Tolkien and Gardner: A Tale of Two Educations

Introduction

The Victorian era in England was a ripe time for the humanities; “Myths and legends from a range of ancient cultures (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Babylonian etc) were taught in upper class schools and studied by academics and amateurs” (“Myths and Legends…” 2012, para. 1). These schools were initially only attended by the sons of the wealthy. However the rise of the middle class led to some less affluent children entering schools with the help of scholarships. At the same time”ragged schools” were beginning to teach even very poor children the basics of reading.(Education, Literacy and Publishing in Victorian England. n.d.). This raised the market for publishing – which had gotten off the ground during the Industrial Revolution, so that there were more books, magazines, and newspapers available to read than ever before. Higher education also became popular for certain young women. England at that time ruled over enough of the world that travel to exotic and far-off locations was possible, and many British people traveled around the globe for entertainment, health, or work. Myths and legends of previously unfamiliar countries became a major staple in popular literature. There was an upswing of interest, as well, in local legends and folk beliefs of England, Europe,and Scandinavia. Concurrent with this was a rising interest in the idea that old religions could have value and presence in the modern world, and that the magic of rural areas and foreign lands could produce real-world results. Freemasonry, spiritualism, and Theosophy laid the path for organizations such as the Golden Dawn (Occult Revival in the Origins of the Victorian Hermeticism, n.d.). “The 19th century was also the first time in England that a substantial number of public figures openly declared that they had no religious beliefs.” (Victorians: Religion, n.d., para.12)

From this world came two men whose lives were shaped by mythology and esoterica, and who in the time between the wars and made massive impacts on the modern world. JRR Tolkien established the modern genre of epic fantasy through his creation of Middle Earth (The setting for The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion), and Gerald Gardner, who either popularized or invented (depending on who you ask) the religion of Wicca and thus enabled the rise and “coming out” of numerous flavors of Paganism and Neo-Paganism. They were intelligent, creative, and influential, yet their education and upbringing were quite different.

In this paper I intend to use these two men to show how a balanced, regulated childhood and an equally imbalanced one can contribute in different ways to the creative life of a gifted individual.

Gardner: Stolen Childhood

Gerald Gardner was born on Friday June 13th, 1884 to a seemingly conventional family of wealthy merchants. “A Gardner had been on the Liverpool roll of burgesses as far back as 1797,and the family firm of timber merchants founded in 1748 could claim to be one of the oldest, perhaps the most ancient, still thriving in that city.” (Bracelin, 1960, p.11) Looking under the hood, however, the family history is not as staid as one might think. There were a few colorful personages in the family before Gardner, as well as suspicions that they were involved in piracy and smuggling. When the family home in Liverpool was demolished a hidden tunnel was discovered, leading to the harbor.

Gerald had severe asthma, which set him on a life path of more academic and less physical pursuits and separated him from his friends, so that he grew used to being alone. At age four his nursemaid, Josephine McCombie, or “Com” as she was called, took advantage of her ward’s infirmity to acquire for herself an unlimited travel ticket. Gerald would, she assured his parents, be much better off if he spent his times in warmer climates with her to look after him.

“…on his travels with Com he was to find loneliness and unhappiness, from which the only escape was partially into the noisy adult world she surrounded herself with, or fully into daydreams and finally books. He was to be surrounded by intrigues and passions incomprehensible for many years, to become inured to ships and carriages and hotel rooms, to accept strange sights and far countries as the commonplaces of his childhood” (Bracelin, p.15).

Young Gerald was lonely and neglected and sought attention and knowledge from every adult who would talk to him. In Madeira he met an old nonconformist named Billy Dewey, who would argue and discuss religion and other issues with the boy – things that were never spoken about when he was home with his family for the summers. His talks with Billy introduced him to the idea that he could invent his own ideology rather than accept blindly what church and family told him to believe.

Gardner was also inspired at this time to teach himself to read. He would look at pictures in Strand magazine and annoy adults by asking him to read the words under them. The effort that he had to put into learning to read led him to never take reading for granted.

Having learned to read, Gerald finally had a way to occupy the immense strands of time while his governess amused herself with music, society, and men. He read everything that fell into his hands, “appropriate” or not. When he came across a book on Spiritualism called There Is No Death by Florence Marryat, he found that there were different ideas about life after death than he’d been taught, and came to the conclusion that he was not going to hell – as Com often claimed he would – but that there likely was no such place(Bracelin, p. 19). By the time he was twelve he had rejected the idea of a monotheistic God in favor of the polytheism and animism he learned of from the aboriginal peoples that he met in his travels (Bracelin, p. 20)

Gerald went on to become a self-made scholar, driven by his passion for learning. He participated in several archaeological excavations and became extremely well-educated in anthropology and folklore. He wrote a “definitive” text about the Kris knives of Malaya, attended a conference on pre-history, where he met many academic contacts. (Heselton, 2012a, pp. 130–132). In fact, he seems to have made academic contacts everywhere he went, and was regarded as a scholar despite having no formal education. In 1937 he received a Doctorate in Philosophy from a university in Nevada that was known for selling bogus diplomas and began calling himself “Doctor Gardner” (Heselton, 2012a, p. 166).

Tolkien: A focused Life

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on January 3,1892. His father was a bank clerk. A vivid memory from that time was an encounter with a large, hairy, spider which showed up later in Lord of the Rings. At age 4 his father died, and he, his mother, and his younger brother moved to the West Midlands of England, his mother’s childhood home (Doughan, n.d. para. 3).

The scenery of Tolkien’s childhood in England varies from the idyllic pleasantness of rural England to the grimy, noisy industrialization of Birmingham, both of which later made their way into his depictions of Middle Earth. . His family for a while lived in a home by the railroad tracks, and his fascination with language was stoked by seeing the strange spellings of names of distant towns on the sides of the coal cars that passed by his home. (Doughan, para. 4)

When their mother passed on in the fall of 1904, Ronald and his younger brother were left both destitute and without family. Their local priest, Father Morgan, became their guardian, and the boys then lived in a series of boarding-houses while attending King Edward’s School in Birmingham(Doughan, para. 6).

Young Ronald’s interest and adeptness with languages was phenomenal; He easily mastered Greek and Latin – which was expected from schools in those days. He became “more than competent” (Doughan, para. 7) in Finnish, Gothic, and several other languages. Most importantly, he enjoyed creating new languages, and these became staples of his later Middle-Earth novels.

Unlike Gerald Gardner, Ronald Tolkien had the benefit of his education being overseen by a stable and honest person, Father Morgan. Thus his education and academic career proceeded along the direct path that was the ideal of his age, broken only by the war – which affected everybody. Despite having a million adventures and far-off places running through his head, his life possessed a level of stability that would have made a hobbit proud.

Conclusion

The experiences of childhood, and the education we receive inevitably help define who we become. Those experiences can be pleasant or unpleasant, chaotic or stable. A great education may be given freely and encouraged by those who are responsible for our upbringing, or desperately gleaned from what oblivious adults let fall. In this paper I hope I have shone a light on ways that the determined and creative individual can take whatever they are given and use it to create a life that matters.

 

References

Victorian Era Fan Guide. (2012, November 7). Myths and legends from a range of ancient cultures…[Tumblr post]. Retrieved from https://victorianfanguide.tumblr.com/post/36690827520/myths-and-legends-from-a-range-of-ancient-cultures

Education, Literacy and Publishing in Victorian England. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/education-literacy-and-publishing-in-victorian-england/

Occult Revival in the Origins of the Victorian Hermeticism. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.atmostfear-entertainment.com/culture/esotericism/occult-revival-victorian/

Victorians: Religion. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england/victorian/religion/

Bracelin, Jack (1960). Gerald Gardner: Witch. Octagon.

Heselton, Phillip (2002a). Witchfather: A Life of Gerald Gardner. Vol.1: Into the Witch Cult. Thoth.

Heselton, Phillip (2002b). Witchfather: A Life of Gerald Gardner. Vol. 2: From Witch Cult to Wicca. Thoth.

Doughan, David (n.d.). //J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch.// Retrieved from https://www.tolkiensociety.org/author/biography/

Karukoski, Dome. (Director). (2019). //Tolkien// [film]. Fox Searchlight Pictures.

 


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