The Child in Time (12 page)

The presence of a stranger in the room, a gaunt young man who appeared to have declined the offer of a chair, had aroused Stephen from uneasy daydreams. The man had been speaking for half an hour already. He stood hunched like a penitent with bluish pale fingers clasped in front of him. His jaws and upper lip were smudged with closely shaved stubble which gave him the saddened, honest appearance of a chimpanzee, an impression furthered by large brown eyes and the black tangle of chest pelt, as thick as pubic hair, visible through his thin white nylon shirt and sprouting irreverently between its buttons. It seemed to Stephen that he held his hands still while he spoke to avoid exposing the unnatural length of his arms, whose elbows occurred an inch or two before they should have. The voice was a strained tenor, the words enunciated with precision and caution as though language, a dangerous weapon, had only recently been acquired and might explode in its user’s face. Dazed from introspection, Stephen was so struck by the man’s appearance that he had yet to take in what he was saying. The rest of the committee sat in silence, apparently attentive, faces politely wiped of all expression. Rachael Murray and one of the academics were taking notes. To aid his concentration Lord Parmenter had closed his eyes and was breathing slowly and rhythmically through his nose.

After he had registered the man’s appearance, Stephen became aware of a stirring among the committee members, a restlessness which could not be put down to boredom and the heat. Heads were turning in his direction. Eyes that met his slid away, and here and there – Rachael Murray, Tessa Spankey – was a suppressed smile. Even Lord Parmenter had shifted position and was inclining his leathery head in Stephen’s direction. Was he expected to speak? Had he already been asked? He forced his wheeling, unruly attention on the tensed monotone, its straining, pleading note of, But surely, surely you will agree that this is so. He found himself looking straight into the honest brown eyes. Was he expected to intervene? Now? He nodded faintly and gave a wry smile to indicate both total comprehension and a reasonable, knowing reticence.

‘It has been shown beyond any doubt’ – and please, the eyes seemed to say, do not take issue here – ‘that we use but a fraction of this limitless intellectual, emotional, intuitive resource. Only recently a case has come to light of a young man who did outstandingly well in a university degree course, and was discovered to have virtually no brain at all, merely a wafer-thin band of neocortex lining the skull. It is clear we get by on very little, and the consequence of this under-use is that we are divided, deeply divided from ourselves, from nature and its myriad processes, from our universe. Members of the committee, we have undernourished our capacity for empathic and magical participation in creation, we are both alienated and stunted by abstraction, removed from the profound and immediate apprehension, which is the hallmark of a whole person, of the dancing interpenetration of the physical and the psychic, their ultimate inseparability.’

The man who resembled an ape paused and surveyed his listeners with bright eyes. He fondled his earlobe. ‘If these are the punitive consequences, what then is the cause, what prevents the growing mind from achieving wholeness? As
we have seen, the brain as a physical organ has its own quite definable pattern of development. In just the way that molar teeth and secondary sexual characteristics make their appearances at roughly the same times in the lives of individuals, so the brain has its spurts of growth, and there can be no doubt that these in turn are associated with quite definable surges in mental development and capability. By forcing literacy on to children between the ages of five and seven, we introduce a degree of abstraction which shatters the unity of the child’s world view, drives a fatal wedge between the word and the thing that the word names. For as we have seen, the human brain at that age has simply not developed the higher logical abilities to deal easily and happily with the self-enclosed system of written language. Literacy should not be introduced to a child until it has made of its own accord, in line with the genetic programming of the brain’s growth, the vital separation of the self from the world. It is for this reason, Mr Chairman, I urge that children should not begin to learn to read until they are eleven or twelve, when their brains and minds undergo the important surge of growth which makes this separation possible.’

Stephen straightened his back, an ancient mammalian ploy perhaps to make himself larger. He was expected to justify himself as a writer of children’s books, a shatterer of tiny worlds.

The speaker had clasped his hands again, the knuckles showed white. ‘Dance and movement of all kinds,’ he said, ‘the sensual exploration of the world, music – for, surprisingly enough, musical symbols are not abstractions so much as precise instructions for physical movements – painting, discovering through manipulation how things work, mathematics, which is more logical than abstract, and all forms of intelligent play – these are the appropriate, essential activities of the younger child, enabling its mind to remain in harmony with, to flow with, the forces of creation. To inflict literacy at this stage, to dissolve the
enchanted identification of word and thing and, through that, self and world, is to bring about a premature self-consciousness, a harsh isolation which we like to explain away to ourselves as individuality.

‘It is in effect, Mr Chairman, nothing less than a banishment from the Garden, for its effects are lifelong. Premature literacy makes for adults in whom an unforced, intelligent empathy with the natural world, with their fellow beings, with social processes, is stunted; adults for whom the apprehension of the unity of creation will remain a difficult, elusive concept, understood dimly, if at all, through the study of mystical texts. Whereas,’ and here the stranger dropped his voice and settled his gaze again on Stephen, ‘whereas this apprehension is a gift to us in childhood. We must not wrench it from our children with our anxious, competitive education, with our busy, intrusive books.’

Towards the end of these remarks there were smiles around the table. The committee was enjoying the presence of what it had decided was a crank. Canham, who was responsible for vetting the credentials of those who made representations, was looking uncomfortable as he scribbled on a pad. One of the academics, not Morley, was wiping his nose with a tissue to conceal laughter. Colonel Jack Tackle had folded his arms across his chest and bowed his head. He was vibrating slightly. These furtive signs aroused Stephen’s sympathy for the speaker. Now that he had delivered his talk, he seemed to regret his refusal of a chair. He stood awkwardly at the head of the table, arms dangling, waiting to be questioned or dismissed. He was not to know that the government did not intend a magical citizenry. His eyes had lost their challenge and he was staring at a point several feet above the chairman’s head. Stephen wanted to shake the man’s hand. In the spirit of contrariness, he wanted to lend support. But he had his own corner to fight now. Lord Parmenter had inquisitively gargled his surname.

‘Only cynics,’ Stephen said, glaring round the room,
‘would dispute the desirability of being whole in the way it has been described, or of realising whatever potential we have. The issue is surely the means.’

He paused, hoping for another thought, then began again, unsure of what it was he was going to say. ‘I’m not a philosopher, but it seems to me … that there are some problems to be considered.’

He stopped again, and then proceeded quickly through a sigh of relief. ‘You could describe writing in much the same way as you’re just described musical symbols – in this case a set of instructions on what to do with lips, tongue, throat and voice. It’s only later that children learn to read quietly to themselves. But I’m not sure that either description, of musical notation or writing, is correct. Both activities seem highly abstract, and perhaps abstraction of a certain kind is precisely what we’re good at from our earliest days. The problems come when we try to reflect on the process and define it. Atune has a kind of meaning. It’s hard to say what it is, but a child has no difficulty understanding it. Reading and writing are abstract activities, but only to the extent that language speaking is. The two-year-old who is beginning to speak whole sentences is making use of a fabulously complex set of grammatical rules.

‘I remember Kate, my daughter … but no … the written word can be the very means by which the self and the world connect, which is why the very best writing for children has about it the quality of invisibility, of taking you right through to the things it names, and through metaphors and imagery can evoke feelings, smells, impressions for which there are no words at all.Anine-year-old can experience this intensely. The written word is no less a part of what it names than the spoken word – think of the spells written round the rim of the necromancer’s bowl, the prayers chiselled on the tombs of the dead, the impulse some people have to write obscenities in public places, and that others have to ban books which contain obscenities, of always spelling God with a
capital G, of the special importance of a written signature. Why keep children from all this?’

Stephen held the standing man’s eyes in his. Lord Parmenter had closed his eyes again. Canham was on his feet talking in a murmur through the open door to someone in the corridor.

‘The written word is a part of the world into which you wish to dissolve the childlike self. Even though it describes the world, it’s not something separate from it. Think of the delight with which a five-year-old picks out street signs, or the total surrender of a ten-year-old to an adventure novel. It’s not words he sees, or punctuation or rules of grammar, it’s the boat, the island, the suspicious figure behind the palm tree.’

He blinked to repulse an image of his daughter, older than he had ever known her, sitting up in bed engrossed in a novel. She turned a page, frowned, turned back. It could have been a book he had written for her. He formed a resolution, then it faded and he continued.

‘The literate child reads and hears a voice in her head. It’s immediate, intimate, it nourishes her fantasy life, it frees her from the whims and inclinations of grown-ups who might or might not have time to read to her.’ He was sitting on the edge of Kate’s bed reading to her. He was not sure which of the two images he preferred. He was not even sure – in fact it might be a rather fine thing, to pass the first eleven years of life playing the accordion, dancing, taking old clocks apart, listening to stories. In the end, it probably made no difference either way, nor was there any way of telling. It was that old business of theorising, taking up a position, planting the flag of identity and self-esteem, then fighting all comers to the end. When there was no evidence to be had, it was all down to mental agility, perseverance.

And there was no richer field for speculation assertively dressed as fact than childcare. He had read the background material, the extracts compiled by Canham’s department.
For three centuries, generations of experts, priests, moralists, social scientists, doctors – mostly men – had been pouring out instructions and ever-mutating facts for the benefit of mothers. No one doubted the absolute truth of his judgements, and each generation knew itself to stand on the pinnacle of common sense and scientific insight to which its predecessors had merely aspired.

He had read solemn pronouncements on the necessity of binding the newborn baby’s limbs to a board to prevent movement and self-inflicted damage; of the dangers of breastfeeding or, elsewhere, its physical necessity and moral superiority; how affection or stimulation corrupts a young child; the importance of purges and enemas, severe physical punishment, cold baths and, earlier in this century, of constant fresh air, however inconvenient; the desirability of scientifically controlled intervals between feeds, and, conversely, of feeding the baby whenever it is hungry; the perils of picking a baby up whenever it cries – that makes it feel dangerously powerful – and of not picking it up when it cries – dangerously impotent; the importance of regular bowel movements, of potty training a child by three months, of constant mothering all day and night, all year, and, elsewhere, the necessity of wet-nurses, nursery maids, twenty-four-hour state nurseries; the grave consequences of mouth-breathing, nose-picking, thumb-sucking and maternal deprivation, of not having your child expertly delivered under bright lights, of lacking the courage to have it at home in the bath, of failing to have it circumcised or its tonsils removed; and, later, the contemptuous destruction of all these fashions; how children should be allowed to do whatever they want so that their divine natures can blossom, and how it is never too soon to break a child’s will; the dementia and blindness caused by masturbation, and the pleasure and comfort it affords the growing child; how sex can be taught by reference to tadpoles, storks, flower fairies and acorns, or not mentioned at all, or only
with lurid, painstaking frankness; the trauma imparted to the child who sees its parents naked, the chronic disturbance nourished by strange suspicions if it only ever sees them clothed; how to give your nine-month-old baby a head-start by teaching it maths.

Here was Stephen now, a foot soldier in this army of experts, asserting, as energetically as he knew how, that the proper time for children to become literate was between the ages of five and seven. Why did he believe this? Because it had long been standard practice, and because his livelihood depended on ten-year-olds reading books. He was arguing like a politician, a Government Minister, passionately, seemingly innocent of self-interest. The stranger was listening, head politely cocked, the tips of the fingers of his right hand brushing the table’s surface.

‘The young child who can read,’ Stephen said, ‘has power, and through that acquires confidence.’

While he was talking on in this manner, and while a complicating voice was telling him that his agnosticism was only another aspect of his own parched emotional state, Canham hurried across and whispered into the ear of the chairman. At the gargling sound, Stephen broke off mid-sentence and turned to see Lord Parmenter raise a weary finger. ‘The Prime Minister will be passing down the corridor in less than a minute and wants to step in and meet the committee. Any objections?’