The deed also proposed that the
endowment professorship should “always be filled up by Indians (that is persons
born of Indian parents as contradistinguished from persons who are called Statutory
Natives of India)”. The duties prescribed for each professor were the same as given
for each Palit Professor (Fig. 1.5).

Fig. 1.5 Sir Asutosh Mookerjee and the honourable judges of the Calcutta High Court
1.4 Early Science Movement and Institution Building (The School of Physics) 13

Out of these endowments, the university created eight studentships. These

scholarship holders were attached to the Palit Professor so that they could “devote
themselves exclusively to research”.
After a lapse of almost six years, on 22 December 1919, Sir Rash Behary Ghose
made another endowment of Rs. 1,143,000 for the promotion of “technological
instruction and research”.
Sir Asutosh was successful in collecting princely endowments from private
donors for the implementation of his dream project of establishing the University
College of Science and Technology. His plan received a shot in the arm after the
Palit endowment. Dr. S.N. Sen in his book on C.V. Raman explains the situation
succinctly:
The University had to find from its own resources funds for building construction and for
equipping the laboratories, workshops, libraries etc. The University approached the gov-
ernment for funds and the government flatly refused. The government only agreed to allow
12,000/- rupees to be spent annually out of their recurring grant of 65,000/- rupees for the
maintenance of the laboratories. The main reason for the government’s calculated apathy
and hostility to the Calcutta University was the clause of both Palit and Ghose endowments
that the professorships ‘shall always be filled by Indians’. In the history of scientific and
technical education in India, endowments by wealthy Indians and Indian Industrialists was
nothing new. The government encouraged such endowments primarily because these
opened an avenue for the appointment of European experts on the pretext that such
expertise was not available in this country. Sir P C Ray, India’s pioneer chemist records that
Lord Hardinge, the then Vice-Roy was not at first unfavourably inclined to the Palit and
Ghosh endowments, but later he changed his mind. [4, Chap. V, p. 112]

It was also rumoured that Lord Hardinge had knit his brow over the clause in the
deed of gift that none but Indians should be eligible for the endowment profes-
sorships. The very same colonial rulers were quite generous with two other insti-
tutions “in the Southern and Western Presidencies”.
Dr S.N. Sen explains the dubious attitude of the colonial runners in an analytical
way. He records:
The explanation is not far to seek. Both these Institutes were staffed, managed and con-
trolled entirely by the British element. The Indian was there but more or less in a subor-
dinate capacity and drawing poor pay. [4, Chap. V, p. 112]

Acharya P.C. Ray particularly mentioned the instance of the Indian Institute of
Science at Bangalore, where the director and professors were British. They were
paid handsome salaries even in comparison with their English counterparts in
Britain. The salary of the Director of the National Physical Laboratory at
Teddington in the UK was £1,200 a year, whereas the salary of the Director of the
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, was £4,000 per year, which was equivalent
to Rs. 3,500 per month.
But the indomitable “Bengal Tiger” (as Sir Asutosh was nicknamed for his
legendary courage) overcame all odds. In spite of non-cooperation and indifference
of the colonial rulers, the peerless Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University was
able to gather funds from the surplus money realised as examination fees and was
Another random document with
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a clergyman in the North, who suffered from ‘clergyman’s sore
throat’; he was a popular evangelical preacher, and there was no
end to the sympathy his case evoked; he couldn’t preach, so his
devoted congregation sent him, now to the South of France, now to
Algiers, now to Madeira. After each delightful sojourn he returned,
looking plump and well, but unable to raise his voice above a hardly
audible whisper. This went on for three years or so. Then his Bishop
interfered; he must provide a curate in permanent charge, with
nearly the full emoluments of the living. The following Sunday he
preached, nor did he again lose his voice. And this was an earnest
and honest man, who would rather any day be at his work than
wandering idly about the world. Plainly, too, in the etymological
sense of the word, his complaint was not hysteria. But this is not an
exceptional case: keep any man in his dressing-gown for a week or
two—a bad cold, say—and he will lay himself out to be pitied and
petted, will have half the ailments under the sun, and be at death’s
door with each. And this is your active man; a man of sedentary
habits, notwithstanding his stronger frame, is nearly as open as a
woman to the advances of this stealthy foe. Why, for that matter, I’ve
seen it in a dog! Did you never see a dog limp pathetically on his
three legs that he might be made much of for his lameness, until his
master’s whistle calls him off at a canter on all fours?”
“I get no nearer; what have these illustrations to do with my wife?”
“Wait a bit, and I’ll try to show you. The throat would seem to be a
common seat of the affection. I knew a lady—nice woman she was,
too—who went about for years speaking in a painful whisper, whilst
everybody said, ‘Poor Mrs. Marjoribanks!’ But one evening she
managed to set her bed-curtains alight, when she rushed to the door,
screaming, ‘Ann! Ann! the house is on fire! Come at once!’ The dear
woman believed ever after, that ‘something burst’ in her throat, and
described the sensation minutely; her friends believed, and her
doctor did not contradict. By the way, no remedy has proved more
often effectual than a house on fire, only you will see the difficulties. I
knew of a case, however, where the ‘house-afire’ prescription was
applied with great effect. ’Twas in a London hospital for ladies; a
most baffling case; patient had been for months unable to move a
limb—was lifted in and out of bed like a log, fed as you would pour
into a bottle. A clever young house-surgeon laid a plot with the
nurses. In the middle of the night her room was filled with fumes,
lurid light, &c. She tried to cry out, but the smoke was suffocating;
she jumped out of bed and made for the door—more choking smoke
—threw up the sash—fireman, rope, ladder—she scrambled down,
and was safe. The whole was a hoax, but it cured her, and the
nature of the cure was mercifully kept secret. Another example: A
friend of mine determined to put a young woman under ‘massage’ in
her own home; he got a trained operator, forbade any of her family to
see her, and waited for results. The girl did not mend; ‘very odd!
some reason for this,’ he muttered; and it came out that every night
the mother had crept in to wish her child good-night; the tender visits
were put a stop to, and the girl recovered.”
“Your examples are interesting enough, but I fail to see how they
bear; in each case, you have a person of weak or disordered intellect
simulating a disease with no rational object in view. Now the beggars
who know how to manufacture sores on their persons have the
advantage—they do it for gain.”
“I have told my tale badly; these were not persons of weak or
disordered intellect; some of them very much otherwise; neither did
they consciously simulate disease; not one believed it possible to
make the effort he or she was surprised into. The whole question
belongs to the mysterious borderland of physical and psychological
science—not pathological, observe; the subject of disease and its
treatment is hardly for the lay mind.”
“I am trying to understand.”
“It is worth your while; if every man took the pains to understand
the little that is yet to be known on this interesting subject he might
secure his own household, at any rate, from much misery and waste
of vital powers; and not only his household, but perhaps himself—for,
as I have tried to show, this that is called ‘hysteria’ is not necessarily
an affair of sex.”
“Go on; I am not yet within appreciable distance of anything
bearing on my wife’s case.”
 “Ah, the thing is a million-headed monster! hardly to be
recognised by the same features in any two cases. To get at the
rationale of it, we must take up human nature by the roots. We talk
glibly in these days of what we get from our forefathers, what comes
to us through our environment, and consider that in these two we
have the sum of human nature. Not a bit of it; we have only
accounted for some peculiarities in the individual; independently of
these, we come equipped with stock for the business of life of which
too little account is taken. The subject is wide, so I shall confine
myself to an item or two.
“We all come into the world—since we are beings of imperfect
nature—subject to the uneasy stirring of some few primary desires.
Thus, the gutter child and the infant prince are alike open to the
workings of the desire for esteem, the desire for society, for power,
&c. One child has this, and another that, desire more active and
uneasy. Women, through the very modesty and dependence of their
nature, are greatly moved by the desire for esteem. They must be
thought of, made much of, at any price. A man desires esteem, and
he has meetings in the marketplace, the chief-room at the feast; the
pétroleuse, the city outcast, must have notoriety—the esteem of the
bad—at any price, and we have a city in flames, and Whitechapel
murders. Each falls back on his experience and considers what will
bring him that esteem, a gnawing craving after which is one of his
earliest immaterial cognitions. But the good woman has
comparatively few outlets. The esteem that comes to her is all within
the sphere of her affections. Esteem she must have; it is a necessity
of her nature.
“‘Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles,’
are truly to her, ‘human nature’s daily food.’”
“Now, experience comes to her aid. When she is ill, she is the
centre of attraction, the object of attention, to all who are dear to her;
she will be ill.”
“You contradict yourself, man! don’t you see? You are painting,
not a good woman, but one who will premeditate, and act a lie!”
 “Not so fast! I am painting a good woman. Here comes in a
condition which hardly any one takes into account. Mrs. Jumeau will
lie with stiffened limbs and blue pale face for hours at a time. Is she
simulating illness? you might as well say that a man could simulate a
gunshot wound. But the thing people forget is, the intimate relation
and co-operation of body and mind; that the body lends itself
involuntarily to carry out the conceptions of the thinking brain. Mrs.
Jumeau does not think herself into pallor, but every infinitesimal
nerve fibre, which entwines each equally infinitesimal capillary which
brings colour to the cheek, is intimately connected with the thinking
brain, in obedience to whose mandates it relaxes or contracts. Its
relaxation brings colour and vigour with the free flow of the blood, its
contraction, pallor, and stagnation; and the feeling as well as the look
of being sealed in a death-like trance. The whole mystery depends
on this co-operation of thought and substance of which few women
are aware. The diagnosis is simply this, the sufferer has the craving
for outward tokens of the esteem which is essential to her nature;
she recalls how such tokens accompany her seasons of illness, the
sympathetic body perceives the situation, and she is ill; by-and-by,
the tokens of esteem cease to come with the attacks of illness, but
the habit has been set up, and she goes on having ‘attacks ’ which
bring real suffering to herself, and of the slightest agency in which
she is utterly unconscious.”
Conviction slowly forced itself on Mr. Jumeau; now that his wife
was shown entirely blameless, he could concede the rest. More, he
began to suspect something rotten in the State of Denmark, or
women like his wife would never have been compelled to make so
abnormal a vent for a craving proper to human nature.
“I begin to see; what must I do?”
“In Mrs. Jumeau’s case, I may venture to recommend a course
which would not answer with one in a thousand. Tell her all I have
told you. Make her mistress of the situation.—I need not say, save
her as much as you can from the anguish of self-contempt. Trust her,
she will come to the rescue, and devise means to save herself; and,
all the time, she will want help from you, wise as well as tender. For
the rest, those who have in less measure—
 “‘The reason firm, the temp’rate will’—
‘massage,’ and other devices for annulling the extraordinary physical
sensibility to mental conditions, and, at the same time, excluding the
patient from the possibility of the affectionate notice she craves, may
do a great deal. But this mischief which, in one shape or other,
blights the lives of, say, forty per cent. of our best and most highly
organised women, is one more instance of how lives are ruined by
an education which is not only imperfect, but proceeds on wrong
lines.”
“How could education help in this?”
“Why, let them know the facts, possess them of even so slight an
outline as we have had to-night, and the best women will take
measures for self-preservation. Put them on their guard, that is all. It
is not enough to give them accomplishments and all sorts of higher
learning; these gratify the desire of esteem only in a very temporary
way. But something more than a danger-signal is wanted. The
woman, as well as the man, must have her share of the world’s
work, whose reward is the world’s esteem. She must, even the
cherished wife and mother of a family, be in touch with the world’s
needs, and must minister of the gifts she has; and that, because it is
no dream that we are all brethren, and must therefore suffer from
any seclusion from the common life.”

Mrs. Jumeau’s life was not “spoilt.” It turned out as the doctor
predicted; for days after his revelations she was ashamed to look her
husband in the face; but then, she called up her forces, fought her
own fight and came off victorious.
 CHAPTER IX

“A HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!”

The Christmas holidays! Boys and girls at school are counting off the
days till the home-coming. Young men and maidens, who have put
away childish things, do not reckon with date-stones, but consult
their Bradshaws. The little ones at home are storing up surprises.
The father says genially, “We shall soon have our young folk at home
again.” The mother? Nobody, not the youngest of the schoolgirls, is
so glad as she. She thinks of setting out for church on Christmas
Day with, let us hope, the whole of her scattered flock about her.
Already she pictures to herself how each has altered and grown, and
yet how every one is just as of old. She knows how Lucy will return
prettier and more lovable than ever; Willie, more amusing; Harry,
kinder; and how the elders will rejoice in baby May!
And yet, there is a shade of anxiety in the mother’s face as she
plans for the holidays. The brunt of domestic difficulties falls,
necessarily, upon her. It is not quite easy to arrange a household for
a sudden incursion of new inmates whose stay is not measured by
days. Servants must be considered, and may be tiresome.
Amusements, interests, must be thought of, and then—— Does the
mother stop short and avoid putting into shape the “and then,” which
belongs to the holiday weeks after Christmas Day is over?
“Let us have a happy Christmas, any way,” she says; “we must
leave the rest.”
What is it? Pretty Lucy’s face clouds into sullenness. Kind Harry is
quick to take offence, and his outbursts spoil people’s comfort. Willie,
with all his nonsense, has fits of positive moroseness. Tom argues—
is always in the right. Alice—is the child always quite
straightforward? There is reason enough for the strain of anxiety that
mingles with the mother’s joy. It is not easy to keep eight or nine
young people at their best for weeks together, without their usual
employments, when you consider that, wanting their elders’
modicum of self-control, they may have their father’s failings, and
their mother’s failings, and ugly traits besides hardly to be accounted
for. Is it a counsel of perfection that mothers should have “Quiet
Days” of rest for body and mind, and for such spiritual refreshment
as may be, to prepare them for the exhausting (however delightful)
strain of the holidays?
Much arrears of work must fall to the heads of the house in the
young folk’s holidays. They will want to estimate, as they get
opportunity, the new thought that is leavening their children’s minds;
to modify, without appearing to do so, the opinions the young people
are forming. They must keep a clear line of demarcation between
duties and pastimes, even in the holidays; and they must resume the
work of character-training, relinquished to some extent while the
children are away at school. But, after all, the holiday problem is
much easier than it looks, as many a light-hearted mother knows.
There is a way of it, a certain “Open sesame,” which mothers
know, or, if they do not, all the worse for the happiness of Holiday
House. Occupation? Many interests? Occupation, of course; we
know what befalls idle hands; but “interests” are only successful in
conjunction with the password; without it, the more excitingly
interesting the interests the more apt are they to disturb the domestic
atmosphere and make one sulky, and another domineering, and a
third selfish, and each “naughty” in that particular way in which “’tis
his nature to.”
Every mother knows the secret, but some may have forgotten the
magic of it. Paradoxical as the statement may sound, there is no one
thing of which it is harder to convince young people than that their
parents love them. They do not talk about the matter, but supposing
they did, this would be the avowal of nine children out of ten:
“Oh, of course, mother loves me in a way, but not as she loves X
.”
 “How ‘in a way’?”
“You know what I mean. She is mother, so of course she cares
about things for me and all that.”
“But how does she love X .?”
“Oh, I can’t explain; she’s fond of her, likes to look at her, and
touch her, and—now don’t go and think I’m saying things about
mother. She’s quite fair and treats us all just alike; but who could
help liking X . best? I’m so horrid! Nobody cares for me.”
Put most of the children (including X .) of good and loving parents
into the Palace of Truth, children of all ages, from six, say, to twenty,
and this is the sort of thing you would get. Boys would, as a rule,
credit “mother,” and girls, “father,” with the more love; but that is only
by comparison; the one parent is only “nicer” than the other. As for
appropriating or recognising the fulness of love lavished on them,
they simply do not do it.
And why? Our little friend has told us; mother and father are quite
fair, there is no fault to be found in them, but “I’m so horrid, nobody
cares for me.” There you have the secret of “naughtiness.” There is
nothing more pathetic than the sort of dual life of which the young
are dimly conscious. On the one hand there are premonitions of full
and perfect being, the budding wings of which their thoughts are full,
and for which their strong sense of justice demands credit. Mother
and father ought to know how great and good and beautiful they are
in possibility, in prospective. They must have the comprehension,
appreciation, which, if they cannot get in the drawing-room, they will
seek in the kitchen or the stable-yard. Alnaschar visions? If so, it is
not young Alnaschar, but his parents, who kick over the basket of
eggs.
If the young folk are pugnacious about their “rights,” and are over-
ready with their “It’s not fair!” “It’s a shame!” it is because they reckon
their claims by the great possible self, while, alas! they measure
what they get by the actual self, of which they think small things.
There is no word for it but “horrid;” bring them to book, and the
scornful, or vain, or bumptious young persons we may know are
alike in this—every one of them is “horrid” in his or her own eyes.
Now, if you know yourself to be horrid, you know that, of course,
people do not love you; how can they? They are kind to you and all
that, but that is because it’s their business, or their nature, or their
duty to be kind. It has really nothing to do with you personally. What
you want is some one who will find you out, and be kind to you, and
love you just for your own sake and nothing else. So do we reason
when we are young. It is the old story. The good that I would I do not,
but the evil that I would not, that I do. Only we feel things more
acutely when we are young, and take sides alternately with
ourselves and against ourselves; small is the wonder that their
elders find young people “difficult;” that is just what they find
themselves.
“Fudge!” says the reader, who satisfies himself with the surface,
and recalls the fun and frolic and gaiety of heart, the laughter and
nonsense and bright looks of scores of young people he knows: of
course they are gay, because they are young; but we should have
many books about the sadness of youth if people in their “teens”
might have the making of them. Glad and sad are not a whole octave
apart.
How soon does this trouble of youth begin? That very delightful
little person, the Baby, is quite exempted. So, too, are the three, four,
and five-year-old darlings of the nursery. They gather on your knee,
and take possession of you, and make no doubt at all of your love or
their deserts. But a child cannot always get out of the nursery before
this doubt with two faces is upon him. I know a boy of four, a healthy
intelligent child, full of glee and frolic and sense, who yet has many
sad moments because one and another do not love him, and other
very joyful, grateful moments because some little gift or attention
assures him of love. His mother, with the delicate tact mothers have,
perceives that the child needs to be continually reinstated in his own
esteem. She calls him her “only boy,” treats him half as her little
lover, and so evens him with the two bright little sisters whom,
somehow, and without any telling, poor Georgie feels to be sweeter
in temper and more lovable than he. An exceedingly instructive little
memorial of a child who died young came under our notice some
time ago. His parents kept their children always in an atmosphere of
love and gladness; and it was curious to notice that this boy, a merry,
bright little fellow, was quite incapable of realising his parents’ love.
That they should love his sister was natural, but how could they love
him?
The little ones in the nursery revel in love, but how is it with even
the nursery elders? Are they not soon taught to give place to the little
ones and look for small show of love, because they are “big boys”
and “big girls”? The rather sad aloofness and self-containedness of
these little folk in some families is worth thinking about. Even the
nursery is a microcosm, suffering from the world’s ailment, love-
hunger, a sickness which drives little children and grown-up people
into naughty thoughts and wicked ways.
I knew a girl whose parents devoted themselves entirely to
training her; they surrounded her with care and sufficient tenderness;
they did not make much of her openly, because they held old-
fashioned notions about not fostering a child’s self-importance and
vanity. They were so successful in suppressing the girl’s self-esteem
that it never occurred to her that all their cares meant love until she
was woman-grown, and could discern character, and, alas! had her
parents no more to give them back love for love. The girl herself
must have been unloving? In one sense, all young beings are
unloving; in another, they are as vessels filled, brimming over with
love seeking an outlet. This girl would watch her mother about a
room, walk behind her in the streets—adoringly. Such intense
worship of their parents is more common in children than we
imagine. A boy of five years was asked what he thought the most
beautiful thing in the world. “Velvet,” he replied, with dreamy eyes,
evidently thinking of his mother in a velvet gown. His parents are the
greatest and wisest, the most powerful, and the best people within
the narrow range of the child’s world. They are royal personages—
his kings and queens. Is it any wonder he worships, even when he
rebels?
But is it not more common, now-a-days, for children to caress and
patronise their parents, and make all too sure of their love? It may
be; but only where parents have lost that indescribable attribute—
dignity? authority?—which is their title to their children’s love and
worship; and the affection which is lavished too creaturely-wise on
children fails to meet the craving of their nature. What is it they want,
those young things so gaily happy with doll or bat or racquet? They
want to be reinstated; they labour, some poor children almost from
infancy, under a sad sense of demerit. They find themselves so little
loveworthy, that no sign short of absolute telling with lip and eye and
touch will convince them they are beloved.
But if one whom they trust and honour, one who knows, will,
seeing how faulty they are, yet love them, regarding the hateful faults
as alien things to be got rid of, and holding them, in spite of the
faults, in close measureless love and confidence, why, then, the
young lives expand like flowers in sunny weather, and where parents
know this secret of loving there are no morose boys nor sullen girls.
Actions do not speak louder than words to a young heart; he must
feel it in your touch, see it in your eye, hear it in your tones, or you
will never convince child or boy that you love him, though you labour
day and night for his good and his pleasure. Perhaps this is the
special lesson of Christmas-tide for parents. The Son came—for
what else we need not inquire now—to reinstate men by compelling
them to believe that they—the poorest shrinking and ashamèd souls
of them—that they live enfolded in infinite personal love, desiring
with desire the response of love for love. And who, like the parent,
can help forward this “wonderful redemption”? The boy who knows
that his father and his mother love him with measureless patience in
his faults, and love him out of them, is not slow to perceive, and
receive, and understand the dealings of the higher Love.
But why should good parents, more than the rest of us, be
expected to exhibit so divine a love? Perhaps because they are
better than most of us; anyway, that appears to be their vocation.
And that it is possible to fulfil even so high a calling we all know,
because we know good mothers and good fathers.
Parents, love your children, is, probably, an unnecessary counsel
to any who read this paper; at any rate, it is a presuming one. But let
us say to reserved undemonstrative parents who follow the example
of righteous Abraham and rule their households,—Rule none the
less, but let your children feel and see and be quite sure that you
love them.
We do not suggest endearments in public, which the young folk
cannot always abide. But, dear mother, take your big schoolgirl in
your arms just once in the holidays, and let her have a good talk, all
to your two selves; it will be to her like a meal to a hungry man. For
the youths and maidens—remember, they would sell their souls for
love; they do it too, and that is the reason of many of the ruined lives
we sigh over. Who will break down the partition between supply and
demand in many a home where there are hungry hearts on either
side of the wall?
 CHAPTER X

PARENTS IN COUNCIL

Part I
“Now, let us address ourselves to the serious business of the
evening. Here we are:
‘Six precious (pairs), and all agog,
To dash through thick and thin!’

Imprimis—our desire is for reform! Not reform by Act of Parliament, if

you please; but, will the world believe?—we veritably desire to be
reformed! And that, as a vicarious effort for the coming race. Why, to
have conceived the notion entitles us to sit by for our term of years
and see how the others do it!”
“Don’t be absurd, Ned, as if it were all a joke! We’re dreadfully in
earnest, and can’t bear to have the time wasted. A pretty President
you are.”
“Why, my dear, that’s the joke; how can a man preside over a few
friends who have done him the honour to dine at his table?”
“Mrs. Clough is quite right. It’s ‘Up boys, and at it!’ we want to be;
so, my dear fellow, don’t let any graceful scruples on your part hinder
work.”
“Then, Henderson, as the most rabid of us all, you must begin.”
“I do not know that what I have to say should come first in order;
but to save time I’ll begin. What I complain of is the crass ignorance
of us—of myself, I mean. You know what a magnificent spectacle the
heavens have offered these last few frosty nights. Well, one of our
youngsters has, I think, some turn for astronomy. ‘Look, father, what
a great star! It’s big enough to make the night light without the moon.
It isn’t always there; what’s its name, and where does it go?’ The boy
was in the receptive ‘How I wonder what you are’ mood; anything
and everything I could have told him would have been his—a
possession for life.
“‘That’s not a star, it’s a planet, Tom,’ with a little twaddle about
how planets are like our earth, more or less, was all I had for his
hungry wonder. As for how one planet differs from another in glory,
his sifting questions got nothing out of me; what nothing has, can
nothing give. Again, he has, all of his own wit, singled out groups of
stars and, like Hugh Miller, wasn’t it?—pricked them into paper with a
pin. ‘Have they names? What is this, and this?’ ‘Those three stars
are the belt of Orion’—the sum of my acquaintance with the
constellations, if you will believe it! He bombarded me with questions
all to the point. I tried bits of book knowledge which he did not want.
It was a ‘bowing’ acquaintance, if no more, with the glorious objects
before him that the child coveted, and he cornered me till his mother
interfered with, ‘That will do, Tom: don’t tease father with your
questions.’ A trifling incident, perhaps, but do you know I didn’t sleep
a wink that night, or rather, I did sleep, and dreamt, and woke for
good. I dreamt the child was crying for hunger and I had not a crust
to give him. You know how vivid some dreams are. The moral
flashed on me. The child had been crying to me with the hunger of
the mind. He had asked for bread and got a stone. A thing like that
stirs you. From that moment I had a new conception of a parent’s
vocation and of my unfitness for it. I determined that night to find
some way to help ourselves and the thousands of parents in the
same ignorant case.”
“Well, but, Henderson, you don’t mean to say that every parent
should be an astronomer? Why, how can a man with other work
tackle the study of a lifetime?”
“No, but I do think our veneration for science frightens us off open
ground. Huxley somewhere draws a line between science and what
he calls ‘common information,’ and this I take to mean an
acquaintance with the facts about us, whether of Nature or of
society. It’s a shameful thing to be unable to answer such questions
as Tom’s. Every one should know something about such facts of
Nature as the child is likely to come across. But how to get at this
knowledge! Books? Well, I don’t say but you may get to know about
most things from books, but as for knowing the thing itself, let me be
introduced by him that knew it before me!”
“I see what you mean; we want the help of the naturalist, an
enthusiast who will not only teach but fire us with the desire to know.”
“But don’t you find, Morris, that even your enthusiast, if he’s a
man of science, is slow to recognise the neutral ground of common
information?”
“That may be; but, as for getting what we want—pooh! it’s a
question of demand and supply. If you don’t mind my talking about
ourselves I should like just to tell you what we did last summer.
Perhaps you may know that I dabble a little in geology—only dabble
—but every tyro must have noticed how the features of a landscape
depend on its geological formation, and not only the look of the
landscape, but the occupations of the people. Well, it occurred to me
that if, instead of the hideous ‘resources’—save the word!—of a
watering-place, what if we were to study the ‘scape’ of a single
formation? The children would have that, at any rate, in visible
presentation, and would hold a key to much besides.
“My wife and I love the South Downs, perhaps for auld sake’s
sake, so we put up at a farmhouse in one of the lovely ‘Lavants’ near
Goodwood. Chalk and a blackboard were inseparably associated;
and a hill of chalk was as surprising to the children as if all the trees
were bread and cheese. Here was wonder to start with, wonder and
desire to know. Truly, a man hath joy in the answer of his mouth! The
delight, the deliciousness of pouring out answers to their eager
questions! and the illimitable receptivity of the children! This was the
sort of thing—after scrawling on a flint with a fragment of chalk:—
“‘What is that white line on the flint, Bob?’—‘Chalk, father,’ with
surprise at my dulness; and then the unfolding of the tale of wonder
—thousands of lovely infinitely small shells in that scrawl of chalk;
each had, ages and ages ago, its little inmate, and so on. Wide eyes
and open mouths, until sceptical Dick—‘Well, but, father, how did
they get here? How could they crawl or swim to the dry land when
they were dead?’ More wonders, and a snub for that small boy. ‘Why,
this hillside we are sitting on is a bit of that old sea-bottom!’ And still
the marvel grew, until, trust me, there is not a feature of the chalk
that is not written down in le journal intime of each child’s soul. They
know the soft roll of the hills, the smooth dip of the valleys, the
delights of travellers’ joy, queer old yews, and black-berrying in the
sudden ‘bottoms’ of the chalk. The endless singing of a solitary lark
—nothing but larks—the trailing of cloud-shadows over the hills, the
blue skies of Sussex, blue as those of Naples—these things are
theirs to have and to hold, and are all associated with the chalk; they
have the sense of the earth-mother, of the connection of things,
which makes for poetry.
“Then their mother has rather a happy way of getting pictures
printed on the ‘sensitive plate’ of each. She hits on a view, of narrow
range generally, and makes the children look at it well and then
describe it with closed eyes. One never-to-be forgotten view was
seized in this way. ‘First grass, the hill-slopes below us, with sheep
feeding about: and then a great field of red poppies—there’s corn,
but we can’t see it; then fields and fields of corn, quite yellow and
ripe, reaching out a long way; next, the sea, very blue, and three
rather little boats with white sails; a lark a long way up in the sky
singing as loud as a band of music; and such a shining sun!’ No
doubt our little maid will have all that to her dying day; and isn’t it a
picture worth having?”
“Mr. Morris’s hint admits of endless expansion; why, you could
cover the surface formations of England in the course of the summer
holidays of a boy’s schooldays, and thus give him a key to the
landscape, fauna, and flora of much of the earth’s surface. It’s
admirable.”
“What a salvage! The long holidays, which are apt to hang on
hand, would be more fully and usefully employed than schooldays,
and in ways full of out-of-door delights. I see how it would work.
Think of the dales of Yorkshire, where the vivid green of the
mountain limestone forms a distinct line of junction with the dim tints
of the heather on the millstone grit of the moors, of the innumerable
rocky nests where the ferns of the limestone—hartstongue,
limestone polypody, beech fern, and the rest—grow delicately green
and perfect as if conserved under glass. Think of the endless ferns
and mosses and the picturesque outlines of the slate, both in the
Lake Country and in Wales. What collections the children might form,
always having the geological formation of the district as the leading
idea.”
“You are getting excited, Mrs. Tremlow. For my part, I cannot rise
to the occasion. It is dull to have ‘delicious!’ ‘delightful!’ ‘lovely!’
hailing about one’s ears, and to be out of it. Pray, do not turn me out
for the admission, but my own feeling is strongly against this sort of
dabbling in science. In this bird’s-eye view of geology, for instance,
why in the world did you begin with the chalk? At least you might
have started with, say, Cornwall.”
“That is just one of the points where the line is to be drawn; you
specialists do one thing thoroughly—begin at the beginning, if a
beginning there is, and go on to the end, if life is long enough. Now,
we contend that the specialist’s work should be laid on a wide basis
of common information, which differs from science in this amongst
other things—you take it as it occurs. A fact comes under your
notice; you want to know why it is, and what it is; but its relations to
other facts must settle themselves as time goes on, and the other
facts turn up. For instance, a child of mine should know the
‘blackcap’ by its rich note and black upstanding headgear, and take
his chance of ever knowing even the name of the family to which his
friend belongs.”
“And surely, Mr. Morris, you would teach history in the same way;
while you are doing a county, or a ‘formation’—isn’t it?—you get fine
opportunities for making history a real thing. For instance, supposing
you are doing the—what is it?—of Dorsetshire? You come across
Corfe Castle standing in a dip of the hills, like the trough between
two waves, and how real you can make the story of the bleeding
prince dragged over the downs at the heels of his horse.”
 “Yes, and speaking of the downs, do you happen to know, Mrs.
Tremlow, the glorious downs behind Lewes, and the Abbey and the
Castle below, all concerned in the story of the great battle; and the
ridge of Mount Harry across which De Montfort and his men
marched while the royal party were holding orgies in the Abbey, and
where, in the grey of the early morning, each man vowed his life to
the cause of liberty, face downwards to the cool grass, and arms
outstretched in the form of a cross? Once you have made a study on
the spot of one of those historic sites, why, the place and the scene
is a part of you. You couldn’t forget it if you would.”
“That is interesting, and it touches on a point to which I want to
call your attention; have you noticed that in certain districts you come
across, not only the spots associated with critical events, but
monuments of the leading idea of centuries? Such as these are the
ruined abbeys which still dominate every lovely dale in Yorkshire; the
twelfth-century churches, four or five of which—in certain English
counties—you come across in the course of a single day’s tramp,
and of which there is hardly a secluded out-of-the-way nook in some
counties that has not its example to show; such, again, are the
endless castles on the Welsh border, the Roman camps on the
downs, each bearing witness to the dominant thought, during a long
period, whether of war, or, of a time when men had some leisure
from fighting.”
“And not only so. Think of how the better half of English literature
has a local colouring; think of the thousand spots round which there
lingers an aroma of poetry and of character, which seems to get into
your brain somehow, and leave there an image of the man, a feeling
of his work, which you cannot arrive at elsewhere. The Quantocks,
Grasmere, Haworth Moors, the Selborne ‘Hanger,’ the Lincolnshire
levels—it is needless to multiply examples of spots where you may
see the raw material of poetry, and compare it with the finished
work.”
“All this is an inspiring glimpse of the possible; but surely,
gentlemen, you do not suppose that a family party, the children, say,
from fifteen downwards, can get in touch with such wide interests in
the course of a six weeks’ holiday? I doubt if, even amongst
ourselves, any but you, Mr. Meredith, and Mr. Clough, have this sort
of grasp of historical and personal associations.”
“We must leave that an open question, Mrs. Henderson; but what
I do contend for is, that children have illimitable capacity for all
knowledge which reaches them in some sort through the vehicle of
the senses: what they see and delight in you may pin endless facts,
innumerable associations, upon, and children have capacity for them
all: nor will they ever treat you to lack-lustre eye and vacant
countenance. Believe me ‘’tis their nature to’ hunger after knowledge
as a labouring man hungers for his dinner; only, the thing must come
in the first, the words which interpret it in the second place.”
“You mean that everything they see is to lead to a sort of object
lesson?”
“Indeed I do not! Object lesson! talkee, talkee, about a miserable
cut-and-dried scrap, hardly to be recognised by one who knows the
thing. I should not wonder if it were better for a child to go without
information than to get it in this unnatural way. No, let him see the
thing big and living before him, behaving according to its wont.
Specimens are of infinite use to the scientist whose business it is to
generalise, but are misleading to the child who has yet to learn his
individuals. I don’t doubt for a minute that an intelligent family out for
a holiday might well cover all the ground we have sketched out, and
more; but who in the world is to teach them? A child’s third question
about the fowls of the air or the flowers of the field would probably
floor most of us.”
“That’s coming to the point. I wondered if we ever meant to touch
our subject again to-night. To skim over all creation in an easy, airy
way is exciting, but, from an educational standpoint, ’tis comic to the
father with a young swarm at home who care for none of these
things.”
“Of course they don’t, Withers, if they have never been put in the
way of it; but try ’em, that’s all. Now, listen to my idea; I shall be too
glad if any one strikes out a better, but we must come to a point, and
pull up the next who wanders off on his own hobby. Each of us
wishes to cover all, or more, or some of, the ground suggested in our
desultory talk. Difficulty, we can’t teach because we don’t know. We
are in a corner with but one way out. We must learn what we should
teach. How? Well, let us form ourselves into a college, or club, or
what you like. Now, it’s simply the A B C of many things we wish to
learn. Once organised, we shall see our way to the next step. Even
in the small party here to-night, some know something of geology,
some are at home in the byways of history; what we cannot evolve
from our midst we must get from outside, and either amateur recruits
or professional folk must be pressed into service; recruits would be
much the best, for they would learn as well as teach. Then, when we
are organised, we may consider whether our desire is to exhaust a
single district in the way suggested, or to follow some other plan.
Only, please, if it be a district, let it be a wide one, so that our
intercourse be confined to ‘speaking’ in passing, like ships at sea.
Don’t, for pity’s sake, let it be a social thing, with tennis, talk, and
tea!”
“Suppose we do enrol ourselves, how frequent do you think
should be our meetings?”
“We’ll leave that question; in the meantime, those in favour of Mr.
Morris’s motion that we form ourselves into a society for the
consideration of matters affecting the education of children—the
parents’ part of the work, that is—will signify the same in the usual
way.”
“Carried unanimously!”[23]

FOOTNOTES:
[23] Ancient history now; a forecast fulfilled in the formation
of the Parents’ National Educational Union.