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Universities,
Disruptive
Technologies,
and Continuity in
Higher Education
The Impact of Information Revolutions
Gavin Moodie
Universities, Disruptive Technologies, and
Continuity in Higher Education
 Gavin Moodie

Universities,
Disruptive
Technologies, and
Continuity in Higher
Education
The Impact of Information Revolutions
Gavin Moodie
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

ISBN 978-1-137-54942-6 ISBN 978-1-137-54943-3 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-54943-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016947339

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Cover image © PureStock/Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Nature America Inc. New York
 CONTENTS

1 Changing Universities 1
1.1 Three Information Revolutions 3
1.1.1 Gutenberg Revolution 5
1.1.2 The Scientific Revolution 7
1.1.3 Digital Revolution 8
1.2 Three Factors Shaping Change in Universities 10
1.2.1 Financial, Technological, and Physical Resources 10
1.2.2 Nature, Structure, and Level of Knowledge 11
1.2.3 Methods Available for Managing Knowledge 14
1.3 Evidence 15
1.4 Development of the Argument 19
References 23

2 Students and Society 29

2.1 Contemporary Cost Pressures 30
2.1.1 Cost Disease 30
2.1.2 Increasing Participation 30
2.1.3 Balance Between Subsidy and Fees 31
2.2 Early Tuition Fees and Financial Aid 32
2.3 Students 34
2.4 The Language of Scholarship 38
References 42

v
vi CONTENTS

3 Libraries 47
3.1 To Deal with a Scarcity of Books 49
3.2 To Deal with a Profusion of Books 51
3.3 The Digital Revolution 56
References 58

4 Curriculum 63
4.1 Careers 65
4.2 Culture 70
4.3 Knowledge 74
4.4 Expansion of Careers 76
4.5 Curriculum Form 80
References 82

5 Pedagogical Change 89
5.1 Medieval Origins 90
5.2 Peer Teaching 96
5.3 Practical Classes 98
5.4 Levels 100
5.5 Classroom Teaching 103
5.6 Technology 105
5.6.1 Writing 105
5.6.2 Printing 106
5.6.3 Blackboards 110
5.6.4 The Twentieth Century 111
5.6.5 The Digital Revolution 112
References 116

6 Lectures 123
6.1 Early Lectures 125
6.2 Expectations of Lectures’ Redundancy 128
6.3 Improving Lectures 129
6.3.1 Lectures as a Production of Knowledge 129
6.3.2 PowerPoint 130
6.3.3 Mobile Devices in Class 131
6.3.4 Active Learning 134
6.3.5 Flipped Classes 136
References 137
 CONTENTS vii

7 Assessment 143
7.1 Signification of Assessment 144
7.2 Disputations 145
7.3 Assessment Changes 151
7.4 Recognition of Credits 154
7.5 Seeking a New Economy of Scale 156
References 160

8 Advancing Knowledge 163

8.1 Aristotelian Method 165
8.2 Scholars’ Tools: Literature Survey 166
8.3 Scholars’ Tools: Reliable Texts 168
8.4 Scholars’ Tools: Accurate Illustrations 171
8.5 Institutions 175
8.5.1 Patrons 175
8.5.2 Academies 176
8.5.3 Specialized Training Institutions 178
8.5.4 Role of Universities 178
8.6 The Scientific Revolution 180
8.6.1 The Two Books 181
8.6.2 Examination of Mathematical
Abstractable Properties 183
8.6.3 ‘Experimental Philosophy’ 183
8.6.4 Fragmentation of Disciplines 185
8.7 Transdisciplinary Knowledge Production 185
References 188

9 Disseminating Knowledge 193

9.1 Books 195
9.1.1 The Explosion of Print 195
9.1.2 Printed Books’ Continuing Though
Declining Importance 196
9.1.3 E-books 198
9.1.4 Scholarly Publishers 201
9.1.5 Future of Printed Books 202
9.2 Unrefereed Publications 203
9.3 Journals 205
9.3.1 Journals’ Early Development 205
9.3.2 Changes in Publishers 206
viii CONTENTS

9.3.3 Changes in How Researchers Maintain Currency 207

9.3.4 Future of Journals 209
9.4 Open Scholarship 210
9.4.1 Open Source Software 211
9.4.2 Open Access to Research Publications 211
9.4.3 Open Data 217
9.4.4 Open Research 218
9.4.5 Open Educational Resources 219
9.4.6 Open Education 221
9.5 Re- and New Forms of Dissemination 221
9.6 Credibility of Publication 223
References 227

10 Progress and Prospects 237

10.1 Progress 238
10.1.1 Before the Gutenberg Revolution 239
10.1.2 Following the Explosion of Print 240
10.1.3 Following the Scientific Revolution 242
10.1.4 The Digital Revolution 243
10.2 Learning Disciplinary Knowledge 245
10.2.1 Interaction 246
10.2.2 Feedback 246
10.2.3 Hierarchical 247
10.2.4 Managed 248
10.3 Advantages of Face-to-Face Education 250
10.3.1 Young or Inexpert Learners 251
10.3.2 Social Structure and Discipline 252
10.3.3 Modeling Desired Behavior 252
10.3.4 Oral and Readily Incorporates Text 252
10.3.5 Affective Interaction 253
10.3.6 Greater Perceptual and Psychological Proximity 253
10.3.7 Informal, Spontaneous, and Serendipitous
Discussions 254
10.3.8 Attrition 254
10.4 Ways of Learning 256
10.4.1 Imitation or Observational Learning 256
10.4.2 Directed Learning 257
 CONTENTS ix

10.4.3 Guided Independent Learning 258

10.4.4 Autonomous Learning 258
10.4.5 Relative Strengths and Weaknesses 259
10.5 Prospects: The Limits of Pedagogy 259
References 262

References 269

Index 273
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 8.1 Aide memoire of characteristics of mode 1 and mode 2

knowledge production 186

xi
 CHAPTER 1

Changing Universities

Almost 20 years ago, the management guru Peter Drucker (1998) claimed
that ‘Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics.
Universities won’t survive. It is as large a change as when we first got
the printed book’. The president of edX, the massive open online course
(mooc) platform founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and Harvard University, Anant Agarwal launched the platform in a
YouTube video on 2 May 2012 with the statement which has subsequently
been quoted frequently: ‘Online education for students around the world
will be the next big thing in education. This is the single biggest change in
education since the printing press’ (edX 2012). In the same year, the chief
executive officer and co-founder of the mooc platform Udacity Sebastian
Thrun claimed that in 50 years there will be only ten universities left in the
world (The Economist 2012).
Many others have expressed similar views (Bush and Hunt 2011; The
Economist 2012; Ernst & Young, Australia 2012), often in apocalyptic
terms: ‘An avalanche is coming’ (Barber et al. 2013), ‘The campus tsu-
nami’ (Brooks 2012), ‘tectonic shift’ (Lawton and Katsomitros 2012),
‘The end of the university as we know it’ (Harden 2012; Tapscott 2013),
‘Revolution hits the universities’ (Friedman 2013), ‘Higher education’s
online revolution’ (Chubb and Moe 2012, p. A17), ‘disruptive innovation’
(Christensen and Eyring 2011), and ‘game changer’ (Marginson 2012).
Mooc hype faded after 2012, but even so in 2013 Clayton Christensen
predicted that half of the USA’s universities could face bankruptcy within

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1

G. Moodie, Universities, Disruptive Technologies, and Continuity in
Higher Education, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-54943-3_1
2 G. MOODIE

15 years (Schubarth 2013) and a blogger claimed that ‘we’ve had more
pedagogic change over the last 10 years than the last 1000 years because
of these outsiders and technology’ (Clark 2013). Most claims for the revo-
lutionary impact of digital technologies on universities argue by extension
from the effects of digital technologies on photography, cinema, recorded
music, and news and public affairs media. But one could also argue histori-
cally. Just as Innis (1950, p. 158) argued that the introduction and spread
of paper in Europe in the thirteenth century broke the Christian church’s
monopoly of knowledge based on parchment, so one might argue that
digitization is breaking universities’ domination of advanced knowledge
extension and transmission based on paper.
Some academics’ response to moocs ‘would probably be something
between panic and disgust’, as Kremer (2010, p. 98) wrote about an unex-
pected meeting in his novel Smart time. But similar predictions were made
about the revolutionary impact on education of blackboards (1841), films
(1913, 1922, 1933), teaching machines (1932), radio (1940s), television
(1960s), and computer-based programmed instruction (1960s). These are
noted in Sect. 5.6 of this book. Lectures have long being criticized as a
relatively ineffective form of teaching, and contemporaries of Gutenberg
anticipated that printing would make university lectures and lecturers
redundant. Yet lectures persisted through the Scientific Revolution until
the present, having been as important in the five and a half centuries after
the invention of printing as they presumably were for the three and a half
centuries before printing (Chap. 6).
Some have suggested that predictions of radical educational change
have failed thus far because educational institutions are deeply conser-
vative and protect their established positions; and because teachers are
latter-day Luddites, resisting modernization and automation because they
always reject exogenous change, do not understand new technologies,
and protect their jobs and work practices. Indeed, Wareham suggested
that an article about academic staff’s response to the massification of
higher education in the UK in the 1990s be titled ‘Quite flows the don?’
(Trowler 1997, p. 315). But education made a major change from ‘indi-
vidual and successive’ instruction to classroom teaching in the late nine-
teenth century, a change that was not prompted by the introduction of a
new technology (Sect. 5.5). And email and learning management systems
pervade higher education (Sect. 5.6.5). But so far digital technologies
have been absorbed into existing university practices rather than revolu-
tionizing them.
 CHANGING UNIVERSITIES 3

This book seeks to understand why the digital technologies which are
making such deep and pervasive changes to society generally have so far
not had a similar effect on universities: why the digital revolution is not
revolutionizing universities. It seeks to understand the effects on univer-
sities of the current information revolution by examining the effects on
universities of two previous information revolutions: Gutenberg’s proving
of printing in 1450 and the Scientific Revolution from the middle of the
fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. This chapter outlines the
book’s argument in these sections:

1.1 Three Information Revolutions

1.1.1 Gutenberg Revolution

1.1.2 The Scientific Revolution
1.1.3 Digital Revolution

1.2 Three Factors Shaping Change in Universities

1.2.1 Financial, Technological, and Physical Resources

1.2.2 Nature, Structure, and Level of Knowledge
1.2.3 Methods Available for Managing Knowledge

1.3 Evidence
1.4 Development of the Argument

1.1 THREE INFORMATION REVOLUTIONS

‘Information revolution’ is understood here broadly to refer to changes in
the production, processing, transmission, storage, or control of organized
data that have substantial effects outside information management on soci-
ety, its culture, or economy. An example is text communications between
people reporting and/or discussing results of investigations or more gen-
eral news. People have long written letters to communicate or discuss infor-
mation or events, many with the clear expectation that they would be read
or copied to others, such as the letters of Cicero (106–43 BCE), Seneca
the Younger (c. 4 BCE–65 CE), Paul the Apostle (c. 5–67 CE) (Broman
2013, p. 6), and Petrarch (1304–1374) (Rüegg 1996, p. 16) (Sect. 9.3.1).
Print transformed these letters as newsletters and newspapers (Sect. 9.2)
which in turn have had substantial effects on politics and public affairs.
4 G. MOODIE

The Scientific Revolution gave rise to a new form of scholarly communi-

cation, the refereed journal, which extended the reach and influence of
scholars well beyond the ‘invisible college’ (Zuccala 2005). Indeed, there
are currently at least 109 refereed journals that have ‘letters’ in their title,
such as Chemistry Letters, Organic Letters, and Lettere Italiane (Italian
letters). The digital revolution is transforming, among much else, news-
papers and scholarly journals (Sect. 9.3) which in turn are changing the
public’s access to and involvement in academic and public affairs.
This book first considers the effects on universities of the Gutenberg
revolution. There were several earlier important changes in the means for
recording and disseminating knowledge which might also be called infor-
mation revolutions. The introduction of writing clearly had big implica-
tions for education, many deleterious according to Plato (c 425–c 347
BCE), as noted in Sect. 5.6.1. The development of alphabetic languages
was a considerable advance since they are easier to learn to read and write
than syllabaries such as Mycenaean Greek and Yi in which each character
represents a syllable and logographies such as Egyptian hieroglyphs and
Sumerian in which each character represents a word. Codices facilitate
different ordering and organizations of text from the scrolls they replaced,
which Innis (1950) argues shaped empires differently to those which
recorded their information on tablets.
Latin was written in scriptura continua without spaces between words,
sentences, paragraphs, or chapters from the second century CE (Saenger
1997, p. 10). Scribes started separating words with spaces in Latin manu-
scripts from the eighth century in England, Ireland, Wales, and Brittany,
where the vernaculars were unrelated to Latin; from the eighth and ninth
centuries in Germany and northern Europe whose vernaculars were also
markedly different from Latin; from the second half of the eleventh cen-
tury in southern France; and from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
in Italy where the vernacular remained closest to Latin (Saenger 1997,
pp. 41, 97, 223, 235). Word separation facilitated scribes copying texts
quicker visually than from dictation which in turn led to tables being
introduced to scriptoria; it facilitated rapid and silent reading which in
turn moved reading from private cloisters to common libraries; and it
facilitated authors writing rather than dictating their texts (Saenger 1997,
pp. 48–50, 61, 249, 252, 261–2). Silent writing and reading were private
which Saenger (1997, pp. 243, 264) argues emboldened the promulga-
tion of texts which challenged religious, political, and moral boundaries.
Word separation reflected a shift in responsibility for preparing a text for
 CHANGING UNIVERSITIES 5

reading from the reader to the scribe (Saenger 1997, p. 243) and thereby
shortened the teaching of reading which previously had extended into
adolescence (Saenger 1997, p. 55).
The introduction of writing, alphabetization, codices, word separation,
and indeed other early techniques for managing records and communica-
tion such as those considered by Innis (1950) each had major implications
for education. Yet the book starts by examining the Gutenberg revolution
because it lasted long enough to be experienced by many current students,
teachers, and researchers, and so is still referred to in many analyses, as was
noted earlier in the comparisons with online learning.

1.1.1 Gutenberg Revolution

Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398–1468) invented or at least proved printing
with moveable type by 1450 (Füssel 2005 [1999], p. 15). It is hard to
overestimate the importance of printing to society as a whole. Conversely,
printing has had such profound and widespread effects that it is hard to
identify its effects and appreciate the nature and extent of the changes
from a manuscript to print society (Moodie 2014, p. 464). The many
substantial immediate, medium, and long-term effects of printing on
society have been described by several others, most notably by Elizabeth
Eisenstein (1997 [1979]) in her study in two volumes of The printing press
as an agent of change.
Manuscripts were—and still are—rare as well as extremely expensive.
Even maintaining the existing store of recorded knowledge in manuscript
required a major investment of resources, organization, and effort. Most
of the dissemination of the knowledge recorded in manuscripts was not
by their copying and distribution to individual readers, but by one per-
son—usually a cleric—reading or recounting their contents to an audience
(Moodie 2014, p. 464). As is elaborated in Sect. 8.3, manual copying of
manuscripts was not only slow and expensive, but also uncertain. The
dissemination of knowledge, by either reciting or copying manuscripts,
introduced errors and inaccuracies that were repeated and multiplied in
subsequent retellings and copies. The investigation of natural phenom-
ena was particularly inhibited since inaccuracies were often introduced
into copies of formulas, tables of figures, diagrams, illustrations, and maps
(Moodie 2014, p. 464).
Printing transformed Europe, in multiple ways. Printing greatly
increased and broadened both the books produced and their readership
6 G. MOODIE

(Febvre and Martin 1990 [1958], p. 479; Pedersen 1996, p. 459–60).

With the advent of printing people could read books for themselves rather
than have them read or retold to them. The transmission of text became
less the collective activity of one person reading a rare manuscript to
an audience and more of an individual activity of people reading texts
themselves (Ong 2000 [1967], pp. 272, 283). Printing was therefore
central to the Reformation, which emphasized the penitent reading the
Bible for themselves rather than it being mediated through priests and
the Catholic Church (Moodie 2014, p. 464). Printing probably spread
Humanism more widely and certainly faster than was achieved in manu-
script—Erasmus as well as Luther was a bestselling author in the sixteenth
century (Vervliet 2013, p. 78). The greatly increased availability of books
made possible by printing encouraged literacy which led to an expansion
of basic education which in turn further increased the demand for books,
as is elaborated in Sect. 2.4.
Printing introduced new forms for producing, marketing, and distrib-
uting goods. The printing press was an early method for duplicating prod-
ucts so that each product was an exact replica of its model, rather than a
hand copy which varied from copy to copy. It was also an early method
for producing duplicates in high volumes, in contrast to block prints and
metal casts, for example, which at the time of the introduction of printing
were usually produced in modest volumes. Printing was therefore an early
form of mass production. Book publishing required considerable capi-
tal for paper, type, several presses, several skilled workers, and premises.
It was therefore an early form of capitalist production (Anderson 1991,
pp. 34, 37–8). Manuscript books were produced to order, like most other
goods in 1450. Some books were printed to order by subscription or, if
the printer was fortunate, by a patron. But most books were produced on
speculation, a substantial change in the relations between the producers
and consumers of books. Printers appointed agents in different towns to
sell their stock, thus establishing early distribution networks.
Printing was no longer new by the time of the eighteenth-century
Enlightenment, but many of the core Enlightenment ideas such as the
spread of reason beyond scholars and other specialists owed a lot to the
influence of printing. And without printing it would have been incon-
ceivable to produce one of the Enlightenment’s signal achievements: the
Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers
(Encyclopedia, or a systematic dictionary of the sciences, arts and crafts)
edited by Denis Diderot (1713–1784) and published in 35 volumes
 CHANGING UNIVERSITIES 7

between 1751 and 1772. Section 2.5 observes that printers did not print
in all the vernaculars and their variations which had been used in manu-
script books, but maximized their economies of scale by printing in one
dialect of one vernacular for each market. Further, printers standardized
the spelling and expression of each vernacular they printed. Anderson
(1991) argues that printing’s promulgation of one standardized dialect
for each market developed a collective identity of readers in each market
and thus contributed to the rise of nationalism.
But printing’s effects on education and particularly on universities have
been considered only incidentally (Moodie 2014, p. 451). Eisenstein
(1997 [1979], p. 61, footnote 61) notes that printing’s influence ‘is espe-
cially likely to be underplayed in connection with the history of educa-
tion’, and this book is the first extended treatment of the subject. The
book concentrates on universities in Western Europe and particularly in
England since these or their successors are thought to be most affected by
the digital revolution. Its starting point is Western European universities
as they were when printing began spreading throughout Europe in the
middle of the fifteenth century, but as it is elaborated in Sect. 1.3, infor-
mation on education during this period is sketchy and so inferences have
to be drawn from what information is available.
In this book the Gutenberg age is not synonymous with the print age;
Gutenberg developed an analog relief method for printing text which was
superseded by modern technologies for printing text. There is no clear
end point of the Gutenberg revolution, but its end might conveniently be
dated around the second half of the twentieth century when letterpress
was replaced by offset printing for big print runs and for smaller runs by
inkjet, laser, and other digital print technologies. However, by the six-
teenth century printing’s effects on universities started to be overwhelmed
by another information revolution, the Scientific Revolution.

1.1.2 The Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution was the development of a new approach to under-
standing the physical world, the consolidation of that approach (Gaukroger
2006, p. 21), and the resulting great expansion of knowledge of the world
in the early modern period. It is conventional to date the first phase of
the Scientific Revolution from the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’
(1473–1543) De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolutions
of the heavenly spheres) in 1453 to the publication of Isaac Newton’s
8 G. MOODIE

(1642–1726) Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica (Mathematical

principles of natural philosophy) in 1687. However, Wootton (2015, p. 1)
argues that ‘Modern science was invented between 1572, when Tycho
Brahe saw a nova, or new star, and 1704, when Newton published his
Opticcks’. But as discussed in Sect. 8.7, the Scientific Revolution emerged
from several earlier intellectual developments, and clearly has extended to
the present, perhaps in different phases. One important approach associ-
ated with the Scientific Revolution was examining physical phenomena’s
quantitative properties rather than investigating their qualitative nature
(Sect. 8.7.2) and a second important approach was developing ‘experi-
mental philosophy’ or what became codified as the scientific method
(Sect. 8.7.3).
The Scientific Revolution also changed the way statements about the
physical world are tested and validated (Sect. 9.6). The experimental phi-
losophers of the seventeenth century recorded and reported their experi-
ments and observations in such detail that their procedure or experiment
could be replicated. Readers could at least in principle follow the same
procedure and see the results for themselves. There was thus a coincidence
of the method of discovery, method of presentation, and the method of
verification. However, knowledge would be advanced and disseminated
much slower and much less widely if every reader had to replicate every
finding before accepting it. During the Scientific Revolution, natural phi-
losophers therefore developed a process for publications to be reviewed by
authoritative experts before being published, now known as peer review
and practiced in all scholarly disciplines.
The Scientific Revolution is considered an information revolution
because in addition to changing the way knowledge is extended and vali-
dated it changed the way knowledge is disseminated, considered in Sects.
9.1 and 9.3. The Scientific Revolution had profound although delayed
effects on universities’ curriculum (Sect. 4.3), pedagogy (Sect. 5.2), and
assessment (Sect. 7.3). It is therefore an informative comparison with
the Gutenberg and digital revolutions which are based on technological
developments.

1.1.3 Digital Revolution

What is called here the ‘digital’ revolution could also have been called the
informational and communication technologies revolution or the inter-
net revolution. Those alternatives would have given the study different
 CHANGING UNIVERSITIES 9

emphases and start dates. ‘Digital’ was chosen because it is more general
and because in retrospect some of the changes which are now identified
with information and communication technologies and with the internet
originated with digitization. Here the digital revolution is understood to
include three important developments. It includes the development of digi-
tal processing of data in the middle of the twentieth century. It also includes
development of digital storage of data, also in the middle of the twentieth
century, although anticipated by some years by Vannevar Bush (1945):

Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized

private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, ‘memex’
will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books,
records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be
consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate
supplement to his memory.
It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a dis-
tance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works. On the top are
slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for conve-
nient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers. Otherwise
it looks like an ordinary desk. (Bush 1945)

The third element of the digital revolution is the digital transmission of

data. Digital transmission originated with teleprinters in 1906 and the
telex network in the 1930s, but has had most impact with the develop-
ment of the internet in the 1980s, the World Wide Web in 1989, and
electronic mail, which was developed in 1993.
In this book, the digital revolution is the combination of digital pro-
cessing, digital storage, and digital transmission. It is a revolution because
it already has had big effects on society and the economy. It has trans-
formed the management of records by governments, big businesses, big
universities, and other organizations. These bureaucracies no longer cre-
ate all records of citizens, customers, and students on paper, store them
in filing cabinets and move them between offices by courier. It is also
transforming communications between people: few write and send letters
through the post, telegrams are no longer sent, few documents are sent
by facsimile (fax) machine, itself a digital technology since the 1980s; and
increasing numbers of audio and audio-visual calls are made on mobile
phones, tablets, laptops, and other mobile devices. The digital revolution
has transformed photography: photographs are no longer taken with a
device that only takes photos, most images are not formed by exposing
10 G. MOODIE

film and most photos are no longer printed on paper and stored in hard
copy photo albums. The digital revolution has transformed recorded
music. Most music is no longer stored on record, tape, or even digital
compact discs, and recorded music is no longer distributed through shops.
It is transforming the cinema, radio, television, and other forms of enter-
tainment. It is transforming the production, publication, and dissemina-
tion of information on news and current affairs.
The digital revolution is powerful because of its combination of digital
processing, storage, and transmission. It is even more powerful, dynamic,
and unpredictable because of the interaction of digital processing, stor-
age, and transmission. The digital revolution seems to have the potential
for further substantial development and change: of information manage-
ment, of new applications, and in its implications for society, culture, and
economics. But it itself may be transformed or overtaken by quantum
computation and communication (Wiseman 2012).

1.2 THREE FACTORS SHAPING CHANGE IN UNIVERSITIES

Clearly the availability of new technology alone is not enough to bring
about substantial change, hence the criticisms of education for not taking
enough advantage of new technologies with which the book opened and
which are elaborated in Sect. 5.6. Equally clear, however, is that techno-
logical change is not a necessary stimulus of major educational change. The
change from ‘individual and successive’ instruction to classroom teaching
in the nineteenth century was a major development but did not depend on
the emergence of a new technology to be developed and certainly was not
stimulated by the availability of a new technology (Sect. 5.5). Likewise the
Scientific Revolution introduced major changes to universities’ curriculum
and pedagogy but was not stimulated primarily by technological change
or innovation. This book understands changes in the transmission and
dissemination of knowledge as the interaction of three factors: financial,
technological, and physical resources; the nature, structure, and level of
knowledge; and the methods available for managing knowledge.

1.2.1 Financial, Technological, and Physical Resources

Medieval universities seem severely limited by a paucity of resources in
comparison with modern universities. Early medieval universities and
colleges did not own buildings, but held classes in churches, professors’
 CHANGING UNIVERSITIES 11

private rooms, and spaces that could be rented from townsfolk. Much lec-
turing until the thirteenth century in Southern Europe and until the late
fifteenth century in Oxford and Cambridge was done not by professors
employed for the role, but by bachelors reading for their masters (Sect. 6.1)
and by necessary regents who had attended the lectures and completed
the disputations needed for admission as a master, but were required
to lecture for one to two years to be eligible to graduate (Sect. 5.5).
Manuscript books were too rare and expensive to be owned by any but the
wealthiest students, and even professors owned few if any books. Books
were still too expensive for most scholars to own when the very expensive
parchment (made from the skin of sheep or, occasionally, goats) and vel-
lum (calfskin) were replaced as writing material in the thirteenth century
by the still expensive paper.
The increasing prosperity of the late Middle Ages and early modern
period supported the replacement of necessary regents with salaried lec-
turers and an expansion of universities, often by the establishment of new
colleges and the building of new cloisters by monarchs, prelates, the aris-
tocracy, and other wealthy patrons. The new technology of printing made
books much cheaper and more numerous, which greatly affected universi-
ties’ libraries (Sect. 3.2), made cursory lectures redundant (Sect. 6.1) and
transformed the extension of knowledge (Sects. 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4) and its
dissemination (Sect. 9.1.1).
Universities in developed countries are now much better resourced
than their analogs and forebears of the Middle Ages and early modern
period. Nonetheless, the desire to reduce the growth in if not cut spend-
ing on higher education (Sect. 2.1) is encouraging policy makers to seek
ways in which to use another resource, technology, to make universities
more efficient if not increase its economy of scale (Sect. 7.5). As will be
seen throughout the book, the combination of financial, technological,
and physical resources available to universities shapes their extension,
transmission, and dissemination of knowledge.

1.2.2 Nature, Structure, and Level of Knowledge

The nature, structure, and level of the knowledge to be transmitted or dis-
seminated shape the way it may be transmitted or disseminated. Bernstein
(1999, 2000 [1996], pp. 155–74) distinguishes between horizontal dis-
course and vertical discourse. Horizontal discourse is everyday knowledge,
which Bernstein characterizes as oral, local, dependent on and specific to
12 G. MOODIE

its context, tacit, and multilayered. Importantly for Bernstein, horizontal

discourse is organized and differentiated segmentally: one type of everyday
knowledge has a different site and application from other types of every-
day knowledge. In contrast, a vertical discourse is an academic discipline
which has a coherent and explicit structure built on systematic principles.
Universities are clearly concerned only with disciplinary knowledge, verti-
cal discourse in Bernstein’s term. The methods appropriate for transmitting
and disseminating horizontal discourse are not necessarily appropriate for
transmitting and disseminating vertical discourse, considered in Sect. 10.2.
Bernstein further distinguishes between vertical discourses which have
a hierarchical knowledge structure such as the empirical sciences and ver-
tical discourses which have a horizontal knowledge structure such as the
social sciences and humanities. In hierarchical knowledge structures, the
aim is to create increasingly general and more abstract propositions and
theories which increasingly integrate knowledge at lower levels. Vertical
discourses with a horizontal knowledge structure may have a strong gram-
mar such as the social sciences or a weak grammar such as the humani-
ties. By ‘strong grammar’ Bernstein (1999, p. 164, 2000 [1996], p. 163)
means ‘an explicit conceptual syntax capable of relatively precise empirical
descriptions and/or of generating formal modelling of empirical relations’.
Different knowledge structures require different forms of pedagogy. In
particular, for hierarchical knowledge structures curriculum sequence is
likely to be more important and pedagogy is likely to rely more heav-
ily on levels of understanding than for horizontal knowledge structures
(Wheelahan 2009, p. 230).
‘Knowledge’ includes more than just facts or propositional knowledge.
Winch (2014, p. 48) explains that a person is not thought to know some-
thing unless they understand not only what a proposition refers to but also
the concept that it expresses: a person is not understood to ‘know’ that
Napoleon was crowned Emperor of France in 1804 if they do not know
who Napoleon was or what an emperor was. Further, knowledge entails
understanding inferential relations between propositions. If a student
of French history of the period 1789–1815 knows that ‘Napoleon was
crowned Emperor of France in 1804’ they also know that ‘France ceased
to be a republic in 1804’ (Winch 2014, p. 48). Indeed, knowledge entails
an understanding of the conceptual structure of the field—how the various
propositions of a field relate to each other (Winch 2013, pp. 130–2). As
Ryle (1946, p. 16, 1949, pp. 25–60) demonstrated, propositional knowl-
edge, ‘knowing-that’, presupposes ‘knowing-how’: effectively knowing
 CHANGING UNIVERSITIES 13

propositional knowledge involves knowing when and how to use it to

solve theoretical or practical problems (see also Winch 2009, p. 91).
‘Knowledge’ thus also includes procedures for finding, identifying,
testing, and validating propositions or knowledge claims (Winch 2014,
p. 49). A person is not accepted as fully knowing that Napoleon was
crowned Emperor of France in 1804 if they just accept the statement on
authority. They must know how to find such knowledge claims, identify
them as knowledge claims in the field, and test and validate their truth.
In history this requires among other things an understanding of primary
sources, how to work with them and their limitations, and how to assess
the strength of secondary sources. A strong understanding of ‘knowl-
edge’ is that it further entails understanding how knowledge is extended,
that is, how to conduct research in the field (Winch 2013, pp. 139–40,
2014, p. 49; Young and Muller 2014, p. 6). This strong understanding of
knowledge grew in importance from the nineteenth century.
Vertical discourses are thus further distinguished by the methods they
use to generate knowledge and the methods they use to test knowledge
claims: each academic discipline is a method for generating knowledge, a
method for validating that knowledge and the knowledge generated and
validated by those methods (Moodie 2012, p. 21). Different methods
for generating and testing knowledge claims are best learned in different
ways. Indeed, learners need to learn recognition rules (Wheelahan 2009,
p. 230) to be able to decide when a problem is best handled in one disci-
pline rather than another and which method to use within the discipline.
Conversely, learners need to be able to identify which discipline generated
various knowledge claims so that they can apply the appropriate method
for validating and testing each claim.
Winch (2013, p. 135) notes that the best sequence for developing stu-
dents’ understanding of logical or mathematical concepts is not necessarily
the sequence in which they were discovered nor the sequence in which they
are derived in experts’ expositions of the field. Barnett (2006, p. 145–6)
gives what he calls an ‘extreme’ example of Newton’s Philosophiæ naturalis
principia mathematica (1687). The Principia laid the foundations of clas-
sical mechanics and its ideas remain central to physics and engineering.
But no one would dream of prescribing in university courses even chunks
of the Principia’s 300 pages, even translated from the Latin. It is neces-
sary to decide which parts of the discipline to include in the curriculum
and which of possibly a very big body of knowledge must be omitted. It
is necessary to decide the sequence of the curriculum. Some parts of the
14 G. MOODIE

curriculum may be logically prior to other parts and some parts may need
to be understood before other parts can be introduced. Where there is
no sequence determined by conceptual or pedagogical considerations it
is necessary to decide the order in which parts of the curriculum should
be presented. It is also necessary to decide the pacing of the curriculum—
how much time to spend on each part. That is, disciplinary knowledge
has to be recontextualized as curriculum by a recontextualizing principle
‘which selectively appropriates, relocates, refocusses and relates’ disciplin-
ary knowledge (Bernstein 2000 [1996] pp. 33–4).
These characteristics of disciplinary knowledge shape the way it may be
taught and learned and the way it may be disseminated.

1.2.3 Methods Available for Managing Knowledge

To learn disciplinary knowledge, learners first need the knowledge recon-
textualized in a form in which it may be learned. This recontextualization
typically takes the form of a curriculum of material to be learned over the
course of a year or program. The material then needs to be further analyzed
into a syllabus for each course or subject and a lesson plan for each class.
Curriculums, syllabuses, and lesson plans should not only be self-contained,
but also make explicit links to preceding, succeeding, and cognate concur-
rent lessons, courses, and programs. Learners also need to undertake learn-
ing activities to achieve their learning goals. Learners need their learning
evaluated because, as is argued in Sect. 7.5, while a complete failure to
achieve learning goals may be obvious to a learner, learners often need help
in identifying incomplete learning and guidance in how that may be rem-
edied. Learning goals, learning activities and assessment should be aligned
(Biggs 1999a; Biggs and Tang 2011) (Chap. 4). Learning disciplinary
knowledge and skills is difficult: learners need to invest sustained effort and
practice, and as is argued in Sect. 10.2.2, learners need the guidance and
support of someone who is expert in the field of knowledge or skill being
learned and who is expert in guiding learners in the field being learned—
pedagogic content knowledge (Shulman 1986, p. 9, 1987, p. 15).
The alignment of learning goals, activities, and assessment, and their
support by appropriate social structures and institutions are difficult to
manage. Changing one aspect may affect others, sometimes in unforeseen
ways. The way people learn is not understood well, or at least not fully.
There are numerous theories, some of which are mentioned in Sect. 10.2.
Neither is the evidence of what works as rigorous as in other fields,
 CHANGING UNIVERSITIES 15

discussed in the following Sect. 1.3. So taking advantage of a new technol-

ogy which seems to have potential to improve teaching–learning requires
a good understanding not only of the technology, but also of curriculum,
pedagogy, assessment, and their interaction. In short, it requires an under-
standing of the methods available for managing knowledge for teaching–
learning. And inasmuch as a major improvement or change is sought, a
major new understanding of managing knowledge for teaching–learning is
required. The digital revolution may not be revolutionizing higher educa-
tion because higher education has yet to develop a radical new method for
managing knowledge for teaching–learning.
Disseminating disciplinary knowledge has different conditions from
those for disseminating everyday knowledge. Minimally, disciplinary
knowledge is disseminated in communications of substantial length, from
the few thousand words of a journal article to the tens of thousands of
words of a book. It is hard to imagine disciplinary knowledge being dis-
seminated in the 140 characters initially allowed for tweets, but Twitter
has been successful in disseminating everyday knowledge and links to dis-
ciplinary knowledge, among much else. In 2012, six years after its launch
in 2006, Twitter had 140 million active users who posted 340 million
tweets a day.
Until the seventeenth century, authors had difficulty establishing the
credibility of their publications (Sect. 9.6). Francis Bacon (1561–1626),
Robert Boyle (1627–1691), John Wilkins (1614–1672), and other fel-
lows of the Royal Society of London started describing their investigations
and experiments in such detail that the procedure or experiment could be
replicated and at least in principle readers could see the results for them-
selves. This coincidence of the method of discovery, method of presenta-
tion, and the method of verification seems natural to modern researchers,
but it was a crucial advance in the management of knowledge. Peer review
of publications was another development of the Scientific Revolution, also
pioneered by the Royal Society (Sect. 9.6). However, some argue that
peer review before publication is a contingent rather than necessary aspect
of managing knowledge dissemination (Sects. 9.5 and 9.6).

1.3 EVIDENCE
Much of the book seeks to infer the effects of the Gutenberg revolution
on universities by examining education before and after printing began
spreading throughout Europe in the middle of the fifteenth century. But
16 G. MOODIE

unfortunately there are only scanty records and accounts of education

before the seventeenth century. It has therefore been necessary to extrap-
olate from accounts of universities in earlier times. The most complete
accounts of universities during the Middle Ages are university statutes,
but unfortunately the earliest statutes extant are mostly silent on the core
concerns of curriculum and pedagogy:

For example, as valuable as the Cambridge statutes [dating from circa 1250]
are for information about the organization and governance of the university,
they tell us absolutely nothing about teaching or the curriculum, about the
textbooks used, the schedule of lectures and disputations, or the stages of
advancing to the master’s degree. … In most universities—and even in Paris,
in faculties other than the arts—these matters seem to have been regulated
by unwritten customs, by practices imprinted upon the collective memory of
the institution by the regularity of their occurrence. (Ferruolo 1988, p. 5)

Ferruolo (1988, pp. 5–6) notes that documents were most likely to be
issued and preserved when there was an unusual conflict, disagreement
or dispute, which thus give a misleading impression of normal affairs. As
observed in Sect. 2.5, Latin was the language of scholarship until the end
of the eighteenth century. But the referent of some medieval Latin terms
is obscure. Fletcher (1967, p. 431) notes that the University of Oxford’s
statutes of 1409, which are more informative about curriculum and assess-
ment than statutes of the thirteenth century, provide that an undergradu-
ate who presented for a bachelor degree had to swear that they had spent
at least one year ‘frequentantes parvisum’ as ‘arciste generales’ (junior arts
student). Grace Books, which were proctors’ records of administrative
decisions (Leathes 2009 [1897], p. ix), refer to the disputation exercises
responsions, oppositions, and variations being conducted ‘in Parviso’. But
it is not clear where the parvisus was (Fletcher 1967, p. 432). Fletcher
(1967, p. 432) notes that closely associated with the parvisus in both
Oxford’s statutes and its Grace Books are mentions of the ‘creacio genera-
lis’, but nowhere is it made clear what exactly this was.
Stone (1964, p. 41) who examined enrollments and the social compo-
sition of schools, universities, and the London Inns of Court in England
from 1560 to 1640, argued that the gaps in records had to be filled by
inference: ‘If the historian of a society seriously wants to pluck at the skirts
of truth, he is obliged to use common sense and arguments of probabil-
ity to apply correctives and supply lacunae’. But the sketchiness of early
 CHANGING UNIVERSITIES 17

records allows for multiple inferences, not all of them cogent. Hill (1965,
p. 309) notes about the disagreement over the persistence of scholasti-
cism in late Tudor and early Stuart education: ‘on evidence like this—one
tutor’s notes … the social contacts of some others, the books owned by
and the subsequent interests of a few dons and undergraduates—it would
be easy to argue that Marxism was being taught to undergraduates at
Oxford and Cambridge in the nineteen-thirties’.
The Gutenberg revolution overlaps substantially with the Scientific
Revolution. It is therefore not possible to consider changes as candi-
dates for the outcome of one or other revolution by simply observing
the sequence of events. Rather, it is necessary to make judgments about
what is likely by extension from events’ interactions in other contexts and
periods: one has to trace the threads in history’s fabric without unpicking
its weave. Maclean (2009), who examines European book markets in the
sixteenth century, observes that the same evidence can support contradic-
tory conclusions. For example, Maclean (2009, p. 27) notes that the fact
that only a few books of a particular type survive leads some to infer that
only a few books were produced and distributed, while others infer that
many were produced but that they were read to death. While some judg-
ments seem clear others are more debatable, and one has to be wary of
pareidolia—seeing images in nature’s clouds. The book therefore seeks to
avoid firm assertions unsupported by unambiguous evidence or its clear
extension.
O’Day (1982, p. 196) warns that ‘An overall view of educational
trends through out the early modern period has been hindered by the
excessive periodisation which is rampant in historical studies’ and Henry
(1997, p. 129) warns of the ever present threat of ‘generally lamentable’
Whiggism: judging the significance of past events by current standards
or interests, or considering only past developments which seem to have
obviously led to the current state of affairs. Accordingly, while this book
draws inferences from the scanty evidence reported, it is live to the risk
of over-interpreting fragments in favor of just one of several possible
understandings.
There is an abundance of information about modern educational prac-
tices: it is normally not difficult to find or reconstruct accounts of practices
from the late nineteenth century. The bigger difficulty is in determining
which practices are necessary for learning, which are contingent, and the
effects of changes in educational practices. Numerous studies find differ-
ent and sometimes contradictory results of various interventions such as
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 — Une femme qui aurait de l’argent et le sens des affaires
pourrait s’acheter une barque comme celle-ci : on tendrait les
cabines de mousseline Liberty.
— Oh ! ça existe au Japon : on les appelle des bateaux de fleurs.
— Eh bien, pourquoi personne n’a-t-il encore tenté cela ici, dans
une ville maritime ? Moi, je ne le savais pas, et maintenant je suis
vieille…
Angelinette s’était désintéressée de la conversation ; elle avait
cherché du fil et enfilait des coquillages. La marée montait, la barque
oscilla, ondula et se remit à flot.
Ils voguèrent encore pendant dix jours sur l’Escaut et se firent
tous les jours échouer.
Les matins de brume, Angelinette apparaissait, dans sa nudité
enfantine, comme une perle sortant d’une huître entr’ouverte, qui,
dans l’éloignement, se refermait et l’absorbait toute ; et alors, prise
de peur de se sentir enveloppée de cette chose impalpable, elle
appelait : « Hélène ! Seigneur ! » et ne se sentait à l’aise que
lorsqu’ils répondaient.
Ils retournèrent à Anvers quand ils n’eurent plus le sou, et
n’oublièrent pas le sac de coquillages et les petits moulins à vent.
Angelinette les distribua aux enfants du quartier et elle raconta aux
femmes son voyage.
— Il y avait…
Et toutes, bouche bée, comme des enfants, écoutaient.

Elle eut de la peine à se remettre au métier. Le premier verre

d’alcool la fit frissonner de haut en bas ; puis elle étouffait dans le
quartier : ça manquait d’air. Sa maigreur s’accentua ; elle devenait
boudeuse ; son indifférence s’accrut ; la fatigue la paralysa
lentement, jusqu’à ce que le patron lui dît :
— Écoute, il te faut des soins, nous avons trop d’ouvrage. Vas à
l’hôpital : quand tu seras guérie, tu reviendras.
 Elle y fut, accompagnée de la vieille Hélène. On la mit dans un lit
blanc. La nuit, la sœur de ronde l’entendit murmurer :
— Être seule dans un lit, je ne savais pas quel délice c’est. Oh !
quel délice !
Quand la vieille Hélène revint, elle la trouva souriante :
— Eh bien, petite ?
— Oh ! quel délice d’être seule dans un lit, de faire dodo sans
qu’on vous réveille pour recommencer encore et encore ! Oh ! quel
délice !
— Mais tu n’avais pas le dégoût.
— Non, mais c’était comme si l’on me coulait la fatigue dans les
membres. Et maintenant, être seule dans un lit… je ne connaissais
pas ça.
Elle s’informa de la maison : « le patron n’était pas encore venu ;
et le seigneur, ne l’avait-on pas vu ? elle était tout de même sa fille. »
Puis elle lui donna la clef de sa malle et la pria d’y prendre les
portraits de sa mère et de sa grand’mère et de les lui apporter. La
vieille Hélène ne voulait pas lui dire que le patron, sûr qu’elle ne
reviendrait plus, avait déjà ouvert sa malle, et qu’Adèle se promenait
dans sa robe blanche à ceinture mauve, et que cela lui donnait une
allure d’acrobate habillée à la vierge.
Puis Angelinette revint encore sur le bonheur d’être seule dans
un lit.
— Pas de peau chaude qui vous touche, pas de ronflements, pas
d’haleine puante de genièvre qu’on vous souffle au visage ou dans
la nuque. Aucune odeur qui traîne et tout l’espace pour soi. Quel
délice ! Quel délice !
Et elle écarta les bras et les jambes.
— Tu vois, tu vois, je ne rencontre que le drap frais.
La vieille Hélène se leva bouleversée, la prit dans ses bras et la
tint longtemps contre elle.
 — Tu me les apporteras, dis, les portraits ? Puis informe-toi du
seigneur : je suis tout de même sa fille.
Quand la vieille Hélène revint le dimanche d’après, Angelinette
était morte depuis la nuit. La sœur lui remit quelques lettres de
matelots, pas ouvertes, trouvées sous son oreiller, et lui dit qu’elle
était morte en disant : « Quel délice d’être seule dans un lit ! Quel
délice ! »
 JE VOULAIS EN FAIRE UN HOMME

Il avait quatre ans quand j’allai le chercher. Il était un hideux

enfant de la misère : les jambes arquées, le ventre ballonné, la
figure bouffie, le nez et les oreilles coulants, le teint terreux.
Bah ! je le pris tout de même : le sourire autour de la bouche était
charmant ; des yeux lumineux qui m’observaient, une voix claire et
pleine comme un jeu de clochettes. Le soir, en chemin de fer, il
s’endormit et fit caca dans sa culotte : sa première culotte, que je lui
avais achetée ; je dus lui donner un bain avant de le coucher.
Il mangeait en se pourléchant ct me demandait :
— Tout ça, c’est pour moi, tante ?
Il se laissait baigner avec volupté. Il n’était pas difficile pour ses
jouets : il n’en avait jamais eu et la moindre horreur achetée au
bazar le faisait jubiler. Je lui fis un trousseau de linge et des habits,
et sa joie était, quand je les lui essayais, de se mettre devant la
glace et de se regarder, ainsi métamorphosé.
Ses pauvres petites entrailles ne supportaient que mal le
changement de nourriture, ou plutôt la nourriture : il en avait eu si
peu. Oh ! la misère vous donne toutes sortes de sales
incommodités… Son nez fut long à guérir, son ventre ne se
déballonna que lentement et ses jambes se redressèrent seulement
à mesure qu’il se fortifiait et perdait sa mauvaise graisse.
 Au bout de quelques mois il était devenu délicieux : long, mince,
avec une jolie ligne de dos, et une chevelure soyeuse, ondulée et
d’un beau blond avait remplacé la sale tignasse pisseuse, pouilleuse
et raide. Il avait un nez aux narines palpitantes au lieu du bouchon
tuméfié et suintant, et un beau regard brillant de bonheur au lieu du
regard inquiet, si pénible chez les enfants. Il avait aussi une
sensibilité exquise : lorsqu’il voyait des enfants en haillons, il croyait
que c’était ses frères et ses sœurs, et quand il s’était rendu compte
que ce n’était pas eux, il leur donnait les quelques sous que je lui
mettais habituellement en poche, ainsi que son mouchoir.
— Un nez comme ça, ts, ts, ts, ce n’est pas humain.
Il avait entendu dire ces mots par mon ami, qui les employait
dans le sens d’injuste ou de douloureux.
Un jour, il vit au coin d’une rue une petite fille qui pleurait devant
une pâtisserie.
— Cette Katootje a faim, tante.
Katootje était le nom de sa petite sœur.
Et il entra en bombe dans le magasin, prit une grande couque
aux corinthes sur le comptoir et sortit en criant, dans sa langue, au
pâtissier :
— Tante va le payer, tante va le payer ! Là, Katootje, ne pleure
plus, fit-il, en embrassant délicatement la petite fille sur la bouche.

Maintenant qu’il était heureux, il avait surtout un rire qui vous

réchauffait l’âme : un rire qui résonnait dans la maison comme une
cloche annonçant le bonheur, comme un écho de joie et de
confiance.
Plus tard… dans quelle voie le diriger ? Médecin, avocat,
ingénieur ?… Il aime tout ce qui est mécanique, mais il aime aussi
les fleurs, les bêtes, et il m’oblige de m’arrêter pour écouter les
orgues. S’il est artiste, je le laisserai faire, mais je veux avant tout
qu’il fasse des études sérieuses et qu’il apprenne la musique comme
la grammaire. Tant de beautés m’échappent en musique parce que
je ne la connais pas et que je ne suis pas assez instruite. J’ai tant,
tant de sensations sur lesquelles je ne puis mettre de nom à cause
de cette lacune, et j’aime, dans mes joies et mes peines, être
consciente. Oh ! je ne parle pas de l’instruction sèche et pédante :
l’autre, vous savez bien, celle qui vous dégage l’âme et vous fait
sentir la beauté de ce nuage. Il me semble que la nature a fait de
nous des embryons et que la culture nous met au point. Je n’ai
compris la beauté de la Diane chasseresse du Louvre, la force
nerveuse et l’élan de son corps souple, que lorsque j’ai su la
mythologie et que j’ai connu la légende de sa vie dans les bois à la
tête de ses soixante nymphes. Avant cela, je la trouvais une belle
fille sauvage.

Un petit bonhomme comme ça vous prend exactement tout votre

temps : mais quel beau livre ! je n’en ai jamais lu de semblable, et
ma vie est devenue tout espérance. Ainsi je songeais, quand je le
voyais heureux autour de moi.

Une lettre de la mère pour demander de l’argent.

— Il a tout et les autres rien !
Au lieu de se réjouir de ce qu’au moins un de ses enfants en est
sorti ! Enfin j’envoyai de l’argent. Cependant, j’en avais trop peu
depuis que le petit était là : la mère de mon ami ne nous donnait pas
un sou de plus ; elle disait même à son fils :
— Tout ira à cet enfant ; c’est lui qu’on aimera et toi, on te
supportera.
Encore ça comme souci : cette vilaine vieille, jalouse de l’amour
de son fils, va se servir de l’enfant pour éloigner de moi le seul
homme que je me crois capable d’aimer dans ce pays, mon unique
ami…
Ainsi mon bonheur de sentir cette jeune vie s’épanouir près de
moi dans l’aisance était mélangé de la crainte qu’on me le reprît et
du souci de l’ombrage que cette affection pourrait jeter sur mon
amour.

J’étais allée avec Jantje chez une vieille amie. Là vint une dame
française avec un petit garçon de l’âge de Jantje. Les deux enfants
se rapprochèrent vivement l’un de l’autre. Le petit Français était
foncé comme une gaillette, les cheveux coupés ras, une figure mate
et de gros sourcils noirs. Il se planta devant Jantje et dit :
— Je suis Français.
Jantje ne répondit pas, se promena devant lui, la tête levée, avec
des yeux qui demandaient : « Et après ? » Puis il dit :
— J’ai travaillé deux heures ce matin pour ajuster des tuyaux de
poële.
— Ah ! pas mal, s’écria ma vieille amie.
J’étais fière aussi : l’un faisait valoir un état dont il ne pouvait
mais, et l’autre son travail. Il avait décoché cela d’un trait, sans une
hésitation. Ces mots lui étaient restés dans la mémoire : le matin, il
était descendu tout noir du grenier ; mon ami lui avait demandé :
« Qu’as-tu fait pour être si noir ? » et le petit lui avait expliqué, avec
des gestes, et des mots hollandais et français, qu’il avait bien
travaillé deux heures pour ajuster des tuyaux de poële.
— Eh bien, dis : « J’ai travaillé deux heures pour ajuster des
tuyaux de poële. »
Il avait répété et retenu.
Les petits ne se dirent plus rien ; dans leur désillusion, ils
s’étaient, chacun, approchés de leur tante et de là s’observaient. Je
n’ai jamais été mieux à même de juger de la différence entre la
vanité et la fierté.

Oui, quelle voie prendra-t-il, et par où le diriger ? Un sociologue,

— ç’avait été le rêve de mon ami — un savant, un homme d’action ?
Il se décortiquait tous les jours : plus rien de la larve amorphe d’il y a
six mois ; s’il continue ainsi, comme il sera beau et bon ! Et je courais
l’embrasser. Il s’était déjà habitué à cette pluie de baisers qui lui
tombaient à l’improviste ; il les rendait ou secouait impatiemment la
tête.
— Tante, je ne peux rien faire si tu me déranges tout le temps.
Encore des paroles de son oncle. Il l’appelait « oncle »
maintenant. Décidément, il l’écoute encore plus que moi : il est vrai
que mon ami a la voix la plus pénétrante et le ton le plus persuasif
qui soient.
Ah ! que je suis heureuse en ce moment pour l’enfant et pour
moi ! Tout ce passé d’abjecte misère est mort ; et ce que nous avons
de bien-être, nous pouvons en jouir : c’est l’affection qui nous l’a
donné.
Grand Dieu, la vieille ! Tous les jours, une goutte d’eau sur cet
amour, sur cette volonté, pourrait bien finir par y creuser un trou. Ah !
quelle angoisse, maintenant surtout que je ne serais plus seule à en
pâtir ! Mais il nous aime tant ! Tous les jours, quand j’accours sur
mes mules lui ouvrir la porte, avec le petit qui me suit, son regard
m’apaise immédiatement ; toujours il sourit et me dit :
— Clic-clac, clic-clac.
Ce clic-clac lui est si familier qu’il distingue le clic-clac spécial de
mes différentes mules.
— Tu as des mules neuves, ou « celles en velours vert », ou
« celles doublées de rouge ».
Depuis que le petit est là, il m’oublie quelquefois et s’amuse
souvent à se cacher derrière moi et à dire d’une grosse voix :
— Qui va aller au bois avec ce méchant garçon ?
Hé ! hé ! la mère pourrait bien se tromper : si c’était donc moi
qu’on aimerait moins au profit du petit ? Cependant je veux le garder,
lui, mon amour, intégralement. Allons, nous sommes assez bien
bâtis tous trois pour ne pas nous porter ombrage.
 Un jour, je lui avais mis un béret neuf pour aller se promener
avec son oncle. Quand celui-ci entra, le petit se planta devant lui, le
béret de côté, et lui demanda :
— Est-ce que tu trouves moi je beau ?
Une autre fois, à la campagne, ils jouaient à se jeter une vieille
poupée, et voilà que mon ami la jeta si haut qu’elle s’accrocha dans
un arbre. Jantje resta la tête levée. Je crois qu’Élisée, quand il vit
monter Élie dans les nues, ne le regarda pas avec plus de stupeur.
— Que faire maintenant, que faire maintenant ? La nuit, elle aura
froid, cria-t-il.

— Jean, prends ton traîneau, nous irons au parc, où l’on fait des
statues de neige.
— Statues, tante ?
— Oui, ce sont des hommes ou des bêtes, en quelque chose
comme la belle dame sans vêtements qui tient une coquille et que tu
aimes bien.
— Mais puisque ça devient de l’eau, tante.
— Oui, ça ne durera pas, mais on aura pendant quelques jours le
plaisir de les regarder, et quelques jours, c’est long pour du plaisir.
Dès l’entrée du parc, devant l’amas étincelant de neige, il entra
en joie ; mais, quand nous arrivâmes à l’un des carrefours, où
plusieurs sculpteurs, emmitouflés et bleuis de froid, échafaudaient
de la neige et maniaient l’ébauchoir, il courut de l’un à l’autre,
regarda tout, puis s’arrêta devant un groupe que modelait un jeune
sculpteur : c’était un âne monté par le bonhomme Noël.
— Tante, c’est saint Nicolas. Il ne me fera pas de mal ?
— Non, tu as été sage.
— Puis-je travailler avec le monsieur ? Je peux apporter de la
neige dans le traîneau.
— Je ne sais pas, demande au monsieur.
 Et pas timide, sa voix sonnant clair, il demanda :
— Monsieur, je aider ?
Le jeune sculpteur le regarda.
— Tiens, quel gentil petit homme !
— Je aider, monsieur ?
Le sculpteur se tourna vers moi, me dévisagea aussi,
curieusement, me salua et dit à Jantje :
— Mais oui, tu peux m’aider, apporte-moi de la neige.
Jan se mit à la besogne et, avec sa bêche, remplissait le
traîneau. Je n’avais pas à craindre le froid pour lui, il se remuait
fiévreusement, mails moi, comment résister ?
— Jan, monsieur est ton patron, fais ce qu’il te dira ; moi je vais
courir de long en large ou je gèlerai.
— Oui, tante, je ferai ce que le monsieur dira.
Je me mis à courir. Et Jantje amassait de la neige à côté du
sculpteur, qui eut la gentillesse d’employer surtout cette neige-là. Il
lui parlait en néerlandais et lui demanda son avis.
— Ajouterai-je aux oreilles de l’âne ou à la queue ?
Jantje trouva qu’il ne fallait rien ajouter à la queue ni aux oreilles,
mais ajouter tout de suite le bras droit du bonhomme Noël.
Le sculpteur et moi demandâmes en même temps pourquoi ce
bras pressait tant.
— C’est avec ce bras-là qu’il jette les bonbons, n’est-ce pas,
tante ?
— Ah ! voilà l’affaire ! Je vais vite mettre le bras, riait le sculpteur.
Et il appliqua de la neige autour de l’armature rudimentaire. Vers
midi, le travail était ébauché.
— Nous devons rentrer, Jantje.
— Tante, comment faire ? le monsieur ne peut pas travailler sans
moi.
— Ah ! oui, il faudra revenir, j’aurai besoin de neige.
 — Eh bien, nous reviendrons.
A peine eûmes-nous déjeuné, il fallut qu’il y retournât.
Et voilà que le bonhomme Noël avait, pendu à son poing de
neige, un cornet de caramels sur lequel était écrit : « Pour Jantje, le
bon ouvrier. »
Jantje ne fut pas très étonné, mais fier.
— Tante, il a vu que je travaillais bien et que j’ai fait ajouter son
bras pour les bonbons, puisque de l’autre bras il porte la verge.
Jusque vers la brune, Jantje se démena, le sculpteur travailla, et
le tout fut achevé.
Alors le sculpteur dit à Jantje :
— Demain, de beaux messieurs viendront pour juger le meilleur
travail. Tâche de revenir, je dirai que tu m’as bien aidé. Et c’est vrai,
madame, fit-il en se tournant vers moi, son émotion m’en a donné et
je crois que je l’ai communiquée un peu à mon travail. Ce petit-là ne
fera rien froidement dans la vie ; et plus, il galvanisera les autres.
Quelle conviction et quel exquis petit homme !
— Donne la main au monsieur et dis « à demain ».
Nous revînmes le lendemain avec André. Il connaissait le jeune
sculpteur.
Les beaux messieurs ne lui donnèrent pas leurs suffrages, mais
nous avions trouvé un ami.

Mon professeur de chant était venue donner sa leçon,

accompagnée de son petit garçon de trois ans.
— Je me suis dit que Pierre pourrait jouer au jardin avec Jantje
pendant la leçon.
Jantje était aux anges d’avoir un compagnon de son âge pour
jouer. Il le prit par la main, le conduisit au jardin, et tout de suite
l’assit dans son traîneau, devant lequel il s’attela, et le traîna par les
sentiers.
 Le petit Pierre avait pris le fouet et tapait si fort que nous dûmes
intervenir.
— Tante, il me prend pour un cheval, mais on ne doit pas taper
fort sur un cheval non plus, n’est-ce pas ?
Quand Jantje fut en nage, il mit le petit garçon dans le hamac et
le berça.
— Doucement, fit-il, car si je berce fort, tu vas vomir comme moi
l’autre jour.
L’autre se laissait faire, mais n’offrit pas de rendre la pareille.
La leçon finie, nous goûtâmes.
— Tante, tu le feras boire dans la belle tasse que mon oncle m’a
donnée ?
— Certes, mon grand.
Le petit garçon fit la remarque que sa belle tasse était plus petite
que celle de Jantje.
— Mais tu peux lui donner deux fois du chocolat, tante.
— Oui, mon grand.
Mon professeur invita Jantje à venir jouer le lendemain chez
Pierre, qui a un beau « hobby », ajouta-t-elle.
Nous y allâmes.
Le petit Pierre se mit sur son dada et se balança. Mais quand
Jantje voulut y monter, il l’en fit descendre en disant :
— C’est mon cheval.
Puis il prit sa boîte avec les maisons, les vaches et les arbres de
bois et composa un village ; mais il arrachait les objets à Jantje dès
que celui-ci voulait l’aider.
Mon professeur était honteuse. Cependant son gosse lui
ressemblait : il manquait seulement de discernement pour cacher
son âpre égoïsme.
A la fin, Jantje, penaud, se réfugia près de moi :
— Que dois-je faire, tante ?
 — Rien, mon grand, nous allons rentrer et tu joueras avec ton
oncle : il fera le cheval.
— Mais je ne le frapperai pas ?
— Non.
Nous rentrâmes ; mon ami nous attendait. Deux minutes après,
le jardin résonnait de gaies clameurs et de rires d’or.
« Voilà, pensais-je, en chantant des gammes : ils ont besoin l’un
de l’autre pour s’épanouir, et c’est moi qui possède ces deux êtres
exquis qui m’aiment et que j’adore. »

Un autre jour, mon professeur de chant amena, avec son gamin,

une petite fille.
Quand on les annonça, Jantje était à la cuisine ; il remonta,
bégayant d’émotion, et, quand il prit la main de la petite fille, la salive
lui montait aux lèvres.
Jantje ne s’occupa que d’elle et l’embrassa en l’entourant de ses
bras ; il la traîna doucement dans son traîneau, se retournant à
chaque instant, et, quand Pierre voulut faire le cocher et frapper
Jantje avec le fouet, la petite fille fit un tel bond qu’elle tomba hors
du traîneau, qui passa sur elle. Jantje la ramassa avec un émoi
indescriptible.
— Tante, elle est cassée ! Elle doit être cassée !
La petite fille, devant sa terreur, se reprit et, se frappant sur ses
petits bras rouges, déclara qu’elle n’avait rien. Pierre s’était caché
derrière les rosiers.
Nous goûtâmes, mais Jantje avait eu une telle émotion qu’il en
était tout pâle et ne disait mot. Au moment de leur départ, il me
demanda s’il pouvait donner sa poupée à la petite fille.
— Parce qu’elle a eu mal, tante.
 Nous étions allés à Anvers. André et moi voulions nous enivrer
de la lumière de l’Escaut et du souffle du large, et je désirais montrer
à Jantje le jardin zoologique. Nous nous rendîmes d’abord au port,
où la lumière, les vagues de la marée haute mettaient tout en
mouvement sur le fleuve. Le bruit des grues et l’animation des quais
nous mirent en mouvement aussi et nous versèrent la joie dans le
cœur.
Jantje nous posa mille questions auxquelles nous ne pûmes
répondre grand’chose, ignorants que nous étions nous-mêmes des
rouages de cette vie intense qui se déroulait devant nous. Nous ne
pouvions que jouir de la beauté qui s’en dégageait et qui nous
exaltait.
Jantje, avec son impressionnabilité, en prit instinctivement sa
part. Du reste le bruit et l’excès de mouvement commençaient à
m’abasourdir.
Le plus grand étonnement de Jantje, après le travail des grues
mécaniques, fut une petite mulâtresse très foncée, de son âge,
conduite à la main par sa maman toute blonde.
— Mais, tante, elle a travaillé dans les tuyaux de poële et sa
mère ne l’a pas lavée.
— Non, mon grand, elle est ainsi : on aura beau la mettre au bain
et la savonner, elle restera comme tu la vois. Va lui donner la main,
tu verras.
Il se pressa contre mes jupes. Pour rien au monde, il n’aurait
touché la petite mulâtresse.
Nous allâmes déjeuner, puis au jardin Zoologique. Rien ne lui
échappa. Devant la grue du Sénégal :
— Tu vois, tante, elle met sa tête de côté pour mieux voir la
fourmi qui marche à ses pieds. Pourquoi ses yeux sont-ils de côté ?
— Je ne sais pas.
La grue se mit à trompetter.
— Regarde donc, tante, des deux côtés de sa tête : ces plaques
sans plumes montent et descendent pendant qu’elle appelle.
 — Et que dis-tu de cette touffe de brins d’or sur le derrière du
crâne ? lui demanda André.
— Tu appelles ça une aigrette, n’est-ce pas, tante ?
— Oui, mais elle ne doit pas l’acheter : ça lui tient à la tête.
— Oh ! tante ! tante ! Voilà d’autres oiseaux qui dansent l’un
devant l’autre.
Et il courut vers une cage, où en effet des oiseaux ressemblant à
des autruches dansaient des vis-à-vis en battant des ailes et
exécutaient des pas tout autour de la cage.
Devant le chimpanzé qui buvait son urine, je le vis frissonner.
Mais la petite guenon, qui, en souriant, lui exprima le désir d’un
bonbon, lui fit presque vider son sac.
Les ébats des otaries dans leur bassin l’amusaient fort et il ne
comprenait pas que les deux cormorans, perchés sur le bord, ne
voulussent pas jouer avec elles et les laissassent crier d’ennui.
— Je jouerais bien avec elles, tante.
— Il faudrait savoir nager.
— Mais je sais nager.
— Tu l’as appris ?
— Non, mais père va nager.
— C’est qu’il l’a appris. Un veau et un cochon savent nager sans
l’avoir appris, mais l’homme doit tout apprendre, surtout à être bon.
— Tu l’as appris, tante, à être bonne ?
— Oui, par la vie. Si la vie rend mauvais, c’est qu’on n’a pas le
cœur à la bonne place.
— Tante ?
— Plus tard, chéri, quand tu seras grand : il faudra encore aller
dormir et te lever souvent avant de comprendre.
— Tu comprends, tante ?
— Oui, mon grand, un peu trop, mais j’ai été soumise à un
gavage de misère, comme d’autres sont gavés de choux à la crème,
et j’ai mûri avant l’âge.
André, ironique, tira sa moustache, puis :
— Tu sais, toi, si tu crois qu’il te comprend…
— Mais je sais : aussi je me réponds plutôt à moi-même.
— Ça ne va pas ?
— Je suis fatiguée : il y a trop de bruit brutal dans cette ville ; tout
fait vacarme.
— Ils parlent vilain, n’est-ce pas, tante ?
— Je te crois.
— Ah ! voilà les fauves ! Regarde, Jan.
Et il regarda.
— Comme ils marchent devant les barreaux ! Pourquoi ne les
laisse-t-on pas courir dans le jardin, tante ?
— Mais ils nous mangeraient !
— Ils sont méchants, tante ?
— Mais pas plus que nous. Nous mangeons toutes les bêtes. Ce
n’est pas parce que nous mangeons leur cervelle à la sauce blanche
que…
— Tout de même, tu n’es pas gaie aujourd’hui.
Jantje me regarda, soucieux. Il me prit la main, se frôla tout
contre moi, et je dus me baisser à plusieurs reprises pour me laisser
embrasser.
André se frappa le front.
— J’y suis ! Ce sont les grappes d’émigrants que tu as vus
grouiller sur les navires qui t’ont mise dans cet état.
— Oui, je me suis revue, avec les miens, entassés dans une
charrette, allant d’une ville à l’autre pour voir si le pain y était plus
facile à gagner.
Je me tournai vers lui, agressive.
— Tu crois qu’ils ne sentent pas ?
 — C’est atténué tout de même, sinon ils chambarderaient tout.
— Tu te trompes : même petite, je sentais tout, et mes angoisses
de ce qui nous attendait étaient indicibles.
— Et tu parles de bonté ?
— Il ne peut y avoir qu’elle !
— Tu te trompes, c’est le self defense qui fera tout. Allons goûter.
Le thé et le calme du jardin me remirent d’aplomb.
— Maintenant, viens.
Et je les conduisis vers un des bouts du jardin, où un éléphant
tout harnaché attendait les clients.
— Jan, on va te mettre sur l’éléphant, et tu feras un tour de
jardin.
Le gardien le hissa sur le siège, et en avant !
Jantje était si ahuri qu’il ne dit d’abord rien, mais il regarda vers le
bas, où il nous vit, puis, vers le haut, les cimes des arbres, et il se
mit à jubiler.
— Tante ! tante ! je vois au-dessus de tout. Veux-tu une branche ?
Et, en passant, il arracha une fleur d’acacia qu’il me jeta.
— Tante, je vois toutes les bêtes dans leurs cages, mais elles ne
me regardent pas. Tante, si toi et oncle vous preniez aussi des
éléphants, ils pourraient nous reconduire à Bruxelles.
— Non, mon grand, ça ne va pas.
Il eut un petit vertige de se retrouver à terre. Nous nous hâtâmes
vers le train. A peine assis, il s’endormit. Il ne soupa pas, mort de
fatigue. Je le couchai : il ferma les yeux et sans doute rêva de
l’éléphant et des grues qui dansaient. Moi, je craignais de rêver des
émigrants.

J’entendais le petit chat crier piteusement et je vis par la fenêtre

Jantje qui prenait la petite bête, la déposait dans le gazon et se
couchait dessus à plat ventre, puis la prenait encore, la secouait et
recommençait la manœuvre.
— Mais, Jantje, que fais-tu ? Tu le tortures et l’étoufferas.
Il me regarda, bouche bée.
— Voyons ! tu es pour le moins cinquante fois plus grand que ce
petit chat. Si maintenant une bête grande comme la salle à manger
te prenait dans ses pattes, te secouait et se couchait sur toi, que
deviendrais-tu ?
— Mais, tante, j’étoufferais.
— Eh bien, et que fais-tu ? Palpe-le, il a de petits os comme des
arêtes. Pourvu que tu ne lui en aies pas froissé déjà !
— Mais un chat, est-ce comme moi, tante ?
— Mais certainement : si tu le tortures, il crie, souffre et meurt, et
ce serait bien dommage, joli comme il est et fait comme en peluche
orange ; puis il sent, ne l’oublie pas. Tu sais, tu n’as que quelques
facultés plus développées que lui, mais le chien, par exemple, en a
de plus développées que toi : son odorat, son ouïe, et certes il est
plus fidèle que nous. Et le chat, vois quand il saute, quelle
souplesse : tu peux à peine t’élever, en sautant, à deux pieds de
terre. Puis ne trouves-tu pas qu’il est plus beau que nous ? Regarde
sa fourrure dorée.
— Mais, tante, tu as d’aussi beaux cheveux que lui.
— Tu trouves ?
— Oui, tante, oui, tante.
Et il regarda avec conviction mes cheveux qui étaient justement
au soleil.
— Viens, que je t’embrasse.
— Est-ce que je pourrais étouffer Pierre en me couchant
dessus ?
— Mais certes, seulement il ne mérite pas ça : quand il est
méchant, c’est à sa maman de le punir.
— Mais elle ne le fait pas, tante, elle le laisse être méchant.
 — Écoute, tu ne feras plus mal au petit chat, n’est-ce pas ?
Pense à ce que tu souffrirais si la grande bête dont je t’ai parlé en
faisait autant avec toi. Si tu fais de ces choses-là, je n’oserai plus te
laisser seul, il faudrait te surveiller comme Pierre.
— Comme Pierre ! fit-il.
Dès ce moment, il mania le petit chat avec délicatesse et disait
souvent :
— Palpe-le, il a des os comme des arêtes.
« Nous ne sommes tout de même pas bons, pensais-je, notre
geste initial est de nuire ; le bon, nous devons l’apprendre. »
Quand j’essaie de lui faire comprendre quelque chose, je ne
trouve pas toujours les expressions à sa portée : ainsi « facultés
développées »… Comment faudrait-il dire pour qu’il comprît ? Je ne
trouve pas… Je demanderai à André, il saura.

Jantje était occupé à faire des pâtés au jardin ; moi, je rêvassais.

J’avais commencé à lire Darwin…
« Le besoin crée l’organe. » Tout de même !… Possible… Voyez
les femmes hottentotes : c’est certes la nécessité d’un porte-charge
qui leur a développé ainsi le… derrière. M. Levaillant en parle dans
les récits de ses voyages au Cap, au XVIIIe siècle.
« Dans leurs migrations, que ne devaient-elles pas porter sur
cette partie du corps, pendant que l’homme courait aux alentours,
chassait pour la nourriture et musardait pour son plaisir ? Un enfant
ou deux, des hardes, des ustensiles, des provisions. Alors, se pliant
en deux, elles chargeaient, et le plateau s’élargissait et remplissait
ses fonctions selon les besoins…
« C’est sans doute aussi par besoin qu’il s’est créé un troisième
sexe, ou un « sans sexe » chez les fourmis et les abeilles ? Que
feraient-elles d’un sexe, ces bêtes de somme toujours au travail ?…
Chez l’homme, le besoin d’un « sans sexe », seulement bon aux
gros travaux, s’est bien fait sentir ; sa place était tout indiquée sans
doute, car il est odieux de voir un être fragile comme ce paveur
devant ma porte, avec des bras minces et des mains longues et
fines, porter des pavés depuis le petit jour jusqu’à la nuit, tandis que
Mme P…, ma voisine, faite pour pousser une charrette de moules, le
regarde avec mépris par sa fenêtre. Oui, une catégorie faite pour le
travail s’imposait, mais personne ne voulait en être… Ah non ! moi
non plus ! Bête de somme soit, mais être « neutre », n’avoir pas la
faculté d’aimer ou de se faire aimer… hou !! Personne n’a voulu en
être, et voilà pourquoi, évidemment, le besoin n’a pas créé
l’organe. »
Mon ami entra ; je ne l’avais pas entendu sonner, Jantje était allé
ouvrir, et ils me firent tous deux tressauter.
— Tu te racontais une histoire ?
— Non… oui, fis-je évasivement.
Même lui n’avait pas accès dans mon arrière-boutique. Puis il
n’avait pas passé par ce stade d’ignorance dans lequel je me
trouvais et où la lumière ne commençait qu’à poindre. Il ne savait
pas quelle ombre il jette sur les mieux doués et comme l’âme se
dégage lentement si elle ne s’ensevelit pas tout à fait.
Ils allèrent au jardin ; je continuai à rêvasser :
« Heureusement qu’André ne professe pas la théorie que
l’instinct, la nature, remédient à tout et qu’avec ces deux éléments,
la science vous vient toute seule. La nature… Quand sommes-nous
à l’état de nature ?… Il me semble que notre terre a commencé son
évolution quand elle s’est détachée du soleil et que, dès ce moment,
elle n’était plus le lendemain ce qu’elle avait été la veille, et que tout
ce qui s’est mis à pousser dessus n’était plus le soir comme le
matin ; que le singe qui se couvrait de branches pour se tenir chaud
était déjà très civilisé, et que le hottentot sauvage qui offrait sa
femme au blanc pour obtenir tel ou tel objet l’était aussi. Je ne
conçois pas ce que c’est que l’état de nature… »
André faisait balancer Jantje dans le hamac. La voix jubilante du
petit me fit me lever et me mêler à leurs jeux.