A reaction against this fierce system had set in at the turn of the century. Socialism and the scientific revolution - which Wells has described - had moved many people. New private schools for the well-off were beginning to break with the traditions of the nineteenth century and a little of the happy influence seeped down to ourselves.Mr Bartlet represented it. The Education Officer had instructed Mr. Timms to give Mr. Barlett a free hand for a year or so and to introduce something like the Dalton r tutorial systam in our class. The other teachers hated him and it; we either make some much noise that the rest of the school could hardly get on with their work, or were silent that teachers would look over the frosted glass of the door to see if we had gone off for a holiday.
Mr Barlet was a stumpy, heavy-shouldered young man with a broad swarthy face, large brown eyes and a lock of black hair wagging romantically over his forehead. He looked like a boxer, lazy in his movements and his right arm hung back as he walked to the blackboard as though he was going to swing a blow at it. He wore a loose tweed jacket with baggy pockets in which he stuck books, chalks and pencils and, by some magnetism he could silence a class almost without a word. He never used the cane. Since we could make as much noise as we liked, ge got easily silence when he wanted it. Manners scarcely existed among us as a scraping and snivelling; he introduced us to refinements we had never heard of and his one punishment took the form of an additional and excruciating lesson in this subject. He would make us write a formal letter of apology. We would make a dozen attemps before he was satisfied. And, when, at last . we thought it was done he would point out that still was incomplete. It must be put in an envelope, properly addressed: not to Mr. Bartlett, not to Mr. W.W. Bartlett, not as I did to Mr W.W.Barlet Esquire, but to the esquire without the mister. It often took us a whole day and giving up all the pleasants lessons the rests were doing, to work out the phrasing of these letters of shame.
At Rosendale Road I said good-bye to Stepehn and Matilda and the capes and rivers of England, the dreary sing-song. We were no longer foredoomed servants but foundour freedom. Mr. Bartlett's methods were spacious. A history lesson may go on for days. if it was about early Britain an old downland encampments he would bring us wild flowers from the Whiltshire tumulti. He set up his easel and his Whatman boards and painted pictures to illustrate his lesson. Sometimes he changed to pastels. And we could go out and watch him and talk about what he was doing . He made us illustrate our work and we were soon turning "Bustlett's by de dozen. He set us tasks in threes or fours, we were allowed to talk to each other, to wander about for consultations: we acted short scenes from books at a sudden order. For myself the lessons on literature and specially poetry were the revelation. No text books. our firsts lessons were from Ford Madox Ford's English Review which was publishing some of the best young writers of the time. We discussed Bridges and Massefield. Chidren who seemed stupid were suddenly able to detect a fine image line and disentangle it from the ordinary.
Extract
from the book “A cab in the door” by V.S. Pritchett
