Child and Country: A Book of the Younger Generation — Background and Themes

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In Category - Educational Theory

Authors: Comfort, Will Levington, 1878-1932 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2009 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Education; Country life Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 83,506

Reading time 364 min

Text sections 10

Before opening Child and Country: A Book of the Younger Generation — Background and Themes, the edition data offers a quick orientation: 83,506 words, 6 hr 4 min estimated reading time, and 10 detected text sections.

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Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Education,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #27793

Comfort's editorial note examines how the opening, middle, and later excerpts of this 1916 work guide a first reading, focusing on the author's shift from a home-building memoir to a treatise on child education, his critique of schooling, and his concept of 'Inertia' as a spiritual obstacle.

Editorial Edition Score 4.8/5

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There was good forage on the mounds, which I did not appreciate at the time. The fact is these mounds were formed of pure dark loam, as fine a soil as anywhere in the Lake Country.

Those of the dim eyes say that once upon a time an orchard and brick-house stood on a bluff in front of the brick-yard, on a natural point, but that the Lake had nibbled and nibbled, finally digesting the property, fruit-trees, brick-house and all.

I could well believe it when the first storm came. An East wind for three days brought steady deluges of high water that wore down the shore-line almost visibly. A week later came a West wind that enfiladed, so that what remained of the little point was caught in the cross-play of the weathers. If some one did not intervene, the brick-yard site would follow the orchard--that was clear.

... Three or four times the owner came to see me. We had rejoiced in the rented property, rejoiced in owning nothing, yet having it all.... Thoreau in his daily westward migrations studied it all with the same critical delight, and found his abode where others did not care to follow. We look twice at the spot we choose to build our house. That second look is not so free and innocent.... Yet a man may build his house. Thoreau had no little brood coming up, and I have doubted many times, even in moments of austere admiration, if he wouldn't have lived longer, had there been a woman about to nourish him. She would have insisted upon a better roof, at least.... I told the neighbour-man I would buy the brick-yard, if he didn't stop pestering me about it. He smiled and came once too often.

The day before, standing upon that height of land (not too near the edge, for it looked higher in those days) I had gazed across the Lake, at one with it all, a friendly voyager of the skies, comrade of the yarrow and the daisy. I remember the long grass of the hollows, the peculiar soft bloom of it, and what a place it was to lie and dream, until one became a part of the solution of sunshine and tinted immensity.

So I lost the universe for a bit of bluff on the Lake shore.

When the East wind came, I saw with proprietary alarm the point wearing away. That which coloured the Lake was fine rose-clay and it was mine, bought by the foot-front.... A man may build his house.

Every one who came along told me how to save the point. For weeks they came. Heavy drift-wood was placed in times of peace, so that the sand would be trapped in storm. No one failed me in advice, but the East wind made match-wood of all arrangements.... The high water would wash and weaken the base, and in the heaviness of the rains the bulk of earth above would fall--only to be carried out again by the waves. The base had to be saved if a natural slope was ever to be secured. Farther down the shore I noted one day that a row of boulders placed at right angles with the shore had formed a small point, and that a clump of willows behind had retained it. This was a bit of advice that had not come so authoritatively, but I followed the cue, and began rolling up rocks now like an ancient Peruvian. It was a little jetty, that looked like a lot of labour to a city man, and it remained as it was for several days.

One morning I came forth in lashing weather--and rubbed my eyes. The jetty was not in sight. It was covered with a foot of sand, and the clay was dry at the base. A day's work with a team after that in low water, snaking the big boulders into line with a chain--a sixty-foot jetty by sun-down, built on top of the baby spine I had poked together. No man ever spent a few dollars more profitably. Even these stones were covered in time, and there was over a yard-deep of sand buttressing the base of the clay and thinning out on the slope of shore to the end of the stones. Later, when building, I took four hundred yards of sand from the east side of the stone jetty, and it was all brought back by the next storm....

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Comfort's foreword immediately signals a shift in purpose: what began as a memoir of country home-making—with 'incidents of masonry, child and rose culture, and shore-conservation'—became a study of the younger generation's education. The opening excerpts show the author framing his move from town as a 'subtle persecution' and comparing the family's arrival to the Swiss Family Robinson's landing. This self-deprecating, anecdotal tone sets up a personal narrative that gradually yields to philosophical argument.

Readers should note how Comfort uses the foreword to preview his central concern: that schools tend 'to develop the intrinsic and inimitable gift of each child' rather than produce a uniform product. The excerpts that follow develop this critique through concrete examples and recurring metaphors.

From Memoir to Manifesto

The early excerpts establish a hybrid form. Comfort recounts specific country experiences—building a house, gardening, shore rambles—but these serve as a backdrop for his educational ideas. He writes that 'the building of a house proved a natural setting for that' education, and that 'gardens and woods and shore rambles are a part.' The reader should watch how the personal narrative recedes as the book progresses, giving way to direct argument. The foreword's confession that 'the main idea slightly drifting from time to time' suggests the book's structure is organic, not systematic. Comfort's voice remains conversational, often addressing 'you' directly, as when he advises: 'Ask that restless child to put a room in order.'

The Critique of Schooling and Vacation

Comfort's critique of conventional schooling emerges sharply in the middle excerpts. He objects to 'the whole tendency of the school toward making an efficient and a uniform product.' He also attacks long vacations, claiming that 'children turned loose to play for ten weeks without their tasks, are most miserable creatures at the end of the first fortnight.' This is not a neutral observation but a provocation: Comfort argues that idleness thickens a 'husk' that must be worn down before learning can resume. The reader should note how he links physical and mental health, asserting that town life 'was dulling the edge of health and taking the bloom from life.' His solution is home education, where children engage in purposeful work like cleaning and polishing, which he claims produces 'a whistle or a hum' of satisfaction.

Inertia and the Rhythm of Work

A recurring concept in the later excerpts is 'Inertia,' which Comfort capitalizes and calls 'the first devil of the soul.' He argues that surplus rest 'coarsens and thickens tissue' and that spiritual illumination requires overcoming this inertia through activity. The excerpts develop a contrast between mere animal rest and the 'peace of intensive production,' illustrated by the image of a beehive: 'the spirit of which animates every moving creature to one constructive end.' Comfort's prose becomes almost mystical when he writes that 'rhythm of work is joy' and that if we could hold this rhythm, 'we could not die.' Readers should observe how this idea ties together his earlier practical advice: work is not a punishment but a path to harmony and even immortality.

The Role of the Ideal and the Reader's Position

Comfort repeatedly emphasizes the power of an 'ideal' in motivating children. He instructs the adult to 'hold the picture of what you want in mind and detail it to him,' then watch as the child discovers 'the picture of completion.' This method assumes that children naturally respond to a clear, attractive goal. The excerpts also reveal Comfort's own ideal: a life where 'soul and brain and body' work in unison. The reader, however, should remain aware that the excerpts are incomplete. Comfort mentions letters from 'rare young beings who belong, but have not yet come,' but we do not learn how these correspondents influenced his thinking. The book's later sections may develop these relationships or introduce new arguments not sampled here.

Comfort's book resists easy categorization: part memoir, part educational treatise, part spiritual meditation. The excerpts suggest that a first-time reader should attend to the author's evolving argument rather than expecting a consistent narrative. The foreword's disclaimer that the idea 'slightly drifted' is a fair warning. Readers may find it useful to track the recurring metaphors—the beehive, the husk, the rhythm—as they appear across chapters. Comfort's voice is earnest and occasionally aphoristic, but his claims are grounded in specific observations of children and country life. Approach the text as a personal essay that invites reflection rather than a manual to be followed.

Reading Child and Country again, I kept returning to its quiet complaint against schooling’s heaviness—that inertia the author calls a spiritual weight. It reminded me of another old voice, one that traced the same ache through different rooms. I found myself setting the first aside for The Curse of Education — A Reader’s Guide, just to hear that argument once more, softer this time.