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Authors: Margaret Drabble
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really worried me were my pupils. I never saw any of my superiors in the academic world and as far as I knew there was nothing in any of my endowments or scholarships about illegitimate children: there was some qualification in one of them about not being married, but I considered myself clear
on that score. I saw no reason why my proposed career of thesis, assistant lectureship, lectureship and so on should be interrupted: I saw a few non-reasons, I must admit, but in my wiser moments I knew they would not weigh heavily enough against my talents. However, I was worried about the people I was teaching. They were an odd lot and I had taken them on for odd reasons. Most of my research student acquaintances who were not teaching regularly did a little private teaching, mostly for the money, and partly for the practice. At this time I was myself teaching four separate people for an hour a week, which involved about as much homework as I could find time for; I had foolishly consented to teach a wide and abstruse variety of subjects instead of sticking to my own field. My reasons for undertaking this work cannot have been financial, for I undercharged all of them, as I seriously distrusted the value of the commodity I was offering: somebody pointed out to me that as a good socialist I was making a grievous error by lowering the price of my profession which, God knows, was low enough anyway, and she was quite right too, but by then it was too late and I was humanly incapable of raising, once stated, my charges.
As a matter of fact, while distrusting the value of my own teaching, I felt a simultaneous pride and confidence in it because I knew quite well that I was offering this strange quartet a far higher standard of information and intelligence than they would have been likely to get elsewhere, particularly through the education agency that had sent them to me. Yet while I was expounding to them my theories, I was always overcome by a sense of inadequacy, for which I paid at a rate of seven and six an hour.
I suppose I taught because of my social conscience. I was continually aware that my life was too pleasant by half, spent as it was in the gratification of my own curiosity and of my peculiar aesthetic appetite. I have nothing against
original research into minor authors, but I am my parents' daughter, struggle against it though I may, and I was born with the notion that one ought to do something, preferably something unpleasant, for others. So I taught. The identity of my pupils would certainly bear out this interpretation of my conduct, for they were as I have said an odd lot, and three of them at least would have been rejected by my more serious friends as a waste of time. The fourth was an orthodox enough case; a seventeen-year-old girl who had left boarding school under a cloud, and wanted coaching for her University Entrance. She was very bright, and easy to teach; in fact, she had been passed on to me by a reputable don and did not come from the same dubious source as the others.
The other three were a little difficult. One was an Indian, one a Greek, and one a Methodist minister. The first two were both hoping, quite vainly I thought, to get into university, and the Methodist minister just wanted to brush up his English literature by taking it at advanced level. The Indian, I regret to say, was really a dead loss, as I knew from the moment I set eyes on him: he was over thirty, I am sure, and had gold teeth and a dark brown suit. It was my initial despair at the sight of him, coupled with his insistence, that made me take him on, for I could not bear the thought that I might be mistaken. He arrived one morning to discuss the possibility of taking lessons, and I tried to ask him sensible questions about when he hoped to take his entrance examinations, and which college he hoped to apply for, and what was his experience of English literature; he replied with a pathetically confused and garbled account of his past
on that score. I saw no reason why my proposed career of thesis, assistant lectureship, lectureship and so on should be interrupted: I saw a few non-reasons, I must admit, but in my wiser moments I knew they would not weigh heavily enough against my talents. However, I was worried about the people I was teaching. They were an odd lot and I had taken them on for odd reasons. Most of my research student acquaintances who were not teaching regularly did a little private teaching, mostly for the money, and partly for the practice. At this time I was myself teaching four separate people for an hour a week, which involved about as much homework as I could find time for; I had foolishly consented to teach a wide and abstruse variety of subjects instead of sticking to my own field. My reasons for undertaking this work cannot have been financial, for I undercharged all of them, as I seriously distrusted the value of the commodity I was offering: somebody pointed out to me that as a good socialist I was making a grievous error by lowering the price of my profession which, God knows, was low enough anyway, and she was quite right too, but by then it was too late and I was humanly incapable of raising, once stated, my charges.
As a matter of fact, while distrusting the value of my own teaching, I felt a simultaneous pride and confidence in it because I knew quite well that I was offering this strange quartet a far higher standard of information and intelligence than they would have been likely to get elsewhere, particularly through the education agency that had sent them to me. Yet while I was expounding to them my theories, I was always overcome by a sense of inadequacy, for which I paid at a rate of seven and six an hour.
I suppose I taught because of my social conscience. I was continually aware that my life was too pleasant by half, spent as it was in the gratification of my own curiosity and of my peculiar aesthetic appetite. I have nothing against
original research into minor authors, but I am my parents' daughter, struggle against it though I may, and I was born with the notion that one ought to do something, preferably something unpleasant, for others. So I taught. The identity of my pupils would certainly bear out this interpretation of my conduct, for they were as I have said an odd lot, and three of them at least would have been rejected by my more serious friends as a waste of time. The fourth was an orthodox enough case; a seventeen-year-old girl who had left boarding school under a cloud, and wanted coaching for her University Entrance. She was very bright, and easy to teach; in fact, she had been passed on to me by a reputable don and did not come from the same dubious source as the others.
The other three were a little difficult. One was an Indian, one a Greek, and one a Methodist minister. The first two were both hoping, quite vainly I thought, to get into university, and the Methodist minister just wanted to brush up his English literature by taking it at advanced level. The Indian, I regret to say, was really a dead loss, as I knew from the moment I set eyes on him: he was over thirty, I am sure, and had gold teeth and a dark brown suit. It was my initial despair at the sight of him, coupled with his insistence, that made me take him on, for I could not bear the thought that I might be mistaken. He arrived one morning to discuss the possibility of taking lessons, and I tried to ask him sensible questions about when he hoped to take his entrance examinations, and which college he hoped to apply for, and what was his experience of English literature; he replied with a pathetically confused and garbled account of his past
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