THE SCHOOLBOY

 

THE   SCHOOLBOY

“The Schoolboy” is a song written by  the English poet William Blake (1757-1827). Originally it was one of The Songs of Innocence,  not of Songs of Experience.  The theme of the song is the undelightful and non-creative  schooling.  Blake said in no unmistakeable words: “There is no use in education. I hold it wrong.”  By this he meant the type of disgusting system off education that prevailed at that time.  

The song under reference shows at daybreak the aesthetic contrast between  the sweet company of the huntsman’s horn  as well as the voice of the  skylark with that of the whole day classroom sighing and dismay generated by the cruel eye of the teacher.

             We find the role of nature as a teacher, in several English poets, especially in William Wordsworth (1770-1850). See this extract from his poem The Education of Nature:

                        Three years she grew in sun and shower;

                        Then Nature said, “A lovelier flower

                        On earth was never sown:

                        This child I to myself will take;

She shall be mine, and I will make

A lady of my own.          

A  very comprehensive definition of education by an anonymous writer goes as given below:

Education does not commence with the alphabet; it begins with a mother’s look, with a father’s nod of approbation, or a sigh of reproof; with a sister’s gentle pressure of the hand, or a brother’s noble act of forbearance; with handfuls of flowers in green dells, on hills, and daisy meadows; with birds’ nests admired, but not touched; with creeping ants, an almost imperceptible emmets; with humming-bees and glass beehives; with pleasant walks in shady lanes, and with thoughts directed in sweet and kindly tones and words to nature, to beauty, to acts of benevolence, to deeds of virtue and to the source of all good --- to God Himself.

            Now finally to grasp what Blake means by schooling look at  the text of his song THE SCHOOLBOY :

When  the birds sing on every tree ;

The distant huntsman winds his horn,

And the skylark sings with me.

O ! what sweet company !   

 

But to go to school in a summer morn,

O ! it drives all joy way ;

Under a cruel eye outworn,

The little ones spend the day

In sighing and dismay.

 

Ah ! then at times I drooping sit,

And spend many an anxious hour,

Nor in my book can I take delight,

Nor sit in learning’s bower,

Worn thro’ with the dreary shower.

 

How can the bird that is born for joy

Sit in a cage and sing ?

How can a child, when fears annoy,

But droop his tender wing,

And forget his youthful spring?

 

O ! father and mother, if buds are nipp’d

And blossoms blown away,

And if the tender plants are stripp’d

Of their joy in the springing day,

By sorrow and care’s dismay.

 

How shall the summer arise in joy,

Or the summer fruits appear ?

Or how shall we gather what  griefs destroy,

Or bless the mellowing year,

When the blasts of winter appear ?

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20^th March 2021                                                                     G. R. Kanwal