The semi-scholars

Previous article FreeReprintThe semi-scholars*Arnold van GennepArnold van GennepFrance Search for more articles by this author FrancePDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMore1. The Small Milk-Jug; or, Comparative EstheticsISlowly the door opened. Carefully holding a small milk-jug in white china, the Director of the Imperial Russian High School entered the teachers' common room.Short, fat, and ruddy, he had a measured demeanor which bespoke the importance of his position. He put the jug down gently on the table and looked over his spectacles at each person present, one by one. Then:"I see, gentlemen, that you are all here, and I am very pleased that you are."Heads were bowed respectfully; then his hearers sat down round the oblong table."The question, gentlemen, is this. The pupils of the School, as you know, drink their tea at six o'clock. By our regulations they are entitled to a slice of lemon or some milk, each being free to choose according to his taste.""They are also entitled," the Inspector interrupted sharply, "to sugar and rolls-two rolls each, and as much sugar as they wish.""And that's a mistake," said the fat teacher of Russian language and literature. "There are abuses. The quantity should be controlled. One big lump, or two small lumps, for each pupil would be enough. I never take more myself.""I beg your pardon, but I take four," replied the teacher of Polish, "and I really don't see why it should be suggested once more that our individual liberties should be restricted. After all, no matter is too small and ...""We shall concern ourselves with lumps of sugar at our next meeting," the Director cut in drily. "Today, gentlemen, we are met in order to arrive at a decision about small milk-jugs. It has occurred to me, gentlemen, as well as to a number of yourselves, that on this point the customs of the School stand in need of reform. At present, big milk-jugs are placed on the tables. Everybody serves himself as he pleases, and the smaller pupils, who are often clumsy, spill the milk on themselves and on the tables; briefly, they waste it. The interests of the School suffer! In order to remedy this situation I think the best course would be to buy as many small milk-jugs as there are pupils; they would be filled in advance, each pupil would serve himself, and what was left over would be poured into a big jug in the kitchen.""But," said the Russian teacher, "why put a small milk-jug in front of each pupil? It would be enough to set one in front of those who preferred milk to lemon. In principle, however, the reform proposed by the Director appears to me to be eminently reasonable. We must take action against the waste that occurs every day in the School.""Then why not regulate the number of lumps of sugar, as I was suggesting just now?" asked the Inspector."We shall deal with that at the next meeting. For the moment, gentlemen, I shall ask you to vote on the principle of the reform, so that I shall know whether my project seems to you to be worthy of consideration.""I shall vote for the principle," said the local priest, "but with the observation that the proposed reform entails fresh expenses.""The question amounts to this, then," resumed the Director: "Will the new expenses which we are to incur be compensated by the saving in milk to be effected, whether in one year or over a number of years? This question, however, and for the time being, is only secondary. What I first need to know is your opinion on the matter of principle. I shall put it to the vote."He looked around the table. Everyone signalled with a nod of the head their approval of the directorial project."Very good. The Pedagogical Council has unanimously decided that a certain number of small milk-jugs shall replace on the tables of the School the big jugs which have been used so far. We now have to choose a model for the small milk-jug. As for the material, you will no doubt share my preference for china rather than earthenware.""China is more fragile and more expensive than earthenware," someone objected."Oh, there isn't much difference for objects as small as this! We must take into account, too, an argument that I shall speak of in detail in a moment: the esthetic argument. Consider, furthermore, that if the jug in china is to some extent a precious object, this will accustom the pupils to handle valuable things later without breaking them. If no one has any objection, therefore, we shall decide to buy small milk-jugs in china."Once more, a unanimous vote."Let us now pass on to the most serious question of all, that of the shape of the jug to be ordered. The small jug that we are to choose must answer to two categories of desiderata, one of a practical nature and the other of an ideal nature, which must he combined without prejudice to either."Firstly, how many spoonfuls of milk ought our small milk-jug to contain? On this point we need to call upon our personal experience and upon observations that we have all made on the behaviour of our friends and acquaintances. Ordinarily, just enough milk is poured into the cup or glass to make the tea 'cloudy.' But there is nothing more imprecise than a cloud, and this term does not by any means express a definite quantity. For a number of weeks now I have been taking notes, and I think I have arrived at results which are approximately correct. The average seems to be two coffee-spoonfuls per cup or glass. Since the pupils are entitled to two glasses, if we adopt milk-jugs containing five spoonfuls we shall have more than provided for the situation. Now, gentlemen, this small jug here contains in fact five spoonfuls. please be so good as to come nearer."There was a considerable amount of shuffling about. All faces, some serious, others enthusiastic, two half-mocking, were bent over the white object. The Director held it carefully, turned it and re-turned it, showing the base, the interior, the handle. When everyone had formed a considered opinion and had gone back to their places:"Allow me next," he continued, "to analyze for you in detail the principal characteristics of this small jug. Along its upper edge, around the neck, on the handle, and a little distance from the lower edge run fine lines of ornament in gold. This ornamentation might no doubt be thought superfluous in the case of objects meant to be used by young people and children who are apt to break fragile property."If it happens that we cannot find in the shops of the town a sufficient stock of small milk-jugs with gold ornamentation like this, it can't be helped. We shall console ourselves with the reflection that without the gold ornamentation the small milk-jugs will be cheaper; the finances of the School will benefit."Personally, however, I should be sorry. It is a good thing, as Ruskin said, that the humblest object of domestic use should be decorated with a note of gaiety, and contribute to the development of our esthetic sense. In the absence of gold ornamentation, we shall therefore direct our attention to the shape, or, as we might better say, the contours of the small milk-jugs."Let us not forget, gentlemen, the magnitude and scope of our role as teachers and educators. By what right should we impose on the pupils of our School small jugs like cylinders or truncated cones when there are jugs, like this one here, that have the perfect purity of style of Louis XV? We must awaken in the children's souls an aspiration towards the Beautiful, and it would be criminal on our part to give them ugly milk-jugs when we had the resources to acquire beautiful ones!"This discourse, delivered with fervor, had a remarkable effect on the gathering of teachers. They stood up, vibrant with cheerful resolve, suddenly conscious of their glorious mission. The Director modestly rejoiced in his triumph."I therefore beg the members of the Pedagogical Council to be so good as to choose three delegates to be charged with the selection of a number of types of milk-jugs from among those on sale in the various shops of the town."IIThe three delegates conscientiously carried out their mission. Everywhere, in the town as well as in the school, people spoke of nothing but the welcome reform and the magnificent speech, so full of exalted ideas, which had been made by the Director. Later, disputes broke out. The Inspector demanded the regulation of the number of lumps of sugar, the Catholic priest deplored the immorality of the boarders, the physics teacher advised the Czar to put in his glove not a hand of flesh-since this is weak-but a hand of iron. As for the pupils, they divided into two camps; the partisans of big milk-jugs won.None of this shook the firmness of the Director's resolve. He convoked an extraordinary meeting of the Pedagogical Council in order to examine one by one the various types of milk-jug gathered by the delegates. All these jugs had in common the fact that they contained the identical quantity of five coffee-spoonfuls. But what different contours!At a preliminary meeting the teachers carefully examined them, but without being able to agree. There was another meeting on the next day, and still another the day after that.Eventually, after four evenings of discussions, the Director, who was himself incapable of deciding on any single one when confronted with the beauty of the samples, called for silence and said:"Gentlemen, we have unanimously eliminated seven models out of the fourteen which the delegates have brought us. There remain seven different types of milk-jug, each of which offers such advantages that an agreement among us all is justifiably out of the question. Naturally, I could have recourse to a vote, and decide in favor of the type of small milk-jug that secured the majority of votes. But this would be to act with too little consideration, both of your personalities and of our common duty as teachers. These small milk-jugs are representatives of Art."Now to appreciate a form of Art we have to compare it with other forms of Art. The method of Esthetics, just as much as that of biology, is comparative! An opportunity has been given to us to develop in the children confided to our care their latent tendency to compare the products of human ingenuity. We ought to seize this opportunity at once. Consequently, I propose that we should buy for the School an equal number of small milk-jugs of each type that remains, and I shall beg of you to be so kind as to explain to the pupils, at the very next class, the intentions and the importance of our reform, as well as the esthetic and social significance of the small milk-jugs."2. Language No. 22; or, Linguistic MethodsI"Bring the interpreter of the Czech!"He came."Do you understand what This Man says?""No, sir.""Bring the interpreter of Eskimo!"He did not understand either. Nor did the interpreters of Hungarian, Abyssinian, Algonkin, Cambodian, Lapp, and other exotic tongues understand anything at all that was said by This Man, ragged, thin, yellowish. Only the interpreter of Dutch recognized here and there certain familiar words, phrases, and sounds; but he was treated as though he were an ass.The commissioner of police had the prisoner sent back to his cell. The newspapers had a great time. The Minister of Justice ordered special attention to be paid to the valuable information, brought to him by his private secretary, that there existed in the capital a Linguistic Society which met on the third Saturday of every month, at the Sorbonne.This Man, accompanied by the minister and the commissioner, was led under escort before the scholars, young and old, who had dedicated their powers to the study of languages. He was interrogated in turn by Professor Clou, by Professor Paparigopoulo, by Professor Canal, and by others. Then Cardinal Brunet applied the special instruments which had made it possible for him to lay the foundations of experimental syntactology.The interrogation proceeded methodically for several hours, and according to the guiding principles of modern linguistics. That is to say, This Man was not asked to say in his language "It's hot," or "I should like a piece of bread and a glass of wine," or "You get on my nerves!" but he was made to articulate isolated sounds which were then classified in the schemas established by science.The linguists learned in this way that in the language of This Man there were no pure vowels, and that there were a considerable number of nasal vowels, as well as nasal occlusives, while the fricative, voiced, lateral, and pure-occlusive consonants were lacking. This finding gave rise to a most interesting exchange of views. It is true that a medical linguist suggested that these anomalies of pronunciation were due to a local disorder, such as an old injury to the soft palate. But this ingenious idea did not prevail among the pure linguists, who decided that the language of This Man could only be a dead language, and all the more interesting in that it featured phonemes, already known by other means, dating back to a phonetic primitivity.The minister and the commissioner of police, bewildered, tried to understand. Latin, Greek, Etruscan, Proto-Bantu, and the American family having first been eliminated, the linguists agreed in recognizing this unknown language as one of those spoken, between the first millennium BC and the first millennium AD, on the high plateaux and in the vast plains of Central Asia.The usher was sent post-haste to the celebrated Sergeant-Fourrié, who was still plunged day and night in the arduous decipherment of the twenty-four unknown languages which he had brought in manuscript from Tibet and Turfan fifty years before.He came at once, equipped with his phono-musical aurite-rebrator. For his method differed from that of his colleagues; what interested him in a language was not the phonemes, still less the correspondences, but only the pitch of each sound uttered. He requested This Man to say: aaaaaaa, uuuuuuu, ioioioioioioio, brekekekex,1 and colozoropotozoeia, in a singing voice, noted down the results on a huge sheet of graph paper with a millimetre grid, and said:"Applying our formula T=In±Cos. Bil × 297μ, we arrive at the conclusion that the register of sounds uttered by This Man oscillates between one ten-thousandth of adequate proparoxyton and seven hundredths of normal diastematic. It follows that the language of This Man is none other than the language of my file Q. 392. ZY. 3 of unpublished manuscripts, that is to say the language which linguists, by international agreement, have named Language No. 22."IIThe Minister of Justice, the Commissioner of Police, the journalists, the emeritus linguists, and all the little neophyte linguists, gave a sigh of relief. This Man was led back to his cell, taken into court the next day, and sentenced to fifteen days in prison for vagrancy. Since he had already been held for eighteen days, he was thrown into the street there and then.At the Linguistic Society, however, the meeting was still going on. After the authorities and the subject had left, the scholars exchanged profound views and congratulated each other on the importance of the discovery made by Mr. Sergeant-Fourrié. The absence of sibilants and fricatives in the language of This Man being characteristic, the tendency to monosyllabic variations intermediate between agglutination and flexion being evident, and the correspondences with Urartu on the one hand and with the Kan-su dialect on the other being the conclusion was that the language of This Man, Language No. was nothing but the language of the the of and the and the of the the of all was four in the The of the old were In the of the delivered a speech, the of which was as This Man is the only known in of an which was thought to have a years if not more, it is the duty of the Society to from the authorities and the of a to the of This meeting this with but thought it first of all to make of This Man so that he should act as to the proposed the the and the were given a to themselves at the of these of its and advised them to to see the He sent them to another who said to a He has just been set a of great the three linguists out. There was at the of the The to the the to the left, and the He had not run fifty when he into This Man a The him into a him back to his in the made him a in the and the and then called an meeting for that of all the members of the Linguistic there was a for a vote of to the Then a of action for the was and a was for to and all the learned The authorities made a of the made an of the of the learned and a great gave and an old to a on made a to the Linguistic Society of the to make the of of two linguists, an seven a and a who for the care of the and a into was to set out but This Man was not The had all about Since he had been given nothing to This Man had the and when the entered the they him dead Professor nothing that he uttered in a had at one the members of the agreement on the to be It was known that the of This Man was in between the and But one This is why the of the was It was decided to This Man free to he and to him by without he had he that he would like to take a The the of his and This Man out on to the by the of scholars and their He turned towards the He was to days he about the at going into after young in in his the themselves with on had and the on the of the day This Man his the and left the by the by the made its way to the not the way to the the that This Man came to us after going round the going to us to from there to and then to his Man, was carefully all the He decided on a and the They without at which they and on to This Man to the and his the to One after another the seven for they were not to or to the pleased the so much that he a as of The was in the of for the two linguists, they some magnificent on the to come and the linguists asked them the of these The that they were asked which way to which means then by the phonetic the linguists gathered a quantity of the them and themselves the in good It would be to his in these One fine the of stood out against the This Man a of and made the at his The first person they met in the town was a in who at This Man, him and him in Language No. the made me, good what is the language you are is the said the Dutch The or, The children's demanded it, and I decided to for a in the with a big The one that pleased me best was a in a fine situation on the But I to the attention of the a very that the was really in a very you are but to be the the and given them the to of the too, about the children of the he to put the in order was of two and a years was very for the who had been sent to on a four years had been suddenly by his in order to take a which had at a in his The of the me, and it was that we should in the next that time I in the of The was and some days later he came to my He asked me to him have various to him to my to get him for In we were good two the day before his for and in we into the was It was not the of that I thought about taking care of the I have to I made two the first of which was to by the It was a and and it me so in the year that the not having been turned over in were good for nothing but to The of my was to have agreed with a to an interesting which meant that the in my and little of to in the and on the as much as in my which looked like my there were five two magnificent four or five a an and an which in a good according to the gave to of Since we had no we thought with at we would of and we would make a moment, we glass and out and the They did so which rather us. It was that the children had been a piece of the that there were unknown to they were not or or or or I two the that they were not but did not me as For I how to from or The that were were not but very was that the had from his in this in order to see whether they might be This and It with the very of the in it also to me why we had among old left when he of and on the of was therefore with care that I over the of all these unknown I them with for one of them which was too it was a of but much more than those which are met with in and also from the the and the which all of and In them I that these from which had been made on with a or a We all the that the children were and and came to give us other things to be They were and I had to with a in order to the with and various as well as the which in the I had in my Then the small of the and the was then that I congratulated for the time in my on being at the of I in the which my and an in the of that my had been by and the and most of the had been by and when the that I in saving to I them with the of the little too, was the by that my my my and my while under the of various by and other the of my and my and and my stood like in I in the of had such a of and if the that I applied me a great deal and by the the and the at I an in and I in a to that when one has a to the method of one to another is no more than a than it is a however, were with I had given the to the of my in the in of I had not been able to find among my at the who about I had decided to my as they pleased the and to the of them in the was one thing, that one could see that the had been the for they did not in but on the were with as much as It is very the so I left these in and with all the more there were many of them, some others a and a of a I also to as well as some that one in and which have of a the year The us not for these were to have been by and and the had big and and so many that it was the of I the from and have just back from I was sent by my on a and it is for this that I have the great to my and for this that I have not

Political science · Sociology · Classical Studies and Philology · Translation Studies and Practices

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