Robert Louis Stevenson; B. Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson was born November 13, 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland to Margaret and Thomas Stevenson. Louis, as his parents called him, was Margaret and Thomas's only child. As a youngster, Louis suffered from one serious ill ness after another-bronchitis, gas tric fever, and so on. The times he hovered near death were innumera ble. But, the boy held on; two major factors were responsible for this. First, Thomas Stevenson was a suc cessful engineeer who could afford the best medical care for his son. Second, Louis's extraordinary nurse, Cummy, constantly lavished the child with love and attention. Cummy's impact on Stevenson's life cannot be overemphasized. She 481 482 THE FREEMAN August kept Louis's mind off his misery, the dreariness of lying in bed day in and day out, by continually reading to him. Nowadays RLS's nurse might have turned on the TV, and consid ered her job done. But, would Stevenson-without Cummy-have developed into the remarkable writ er he later became?

Because of his poor health, which plagued him most of his life, Louis didn't enter school until he was seven years old. The school was a private school, kept by a Mr. Hen derson. As for Louis, he didn't know yet how to read! It's easy to imagine how current-day educationalists would respond to Stevenson's case: they'd immediately throw him in a special audio-visual class for slow learners (a program massively funded by the federal government, of course), while at the same time prosecuting his parents under the truancy law for ~~gross neglect" and ~~intentional withholding" of their son from the public school system. Fortunately, Stevenson grew up in a more humane environment. Whenever the family was away from Edinburgh on vacation, or Louis was too sick to attend school, Margaret and Thomas brought in tutors to hel p instruct their son. As a result, the boy's ~~reading disability" soon disappeared; in fact, he became an over-reader! How come the big turn around? The answer clearly rests in the educational philosophy Stevenson's parents put into prac tice. Margaret and Thomas always had Louis enrolled in private schools or learning from tutors. One tutor, described by RLS's mother as ~~a disappointment," either resigned or was dismissed-it's unclear which.

Still, the incident illustrates the flexibility contained in a system that places primary responsibility for the child's education in the par ents' hands. The child learns at an optimum pace; and parental pride, manifested in the form of loving prodding and careful selection of school and instructor, generally en sures that the pace is brisk. As Louis grew older, literature increasingly became a passion with him. He sometimes skipped classes so he could walk through town or the countryside and write down his impressions. On his own Stevenson struggled to master his eventual trade. He realized there were no shortcuts to attaining excellence. The old farmer Gottesheim, in Prince Otto, reflects this belief of Stevenson: HI have been fifty years upon this River Farm, and wrought in it, day in, day out; I have ploughed and sowed and reaped, and risen early, and waked late; and this is the upshot: that all these years it has supported me and my family; and been the best friend that ever I had, set aside my· wife; and now, when my time comes, I leave it a better farm than when I found it. So it is, if a man works 1978 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: CHAMPION OF LIBERTY 483 hearty in the order of nature, he gets bread and he receives comfort, and what ever he touches breeds."2 Interestingly, Stevenson's father did not consider writing to be a suit able occupation for his son. Thomas tried to interest Louis in becoming an engineer like himself; when that failed, he made his son attend law school. RLS passed the bar, but he cared nothing for a career as a lawyer. A writer, young Stevenson proclaimed, he would be!