His Examination

: THE WONDER AMONG BOOKS

I



Challis's first visit was paid to Sir Deane Elmer,[4] that man of many

activities, whose name inevitably suggests his favourite phrase of

"Organised Progress"--with all its variants.



This is hardly the place in which to criticise a man of such diverse

abilities as Deane Elmer, a man whose name still figures so prominently

in the public press in connection with all that is most modern in
/>
eugenics; with the Social Reform programme of the moderate party; with

the reconstruction of our penal system; with education, and so many

kindred interests; and, finally, of course, with colour photography and

process printing. This last Deane Elmer always spoke of as his hobby,

but we may doubt whether all his interests were not hobbies in the same

sense. He is the natural descendant of those earlier amateur

scientists--the adjective conveys no reproach--of the nineteenth

century, among whom we remember such striking figures as those of Lord

Avebury and Sir Francis Galton.



In appearance Deane Elmer was a big, heavy, rather corpulent man, with a

high complexion, and his clean-shaven jowl and his succession of chins

hung in heavy folds. But any suggestion of material grossness was

contradicted by the brightness of his rather pale-blue eyes, by his

alertness of manner, and by his ready, whimsical humour.



As chairman of the Ailesworth County Council, and its most prominent

unpaid public official--after the mayor--Sir Deane Elmer was certainly

the most important member of the Local Authority, and Challis wisely

sought him at once. He found him in the garden of his comparatively

small establishment on the Quainton side of the town. Elmer was very

much engaged in photographing flowers from nature through the ruled

screen and colour filter--in experimenting with the Elmer process, in

fact; by which the intermediate stage of a coloured negative is rendered

unnecessary. His apparatus was complicated and cumbrous.



"Show Mr. Challis out here," he commanded the man who brought the

announcement.



"You must forgive me, Challis," said Elmer, when Challis appeared. "We

haven't had such a still day for weeks. It's the wind upsets us in this

process. Screens create a partial vacuum."



He was launched on a lecture upon his darling process before Challis

could get in a word. It was best to let him have his head, and Challis

took an intelligent interest.



It was not until the photographs were taken, and his two assistants

could safely be trusted to complete the mechanical operations, that

Elmer could be divorced from his hobby. He was full of jubilation. "We

should have excellent results," he boomed--he had a tremendous

voice--"but we shan't be able to judge until we get the blocks made. We

do it all on the spot. I have a couple of platens in the shops here; but

we shan't be able to take a pull until to-morrow morning, I'm afraid.

You shall have a proof, Challis. We should get magnificent results."

He looked benignantly at the vault of heaven, which had been so

obligingly free from any current of air.



Challis was beginning to fear that even now he would be allowed no

opportunity to open the subject of his mission. But quite suddenly Elmer

dropped the shutter on his preoccupation, and with that ready

adaptability which was so characteristic of the man, forgot his hobby

for the time being, and turned his whole attention to a new subject.



"Well?" he said, "what is the latest news in anthropology?"



"A very remarkable phenomenon," replied Challis. "That is what I have

come to see you about."



"I thought you were in Paraguay pigging it with the Guaranis----"



"No, no; I don't touch the Americas," interposed Challis. "I want all

your attention, Elmer. This is important."



"Come into my study," said Elmer, "and let us have the facts. What will

you have--tea, whisky, beer?"



Challis's resume of the facts need not be reported. When it was

accomplished, Elmer put several keen questions, and finally delivered

his verdict thus:



"We must see the boy, Challis. Personally I am, of course, satisfied,

but we must not give Crashaw opportunity to raise endless questions, as

he can and will. There is Mayor Purvis, the grocer, to be reckoned with,

you must remember. He represents a powerful Nonconformist influence.

Crashaw will get hold of him--and work him if we see Purvis first.

Purvis always stiffens his neck against any breach of conventional

procedure. If Crashaw saw him first, well and good, Purvis would

immediately jump to the conclusion that Crashaw intended some subtle

attack on the Nonconformist position, and would side with us."



"I don't think I know Purvis," mused Challis.



"Purvis & Co. in the Square," prompted Elmer. "Black-and-white fellow;

black moustache and side whiskers, black eyes and white face. There's a

suggestion of the Methodist pulpit about him. Doesn't appear in the shop

much, and when he does, always looks as if he'd sooner sell you a Bible

than a bottle of whisky."



"Ah, yes! I know," said Challis. "I daresay you're right, Elmer; but it

will be difficult to persuade this child to answer any questions his

examiners may put to him."



"Surely he must be open to reason," roared Elmer. "You tell me he has an

extraordinary intelligence, and in the next sentence you imply that the

child's a fool who can't open his mouth to serve his own interests.

What's your paradox?"



"Sublimated material. Intellectual insight and absolute spiritual

blindness," replied Challis, getting to his feet. "The child has gone

too far in one direction--in another he has made not one step. His mind

is a magnificent, terrible machine. He has the imagination of a

mathematician and a logician developed beyond all conception, he has not

one spark of the imagination of a poet. And so he cannot deal with men;

he can't understand their weaknesses and limitations; they are geese and

hens to him, creatures to be scared out of his vicinity. However, I will

see what I can do. Could you arrange for the members of the Authority to

come to my place?"



"I should think so. Yes," said Elmer. "I say, Challis, are you sure

you're right about this child? Sounds to me like some--some freak."



"You'll see," returned Challis. "I'll try and arrange an interview. I'll

let you know."



"And, by the way," said Elmer, "you had better invite Crashaw to be

present. He will put Purvis's back up, and that'll enlist the difficult

grocer on our side probably."



When Challis had gone, Elmer stood for a few minutes, thoughtfully

scratching the ample red surface of his wide, clean-shaven cheek. "I

don't know," he ejaculated at last, addressing his empty study, "I don't

know." And with that expression he put all thought of Victor Stott away

from him, and sat down to write an exhaustive article on the necessity

for a broader basis in primary education.





II



Challis called at the rectory of Stoke-Underhill on the way back to his

own house.



"I give way," was the characteristic of his attitude to Crashaw, and the

rector suppled his back again, remembered the Derby office-boy's

tendency to brag, and made the amende honorable. He even overdid his

magnanimity and came too near subservience--so lasting is the influence

of the lessons of youth.



Crashaw did not mention that in the interval between the two interviews

he had called upon Mr. Purvis in the Square. The ex-mayor had refused to

commit himself to any course of action.



But Challis forgot the rectory and all that it connoted before he was

well outside the rectory's front door. Challis had a task before him

that he regarded with the utmost distaste. He had warmly championed a

cause; he had been heated by the presentation of a manifest injustice

which was none the less tyrannical because it was ridiculous. And now he

realised that it was only the abstract question which had aroused his

enthusiastic advocacy, and he shrank from the interview with Victor

Stott--that small, deliberate, intimidating child.



Henry Challis, the savant, the man of repute in letters, the respected

figure in the larger world; Challis, the proprietor and landlord;

Challis, the power among known men, knew that he would have to plead, to

humble himself, to be prepared for a rebuff--worst of all, to

acknowledge the justice of taking so undignified a position. Any

aristocrat may stoop with dignity when he condescends of his own free

will; but there are few who can submit gracefully to deserved contempt.



Challis was one of the few. He had many admirable qualities.

Nevertheless, during that short motor ride from Stoke to his own house,

he resented the indignity he anticipated, resented it intensely--and

submitted.





III



He was allowed no respite. Victor Stott was emerging from the library

window as Challis rolled up to the hall door. It was one of Ellen Mary's

days--she stood respectfully in the background while her son descended;

she curtsied to Challis as he came forward.



He hesitated a moment. He would not risk insult in the presence of his

chauffeur and Mrs. Stott. He confronted the Wonder; he stood before him,

and over him like a cliff.



"I must speak to you for a moment on a matter of some importance," said

Challis to the little figure below him, and as he spoke he looked over

the child's head at the child's mother. "It is a matter that concerns

your own welfare. Will you come into the house with me for a few

minutes?"



Ellen Mary nodded, and Challis understood. He turned and led the way. At

the door, however, he stood aside and spoke again to Mrs. Stott. "Won't

you come in and have some tea, or something?" he asked.



"No, sir, thank you, sir," replied Ellen Mary; "I'll just wait 'ere till

'e's ready."



"At least come in and sit down," said Challis, and she came in and sat

in the hall. The Wonder had already preceded them into the house. He had

walked into the morning-room--probably because the door stood open,

though he was now tall enough to reach the handles of the Challis Court

doors. He stood in the middle of the room when Challis entered.



"Won't you sit down?" said Challis.



The Wonder shook his head.



"I don't know if you are aware," began Challis, "that there is a system

of education in England at the present time, which requires that every

child should attend school at the age of five years, unless the parents

are able to provide their children with an education elsewhere."



The Wonder nodded.



Challis inferred that he need proffer no further information with regard

to the Education Act.



"Now, it is very absurd," he continued, "and I have, myself, pointed out

the absurdity; but there is a man of some influence in this

neighbourhood who insists that you should attend the elementary school."

He paused, but the Wonder gave no sign.



"I have argued with this man," continued Challis, "and I have also seen

another member of the Local Education Authority--a man of some note in

the larger world--and it seems that you cannot be exempted unless you

convince the Authority that your knowledge is such that to give you a

Council school education would be the most absurd farce."



"Cannot you stand in loco parentis?" asked the Wonder suddenly, in his

still, thin voice.



"You mean," said Challis, startled by this outburst, "that I am in a

sense providing you with an education? Quite true; but there is Crashaw

to deal with."



"Inform him," said the Wonder.



Challis sighed. "I have," he said, "but he can't understand." And then,

feeling the urgent need to explain something of the motives that govern

this little world of ours--the world into which this strangely logical

exception had been born--Challis attempted an exposition.



"I know," he said, "that these things must seem to you utterly absurd,

but you must try to realise that you are an exception to the world about

you; that Crashaw or I, or, indeed, the greatest minds of the present

day, are not ruled by the fine logic which you are able to exercise. We

are children compared to you. We are swayed even in the making of our

laws by little primitive emotions and passions, self-interests, desires.

And at the best we are not capable of ordering our lives and our

government to those just ends which we may see, some of us, are

abstractly right and fine. We are at the mercy of that great mass of the

people who have not yet won to an intellectual and discriminating

judgment of how their own needs may best be served, and whose

representatives consider the interests of a party, a constituency, and

especially of their own personal ambitions and welfare, before the needs

of humanity as a whole, or even the humanity of these little islands.



"Above all, we are divided man against man. We are split into parties

and factions, by greed and jealousies, petty spites and self-seeking, by

unintelligence, by education, and by our inability--a mental

inability--'to see life steadily and see it whole,' and lastly, perhaps

chiefly, by our intense egotisms, both physical and intellectual.



"Try to realise this. It is necessary, because whatever your wisdom, you

have to live in a world of comparative ignorance, a world which cannot

appreciate you, but which can and will fall back upon the compelling

power of the savage--the resort to physical, brute force."



The Wonder nodded. "You suggest----?" he said.



"Merely that you should consent to answer certain elementary questions

which the members of the Local Authority will put to you," replied

Challis. "I can arrange that these questions be asked here--in the

library. Will you consent?"



The Wonder nodded, and made his way into the hall, without another word.

His mother rose and opened the front door for him.



As Challis watched the curious couple go down the drive, he sighed

again, perhaps with relief, perhaps at the impotence of the world of

men.





IV



There were four striking figures on the Education Committee selected by

the Ailesworth County Council.



The first of these was Sir Deane Elmer, who was also chairman of the

Council at this time. The second was the vice-chairman, Enoch Purvis,

the ex-mayor, commonly, if incorrectly, known as "Mayor" Purvis.



The third was Richard Standing, J.P., who owned much property on the

Quainton side of the town. He was a bluff, hearty man, devoted to sport

and agriculture; a Conservative by birth and inclination, a staunch

upholder of the Church and the Tariff Reform movement.



The fourth was the Rev. Philip Steven, a co-opted member of the

Committee, head master of the Ailesworth Grammar School. Steven was a

tall, thin man with bent shoulders, and he had a long, thin face, the

length of which was exaggerated by his square brown beard. He wore

gold-mounted spectacles which, owing to his habit of dropping his head,

always needed adjustment whenever he looked up. The movement of lifting

his head and raising his hand to his glasses had become so closely

associated, that his hand went up even when there was no apparent need

for the action. Steven spoke of himself as a Broad Churchman, and in his

speech on prize-day he never omitted some allusion to the necessity for

"marching" or "keeping step" with the times. But Elmer was inclined to

laugh at this assumption of modernity. "Steven," he said, on one

occasion, "marks time and thinks he is keeping step. And every now and

then he runs a little to catch up." The point of Elmer's satire lay in

the fact that Steven was usually to be seen either walking very slowly,

head down, lost in abstraction; or--when aroused to a sense of present

necessity--going with long-strides as if intent on catching up with the

times without further delay. Very often, too, he might be seen running

across the school playground, his hand up to those elusive glasses of

his. "There goes Mr. Steven, catching up with the times," had become an

accepted phrase.



There were other members of the Education Committee, notably Mrs. Philip

Steven, but they were subordinate. If those four striking figures were

unanimous, no other member would have dreamed of expressing a contrary

opinion. But up to this time they had not yet been agreed upon any

important line of action.



This four, Challis and Crashaw met in the morning-room of Challis Court

one Thursday afternoon in November. Elmer had brought a stenographer

with him for scientific purposes.



"Well," said Challis, when they were all assembled. "The--the subject--I

mean, Victor Stott is in the library. Shall we adjourn?" Challis had not

felt so nervous since the morning before he had sat for honours in the

Cambridge Senate House.



In the library they found a small child, reading.





V



He did not look up when the procession entered, nor did he remove his

cricket cap. He was in his usual place at the centre table.



Challis found chairs for the Committee, and the members ranged

themselves round the opposite side of the table. Curiously, the effect

produced was that of a class brought up for a viva voce examination, and

when the Wonder raised his eyes and glanced deliberately down the line

of his judges, this effect was heightened. There was an audible

fidgeting, a creak of chairs, an indication of small embarrassments.



"Her--um!" Deane Elmer cleared his throat with noisy vigour; looked at

the Wonder, met his eyes and looked hastily away again; "Hm!--her--rum!"

he repeated, and then he turned to Challis. "So this little fellow has

never been to school?" he said.



Challis frowned heavily. He looked exceedingly uncomfortable and

unhappy. He was conscious that he could take neither side in this

controversy--that he was in sympathy with no one of the seven other

persons who were seated in his library.



He shook his head impatiently in answer to Sir Deane Elmer's question,

and the chairman turned to the Rev. Philip Steven, who was gazing

intently at the pattern of the carpet.



"I think, Steven," said Elmer, "that your large experience will probably

prompt you to a more efficient examination than we could conduct. Will

you initiate the inquiry?"



Steven raised his head slightly, put a readjusting hand up to his

glasses, and then looked sternly at the Wonder over the top of them.

Even the sixth form quailed when the head master assumed this

expression, but the small child at the table was gazing out of the

window.



Doubtless Steven was slightly embarrassed by the detachment of the

examinee, and blundered. "What is the square root of 226?" he asked--he

probably intended to say 225.



"15.03329--to five places," replied the Wonder.



Steven started. Neither he nor any other member of the Committee was

capable of checking that answer without resort to pencil and paper.



"Dear me!" ejaculated Squire Standing.



Elmer scratched the superabundance of his purple jowl, and looked at

Challis, who thrust his hands into his pockets and stared at the

ceiling.



Crashaw leaned forward and clasped his hands together. He was biding his

time.



"Mayor" Purvis alone seemed unmoved. "What's that book he's got open in

front of him?" he asked.



"May I see?" interposed Challis hurriedly, and he rose from his chair,

picked up the book in question, glanced at it for a moment, and then

handed it to the grocer. The book was Van Vloten's Dutch text and Latin

translation of Spinoza's Short Treatise.



The grocer turned to the title-page. "Ad--beany--dick--ti--de--Spy--nozer,"

he read aloud and then: "What's it all about, Mr. Challis?" he asked.

"German or something, I take it?"



"In any case it has nothing to do with elementary arithmetic," replied

Challis curtly, "Mr. Steven will set your mind at ease on that point."



"Certainly, certainly," murmured Steven.



Grocer Purvis closed the book carefully and replaced it on the desk.

"What does half a stone o' loaf sugar at two-three-farthings come to?"

he asked.



The Wonder shook his head. He did not understand the grocer's

phraseology.



"What is seven times two and three quarters?" translated Challis.



"19.25," answered the Wonder.



"What's that in shillin's?" asked Purvis.



"1.60416."



"Wrong!" returned the grocer triumphantly.



"Er--excuse me, Mr. Purvis," interposed Steven, "I think not.

The--the--er--examinee has given the correct mathematical answer to five

places of decimals--that is, so far as I can check him mentally."



"Well, it seems to me," persisted the grocer, "as he's gone a long way

round to answer a simple question what any fifth-standard child could do

in his head. I'll give him another."



"Cast it in another form," put in the chairman. "Give it as a

multiplication sum."



Purvis tucked his fingers carefully into his waistcoat pockets. "I put

the question, Mr. Chairman," he said, "as it'll be put to the youngster

when he has to tot up a bill. That seems to be a sound and practical

form for such questions to be put in."



Challis sighed impatiently. "I thought Mr. Steven had been delegated to

conduct the first part of the examination," he said. "It seems to me

that we are wasting a lot of time."



Elmer nodded. "Will you go on, Mr. Steven?" he said.



Challis was ashamed for his compeers. "What children we are," he

thought.



Steven got to work again with various arithmetical questions, which were

answered instantly, and then he made a sudden leap and asked: "What is

the binomial theorem?"



"A formula for writing down the coefficient of any stated term in the

expansion of any stated power of a given binomial," replied the Wonder.



Elmer blew out his cheeks and looked at Challis, but met the gaze of Mr.

Steven, who adjusted his glasses and said, "I am satisfied under this

head."



"It's all beyond me," remarked Squire Standing frankly.



"I think, Mr. Chairman, that we've had enough theoretical arithmetic,"

said Purvis. "There's a few practical questions I'd like to put."



"No more arithmetic, then," assented Elmer, and Crashaw exchanged a

glance of understanding with the grocer.



"Now, how old was our Lord when He began His ministry?" asked the

grocer.



"Uncertain," replied the Wonder.



Mr. Purvis smiled. "Any Sunday-school child knows that!" he said.



"Of course, of course," murmured Crashaw.



But Steven looked uncomfortable. "Are you sure you understand the

purport of the answer, Mr. Purvis?" he asked.



"Can there be any doubt about it?" replied the grocer. "I asked how old

our Lord was when He began His ministry, and he"--he made an indicative

gesture with one momentarily released hand towards the Wonder--"and he

says he's 'uncertain.'"



"No, no," interposed Challis impatiently, "he meant that the answer to

your question was uncertain."



"How's that?" returned the grocer. "I've always understood----"



"Quite, quite," interrupted Challis. "But what we have always understood

does not always correspond to the actual fact."



"What did you intend by your answer?" put in Elmer quickly, addressing

the Wonder.



"The evidence rests mainly on Luke's Gospel," answered the Wonder, "but

the phrase '{archomenos hosei eton triakonta}' is vague--it allows

latitude in either direction. According to the chronology of John's

Gospel the age might have been about thirty-two."



"It says 'thirty' in the Bible, and that's good enough for me," said the

grocer, and Crashaw muttered "Heresy, heresy," in an audible under tone.



"Sounds very like blarsphemy to me," said Purvis, "like doubtin' the

word of God. I'm for sending him to school."



Deane Elmer had been regarding the face of the small abstracted child

with considerable interest. He put aside for the moment the grocer's

intimation of his voting tendency.



"How many elements are known to chemists?" asked Elmer of the examinee.



"Eighty-one well characterised; others have been described," replied the

Wonder.



"Which has the greatest atomic weight?" asked Elmer.



"Uranium."



"And that weight is?"



"On the oxygen basis of 16--238.5."



"Extraordinary powers of memory," muttered Elmer, and there was silence

for a moment, a silence broken by Squire Standing, who, in a loud voice,

asked suddenly and most irrelevantly, "What's your opinion of Tariff

Reform?"



"An empirical question that cannot be decided from a theoretical basis,"

replied the Wonder.



Elmer laughed out, a great shouting guffaw. "Quite right, quite right,"

he said, his cheeks shaking with mirth. "What have you to say to that,

Standing?"



"I say that Tariff Reform's the only way to save the country," replied

Squire Standing, looking very red and obstinate, "and if this

Government----"



Challis rose to his feet. "Oh! aren't you all satisfied?" he said. "Is

this Committee here to argue questions of present politics? What more

evidence do you need?"



"I'm not satisfied," put in Purvis resolutely, "nor is the Rev. Mr.

Crashaw, I fancy."



"He has no vote," said Challis. "Elmer, what do you say?"



"I think we may safely say that the child has been, and is being,

provided with an education elsewhere, and that he need not therefore

attend the elementary school," replied Elmer, still chuckling.



"On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, is that what you put to the

meeting?" asked Purvis.



"This is quite informal," replied Elmer. "Unless we are all agreed, the

question must be put to the full Committee."



"Shall we argue the point in the other room?" suggested Challis.



"Certainly, certainly," said Elmer. "We can return, if necessary."



And the four striking figures of the Education Committee filed out,

followed by Crashaw and the stenographer.



Challis, coming last, paused at the door and looked back.



The Wonder had returned to his study of Spinoza.



Challis waved a hand to the unconscious figure. "I must join my

fellow-children," he said grimly, "or they will be quarrelling."





VI



But when he joined his fellow-children, Challis stood at the window of

the morning-room, attending little to the buzz of voices and the clatter

of glasses which marked the relief from the restraint of the

examination-room. Even the stenographer was talking; he had joined

Crashaw and Purvis--a lemonade group; the other three were drinking

whisky. The division, however, is arbitrary, and in no way significant.



Challis caught a fragment of the conversation here and there: a

bull-roar from Elmer or Squire Standing; an occasional blatancy from

Purvis; a vibrant protest from Crashaw; a hesitating tenor pronouncement

from Steven.



"Extraordinary powers of memory.... It isn't facts, but what they stand

for that I.... Don't know his Bible--that's good enough for me....

Heresy, heresy.... An astounding memory, of course, quite astounding,

but----"



The simple exposition of each man's theme was dogmatically asserted, and

through it all Challis, standing alone, hardly conscious of each

individual utterance, was still conscious that the spirits of those six

men were united in one thing, had they but known it. Each was

endeavouring to circumscribe the powers of the child they had just

left--each was insistent on some limitation he chose to regard as vital.



They came to no decision that afternoon. The question as to whether the

Authority should prosecute or not had to be referred to the Committee.



At the last, Crashaw entered his protest and announced once more that he

would fight the point to the bitter end.



Crashaw's religious hatred was not, perhaps, altogether free from a

sense of affronted dignity, but it was nevertheless a force to be

counted; and he had that obstinacy of the bigot which has in the past

contributed much fire and food to the pyre of martyrdom. He had, too, a

power of initiative within certain limits. It is true that the bird on a

free wing could avoid him with contemptuous ease, but along his own path

he was a terrifying juggernaut. Crashaw, thus circumscribed, was a

power, a moving force.



But now he was seeking to crush, not some paralysed rabbit on the road,

but an elusive spirit of swiftness which has no name, but may be figured

as the genius of modernity. The thing he sought to obliterate ran ahead

of him with a smiling facility and spat rearwards a vaporous jet of

ridicule.



Crashaw might crush his clerical wideawake over his frowning eyebrows,

arm himself with a slightly dilapidated umbrella, and seek with long,

determined strides the members of the Local Education Authority, but far

ahead of him had run an intelligence that represented the instructed

common sense of modernity.



It was for Crashaw to realise--as he never could and never did

realise--that he was no longer the dominant force of progress; that he

had been outstripped, left toiling and shouting vain words on a road

that had served its purpose, and though it still remained and was used

as a means of travel, was becoming year by year more antiquated and

despised.



Crashaw toiled to the end, and no one knows how far his personal purpose

and spite were satisfied, but he could never impede any more that

elusive spirit of swiftness; it had run past him.



More

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