Chapter 2
Cherie woke up and smiled. She had finished her post to Henry, with frilly and heart-dotted letters, and sent it off just before going to sleep. She daydreamed often of Henry, of his handsome face, much like that of her dashing brother-in-law (of the freckles and mischievous grin), and an athletic body. She knew, from her many conversations with him while Natonito and Bathsheba were making love in their room (since they could hear it from next door), that Henry loved to play polo and tennis. She assumed those to be rather aristocratic sports, as her older brother had played them himself.
She remembered that Natonito wanted a syllabus for the school. Having had only a few private tutors, and having only listened in to her brother talk about schooling, she did not quite know what to expect. Fortunately, Natonito had a huge library, which he was always fond of increasing. While most of the books were about warfare or economic history, and were quite boring to her, she saw some on education, and so she decided to look at those. After all, if she was going to draw up plans for a school, at least it made sense to see what some rather learned people said about learning. Most of them focused on the importance of morality to education.
She pondered on this subject a good bit. Obviously, she concluded, morals and philosophy, the proper use of the latter, and the proper span of the former, should be the first class every morning. With their minds active, she thought, the rest of the day would be much more productive. She thought that since people normally got tired after lunch, that there should be some kind of athletic activities to keep the students busy. After all, she would be in these classes too, and she wanted them to be as pleasant and as useful as possible. Even if she did not go to a university, which was rare for women in these lands, at least she wanted to be an intelligent member of society, capable of defending her own power of mind and spirit.
She knew other subjects would be important as well. Since this was a boarding school, there was no need to worry about having the kids go home, or wasting so much of the time in the afternoon and evening when study and further learning could take place, as happened in some of the poorer schools for the low commoners and rural peasantry. It would be important to know history, mathematics, languages, science, rhetoric, and literature. She still needed to know what order to put the particular subjects in, though.
She puzzled over this for a while, left to get some food, some croissants (her favorite breakfast food, and as it was the favorite of Bathsheba and Natonito as well, the cook knew how to make them quite well), and then puzzled over it again. With a full stomach, she was able to see the titles on the bookshelves much easier. She at last came to a book by Natonito himself, apparently.
She wondered what Natonito had to say about education. She looked inside and saw all sorts of ponderings about knowledge and wisdom, and the education of young people. She saw that Natonito had a major interest in what ways kids grasped knowledge, and had concluded that it is by participating that kids were excited. She saw that lecturing was not the main focus of his educational theory, though it was a part, for the sake of review and analysis, but that doing, experimentation, was key for him. She thought about how one could learn math or history that way, and then read on.
She realized that doing included not only playing with models (as she had seen her brother do often), but also by writing, by doing problems, and by discussion about those elusive concepts in our heads that are difficult to explain and very important. She was glad for this reading, but she was looking for something more prosaic, a syllabus of learning.
Finally, at the end of the book there were some tables where he wrote down what knowledge should be studied at what age. Since the students would all be 13 or 14, she imagined, as it would be an imperial finishing school, she took down that list of subjects in order and then wrote them down, and then, for humorous sake, cited the book as she had seen others do in this situation.
She then looked down at her sheet of paper and wondered what time it was. She knew it was still light outside, thankfully. She did not want to become like those people she heard others talk about in a nasty way, who shut themselves up in ivory towers all day or something. She had never even seen an ivory tower anyway. She saw that she had written things down in a nice, orderly chart, and she would take this to Natonito when he arrived home, and hoped he would be pleased with that.
She then closed the heavy wooden door to the library and walked to the dining room, where she sat down and daydreamed about Henry again. Young love had struck at the age of 13. She had kissed Henry, made out with him, and even explored his body a good bit, so she knew in detail of what she fantasized. She assumed this was normal, and it was, though she was very confused by all of it as well. She smiled when she saw her sister walk into the room.
"I finished what Natonito wanted me to do," Cherie said proudly.
"That is wonderful. Do you want to come with me as I tell the former concubines that the harem is being closed?" Bathsheba said.
"No thanks, I would rather sit here and daydream," Cherie said wistfully.
"Enjoy yourself, sweetie," Bathsheba said in a gentle fashion, "It will be lunch time soon."
Cherie smiled and continued daydreaming, and soon, as Bathsheba said, it was time for lunch, and she was able to enjoy it and then go back to her room and daydream and read, leaving the paper for Natonito to see when he returned home.
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