I bit my arm, I sucked the bloodAnd cried: "A sail! A sail!"
I bit my arm, I sucked the bloodAnd cried: "A sail! A sail!"
I bit my arm, I sucked the bloodAnd cried: "A sail! A sail!"
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood
And cried: "A sail! A sail!"
They understood that part, but they put no special expression into the stanza:—
All in a hot and copper sky,The bloody sun at noonRight up above the mast did stand,No bigger than the moon.
All in a hot and copper sky,The bloody sun at noonRight up above the mast did stand,No bigger than the moon.
All in a hot and copper sky,The bloody sun at noonRight up above the mast did stand,No bigger than the moon.
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody sun at noon
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon.
The boys used to emphasise the adjective in the second line, but that was perhaps natural in a community where strong language is the prerogative of grown-ups. I suppose that a teacher of expression would have pointed out that the right arm must be raised gracefully at the third line, and the voice lowered awfully to show the marvellous significance of the fact that the crudoric sun was no bigger than the moon.
All I tried to give my bairns was an appreciation of rhythm. They loved the trochaic rhythm of a poem,Marsh Marigolds, by G. F. Bradby, that I discovered in a school anthology:—
Slaty skies and a whistling wind and a grim grey land,April here with a sullen mind and a frozen hand,Hardly a bird with the heart to sing, or a bud that dares to pry,Only the plovers hovering,On the lonely marsh, with a heavy wingAnd a sad slow cry.
Slaty skies and a whistling wind and a grim grey land,April here with a sullen mind and a frozen hand,Hardly a bird with the heart to sing, or a bud that dares to pry,Only the plovers hovering,On the lonely marsh, with a heavy wingAnd a sad slow cry.
Slaty skies and a whistling wind and a grim grey land,April here with a sullen mind and a frozen hand,Hardly a bird with the heart to sing, or a bud that dares to pry,Only the plovers hovering,On the lonely marsh, with a heavy wingAnd a sad slow cry.
Slaty skies and a whistling wind and a grim grey land,
April here with a sullen mind and a frozen hand,
Hardly a bird with the heart to sing, or a bud that dares to pry,
Only the plovers hovering,
On the lonely marsh, with a heavy wing
And a sad slow cry.
And it used to make me joyful to hear them gallop through Stevenson's delightfulMy Ship and I:—
Oh! it's I that am the captain of a tidy little ship,Of a ship that goes a-sailing on the pond,And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about,But when I'm a little older I shall find the secret outHow to send my vessel sailing on beyond!
Oh! it's I that am the captain of a tidy little ship,Of a ship that goes a-sailing on the pond,And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about,But when I'm a little older I shall find the secret outHow to send my vessel sailing on beyond!
Oh! it's I that am the captain of a tidy little ship,Of a ship that goes a-sailing on the pond,And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about,But when I'm a little older I shall find the secret outHow to send my vessel sailing on beyond!
Oh! it's I that am the captain of a tidy little ship,
Of a ship that goes a-sailing on the pond,
And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about,
But when I'm a little older I shall find the secret out
How to send my vessel sailing on beyond!
I never gave them a poem that needed any explanation. I picture Macdonald painfullyexplaining theElegy.... "Yes, children, the phrase 'incense-breathing morn' means...."
I'm gravelled; I haven't the faintest notion of what the phrase means. Gray annoys me; he is far too perfect for me. I fancy that he rewrote each line about a score of times in his mania for the correct word. Gray is Milton with a dictionary.
I once read that Stevenson studied the dictionary often, used to spend a rainy day reading the thing, and his prose does give me the impression that he cared more for how he said a thing than for the thing itself. I think George Douglas a greater writer; indeed I should call him the greatest novelist Scotland has produced. His style is inevitable; his whole attention seems to be riveted on the matter of his story, and his arresting phrases seem to come from him naturally and thoughtlessly. When you read of Gourlay's agony in Barbie market on the day that his son's disgrace is known to everyone, you see the great hulk of a man, you hear his great breaths ... you are one of the villagers who peep at him fearfully. Every word is inevitable; the picture is perfect. I should be surprised if anyone told me that Douglas altered a single word after he had written it.
When I want to feel humble I take upThe House with the Green Shutters. I have read it a score of times, and I hope to read it a score of times again.
Margaret looked up from the novelette she was reading.
"Are the aristocracy really like what they are in this story?" she asked.
"I don't know," I replied; "I'm not acquainted with the aristocracy, but I should say that they aren't like the aristocracy in that yarn. You see, Margaret, I happen to know some of the men who write these novelettes. Murray is a don at them; he'll turn one out between breakfast and dinner. To the best of my knowledge Murray has never dined in any restaurant more expensive than an A.B.C. shop ... and his characters always dine at the Ritz."
"But have you never met anybody with a title?"
"I once collided with a man at the British Museum door," I said. "He was a Scot.... I know that because neither of us apologised; we merely jerked out 'Oh!' I am almost sure that the man was Sir J. M. Barrie. And I shook hands with two dukes and three lords at a university dinner, but they possibly have forgotten the incident."
No. I don't know the aristocracy well.
I met a titled lady last summer. I was staying at a country house near London, and this lady had the neighbouring house. Shecame over on the Sunday afternoon. My host informed me that she had lost two sons in the war. After she had gone I was asked what I thought of the English aristocracy, and I gave my opinion in these words:—"To the English aristocracy property alone is sacred. That woman has given the lives of her two sons willingly for her country, but if she were asked to give half an acre of her estate to help pay for the war she would go mad with rage and disgust."
When I heard that lady grumble about the wickedness of the munition-workers.... "And, my dear, women in shawls are buying pianos and seal-skin jackets!" ... I realised how hopeless was the cry ofThe New Agefor the Conscription of Wealth. The powerful classes will resist Conscription of Wealth as strenuously as they resist the Germans. Yet the Conscription of Men was in very many cases a Conscription of Wealth. One had only to read the Tribunal cases to discover that thousands of men had to deliver up all their wealth when they joined the army. There was Wrangler the actor; his property was his talent to portray character, and from that he drew his income. His property was conscripted along with him. It was fitting that he should give up all when the State required him to give it up. But the State requires all the wealth of the moneyed classes, and because economic power controls political power the State will not conscript the wealth of its real governors.
I see now that our education is founded on the unpleasant fact that property is more sacred than life. Teachers are encouraged to make their pupils patriotic; every boy must be brought up in the belief that it is great and glorious to die for one's country. A real patriotism would lead a boy to realise that it is a great and glorious thing to live for one's country; the true patriot would teach his lads to make their country a great and glorious country to die for. Somehow our schools for the most part ignore this branch of patriotism; it does not seem so important as the flag-waving and standing to attention that passes for patriotism.
Macdonald is decorating the walls of the school with coloured prints of our warships. "To make them realise how much the navy means to them," he explained to me as I looked at them.
"Excellent!" I said. "The navy deserves all the respect we can give it. But, Macdonald, in your position I should give a further lesson on patriotism; I should point out to these bairns that while the glorious navy is defending our shores from a foreign enemy the enemy within is plundering the nation. I should tell them that under the protection of the navy the profiteers are raising the prices of necessaries hand over fist. All the patriotic flag-waving in the world won't help these bairns to understand that the patriotism of the masses is being exploited by the self-seeking of the dirty few."
Patriotism! We have popular weeklies that endeavour to make the people patriotic. They lash themselves into a fury over momentous questions: The Ich Dien on the crest of the Prince of Wales Must Go; The Duke of So-and-So must have his Garter taken from him; Who was the Spy who sent Kitchener to his doom?
The only way to encourage children to be patriotic is to tell them the sober truth about the important things of life. The invention of the word "shirker" managed to effect that the most timid of men should fight for his country; public opinion will always look after the patriotism necessary for war. But my complaint is that public opinion will not look after the patriotism necessary for peace. If we were all true patriots there would be no slums, no exploitation, no profiteering. And the "patriotic" lesson in school should deal with economics instead of jingo ballads of victories won.
* * *
I cycled twelve miles to-night, and I raised a comfortable thirst. When I came to the village I dropped into the Glamis Arms and had a bottle of lager. As I came out I ran into Macdonald.
"Lucky fellow!" he laughed, "you have no position to maintain now and you can afford to quench a thirst!"
"Position be blowed!" I said, "I drink when I'm dry, and I always did. When I wasdominie here I dropped in here more than once in the hot weather."
"And they sacked you!"
"Not because of that," I said, "but in spite of it. Believe me it was the one thing that made one or two villagers more amiable to me."
The Scot's attitude to the public-house is entertaining. If you have any position to keep up you must not enter a public-house ... you must get it in by the dozen. When I first went to London and entered a saloon bar in the Strand I was amazed to find women sitting with their husbands; I was also amazed to find no drunks about. In a Scots bar the most apparent phenomenon is wrangling. I never heard an argument in a London bar, and I have been in many: I never saw a drunk man in London, and I was there for two years.
The public-house in Scotland is not respectable: in England it is. Why this should be I can only guess. The Scot may be a bigger hypocrite than the Englishman; what is more probable is that he may be a harder drinker. In Scotland entering a public-house is synonymous with getting drunk. Yet there are what you might call alcoholic gradations. A respectable farmer may enter a bar without comment, but a teacher must not enter it. He is the guide of the young, and he must be an example. Teachers seldom enter village bars ... and yet Scotland is notorious for drinking. If the teachers determined to become regular barcustomers I conclude that Scotland would drink herself off the face of the map.
I have a theory that the Calvinistic attitude to the public-house is the chief cause of Scots drunkenness. When a Scot enters a bar he knows that he won't have the courage to be seen coming out again ... and he very naturally says to himself: "Ach, to hell! Aw'll hae another just to fortify mysel' for gaein' oot!" The public-house isn't a public-house at all; it is the most private of houses. Peter Soutar the leading elder in the kirk here always carries a bundle of church magazines in his hand when he enters the Glamis Arms; when the date is past magazine time he enters by the back door. Jeemes Walker the leading Free Kirk elder goes in to read the gospel to old Mrs. Melville the invalid mother of the landlord, and the village is uncharitable enough to remark in his hearing that he really goes to interview his brother "Johnny." I think that it was the doctor who originated that joke.
A public-house is no place for a public man in Scotland.
* * *
The opening of the coal mines has brought to the neighbourhood a new type of person. He is usually an engineer who has spent a good few years abroad, and he is usually married ... very much married. His wife is always a grade above the wife of the engineer next door, and the men appear to spend most of their leisure time in mending quarrels thattheir wives began. Most of the men are amiable fellows with the minimum of ideas and the maximum of knowledge of fishing and card-playing. They have a certain dignity, and they instantly freeze if you casually ask where such-and-such a light railway is to run.
The wives seem to have no interest other than in servants and their manifold wickedness and cussedness. They hold their noses high when they pass through the village, and they bully the local shopkeepers.
When I was a dominie these women patronised me delightfully, but now that I am a cattleman they are quite frank with me. I puzzled over this for some time, and the solution came to me suddenly. They are all English women, and in the English village the dominie is on very much the same social level as the vicar's gardener.
Mrs. Martinlake likes to chat to me now. She is a middle-aged lady who loves to reminisce about duchesses she has known. She once complained to me because the boys did not touch their caps to her, and on my suggesting that they hadn't been introduced she became very indignant. She called to me this morning as she passed the field I was working in.
"Ah! Good morning! I've been looking for you for a long time. I wanted to tell you how much the children have improved; every village boy touches his cap to me now!" and she laughed gaily.
"Good!" I cried. "If this sort of thinggoes on they will be touching their caps to their mothers next."
"And why not?" she demanded with a slight touch of aggression.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"As you say—why not? I think that you ought to persuade your little boy to touch his cap to all the mothers in the village. I notice that he doesn't do it. You take my tip and send him down to Macdonald's school; he'll soon pick it up."
She went off without a word, and I realised that I had been distinctly rude to her. Somehow I felt glad that I had been rude to her.
I told Margaret about the incident afterwards.
"I hate manners, Margaret," I said.
"But," she said wonderingly, "you are very mannerly."
"To you I believe I am, Margaret," I laughed. "But that is because you don't look for manners. Mrs. Martinlake is eternally looking for manners, and to her manners mean respect, deference, boot-licking. She doesn't want the boys to doff their caps to her because she is a woman; no, she wants them to recognise the fact that she is Mrs. Martinlake, self-alleged friend of duchesses. She doesn't care a tupenny damn for the boys and their lives; she is thinking of Mrs. Martinlake all the time. She once talked to me of the respect due to motherhood ... and you know that she sacked Liz Smith when she discovered that Liz had had an illegitimate child.
"Women of that type get my back up," I went on. "They are stupid, low-minded, arrogant. They are poor imitations of the Parisian ladies who curled their lips contemptuously at the plebeian rabble that led them to the guillotine. The Parisian ladies had a fine pride of race to redeem their arrogance, but these women have nothing but pride of class. Margaret, if a teacher failed to teach a boy anything except the truth that deference is one of the Seven Deadly Virtues, I should say that that teacher was a successful teacher."
* * *
The concert was a success to-night. The singing was good, but the speech of the chairman, Peter MacMannish, was great.
"Ladies and Gentlemen,
"We're a' verra weel pleased to see sik a big turn-oot the nicht. Aw need hardly say onything aboot the object o' this concert, but it's to get a puckle bawbees to send oot a clean pair o' socks and maybe a clean sark to oor local sojers oot in France.—(Cheers).
"Weel, ladies and gentlemen, Aw've made mony a speech on this platform in the days when Aw fought for the Conservative Candidate, Mester Fletcher (cheers, and a voice: 'Gie it a drink, cobbler!')"
The light of battle leapt to Peter's eyes.
"Aw ken that wheezin' Radical's voice!" he cried, "and Aw wud just like to tell that voice that there's no room for Radicals in thiswar. What was the attitude o' that man's party to Protection? When Mester Chamberlain stood up in Glesga Toon Hall what did he say?" I gently touched Peter on the arm and reminded him of the concert and its object.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we'll no touch on thae topics here, for ye cam here for another object than to listen to me (several voices: 'Hear, hear!') Afore we begin to the programme Aw wud just like to say that we have to thank oor late dominie for gettin' up this concert. Some o' us had no love for him as a dominie, but Aw say let bygones be bygones. We a' ken that he's no a teacher (laughter), but he's a clever fellow for a' that, and we'll maybe see him in Parliament yet. That hoose has muckle need o' new blood. When Aw think o' Lloyd George and that man Churchill; when Aw see the condeetion they've brocht the country till; when Aw think o' the slack wye they've let the Trade Unions rob the country; when Aw see—" I coughed here, and Peter drew up.
"Weel, Ladies and Gentlemen, this is no a poleetical meetin', and Aw've muckle pleasure in callin' upon Miss Jean Black for a sang," he peered at his programme, "a sang enteeled: A Moonlight Sonnita." Miss Jean Black forthwith sat down at the piano.
During the interval Peter digged me in the ribs.
"What d'ye think o' my suggestion, dominie, eh?"
"What suggestion?"
"Aboot standin' for Parliament. It's a payin' game noo-a-days ... fower hunner a year and yer tea when the hoose is sittin'. Goad, dominie, think o' sittin' takkin' yer tea wi' Airthur Balfoor!" and he sighed wistfully as a child sighs when it dreams of fairyland and wakes to reality.
"Aye," he said after a long pause, "Aw wance shook hands wi' Joe Chamberlain. His lawware says to him: 'This is Mester MacMannish, wan o' yer chief supporters in the county,' and Aw just taks my hand oot o' my breek pooch. 'Verra pleased to meet ye,' says Aw ... 'and hoo is yer missis and the bairns?' Man, he lauched at that. Goad he lauched!"
Peter forgot the crowded hall; he stared at the ceiling unseeingly, and he lived over again the greatest day of his life. It was fitting that a Scot should have originated the title "Heroes and Hero-Worship."
Macdonald came up to-night. I hadn't seen him for weeks.
"I am making out a scheme of work for the Evening School," he said. "What line did you take?"
"My scheme was simple," I replied, "and luckily I had an inspector who appreciated what I was trying to do. I made the history lessons lessons in elementary political economy. Arithmetic and Algebra were the usual thing."
"What about Reading and Grammar?" he asked.
"We read David Copperfield, and I meant to read a play of Shakespeare and Ibsen'sAn Enemy of the People, but I never found time for them. The class became a sort of debating society. I gave out subjects. We discussed Votes for Women, Should Women Smoke? Is Money the Reward of Ability? I told them about the theory of evolution; I began to trace the history of mankind, or rather tried to make out a likely history, but at the end of the session we hadn't arrived at the dawn of written history."
"Did you find any pupil improving?"
"Macdonald, you are a demon for tangible results. The only tangible result of my heresies I can think of is the fact that Margaret Thomson smokes my cigarettes now."
"Have a look at this scheme," he said, and he handed me a lengthy manuscript. The arithmetic was a detailed list of utilitarian sums ... how to measure ricks of hay and fields, how to calculate the price of papering walls and so on. My own attitude to utilitarian sums is this: if you know the principles of pure mathematics all these things come easily to you, hence teach pure mathematics and let the utilitarian part take care of itself.
His English part dealt minutely with grammar; he was to give much parsing and analysis; compound sentences were to be broken up into their component parts.
In History he was to do the Stuart Period, and Geography was to cover the whole world "special attention being paid to the agricultural produce of the British Colonies."
"It is a 'correct' scheme," I said.
"Give me your candid opinion of it."
"Well, Macdonald, your ways are not my ways, and candidly I wouldn't teach quite a lot of the stuff you mean to teach. Grammar for instance. What's the use of knowing the parts of a sentence? I don't suppose that Shakespeare knew them. If education is meant to make people think, your Evening School would be much better employed reading books. If you read a lot your grammar takes care of itself.
"The Stuart Period is all right if you don't emphasise the importance of battles and plots. I haven't the faintest notion whether Cromwellwon the battle of Marston Moor or lost it, but I have a fair idea of what the constitutional battle meant to England. The political war was over before the first shot was fired; the Civil War was a religious war. If I were you I should take the broad principles of the whole thing and skip all the battles and plots and executions.
"As for the British Colonies and their agriculture you can turn emigration officer if you fancy the job. The idea is good enough. My own personal predilection in geography is the problem of race. I used to tell my pupils about the different 'niggers' I met at the university, and of the detestable attitude of the colonials to these men."
Macdonald shook his head.
"No, no," he said, "a black man isn't as good as a white man."
So we went off at a tangent. I told him that personally I had not enough knowledge of black men to lay down the law about them, but I handed him a very suggestive article in this week'sNew Ageon the subject. The writer's theory is that in India black men are ostracised merely because they are a subject race, and he points out that in Germany and France the coloured man is treated as an equal. When I was told by a friend that the natives of India despised Keir Hardie because he carried his own bag off the vessel when he arrived in India I realised that the colour question was too complicated for me to settle.I have a sneaking suspicion that the coloured man is maligned; the average Anglo-Indian is so stupid in his attitude to most things that I can scarcely suspect him of being wise in his attitude to the native. I regret very much that I had not the moral courage to chum up with the coloured man at the university: prejudices leave one after one has left the university.
I wish I knew what Modern Geography means. A few years ago the geography lesson was placed in the hands of the science teacher in our higher grade schools, and the educational papers commenced to talk of isotherms. I have never discovered what an isotherm is; I came very near to discovering once; I asked Dickson, a man of science, what they were, but a girl smiled to me before he got well into the subject (we were in a café), and I never discovered what an isotherm was.
The old-fashioned geography wasn't a bad thing in its way. You got to know where places were, and your newspaper became intelligible. It is true that you wasted many an hour memorising stuff that was of no great importance. I recollect learning that Hexham was noted for hats and gloves. I stopped there once when I was motor-cycling. I asked an aged inhabitant what his town was noted for.
"When I coom to think of it," he said as he scratched his head, "the North Eastern Railway passes through it."
But the old geography familiarised you withthe look of the map. Where it failed was in the appeal to the imagination. You learned a lot of facts but you never asked why. I should imagine that the new geography may deal with reasons why; it may enquire into racial differences; it may ask why London is situated where it is, why New York grew so big.
For weeks before I left my school my geography lesson consisted of readings from Foster Fraser'sThe Real Siberia. I began to feel at home in Siberia, and what had been a large ugly chunk of pink on the map of Asia became a real place. There is a scarcity of books of this kind. Every school should have a book on every country written in Fraser's manner. I don't say that Fraser sees very deeply into the life of the Russian. I am quite content with his delightful stories of wayside stations and dirty peasants. He paints the place as it is; if I want to know what the philosophy of the Russian is I can take up Tolstoy or Dostoeivsky or Maxim Gorki.
To return to isotherms ... well, no, I think I'll get to bed instead.
* * *
I was down in the village this morning. A motor-car came up, and two ladies and a gentleman alighted.
"Where is the village school?" asked the gentleman, and I pointed to the ugly pile.
"We are Americans," he drawled in unrequired explanation, "and we've come allthe way from Leeds to see the great experiment."
"Yes," said one of the ladies—the pretty one—"we are dying to see the paradise ofA Dominie's Log. Is it so very wonderful?"
"Marvellous!" I cried. "But the Dominie is a funny sort of chap, sensitive and very shy. You mustn't give him a hint that you know anything about his book; simply say that you want to see a Scots school at work."
They thanked me, and set off for the school.
I loafed about until they returned.
"Well?" I said, "what do you think of it?"
"The fellow is an impostor!" said the man indignantly. "I expected to see them all out of doors chewing gum and sweets, and—"
"There wasn't a chin moving in the whole crowd!" cried the young lady.
"The book was a parcel of lies," said the other lady, "and when I next want a dollar's worth of fiction I reckon I'll plump for Hall Caine or Robert Chambers. The man wouldn't speak."
"I mentioned Dewey'sSchools of To-Day," said the man, "and he stared at me as if I were talking Greek."
I directed them to the village inn for lunch, and I walked up the brae chuckling.
I had had my dinner, and was having a smoke in the bothy when I heard the American's voice: "We want to see the dominie!" Margaret came to the door, and I walked out into the yard. The trio gasped when they saw me;then the man placed his arms akimbo and looked at me.
"Well I'm damned!" he said with vehemence.
"Not so bad as that," I said with a grin, "hadis a better word." Then they all began to talk at once.
He explained that he was a lawyer from Baltimore: I told him that his concern about the absence of chewing-gum had led me to conjecture that he manufactured that substance. This seemed to tickle him and he made a note of it.
"Be careful!" smiled the pretty lady—his daughter—, "he'll hand over his notes to the newspaper man when he goes back home."
The lawyer knew something about education, and he told me many things about the new education of America; he was one of the directors of a modern school in his own county.
"Come over to the States," he said with eagerness; "we want men of your ideas over there. I reckon that you and the new schools there don't differ at all."
I gave him my impressions of the American schools described by Dewey in his book.
"It seems to me," I said, "that these schools over-emphasise the 'learn by doing' business. Almost every modern reformer in education talks of 'child processes'; the kindergarten idea is carried all the way. Childrenare encouraged to shape things with their hands."
"Sure," he said, "but that's only a preliminary to shaping things with their heads."
"I'm not so sure that the one naturally leads to the other," I went on. "Learning by doing is a fine thing, but when little Willie asks why rabbits have white tails the learning by doing business breaks down. In America you have workshops where boys mould metal; you have school farms. But I hold that a child can have all that for years and yet be badly educated."
He looked amazed.
"But I thought that was your line," he said with puzzled expression, "Montessori, and all that kind of thing!"
"I don't know what Montessorianism is," I said; "I have forgotten everything I ever read about Froebel and Pestalozzi. All I know is that reformers want the child to follow its own processes—whatever that phrase may mean. I heartily agree with them when they say that the child should choose its own line, and should discover knowledge for itself. But my point is that a boy may act every incident in history, for instance, and never realise what history means. I can't see the educational value of children acting the incident of Alfred and the burnt cakes."
"Ah! but isn't self-expression a great thing?"
"It is," I answered, "but the actor doesn'texpress himself. Irving expressed himself ... and the result was that Shakespeare was Irvingised. A school pageant of the accession of Henry IV. may be a fine spectacle, but it is emphasising all the stuff that doesn't matter a damn in history."
"But," he protested, "it is the stuff that matters to children. You forget that a child isn't a little adult."
"This brings us to the vexed question of the coming in of the adult," I said. "You and I agree that the adult should interfere as little as possible; but the adult will come in in spite of us. Leave children to themselves and they express their personalities the livelong day. Every game is an expression of individuality. The adult steps in and says 'We must guide these children,' and he takes their attention from playing houses to playing scenes from history. And I want to know the educational value of it all."
"It is like travel," he said. "When you travel places become real to you, and when you travel back into mediæval times the whole thing becomes real to you."
"I see your point," I said, "and in a manner I agree with you. But why select pageants? You will agree with me when I say that the condition of the people in feudal times is of far greater importance than the display of a Henry."
"Certainly, I do."
"And the things of real importance in historyare incapable of being dramatised. You can make a modern school act the Signing of Magna Charta, but the children won't understand the meaning of Magna Charta any the better. You can't dramatise the Enclosure of the Public Lands in Tudor Times; you can't dramatise the John Ball insurrection; all the acting in the world won't help you to understand the Puritan Revolution."
"You are thinking of children as little adults," he said.
"But theyarelittle adults! Every game is an imitation of adult processes; the ring games down at the school there nearly all deal with love and matrimony; the girls make houses and take in lodgers. And if you persuade them to act the part of King Alfred you are encouraging them to be little adults. They are children when they cry and run and jump; whenever they reason they reason as adults. They are very often in the company of adults ... and that's one of the reasons why you cannot trust what are called child processes. Child processes naturally induce a child to make a row ... and daddy won't put up with a row. The child cannot escape being a little adult. It's all very well for a Rousseau to deal abstractly with child psychology. I am not Rousseau, and I tackle the lesser problem of adult psychology. The problem before me is—or rather was—painfully concrete. I set out to counteract the adult influence of the home. I saw Peter MacMannish shy divotsat the Radical candidate because Peter's father was a Tory; I saw Lizzie Peters put out her tongue at the local Christabel Pankhurst because Lizzie's mother had said forcibly that woman's place is the home."
"I see," said the American thoughtfully, "you used your adult personality on the ground that it was the lesser of two evils? But don't you think that that was a mistake? Was the freedom of behaviour and criticism you allowed them not the best antidote to home prejudices?"
"If the children had not been going to homes at night I should have trusted to freedom alone. As it was the poor bairns were between two fires. I gave them freedom ... and their parents cursed me. One woman sent a verbal message to me to the effect that I was an idiot; one bright little lassie came to me one day with the words of the woman next door, 'It's just waste o' time attendin' that schule.' Do you imagine that all the child processes in the world could save a child from an environment like that?"
When the American departed he held out his hand.
"I came to see a reformer of child education," he said with a smile, "and I discover that you aren't a reformer of child education at all; your job in life is to run a school for parents."
The school is closed for the Autumn Holiday ... commonly called the Tattie Holiday here. Macdonald has gone off to Glasgow. The bigger boys and girls are gathering potatoes in the fields here, and I am driving the tattie digger. At dinnertime they come to the bothy and eat their bread; Mrs. Thomson gives them soup and coffee in the kitchen, but they bring their bowls over to my bothy. Much of the fun has gone out of them; the constant bending makes them very tired, and they drop off to sleep very easily. Janet and Ellen lay in my bed all dinnertime yesterday and slept. Occasionally a boy will sing a song that always crops up at tattie time:—
O! I'm blyde I'm at the tatties,I'm blyde I'm at the tatties,I'm blyde I'm at the tatties,Wi' auchteenpence a day!
O! I'm blyde I'm at the tatties,I'm blyde I'm at the tatties,I'm blyde I'm at the tatties,Wi' auchteenpence a day!
O! I'm blyde I'm at the tatties,I'm blyde I'm at the tatties,I'm blyde I'm at the tatties,Wi' auchteenpence a day!
O! I'm blyde I'm at the tatties,
I'm blyde I'm at the tatties,
I'm blyde I'm at the tatties,
Wi' auchteenpence a day!
Blyde means glad, but there is but little gladness in the band that trudges up the rigs in the morning twilight.
Jim Jackson is sometimes in good form. He has taken on the swaying gait of the young ploughman; he hasn't got the pockets that are situated in the front of the trousers, but he shoves his hands down the inside instead, and he says: "Ma Goad, you lads, hurry upafore the Boss comes roond wi' the digger again!" They call me the Boss now; Macdonald is the Mester. They seldom mention the school at all; if they do it is to recall some incident that happened in my time. But already the memory of our happy days is becoming hazy; life is too interesting for children to recall memories.
To-day Jim sat and gazed absently at my bothy fire.
"Now, bairns," I said, "Jim's got an idea. Cough it up, Jim."
"Aw was thinkin' o' the tattie-digger," he said slowly; "it seems an awfu' roondaboot wye o' liftin' tatties. Could we no invent a digger that wud hoal the tatties and gaither them at the same time?"
"Laziness is the mother of invention," I remarked.
"But ... cud a machine no be invented?" he asked.
"You could have a sort o' basket," he went on, "that ceppit a' the tatties as they were thrown oot."
"Dinna haver!" interjected Janet, "it wud cep a' the stanes at the same time."
"If spuds were made o' steel," said Jim, "ye cud draw them oot wi' a magnet."
"And if the sky fell you would catch larks," said I.
"If the sea dried up!" said Ellen, and Jim instantly forgot his patent tattie-digger.
"Crivens! What a fine essay that wudmak! Why did ye no gie us that for an essay?"
"Take it on now," I suggested, but he ignored the suggestion.
"The Mester gae me a book to read in the holidays," he said irrelevantly, "and it's calledSelf Help; it's a' aboot laddies that got on weel."
I ceased to listen to their talk. I thought of Samuel Smiles and his Victorian ideals. The book is iniquitous nowadays; it is the Bible of the individualist. Get on! I'm afraid that Smiles' idea of getting on is still popular in Scotland; the country might well adapt the popular song "Get Out and Get Under," changing it to "Get On or Get Under" and making it the national anthem of Scotland.
I once comparedSelf Helpwith Lorimer'sLetters of a Self-made Merchant to his Son, and was struck by the similarity of the ideals. Lorimer's book is an AmericanisedSelf-help. Smiles is slightly better. With him getting on means more than the amassing of wealth; it means gaining position, which being interpreted means returning to your native village with prosperous rotundity and a gold chain.
Lorimer has no special interest in gold chains and symbols of wealth; he doesn't care a button for position. He preaches efficiency and power; to him the greatest achievement in life appears to be the packing of the maximum of pig into the minimum of tin in the minimum of time. A business friend of minetells me that it is the greatest book America has produced. Evidently it didn't require the Lusitania incident to prove that America is a long-suffering nation.
Jim was back to the subject of inventions again.
"Aw read in a paper that there's a fortune waitin' for the man that can invent something to haud breeks up instead o' gallis's."
"Ye cud hae buttons on the foot o' yer sark," suggested Janet.
"Aye," said Jim scornfully, "and if a button cam off what wud haud up yer breeks?"
"Public opinion ... in this righteous village," I murmured; "it's almost strong enough to hold up any pair of breeks, Jim," but no one understood me.
"Ye cud hae sticks up the side," said Ellen, "and yer breeks wud stand up like fisherman's boots."
"And if ye wanted to bend?" demanded Jim.
Ellen shoved out her tongue at him.
"Ye never said onything aboot bendin', and ye dinna need to bend onywye."
"What aboot when ye're gaitherin' tatties?" crowed Jim.
Ellen tossed her head.
"Aw wasna thinkin' o' the sort o' man that gaithers tatties; Aw was thinkin' o' gentlemen's breeks ... the kind o' breeks ye'll never hae, Jim Jackson."
Jim sighed and gave me a look which I took to mean: "Women are impossible when itcomes to arguing." He thought for a time; then he looked up with twinkling eyes.
"Aw've got it!"
"Well?"
"Do away wi' breeks a'-the-gether, and wear kilts."
"And what will ye do wi' yer hands?" put in Fred Findlay; "there's nae pooches in a kilt."
"Goad, Fred," said Jim, "Aw never thocht o' that; we'll just hae to wrastle on wi' oor breeks and oor gallis's."
"Ye cud wear a belt," suggested Janet.
"And gie mysel' pewmonia! No likely!"
"It's no pewmonia that ye get wearin' a belt," said Janet, "it's a pendicitis."
"G'wa, lassie, what do you ken aboot breeks onywye?"
"Aw ken mair than you do, Jim Jackson. For wan thing Aw ken that it's no a subject ye shud speak aboot afore lassies. Come on, Ellen, we'll go ootside; the conversation's no proper."
Jim glanced at me doubtfully.
"It was her that said that breeks cud be buttoned to yer sark!" he exclaimed. He jumped up and hastened to the door.
"Janet Broon," I heard him cry, "dinna you speak aboot sarks to me again; sarks is no a proper subject o' conversation for young laddies."
I think it was Fletcher of Saltoun who said that he didn't care who made a nation's lawsif he made its ballads. To-night I feel that I don't care if Macdonald hears the bairns' opinion of Charles I. so long as I hear their opinion of sarks and breeks.
* * *
A Trade Union official delivered a lecture on Labour Aspirations in the village hall to-night. I was sadly disappointed. The man tried to make out that the interests of Capital and Labour are similar.
"We are not out to abolish the capitalist," he said; "all we want is a say in the workshop management. We have nothing to do with the way the employer conducts his business; we want to mind our own business. We want to see men paid a living wage; we want to see...." I ceased to be interested in what the man wanted to see. I fancy that he requires to see a devil of a lot before he is capable of guiding the Trade Unions.
Why are these so-called leaders so poor in intellect? Why are they so fearful of alienating the good opinion of the capitalist? If the Trade Union has any goal at all it surely is the abolition of the capitalist. The leaders crawl to the feet of capital and cry: "For the Lord's sake listen to us! We won't ask much; we won't offend you in the least. We merely want to ask very deferentially that you will see that there is no unemployment after the war. We beseech you to let our stewards have a little say ... a very little say ... in the management of the shops. Take yourRent and Interest and Profit as usual; as usual we'll be quite content with what is left over."
If a bull had intelligence he would not allow himself to be led to the shambles. If the Trade Unions had intelligence they would not allow their paid leaders to lead them to the altar.
The lecturer had evidently been told that I was the only Socialist in the village, and he called upon me to say a few words. I have no doubt that later he regretted calling upon me.
"The speaker is modest in his demands," I said. "He has told you what Labour is asking for, and now I'll tell you what I think Labourshouldask for. Labour's chief aim should be to make the Trade Unions blackleg proof. When they have roped in all the workers they will be able to command anything they like. They should then go to the State and say: 'We want to join forces with the State. Capitalism is un-Christlike, and wasteful, and we must destroy it. We propose to take over the whole concern ourselves; we propose to abolish Rent, Interest, and Profit ... and Wagery. At present we are selling our labour to the highest bidder, and in the process we are selling our souls along with our bodies. Each industry will conduct its own business, not for profit but for social service; no shareholders will live on our labour; we shall give our members pay instead of wages.'
"Gentlemen, I call an organisation of this kind a Guild, but you can call it what you like. It is the only organisation that will abolish wagery, that is, will prohibit labour from being a commodity obeying the Laws of Supply and Demand."
"What about nationalisation of land and mines and railways?" said the official. "These are on our programme, and they will revolutionise industry."
"Hand over the mines and the railways to the State," I said, "and you have State capitalism. You won't abolish wages; you'll buy the mines and railways, and you'll draw your wages from what is left over after the interest due to the late shareholders is paid."
"Ah!" he interrupted, "you want to confiscate?"
"If necessary, certainly. We have conscripted life because the State required men to give their lives; why not conscript wealth in the same way? The State requires the wealth of the rich, not only for the purpose of paying for the war; it requires it to pay for the peace to come."
"Control of industry by producers has always failed," he said. "The New StatesmanSupplement on the Control of Industry proved this conclusively."
"Of course it has always failed," I said. "Flying always failed, but the aeroplane experimenters did not sit down and wail: 'It's absolutely no good; men have always failedto fly.' If the Railway Trade Union got the offer of the whole railway system to-morrow to run as it pleased it would make a bonny hash of it. Why? Because management is a skilled business. But if the salaried railway officials had the vision to see that their interests lay with the men instead of with the masters, then you would find a difference. The Trade Unions without the salaried officials are useless.
"I read the Supplement you mention. One of the causes of failure given was that the producers had an interest in the plant and they were always unwilling to scrap machinery in order to introduce better machines."
"That's quite true," he nodded.
"Is it? Why does Bruce the linen manufacturer in the neighbouring town here scrap comparatively new machinery when better inventions come out? He has an interest in the plant, hasn't he? Why then does he not stick to the old methods?"
"He knows that he will gain in the end."
"Exactly. And a society of workers running their own business would not have the gumption to see that the new methods would be a gain in the end?"
"The fact remains that they have tried and failed," he said.
"That merely proves that the workers without their managers are hopeless," I said. "What can you expect from a section of the community that has never been educated? You can't make a man slave ten hours a dayfor a living wage and then expect him to have the organising ability of Martin the cigar merchant, or the vision of Gamage the universal provider. A rich merchant in London said to me when I asked him point blank if he always thought of his profits: 'Profits be blowed! The great thing is the game of business!' I don't see any reason in the world why the manager of say The Enfield Cycle Company should not be as energetic and as capable if he were managing a factory for the Cycle Guild."
"The workers would interfere with him," said the official; "every workman who had a grudge against him would try to get him put off the managership."
"Lord!" I cried, "for a representative of Labour you seem to have a poor opinion of the democracy you speak for! If that is your attitude to your fellow-workmen I quite understand your modest demands for Labour. If the rank and file of the Trade Unions can't rise higher than squabbling about whether a manager should be sacked or not, the Trade Unions had better content themselves with the programme their leaders have arranged for them. They had better concentrate their attention on trifles like a Minimum Wage or an Old Age Pension."
A disturbing thought comes to me to-night. Democracy means rule by the majority ... and the majority is always wrong. The only comfort I can find lies in the thought that themajority of to-day represents the opinions of the minority of yesterday. Democracy will always be twenty years behind its time.
* * *
To-day has been a very wet Sunday. I did not get up till one o'clock. Margaret came over about tea-time and invited me to sample some drop scones she had been making. She was in a skittish mood, and she began to turn my bothy upside down on the allegation that it was time for autumn cleaning. I ordered her to the door, and she sat down on my bed and laughed at me. I said that I would throw a drop scone at her head if it were not for the danger of shying weights about indiscriminately, and she threw my pillow at me. I rose from my chair and went to her.
"Out you come, you besom!" I cried and I seized her by the shoulders. We struggled ... and I suddenly realised that as we paused for breath her face was very near mine. I threw my arms around her and kissed her straight on the lips. Then slowly we parted and we stood looking at each other. Her face had become very serious.
"You—you shouldn't have done that!" she gasped.
"Why not?" I asked lamely.
She gazed at me wildly for a long moment; then she rushed from the room.
It happened ... and I don't believe in crying over spilt milk. If I had been a strong man it wouldn't have happened; if Margarethad not been in that skittish mood it wouldn't have happened. Carlyle says somewhere: "Mighty events turn on a straw; the crossing of a brook decides the conquest of the world." Mighty events! Is this a mighty event? I have kissed many a girl. To me, no; but to Margaret I fear that it is. It was most likely her first kiss since she became a woman. I feel very like Alec D'Urberville, the seducer of Tess, to-night ... only I don't think I'll take religion as he did and try to lead Margaret to salvation as he did Tess. It suddenly strikes me that I am more like Angel Clare. He was an educated man learning farming; I am an educated man tending cattle. He fell in love with the dairymaid Tess; I.... But have I fallen in love with anyone? In general I should say that when a man asks himself whether he is in love or not he is not in love. Love over-rules the head; every marriage means a victory of heart over head. Presumably the men who have no heads make the best lovers. Hamlet could not love Ophelia because he had a head; Romeo loved Juliet because he hadn't a head. The whole problem of H. G. Wells' later novels lies in the fact that his men have heads. They are all analytical ... and the man who analyses himself always appears before the public as a selfish brute. The analytical man cannot make a martyr of himself; he is a weakling; he has his fun ... and he pays for it, but he makes a woman pay for it also.
I suppose that in ancient times love was a simple thing. You desired a woman, and you hit her father on the head with a stone axe and carried her off to your cave. In the majority of cases it is a simple business yet; you don't knock your prospective father-in-law on the head with a hatchet; you take a filial interest in your prospective mother-in-law's rheumatics instead. When Smith the shopwalker falls in love with Nancy of the hat department his chief concern is to know how he is going to keep house on his salary. He never sits down of an evening saying to himself: "Now, is Nancy my soul-mate? Is her sense of humour something like my own? May we not be absolutely incompatible in temperament?" Smith hasn't the faintest idea what sort of man he is himself, and if you aren't disturbed by doubts about yourself you won't be disturbed with doubts about your future wife. I should guess that Mr. and Mrs. Smith will live happily together ... if she is a passable cook.
I fear greatly that the introspective man is doomed to connubial misery. Margaret likes to read penny novelettes, and she will probably take a fancy to Charles Garvice some day soon. She knows nothing about music or painting or literature. Unless we are ragging each other we have not a single topic of common interest; we should certainly bore each other during the first-class honeymoon journey south.
Then why in the name of thunder did Ikiss her? I suppose that I kissed her because kissing is more elemental than thinking. When she had rushed out I was joyous in the realisation that her lips were sweet, that her neck was gloriously graceful, that her eyes were deep and wonderful. But now her physical charms have gone with her, and doubts crowd in upon me.
I wonder what she is thinking of! I know that she has no doubts about herself, but I fancy that she has her doubts about me. Poor lassie ... and well she might!
* * *
She was milking to-night. I went over and stood beside her. She looked up, and her eyes shone with a new brightness. She could not meet my gaze, and she flushed and looked the other way.
"Margaret," I said softly, "I love you!"
She held up her lips to me ... and then I walked out of the byre.
And, you know, I intended to say something very different. I intended to say: "Margaret, I was a fool last night. Try to forget all about it."
I kissed her instead. I'm afraid I was a fool last night, and a fool to-night, and a fool all the time. However, I am a happy fool to-night.
Macdonald has returned. He has brought a man Macduff with him, a college friend of his, and now the headmaster of a big school in Perthshire. He has mentioned Macduff to me more than once. Macduff is his ideal schoolmaster, a stern disciplinarian and a great producer of "results." When they came up to see me to-night Macdonald's face glowed with anticipation; it was evident that he had come to my funeral. Macduff was to slay me, bury me, and write my epitaph. I thought of agreeing with Macduff as much as possible, so as to rob Macdonald of his triumph, but I found it impossible to find more than a few points of agreement. I managed, however, to carry the war into the enemy's camp, and Macduff found himself acting on the defensive more than once.
"I read yourLog," he said agreeably, "and I must congratulate you on it. I laughed at many of the yarns you have in it."
"The worst of being called a humorist," said I, "is that everybody seizes on your light bits, and ignores your serious bits."
"I didn't ignore your serious bits," he said, "I read them carefully ... and, to be frank, thought them damned nonsense. You don't mind my saying so, do you?"
"Certainly not, my dear fellow! When you've read the evening paper critics' opinion of yourself you can stand anything. I am all for a free criticism; it lets you know where you stand at once."
We both became very amiable after that, and I offered him a fill of Macdonald's baccy. Then I brought out a bottle of whiskey, and we sat round the bothy fire like brothers.
"And now," I said, "tell me all about the damned nonsensical parts."
"Well," he laughed, "it seems a dirty trick to drink a chap's whiskey and slate his ideas at the same time, doesn't it?"
"It might be worse," I said with a smile; "you might slate his whiskey and drink in his ideas at the same time; and I've never met a man who could stand being accused of keeping bad whiskey, although I know dozens of men who will sit with a grin on their faces while you tear their philosophy of life to pieces."
"They grin at your ignorance, eh?"
"Exactly!"
Macdonald held up his glass to the light and eyed it thoughtfully.
"Macduff's theory is that if you spare the rod you spoil the child," he said.
"Yes," said Macduff, "I agree with old Solomon. You know, it's all very well to be a heretic, but you are up against the wisdom of the ages. All the way from Solomon downwards parents have agreed that youngsters must be trained strictly. You can't smashup the wisdom of the ages as you try to do."
"The wisdom of the ages!" I mused.... "When I come to think of it the wisdom of the ages taught men that the earth was flat, that the sun went round the earth, that the touch of a king cured King's Evil. Do you mean to say that because a thing has a tradition behind it it must be believed for ever? Because Solomon said a thing is it eternally true? The wisdom of the ages must be made to give place to the wisdom of the age."
"Then you would have each generation ignore all that had been said by men of previous generations?"
"I don't mean that. By all means find out what wise men of old have said, but don't worship them; be ready all the time to reject their wisdom if you feel you can't agree with it. This using the rod business is a tradition because men found it the easiest method for themselves. A child was weak and he was noisy; the easiest thing to do was to whack the little chap. Do you allow conversation in your school?"
"I do not!" he said grimly.
"And why?"
"They can't work if they are talking."
"And that's your sole reason?"
"Yes."
"If an inspector stood at your desk chatting to you about the war, would you have a silent room?"
"Certainly."
"But why?"
"Oh," he said impatiently, "for various reasons. They aren't there to talk; and they've got to be disciplined, to understand that they are not free to do as they like whenever they like."
"Also," I suggested, "the inspector might be annoyed?"
"There's that in it," he confessed with a little confusion.
"The wisdom of the ages agrees with you," I said, "and I think that in this case the wisdom of the ages is wrong. In the first place I want to know what you're trying to produce."
"Educated citizens," he replied.
"And since the Solomon tradition has been in vogue for quite a long time, do you consider that it has produced educated citizens as yet?"
"More or less," he answered.
"I can't see it," I said. "When nine-tenths of the population of these isles live on the border line of starvation you can't surely argue that they are educated citizens. They are bullied citizens ... and the first step in the bullying of them was the refusal of authority in the shape of the parent and the pedagogue to spare the rod."
"But look here," he interrupted, "come back to the school. Do you think it wrong for a teacher to compel a boy to attend to a lesson?"
"I do. If he has to be compelled the lesson clearly fails to interest him. I would have childhood a garden in which one could wander wherever one pleased; I would abolish fear and punishment."
"And do you mean to tell me," he demanded, "that a boy will offer to learn his history and geography and arithmetic and grammar of his own free will?"
"It depends on the boy. Here, again, we come up against the wisdom of the ages. The wisdom of the ages has decreed that these subjects are the chief things in education. But are they? I should imagine that it is more important for a boy to know something about feminine psychology than about Henry the Eighth. He will one day be called on to choose a wife, but he'll never be called on to choose a king. Again why should geography be of more importance than anatomy? A man never wants to know where Timbuctoo is, but he very often wants to know whether the pain in his tummy is appendicitis or heartburn."
"Go on!" he laughed, "find a substitute for arithmetic now!"
"Arithmetic," I said, "is the trump card of the man who wants a utilitarian education. I can do lots of sums—Simple Interest, Profit and Loss, Ratio and Proportion, Train Sums, Stream Sums.... I could almost do a Cube Root. So far as I can remember I have never had occasion to use arithmetic for any purposeother than adding up money or multiplying a few figures by a few figures. Your utilitarianism somehow leads in the wrong direction most of the time. I was brought up under the wisdom of the ages curriculum, and I'll just give you an idea of some of the things I don't know. I don't know the difference between a mushroom and a toadstool; I haven't the faintest idea of how they make glass or soap or paint or wine or whiskey or beer or paper or candles or matches; I know nothing about the process of law; I don't know what steps one takes to get married or divorced or cremated or naturalised; I don't know the starboard side of a ship; I don't know how a vacuum brake works. I could fill a book with a list of the things I don't know ... a book as big as the Encyclopædia Britannica.
"What I want to know is this: How are we to determine what things are important to know? From a utilitarian point of view it is more important to know how to get married than how to find the latitude and longitude of Naples. As an exercise of thinking it is quite as important to inquire into the working of a Westinghouse brake as to inquire into the working of a Profit and Loss sum."
"Then what curriculum would you have?"
"I wouldn't have any curriculum. I would allow a boy to learn what he wanted to learn. If he prefers kite-making to sentence-making I want him to choose kite-making. If he wants to catch minnows instead of reading aboutNapoleon, I say let him do it; he is learning what he wants to learn, and that's exactly what we all do when we leave the compulsion of the schoolroom."
"It won't do!" cried Macduff.
"Look at it in this way," I said. "Suppose I am three stone heavier than you. And suppose that I think it would benefit you if you knew all about—let us say Evolution. I come to you, take you by the back of the neck and say: 'Macduff, you get up the Darwinian Theory word perfect by Monday morning. If you don't I'll bash your head for you.' I reckon that you would call in the police ... and they would naturally call in the local prison doctor to inquire into my sanity. That is exactly what you are doing in your school ... only, unfortunately, the police and the prison doctor are on your side. Personally I could make out a strong case for your being certified as a dangerous lunatic with homicidal tendencies."
"Ah!" he said, "but the two cases are different. Your arbitrary insistence on my learning all about Darwin has no right on its side; it's merely your opinion that I should know all about Evolution. But when I make a boy learn his history and grammar I am not acting on my own opinion. Personally I confess that I teach lots of things and don't see the use of them."
"You obey the—er—the wisdom of the ages?"
"I suppose I do."
"Education," I said, "should lead a boy to think for himself, but if teachers refuse to think for themselves in case they disagree with the wisdom of the ages I don't see that they are the men to lead children to think for themselves."
Later we discussed motor-cycles, and I learned many tips from Macduff. He is a mine of information on the subject.
When they had gone I thought out the problem of the curriculum. To abolish the curriculum involves abolishing large classes. I would have classes of not more than a dozen pupils. In the free school I picture, classes would not in fact exist; if there were a hundred and twenty scholars there would be ten teachers. They would act as guides to be consulted when necessary. Each teacher would learn with his or her pupils. A teacher is not an encyclopædia of facts; he is an enquirer.
When we tarred the pigeon-house I did not say: "Now, boys, listen to me, and learn how to put on tar." The boys brought chunks of pitch in their pockets (pretty certainly sneaked from the heaps used for tar-spraying the roads). We got an old pail and melted the solid stuff, then we tried to put it on. The trial was a complete failure; the tar would not run. We sat down to consider the matter.
"Tell you what, boys," said Cheery Smith, "we'll thin it wi' some paraffin."
We thinned it with some paraffin and the stuff ran quite easily.
When I told Macdonald of the incident he cried: "Yes, but think of the time you wasted!"
What's wrong with Macdonald and Macduff is that they know too much to be good teachers. They have nothing to learn. They know all the facts about curriculum subjects; they know exactly what is right and what is wrong; they know that their authority is infallible; they know that swearing is bad, that cap-lifting is good; they know that obedience is a great virtue, that disobedience to their authority is an unforgivable sin. They are the Supermen of education; their attitude to the school is exactly the attitude of Charles I. to his Parliament. They believe in the Divine Right of Dominies. The dominie can do no wrong. Macdonald's bairns consider him something beyond a human being; he knows everything; he is above temptation. He has no weaknesses; his pipe goes into his pocket when he meets a child; he wouldn't allow a child to see him kiss his wife for all the gold in the Bank of England.
But there are expectations down at the schoolhouse. And I would almost sell my soul to be in the classroom on the morning when Macdonald enters it with the word paternity writ large on his prim face. I bet my boots that, without saying a single word, he will manage to give the bairns the impression that he had nothing to do with the affair at all.
* * *
A friend of mine, a Londoner, came to staythe week-end with me. To-day we rambled over the hills, and a pair of new boots began to make my friend's feet take on a separate existence. We were about three miles from home, and the prospect of walking that distance painfully was rather disheartening to him. Luckily Moss-side milk cart came along, and the boy asked us if we wanted a lift to the village; he was taking the day's milk to the station.
When we left the cart my friend turned to me in amazement.
"Here," he cried, "didn't you give him something?"
"Good Lord, no!" I laughed.
"Oh, you blooming Scotchman!" he said with fervour. "If I had known I'd have given the chap a tip myself."
"I never thought of tipping him," I said, "and if I had I wouldn't have tipped him all the same. You blessed Englishmen can never rise above your stupid feudal idea of rewarding the lower classes. In your south country a countryman is a Lickspittle; he touches his cap to anything with a collar on. We don't breed that kind of specimen in Scotland. That young lad is a stranger to me, but he and you and I were equals; there was no servility about him; he chatted to us as an equal. He expected nothing, and if you had offered him a shilling you would have patronised him, posed as his superior."