1885: Simla to Sussex
Your letter upon education reached me this fortnight past and I have turned it over in thought during several misty mornings upon the Mall, watching the clouds descend into the valley as though to veil the mountains from reproach. I was much taken with your reflections—your suspicion that we are raising our children not for enlightenment but for service to the Empire—and your words set me musing upon the very nature of what we call civilisation.
Permit me, then, a fanciful image: civilisation, to my mind, is rather like a great pond. Upon its bright surface swim the ducks—sleek, confident, untroubled by the depths. They paddle elegantly above the current and, now and again, dip their tidy heads beneath the waters to peer at the middle classes below them, whose feet, though unseen, work furiously to keep their station. Those nearer the pond’s floor peer in turn at the dim shapes beneath them—creatures half invisible, the lowest forms of life, whose labour alone keeps the muck from stagnating entirely.
It is, I think, a perfect model of society. So long as the ducks forbid any creature but themselves to skim the surface, the pond remains precisely as it is—placid above, restless below, never clear, never in motion save for the occasional ripple of reform which soon laps itself to sleep. The ducks declare themselves masters of the element, yet they are forever dependent upon the unseen teeming life beneath. Should one of the deeper kind attempt to rise, there is much flapping and indignant splashing till the threat is subdued.
This, dearest cousin, is power—the power of men over other men and, alas, over women of every sort. For we, whether by birth or education, are pressed to the pond’s edge, neither admitted to the surface nor permitted to stir the depths. We may watch and we may reflect the sunlight prettily but heaven forbid we should learn to swim. The female mind, you see, is thought too delicate for such exertion, lest we prove the water not nearly as cold as custom declares.
Your question—are children being trained as servants to empire?—finds its answer in this same tranquil pond. They are taught to glide, not to dive; to admire the ducks, not to question the water; to read only enough to know their place within the reflection. And so the pond endures—a mirror to its own vanity.
I flatter myself that you and I, at least, have learned to paddle a little against the current. Whether we reach the middle or beyond, I cannot say but the attempt itself feels like the beginning of motion.
You are here: States of Grace > Biography