Thursday, September 14, 2006
Riverboat Man and Education
My daughter, Bev, at Blessed Beyond Measure, told me about quotes each week we bloggers can do posts on. One she mentioned was offered while she was in Texas, helping out with another grandbaby's arrival, so she passed the quote on to me.
It was attributed to Mark Twain, and went:"Don't let school get in the way of your education".
I love learning, and know some about Mr. Twain, but not much. I hurried to the nearest book store, and found his autobiography, a big heavy one. When I picked it up, knew it would take hours to read. I'm really getting into his quote now, and need to be sure what I post is correct, so I kept looking.
I remembered some things about him from my early school days, that his pen name came from something about riverboat men checking water depths, and that he had a huge sense of humor, verified by the many situations his book characters, Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn kept getting into.
I found a useful reference book, "1,000 Years, 1,000 People Ranking The Men And Women Who Shaped The Millennium." Lots of people, lots of history. It gave some information, but I needed more.
I was getting discouraged, and about ready to go to another book store, or try to find a library, when I remembered seeing a display of children's books. Found it, and there they were; "The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer", and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
They were very small books, maybe six by ten inches, and an inch and a half thick. The binding felt like sturdy cloth, and the page edges looked like they had been sprayed with gold. Couldn't be, though. They cost only $5.95. They even had a little ribbon book marker.
As I write this, I mentally compare Mark Twain's characters to babies' arrivals, you know, giving weight, length, and distinguishing colors. When you think about it, his stories were like a birth. Outstanding American author, Ernest Hemingway
said "All modern American literature comes from one book: "The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn.""
Information in the afterword and the biography in the Huckleberry Finn book at least points to the possibility that Mark Twain wrote more about himself, than about his imaginary characters. I understand Twain was about thirty years old when he wrote those little books. That's old enough to see parts of one's life more maturely than young Sawyer or Finn might,and safely shielded him from criticism. Twain could act out all kinds of fantisies. After all, they were only children's stories.
His bigoraphy also mentions quite a cultural difference between he and his wife. His work in printing, and on a riverboat may not have impressed her social group. Mark Twain clearly didn't like wearing fancy clothes, or going to uppity social events.
It seems to me he was happiest when he felt as free as those little boys in his books.
He wrote others, but too many to list here, or I'll never get around to discussing the educational part of the quote.
We all need to know how to read and write, and at least basic math is necessary, even for simple lives, but I
believe Mark Twain got more education from how he lived, and how his life was, than he could ever get from sitting in a classroom, learning by repetition.
He died in 1910. I think it's quite fitting when Mark Twain's remembered, it's with an understanding look, a wistful remembering the boy in the man, or was it the other way around.
While my name would not be included in the 1,000 Years, 1,000 People reference book mentioned above, it was between America's Great Depression and World War II that I was born.
Certainly, my life's not been as interesting as Mark Twain's, but I have seen many changes in how children are educated. I won't bore you about how many miles it was to school, or how many times I dodged getting my hair stuck in the inkwell on the awful boy's desk behind mine.
A little like Mark Twain's, most of my education was not in classrooms. My aunt taking me to a library and getting me a library card when I was 8 or 9 years old is one of the most outstanding events of all my learning. A teacher showing me empathy, telling me I could soar with learning, even though I didn't look very promising, and wasn't dressed nice, and didn't live in a better part of town.
College instructers encouraging me to keep learning, co-workers telling me of a school in Denver where I could do nurses training..... I could go on and on.
All I would say to teachers is, if you want to help children who don't show much promise, give them some hope. You just never know, you may be courting another Mark Twain.
It was attributed to Mark Twain, and went:"Don't let school get in the way of your education".
I love learning, and know some about Mr. Twain, but not much. I hurried to the nearest book store, and found his autobiography, a big heavy one. When I picked it up, knew it would take hours to read. I'm really getting into his quote now, and need to be sure what I post is correct, so I kept looking.
I remembered some things about him from my early school days, that his pen name came from something about riverboat men checking water depths, and that he had a huge sense of humor, verified by the many situations his book characters, Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn kept getting into.
I found a useful reference book, "1,000 Years, 1,000 People Ranking The Men And Women Who Shaped The Millennium." Lots of people, lots of history. It gave some information, but I needed more.
I was getting discouraged, and about ready to go to another book store, or try to find a library, when I remembered seeing a display of children's books. Found it, and there they were; "The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer", and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
They were very small books, maybe six by ten inches, and an inch and a half thick. The binding felt like sturdy cloth, and the page edges looked like they had been sprayed with gold. Couldn't be, though. They cost only $5.95. They even had a little ribbon book marker.
As I write this, I mentally compare Mark Twain's characters to babies' arrivals, you know, giving weight, length, and distinguishing colors. When you think about it, his stories were like a birth. Outstanding American author, Ernest Hemingway
said "All modern American literature comes from one book: "The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn.""
Information in the afterword and the biography in the Huckleberry Finn book at least points to the possibility that Mark Twain wrote more about himself, than about his imaginary characters. I understand Twain was about thirty years old when he wrote those little books. That's old enough to see parts of one's life more maturely than young Sawyer or Finn might,and safely shielded him from criticism. Twain could act out all kinds of fantisies. After all, they were only children's stories.
His bigoraphy also mentions quite a cultural difference between he and his wife. His work in printing, and on a riverboat may not have impressed her social group. Mark Twain clearly didn't like wearing fancy clothes, or going to uppity social events.
It seems to me he was happiest when he felt as free as those little boys in his books.
He wrote others, but too many to list here, or I'll never get around to discussing the educational part of the quote.
We all need to know how to read and write, and at least basic math is necessary, even for simple lives, but I
believe Mark Twain got more education from how he lived, and how his life was, than he could ever get from sitting in a classroom, learning by repetition.
He died in 1910. I think it's quite fitting when Mark Twain's remembered, it's with an understanding look, a wistful remembering the boy in the man, or was it the other way around.
While my name would not be included in the 1,000 Years, 1,000 People reference book mentioned above, it was between America's Great Depression and World War II that I was born.
Certainly, my life's not been as interesting as Mark Twain's, but I have seen many changes in how children are educated. I won't bore you about how many miles it was to school, or how many times I dodged getting my hair stuck in the inkwell on the awful boy's desk behind mine.
A little like Mark Twain's, most of my education was not in classrooms. My aunt taking me to a library and getting me a library card when I was 8 or 9 years old is one of the most outstanding events of all my learning. A teacher showing me empathy, telling me I could soar with learning, even though I didn't look very promising, and wasn't dressed nice, and didn't live in a better part of town.
College instructers encouraging me to keep learning, co-workers telling me of a school in Denver where I could do nurses training..... I could go on and on.
All I would say to teachers is, if you want to help children who don't show much promise, give them some hope. You just never know, you may be courting another Mark Twain.
