The Reticence of Ignorance

S there anything more entertaining than human ignorance and the reticence with which it seeks to conceal itself? Ignorance, wide-spread as it is, everywhere makes evasion or denial of its existence. Why should man be mortified over a universal attribute, or arrogate to himself an omniscience obviously impossible? Yet the effort to deny ignorance is directly in proportion to the extent to which it is present. Only the wise confess without blushes to gaps of information on any subject. Only the initiate fail to assume the fig leaves of complete knowledge of evil as well as of good. A child asks questions less as if seeking information than as delighting to uncover the ignorance of his victim. His manner shows the candid craft of the oral examiner who propounds unanswerable queries to the candidate, queries which would make uncomfortable boomerangs if turned back toward him. A child will nonchalantly say: "Poof! I know all about that!" even when he hears of a matter for the first time and is rent with curiosity concerning it.

Yet this infantile duplicity is natural and inherited, for do not parents endeavor to surround themselves with an aura of infallibility? What parent enjoys confessing to his offspring that he doesn't know? He so loves being regarded as a book of knowledge that he gives wrong answers rather than own to blankness.

And what editorial writer advertises lack of information or admits inability to give offhand advice on world topics? What preacher proclaims ignorance rather than conviction of information? And as for teachers, persons paid—though all inadequately—to know things as a profession—are not they the worst of all? Does a young teacher ever acknowledge ignorance if he, or she, can avoid it? Only the wisdom of experience permits of that.

Well do I remember a nightmare I had several years ago. I dreamed that the trustees of the college where I was an instructor in English summoned me before them and told me that for reasons which escape me now—reasons are so lightly passed over in dreams, anyhow!—I was to be made a teacher of the violin.

"But I don't know anything about violin-playing!" I protested, in amaze. "I never even tried to play one."

"We understand that," the chairman replied. "We have arranged for you to take lessons. We plan for you to keep three lessons ahead of your pupils."

As I realized that I hadn't always done that in the teaching of English, I acquiesced in the arrangement, and only the jangle of the alarm-clock saved those violin pupils from being victimized.

Mountain-bred persons are peculiarly sensitive to any imputation of lack of information. When fronted with a fact for the first time, a mountaineer will insist on previous acquaintance, no matter what the topic. I heard the other day of a diverting instance of this.

A woman had employed a young boy from the unlettered hills to do some gardening for her. Fearing he might leave his job, she thought to make things pleasant for him, so she seated herself beside him and talked as he worked. She told him of the proposed trans-oceanic flight and dilated on the wonders of aviation.

"Have you ever seen an aeroplane?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered, planting heavy foot on his spade.

"Where was it?"

"My pa an' me was in Norfolk. We seen an airplane fly over from Germany, with Germans in it."

"Is that so?" she commented, in surprise.

"Yes," he responded, with face as expressionless as the spade. "My pa an' me seen 'em."

"I didn't know the Germans could come over now."

"Yes, my pa an' me seen 'em. They brought influenza germs with 'em. They leaned out o' the airplane an' strowed them germs over the land as they flew. They strowed 'em an' strowed 'em, an' they strowed 'em." He made broad, sweeping gestures with his arms, to show her. "The next day there was a thousand folks sick. An' the next day there was eight hundred folks dead."

"Is it possible?" she murmured.

"Yes; my pa an' me holp bury 'em."

Nonplussed for appropriate answer, she finally came out with, "I think such people as that ought to be hanged!"

"Yes, 'm, they was hung." He dug imperturbably. "My pa an' me holp hang 'em."