So much for the book
as a study in heredity. As an educational tract, it has the
conspicuous virtue of remaining in close touch with life while
embodying the spirit of modern scientific pedagogy. The hero
of the book,--the last descendant of a race struggling for
moral and physical rehabilitation,--throws himself into the
work of education with an energy equal to that which his
forbears had turned into various perverse channels. He
organizes a school, more than half of the book, in fact, is
about this school and its work,--and seeks to introduce a
system of training which shall shape the whole character
of the child, a school in which truth and clean living shall
be inculcated with thoroughness and absolute sincerity, a school
which shall be the microcosm of the world outside, or rather
of what that world ought to be. Bjornson's interest in
education has been life-long; for many years it had gone
astray in a sort of Grundtvigian fog, but at the time when
this book came to be written, it had worked its way out into
the clear light of reason. If the future should cease to
care for this work as a piece of literature, it will still
look back to it as to a sort of nineteenth century "Emile,"
and take renewed heart from its inspiring message.
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