SELECTED EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 10F
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS

Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
MARY A. CAREW
1972

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ABSTRACT

SELECTED EDUCATIONAL IDEAS OF
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS

By
Mary A. Carew

Samuel L. Clemens is a significant American novelist
whose reputation has broadened from popular entertainer to
social critic and prophet. His writing career spanned sig-
nificant developments in American society. He stood with
feet planted in both Agrarian and Technological societies.
His creative fiction mirrors many developments in society
because his myriad interests caused him to examine them.

An attempt to synthesize his educational thought and opinion
did not engage the attention of researchers in the past.

No expanded statement of Clemens' ideas about education is
available. Therefore, it seemed necessary because of this
to attempt to analyze part of his creative fiction and some
of his essays so that a statement regarding Clemens' edu-
cational views could be produced. The study is not defini-
tive nor exhaustive in nature. The selections represent the

writer's biases. Also giving impetus to this research project

Mary A. Carew

is the fact that its author feels that creative fiction
offers additional insight into educational philOSOphy and
consequently provides another area of historical research
for students of education. This work is, then, an histori-
cal and philosophical dissertation which focuses on Clemens'
educational ideas.

The methods and techniques used in the research
effort are tri-partite in nature. The first approach in-
cludes the choosing of works which suggest Clemens' educa-
tional thought and philosophy. These include the The
Gilded Age, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's

 

EEEEE' "English As She Is Taught," "On Training Children,"
"What Is Man?" and "The Curious Republic of Gondour." Also
as a part of the first approach, there is an attempt to
View Clemens' creative work as a vehicle for his own teach-
ing purposes. He uses his work to affect change notably
through a teaching role. The writer in the second method
of approach analyzes the specific educational concerns in
each work to determine the range of Clemens' educational
interests and to see if he is consistent. His concerns
include teacher-student relationships, the goals of educa—
tion, the content of curriculum, the education of women and
Negroes, and the relationships between education and society.
In the third method she analyzes a recurring teacher-

student motif in Clemens' work.

Mary A. Carew

The major findings of the study reveal Clemens to
have a consistent philosophy of education in the area of
the relationship between the proper functioning of a demo-
cratic society and the educational level of its citizens.
An environmentalist, Clemens sees a complementary relation-
ship between the quality of an environment and the kinds of
progress which it fosters. Clemens is less consistent in
his discussion of the relative merits of training and edu-
cation. He initially suggests a dichotomy which indicates
that education is formal schooling which excludes training.
But, later, he modulates, synthesizes and then unifies the
two concepts. Training becomes a major learning concept
under which education is subsumed. Education is a cumu-
lative process from cradle to grave. He reveals a disdain—
ful attitude toward rote-memorization as an educational
method, and he subscribes to the educational theory of
beginning with the child "where he is." He is not an
egalitarian in some respects because he feels that education
differs with individuals; some are more educable than
others. His work abounds with educational ideas. Indeed,
education is the basic context of many of his discussions.
Clemens must be viewed as an educator as well as a social

critic, prophet and entertainer.

SELECTED EDUCATIONAL IDEAS OF

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS

BY

Mary A? Carew

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Secondary Education and Curriculum

1972

Copyright by
MARY A. CAREW

1972

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The writer is deeply appreciative of the encourage-
ment made on her behalf by her major professor, Carl H.
Gross. The road to this accomplishment was not a smooth
one. He stood by her through illness as well as good
health.

Dr. J. Geoffrey Moore, Dr. George Barnett, and Dr.
John Yunck, members of the writer's Guidance Committee,
have also offered her encouragement in her academic efforts
and similar gratitude is expressed to them.

The writer also extends gratitude to her student-
typist, Barbara Schroeder, a female Huckleberry Finn.

To her parents Jere J. and Madelyn V. Carew, she
extends her eternal gratitude because they are the finest

teachers she has had.

ii

CHAPTER

I.

II.

III.

IV.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY . . . . . .

Organization of the Dissertation . .

THE EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND OF

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS . . . . . . . . . .

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Formal Background . . . . . . . .
The Informal Background . . . . . . .

THE GILDED AGE AND THE ADVENTURES OF

 

 

TOM SAWER C U C O C O C C O C O O O

 

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . .
Samuel Clemens The Teacher . . . .

The Educational Ideas in The Gilded Age

 

The Land Grant Act . . . . . . . .
The Education of Children . . . . .
The Education of Women . . . . . .
The Gilded Age as an Exemplum . . . .
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer . . . .
Introduction . . . . . . . . . .
Samuel Clemens The Teacher . . . . .

 

 

The Educational Ideas in The Adventures

 

Of Tom Sawyer . . . . . . . . . .
D1stinction Between Work and Play .
Educational Boredom . . . . . . . .
School Truancy . . . . . . . . . .
Rote-Memorization . . . . . . . . .
Teacher-Student Motif . . . . . . .

THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN AND

 

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING
ARTHUR'S COURT . . . . . . . . . . .

Introduction . . . . . . . . . .
Samuel Clemens The Teacher . . . . .

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The Educational Ideas in The Adventures
Of Huckleberry Finn . . . . . . . . . .
Jim as a Teacher . . . . . . . . . . .
Teacher-Student Motif . . . . . . . . .

A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's
Court . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Samuel Clemens The Teacher . . . . . . .

The Educational Ideas in A Connecticut
Yankee In King Arthur's—Court . . . . .
Separation Church and State . . . . . .
Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Universal Suffrage . . . . . . . . . .
Education and Democratic Societies . .
Teacher-Student Motif . . . . . . . . .

 

 

 

 

V. "ON TRAINING CHILDREN," "ENGLISH AS SHE IS
TAUGHT," "WHAT IS MAN?" "THE CURIOUS
REPUBLIC OF GONDOUR" C O O O O O O O O 0

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"On Training Children" . . . . . . . . .
Summarized . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Child Punishment . . . . . . . . . . .
"English As She Is Taught" . . . . . . .
Summarized . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rote-Memorization . . . . . . . . . . .
Function of Intellect . . . . . . . . .
"What Is Man?" . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Three Interpretations . . . . . . . . .
Concept of Limitation . . . . . . . . .
Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"The Curious Republic Of Gondour" . . . .
Education and Democracy . . . . . . . .
Educational Ideas . . . . . . . . . . .
Personal and Social Implications . . .

VI. CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Statement of Consistent Philosophy . . .
Education and the Democratic State . . .
Concept of Society . . . . . . . . . . .
Educational Methodology . . . . . . . . .
Clemens The Teacher . . . . . . . . . . .

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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CHAPTER I

THE RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY

The purpose of this study is to examine selected
educational ideas and opinions of Samuel L. Clemens so that
a statement concerning Clemens' philOSOphy or philosophies
of education might be stated. The study is in no way a
definitive, detailed, exhaustive analysis of Clemens' total
work. It is, rather, an examination of selected creative
fiction consisting of four novels and four essays which
focus on educational matters.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens', later "Mark Twain" as he
would call himself, work has been read and continues to be
read by millions. Jerry Allen has written that "... he
has been a favorite of the ungreat and the great--his books
always on Darwin's bedside, the choice reading of Sigmund
Freud. How much he meant to every country shows in the
5,500,000 copies of his books issued in America during his
lifetime and the millions more abroad. Today twenty of his
books are still in print and are new to readers every year.

Some like Tom Sawyer are seventy-eight years old."1

 

 

lJerry Allen, The Adventures of Mark Twain (London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1954), p. x.

 

And Henry Seidel Canby states that "In the eighteen-
nineties Mark Twain was undoubtedly the most popular man and
name among American writers, and probably the best read
among contemporary authors of literary pretensions in the
English-speaking world."2 Mark Twain criticism is volumi-
nous. In 1957 E. Hudson Long observed that "More than 200
articles and a dozen books have appeared since 1920, and
two journals are devoted chiefly to him."3 Viewed originally
as primarily a humorist, Twin's literary value is now es-
timated by some to be of far greater consequence because of
his role as a social critic of American society and its
institutions.4 Bernard DeVoto writes that "No other writer
of his time touched the life of America at so many places.
His mind was encyclopaedic, restless, inquisitive, untiring.
Criticism has said that he directed no humor against the
abuses of his time: The fact is that research can find few
elements of the age that Mark Twain did not burlesque,

5

satirize, or deride." Many of his works deal with

 

2Henry Seidel Canby, Turn West, Turn East: Mark
Twain And Henry James (New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1965),

3E. Hudson Long, Mark Twain Handbook (New York:
Hendricks House, 1957), p. 4.

 

 

 

4See Louis Budd, Mark Twain Social Philoso her
(Bloomington; Indiana UniversityPress, 1962), P 1 1p Foner,
Mark Twain Social Critic (New York: International Pub-
lishers, 1958), and Maxwell Geismar, Mark Twain An American
Prophet (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1970).

 

 

 

5Bernard DeVoto, Mark Twain's America (Boston:
Little, Brown and Companyj 1935), p. 267.

 

observations about politics, government, religion, capital
and labor. Assuming significant areas of importance in much
of his creative fiction are his penetrating insights into
schooling and education. Indeed, his fiction abounds with
ideas about the institution of school as they relate to
concepts such as training, environment, curriculum, teacher-
pupil relationships, methods of teaching and learning, and
discipline. It is not idle speculation to theorize about
Mark Twain's interest in education; there is proof. Edward
Wagenknecht has written "He admired Frederick Douglas and

he had a picture of Prudence Crandell, one of the early de-
segregationists in American education, in his billiard
room."6 One of the apocryphal incidents in the Mark Twain
legend is that he was reading, among other things, Herbart
just before he died.

There is a need for a study of Clemens' work because
his creative work, his fiction, (the letters and speeches
need also to be examined), is so ripe for the harvesting of
his educational ideas. Yet, despite this, little has been
done with sorting out and examining these ideas. Therefore,

an immediate study is not only highly desirable but also

 

6Edward Wagenknecht, Mark Twain: VThe Man And His
Work (Norman: The University of OkIaHOma Press, 1961),

p. 219.

 

extremely necessary.7 There is no comprehensive study of
Clemens' educational ideas. Clemens' career as a signifi-
cant artist of American background spanned the years 1867
to 1909. Friend and confidant to a wide spectrum of people
from Presidents of the United States, to fellow members of
the international literati of his time, to Prime Ministers,
to actors and actresses, Samuel L. Clemens stood with feet
planted in both Agrarian and Technological societies in
America. He was a spokesman for a developing and changing
nation with which he was at times more foe than friend. He
gave a title "The Gilded Age' to an era and later "New Deal"

was a catchword taken from A Connecticut Yankee by President

 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Recent critics have argued,

more than those of the past, that Clemens' literature was
written for its value to the author as contemporary criti-
cism and for the purposes of affecting changes and improve-
ments in the society of which he was so very central and
intricately vital a part. He was not a voice crying in the
wilderness. He had an audience initially of middle American
subscription--book purchasers and later a more general in-
ternational audience. It can be assumed that his views

were discussed and adopted by many. His sentiments about

 

7Those Twain critics who do briefly summarize his
educational thought are Edward Wagenknecht, also E. Hudson
Long. See also R. T. Oliver, "Mark Twain's Views On
Education" Education, Vol. 61 (October, 1940), 112-115.

 

education influenced his ballot at the Presidential level.
Writing to William D. Howells from Elmira, N. Y. August 9,
1876, Twain states: "The letter of acceptance (by Ruther-
ford B. Hayes) was amply sufficient to corral my vote

. . . ."8 Hayes' letter in which he accepts the Republican
nomination advocates, among other things, "protection of
the public schools against sectarian interference."9
Critics have documented the fact that Clemens' work is an
analysis and a discussion of then current social problems.
He associated with Harriet Beecher Stowe, Isabella Beecher,
and Charles Dudley Warner at Nook Farm from 1871 until
1891. "There," writes Henry S. Canby, "Twain lived for
twenty years in more or less close communication with a
group of intellectuals, all sympathetic neighbors, all
vigorous, and some exceedingly vigorous minds, none of

them 'stuffy', all of them vitally interested in vital move-

10

ments of contemporary life." It is then, for example,

that in A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court Twain

 

examines the concepts of "practicality and Yankee in-

genuity" and the strengths and weaknesses inherent in "a

 

8Frederick Anderson, William M. Gibson, Henry Nash
Smith, editors, Selected Mark Twain--Howells Letters
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960). p. 74.

9

 

Ibid., p. 76.

10Henry S. Canby, Turn West, Turn East, p. 127.

 

technological society," and that the concepts of "church-
state" and the nature of "curriculum" and ideas about
"training" are also developed in the same work.

Further, there is a need for this study because
educational theory was being written and examined by Clemens.
His position regarding it and his statements about it
ought to be analyzed. No history of American educational
theory ought to be considered complete without investiga-
tions into all areas of possible research. Such as alter-
native area is creative fiction and especially the creative
fiction of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. It isn't necessarily
valuable to argue that all creative fiction written in
America can offer insight into American educational theory
because not all creative fiction can be shown, first of all,
to contain ideas which are significantly educationally
rooted, nor, additionally do that many American creative
fiction artists have the stature of Clemens. It can be
argued valuably and validly, however, that Clemens' work,
in many instances, reflects an abiding and developing con—
cern with varying educational problems, that the focus of
many of his works is the school, that he was and is taken
seriously as a social critic and prophet and that his
creative fiction can be examined and shown to reveal his
insights into the relationship between education and the

proper functioning of a democratic society.

The need for a study dealing with Twain's educational
ideas includes a systematic analysis of them so that ulti-
mately Clemens' philosophy of education can be stated. The
purpose is to see if Clemens maintained a single or a vary-
ing position on education. An attempt will be made to
group the creative fiction selections used in the study
chronologically to trace the evolution of Twain's thoughts
regarding educational ideas with then current educational
ideas and to determine points of both convergence and di-
vergence. The creative fiction selections used in this
study on Clemens will include the novels: The Gilden Age
(1873), The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Adventures

Of Huckleberry Finn (1885), A Connecticut Yankee In King

 

 

Arthur's Court (1889), and the essays "On Training Children"

 

(1885), "English As She Is Taught" (1900), "What Is Man?"
(1906), and "The Curious Republic Of Gondour" (1919). An
analysis of these fiction and essay selections to determine
Twain's educational ideas will offer insight into his
position about the role of education in America during
Agrarian and Technological eras.

An additional need for this study lies in the fact
that a systematic analysis of Clemens' educational ideas
would prove beneficial to students of American educational
history, both graduate and undergraduate, because it would
introduce them to a new realm of ideas about education in

America, ideas presented through the devices of fiction.

These ideas would not have the lifelessness of pure histori—
cal data but, rather, the life of imaginary people fic-
tionally confronting real educational problems in history.

The novel The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer is in many ways a

 

more real portrayal of the early nineteenth century than
the most vivid chapter on that era in an educational history
text.

One might read a text in American educational his-
tory and learn about old schoolmasters, about the applica-
tions of noxious stimuli, about summer-school terms taught
by dames, about drill and memorization but the actual
humanity or inhumanity of those concepts is lacking. Study-
ing and evaluating the application of noxious stimuli
ceases to be "talked about" or summarized dispassionately

and comes alive in The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer; what

 

students seek as educational alternatives through truancy

is vivid in The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, the re-

 

lationship between church and state in education is pre-

sented in A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, and,

 

the relationship between democracy and education is analyzed
in "The Curious Republic Of Gondour." Clemens' creative
fiction, then, does offer broadened insight to scholars,
and to students of American educational history.

The author of this study concerning Clemens' edu-
cational ideas became interested in her topic during her

long graduate studies in both the areas of literature and

education. That so many Schools of Education and Liberal
Arts were constantly at war with one another often dismayed
her. She long viewed the discipline of the History of
American Education as one which could be liberally conceived
and taught and as one which was not limited strictly to
American historical and educational developments to be

found solely in history or educational textbooks. The field
of American Literature, for instance, appeared ripe to her
as an alternative, complementary area in which to find in-
sights into developments in American educational history.

A selection, "Ichabod Crane" by Washington Irving in a
graduate course in the History Of American Education,

cited in a book of readings convinced her that a literary
selection could give life to a point to be made about

school teachers in the Early National Period in American
Educational History which no lecture or history text could
approximate.ll She considered doing research in this area
of creative fiction and American educational theory ini-
tially in terms of either Henry Adams or James T. Farrell.
She ultimately chose Clemens because he was so central to
and very much a part of the educational scene in America.
Her research has fostered a desire to pursue a book of read-
ing which includes other significant American literary

artists whose creative focus is the school.

 

llCarl H. Gross, and Charles C. Chandler, The
History Of American Education Through Readings (Boston:
D. C. Heath and Company, 1964). pp. 144—147.

 

10

Organization of the Dissertation

 

As both an historical and philosophical doctoral
dissertation on education, a discussion and analysis of
Selected Educational Ideas of Samuel L. Clemens in-
volves three methods of approach. The first method is to
view Clemens himself as an educator apart from those char-
ters who it often can be assumed are spokesman for his
points of view. Mark Twain the artist has as a goal some
teaching, some instructing. His work is often written in a
highly moralistic and blatantly didactic manner. Of Twain,
Minnie Brashear has written "His real significance lies in
his philosophical and moral teaching . . . ."12 Mark Twain
wrote "I always preach" and about this preaching he added
"Humor is only a fragrance, a decoration. There are those
who say a novel should be a work of art solely, and you must
not preach in it, you must not teach in it. That may be
true as regards novels but it is not true as regards humor.
Humor must not professedly teach, and it must not profes-
sedly preach, but it must do both if it would live for-
ever."12 Many of his works were written for children, his

controversial running battles and arguments with public

 

2Minnie M. Brashear, Mark Twain Son Of Missouri
(Chapel Hill: University of North’Carolina Press, 1934),
p. 25.

 

l3Jerry Allen, The Adventures Of Mark Twain, p. 234.

 

11

schools, libraries and parent and teacher groups, not to
mention his current disfavor amongst blacks, notwithstanding.
He had principles to teach the young. His ideas regarding
school-book censorship are enlightening. When a public

library in Boston banned The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

 

from its library and advocated that local schools do the
same, Twain wrote

Dear Sir:

I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote 393

Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn for adults exclusively, and

 

it always distresses me when I find that boys and girls
have been allowed access to them. The mind that be-
comes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean.
I know this by my own experience, and to this day I
cherish an unappeasable bitterness against the unfaith-
ful guardians of my young life who not only permitted
but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through
before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever
draw a clean sweet breath again this side of the grave.

Sincerely,

S. L. Clemens14

When one reads about Huck and Tom, for instance, one is

reading Twain's ideas about morality as they relate to

 

14
pp. 13-14.

Minnie M. Brashear, Mark Twain Son Of Missouri,

 

12

honesty, forbearance, charity, love, and brotherhood. It
can be argued that Clemens sought personally to instruct
and to change behavior. It can be argued that there is in
the fiction and essays to be examined in this study a sug-
gested code of conduct, a code of ethical humanism which
young and old ought to consider. It can be argued based on
research that Clemens was vitally concerned with the nature
of American society and the strengths and weaknesses of its
institutions. Out of the criticism about that society,
moral implications, and in many instances, educational im-
plications can be drawn. This is a vital aspect of the
study because it seeks to investigate the creator of fiction
and non-fiction as himself ultimately a teacher seeking to
be heard by those who come into contact with him. This
approach to the study views Twain as an educator who writes
purposely to preach and to teach.

A second method used in this study dealing with
Twain's educational ideas will be to examine the nature of
his educational ideas. The writer will seek to determine
the areas of educational concern with which Twain deals in
terms of curriculum, teacher-student relationships, value
training, methods of teaching and teacher preparation as
well as others. The study will analyze the frequency of
individual concerns such as curriculum, for example. The
study will seek to determine the consistency or lack of it

in Twain's educational thinking. His desire for, at times

13

highly formalized institutionalized schooling will be con-
trasted with his, at other times, desire for non-formalized,
unstructured education. Twain's concepts and his educational
ideas, wherever possible, will be linked to parallel edu-
cational developments historically. For example, the edu-
cational phenomenon of "Land-grant acts" will be examined

through a study of The Gilden Age where it becomes the focus

 

of that book.

The third and final method of the study is to ex-
amine the recurrent educational methodological pattern used
by Clemens in his work of "teachers teaching." Twain uses
a teacher-student motif or methodology in his novels which
is very much a microcosm of his own author-teacher-student-
reader motif. In the latter the author teaches his readers;
in the former, characters teach each other: teacher Tom

and student Huck in Huck Finn, teacher and Tom and the other

 

students in Tom Sawyer, the Yankee teacher and the student-

 

king in A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, or the

 

teacher Senator and the student Laura in The Gilden Age,

 

and, finally, the old-man teacher and the young-man student
in "What Is Man?"

The methods of the study are tri-partite then; each
fiction selection and each essay will be approached so as to
determine the goals of Twain the teacher, the substance of
his teaching, and, finally, the methods used by Twain to
teach. Such a diverse approach should lead to a statement

of Mark Twain's educational ideas.

CHAPTER II

THE EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND OF SAMUEL L. CLEMENS

I

Introduction

 

The major objective of the writer in this study is
to examine the educational ideas of Samuel L. Clemens in
some of his creative works. That Clemens had a pre-
occupation with many aspects of education from the role of
the teacher to the needs of the student is evident and will
be demonstrated as this study progresses. Many of the edu-
cational ideas in Clemens' writing can be directly linked
to his formal and informal educational background. He
borrows from childhood school memories in some of his writ-
ing and from his non-school educational experiences as well.
His attitudes about the role of experience as educative, his
apparent zeal for those aspects of school which center on
play and his dislike for school manifested in constant
restlessness found their way into his work. These ideas
have their geneses in his own life. The background of
Clemens includes not only limited formal schooling but also
a variety of experiences outside of school which were
equally educational. The purpose of the writer in this

chapter is to present part of the formal and informal

14

15

educational background of Clemens and to indicate its rele~
vance to part of his work. Samuel Clemens' background not
only produced many of the educational ideas which appear in

his work but it also educated him as a writer.

The Formal Background

The formal background begins with the young Clemens
in Hannibal, Missouri. In Bernard DeVoto's work, Mark
Twain In Eruption, Clemens' recollections of his school-
days are interestingly portrayed.

My schooldays began when I was four years and a half
old. There were no public schools in Missouri in those
early days, but there were two private schools, terms
twenty-five cents per week per pupil and collect it if
you can. Mrs. Horr taught the children in a small log
house at the southern end of Main Street. Mr. Sam
Cross taught the young people of larger growth in a
frame schoolhouse on the hill. I was sent to Mrs.
Horr's school.1

So much of what Clemens remembers of his young schoolboy

days involves play and recreational activities. Later, he
said:

We have forgotten our punishments at school, and how
we grieved when our marbles were lost and our kites
destroyed because we have forgotten all the sorrows
and privations of that cannonized epoch and remember
only its orchard robberies, its wooden sword pageants,
and its fishing holidays.2

 

1Bernard DeVoto, ed., Mark Twain In Eruption (New
York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1922), p. 107.

2Walter Blair, Mark Twain And HuckiFinn (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1962), p. 56.

16

The marvelous schoolyard play of Clemens' youth is drawn

upon in The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer. In this work also,

 

Clemens' attitude about the relative merits of work and
play emerges in the wildly amusing fencepainting episode.
In the summer, Clemens would visit his uncle's
farm away from Hannibal and attend the summer session of
school there. He befriended Uncle Dan'l, his uncle's
slave, who taught him many skills and counseled him wisely.
Uncle Dan'l, of course, became the prototype of Jim, the

good, great black man who counseled Huck in The Adventures

 

Of Huckleberrnyinn. At home in Hannibal, Clemens occasion-

 

ally heard stories about school at the dinner table because
Miss Mary Ann Newcomb, a local spinster taught at the local
school and took her meals with the Clemenses as a paying
guest. Her stories contributed to his attitudes about
education. He vividly remembered the teachings of his
schooldays, and he later drew on them as sources for his
creative fiction. An incident about the efficacy of prayer,
learned from his principal Mrs. Horr, became a memorable

moment in The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn when Aunt

 

Polly implored Huck to pray and assured him that if he were
contrite he would receive satisfaction. Clemens recalls
the school incident in the following anecdote.
Mrs. Horr was a New England lady of middle age with
New England ways and principles, and she always opened

school with prayer and a chapter from the New Testament;
also she explained the chapter with a brief talk. In

17

one of these talks, she dwelt upon the text, 'Ask And

Ye Shall Receive,‘ and said that whosoever prayed for

a thing with earnestness and strong desire need not

doubt that his prayer would be answered.3
Huckleberry Finn learns more about the efficacy of prayer
from life than he does from his teacher Aunt Polly.

Clemens' formal education ended at fifteen when his

father died. Restless and bored with school, he begged
his mother to allow him to give it up. Had he continued
his formal education, he would never have experienced the
variety of jobs and people he did. Tom Sawyer and Huckle-
berry Finn show a similar boredom and restlessness and
yearned to follow experience. Tom Sawyer would rather chase
"real life" criminals such as Injun Joe than read about
them, and Huckleberry Finn leaves school and profits from
the experience because it forces his moral maturity.
Archibald Henderson views Clemens' early termination of his
formal education as crucial.

It is fortunate that Mark Twain never subjected himself

to the refinements of culture; a Harvard might well

have spoiled a great author. For Mark Twain had a

memorable tale to tell of rude, primitive men and bar-

baric circumstances, of truant resourceful boyhood ex-

cercising all its cunning in circumventing circumstance
and mastering a calling.

 

3DeVoto, Mark Twain In Eruption, p. 108.

 

4Archibald Henderson, Mark Twain (London: Duckworth
Company, 1911), p. 167.

 

18

The Informal Background

 

The informal educational background of Samuel Clemens
began when he became an apprenticed-printer when he left
school. The skills learned in this occupation led the

restless Clemens to his brother Orion's paper, The Hannibal

 

Western Union where he became both printer and sub-editor.

 

His interest in writing developed more at this time and

he wrote satirical essays under various pseudonyms. The
newspaper work was educationally valuable to Clemens. E.
Hudson Long writes that "No college could have offered the
curriculum of human nature furnished by Sam's job for no
faculty could have educated him as did the men in that
office."5 Quickly bored at school, printing soon bored
him also, and he sought a new interest in learning how to
pilot riverboats.

The piloting venture, a vital informal educational
experience, was relevant to his developing skill as a
writer. Complete memorization of every aspect of the
Mississippi River in terms of its depths and its dangers
developed Clemens' mind and eyes for detail, for particu-
larities. Such precise memory and vision would become the
necessary tools of a successful novelist. Additionally,
riverboating offered the opportunity to meet a wide spec-
trum of personality types, potential characters in the

creative fiction.

 

5' E. Hudson Long, Mark Twain Handbook, p. 124.

 

19

Clemens once said that in the "brief, sharp schooling, he
got personally and familiarly acquainted with about all the
different types of human nature that are to be found in
fiction, biography or history.6 Huckleberry Finn would
also be schooled on the Mississippi, and he too would come
to meet many different types of human nature. Clemens'
great teacher was Horace Bixby, the veteran steamboat pilot.
Clemens began to write about his travels on the river and

he sold stories about them to The New Orlean's Daily

 

Crescent. His enthusiasm for riverboating was ended by
the Civil War.

After working out West for quite a few years,
Clemens returned to the East and married Olivia Langdon.
The Langdons, especially Olivia, would be yet another de-
termining informal educational force in Clemens' life.
They would give him an education in the virtues of wealth
and the luxurious life style it allowed. Marvelous cloth-
ing, sumptious food, and magnificient travel would be a
vital part of his relationship with Olivia. Living near
the married Samuel Clemenses in Hartford, Connecticut in
1874 were significant members of the Eastern literati.
Many of these notables would form lasting friendships with
the Clemenses. Isabella Beecher Hooker and her sister

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Joseph Twichell, and the Twain

 

6Henderson, Mark Twain, p. 163.

 

20

collaborator Charles Dudley Warner formed a closely knit
group around Clemens. Out of this friendship Clemens would
further his education. This was, perhaps, the most edu-
cated group of friends Clemens ever had. Twichell was a
minister, Mrs. Hooker, a feminist, and Mrs. Stowe an abo-
litionist. Clemens found much food for thought in their
many varied discussions. Out of his friendship with Warner

would emerge The Gilden Age, an indictment of politics and

 

materialism.

By this time in his life Clemens had traveled to
Europe and back many times, and, perhaps, his most memorable
visit was to England. Oxford honored him with a degree.

It must have been a personally powerfully triumphant moment
in his educational journey from the private schools in
Hannibal, Missouri. Honorary degrees would later be con-
ferred by the University of Missouri and by Yale University.
The dust-laden Oxford doctoral gown hangs proudly today in
the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal.

At the time of his death in 1910 Clemens had ac-
complished a great deal since his early boyhood. Leaving
school at fifteen and following the trail of experience,
he met people in all walks of life. He rubbed shoulders
with the famous and unfamous alike. His list of acquaint-
ances forms a wished for guest list for a dinner party.
Notable acquaintances included Helen Keller, Matthew

Arnold, Artemus Ward, Billie Burke, Woodrow Wilson,

21

Ulysses S. Grant, George Bernard Shaw, Robert Louis
Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling and King Edward VII. The little
son of Jane Lampton Clemens and John Marshall Clemens was
famous.

Many of Clemens' experiences both during and after
his formal schooling can be found in his creative fiction.
He vividly draws on childhood school experiences in both

The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn and in The Adventures

 

Of Tom Sawyer. The notion of the value of experience is
developed in A Connecticut Yankee In Kinngrthur's Court,
and in The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn. Clemens deals
with educational ideas in many of his creative works. His
concerns with education in his work reflect some of his

own reactions to it throughout his life. He writes about
education from personal experience with it. Specific areas
of educational concern will be taken up as the writer at-
tempts to analyze selected creative fiction by Clemens in

subsequent sections.

CHAPTER III

THE GILDED AGE AND THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER

Introduction

The Gilded Age is the first work to be included in
this study in which the educational ideas of Samuel L.
Clemens can be found. Begun in 1873, Clemens collaborated

with Charles Dudley Warner on The Gilded Age to prove to

 

their wives that they could write as effective a novel as
some of the current romances which included Harriet Beecher

Stowe's Old Town Folks, (1869(, and Louisa May Alcott's

 

Little Women, (1869), and Little Men, (1871). Although

 

 

both authors maintained that there was not a page in the
book on which they both did not work, it is generally agreed
that Clemens' portion of the story includes the futures of
the Hawkins family, the Tennessee land, the Knobs Industrial
University Bill, Colonel Sellers, lobbying, vote-buying,

and the senate investigations.

The Gilded Age is a novel about the Hawkins family

 

of Obedstown, Tennessee which moves to Missouri to find a
better life, Squire Hawkins and his wife and children adopt

two children along the way, a boy named Clay and a girl,

22

23

Laura. Hawkins regrets uprooting his family, but is com-
forted by the fact that he leaves land behind in Tennessee
which might one day bring the family a fortune. The land,
of course, becomes a significant part of the plot of the
novel. The family arrives in Missouri and within ten years,
Hawkins and his good friend, Beriah Sellers, have made and
lost two or three moderate fortunes and begin to feel the
pain of poverty. The first of many offers for the Tennes-
see land is made of $3,000 and rejected by Hawkins. He
later dies and the subplot of the novel is introduced. Two
young engineers, Harry Brierly and Philip Sterling, meet
Sellers and work with him. Laura, now a mature young woman,
meets a man, marries and is jilted by him. A Washington
senator whose name is Dilworthy meets Sellers and becomes
interested in the Tennessee land because he espouses the
education of negroes and desires to see the land used for
that purpose. He attempts to sell the government the land.
Notice of a bill "To Found And Incorporate The Knobs Indus-
trial University" is given in Washington. The purchase
price is three million dollars. Laura, meanwhile, murders
her husband and a scandalous trial follows. Concomitantly,
a vote-buying scandal develops in Washington around the
educational bill. Eventually, the bill is defeated, Laura

gains her freedom, and The Gilded Age is concluded.

 

24

Samuel Clemens The Teacher

 

Samuel L. Clemens' attitudes about education can be

discovered through three approaches in analyzing The Gilded

 

Age. The first approach is to view Clemens as a teacher.

It has been established by critics that Clemens sought
changes in American society. He was more than a comic writer
seeking merely to entertain readers. He was a social critic
who used literature as a vehicle through which to present

his ideas about the wrong-doings of his society. In The

Gilded Age, Clemens is best revealed as a teacher through

 

his use of the novelistic technique of narrative voice.
The tone of Clemens' voice is of great interest because it
illustrates his attitude toward his subject matter and

reveals the purpose of The Gilded Age. Sarcasm is detected

 

in that voice as it is initially "heard" in the prefatory
comment.

It will be seen that it [The Gilded Age] deals with an
entirely ideal state of society; and the chief embarass-
ment of the writers in this realm of the imagination

has been want of illustrative examples. In a state
where there is no fever of speculation, no inflamed de-
sire for sudden wealth, where the poor are all simple-
minded and contented, and the rich are all honest and
generous, where society is in a condition of primitive

 

lNarrative voice has to do with an author's atti-
tude toward his material. It is his voice which is of
concern and not those voices of his characters.

25

purity, and politics is the occupation of only the
capable and the patriotic, there are necessarily no
materials for such a history as we have constructed out
of an ideal commonwealth.2

The sarcasm of Clemens in the prefatory comment heralds the

didactic message which the author will convey in The Gilded

 

Age. Subtitled The Gilded Age: A Tale Of Today, Clemens

 

 

in the work admonishes his readers to examine the problems,
to look critically at society, and to improve it. Here is
Clemens the teacher, then, at his strongest.

Clemens' voice is again heard and his teaching role
revealed in his characterization of Philip Sterling, a
young college-graduate engineer whose training is irrele-
vant because it has not equipped him for a job in this era.
Clemens writes:

It was not altogether Philip's fault, let us own,
that he was in this position. There are many young
men like him in American society, of his age, oppor-
tunities, education and abilities, who have really
been educated for nothing and have let themselves drift,
in the hope that they will find somehow, and by some
sudden turn of good luck, the golden road to fortune.
He was not idle or lazy; he had energy and a disposi-
tion to carve his own way. But he was born in a time
when all young men of his age caught the fever of
speculation, and expected to get on in the world by the
omission of some of the regular processes which have
been appointed from old. And examples were not wanting
to encourage him. He saw people, all around him, poor
yesterday, rich to—day, who had come into sudden opu-
lence by some means which they could not have classified
among any regular occupations of life . . . .

 

2Mark Twain and Charles D. Warner, The Gilded Age
(New York: The New American Library, 1969), xxi.

3

 

Ibid., p. 349.

26

Clemens discusses the effects of this period in broad terms
on an entire nation and also in the particular terms of an
individual caught up and disoriented in a web of circum-
stances. Clemens, the teacher, speaks here to a loss of
values during "The Gilded Age" in American history.
Additionally, one hears Clemens the teacher in the
following statement:
The eight years in America from 1860 to 1869 uprooted
institutions that were centuries old, changed the poli-
tics of a people, transformed the social life of half
the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the entire
national character that the influence cannot be measured
short of two or three generations.4
And so it was in 1873 that those repercussions were active,
and Clemens' lessons are directed at change. He does not
choose complimentary adjectives to qualify his descriptions
of the period; a sentiment of sorrow is easily detected in
that passage. Then, too, another instance of Clemens' role
as teacher is found in his characterization of the jury
impaneled for Laura's trial.
It was four weary days before this jury was made up,
but when it was finally complete, it did great credit
to the counsel for the defence. So far as Mr. Braham
knew, only two could read, one of whom was the foreman,
Mr. Braham's friend, the showy contractor. Low fore-
heads and heavy faces they all had; some had a look of
animal cunning, while the most were only stupid. The

entire panel formed that boasted heritage commonly de-
scribed as the 'Bulwark Of Our Liberties.‘5

 

41bid., p. 138.

5Ibid., pp. 405-406.

27

The biting sarcasm of the words "low forehead," "heavy
faces," "animal cunning," and "stupid" leaves little doubt
as to Clemens' position concerning the undesirability of
many American juries during this period. The closely-
1inked intimation between "Bulwark," "Bull," and "Braham"
is powerful. Clemens' poSition that a democratic society's
institutions should be linked to educated citizens is

crucial, and this contention recurs in The Gilded Age.

 

The final instance of Clemens' teacher role is seen
in a narrative voice sequence about a vote-buying scandal
in Washington, D.C. It is most clear that Clemens is ex-
horting, is teaching, is demanding his readers to take
action.

From the centre of our country to its circumference,
nothing was talked of but Mr. Noble's terrible revela-
tion, and the people were furious. Mind, they were
not furious because bribery was uncommon in our public
life, but merely because here was another case. Per-
haps it did not occur to the nation of good and worthy
people that while they continued to sit comfortably at
home and leave the true source of our political power,
the 'primaries', in the hands of saloon-keepers, dog-
fanciers and hog carriers, they could go on expecting
'another' case of this kind, and even dozens and hun-
dreds of them, and never be disappointed. However,
they may have thought that to sit at home and grumble
would someday right the evil.6

The Gilded Age is an object-lesson which Clemens offers to

 

his fellow citizens. In it he is a novelist-teacher who

holds up a portion of time in the development of American

 

61bid., pp. 405-406

28

history so that some of its principles, values, and prac-
tices can be ridiculed. His goal is an attempt to affect
change, to improve society by causing people to think and
then to act. It is in this sense that Clemens can be viewed
as a teacher. An aspect of Clemens' educational philosophy
emerges swiftly and forcefully when he dons the robes of a

teacher in The Gilded Age. The exerpts about the society,

 

about Philip Sterling's value disorientation, and about
jurors emphasize Clemens' contention that societies are
only as good or as bad as the educational backgrounds of
their citizens. Good societies have enlightened citizens
who deplore ignorant juries, who punish corrupt politicians,
and who act in principled fashions. Ignorant juries, cor-
rupt politicians, an unprincipled electorates are the
anthitheses of a democratic society. Clemens, then, sup-
ports education because on it depends the viability of the
political structure. In Clemens' educational philosophy

in The Gilded Age there is a carefully delineated statement

 

which is sympathetic to popular enlightenment. An equation
between the effectiveness of political systems and the
educational backgrounds of those who participate in them
emerges in other works such as A Connecticut Yankee In

King Arthur's Court, The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn,

 

 

and in "The Curious Republic Of Gondour."

29

The Educational Ideas In The Gilded Age

 

A second approach to determining Clemens' philosophy
of.education is to examine his discussion of educational

ideas in The Gilded Age. Many critics choose to see the

 

novel as a discussion about politics, but the fact is that
the work deals more with education. Indeed, the novel is
a matrix through which the issue of kinds of educational
experiences during "The Gilded Age" is discussed. The
verbiage and pagination dealing with the subject of edu-
cation is quantitatively significant and forcefully supports
the contention that the major focus of the novel is educa-
tion. Marshalled in evidence of this contention are the
following facts: the attempt to pass the Knobs Industrial
University Bill, the characterizations of the Hawkins
children, Philip Sterling, and Ruth Bolton, and the con-
demnations of politicians, juries, and American citizens

because of their ignorance.

The Land Grant Act

 

An important educational idea in the work is the
attempt to gain passage of the educational bill which will
provide educational opportunities for negroes. Knowledge-
able about contemporary educational history, Clemens tied
his bill to the realistic educational phenomenon of the

land grant act. Vernon T. Thayer writes:

30

The year 1862 marked the passage of the Morrill Act

with its generous grants of public land to the states

in support of higher education in agriculture and the
mechanic arts. It represented, in part, a reaction
against the overly classical emphasis in higher educa-
tion; in part, a realization that the national welfare
now required generous provision for scientific and 7
technical education on school and college levels . . . .

In linking the educational bill in the story to the Morrill
Act, Clemens was drawing from his own personal experience.
French writes:

I have not been able to find any satisfactory original
for the Knobs Industrial University Bill. Still, it

is not difficult to find valid reasons for Clemens' in-
vention of such a bill as a vehicle for his satire on
lobbying. Disregarding for the moment his desire to
use his Clemens' family's Tennessee land in the plot of
the novel, Clemens has good reason to make a land grant
bill for negro education a high point of his satire.
The 'Reconstruction' congresses were notorious for
granting appropriations to aid all kinds of projects
ostensibly designed to 'uplift' the freed slave and
simultaneously manipulated for the benefit of private
inventors and landowners.8

Clemens was aware of the purpose of the Land Grant Act be-
cause he was affiliated with the Freedman's Bureau Bill as
a secretary briefly for a Senator who was a member of a
Committee on Judiciary, chaired by Lyman Trumbull, the
chief proponent of the Freedman's Bureau Bill.9 Inherent

in the passage of the bill is Clemens' sympathy for the

 

7Vernon T. Thayer, Formative Ideas In American
Education (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1966) pp.
82-82.

 

 

8Bryant M. French, MarETwain The Gilded Age (Dallas:
Southern Methodist University Press, 1957), p. 128.

9

 

Ibid., p. 128.

31

plight of negroes. Their education is consistent with his
philosophy that a democratic society's viability is subject
to the continuing enlightenment of all its people. The
education bill becomes the central issue around which Clemens
dramatizes the corruption in politics. Education is the
glue, however, which holds the novel together and gives it
the thrust Clemens desires. Clemens' attitude toward negroes
in this novel refutes present claims, particularly in

reference to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that

 

Clemens in anti-negro.

The Education of Children

 

Other educational ideas in the work include the
education of the Hawkins children. Many of Clemens'
characters go to school in his novels. Whether they like
school or not is a different matter. It is interesting to
note that Clemens sends the Hawkins children to school
since they were poor, and frontier school attendance was
highly sporadic. Clemens values education. He is, there-
fore, concerned a great deal with education in his work as
a result of this orientation. The Hawkins children im-
mediately begin school after arriving in Missouri:

Within a week or two, the Hawkinses were comfortably
domiciled in a new loghouse, and were beginning to

feel at home. The children were put to school; at least
it was what passed for school in those days: a place

where tender young humanity devoted itself for eight
to ten hours a day to learning incomprehensible rubble

32

by heart out of books and reciting by rote, like parrots;
so that a finished education consisted simply of a per-
manent headache and the ability to read without stopping
to spell the words or take breath.lo

Clemens finds rote and memorization deadly. He also censors

them in The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer and in "English As She

 

Is Taught," which will be discussed later. He decries the
time and effort which go into learning information which is
useless. Clemens denounces educational methodologies which
produce learners who are automata. Also inherent in his
criticism is a plea for a more "practical" and "useful"
frontier-type of learning, perhaps of the later-to-be

developed Huck Finn variety.

The Education of Women

 

The education of women, to which Clemens appears

sympathetic in The Gilded Age, is another area of educational

 

discussion. Isabella Hooker, a close friend of the Clemenses
and Warners, was a feminist. Mrs. Clemens herself had her
husband's respect intellectually, for, indeed, she constantly
helped him with his creative work. So it is then, that

Ruth Bolton, the romantic interest of one of the young en-
gineer's in the novel, is characterized as having an identity
conflict regarding her educational goals. She wishes to

study medicine despite her family's feelings. She says to

 

10Twain and Warner, The Gilded Age, p. 54.

 

33

her father,

I wish I could go West, or South, or somewhere. What

a box women are put into, measured for it, and put in
young. If we go anywhere, it's in a box, veiled and
pinioned and shut in by disabilities. Father, I should
like to break things and get lose [sic]. I want to be
something, to make myself something. Why should I rust,
and be stupid, and sit in inaction because I am a girl?11

And, Laura, the Hawkins' adopted daughter, seeks to improve
herself also:
There were also other books—-histories, biographies of
distinguished people, travels in far lands, poems, es-
pecially those of Byron, Scott, Shelley, and Moore,
which she eagerly absorbed, and appropriated there from
was to her liking.12

Again, it is obvious that education is a major theme of

Clemens in The Gilded Age since the results of education

 

are an integral part of the characterizations. The plight
of Philip Sterling cited earlier should be recalled at this
point. Ruth's problem is gaining acceptance as an educated
person, who also happens to be a woman. Clemens, again
consistent, weaves another basic thread into the fiber of
his educational philosophy: There is a need for a totally
enlightened citizenry: men, women, whites, negroes, adults,
and children.

The criticisms which Clemens makes of politicians
and of juries are also part of the educational focus of the

novel. It is only an educationally unenlightened society

 

llIbid., p. 114.

lZIbid., p. 141.

34

which allows itself to be vitiated. Implicit in his criti-
cism is the notion that education is vital. There is a
link between education as a bulwark of the institutions of
a democratic society and their proper functioning. This
important idea is developed at greater length and will be

examined more fully in an analysis of The Adventures Of

 

Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee In Kinngrthur's

 

Court and, most notably, in "The Curious Republic Of

Gondour."

The Gilded Age As An Exemplum

 

A third approach to sorting out Clemens' educational
ideas in an attempt to isolate a philosophy is to cite the
technique which he uses to present the educational ideas.
Certainly the writing of a book is one way to present edu-
cational ideas, but, in addition to this, Clemens often
uses a teacher-student and teacher-reader methodology which
is a recurring device in many of the works which comprise

this study. In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, one

 

finds a student in Huck and a teacher in Jim; in A Con-

necticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, one finds the

 

yankee teacher and the student king. However, this method-

ology is not evident in The Gilded Age. Interestingly

 

enough, the novel is used, this writer feels, as an "exem-
plum." An exemplum, it will be recalled was one section

of a medieval sermon, the part which set forth examples to

35

illustrate the theme of the text of the sermon. If one
returns to Clemens' sarcastic prefatory comment about the
inapplicability of the message of the book to present so-
ciety and remembers that, indeed, the work is most appli-
cable to that society, he then sees that Clemens' citations
of corruption in education and politics, and of the igno-
rance of juries and apathy of citizens become the examples
which Clemens uses to illustrate the theme of the book.

So the total work becomes the vehicle for the educational

ideas.

Conclusion

 

In summary, it is in The Gilded Age that one finds

 

Clemens as a teacher of a society functioning most notably
through the technique of narrative voice. It is here in
his attitude toward his material and readers that Clemens
is best revealed as a teacher. The educational ideas in
the work are centered around the land grant act, criticism
of the content of elementary education, speculation about
the role and education of women, and the significantly im-
plicit concern that democratic societies must have en-

lightened citizenries. Finally, The Gilded Age is an ex-

 

emplum in which educational and societal illustrations are
presented to reinforce the general theme of education. The

Gilded Age should be viewed as a novel more about education

 

36

than politics. This work is one source where many of

Clemens' attitudes about education are to be found.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Introduction

 

Mark Twain again focuses on education in The Adventures

Of Tom Sawyer, written shortly after The Gilded Age in 1876.

 

Tom Sawyer, who is as much a child of society as Huck Finn
is a renegade, is both victim and benefactor of his family's
concern for him. Aunt Polly sews missing buttons on his
shirts, sees that he goes to school, however reluctantly,
accompanies him to church and assigns him the task of white-
washing the fence near their home. Constantly ambivalent in
her emotions toward Tom, Aunt Polly is never certain that
her attempts to train him are correct or fair. Tom's rela-
tionship to the institution of the family is a major concern
of Twain in this work. Equally significant is the theme of
Tom's attitude toward institutionalized religion. One sees
Tom ill-at-ease in church, bored by the sermons. He exchanges
odds and ends for "Bible Study" reward coupons so that he
does not have to learn the verses. He is trapped, ultimately,
by citing David and Goliath as the first two disciples ap-
pointed by Christ. 7

The major institutional relationship of Tom's explored

by Twain is the school. Whenever possible, and it is

37

frequently, he is truant because he is bored. Twain's focus

in The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer is a discussion of those

 

alternatives to school which consume much of Tom's energy.

Samuel Clemens The Teacher

 

Mark Twain also assumes the role of teacher in this

work as he does in The Gilded Age, through the use of nar-

 

rative voice. He also draws from his childhood experiences
in sections of the work.

Most of the adventures recorded in this book
really occurred; one or two were experiences
of my own, the rest those of boys who were
schoolmates of mine . . . . Although my book
is intended mainly for the entertainment of
boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned
by men and women on that account, for part of
my plan has been to pleasantly remind adults
of what they once were themselves . . . .13

The work is a crucial part of this study because Twain re-
veals much of what can be termed an educational philOSOphy
in it. Twain can be viewed as a teacher of children in this
work. An extension of these educational ideas continues

in the pivotal educational novel The Adventures Of Huckleberry

 

Finn which Twain intended as a sequel. To argue that Twain

assumes the role of teacher in The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer

 

means that those patterns of behavior, sets of attitudes

and principles of conduct which he encourages his young

 

13Mark Twain, The Complete Works Of Mark Twain, The
Adventures Of Tom Sawyer (New York: Harper and Brothers,
1899), Preface.

38

readers to consider are presented through his teaching role.
At first glance, Tom appears as a belligerent child, very
anti-social in his behavior. A more careful reading, how-
ever, discounts this. It is Huckleberry Finn in the novel
who is the anti-social child. In this perspective, Tom is
very much a typical boy whose behavior compared to Huck's
is not anti-social. Tom's attitude, and Twain's attitude,
toward Huck reveals this:

. . . Huckleberry Finn, son of the town drunkard.

Huckleberry was cordially hated and dreaded by

all the mothers of the town, because he was idle

and lawless and vulgar and bad and because all

their children admired him so, and he delighted

in his forbidden societ , and wished they dared

to be like him . . . . 4
Tom Sawyer is not an anti-social boy because his reactions
to his predicaments are measured in terms of his obligations
to others. He has a sense of duty, and he does know right
from wrong. Mark Twain, as a teacher, does not encourage
the young to be irresponsible. He warns about the conse-
quences of certain actions. After witnessing the stabbing
of Dr. Robinson in the graveyard, Tom feels that the crime
must be made public. Huck, fearing that the criminals might

retaliate, talks him out of it. Initially, Tom consents

to this course of action, but the consequences of his

 

14Ibid., p. 54.

39

actions, his guilt, is revealed in this scene where a dog
howls:

"Oh, Huck, it's a stray dog!"

"Dad fetch it! This comes of playing hookey and

doing everything a feller's told not to do. I

might'a been good, like Sid, if I'd a'tried, but

no, I wouldn't, of course. But if ever I get off

this time, I lay I'll just waller in Sunday-Schools!"

"And Tom began to snuffle a little."15
Twain encourages honesty by citing the humiliation, fear,
and defeat which come from a lack of it. It may be smart
to overlook responsibility, but one must learn to live with
the guilt that comes as a result of that. It may be smart
to trade odds and ends for Bible knowledge coupons, but one
must remember, teacher Twain suggests, that one is still
without knowledge. So many Americans, to wit, public
librarians, in the past, found Twain's books to be cor-
ruptive of youth. While it is true that his children out-
maneuver adults, skip school, smoke and swear, it must be
stated in fairness that much of Twain's code of conduct
for young readers is commendable. It is a code which
stresses responsibility, love and respect.

Twain's admonition to children that they honor their
parents is a vital focus of the work. When Tom slips out

the window to take off with Huck for Jackson's Island, he

is quickly homesick for Aunt Polly. He loves her despite

 

lsIbid., p. 93-94.

40

all the trouble he causes her. When he sneaks home to see
what's happening, he witnesses the following:

Aunt Polly knelt down and prayed for Tom so
touchingly, so appealingly, and with such
measureless love in her words and her old
trembling voice, that he was weltering in
tears again long before she was through.

He had to keep still long after she went to
bed, for she kept making broken-hearted ejacu-
lations from time to time, tossing unrestfully,
and turning over. But at last she was still,
only moaning.a little in her sleep. Now the
boy stole out, rose gradually by the bed-side,
shaded the candlelight with his hand, and
stood regarding her. His heart was full of
pity fof‘her . . . . He bent over and

kissed the faded lips . . 15

Tom is hardly a bad boy. Twain sees him as a typical boy
wrestling with temptations, a person of compassion, integ-
rity, and honor. What has Twain taught his youthful readers

of The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer? His audience knows that

 

even though church and Bible study are boring, they are
sources from which integrity can be develOped and that
right and wrong can be learned from them. It learns that
honesty is important and that lying and deception hurt
others. It learns that it is through the attempts of their
elders to discipline them and to exact goodness from them
that they are loved. Indeed, it learns that some of the

most loved children are the most severely disciplined. It

 

16Ibid., p. 133.

41

learns, finally, that it has commitments to society to see
that criminals are brought to justice, and that responsi-
bility can bring material rewards such as the money Huck
and Tom share. This, then, is the material in the book
which reveals Mark Twain as a teacher and suggests his

educational philosoPhy.

The Educational Ideas In
The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer

 

 

The educational ideas in this work offer another ap-
proach to isolating Twain's educational philosophy. What
kinds of educational ideas is he concerned with beyond
those which are revealed in his role as a teacher? The
subject matter of the work is education. It is interesting
to note, initially, that while Tom Sawyer does manifest
sentiments of remorse about his institutional attitudes
toward church, government, and family, he expresses none
toward school. The fact of the matter is, very simply,
that Tom hates school. Twain's educational ideas are re-
vealed piecemeal. Structurally, the novel can be divided
into sections. Chapters One through Five deal with the
weekend before school starts. In these chapters, Twain
portrays a fun-loving Tom and characterizes him as a cunning
and shrewd lad. Not dull, by any means, Tom is a leader
who is inventive, imaginative, tough, and friendly. He

likes girls and matches wits with Aunt Polly. His cunning

42

is best described in the fence-painting episode, where, by
making work appear to be play, he dupes his playmates into
doing the job for him. Through the device of narrative
voice, Twain reacts to the fence-painting episode in the
following manner:

If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like

the writer of this book, he would now have com-

prehended that Wbrk consists of whatever a body

is obliged to do, and that Play consists of what-
ever a body is not obliged to do.17

Distinction Between WOrk And Play

 

It should be noted that the distinction between work and
play demonstrates Twain's attitude toward school. It is
precisely because one is obliged to go to school, obliged
to learn, that it is work, and, therefore, it is no fun
at all. The distinction between doing what one wants as
Opposed to doing what one has to do is a crucial aspect
of Twain's educational philos0phy. One remembers that
most of what Twain did in his own life, once he was freed
from the bonds of school, was what he wanted to do.
Learners do not always have choices in school. Twain would
argue that the choice not to go to school is valid if the
school thwarts and bores the child.

The relative fun of Chapters One through Five contrasts

 

17Ibid., p. 19.

43

vividly with Chapter Six, the second structural division

of the novel.
Monday morning found Tom Sawyer miserable.
Monday morning always found him so because it
began another week's slow suffering in school.
He generally began that day with wishing that
he had no intervening holiday; it made the going
into captivity and fetters again so much more
odious . . . , he wished he was sick; then he
could stay home from school.18
This characterization of Tom's attitude toward school is
crucial because it forces the question, "Why?" What's
wrong with school? What is it about school which Twain,
dislikes? It is in the answers to these questions that
Twain's educational philOSOphy is revealed. Initially,

the whole institution of the school appears repulsive.

Now, Twain begins to dissect that whole.

Educational Boredom

One source of Tom's dislike for school is that he must
go to it whether he likes it or not, whether it is helpful
or harmful to him. He would prefer not to go. But, he does
not have the kinds of Options which his friend, Huck, has.

Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will.
He slept on doorsteps in fine weather and in
empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go
to school or to church, or call any being master
or obey anybody; he could go fishing or swimming
when and where he chose, and stay as long as it

 

18Ibid., p. 50.

44

suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could
sit up as long as he pleased; he was always the
first boy that went barefoot in the spring and
the last to resume leather in the fall; he never
had to wash nor put on clean clothes; he could swear
wonderfully. In a word, everything that goes
into making life precious, that boy had.1
Another source of Tom's dislike for school is the classroom.
Tom enters a classroom where "The master throned on high
in his great splint-bottom arm chair, was dozing, lulled

20 Twain's attitude is clear.

by the drowsy hum of study."
The teacher is "above“ the students. The suggestion of
aloofness and distance is conveyed. 'Little warmth is shown
between the master and his charges.) The boredom and dull-
ness of school contrast strongly with the excitement and
frenzy of the weekend. The happy event in school is Becky
Thatcher, Tom's first love, but the powerful schoolmaster
intrudes upon that deviation from boredom. "The boy felt

a slow, fateful grip closing on his ear, and a steady
lifting impulse. In that vise he was borne across the

house . . . ."21 School is so painfully boring for Tom

 

19Ibid., p. 55.

2oIbid., p. 60.

21Ibid., p. 64.

45

that his mind wanders uncontrollably. "It seemed to him
that the noon recess would never come." "Tom's heart ached
to be free, or else to have something of interest to do to

22 Twain's insight into education

pass the dreary time."
is revealing here. He seems to say that it is not that
school is not necessary for the young. Rather, it's the
irrelevance of schools that makes them tediously monotonous.
Here is a school where a teacher does not capitalize on

the enthusiasm of his students, where a teacher does not
make learning fun. School is work and it could be play.

The curriculum and the teacher are faulted. So Tom, for
want of more stimulating educational things to do, plays
with his pet tick. "A tremendous whack came down on Tom's
shoulder . . . ".23 Noxious stimuli reinforce the dislike
for school. Punishment is a temporary, unsatisfactory
solution for Tom's deeply rooted negative educational

sentiment. Tom's only recourse is to flee school. The

subject of school truancy is introduced.

School Truancy

 

School truancy is an important idea in both The Adven-

 

tures Of Tom Sawver and in The Adventures Of Huckleberry

 

 

Finn. It is as though Twain is saying, "Let's assume that

 

221bid., p. 65.

23Ibid., p. 67.

46

a child has the Option not to go to school. What in its
place could or would that child do?" Tom is not dull.
He's at least twelve, and he's imaginative, shrewd, and
cunning. What are viable educational alternatives to the
institution of the school? Can lessons be learned from
experience? In Chapter Eight, a third structural division
of the book, through the initial section of Chapter Twelve,
Tom's hooky-playing exploits are developed. He spends the
first few hours of his truancy contemplating death.

He sat long with his elbows on his knees and his

chin in his hands, meditating. It seemed to him

that life was but a trouble, at best, and he more

than half envied Jim Hodges, so lately released;

it must be very peaceful, he thought, to lie and

slumber and dream forever and ever . . .
How dreadful is the impact of his hate for school. He
begins an imaginary swordfight and ends up dueling with
another truant, Joe Harper. Later that day of his truancy,
he is witness to the stabbing of the town doctor. Then,
his imaginary thoughts of death merge with reality when
Injun Joe and an accomplice dig up a body. It is after
witnessing this that Huck and Tom vow not to make it public.
A pact is formed, and Tom's school-skills come in handy.

Huckleberry was filled with admiration of Tom's

facility in writing, and the sublimity of his

language. He showed Huckleberry how to make
an H and an F.25

 

24Ibid., p. 73.

251bid., p. 92.

47

In Chapter Thirteen, Tom decides to continue his hooky-
playing. Joining Huck Finn and Joe Harper, he climbs aboard
a raft and lies on his back as they float downstream. They
cook their own meals and sleep in the Open air. They enjoy
their freedom from school. "It seemed glorious sport to be
feasting in that wild freeway in the virgin forest of an
unexplored and uninhabited island, far from the haunts of
men, and they said they would never return to civilization."26
In this extended section of the book, in which Twain
develOps the truancy plot, one of the best lessons learned
is the beauty of nature. Tom learns much about life from
nature. He learns to relax and to love his friends. He
sees worms, ants, lady-bugs, and cat-birds at work. Tom
communes with nature. "He felt no longing for the little
village sleeping in the distance beyond the majestic waste

of water."27

There is nothing "majestic" about school.
Eventually, Tom is reunited with his family. In Chapter
Twenty, Tom returns to school after the hooky-playing
episode. It is in this chapter that Twain characterizes
the schoolmaster. In his analysis of school, Twain has

proceeded from the institution of the school, to the

classroom, to the teacher.

 

26Ibid., pp. 116-117.

271bid., p. 123.

48

The master, Mr. Dobbins, had reached middle age

with unsatisfied ambition. The darling of his

desires was to be a doctor, but poverty had

decreed that he should be nothing higher than a

village schoolmaster.28
Twain's characterization of this nineteenth century school-
master accurately captures a popular sentiment toward
teachers. The idea was that if all other career aspirations
failed, one could always teach. Tom's teacher's heart
certainly isn't in his work. Uninspiring teachers are
seldom stimulating to students. Here is Twain's philosophy
Of the role of the teacher. A teacher should make learning
fun and not routine or dull. The contrast again between
the boredom of the classroom and the fun-filled hooky-
playing caper is emphasized. The atmosphere of Tom's
classroom is sleep-inducing.

A whole hour drifted by; the master sat nodding

in his throne; the air was drowsy with the hum

of study. By and by, Mr. Dobbins straightened

himself up, yawned, then unlocked his desk . . . .29
In Chapter Twenty-One, Twain re-focuses on the institution
of the school in general. Vacation is near and the
children are preparing for their year-end examinations.

The schoolmaster, always severe, grew severer

and more exacting than ever, for he wanted the

school to make a good showing on 'Examination'
day. His rod and his ferule were seldom idle now

 

28Ibid., p. 171.

29Ibid., p. 174.

49

at least among the smaller pupils. Only the big-
gest boys, and young ladies of eighteen and twenty
escaped lashing.30

Rote—Memorization

 

Twain is harsh in his attack on the rote and memori-
zation which "Examination" day produces. His sentiment in
this area is pointed out in his criticism of the memori-
zation and drill to which the Hawkins children are subjected

in The Gilded Age. One finds a further condemnation of it

 

in "English As She Is Taught." There is a consistency in
his thinking which reveals a personal antagonism toward
killing the spirits of young learners through forced drill.
It is no wonder then, that Huck and Tom are truants or
that Mark Twain took personal leave of school at fifteen.
He interjects a historical note when he says that the
little girls give "Examination" day declamations on the
same tOpics their mothers and grandmothers had years before.
The section "A Vision," presented by a young girl,
contrasts vividly with Tom's actual reaction to nature
outside school. Her reaction is vicarious and counterfeit;
his is real and profound. Twain suggests that one needs
to partake of nature not read about it.
School ends in Chapter Twenty-One, and Chapter Twenty-

Two through the final chapter deals with Tom's non-school

 

3OIbid.

50

activities which are pursued with more enthusiasm. It is
obvious that the non-school activities are of greater con-
cern to Twain since they contrast so strongly with the
school chapters, and they get more of Twain's attention and
enthusiasm.

An attempt to summarize the educational ideas, and

Twain's philosophy of education, in The Adventures Of Tom

 

Sawyer would include the following ideas. Twain is critical
of schools primarily because of their artificiality and
their removal from actual life. Schools are Often boring
because of curriculum, and because of rote and memorization.
Schools can be frightening because in them students are
physically punished by teachers. Schools are cold places
because there is no warmth between teachers and students.
Yet, despite the overwhelming condemnation of schools,

Twain does see some value in them. Schools do teach valuable
basic tools and skills such as writing, spelling, and
reading. But Twain, it appears, favors a less structured,
more natural, more realistic educational model. He appears
to be a friend to education but a foe to schooling. That
is, he seems to see non-school learning experiences equally
valuable as school learning experiences. This idea is

pursued in greater depth in The Adventures Of Huckleberry

 

Finn, yet negated in A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's

 

Court. Twain's educational philoSOphy is not consistent.

51

Twain seems to say that the school fails to appropriate
the curiosity, the cunning and shrewdness of the Tom

Sawyers. He encourages freedom of the learner.

Teacher-Student Motif

 

The final aspect of this chapter is to discuss Twain's
methodology for presenting his educational ideas. In
this work, he uses a teacher-student model. Twain is not
the only teacher in the book. Various teachers include
Aunt Polly, Mr. Dobbins, Injun Joe, Joe Harper, Huckleberry
Finn, and Nature. It is from all these teacher sources
that Tom learns. Tom is constantly placed in a variety
of learning situations. The teacher-student motif is
characteristic of many works under study in this dis-
sertation, and serves to reinforce the idea that a major
focus in Twain's work is education.

From Aunt Polly, Tom learns love, responsibility and
honesty; from Mr. Dobbins, he learns how to hate school
and to disrespect his teachers. From Injun Joe, Tom
learns what anti-social behavior is, and what lying and
betrayal are. From Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn, he
learns the warmth of friendship and a comradeship
necessary to learning from others. From Huck, he also

learns that "book-learning" isn't all there is to know.

52

From nature, he learns peace and kindness and goodness.
That The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is replete with educa-

tional ideas which reveal Mark Twain's attitude about

school is indisputable.

CHAPTER IV

THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
AND

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT

INTRODUCTION

 

Mark Twain's The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn is a

 

sequel to The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer. Written nine years

 

after the Tom Sawyer book, it includes a similar cast of
characters, but additional notable characters are intro—
duced in it also. Another crucial work of Twain's, it is
replete with educational ideas. Reduced to the most essential
plot developments, the Huck Finn educational saga opens with
a recapitulation of the conclusion of the Tom Sawyer story.
Huck and Tom have been awarded the recovered money, and

the Widow Douglas has "adOpted" Huck and is attempting to
"civilize" him. Huck, however, finds wearing starchy
clothes, praying, and bathing offensive to his preferred
"natural" state, and consequentally, periodically runs away.
He is basically a lonesome, isolated lad who misses his

own life style however barren it is in contrast to the ways

53

54

of life pursued by the civilized folks of St. Petersburg.
Huck's running away is not permanent in the early stages
of the story. He always returns home to play pirates and
robbers with the other thirteen and fourteen year-olds.
The second most important character in the novel is the
negro slave Jim who becomes a vehicle for many of Twain's
educational ideas in this work. He is both ridiculed and
respected by the white children. Huck's father, Pap, a
recluse and drunk is another important character in the
work. He scolds Huck for his "uppity" ways which are the
result of Huck's being civilized by his new family. Huck
is abducted by his father and taken to Illinois where he
is held prisoner in an Old shack. Through an ingenious
escape ploy, Huck runs away from his father. The central
odyssey, Huck's voyage down the Mississippi, is commenced,
and it becomes the central focus of the work.

Huck hides out on Jackson's Island where he meets
Jim, who fearing he will be sold by his owner, has also
escaped. The two develOp a partnership and later a
friendship and set out to flee St. Petersburg. They build
a raft, Twain's schoolhouse, in this instance, and begin
their mutual search for freedom. The central escape plot
is conjoined with supporting secondary plots which consist
of separate episodic incidents which include the

Shepherdson-Grangerford story, the Duke and King story,

55

the Boggs—Sherburn incident as well as the Wilk's funeral
incident. The central plot of the flight to freedom is
brought to its resolution when Huck and Tom Sawyer rescue
Jim who has been captured. Jim is ultimately given his
freedom and noble savage Huck is viewed going Off into the

wilderness as the story concludes.

Samuel Clemens The Teacher

 

The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn is another work in

which Twain assumes the role of teacher. Unlike The Gilded

 

Age and The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer in which Twain is a
critic of contemporary periods of time, the Huck Finn story
is Twain's criticism of a pre-Civil War society in American

history. It has been noted that in The Gilded Age, Mark

 

Twain argues that there is a correlation between education
and the proper functioning of democratic institutions. In
that work, he argues that democratic societies must have
enlightened citizenries who participate intelligently in
juries, in politics, and in education. That work is a plea
for enlightenment which Twain sees as the bulwark of free,
democratic societies. The Tom Sawyer story becomes Twain's
vehicle for beseeching democratically operated schools.

The Huck Finn saga is a continuation of the Twain plea for
just and enlightened institutions which will produce
sympathetic, intelligent, and wise participants in govern-

ment. In the work, Twain singles out for criticism those

56

institutions which perpetuate hypocrisy in relationships
between men. The notion of "training" becomes crucial to
an understanding of this very important work. Twain argues
that institutions produce Huck Finns. These institutions
are not inherently evil. It is the misconception about
how these institutions should function which is evil.

Twain faults those institutional arrangements designed by
men to enslave other men in The Adventures Of Huckleberry
Finn. The institution of slavery is not necessarily the
worst of these arrangements. In the work, Twain explores
the ideas of "goodness" and "evil." He, as a teacher, is
concerned with illusion versus reality. Who or what is
good, what is real or veneer, what is a facade, and what

is superficiality are all key questions which Twain seeks
to answer. The work is Twain's attempt to examine the
results of civilization when they are superimposed on
alleged decadence. Huck is a savage by the Widow Douglas'
standards. It is in what happens to Huck and Jim when they
remove themselves from society, from civilization, that
Twain is most interested.

Mark Twain, the teacher, exposes his readers to an
instance of hypocrisy and sham very early in the book.
Miss Watson, the Widow Douglas' sister, herself a slave
holder, encourages the decadent uncivilized Huck to pray

more and to care more about peOple. She tells Huck,

57

I must help other peOple, and do everything I

could for other peOple, and look out for them

all the time, and never think about myself.1
The young Huck is introduced to the "right" way to concern
himself with others. Twain, the teacher, begins his
analysis of the effects of the layering up of the mind with
cultural and environmental residue which are produced
through training. He traces the conditioning which society
produces. Huck is, in many respects, initially, that
automaton who absorbs many facts, principles, and ideas but
who does not mediate them with intelligence. Poor little
malleable Huck is a pawn between two competing cultures
in this book. Played off against the admonitions of Miss
Watson and the Widow Douglas that he care for others and
that he respect his elders and that he go to school is
the advice of Pap, his real parent. His father scolds,

. . . you drop that school, you hear? I'll learn

people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his

own father and let on to be better'n he is. You

lemme catch you fooling around that school again,

you hear? Your mother couldn't read, and she

couldn't write nuther, before she died.2

A third culture is represented by the wisdom of the
slave, Jim. Huck responds best to this because he and Jim

attempt to create a new society, a new institutional rela-

tionship between men which is benevolent and good. It is

 

1Sculley Bradley, Richmond C. Beatty, E. Hudson Long,
editors, Samuel L. Clemens, Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co. 1961), p. 14.

2Ibid., p. 21.

 

58

one in which each prospers. It is an arrangement which is
free of veneer, hypocrisy and sham.

The central role of Mark Twain as a teacher in this
work, this writer feels, is to point out the Rousseauian
idea that man is basically good, but that it is those
institutions develOped by man which corrupt him merely
because those institutions are unintelligently conceived
and implemented. Naturally, then, this viewPoint supports
the fact that Twain is consistent in his attack on those
institutions devised by societies which undermine societies.
The family, the church, the school, the government must be
institutions which complement the prOper functioning of
those societies of which they are integral parts. But
institutions won't function well if intelligence, justice,
and wisdom are not applied to their Operation. It is a
lack of justice, intelligence and wisdom which produces
slave holding. Churches, schools, families, governments
contribute to its support when they should not. Again,
Twain is exploring notions of training and conditioning in
The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn which will later assume

major positions of prominence in works as Puddinhead Wilson,

 

The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg, and in A Connecticut

 

Yankee In King Arthur's Court.

59

The Educational Ideas In
The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

 

 

That The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn is another work

 

which is replete with educational ideas which constitute
Mark Twain's biases toward education is easily proven
through an investigation of the book's central focus. The
work is an unparalleled paradigm of Twain's educational
thinking. In it the formal and informal agents of education
in America are explored. The education of the home has
been noted in the example of prayer. Twain's ideas about
the relationship between an enlightened citizenry and an
enlightened society are given restatement in this work.
Huck's father is fanatically upset about a free Negro, a
college professor, whom he meets.

They said he could vote, when he was home. Well,

that let me out. Thinks I, what is this country

a coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just

about to go and vote myself, if I warn't too drunk

to get there; but when they told me there was a

state in this country where they'd let that Nigger

vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote again.3
The biting irony of the drunken white father putting down
the brillant negro is Twain at his best. That societies

need educated citizenries which include blacks, whites,

men, and women is a point driven home in The Gilded Age

 

and, most notably, in "The Curious Republic of Gondour."

The whole pre-Civil War society in the Huck Finn story is

 

3Ibid., pp. 26-27.

60

unenlightened. It's uneducated despite its education which
is merely training. It's a superficial, hollow, hyper-
critical, shallow, society.

The church, another informal educational agent, is
criticized by Twain especially in the Shepherdson-Grangerford
episode. Reminiscent of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"
and the American Hatfield and McCoy feuds, the Shepherdson-
Grangerford feud is witnessed by Huck when he becomes
separated from Jim. The Grangerfords are ostensibly very
civilized people.

Colonel Grangerford was a gentleman, you see. He

was a gentleman all over; and so was his family.

He was well-born, as the saying is, and that's worth

as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow

Douglas said.4
The Grangerfords eat well and live in a perfectly splendid
house. They are church-going, God-fearing people also.
They are a typical aristocratic Southern family. The only
defect is that they like to kill members of the Shepherdson
family for reasons no one seems to remember. Huck says to
fourteen year-old Buck Grangerford,

"Did you want to kill him, Buck?"

"Well, I bet I did,"

"What did he do to you?"

"Him? He never done nothing to me."

"Well, then, what did you kill him for?"
"Why nothing - only it's on account of the feud."5

 

4Ibid., p. 86.

51bid., p. 88.

 

61

Buck is a product of the same society which Huck is. Both
represent the young upon whom the cultural biases and prej-
udices of society are superimposed. The Grangerfords go to
church to learn. Unfortunately, they bring their guns with
them. Huck recounts the visit to the church.
Next Sunday we all went to church about three mile,
everybody a horseback. The men took their guns
along, so did Buck, and kept them between their
knees or stood them handy against the wall. The
Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery
preaching all about brotherly love, and such like
tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a good
sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and
had such a powerful lot to say about faith, and
good work, and free grace, and preforeordestination
(sic.).6
Twain's marvelous use of irony again is highlighted
in the suggestion that the church-going is superficial and
hypocritical. Twain dwells at great length in this work
on an examination of competing notions of enslavement.
Jim is physically a slave. Others are mental slaves. He
also pursues notions of man's inhumanity to man. What
good is church, school or government if these have no
positive effects on changes in attitude of men toward each
other? It is areligious, apolitical, and aeducational

Huck who becomes a foil to the so—called good, respectable,

people in this novel.

 

6Ibid., p. 90.

62

The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn is a novel about
the education of a young boy into manhood; it is, then, 3
rite de passage. It has been suggested that Twain faults
the misconceptions about the role of institutions in society
as corruptive of the natural goodness of people. Huck's
formalized education by his family, school, and the church
is quasi-corruptive of his inherently good feelings about
peOple. It is his informal education on the raft which
produces his great act of brotherhood and humanitarianism

toward his friend Jim.

Jim As A Teacher

 

It is this writer's contention that Twain chose the
negro slave Jim not only to be Huck's surrogate father but
also, more importantly, to be Huck's teacher in this work.
Seen in this perspective, it is very difficult to understand
why so many Negro organizations have branded Twain's work
racist. While it is true that in one sense Huck never flees
society in this work, it is also true that he does flee it.
He does this because he is repulsed by the trappings of
civilization. These are foreign to him because he is very
much nature's child. Mark HOpkins postulated that education
could take place with teacher on one end of a log, a
learner on the other. Mark Twain postulates that education
can consist of a teacher and a student sharing a raft on a

hugh river. Recall that Huck is truant from school. To

63

complement his postulation, he chooses a student and a
teacher whose backgrounds, except for race, are highly
similar. Both Huck and Jim are not integrated members of
society. Both live apart from it, the one by choice, the
other by legislation. Ostensibly, and this is the supreme
irony and brillance of the work, Huck had little to learn
from Jim. After all, Jim never went to school, shared
little esteem from society, could not read nor write.

He was a human being, however, who had a heart and a
disposition which was conducive to sharing with Huck some
very important precepts of Christianity as charity, kindness,
and love. Twain's postulation, then, was that Huck could
learn a great many things from Jim which society would
never teach him. And so, the work is an educational
odyssey. It is Huck's and Jim's voyage together, and it is
out of their growing relationship that Huck learns his most
important lessons. It would be advantageous to analyze
their relationship and to discuss the educational ideas
implicit in it.

It is on Jackson's Island where teacher Jim and student
Huck meet as fellow escapees. Huck has fled the "civili-
zation" represented by his father and the Widow Douglas,
and Jim has fled the same society because he feared the
threat of being sold. Both characters, then, flee a similar

society to escape different kinds of enslavement. Jim's

64

body is enslaved; Huck's mind and spirit are enslaved. They
need each other initially because they distrust each other.
One might tell on the other. In the early stage of their
relationship, neither is viewed as superior to the other.
Huck has the foresight to bring food to the island, Jim the
wisdom to suggest cover from the rain. Despite the fact
that Huck has played cruel jokes on Jim before this meeting,
Huck has also relied on Jim's soothsaying ability. Jim
predicts that Huck will have considerable trouble in his
life and considerable joy. What neither realizes at the
time is his respective role in that prediction.

The new role of Jim as Huck's surrogate father is
introduced when Jim finds Huck's father dead in an old
house carried in the flood tide down the river. Jim will
not allow Huck to see the face of the dead man. Jim's
compassion for his young charge is develOped nicely in
this incident, and the change in the status of their rela-
tionship is hinted at in Jim's use of the term of endearment
"honey" immediately after his discovery of Huck's father.
Jim assumes responsibility for Huck; he isn't stupid or
incapable of getting things done. It is he who builds the
wigwam on the raft so that shelter and warmth will be
available. Jim is not necessarily to be viewed as inferior

to Huck. In the new society which they create on the raft,

65

Jim gets to share his Opinions. Seeing a shipwrecked steam-
boat, Huck wishes to board her:

Let's land on her, Jim,

But Jim is dead against it at first. He says:

"I don't want to go fool'n 'long en no wrack.

We's doin' blame well, en we better let blame

well alone, as de good book says. Like as not
dey's a watchman on dat wrack."7

Huck, however, wins the argument, but it is important to
note that Jim has opinions which differ from Huck's.

The relationship between the two subtly grows in
intensity as the story progresses. In the first of several
separations, Huck is alarmed that in the fog he cannot find
Jim. It is Jim, however, who reveals his sentiments more.
Huck attempts to deceive Jim into thinking that they were
never separated.

"Hello, Jim, have I been asleep?

"Why didn't you stir me up?"

"Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck?

En you ain't dead--you ain't drownded--you's back
again? It's too good for true, honey, it's too
good for true. Lemme look at you, chile, lemme
feel 0' you. No, you ain't dead! You's back
agin, a'live en soun', jis de same old Huck--de

same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!"8
Jim is infuriated when he learns that Huck has played a

joke on him.

When I got all wore out wid work, en wid de callin'
for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos' broke

 

71bid., p. 21.

81bid., p. 70.

66

bekase you wuz los; en I didn't kiyer no mo' what
became er me en de raf; and when I wake up 'n
find you back agin; all safe en soun' de tears
come en I could a got down on my knees en kiss'
yo foot I's so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin'
'bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim
wid a lie.9

Huck, of course, is startled by Jim's reaction. Their
relationship reaches a peak of intensity when Huck declares:

Then he Jim got up slow, and walked to the wigwam,
and went in there, without saying anything but that.

But that was enough. It made me feel so mean I
could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it
back.

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself

up to go and humble myself to a Nigger, but I done

it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards,

neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and

I wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would

make him feel that way.10

Some choose to see Huck as cruel in this episode.

This writer chooses to see Twain as using the cruelty of
Huck's pretending they were not separated to force the
relationship to this development. What is lovely about
the incident is that Huck learns from Jim what it means to
show concern for others. The same advice from Miss Watson,
cited earlier, lacked meaning and relevance. Her teaching
was ineffective; Jim's is not. As a result of this lesson

learned, there is a change in Huck's attitude and, conse-

quently, in the relationship between the two.

 

91bid., p. 71.

loIbid., pp. 72-72.

67

Jim and Huck have a good society now based on love, under—
standing trust, and respect. The greater society does not.
And to emphasize the fact that the greater society does not,
Twain introduces the Shepherdson-Grangerford episode when
Huck and Jim are separated again. The feud content of
that episode has been noted as well as Twain's criticism of
the minister's sermon. What is of interest here is the
fact that the raft society of Huck and Jim is ultimately
more civilized than the society Of the Shepherdsons and
Grangerfords. The theme of man's inhumanity to man is re-
inforced in the Shepherdson-Grangerford society. Huck is
inhumane to Jim, and he learns a valuable lesson. The
others with all their church-going do not.

The raft society is pure. It is based on concern and
need. The land society is used to contrast this purity
with its decadence. It is in going ashore that Huck sees
the evil of society and its corruption. Huck prefers the
purity, goodness, and serenity of the raft society to the
land society.

Kill them, kill them! It made me so sick I most
fell out of the tree. I ain't agoing to tell all
that happened, it would make me sick again if I was
to do that. I wished I hadn't ever come ashore

that night, to see such things. I ain't ever going
to get shut of them. Lots of times I dream about them.11

 

11Ibid., p. 94.

68

The purity of the raft's society is contaminated
when the King and Duke come aboard. These two characters
serve the function of allowing Twain to show what happens
to a society when it has members who will not cooperate
with its rules. It's a restatement about the same kind of
behavioral attitudes which Huck's father reflects when he
will not go along with the notion of freed Negroes voting.
While it is true that Huck does not go along with the rules
of the greater society which demands the enslavement of
Jim, Twain is arguing for the support of humane, good chari—
table and enlightened rules of a society-and not the in-
humane, bad uncharitable and unenlightened ones.

Land-corrupted society is also noted in Twain's
treatment of the Boggs-Sherburn incident. Here is another
episode where Huck views contamination, hypocrisy and
crime. Twain depicts mob psychology by describing an ig-
norant group of townspeople who are thwarted in an attempt
to lynch a town renegade. There is an absence of law and
order. It's just another example of decadence shown by
Twain in the society which Huck and Jim have fled.

The return to the raft from the Boggs-Sherburn in-
cident allows the relationship between Huck and Jim to
resume and to develop in greater depth.

I (Huck) went to sleep, and Jim didn't call me

when it was by turn to keep watch. He often
done that.12

 

lzIbid., p. 124.

69

Jim looks out for Huck and allows him, because he is a boy,
to rest more. Huck learns much about Jim's family.
When I waked up, just at day-break, he was setting there
with his head down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourn-
ing to himself. I didn't take notice nor let on. I
knowed what it was about. He was thinking about his
wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low
and homesick, because he hadn't ever been away from
home before in his life; and I do believe he cared just
as much for his people as white folks does for their'n.
It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's 50.13
Jim shares the story about the beating he gave his,
unknown to him, deaf daughter when she was very young.
This beating contrasts with Huck's beating by his father.
Huck sees similarities in men and in favilies in both these
episodes. The greater society has emphasized differences
in men and, consequently, slavery has come about. It takes
Huck a while to rid himself of his attitudes about "Niggers."
Society has spent years contaminating his psyche with a
cultural and environmental overlay. His love for Jim is
miraculous and satisfies the scope of a novel, but one knows
that in real life it would take some time for his new at—
titude to take root.
The central concern of Twain in the novel and the
essence of the educational transformation brought about by
teacher Jim takes place when Huck has to reach down beneath

the cultural and environmental overlay to get at his con-

science. He must decide whether to free or not to free

 

l31bid.

70

Jim. He must adjudicate fairly and non-emotionally the
competing ideologies to which he has been exposed. One
ideology has come from the greater society of the Widow
Douglas, Pap, and Miss Watson and from his peers like Tom
Sawyer. The other ideology is more current and its source
has been a Negro. His attempt to judge, to weigh, is re-
sponsible citizenship. It is the ideal behavior of all
just men.

I went to the raft, and set down in the wigwam to think.
But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I wore
my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the
trouble. After all this long journey, and after all
we'd done for them scoundrels, here it was all come to
nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because
they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as
that, and make him a slave again all his life, and a-
mongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars.

Once I said to myself it would be a thousand
times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his
family was, as long as he'd got to be a slave, and so
I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him
to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up
that notion, for two things: she'd be mad and disgusted
at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her,
and so she'd sell him straight down the river again; and
if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrate-
ful nigger, and they'd make Jim feel it all the time,
and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced. And then think
of me! It would get all around, that Huck Finn helped
a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was to ever see
anybody from that town again, I'd be ready to get down
and lick his boots for shame. That's just the way: a
person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to
take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can
hide it, it ain't no disgrace. That was my fix exactly.
The more I studied about this, the more my conscience
went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down
and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit
me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of
Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know
my wickedness was being watched all the time from up
there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old
woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm, and

 

 

71

now was showing me there's One that's always on the
lookout, and ain't agoing to allow no such miserable
doings to go only just so far and no further. I most
dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried
the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for my-
self, by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't
so much to blame; but something inside of me kept say-
ing, 'There was the Sunday school, you could a gone to
it; and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you, there,
that people that acts as I'd been acting about that
nigger goes to everlasting fire.‘

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind
to pray; and see if I couldn't try to quit being the
kind of boy I was, and be better. So I kneeled down.
But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It
warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from
me, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come.
It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I
warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I
was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I
was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying
to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the
clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner
and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it
was a lie--and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie--I
found that out.

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be;
and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and
I says, I'll go and write the letter--and then see if
I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as
light as a feather, right straight off, and my troubles
all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all
glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

Miss Watson your runaway nigger Jim is down here
two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him
and he will give him up for the reward if you send.

HUCK FINN

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the
first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed
I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but
laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinking
how good it was all this happened so, and how near I
come to being lost and going to hell. And went on
thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the
river; and I see Jim before me, all the time, in the
day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, some-
times storms, and we a floating along, talking, and
singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to
strike no places to harden me against him, but only the
other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of
his'n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping;

72

and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the
fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there
were the feud was; and suchlike times; and would always
call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could
think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last
I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had
smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was
the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the
only one he's got now; and then I happened to look a-
round, and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held
it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I'd got to
decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it.
I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then
says to myself:

'All right, then, I'll go to hell'--and tore
it up.14

And so Huck Opts for the teachings of Jim because
Jim has reached what is decent, good, and kind in him. Jim
is a great teacher, a masterful man whose own existence on
the raft serves as an Object lesson for an adolescent boy.
If it is true that Tom Sawyer is society's child and that
Huckleberry Finn is anti—social, one must applaud Huck and
condemn Tom. Certainly Tom is smarter but Huck is more
humane. Twain's concept of enlightenment includes humane-
ness. To be civilized is to be humane. It is in that
sense that civilization is the absence of decadence. The
educational odyssey is finished. The boy becomes a man.

He has learned many things at first hand.

Teacher-Student Motif

 

Experience has been the educational medium, Jim the

mediator between the student and experience. Jim, in the

 

14Ibid., pp. 166-168.

73

most tradition—ridden teacher-student relationship becomes
a model to emulate. It is through the use of a student-
teacher relationship that Twain has communicated his edu-
cational ideas.

It is in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that

 

Mark Twain becomes a teacher alerting his readers about the
ills of unenlightened societies. It is in this work that
he deals with the educational ideas of training and envi-
ronment. It is here that Mark Twain suggests that just men
cannot perpetuate unjust institutions. The democratic ex-
periment is only viable if there is enlightenment. People
are not to be viewed as automata programmed to perpetuate
unjustice. It is in the intellect and heart at work in
Huck's attempt to adjudicate what justice is that one sees
Twain's democratic, enlightened, humane citizen. The work
abounds with Twain's educational ideas, and, as with the
other works studied, there is a student-teacher motif used
to convey Twain's educational biases. Mark Twain does not

offer solutions to the problems posed in The Adventures Of

 

Huckleberry Finn. It is his intention merely to call at-

 

tention to society's ills. On the other hand, the relation-
ship between Huck and Jim is a solution to the problem of
man's inhumanity to man. A Connecticut Yankee In King

Arthur's Court is a work in which Twain advances more

 

solutions which are of a specific educational nature.

74

Mark Twain's reading interests included literature
written during the Medieval Period, and his absorption with

this period is reflected in A Connecticut Yankee in King

 

Arthur's Court written in 1889, another work replete with

 

Twain's educational ideas. In it, Twain uses the device,
characteristic of much medieval literature, of telling a
story based on a protagonist who is in a dream-like state.
Twain refers to Chaucer and his pilgrims in the text, but
it is Sir Thomas Malory's knights of Arthur's court who

inspire Twain most significantly and guide him in this work.

A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court

Introduction

 

A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court is the
wildly improbably story about a Connecticut arms factory
foreman who is knocked on the head and imaginatively trans-
posed from the nineteenth century of America to the sixth
century of England. Once there, the American pragmatist,
superman finds himself in a position of mental superiority
because his Yankee ingenuity and practicality enable him to
deal handily with the superstitions of the sixth century.
His first challenge is to unseat the magician Merlin in a
bid for control over the minds of the aristocracy and feudal
slaves.

Disgusted with conditions in the kingdom of Camelot,

the Yankee instigates a "New Deal" program aimed at

75

humanizing existence. As a reward for outshining Merlin in
magical resources, the Yankee becomes the "Boss" of the
kingdom, second in power only to King Arthur himself. He
is amazed at the differences in his abilities compared to
the people of the sixth century.
Look at the opportunities here for a man of knowledge,
brains, pluck, and enterprise to sail in and grow up
with the country. The grandest field that ever was;
and all my own; not a competitor; not a man who wasn't
a baby to me in acquirements and capacities; whereas,
what would I amount to in the twentieth? I should be
foreman of a factory, that is about all; and I could
drag a seine down-street any day and catch a hundred
better men than myself.15
So, whereas the knights of the kingdom have their armor,
the Yankee, girded with intelligence, sallies forth to re-
make Camelot:
The first thing you want in a new country, is a patent
office; then work up your school system; and after
that, out with your paper.16
He attempts to educate the people through mass education;
schools abound in the kingdom. He separates his schools
from the church. He undertakes a hygiene program to pro-
mote cleanliness, and he starts a newspaper as another at-
tempt to educate the people. He even attempts to educate
the king by taking him on a tour of the kingdom. He tries

to eradicate superstition and caste. He fights hard to

eliminate chivalry. While in Camelot, he marries and

 

15Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee In Kin Arthur's
Court (New York: Harper & Brothers,71899), pp. 6 -61.

16

 

Ibid., p. 70.

76

becomes a father. A total of seven years passes. The kingdom
is ch nging and, as far as the Yankee is concerned, progres-
sing. During the seventh year, his child grows ill and he
sails for France. While he is absent from Camelot, Arthur
dies and the Roman Catholic Church regains control of the
kingdom through an interdict. The Yankee marshals the
support of fifty-two men to go against the legions of the
Church. In the holocaust which comes about, schools, fac-
tories, and lives are destroyed. The Yankee is stabbed

and triumphed over in the end by Merlin.

Samuel Clemens The Teacher

 

Mark Twain, himself, may be viewed as a teacher in
this work. His focus in A Connecticut Yankee In King

Arthur's Court is a critical investigation of the effects

 

of a society in which various institutional arrangements
such as monarchical systems of government and church control
hold people in various states of moral, intellectual, and
physical enslavement. Always critical of monarchies, Twain
touts the advantages of democratic arrangements. Twain
assumes the role of teacher as he attempts to analyze and
criticize a life style he finds inimical to growth and
freedom The work allows him not only to criticize a ma-
levolent form of government but also to praise the benevo-
lence of democratic principles. In this work he seeks to

show the virtues of education as a possible way to

77

disenslave humanity. It is another work, very much in the

tradition of The Gilded Age, in which he attempts to make

 

an equation between enlightenment and progress. As a
teacher, Twain is prepared to document his charge that too
strong an alliance between church and state is dangerous

for the growth of humanity. Indeed, the entire plot is an
object-lesson about the dangers that such a union produces.
Additionally, Twain grapples with ideas relating to environ-
ment, conditioning, and training. He sees the common folk
of Camelot not as products of education, as thinking,
questioning, deliberating men, but as automata, the products
of conditioning and training. These are people held in
check, in blind states of obedience. He views the people

of the South similarly in The Adventures Of Huckleberry

 

Finn.

The Educational Ideas In A Connecticut
Yankee In King Arthur's Court

 

 

 

It might be well at this point to examine some of
the specific educational ideas advanced by Twain in A

Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court. The Yankee casts

 

himself in the role as educator of the kingdom. His ini-
tial response is that he is the mental superior of practi-
cally everyone. This superiority consists mostly of the

fact that he is more practical and ingenius and also that

he can get things done. He is, after all, a foreman in an

78

arms factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut so he has a leader—
ship background. His initial survey of the people of
Camelot leads him to believe that their ignorance is sim-
plistic and childlike:

As a rule, the speech and behavior of these
people were gracious and courtly; and I noticed that
they were good and serious listeners when anybody was
telling anything--I mean in a dog-fightless interval.
And plainly, too, they were a childlike and innocent
lot; telling lies of the stateliest pattern with a most
gentle and winning naivete, and ready and willing to
listen to anybody else's lie, and believe it too.17

It is this naivete, this childlike innocence which
the Roman Catholic church has produced and which it capi-
talizes on. These are enslaved people, argues Twain, who
have believed the lies of the church. A prison experience
confirms this when the Yankee studies the other prisoners
who appear emotionless. They don't scream, or cry out in
anguish. The Yankee concludes:

... their philosophical bearing is not an outcome of
mental training, intellectual fortitude, reasoning; it
is mere animal training . . . .1

The Yankee also concludes that as startling as the
innocence and ignorance of the people are, the kingdom would
not be the kingdom without it.

There did not seem to be brains enough in the

entire nursery, so to speak, to bait a fishhood with;
but you didn't seem to mind, after a little, because

 

l71bid., p. 19.

18Ibid., p. 20.

79

you soon saw that brains were not needed in a society
like that, and indeed would have marred it, hindered
it, spoiled its symmetry--perhaps rendered its exist-
ence impossible.1

In this kingdom, where church and state are intertwined,

the ecclesiastical members of society are the only "educated"

ones .

. . . Nobody in the kingdom could read or write
but a dozen priests. Land! Think of that.20

The ignorance of the people annoys the Yankee. He faults
the church and then scorns the government.

. . . Any kind of royalty, howsoever modified,
any kind of aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly
an insult; but if you are born and brought up under
that sort of arrangement you probably never find it
out for yourself, and don't believe it when someone
else tells you. It is enough to make a body ashamed
of his race to think of the sort of froth that has
always occupied the thrones without shadow of right or
reason, and the seventh-rate people that have always
figured as its aristocracies . . . 21

So because of the comparative ignorance of the members of
the kingdom, the Yankee is elevated to the position of
"Boss".

He immediately decides to remake the sixth century
Camelot over in the image of nineteenth century Bridgeport.
To upgrade the people, he initiates schools, patent offices

and newspapers. He proceeds to resurrect a dead nation.

 

l91bid., p. 22.

2°Ibid., p. 54.

21Ibid., p. 62.

80

He recruits the brightest young talent he can for his future
civilization. He has the beginnings of all sorts of indus-
tries operating. He tries to train a crowd of ignorant
people into experts. He shares his practicality. The key

item in the Yankee's "New Deal" is education:
“I

I had started a teacher-factory and a lot of
Sunday Schools the first thing; as a result, I now had
an admirable system of graded schools in full blast in
those places, and also a complete variety of Protestant
congregations all in a prosperous and growing condition.
Everybody could be any kind of a Christian he wanted
to; there was perfect freedom in that matter. But I
confined public religious teaching to the curches and
Sunday-schools, permitting nothing of it in my other
educational buildings.22

Separation Church and State

 

Twain's attitude about the dangers of joining edu-
cation with religious instruction is clear here. He does
not want the school used to reinforce what ecclesistics
decree. He fights an established church by encouraging
heterogeneous religious sects. He warns against the dan-
gers of convergent thinking as an obstacle to progress and
enlightenment. Recall that he supported Rutherford B.
Hayes as a Presidential candidate because Hayes advocated
protection of the public schools against sectarian inter-

ference, thirteen years before A Connecticut Yankee In

 

King Arthur's Court was written. The Yankee also scatters

 

some branch schools secretly about the kingdom. He

 

22Ibid., p. 77.

81

initiates, also, both naval and military academies. King
Arthur sends the Yankee off with a damsel named Sandy to
help her rid her land of demons. In his travels, the

Yankee sees the condition of the kingdom at first-hand. The
Yankee is angered by the blind ignorance of the peOple and
of the monarchy which holds them in check:

I was from Connecticut, whose constitution
declares that all political power is inherent in the
people, and all free governments are founded on their
authority and instituted for their benefit; and that
they have at all times an undeniable and indefeasible
right to alter their form of government in such a
manner as they may think expedient.

On the quest for the demons, the Yankee and his
party meet some knights tutored by the Yankee himself.
These knights wear signs which read "Persimmon's Soap--All
The Prime-Donne Use It." Earlier, having acted in a teach-
ing capacity, the Yankee attempts to educate the people of
the kingdom about hygiene. He says of the soap advertise-
ments:

That was a little idea of my own, and had
several wholesome purposes in view toward the civilizing
and uplifting this nation . . . ; these missionaries
would gradually, and without creating suspicion or
exciting alarm, introduce a rudimentary cleanliness
among the nobility, and from them it would work down
to the people if the priests could be kept quiet. This
would undermine the church. I mean would be a step
toward that. Next education--next freedom--and then
she would crumble.é

 

231bid., p. 107.

24Ibid., p. 128.

82

Training

On the same expedition to capture the demons which
plague Sandy, the Boss stays at the castle of Morgan LeFay,
sister of King Arthur. The Boss is appalled at her callous-
ness toward her prisoners. As much as the Boss finds fault
with her indifferent attitude toward her prisoners, he de-
cedes that she cannot help herself. She is, after all, a
product of training. She has been made to be what she is.

. . . It was no use to waste sense on her. Training-
training is everything; Training is all there is to a
person. We speak of nature; it is folly; There is no
such thing as nature; what we call by that misleading
name is merely heredity and training. We have no
thoughts of our own; no opinions of our own; they are
transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is origi-
nal in us, and therefore fairly creditable or discredit-
able to us, can be covered up or hidden by the point of
a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms contributed
by and inherited from, a procession of ancestors that
stretches back a billion years to the adam-clam or
grasshopper or monkey from whom our race has been so
tediously and ostentatiously and unprofitably developed.
And as for me, all that I think about in this plodding
sad pilgrimage, this pathetic drift between the eter-
nities, is to look out and humbly live a pure and high
and blameless life, and save that one microscopic atom
in me that is truly me . . .

No, confound her, her intellect was good, she
had brains enough, but her training made her an ass-
that is, from a many-centuries later point of view. To
kill the page her prisoner was no crime-it was her
right; and upon her right she stood, serenely and un-
conscious of Offense. She was a result of generations
of training . .

What a notable passage! Here is Twain eloquently
addressing himself to the effects of conditioning and of

indoctrination. Morgan Le Fay's predicament is Huck's.

 

251bid., pp. 150-151.

83

Both have psyches overladen with environmental and cultured
residue. Twain's position should not be construed to mean
that he is totally cynical about the possibility of man's
enlightenment. That one tiny cell, the Me he refers to,
represents his optimism. It is the Me in Huck which
triumphs. Despite the training, despite the conditioning,
man can break free; the intellect can triumph. The sixth
century citizen doesn't realize this; the nineteenth century
citizen does. Democracy frees the Me; monarchy does not.
Democracy and enlightenment include respect for the dignity,
the Me, of the individual. The freedom, the nurturing of
the Me is a long and tedious pursuit. Huck makes a momen-
tary correct decision. One cannot be sure he will continue
to make right decisions. The Me has been so long neglected,
has so long lain dormant. And so one finds a crucial edu-
cational idea in this work. It is that training and edu-
cation are dissimilar concepts to Twain. The one is
constraining the other emancipating. Morgan Le Fay has a
"good intellect"; it is merely inoperative in this particular
society at this particular time. It is that aspect of her
personality which hasn't been developed. If it were
developed she wouldn't do the things she does. Man's in—
humanity to man comes about through training. It disappears

when one is enlightened, when one is educated.

84

Having reconciled the problem of the demon to his
satisfaction, the Yankee decides to investigate the life-
style of the sixth century people more by disguising him-
self as a freeman. He pretends that he is a peasant and
sets out on foot to explore the country for a week or two.
The king wishes to join him so he insists that King Arthur
also strip himself of his true identity and pose as a
pilgrim the better to know the country and to get the feel
of it. He teaches the King how to be lowly:

You must learn the trick; you must imitate the
trademarks of poverty, misery, oppression, insult, and
the other several and common inhumanities that sap the
manliness out of a man and make him a loyal and proper
and approved subject and a satisfaction to his
masters . . . 26

The Yankee and the King are sold as slaves. The King with-
out his regal garb is very much like any other man. Only
training and conditioning allow certain men to assume
status. The King does not bring a very high price.

Yes, we were sold at auction, like swine. In
a big town and active market we should have brought a
good price; but this place was utterly stagnant and
sold at a figure which makes me ashamed, every time I
think of it. The King of England brought seven
dollars.27

The King learns a great deal from his enslavement and de-

cides that slavery must be abolished.

 

26Ibid., pp. 274-275.

271bid., pp. 351-352.

85

We had a rought time for a month, tramping to
and fro in the earth, and suffering. And what English
man was the most interested in the slavery question by
that time? His grace the King! Yes; from being the
most indifferent, he was become the most interested.
He was become the bitterest hater of the institution
I had ever heard talk.28

The King and Boss need help. The Yankee gets word back to
Camelot that he and the King are in trouble, and Sir
Launcelot and the knights come to their rescue.

The Yankee returns to Camelot and openly exposes
his secret schools and factories to the kingdom. In the
fifth, sixth, and seventh year of his stay in this kingdom,
he feels that he has made progress. Not only has he apprised
the citizenry, from the King down, of its ignorance but
also he has attempted to combat it with his "New Deal", a
program of noteworthy educational substance.

Now look around on England. A happy and pros-
perous country, and strangely altered. Schools every-
where, and several colleges; a number of pretty good
newspapers . . . . Slavery was dead and gone; all men 29
were equal before the law; taxation had been equalized.

SO on a great, buoyant note, the Yankee feels rewarded:

I was very happy. Things were working steadily
toward a secretly longed-for point. You see, I had
two schemes in my head which were the vastest of all my
projects. The one was to overthrow the Catholic church
and set up the Protestant faith on its ruins-not as an
established Church, but a go-as-you-please one; and
the other project was to get a decree issued by and by,

commanding that upon Arthur's death unlimited suffrage
should be introduced, and given to men and women alike

 

28Ibid., pp. 355-356.

291bid., p. 398.

86

Arthur was good for thirty years yet . . . and I be-
lieved that in that time I could easily have the active
part of the population of that day ready and eager for
an event which should be the first of its kind in the
history of the world--the result would be a republic.30

Universal Suffrage

 

Here again is Twain's plea for universal suffrage,

an idea developed at great length in The Gilded Age and in

 

The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn. A republic must be

 

based on involved, enlightened citizens. A monarchy legis-
lates against such involvement. Such a concept as a
republic, Twain argues, involves education. A society
must have schools which operate freely. The church and
school cannot become intertwined if either is to operate
effectively. Education must begin formally when children
are young to offset the societal conditioning which very
often enslaves.

The Yankee, of course, as knowledgeable as he is,
does not know that his dream will never be realized. His
child ill, the Yankee sails to France. He returns to
England to find Arthur dead and the country under an in-
terdict:

The church was going to keep the upper hand

now, and snuff out all my beautiful civilization just
like that . . . I groped my way with a heavy heart.31

 

3°Ibid., pp. 399-400.

3llbid., p. 412.

87

The Yankee's faithful friend Clarence is frightened.

The church is master now. The Interdict in-
cluded you [the Yankee] with Mordred [a Knight]; it is
not to be removed while you remain alive. The clans
are gathering. The church has gathered all the knights
that are left alive, and as soon as you are discovered
we shall have business on our hands. 2

The Yankee, of course, isn't concerned. After all, he has
educated a new breed of young men who will follow him.
He replies:

Stuff! with our deadly scientific war material; with
our hosts of trained-

[and Clarence interjects]

Save your breath—-we haven't sixty faithful left.
[The Yankee responds:]

What are you saying? Our schools, our colleges, our
vast workshops . . .

[Clarence answers:]

When those knights come, those establishments will
empty themselves and go over to the enemy. Did you
think you had educated the superstition out of these
people?

[The Yankee concludes:]

I certainly did think it.33

Clarence, however, has been able to assemble a group of
young boys. In the group of fifty two, none is younger than
fourteen and none is older than seventeen. The Yankee wants
to know why such young boys were selected. Clarence
responds:
Because all the others were born in an atmos-
phere of superstition and reared in it. It is in their
blood and bones. We imagined that we had educated it

out of them [the others]; they thought so, too; The
interdict woke them up like a thunderclap! It revealed

 

321bid., pp. 419-420.

331bid., p. 420.

88

them to themselves, and it revealed them to me, too.
With boys it was different. Such as have been under
our training from seven to ten years have had no ac-
quaintance with the Church's terggrs, and it was among
these that I found my fifty two.
And so the fifty two go against insurmountable odds. When
the battle ends, the kingdom is destroyed and twenty five
thousand lay dead. The Yankee is stabbed in the back and
Merlin gets his revenge. Those originally conquered are
now the conquerors. What went wrong with the Yankee's
scheme? What is the point of Twain's work? It is simply
this. The times were wrong for the Yankee's educational
ideas. It doesn't mean that his ideas were wrong, however.
He conceded that more time would be needed to affect his
two fold plan. He never got his time.

Twain is making the point that it takes a great
deal of time to un-do training. Again, one cannot count on
Huck to make the right decision again anymore than one can
expect the people of the kingdom to change their long-
developed sentiments in the short space of seven years.
Education, the freeing of the Me, takes time. In American
society today the racial problem is a paradigm. The
freeing of the Me, the digging out of the Me from the

layers of cultural conditioning and training is a long,

arduous task. SO long as man is not solely the victim of

 

34Ibid., p. 422.

89

conditioning and training, so long as there is that atom
of individuality which will respond to education and resist
training, there is hope. It's worth the fight.

Education and Democratic
Societies

 

 

Mark Twain, this writer feels, is dedicated to the
notion that education can be liberating. Enlightened men,

Twain argues in The Gilded Age, The Adventures Of Huckle-

 

berry Finn, and in A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's

 

EEEEEI denounce injustice, decry ignorance, and deplore
evil. The ideal society is a republic which functions
democratically. Democracy is absent when men cease to be
men and become automata, victims of insidious training and
of false political cant. Twain argues that education takes
time, that it is a cradle to grave undertaking. Further,
he argues that a republic cannot endure an unenlightened
citizenry. The one out-cancels the other. In the Huck
Finn saga he explores the dangers of training and shows us
what happens positively to Huck as a result of his educa-
tional experience. He does not, however, Offer concrete
solutions as to how education might best operate in Southern

society. In A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court,

 

he isolates a system of government he rejects, and argues
for a democratic republic. Additionally, he suggests that
education and a republic are synonymous. The central focus

of the Connecticut Yankee story is education. Inherent

90

in that discussion of education, one finds a consistent
restatement of Twain's educational philosophy. The supreme
statement of his viewpoint regarding education and politics
is in his "The Curious Republic of Gondour" which will be

examined in this study of Mark Twain's educational ideas.

Teacher-Student Motif

 

The method used to convey the educational matter in
A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court is again a
teacher-student motif. The Yankee is best viewed as a
teacher. That is his only role in the work. He seeks to
change the kingdom by teaching its inhabitants another
life—style and so he establishes schools to reach the masses.
On a more personal basis, he teaches Clarence, his man-
servant, how to read and write, how to organize and how to
lead. He teaches King Arthur, too. Arthur becomes a stu-
dent who is taught not only by the Yankee but also by his
subjects. Arthur learns some very valuable lessons from
experience.

Thus, it is again that one of Twain's works is
concerned with education. That education is a preoccupying
concern of Twain's and that it becomes the major thrust of
A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court is obvious.
Twain returns again and again to the role, function and
importance of education in society. He labors to show

correlations between degrees of enlightenment and education

91

and humaneness. The undergirding of just and humane so-
cieties is the eduation of the citizens. In those societies
where education is absent men are enslaved, but in some
societies education does not necessarily produce unenslaved
men. Those societies must work harder at education. Those
societies may not be educating but merely training. Twain

would argue that there is a vital distinction.

CHAPTER V

"ON TRAINING CHILDREN," "ENGLISH AS
SHE IS TAUGHT," "WHAT IS MAN?" "THE

CURIOUS REPUBLIC OF GONDOUR"

Introduction

 

In previous chapters, this writer has argues that
Mark Twain in four major novels deals with recurring trid-
ical motifs. He assumes the role of teacher, which is the
first motif, to exhort his readers, both children and adults
alike, to consider their relationships to society, to their
family, and to their friends. It is important to under-
stand the teaching function which Twain assumes in some of
his works because this orientation enables a reader to see
additional merit in the man and his work. Such an insight
moves Twain out Of the purely entertainment realm as a
writer and into one of moral, social and intellectual sig-
nificance. Such an insight, too, suggests the ever in-
creasing multiplicity of levels at which Twain can be read,
a mark, this reader feels, of his literary genius. Not to
see Twain acting in some of his works as a teacher, not to
view some of the works didactically, is to miss a very im-

portant aspect of Twain's contribution to American letters.

92

93

The second motif involves variations on the theme of edu-

cation. That education, schooling, and training are key

concepts in the Twain novels studied and analyzed is obvious.
The man had a significant preoccupation with the

theme of education; it is his idee fixe.- It has been dem-

 

onstrated that the ideological context of at least four
novels by Twain is education. The third motif which Twain
employs is that of a teacher-student relationship. A
character is always teaching another character as the author
Twain teaches his readers. Additional research shows that
Twain is concerned with similar motifs in his shorter

works, in some of his short stories, for example, and in

certain of his essays.

"On Training Children"

 

Summarized

 

The short essay "On Training Children" was written

in 1885, the same year that Twain wrote The Adventures Of

 

HuckleberryFinn.l The genesis of the short essay was

 

Twain's reaction to the disciplinary mishandling, he felt,
of a child who had been rude to his parents. Very briefly
summarized, the essay is an account which appeared in The

Christian Union newspaper about a young boy who entered his

 

 

lCharles Neider, editor, Mark Twain Life As I Find
LE, "On Training Children" (New York: Hanover House,
1961).

 

94

father's library, snatched a letter out of his father's
hand and threw it on the floor. The child was severely
punished by his parents. To the newspaper's query of what
ought to have been done, Twain responded that both he and
his wife would be grieved and surprised that the patient
training of one of their children never to insult anyone

would so suddenly fall to ruin.

Child Punishment

 

Twain remarks that he is a fortunate parent who for
a number of years has been accustomed to having well-
behaved children. He initially had four children, but his
son died at a very early age. Twain loved his girls,
especially his daughter, Jean. His response to the case
of the rude little boy is that the father should keep still
and not make any stupid remarks. He feels that the mother
is able to deal with the case. He suggests that the mother
take the child to a private area of the home, take him up
into her lap and love him out of his wrong mood so that
eventually he will apologize to the father. He suggests
that the child be reasoned with and if reasoning doesn't
work, a whipping should be forthcoming. The whipping,
however, should not be administered until the sting of the
original difficulty is out of the parents' minds. The
whipping should then be administered on purely business

principles, discipline principles, with the parents' hearts

 

95

free of rancor and ill-will. Significant to the child, is
Twain's attitude that he never go from the scene of punish-
ment until he is loved back into "happy—heartedness" and a
"joyful spirit."2 Twain's sympathies are with the child who
is a victim of a weak mother and father.

Thus, this short essay is another example of Twain's
concern with concepts of training and education. He sees
the external environment of an individual as crucial to
his formation and development. His attitude about children
presented in this essay is interesting when it is compared
with the attitude toward Huck which he reveals in The Ad-

ventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck, it will be recalled,

 

is severely beaten by his father. Jim also beats his
daughter. Twain is alarmed and saddened by these child-
beatings. A consistent projection of his attitudes in this

area is found in The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer. There, Tom

 

is administered repeated doses of noxious stimuli by his
teacher. So it is, then, that one finds a consistency in
attitude and philosophy by Twain toward positive means of
training and education. Additionally, one detects his
horror toward varying modes of inhumanity, a horror identi-
fied in The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures

Of Tom Sawyer, and in A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's

 

 

Court. His stress on reason is consistent with his

 

2Ibid., p. 210.

96

characterization of just men. The parents he criticizes

are stupid and weak. Their reactions are automatic and
passionate. Twain argues for cool, intellectual, mature
reasoned solutions to problems. The essay exhibits the
triadical Twain motifs in miniature. Twain teaches the
readers how to train children; the essay has an educational-
ideological context. Its content is epistemological. It
deals with how children learn. And, the essay suggests a

teacher-student motif of parents and child.

"English As She is Taught"

 

Summarized

 

"English As She Is Taught' is an amusing short

3 It is abundant in in-

essay which Twain wrote in 1900.
vectives against that educational philosophy which views
children as insensitive automata. The impetus for this
clever essay was a request by a friend that Twain judge a
book, a volume containing an array of examples of English
as it was then being taught in the public schools of
America, to see if it were worthy of publication. While

scanning it, Twain recalls a reference in the appendix to

Croker's Boswell's Johnson to a child who knew Cato's

 

soliloquy but who did not know the number of pence in

 

3Charles Neider, editor, The Complete Essays Of
Mark Twain, "English As She Is Taughtfi(Garden City:
Doubleday & CO., Inc., 1963).

 

 

97

Sixpence. Boswell, he recalls, queried if anything could
be more ridiculous than to teach a child Cato's soliloquy
who does not know how many pence in a Sixpence. Twain, it
will be recalled, shares Boswell's disdain for rote-
memorization. The Hawkins children, Twain writes, are
subjected to similar dreadful school experiences in EMe

Gilded Age:

 

Within a week or two, the Hawkinses were comfortably
domiciled in a new loghouse, and were beginning to

feel at home. The children were put to school; at
least it was what passed for school in those days: a
place where tender young humanity devoted itself for
eight to ten hours a day to learning incomprehensible
rubble by heart out of books and reciting by rote, like
parrots; so that a finished education consisted simply
of a permanent headache and the ability to read with-
out stOpping to spell the words or take breath.4

Rote-Memorization

 

In The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, the "year-end

 

examination" invites Twain's scorn for rote also. The
children, as automata, parade forward to recite insensi-
tively their various declamations, presented, Twain ventures,
by their mothers and fathers many years before them. The

dramatization by Twain of The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer

 

entitled "Tom Sawyer: A Play" is a strong illustration of
Twain's contempt for school memorization exercises. Dis-
regarding the answers of the children, consider the kinds

of questions asked by Mr. Dobbins, the schoolmaster:

 

4Mark Twain, Charles C. Warner, The Gilded Age,

 

p. 54.

98

William, who discovered America?

Where was he born?

What was the date of the discovery?

What countryman was he?

What was his religion?

What did he say when the new world burst upon him in

the early dawn?5
The college professor of a History of American Education
course would do well to direct his students to Twain's play
and to have his students role-play this part of rote memor-
ization by early schoolmasters in America. The insight
gained is invaluable.

Twain samples the kinds of questions asked in class-
rooms as these are summarized in "English As She Is Taught."
For instance, the following questions are asked in school
exams:

Mention all the names of places in the world derived
from Julius Caesar or Augustus Caesar.
Where are the following rivers? Pisuerga, Sakaria,
Gradalete, Jalon, Mulde?6
Twain's response to the sampling of questions is educa-
tionally provocative:
Isn't it reasonably possible that in our schools many
of the questions in all studies are several miles
ahead of where the pupil is? --that he is set to

struggle with things that are ludicrously beyond his
present reach, hopelessly beyond his present strength?7

 

5Walter Blair, Mark Twain And Huck Finn (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1960), pp. 300-301.

6

 

Neider, The Complete Esseye of Mark Twain, p. 37.

 

7Ibid., p. 37.

99

Mark Twain obviously subscribed to the start where the
child is educational philosophy. It should be recalled
that his characterization of Huckleberry Finn is equally
Rousseuian in orientation. He removes Huckleberry from
society in "Emile-like" fashion. Twain is incensed by the
schools' preoccupation with rote-memorization, but he faults
the overseers of schools not teachers:

Not the struggling child, nor the unintelligent
teacher—-or rather the unintelligent boards, committees,
trustees--are the proper target for it [criticism].8 Twain
continues his criticism of this type of educational method—
ology.

Pupils in our public schools are not merely loaded up
with those showy facts about geography, mathematics,
and so on, and left in that incomplete state: no,
there's machinery for clarifying and expanding their
minds. They are required to take poems and analyze
them, dig out their common sense, reduce them to sta-
tistics, and reproduce them in a luminous prose trans-

lation which shall tell you at a glance what the poet
was trying to get at.9

Function of Intellect

Twain's belief that education should produce prac-
tical pragmatic men is evident in his reaction to "English
As She Is Taught." He does not view intellect as passive

or dormant. The mind is not a storehouse to be filled with

 

8Ibid., p. 47.

9Ibid., p. 41.

100

insignificant trivia. Functional men get things done.
They bring ingenuity to bear on particular problems. A
clever man is the Connecticut Yankee. He's a doer, a man
of action. His intellect is creative not imitative. In-
telligent men are practical men whose intellects are in-
struments used to their advantages. Twain holds no stock
in ornamental knowledge for its own sake:
A large part of the pupil's "instruction" consists of
cramming him with obscure and wordy "rules" which he
does not understand and has no time to understand. It
would be useful to cram him with brickbats; they would
at least stay. Some students are as glib as parrots
with the "rules" but cannot reason out a single rule
or explain the principle underlying it. Their memories
have been stocked, but not their understandings. It
is a case of brickbat culture, pure and simple.
And so it is, then, that Huck Finn, for example, is liber—
ated from a brickbat pre Civil War culture where he knows
the rules but is unable to reason or to understand. So,
too, Tom Sawyer is freed from the hum-drum of a brickbat
culture school where little is of relevance to his needs

and interests. Again, Twain is consistent in his educational

philosophy in his biases toward specific kinds of content

and method.

 

10Ibid., p. 47.

101

“What is Man?"

 

"What Is Man?" is a longer essay written in 1906.
It is a curious piece of writing because in it, in some
ways, Twain both refutes and supports many of the ideas
which have been cited as central to an understanding of his
educational philosophy. One can read and analyze "What Is

Man?" in at least three contexts.

Three Interpretations

The first context includes viewing the essay as a
reflection of Twain's evolving despair and cynicism which
came about as the result of the deaths of his wife, and
daughter, and his business failures.11 In this sense, it
is thought that Twain Views man as a product and victim of
fate, a prisoner in a cold, insensitive, mechanistic uni-
verse. A second context includes analyzing "What Is Man?"
as Twain's most notorious work which is "actually not so
much dark and desperate as it is a kind of deliberately
cynical refutation of the genteel Victorian taboos about
life."12 The third approach, which this writer advances,

is to View the piece as another statement of Mark Twain's

educational philosophy in which he synthesizes, modulates,

 

llBernard DeVoto, Mark Twain At Work (Cambridge,
Mass: Harvard University Press) 1942.

12Maxwell Geismar, Mark Twain An American Prophet
(Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1970), p. 259.

 

102

and, finally, harmonizes various ideas presented in many

of his other works. "What Is Man?" is another selection

by Twain replete with notions about training, conditioning,
education, and man's relationship to society. The structure
of the piece is educational for in it a Socratic dialogue
takes place between an "old-man" and a "young-man." There
is an initial hint of a relationship between form and con-
tent which is borne out as the reader progresses through

the ideas. It would be significant to isolate central edu-
cational concepts in "What Is Man?" and then attempt to

relate these to other Twain works.

Concept of Limitation

 

One concept which Twain advances is that of
"limitation." That is, educationally, there is a point
beyond which one cannot grow:

There are gold men, and tin men, and copper men, and
leaden men, and steel men, and so on--and each has the
limitations of his nature, his heredities, his training,
and his environment.13
This writer does not find this educational idea repulsive.
It is most realistic. Certainly it is not an egalitarian
orientation, but it is consistent with Twain's ideas in
"The Curious Republic Of Gondour" wherein the most educa-

tionally qualified members of society cast votes which

count the most. This writer also finds this viewpoint

 

13Neider, The Complete Essays Of Mark Twain, p. 337.

103

consistent with the one expressed in "English As She Is
Taught." People are different, children are different.
Expectations, therefore, about people and children ought to
be different. The idea is also consistent with the view-

point expressed about environment in A Connecticut Yankee

 

In King Arthur's Court. Men, Twain argues, in that work,

 

have the limitations of their environments. A monarchical
environment is not liberating. That a democratic environ-
ment does produce gold, tin, copper, leaden, and steel men

is a sine qua non. Democratic environments produce indi-

 

viduals of varying aptitudes and abilities. This writer,
the, does not choose to see the Twain statement as nihilis-
tic or pessimistic; it's most realistic and honest.
A more controversial statement from Twain's "What
Is Man?" deals with his analysis and consequent denial of
man's capacity for originality.
Whatsoever a man is, is due to his make, and to the
influences brought to bear upon it by his heredities,
his habitat, his associations. He is moved, directed,
commanded, by exterior influences solely. He originates
nothing, not even a thought.14
Because this writer has demonstrated that Twain has an
abiding compelling interest in education which shapes the
scope of many of his works, she chooses to see this state-

ment as another reflection of Twain's educational philo-

sophical position. Certain it is that he is a realist.

 

l41bid.

104

This writer does not find this Twain predisposition to be
frightening. Viewed another way, it is conceivable that
Twain appropriates the pose of the old man and his responses
to satirize erroneous notions about the capabilities of
men. It is a vieWpoint which could be construed to mean
that Twain, in the last analysis, does feel that man can
never transcend the automaton level. However, since "What
Is Man?" is best understood in its totality, this writer
chooses to see the statement as reflective of a realistic
educational position. Subsequent sections provide the
necessary evidence to make this writer's interpretation
coherent. This is a point vital to a discussion of "What
Is Man?" Not only is there evidence which is in coherence
with ideas in other Twain works but also corresponding
evidence abounds also. So the writer's argument Obtains
on at least two counts of evidence.

Notice what Twain writes about Shakespeare. Re-
member what the Yankee feels about Morgan Le Fay. Think
about Huckleberry Finn had he been born and reared in
Maine.

If Shakespeare had been born and bred on a barren and
unvisited rock in the ocean his mighty intellect would
have no outside material to work with and could have
invented none; and no outside influences, teachings,
moldings, persuasions, inspirations, of a valuable

sort, and could have invented none; and so Shakespeare
would have produced nothing.

 

151bid., p. 339.

105

This writer does not support the interpretation of "What Is
Man?" which views Twain in it as cynical, pessimistic, or
negativistic--The preceding quotation is another statement
of Twain's central intellectual concerns, the concerns of
environment, training, education, and enculturation--"What
Is Man?" is not a departure by Twain from the central pos-
ture he assumes in his earlier works cited in this study.

It is, rather, a consistent restatement, a variant, perhaps,

and a synthesis of his earlier educational ideas.

Training
Twain's focus on the concept of "training" has been

noted. It is a basic intellectual concern in The Adventures

 

Of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's
EEEEE! "On Training Children" and, most importantly, in
"What Is Man?" Since Twain feels that all of the stimuli
acting on man are external, he concludes that the correct
environment is crucial. This, of course, is Obvious in his
reference to Shakespeare. He suggests that there is value
in training people in the right direction.

Inestimably valuable is training, influence, education,

in right directions--training one's self--approbation
to elevate its ideals.

 

16Ibid.. p- 340.

106

The last part of his statement refers to the fact that he
feels people do most of the things they do in life to gain
personal approval. He sees self-approbation as a basic
drive behind man's motivations. Getting people to channel
their self—approbation needs into more socially oriented
realms as opposed to purely personal ones can improve the

society. Take, for instance, the king in A Connecticut

 

Yankee In King Arthur's Court. The Yankee gets the king

 

to see that for himself approbation is still possible with-
out slavery and, consequently, the kingdom is better.
That is, a king can still be respected with or without
slavery but no slavery is a higher social good.

It is interesting to note that Twain's definition
of "training" shifts slightly in "What Is Man?" when com-

pared to his use of it in, say, A Connecticut Yankee In

 

King Arthur's Court. In the latter work, he chooses not
to fault Morgan Le Fay in her attitude toward her prisoner
because he feels that she is a product of training. He
chooses to see her training as a habituated activity.

That is, her training within a monarchical environment does
not enable her to function intelligently in the sense that
the Yankee functions intelligently. The Roman Catholic
Church imprisons her intellect and causes her to function
at a "trained" behavioral level. Huck Finn, on the other
hand, once removed from his enculturated training environ-

ment, serves as an example of the intellect functioning

107

properly when he makes the rational decision to free Jim.
So prior to "What Is Man?" Twain dichotomizes training and
education. Now, in "What Is Man?", education becomes a
kind of training. To the young man's query of what is
"training," the old man responds:
Stuffy, instruction, lectures, sermons? That is part
of it-—but not a large part. I mean all the outside
influences. There are a million of them. From the
cradle to the grave, during all his waking hours,
the human being is under training . . . . The in-
fluences about him create his preferences, his aversions,
his politics, his tastes, his morals, his religion.17
Mark Twain's educational philosophy is most obvious. He
sees education as an on-going process which includes all of
the experiences which an individual participates in from the
cradle to the grave. Life itself is educational. Thus it
is that Tom and Huck are truant. Thus it is that what Tom
and Huck do outside of school is as educational as what they
do in school. And thus it is that Mark Twain left school
and learned so many great, important lessons as a printer,
a journalist, a miner, a politician, a riverboat captain, a
soldier, a businessman, and a writer. Writing "What Is Man?"
in 1906 and dying shortly thereafter in 1910, Twain may be
viewed, again, not as a pessimist, a cynic, a negativist,
but, rather, as a man who is summing up his various thoughts,

who is looking back at his life and drawing educational

conclusions which are consistent with his earlier educational

 

l71bid., p. 360.

108

ideas. In a Herbartian--like manner, Twain describes him-
self best in a closing section of "What Is Man?".
With memory to help, man preserves his observations
and reasonings, reflects upon them, adds to them,
recombines, and so proceeds, stage by stage to form
results.18
"What Is Man?" must be viewed within Twain's educational
field of vision. It is another work rich with educational
ideas for it abounds with Twain's epistemological consider-
ations. It is a work which falls very nicely into place

within the scheme of this writer's interpretation, which

postulates Twain as an educator of no mean proportions.

"The Curious Republic Of Gondour"

 

"The Curious Republic Of Gondour," published in

1919, had originally appeared in the October, 1875 Atlantic

19 Mark Twain and his life-long,

as an unsigned article.
great friend, William Dean Howells, had exchanged lengthy

letters and prolonged discussions in which they endeavored
to reform the ways of the democracy, in this case the ques-

20

tion of voting rights. Twain "proposed his solution to

the problem of democracy: turn it into an aristocracy;

 

18Ibid., p. 386.

19Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens And Mark Twain (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1966), p. 168?

20Frederick Anderson, William Gibson, Henry Nash
Smith, Selected Mark Twain-Howells Letters.

 

 

109

instead of constricting the vote, which would be unconsti-
tutional, why not expand it by rewarding men of education,
property, and achievement with five or even ten votes each.21
His friends reported that Twain had lost all faith in the
American government and wanted to see it overthrown.22
He inveighed against this wicked, ungodly, suffrage
. . . where the vote of a man who knew nothing was as
good as the vote of a man of education and industry;
this endeavor to equalize what God had made unequal
was a wrong and a shame.
Significant to this study is the fact that the focus of
Twain in "The Curious Republic Of Gondour" is education.
It doesn't matter whether the document is analyzed in
chronological sequence with the other works in this study
or whether it is looked at out of sequence when it was
made available for a more broadened public. The conclusions

drawn are comparable. In chronological sequence as an

Atlantic article, it comes between The Gilded Age, published

 

in 1873 and The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, published

 

in 1885.

 

21Kaplan, Mr. Clemens And Mark Twain, p. 168.

 

22Ibid.

23Ibid.

110

Education and Democraey

 

Recalling that "The Curious Republic Of Gondour"
is Twain's statement about his disenchantment with the
voting requirements in America at the time, the following
exerpts from the literary selections which precede and
succeed it become significantly interesting. From EMe

Gilded Age, one reads:

 

From the centre of our country to its circumference,
nothing was talked of but Mr. Noble's terrible reve-
lation, and the people were furious. Mind, they were
not furious because bribery was uncommon in our public
life, but merely because here was another case. Per-
haps it did not occur to the nation of good and worthy
people that while they continued to sit comfortably at
home and leave the true source of our political power,
the "primaries," in the hands of saloon-keepers, dog-
fanciers and hog-carriers, they could go on expecting
"another" case of this kind, and even dozens and hun-
dreds of them, and never be disappointed. However,
they may have thought that to sit at home and grumble
would someday right the evil.24

And, in The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, Pap says,

 

They said he [a Negro college professor] could vote,
when he was home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I,
what is this country a coming to? It was 'lection
day, and I was just too drunk to get there; but when
they told me there was a state in this country where
they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says
I'll never vote again.

 

24Mark Twain, Charles D. Warner, The Gilded Age,
pp. 405—406.

25
pp. 26-27.

 

Mark Twain, The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn,

111

A twelve year span separates The Gilded Age and The Adven-

 

 

tures Of Huckleberry Finn yet Twain's sustained interest

 

in the correlation between education and democracy, docu-
mented in this dissertation in considerable detail, is
obvious. That interest reaches its greatest intensity in
"The Curious Republic Of Gondour." Viewed out of chrono-
logical sequence and approached as a posthumous publication
directed at a wider audience in 1919, the article is,
nevertheless, a convincingly argued selection in which
Twain is consistent with the variety of educational ideas
analyzed in this study. In or out of sequential chrono-
logical perspective, the work is crucial to an understanding

of Mark Twain's educational philosophy.

Educational Ideas

 

It is important at this point to analyze the spe-
cific educational ideas in this significant article by
Twain. An unidentified visitor, presumably Twain, visits
the Republic of Gondour, a nation which has dispensed with
universal suffrage because its results are unsatisfactory.
In this republic, the defect of universal suffrage is that
the power has gone into the hands of the ignorant who also
fill all political Offices. A remedy is sought whereby the
concept of universal suffrage can be preserved yet altered
in both theory and practice. The solution is to enlarge

the concept of universal suffrage. The constitution, after

112

all, gives each man a vote. It does not say that each man
cannot have two votes or ten. So new laws are passed.
Each citizen, no matter how poor or ignorant, gets one
vote. However, the following new rules are drawn up:

1. If a man has a common school education and no money,
he gets two votes.

2. If a man has a high school education, he gets four
votes.

3. If a man has property of the value of 3,000 sacos,
he gets one more.

4. For every 50,000 sacos, a man adds to his property
he gets another vote.

5. If a man has a university education, he gets nine
votes even though no property is owned.2

Twain engages a citizen of the republic in a conversation,
and he is told that under this new provision, learning is
more prevalent and more easily acquired than riches. Edu-
cated men are wholesale, and they check upon wealthy men
since they can out-vote them. The citizen tells Twain:
Learning goes usually with uprightness, broad views,
and humanity; so the learned voters, possessing the
balance of power, become the vigilant and efficient
protectors of the great lower rank of society.

So far, it is easy to see that Twain perceives education

as the crucial dimension of an enlightened, just, democratic

 

26"Sac08" are equivalent to currency.

27Samuel L. Clemens, The CuriousRepublich Gondour
and Other Whimsical Sketches TNew Yofk: Boni and Liver-
tht’ 1919) I p0 30

28

 

Ibid., pp. 3-4.

113

society. This theme is his abiding concern in many of his
works, and it is in "The Curious Republic Of Gondour" that
the theme is given restatement. Twain is assured by his
guide in the visit to Gondour that education is the bulwark
without which there would be little justice or little
morality. An aspect of Gondour which strikes Twain as
most curious is that no compulsory education laws exist.
His guide explains the phenomenon to him.
When a man's child is able to make himself powerful and
honored according to the amount of education he requires,
don't you suppose that that parent will apply the com-
pulsion himself? Our free schools and free colleges
require no law to fill them.29
Again, one sees Twain's attitudes about environment. That
society which enculturates its people to equate political
competency with educational background will value education
more than that society which sees no relationship between
educational background and political leadership. It is
important, however, to recall that Twain is arguing for the
education not merely of political leaders but of the elec-
torate as well. No function would be served by simply
having intelligent politicians. A just, effectively func-

tioning democratic society is committed to education as a

pervasive characteristic of its corporate life.

 

291bid., p. 11.

114

Mark Twain's discussions of education, as far as the
selections within the scope of this study are concerned, are

cast within the context of societies.

Personal and Social Implications

 

He is concerned with the effects of education on a
particular society. His discussion of education as a value
is mostly social in consequences, rarely personal. Educa-
tion to him is not a tool of personal self aggrandizement.
Education is always pursued as a method of improving the
society. One notable exception in this study is the Tom

Sawyer story. But, The Gilded Age, The Adventures Of

 

Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's

 

Court, "What Is Man?" and "The Curious Republic Of Gondour"
have broader social implications. The relationship between
society and the need for education is the central thrust to

the story--line of The Gilded Age. It is even the focus

 

of the subplot which involves Ruth Bolton. How can she as
a woman be properly educated so that she can function in-
telligently as a female member of a democratic society?

In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, the social conse-

 

quences of excluding or including a racial minority are
examined. The relationship between education and society
is the most intelligible thematic level at which the

Connecticut Yankee story can be read.

115

The triadical motifs of author-teacher, educational
ideological content, and of teacher-student context also
can be found in "The Curious Republic Of Gondour." Ac-
cepting the fact that Twain was disenchanted with how the
democratic state was failing to function in 1875, it is
logical to view the article as his attempt to use literature
through which to teach and to moralize. The technique of
narrative voice, referred to, most especially, in the dis-

cussion of The Gilded Age becomes a favored approach in

 

Gondour. Note the sarcasm in Twain's voice as he describes
his leave-taking of Gondour:
There was a loving pride of country about this person's
[his guide] way of speaking which annoyed me. I had
long been unused to the sound of it in my own. The
Gondour national airs were forever dinning in my ears;
therefore I was glad to leave that country and come
back to my dear native land, where one never hears that
sort of music.
Mark Twain again mounts the platform in the public arena of
literature and attempts to exhort his fellow citizens to
consider a plan of action beneficial to the society. Again
he uses the concept of society to further his discussion.
He could have written an unembellished essay in which he
proposed an alteration in the voting procedure. Instead,
he works within the context of education and its proper

relationship to society by creating an imaginary society in

which that relationship functions under optimum conditions.

 

3°Ibid.

 

116

The piece is abundant with educational content.
Indeed, it is the only content. Again his educational
concern is methodological. He is caught up in the "how"
of things. The teacher-student motif is realized through
his use of guide and spectator. The guide teaches the
spectator important facts about the machinery needed to
engineer a democratic state in which education is the

major contributing factor to the viability of that state.

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSIONS

 

The purpose of this philOSOphical and historical dis-
sertation was to attempt to ferret out some of the educa-
tional thought and philOSOphy of Samuel L. Clemens. Research
shows that very little of Clemens' thoughts about education
have been systematically analyzed. Clemens was a man who
in his writing, embraced a myriad of subjects. His
interests were wide and his publication prolific. Viewed
at one time merely as a writer of humorous stories, Clemens'
modern day reputation is as a social critic. His writing,
in many instances, is polemical. The tone of his work is
moralistic and didactic. The focus of the works included
in this study is largely education. Indeed, education is
the subject context in which Clemens pursues his themes,
his characterizations, and his plots. Additionally, it has
been shown that many of Clemens' predilections about educa-
tion were personally rooted. He took leave of the formal
educational process as a very young man, but his education
continued as he matriculated in the great school of life

and experience.

117

118

The highest summit of his educational climb was realized
when he received an honorary doctorate from Oxford. It is
obvious that some creative literature reveals its author's
educational phiIOSOphy. It is possible to gain insight into
the proper role and function of education as Clemens en-
visions them through an analysis and study of some of his
creative works. The fact that his work reveals so many
educational biases reaffirms the claim by some critics that
he was a serious critic and prOphet and not merely a clown.
What then is the educational thought and philOSOphy Of
Samuel Clemens based on a critical investigation of his
work? Is he consistent in his educational thinking or not?
Is there contemporaneity in any of his educational thoughts?

What were his areas of greatest educational concern?

Statement of Consistent Philosophy

Clemens does offer a consistent philOSOphy of education.
There is a thread which in color and tone permeates the
fabric of each of his creative attempts in this study.

That thread deals with the necessary relationship between
a system of government and the educational levels of its

citizens. Examine his works and it can be found that if a
democratic society experiences difficulties, Clemens feels
that it is because the citizens do not Operate efficiently

or productively. In The Gilded Age, the post-Civil War

 

119

society flounders because of the lack of political expertise
of its citizens. Clemens equates education with political
expertise. Corrupt juries, decadent politicians, unethical
businessmen exploit ignorance. Clemens exhorts his reading
audience to elevate itself educationally. He argues that
education is the necessary bulwark of a properly functioning
democratic state. This theme is reinforced in his dis-
cussions of suffrage which include females, males, Negroes,
and whites. He expresses his belief in the competence of
Negro voters in his characterization of the Negro professor

in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He supports the

 

role of women in making the society Operate at peak
efficiency in his discussion of Ruth Bolton's plight in

The Gilded Age. His condemnation of the pre-Civil War

 

society in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is educationally

 

rooted. There, again, his field of vision includes the
relationship between just, humane societies and decadent,
inhumane ones. Education is the key. Slavery is an out-
growth of ignorance. It is abhorrent to him for it is
antithetical to the notion of democracy. It is in crit-
icizing the dysfunction of imprOperly applied institutional
purposes that Clemens again pleas for education of the kind
which will free the whole society. Huck Finn is a victim
of a society which functions at an ignorant level just as

The Gilded Age is a society which functions at an ignorant

 

120

level. Remove Huck from that society in order to show the
relationship which should exist between men in a democratic
society, and Clemens' message will be clear. Clemens'
strongest position on the need for education in a democratic
state is presented in "The Curious Republic of Gondour."
Here Clemens increases the number of votes given to edu-
cated members of society from one to as high as fifteen.

He argues that only so long as the electorate is educated
will there be a society in which man's inhumanity to man

is minimized. So it is clear, then, that one plank in
Clemens' educational platform is the need for education in
a democratic society. He is perfectly consistent in this

area of educational thought and Opinion.

Education and The Democratic State

 

Clemens is less consistent in the areas of training
and education. These, nevertheless, comprise another area
of focus in the works analyzed in this study. In The

Gilded Age and in A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's

 

 

99253, Clemens discusses the virtues of education. By
that, one understands him to mean formal schooling which
excludes training. The citizens of a democracy should
help to uplift their society through formal schooling.
This is the main idea in "The Curious Republic of Gondour"

also. So it is then that the Hawkins children in The

121

Gilded Age are sent to school on the frontier, a school

 

which lacks relevance to life on that frontier. So too,

the Yankee introduces schools to the kingdom of Camelot.
Morgan Le Fay is criticized because she is a victim of
training; Huck Finn is confused because he has been trained.
Yet, despite the obvious bias in some of the work for
formal schooling, Clemens himself left school, Tom Sawyer

is chronically truant, Huckleberry Finn's "education"

 

is "outside" a formal school. Initially Clemens dichot-
omizes training and education. Later, in "What Is Man?"
education becomes a kind of training. Clemens' position,
then, becomes one of seeing educational value in both
training and formal schooling. What he does reject is that
formal schooling or training which imprisons man's indi-
viduality or which enslaves him. Training includes
education. Training is that mass of stimuli which can be

labeled experience, the educational diet of Tom and Huck.

Concept of Society

 

Additionally, the concept of society permeates Clemens'
educational discussions. With the exception of the Tom
Sawyer story, which is not as broad in terms of societal
implications as the other works, Clemens addresses himself
to the problem of society and the individual's responsi-

bility to it and his role in it. Tom Sawyer is educated

122

for Tom Sawyer but Huck, the citizens of Camelot, the

peOple in The Gilded Age, the peOple in "A Curious”Republic

 

of Gondour," are all discussed with emphasis placed on
their proper contributions to the societies of which they
are vital parts. So, Clemens' educational thoughts and
ideas in this area have social rather than personal rele-
vance. He conceives the purpose of education, here again,
to be the training of wise, humane citizens. Clemens is
an environmentalist in educational philosophy. He sees
the environment as a shaper of man. Improve the environ-
ment, notably, through education and training, and the

society is improved.

Educational Methodology

 

A major educational concern of Clemens is methodology.
The "how" of the educational process consumes much of his
energy. How do you improve society? The method is educa-
tion. What method of education do you pursue? You start
where the child is, for one thing. In "English As She Is
Taught" Clemens argues that too much of the school curric-
ulum is beyond the grasp of the students. Don't make the
child learn material which is too difficult for him. Not
all children have similar learning capacities.' How do you
teach a child to learn? It is not done through coercion nor

through the use of noxious stimuli. You reason with a

123

child as a mother would in "On Training Children." It is
not done through rote-memorization. This receives repeated
condemnation from Clemens in "English As She Is Taught,"

"Tom Sawyer: A Play" and in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

 

One learns through experience from the cradle to the grave.
Learning is an on-going process which is both formal and
informal in nature. Teachers vary. A Negro can teach a
white child, a parent can teach children, a yankee can

teach a king. A novelist can teach his readers.

Clemens The Teacher

 

Samuel Clemens, himself, was a teacher. The teaching
function which he assumes in his creative work is a major
aspect of this study. He assumed the role of teacher in
most of the works dealt with in this study. It is necessary
to the increased respect with which Clemens must be held to
understand his teaching role. Such a perspective lifts him
merely out of the entertainment realm and reinforces the
claim that he is foremost a social critic and prophet. The
motif of Clemens as a teacher permeates his work. He
scolded "The Gilded Age" society, he scorned the pre-Civil

War society, he chastized teachers in The Adventures of Tom

 

Sawyer, and he touted democracy as opposed to monarchy in

A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court. So intrigued

 

124

with the notion of teaching was Clemens, that a teacher-
student motif appears in many of the works included in this
study. It is important to remember, also, the many virtues
which Clemens taught all those young readers, today some of
them are beyond middle-age, who picked up his books.

Samuel Clemens stood with feet planted in both
Agrarian and Technological societies. He was critical of
both of them. He was both friend and foe of America.
Basically, he loved this country, but the more he studied
it and thought about it, the more things became clearer to
him. The democracy was not functioning as it was conceived.
Something was wrong. A breakdown seemed inevitable. The
problem seemed to rest with the citizens. They were passive.
They passed the buck. Consequently, there was decadence
and corruption. The solution was education. Without it,
the democratic experience was doomed to failure. So Clemens
took pen in hand and proceeded to work out a solution. The
basic context of his thought was society and education. As
he worked on making clear the necessary relationship between
the two, he digressed to talk about teaching and method.

But his central framework was mostly environment. It is

out of his discussions centrally focusing on the relationship
between society and education that one finds his educational
thought and philosophy. Other works remain in which this

context is equally important. It remains for someone to

125

do an exhaustive analysis of the total literary output of
Samuel L. Clemens to find additional educational ideas. That
he cared very much about education is obvious. Indeed,
Samuel L. Clemens was an educator. It is hOped that this
orientation to his work will contribute to a more broadened
bases from which to examine educational philoSOphy in

America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

. ' /
Primary Sources ’

Twain, Mark. A Connecticut_Yankee In King AEEhur's Court.
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899. Ppigiv + 450.

 

. Complete Essays of Mark Twain. Edited by
Charles Neider. Garden City: DOubleday and Company,
1963. 689.

 

. Life As I Find It. Edited by Charles Neider.
Garden City: Hanover House, 1961. 396.

 

. Life On The Mississippi. New York: Harper
and Brothers, 1874. 514.

 

. Mark Twain's Letters. Edited by A.B. Paine,
VOIs. I, II. New York: Harper and Brothers 1917. 847.

 

‘. Mark Twain's Notebook. Edited by Albert B.
Paine. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1935. 402.

 

. Personal Reeollections of Joan of Arc. New
York: Harper and Brothers, 1896. 309.

 

. Pudd'nhead Wilson. New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1871. 287.

 

. Rogghing It. New York: Harper and Brothers,
1871. 287.

 

. Selected Mark Twain--Howell§Letters. Edited
by Frederick Anderson; William M. Gibson; and Henry
Nash, Smith. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1960. P. 74., p. 76.

 

. The Adventures of Huckleberrwainn. Edited by
Sculley, Bradley,; Richmond C. Beatty,? and E. Hudson
Long. Pp. xi + 448.

126

127

. The Adventures of TomiSawyer. New York:
Harper andiBrothers, 1899. Preface + 292.

 

. The American Claimant. New York: Harper
and Brothers, 1892. 397.

 

. The Autobiography of Mark Twain. Edited by
Charles Neider. New York: Harper and Company,
1959. 330.

. TheJCurious Republic of Gendour and Other
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MICHIGAN STATE UNIV. LIB RRRIE