Schools used to provide twice-yearly reports - Christmas and Summer.
The Report would be handed in a sealed envelope (despite clear teaching that letters to be carried by hand of friend should never be sealed) in the last days of term. A worried journey on the 341 would end with a ceremonial opening, family in full, gloating fig at the table, after eating.
I have some of these yellowed pages, with their beautiful script expressing such cruelties. They are essays, works of compressed art; if ever there were arguments for mastery of juxtaposition and punctuation, these marks and comments are it.
The first is from the last term at primary school:Number in class 41, position in class 1st. 'HG is capable of much. If she continues as she has done here she will achieve it....every good wish.' Here is a confidence booster that needs dealing with. And it was.
Latin 72, Term work better than this result (?); General Science, 93, Good. Conduct, very good (i.e. not excellent, the de rigeur mark). The next round they really get down to it: Latin, 76, impetuous. Needlework, fair ( fair? my work was literally soaked in blood and tears). Conduct, good (i.e. really bad), and by Form IV they're well away: English 84, HG begins to have an exaggerated opinion of her ability. A pity! History 82, a satisfactory examination result. So just as a very young woman begins to find her voice, her enthusiasms, her interests and passions, there it is: Geometry, 76, careless work. Drawing (I'd been drummed out of Needlework), 78, good, (oh, the disappointment, not even an amplification). Number in form 36, place in form 3rd, HG does not do her best, Conduct, Good.
Mmmm, said Mr HG glancing over my shoulder, sette in condotta, in a convent! What were you doing, exactly?
Actually, I was giving up.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
I vividly remember the comment of my economics Mistress.
"Economics is not an exercise in creative writing."
Having re-read my work, it in fact lacked both creativity and socialist fervour.
It was none the less an accurate prediction of the future.(The Soviet block will fall due to economic atrophy).
I don't suppose I can get my grade retrospectively improved.
We all vividly remember D, and are inwardly reassessing those assessments - even now you wouldn't mind a higher grade for such prescience.
And look at the volumes compressed in that, actually very funny, remark:lack of technical grasp, lack of appropriate expression of material, lack of hard information, irrelevance, failure to understand the object of study - 8 words.
"Economics is not an exercise in creative writing" D, I suppose it is right, creative destruction (à la Schumpeter) being the only creative thing in economics. Also, "Economics is a science, but an inexact science", I was told once by a candidate I was interviewing for entrance to read a university degree in Economics; I let him in.
So you predicted that "The Soviet block will fall due to economic atrophy". Bravo. Either you are Helene Carrere d'Encausse, who also correctly predicted that it would fall through USSR disintegration, or the ghost of Bernard Levin, who actually got the date right, 1989 - though only by a fluke for he added 200 years to the date of the French Revolution. Or you did not publish your essay. Pity. Full marks, but no grade.
"Lilith asks far too many personal questions"...
What other kinds of questions do very young women ask L? I ask you!
I was in the corridor for a whole term during religious instruction for enquiring if, relations between a man and a woman being forbidden outside of marriage, would it be alright between a man and a man.
Cross referring the classical to the religious and moral curriculum might have been encouraged in a kinder world.
Did your RE teacher and Classics teacher never communicate? Sheesh!
The arrival of the Society of Jesus for the yearly retreat was always a source of excitement; I expect they had their heads banged together then, or they didn't want to explain girl in corridor - at least, I was let back into the class.
Post a Comment