{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_25306/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_25306","id":"gutenberg_25306","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25306","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Novels","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Teaching & Education","Education -- Philosophy","Education -- Scotland","Neill, Alexander Sutherland, 1883-1973","Teachers -- Scotland -- Biography"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\nA DOMINIE IN DOUBT\n\n\nBY\n\nA. S. NEILL, M.A.\n\n\n\n\nBY THE SAME AUTHOR\n\n  A DOMINIE'S LOG\n  A DOMINIE DISMISSED\n  THE BOOMING OF BUNKIE\n\n\n\nHERBERT JENKINS LIMITED\n\n3 YORK STREET ST. JAMES'S\n\nLONDON S.W.1\n\nMCMXXI\n\n\n\n\nDEDICATION.\n\nTo Homer Lane, whose first lecture convinced me that I knew nothing\nabout education.  I owe much to him, but I hasten to warn educationists\nthat they must not hold him responsible for the views given in these\npages.  I never understood him fully enough to expound his wonderful\neducational theories.\n\nA. S. N.\n\nFORFAR,\n  AUGUST 12, 1920.\n\n\n\n\nA DOMINIE IN DOUBT\n\n\nI.\n\n\"Just give me your candid opinion of _A Dominie's_ Log; I'd like to\nhear it.\"\n\nMacdonald looked up from digging into the bowl of his pipe with a\ndilapidated penknife.  He is now head-master of Tarbonny Public School,\na school I know well, for I taught in it for two years as an ex-pupil\nteacher.\n\nSix days ago he wrote asking me to come and spend a holiday with him,\nso I hastily packed my bag and made for Euston.\n\nThis evening had been a sort of complimentary dinner in my honour, the\nguests being neighbouring dominies and their wives, none of whom I\nknew.  We had talked of the war, of rising prices, and a thousand other\nthings.  Suddenly someone mentioned education, and of course my\nunfortunate _Log_ had come under discussion.\n\nI had been anxious to continue my discussion with a Mrs. Brown on the\nsubject of the relative laying values of Minorcas and Buff Orpingtons,\nbut I had been dragged to the miserable business in spite of myself.\n\nNow they were all gone, and Macdonald had returned to the charge.\n\n\"It's hardly a fair question,\" said Mrs. Macdonald, \"to ask an author\nwhat he thinks of his own book.  No man can judge his own work, any\nmore than a mother can judge her own child.\"\n\n\"That's true!\" I said.  \"A man can't judge his own behaviour, and\nwriting a book is an element of behaviour.  Besides, there is a better\nreason why a writer cannot judge his own work,\" I added.\n\n\"Because he never reads it?\" queried Macdonald with a grin.\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\"An author has no further interest in his book after it is published.\"\n\nMacdonald looked across at me.  It was clear that he doubted my\nseriousness.\n\n\"Surely you don't mean to say that you have no interest in _A Dominie's\nLog_?\"\n\n\"None whatever!\" I said.\n\n\"You mean it?\" persisted Macdonald.\n\n\"My dear Mac,\" I said, \"an author dare not read his own book.\"\n\n\"Dare not!  Why?\"\n\n\"Because it's out of date five minutes after it's written.\"\n\nFor fully a minute we smoked in silence.  Macdonald appeared to be\ndigesting my remark.\n\n\"You see,\" I continued presently, \"when I read a book on education, I\nwant to learn, and I certainly don't expect to learn anything from the\nman I was five years ago.\"\n\n\"I think I understand,\" said Macdonald.  \"You have come to realise that\nwhat you wrote five years ago was wrong.  That it?\"\n\n\"True for you, Mac.  You've just hit it.\"\n\n\"You needn't have waited five years to find that out,\" he said, with a\ngood-natured grin.  \"I could have told you the day the book was\npublished--I bought one of the first copies.\"\n\n\"Still,\" he continued, \"I don't see why a book should be out-of-date in\nfive years.  That is if it deals with the truth.  Truth is eternal.\"\n\n\"What is truth?\" I asked wearily.  \"We all thought we knew the truth\nabout gravitation.  Then Einstein came along with his relativity\ntheory, and told us we were wrong.\"\n\n\"Did he?\" inquired Macdonald, with a faint smile.\n\n\"I am quoting from the newspapers,\" I added hastily.  \"I haven't the\nremotest idea what relativity means.  Perhaps it's Epstein I mean--no,\nhe's a sculptor.\"\n\n\"You're hedging!\" said Macdonald.\n\n\"Can you blame me?\" I asked.  \"You're trying to get me to say what\ntruth is.  I am not a professor of philosophy, I'm a dominie.  All I\ncan say is that the _Log_ was the truth . . . for me . . . five years\nago; but it isn't the truth for me now.\"\n\n\"Then, what exactly is your honest opinion of the _Log_ as a work on\neducation?\"\n\n\"As a work on education,\" I said deliberately, \"the _Log_ isn't worth a\ndamn.\"\n\n\"Not a bad criticism, either,\" said Macdonald dryly.\n\n\"I say that,\" I continued, \"because when I wrote it I knew nothing\nabout the most important factor in education--the psychology of\nchildren.\"\n\n\"But,\" said Mrs. Macdonald in surprise--hitherto she had been an\ninterested listener--\"I thought that the bits about the bairns were the\nbest part of the book.\"\n\n\"Possibly,\" I answered, \"but I was looking at children from a grown-up\npoint of view.  I thought of them as they affected me, instead of as\nthey affected themselves.  I'll give you an instance.  I think I said\nsomething about wanting to chuck woodwork and cookery out of the school\ncurriculum.  I was wrong, hopelessly wrong.\"\n\n\"I'm glad to hear you admit it,\" said Macdonald.  \"I have always\nthought that every boy ought to be taught to mend a hen-house and every\ngirl to cook a dinner.\"\n\n\"Then I was right after all,\" I said quickly.\n\nMacdonald stared at me, whilst his wife looked up interrogatively from\nher embroidery.\n\n\"If your aim is to make boys joiners and girls cooks,\" I explained,\n\"then I still hold that cookery and woodwork ought to be chucked out of\nthe schools.\"\n\n\"But, man, what are schools for?\"  I saw a combative light in\nMacdonald's eye.\n\n\"Creation, self-expression . . . . the only thing that matters in\neducation.  I don't care what a child is doing in the way of creation,\nwhether he is making tables, or porridge, or sketches, or--or--\"\n\n\"Snowballs!\" prompted Macdonald.\n\n\"Or snowballs,\" I said.  \"There is more true education in making a\nsnowball than in listening to an hour's lecture on grammar.\"\n\nMrs. Macdonald dropped her embroidery into her lap, with a little gasp\nat the heresy of my remark.\n\n\"You're talking pure balderdash!\" said Macdonald, leaning forward to\nknock the ashes from his pipe on the bars of the grate.\n\n\"Very well,\" I said cheerfully.  \"Let's discuss it.  You make a class\nsit in front of you for an hour, and you threaten to whack the first\nchild that doesn't pay attention to your lesson on nouns and pronouns.\"\n\n\"Discipline,\" said Macdonald.\n\n\"I don't care what you call it.  I say it's stupidity.\"\n\n\"But, hang it all, man, you can't teach if you haven't got the\nchildren's attention.\"\n\n\"And you can't teach when you have got it,\" I said.  \"A child learns\nonly when it is interested.\"\n\n\"But surely, discipline makes them interested,\" said Mrs. Macdonald.\n\nI shook my head.  \"It only makes them attentive.\"\n\n\"Same thing,\" said Macdonald.\n\n\"No, Mac,\" I replied.  \"It is not the same thing.  Attention means the\napplying of the conscious mind to a thing; interest means the\napplication of both the conscious and the unconscious mind.  When you\nforce a child to attend to a lesson for fear of the tawse, you merely\nengage the least important part of his mind--the conscious.  While he\nstares at the blackboard his unconscious is concerned with other\nthings.\"\n\n\"What sort of things?\" asked Macdonald.\n\n\"Very probably his unconscious is working out an elaborate plan to\nmurder you,\" I said, \"and I don't blame it either,\" I added.\n\n\"And the snowballs?\" queried Mrs. Macdonald.\n\n\"When a boy makes a snowball, he is interested; his whole soul is in\nthe job, that is, his unconscious and his conscious are working\ntogether.  For the moment he is an artist, a creator.\"\n\n\"So that's the new education . . . making snowballs?\" said Macdonald.\n\n\"It isn't really,\" I said; \"but what I want to do is to point out that\nmaking snowballs is nearer to true education than the spoon-feeding we\ncall education to-day.\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nDuncan does not like me.  He is a young dominie of twenty-three or\nthereabouts, a friend of Macdonald, and he has just been demobilised.\nHe was a major, and he does not seem to have recovered from the\nexperience.  He has got what the vulgar call swelled head.  Last night\nhe was dilating upon the delinquencies of the old retired teacher who\nran the school while Duncan was on active service.  It seems that the\nold man had allowed the school to run to seed.\n\n\"Would you believe it,\" I overheard Duncan say to Macdonald, \"when I\ncame back I found that the boys and girls were playing in the same\nplayground.  Why, man, some of them were playing on the road!  And the\ndiscipline!  Awful!\"\n\nPoor children!  I see it all; I see Duncan line them up like a squad of\nrecruits, and march them into school with never a smile on their faces\nor a word on their lips.  Macdonald tells me that he makes them lift\ntheir slates by numbers.\n\nAnd the amusing thing is that Duncan thinks himself one of the more\nadvanced teachers.  He reads the educational journals, and eagerly\ndevours the articles about new methods in teaching arithmetic and\ngeography.  His school is only a mile and a half away, and I hope that\nhe will come over to see Mac a few times while I am here.\n\nI have seen the old type of dominie, and I have seen the new type.  I\nprefer the former.  He had many faults, but he usually managed to do\nsomething for the human side of the children.  The new type is a danger\nto children.  The old dominie leathered the children so that they might\nmake a good show before the inspector; the new dominie leathers them\nbecause he thinks that children ought to be disciplined so that they\nmay be able to fight the battle of life.  He does not see that by using\nauthority he is doing the very opposite of what he intends; he is\nmaking the child dependent on him, and for ever afterwards the child\nwill lack initiative, lack self-confidence, lack originality.\n\nWhat the new dominie does do is to turn out excellent wage-slaves.  The\ndiscipline of the school gives each child an inner sense of\ninferiority . . . . what the psycho-analysts call an inferiority\ncomplex.  And the working-classes are suffering from a gigantic\ninferiority complex . . . . otherwise they would not be content to\nremain wage-slaves.  The fear that Duncan inspires in a boy will remain\nin that boy all his life.  When he enters the workshop he will\nunconsciously identify the foreman with Duncan, and fear him and hate\nhim.  I believe that many a strike is really a vague insurrection\nagainst the teacher.  For it is well known that the unconscious mind is\ninfantile.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nTo-night I dropped in to see my old friend Dauvit Todd the cobbler.\nMany an evening have I spent in his dirty shop.  Dauvit works on after\nteatime, and the village worthies gather round his fire and smoke and\nspit and grunt.  I have sat there for an hour many a night, and not a\nsingle word was said.  Peter Smith the blacksmith would give a great\nsigh and say: \"Imphm!\"  There would be silence for ten minutes, and\nthen Jake Tosh the roadman would stare at the fire, shake his head, and\nsay: \"Aye, man!\"  Then a ploughman would smack his lips and say: \"Man,\naye!\"  A southerner looking in might have jumped to the conclusion that\nthe assembly was collectively and individually bored, but boredom never\nenters Dauvit's shop.  We Scots think better in crowds.\n\nTo-night the old gang was there.  The hypothetical southerner again\nwould have marvelled at the reception I received.  I walked into the\nshop after an absence of five years.\n\n\"Weel, Dauvit,\" I said, and sat down in the basket chair.  Dauvit and I\nhave never shaken hands in our lives.  He looked up.\n\n\"Back again!\" he said, without any evident surprise; then he added:\n\"And what like a nicht is 't ootside?\"\n\nGradually other men dropped in, and the same sort of greeting took\nplace.  The weather continued to be discussed for a time.  Then the\nblacksmith said: \"Auld Tarn Davidson's swine dee'd last nicht.\"\n\nDauvit looked up from the boot he was repairing.\n\n\"What did it dee o'?\" and there followed an argument about the symptoms\nof swine fever.\n\nAn English reader of _The House with the Green Shutters_ would have\nconcluded that these villagers were deliberately trying to put me in my\nplace.  By ignoring me might they not be showing their contempt for\ndominies who have just come from London?  Not they.  They were glad to\nsee me again, and their method of showing their gladness was to take up\nour friendship at the point where it left off five years ago.\n\nThe only time a Scot distrusts other Scots is when they fuss over him.\nThe story goes in Tarbonny that when young Jim Lunan came home\nunexpectedly after a ten years' farming in Canada, his mother was\nwashing the kitchen floor.\n\n\"Mother!\" he cried, \"I've come hame!\"\n\nShe looked over her shoulder.\n\n\"Wipe yer feet afore ye come in, ye clorty laddie,\" she said.\n\nBut there is a garrulous type of Scot . . . or rather the type of Scot\nthat tries to make the other fellow garrulous.  In our county we call\nthem the speerin' bodie.  To speer means to ask questions.  The\nspeerin' bodie is common enough in Fife, and I suppose it was a Fifer\nwho entered a railway compartment one morning and sat down to study the\nonly other occupant--an Englishman.\n\n\"It's a fine day,\" said the Scot, and there was a question in his tone.\n\nThe Englishman sighed and laid aside his newspaper.\n\n\"Aye, mester,\" continued the inquisitive Fifer, \"and ye'll be----\"\n\nThe Englishman held up a forbidding hand.\n\n\"You needn't go on,\" he said; \"I'll tell you everything about myself.\nI was born in Leeds, the son of poor parents.  I left school at the age\nof twelve, and I became a draper.  I gradually worked my way up, and\nnow I am traveller for a Manchester firm.  I married six years ago.\nThree kids.  Wife has rheumatism.  Willie had measles last month.  I\nhave a seven room cottage; rent L27.  I vote Tory; go to the Baptist\nchurch, and keep hens.  Anything else you want to know?\"\n\nThe Scot had a very dissatisfied look.\n\n\"What did yer grandfaither dee o'?\" he demanded gruffly.\n\nWhen the argument about swine fever had died down, Dauvit turned to me.\n\n\"Aye, and how is Lunnon lookin'?\"\n\n\"Same as ever,\" I answered.\n\n\"Ye'll have to tak' Dauvit doon on a trip,\" laughed the smith.\n\nDauvit drove in a tacket.\n\n\"Man, smith, I was in Lunnon afore you was born,\" he said.\n\n\"Go on, Dauvit,\" I said encouragingly, \"tell us the story.\"  I had\nheard it before, but I longed to hear it again.  Dauvit brightened up.\n\n\"There's no muckle to tell,\" he said, as he tossed the boot into a\ncorner and wiped his face with his apron.  \"It'll be ten years come\nMartimas.  Me and Will Tamson gaed up by boat frae Dundee.  Oh! we had\na graund time.  But there's no muckle to tell.\"\n\n\"What about Dave Brownlee?\" I asked.\n\nDauvit chuckled softly.\n\n\"But ye've a' heard the story,\" he said, but we protested that we\nhadn't.\n\n\"Aweel,\" he began, \"some of you will no doubt mind o' Dave Broonlee him\nthat stoppit at Millend.  Dave served his time as a draper, and syne he\ngot a good job in a Lunnon shop.  Weel, me and Will Tamson was walkin'\nalong the Strand when Will he says to me, says he: 'Cud we no pay a\nveesit to Dave Broonlee?'  Then I minded that Dave's father had said\nsomething aboot payin' him a call, but I didna ken his address.  All I\nkent was that he was in a big shop in Oxford Street.\n\n\"Weel, Will and me we goes up to a bobby and speers the way to Oxford\nStreet.  When we got there Will he goes up to another bobby and says:\n'Please cud ye tell me whatna shop Dave Broonlee works intil?'  At that\nI started to laugh, and syne the bobby he started to laugh.  He laughed\na lang time and syne when I telt him that it was a draper's shop he\ndirected us to a great big muckle shop wi' a thousand windows.\n\n\"'Try there first,' says the bobby.\n\n\"Weel, in we goes, and a mannie in a tail coat he comes forart rubbin'\nhis hands.\n\n\"'And what can I do for you, sir?' he says to Will.\n\n\"'Oh,' says Will, 'we want to see Dave Broonlee,' but the man didna ken\nwhat Will was sayin'.  It took Will and me twenty meenutes to get him\nto onderstand.\n\n\"'Oh,' says he, 'I understand now.  You want to see Mr. Brownlee?'\n\n\"'Ye're fell quick in the uptak,' says Will, but of coorse the man\ndidna ken what he was sayin'.\n\n\"He went to the backshop to speer aboot Dave, and when he cam back he\nsays, says he: 'I'm sorry, but Mr. Brownlee has gone out to lunch.\nWill you leave a message?'\n\n\"Will turned to the door.\n\n\"'Never mind,' says he, 'we'll see him doon the toon.'\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nIn reading my _Log_ I am appalled by the amount of lecturing I did in\nschool.  Since writing it I have visited most of the best schools in\nEngland, and I found that I was not the only teacher who lectured.  But\nwe are all wrong.  I fancy that the real reason why I lectured so much\nwas to indulge my showing-off propensities.  To stand before a class or\nan audience; to be the cynosure of all eyes; to have a crowd hanging on\nyour words . . . . all showing off!  Very, very human, but . . . . bad\nfor the audience.\n\nWhen a teacher lectures he is unconsciously giving expression to his\ndesire to gain a feeling of superiority.  That, I fancy, is the deepest\nwish of every one of us . . . . to impress others, to be superior.  You\nsee it in the smallest child.  Give him an audience, and he will show\noff for hours.  The boy at the top of the class gains his feeling of\nsuperiority by beating the others at arithmetic, while the dunce at the\nbottom of the class gains his in more original ways . . . punching the\ntop boy at playtime, scoring goals at football, spitting farther than\nanyone else in school.  I have seen a boy smash a window merely to draw\nattention to himself, and thus to gain a momentary feeling of\nsuperiority.\n\nAnd we grown-ups are boys at heart.  The boy is the father to the man.\nTake, for instance, a childish trait--exhibitionism.  Most children at\nan early age love to run about naked, to show off their bodies.  Later\nthe conventions of society make the child repress this wish to exhibit\nhimself.  But we know that a repressed wish does not die; it merely\nburies itself in the unconscious.  Many years later the exhibition\nimpulse comes out in sublimated form as a desire to show off before the\npublic . . . hence our politicians, actors, actresses, street-corner\nrevivalists, and--er--dominies.\n\nNow I hasten to add that there is nothing to be ashamed of in being a\npolitician or a dominie.  But if I lecture a class I am making the\naffair my show, and I am not the most important actor in the play; I am\nthe scene-shifter; the real actors who should be declaiming their lines\nare sitting on hard benches staring at me and wondering what I am\nraving about.  Each little person is thirsting to show his or her\nsuperiority, and he never gets the chance.  Occasionally I may ask a\nsleepy-looking urchin what are the exports to Canada, and he may gain a\nslight feeling of superiority if he can tell the right answer.  Yet I\nfancy that his unconscious self despises me and my question.  Why in\nall the earth should I ask a question when I know the answer?  The\nwhole thing is an absurdity.  The only questions asked in a school\nshould be asked by the pupils.\n\nThe truth is that our schools do not give education; they give\ninstruction.  And it is so very easy to instruct, and so very easy to\ngo on talking, and so very easy to whack Tommy when he does not listen.\nOur prosy lectures are wasted time.  The children would be better\nemployed playing marbles.\n\nOf course if a child asks for information that is a different story.\nHe is obviously interested . . . that is if he isn't trying to tempt\nyou into a long explanation so that you will forget to hear his Latin\nverbs.  Children soon understand our little vanities, and they soon\nlearn to exploit them.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\"I had a scene in school to-day,\" remarked Mac while we were at tea\nto-night.\n\n\"What happened?\" I asked.\n\n\"Tom Murray was wrong in all his sums, and he wouldn't hold out his\nhand,\" and by Mac's grim smile I knew that the bold Tom had been\nconquered.\n\n\"What would you have done in a case like that?\" asked Mac.\n\n\"I would never have a case like that, Mac.  If he had all his sums\nwrong I should sit down and ask myself what was wrong with my teaching.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean that,\" he said; \"what I meant was: what would you do if\nTom defied you?\"\n\n\"That wouldn't happen either, Mac.  Tom couldn't defy me because you\ncan only defy an authority, and I'm not an authority.\"\n\nMac shook his head.\n\n\"You won't convince me, old chap.  A boy like Tom has to be dealt with\nwith a firm hand.\"\n\nI studied his face for a time.\n\n\"You know, Mac,\" I said, \"you puzzle me.  You're one of the kindest\ndecentest chaps in the world, and yet you go leathering poor Tom\nMurray.  Why do you do it?\"\n\n\"You must keep discipline,\" he said.\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\"Mac, if you knew yourself you wouldn't ever whack a child.\"\n\nThis seemed to tickle him.\n\n\"Good Lord!\" he laughed, \"I could write a book about myself!  I'm one\nof the most introspective chaps ever born.\"\n\n\"And you understand yourself?\"\n\n\"I have no illusions about myself at all, old chap.  I know my\nlimitations.\"\n\n\"Well, would you mind telling me why you are a bit of a nut?\" I asked.\n\"It isn't usual for a country dominie to wear a wing collar, a bow tie,\nand shot-silk socks.\"\n\n\"That's easy,\" he said quickly.  \"I think that teachers haven't the\nsocial standing they ought to have, and I dress well to uphold the\ndignity of the profession.  Don't you believe me?\" he demanded as I\nsmiled.\n\n\"Quite!  I believe you're quite honest in your belief, but it's wrong\nyou know.  There must be a much more personal reason than that.\"\n\n\"Rot!\" he said.  \"Anyway, what is the reason?\"\n\n\"I don't know, Mac; it would take months of research to discover it.  I\ncan't explain your psychology, but I'll tell you something about my\nown.  These swagger corduroys I'm wearing . . . when I bought them\nsomeone asked me why I chose corduroy, and I at once answered:\n'Economy!  They'll last ten years!'  But that wasn't the real reason, I\nbought them because I wanted to have folk stare at me.  I've got an\ninferiority complex, that is an inner feeling of inferiority.  To\ncompensate for it I go and order a suit that will make people look at\nme; in short, that I may be the centre of all eyes, and thus gain a\nfeeling of outward superiority.\"\n\nThis sent Mac off into a roar of laughter.\n\n\"You're daft, man!\" he roared.\n\nAfter a minute or two he said; \"But what has all this to do with Tom\nMurray?\"\n\n\"A lot,\" I said seriously.  \"You think you whack Tom because you must\nhave discipline, but you whack him for a different reason.  In your\ndeep unconscious mind you are an infant.  You want to show your\nself-assertion just as a kid does.  You leather Tom because you've\nnever outgrown your seven-year-old stage.  On market-day, when Tom\nwalks behind a drove and whacks the stots over the hips with a stick,\nhe is doing exactly what you did this afternoon.  You are both infants.\"\n\nI have had to give up lecturing Mac, for he always takes me as a huge\njoke.  He is a good fellow, but he has the wonderful gift of being\nblind to anything that might make him reconsider his values.  Many\npeople protect themselves in the same way--by laughing.  I have more\nthan once seen an alcoholic laugh heartily at his wrecked home and lost\njob.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nWhat an amount of excellent material Mac and his kind are spoiling.\nTom Murray is a fine lad, full of energy and initiative, but he has to\nsit passive at a desk doing work that does not interest him.  His\ncreative faculties have no outlet at all during the day, and naturally\nwhen free from authority at nights he expresses his creative interest\nanti-socially.  He nearly wrecked the five-twenty the other night; he\ntied a huge iron bolt to the rails.  Mac called it devilment, but it\nwas merely curiosity.  He had had innumerable pins and farthings\nflattened on the line, and he wanted to see what the engine really\ncould do.\n\nThere is devilment in some of Tom's activities, for example in his\ndeliberate destruction of Dauvit's apple tree.  Mac and the law would\ngive him the birch for that, but fortunately Mac and the law don't know\nwho did it.  Tom's destructiveness is only the direct result of Mac's\nauthority.  Suppression always has the same result; it turns a young\ngod into a young devil.  Had I Tom in a free school all his activities\nwould be social and good.\n\nAnd yet nearly every teacher believes in Mac's way.  They suppress all\nthe time, and what is worst of all they firmly believe they are doing\nthe best thing.\n\n\"Look at Glasgow!\" cried Mac the other night when I was talking about\nthe crime of authority.  \"Look at Glasgow!  What happened there during\nthe war?  Juvenile crime increased.  And why?  Because the fathers were\nin the army and the boys had no control over them; they broke loose.\nThat proves that your theories are potty.\"\n\nI believe that juvenile crime did increase during the war, and I\nbelieve that Mac's explanation of the phenomenon is correct.  The\nabsence of the father gave the boy liberty to be a hooligan.  But no\nboy wants to be a hooligan unless he has a strong rebellion against\nauthority.  No boy is destructive if he is free to be constructive.  I\nthink that the difference between Mac and myself is this: he believes\nin original sin, while I believe in original virtue.\n\nI wonder why it is so difficult to convert the authority people to the\nnew way of thinking.  There must be a deep reason why they want to\ncling to their authority.  Authority gives much power, and love of\npower may be at the root of the desire to retain authority.  Yet I\nfancy that it is deeper than that.  In Mac, for instance, I think that\nhis quickness in becoming angry at Tom's insubordination is due to the\ninsubordination within himself.  Like most of us Mac has a father\ncomplex, and he fears and hates any authority exercised over himself.\nSo in squashing Tom's rebellion he is unconsciously squashing the\nrebellion in his own soul.  Tom's rebellion could not affect me because\nI have got rid of my father complex, and his rebellion would touch\nnothing in me.\n\nAuthority will be long in dying, for too many people cling to it as a\nprop.  Most people like to have their minds made up for them; it is so\neasy to obey orders, and so difficult to live your own life carrying\nyour own burden and finding your own path.  To live your own life . . .\nthat is the ideal.  To discover yourself bravely, to realise yourself\nfully, to follow truth even if the crowd stone you.  That is\nliving . . . but it is dangerous living, for that way lies crucifixion.\nNo one in authority has ever been crucified; every martyr dies because\nhe challenges authority. . .  Christ, Thomas More, Jim Connolly.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nDuncan and McTaggart the minister were in to-night, and we got on to\nthe subject of wit and humour.  Having a psycho-analysis complex I\nmentioned the theory that we laugh so as to give release to our\nrepressions.  The others shook their heads, and I decided to test my\ntheory on them.  I told them the story of the golfer who was driving\noff about a foot in front of the teeing marks.  The club secretary\nhappened to come along.\n\n\"Here, my man!\" cried the indignant secretary, \"you're disqualified!\"\n\n\"What for?\" demanded the player.\n\n\"You're driving off in front of the teeing mark.\"\n\nThe player looked at him pityingly.\n\n\"Away, you bletherin' idiot!\" he said tensely, \"I'm playing my third!\"\n\n\"Now,\" I said to the others, \"I'm going to tell you one by one what\nyour golf is like.  You, McTaggart, are a scratch man or a plus man.\nIs that so?\"\n\n\"Plus one,\" he said in surprise.  \"How did you guess?\"\n\n\"I didn't guess,\" I said with great superiority.  \"I found out by pure\nscience.  You didn't laugh at my joke; you merely smiled.  That shows\nthat bad golf doesn't touch any complex inside you.  The man who takes\nthree strokes to make one foot of ground means nothing to you because,\nas I say, there's nothing in yourself it touches.\"\n\n\"Wonderful!\" cried the minister.\n\n\"It's quite simple,\" I crowed, \"and now for Mac!  You, Mac, are a\nrotten player; you take sixteen to a hole.\"\n\n\"Only ten,\" protested Mac hastily.  \"How the devil did you know?  I've\nnever played with you.\"\n\n\"Deduction, my boy.  You roared at my joke, because it touched your bad\ngolf complex.  In fact you were really laughing at yourself and your\nown awful golf.\"\n\n\"What about me?\" put in Duncan.\n\nNow there was something in Duncan's eye that should have warned me of\ndanger, but I was so proud of my success that I plunged confidently.\n\n\"Oh, you don't play golf,\" I said airily.\n\n\"Wrong!\" he cried, \"I do!  And I'm worse than Mac too!\"\n\nI was astounded.\n\n\"Impossible!\" I cried.  \"You never laughed at my story at all; that is\nit touched nothing whatsoever inside you.\"\n\nDuncan shook his head.\n\n\"You're completely wrong this time.\"\n\n\"Well, why _didn't_ you laugh?\" I asked.\n\nHe grinned.\n\n\"I dunno.  Possibly it is because I first heard that joke in my cradle.\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nMac's infant mistress was off duty to-day owing to an attack of\ninfluenza, and he gladly accepted my offer to take her place.\n\nHalf-an-hour after my entry into the room Mac came in to see how I was\ngetting on.  Most of the infants were swarming over me, and Mac\nfrowned.  At his frown they all crept back silently to their seats.\n\n\"You seem to have the fatal gift of demoralising children,\" he growled.\n\nIt hadn't struck me before, but it is a fact; I do demoralise children.\nNot long ago I entered a Montessori school, and I spoke not one word.\nIn five minutes the insets and long stairs were lying neglected in the\nmiddle of the floor, and the kiddies were scrambling over me.  I felt\nvery guilty for I feared that if Montessori herself were to walk in she\nwould be indignant.  I cannot explain why I affect kiddies in this way.\nIt may be that intuitively they know that I do not inspire fear or\nrespect; it may be that they unconsciously recognise the baby in me.\nAnyway, as Mac says, it is a fatal gift.\n\nI think Miss Martin the infant mistress is a good teacher.  Her infants\ndo not fear her, and I am sure they love her.  The only person they\nfear is Mac, poor dear old Mac, the most lovable soul in the world.  He\ntries hard to show his love for the infants but somehow they know that\nbehind his smile is the grim head-master who leathers Tom Murray.  I\nsent wee Mary Smith into Mac's room to fetch some chalk to-day, and she\nwept and feared to enter.  Occasionally, I believe, Mac will enter the\nroom, seize a wee mite who is speaking instead of working, and give him\nor her a scud with the tawse.  I wonder how a good soul like Mac can do\nit.\n\nI have an unlovely story of a board school.  An infant mistress lay\ndying, and in her delirium she cried in terror lest her head-master\nshould come in again and strap her dear, wee infants.  It is a true\nstory, and it is the most damning indictment of board school education\nanyone could wish for.  She was a good woman who loved children, and if\nfear of her head-master brought terror to her on her deathbed, what\nterrors are such men inspiring in poor wee infants?  The men who beat\nchildren are exactly in the position of the men who stoned Jesus\nChrist; they know not what they do, nor do they know why they do it.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nThere was a stranger in Dauvit's shop when I entered to-day, a\nseedy-looking whiskered man with a threadbare coat and extremely dirty\nlinen.  Shabby genteel would be the Scots description of him.\n\nDauvit asked me a casual question about London, and the stranger became\ninterested at once.\n\n\"Ah,\" he said, \"you're from London, are ye?  Man, yon's a great place,\na wonderful place!\"\n\nI nodded assent.\n\n\"Man,\" he continued, \"yon's the place for sichts!  Could anything beat\nthe procession at the Lord Mayor's show, eh?\"\n\nI meekly admitted that I had never seen the Lord Mayor's show, and he\nraised his eyebrows in surprise.\n\n\"But I'll tell ye what's just as good, mister, and that's the King and\nQueen opening Parliament.  Man, yon's a sicht, isn't it?\"\n\n\"I--er--I haven't had the opportunity of seeing it,\" I said.\n\nHe looked more surprised than ever.\n\n\"But, man, I'll tell ye what's just as good, and that's a big London\nfire.  Man, to see the way the firemen go up the ladders like monkeys.\nYon's a sicht for sair een!\"\n\n\"I never had the luck to see a fire in London,\" I said hesitatingly.\n\"When were you last in town?\"\n\nHe did not seem to hear my question; he was evidently thinking of other\nLondon thrills.\n\n\"Man,\" he said ruminatingly, \"often while I sit in the Tarbonny Kirk I\njust sit and think aboot Westminster Abbey.  Man, yon's a kirk!   I\nsuppose you'll be there ilka Sunday?\"\n\nI found it difficult to tell him that I had never been in the Abbey,\nbut I managed to get the words out, and then I avoided his reproachful\neye.  He knocked out his pipe, and I took the action to be a symbolic\none meaning: You are an empty sort of person.  He studied me critically\nfor a time, then he brightened.\n\n\"Aye,\" he said cheerfully, \"London's a graund place, but, for sichts\ngive me New York.\"\n\nI felt more humble than ever, for I had never travelled.  He seemed to\nguess that by the look of me, for he never asked my opinion of New York.\n\n\"Man,\" he said warmly, \"yon's a place!  Yon skyscrapers!  Phew!\" and he\nwhistled his wonder and admiration.  \"And the streets!  Man, ye canna\nwalk on the sidewalk at the busy times.  A wonderfu' place, New York,\nbut, as for me, give me the West, California and Frisco.\"\n\n\"You have travelled much, sir,\" I said reverently.  The \"sir\" seemed to\ncome naturally; my inferiority complex was touched on the raw.\n\nAgain he ignored me.\n\n\"To see yon cowboys!  Man, yon's what I call riding!  And the Indians!\"\n\nHe sighed; it was obvious that he was living over again his life in the\nwestern wilds.  A wistful look crept into his eyes, and I began to\nconstruct his sad story.  He loved a maid, but the bruiser of the camp\nloved her also . . . hence the broken-down clothes, the dirty collar.\nBut anon he cheered up again.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"I love the West, but for colour and climate give me\nJapan.\"\n\nI was so confused now that I had to blow out my pipe vigorously.  I\nglanced at Dauvit, but he was sharpening his knife on the emery hone,\nand did not appear to be interested.  I felt a vague anger against\nDauvit; why wasn't he helping me in my trial?\n\n\"Japan,\" continued the irrepressible stranger, \"is one of the finest\ncountries in the world, but, for climate give me Siberia.\"\n\nI hastily thought to myself that if I were Lenin I . . . but I did not\nfollow out my daydream, for the stranger brought me back to earth by\ninquiring what was my honest and unbiassed opinion of the Peruvians.  I\nvery cleverly pretended that I had swallowed some nicotine, and, after\na polite pause for my answer, he went off to the subject of pearl\nfishing at Thursday Island.  Then he looked at Dauvit's clock.\n\n\"Jerusalem!\" he gasped, \"the pub shuts at twa o'clock!\" and he rushed\nout of the shop.  I heaved a great sigh of relief, and then I heaved a\ngreater sigh of relief.\n\nI seized Dauvit by the arm.\n\n\"Dauvit,\" I gasped, \"who--who is your cosmopolitan friend?\"\n\n\"My what kind o' a friend?\"\n\n\"Your world-travelled friend, Dauvit.  Tell me who he is.\"\n\nDauvit laughed softly.\n\n\"That,\" he said, \"was Joe Mill.  He bides wi' his old mother in that\ncottage at the foot o' the brae.  To the best o' my knowledge he hasna\nbeen further than Perth in his life.\"\n\n\"But!\" I cried in amazement, \"he has been everywhere!\"\n\n\"He hasna,\" said Dauvit shortly, \"but he works the cinema lantern at\nthe Farfar picter hoose.\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nI had a long talk to-night with Macdonald about self-government in\nschools, and I told him of my plans for running a self-governing school\nin Highgate.  At the end of the discussion I had the biggest surprise\nof my life.  Mac smoked for a long time in silence, then he turned to\nme suddenly.\n\n\"Look here, old chap, I'll have a shot at introducing self-government\nto-morrow,\" he said with enthusiasm.\n\nI grasped his hand.\n\n\"Excellent!  Mac, you're a wonder!  You're a brave man!\"\n\n\"I don't feel brave,\" he said nervously.  \"It's going to be a very\ndifficult job.\"\n\n\"It is,\" I said grimly, \"and the most difficult part is for you to keep\nout of it.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I mean that you have been an authority for so long that you'll find\nyourself issuing orders unthinkingly.  More than that the kiddies are\nso much dependent on you that they will wait to see how you vote.\"\n\n\"What's the best way to begin it?\" he asked.\n\n\"Simply walk in to-morrow and say: 'Look here, you are going to govern\nyourselves.  I have no power; I won't order anyone to do anything; I\nwon't punish anyone.  Now, do what you like'.\"\n\nMac looked frightened.\n\n\"But, good Lord, man, they'll--they'll wreck the school!\"\n\n\"Funk!\" I laughed.\n\nHis eyes were full of excitement.\n\n\"It'll be an awful job to keep my hands off them,\" he said half to\nhimself.\n\n\"Funk!\" I said again.\n\n\"It's all very well, but . . . well, I'm rather strict you know.\"\n\n\"So much the better!  All the better a row!\"\n\n\"You Bolshevist!\" he laughed.  He was like a boy divided between two\ndesires--to steal the apples and to escape the policeman.  I half\nfeared that his courage would desert him.\n\n\"Here,\" he said, \"why not come over to school?\"\n\nThe temptation was great and I wavered.\n\n\"No,\" I said at last, \"I can't do it.  My presence would distract the\nchildren, and . . . they won't smash all the windows in front of a\nstranger.  You want my support, you dodger!\"\n\nBut I would give ten pounds to be in Mac's schoolroom to-morrow morning.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nI went out this morning and sat on the school wall and smoked my pipe.\nI strained my ears for the first murmur of the approaching storm.  Not\na sound came from the schoolroom.\n\n\"Mac has funked it after all,\" I groaned, and went in to help Mrs.\nMacdonald to pare the potatoes.\n\nWhen Mac came over at dinner-time his face wore a thoughtful look.\n\n\"You coward!\" I cried.\n\n\"Coward!\" he laughed.  \"Why, man, the scheme is in full swing!\"\n\nThen I asked him to tell me all about it.\n\n\"Your knowledge of children is all bunkum,\" he began.  \"You said there\nwould be a row when I announced that I gave up authority.\"\n\n\"And wasn't there?\"\n\n\"Not a vestige of one.  The kids stared at me with open mouth,\nand . . .\"\n\n\"And what?\"\n\n\"Oh, they simply got out their books and began their reading lesson.\nAs quiet as mice too.\"\n\n\"And do you mean to tell me that it made no difference?\" I asked.\n\n\"None whatever.  I tell you they just went on with the timetable as\nusual.\"\n\n\"But didn't they talk to each other more?\"\n\n\"There wasn't a whisper.\"\n\nI considered for a minute.\n\n\"What exactly did you say to them when you announced that they were to\nhave self-government?\"\n\n\"I just said what you told me last night.\"\n\n\"Did you add anything?\"\n\nHe avoided my eye.\n\n\"Of course I said that I trusted them to carry on the school as usual,\"\nhe admitted reluctantly.\n\n\"Thereby showing them that you didn't trust them at all,\" I explained.\n\"Mac, you must have been a thundering strict disciplinarian.  The\nkiddies are dead afraid of you.  I fear that you'll never manage to\nhave self-government.  This fear of you must be broken, and you've got\nto break it.\"\n\n\"But how?\" he asked helplessly.\n\n\"By coming down off your pedestal.  You must become one of the gang.\nOne dramatic exhibition will do it.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Smash a window; chuck books about the room . . . anything to break\nthis idea that you are an exalted being whose eye is like God's always\nready to see evil.\"\n\nMac looked annoyed and injured.\n\n\"What good will my fooling do?\" he asked.\n\n\"But,\" I protested seriously, \"it's essential.  You simply must break\nyour authority if you are to have a free school.  There can be no real\nself-expression if you are always standing by to stamp out slacking and\nnoise.\"\n\n\"But,\" he protested, \"didn't I tell 'em I was giving up my authority?\"\n\n\"Yes, but they don't believe you.  You've got the eye of an authority.\"\n\nHe was by this time getting rather indignant.\n\n\"I can't go the length you do,\" he said sourly.  \"I'm not an anarchist.\"\n\n\"In that case I'd advise you to chuck the experiment, Mac,\" I said with\nan indifferent shrug of my shoulders.  The shrug nettled Mac; he is one\nof the bull-dog breed, and I saw his lips set.\n\n\"I've begun it, and I won't chuck it,\" he said firmly.  \"And I hope to\nprove that your methods are all wrong.  Let it come gradually; that's\nwhat I say.\"\n\nWhen he came over at four o'clock his face glowed with excitement.  He\nslapped me on the back with his heavy hand.\n\n\"Man,\" he cried, \"it's going fine!  We had our first trial this\nafternoon.\"\n\n\"Go on,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, it was a first class start.  Jim Inglis threw his pencil at Peter\nMackie.\"\n\n\"I hope he didn't miss,\" I said flippantly.\n\nMac ignored my levity.\n\n\"And then I didn't know what to do.  My first impulse was to haul him\nout and strap him, but of course I didn't.  I just said to the class:\n'You saw what Jim Inglis did?  You have to decide what is to be done\nabout it'.\"\n\n\"And they answered: 'Please, sir, give him the tawse'?\" I said.\n\nMac laughed.\n\n\"That's exactly what they did say, but I told them that they were\ngoverning themselves, and suggested that they elect a chairman and\ndecide by vote.\"\n\n\"Bad tactics,\" I commented.  \"You should have left them to settle their\nown procedure.  What happened then?\"\n\n\"They appointed Mary Wilson as chairman, and then John Smith got up and\nproposed that the prisoner get six scuds with the tawse from me.  The\nmotion was carried unanimously.\"\n\n\"You refused of course?\" I said.\n\n\"Man, I couldn't refuse.  I was alarmed, because six scuds are far too\nmany for a little offence like chucking a pencil.  I made them as light\nas possible.\"\n\nI groaned.\n\n\"What would you have done?\" he asked.\n\n\"Taken the prisoner's side,\" I said promptly, \"I should have chucked\nevery pencil in the room at the judge and jury.  Then I should have\npointed out that I refused to do the dirty work of the community.\"\n\n\"But where does the self-government come in there?\" he protested.\n\"Chucking things at the jury is anarchy, pure anarchy.\"\n\n\"I know,\" I said simply.  \"But then anarchy is necessary in your\nschool.  You don't mean to say that the children thought that throwing\na pencil was a great crime?  What happened was that they projected\nthemselves on to you; unconsciously they said: 'The Mester thinks this\na crime and he would punish it severely.'  They were trying to please\nyou.  I say that anarchy is necessary if these children are to get free\nfrom their dependence on you and their fear of you.  So long as you\nrefuse to alter your old values you can't expect the kids to alter\ntheir old values.  Unless you become as a little child you cannot enter\nthe kingdom of--er--self-government.\"\n\nI know that Mac's experiment will fail, and for this reason; he wants\nhis children to run the school themselves, but to run it according to\nhis ideas of government.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nI think of an incident that happened when I was teaching in a school in\nLondon.  I had a drawing lesson, and the children made so much noise\nthat the teacher in the adjoining room came in and protested that she\ncouldn't make her voice heard.  The noise in my room seemed to\nincrease . . . and the lady came in again.  The noise increased.\n\nNext day I went to my class.\n\n\"You made such a noise yesterday that the teacher next door had to stop\nteaching.  She rightly complained.  Now I want to ask you what you are\ngoing to do about it.\"\n\n\"You should keep us in order,\" said Findlay, a boy of eleven.\n\n\"I refuse,\" I said; \"it isn't my job.\"\n\nThis raised a lively discussion; the majority seemed to agree with\nFindlay.\n\n\"Anyway,\" I said doggedly, \"I refuse to be your policeman,\" and I sat\ndown.\n\nThere was much talking, and then Joy got up.\n\n\"I think we ought to settle it by a meeting, and I propose Diana as\nchairman.\"\n\nThe idea was hailed with delight, and Diana was elected chairman and\nshe took my desk seat and I went and sat down in her place.\n\nJoy jumped up again.\n\n\"I propose that Mr. Neill be put out of the room.\"\n\nThe motion was carried.\n\n\"Righto!\" I said, as I moved to the door, \"I'll go up to the staff-room\nand have a smoke.  Send for me if you want me.\"\n\nI smoked a cigarette in the staff-room, and as I threw the stump into\nthe grate Nancy came in.\n\n\"You can come down now.\"\n\nI went down.\n\n\"Well,\" I said cheerily, \"have you decided anything?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the chairman, \"we have decided that----\"\n\nJoy was on her feet at once.\n\n\"I propose that we don't tell Mr. Neill what we have decided.  We can\nask him at the end of the week if he notices any difference in our\nbehaviour.\"\n\nOthers objected, and the matter was put to the vote.  The voting was a\ndraw, and Diana gave the casting vote in favour of my being told.  Then\nshe said that the meeting had agreed that if anyone made a row in\nclass, he or she was to be sent to Coventry for a whole day.\n\n\"What will happen if I speak to the one that has been sent to\nCoventry?\" asked Wolodia.\n\n\"We'll send you to Coventry too,\" said Diana, and the meeting murmured\nagreement.\n\nNo one was ever sent to Coventry, but I had no further complaints\nagainst the class.  One interesting feature in the affair was this:\nViolet, a lively girl full of fun, one day got up and, as a joke,\nproposed that Mr. Neill be sent to Coventry.  The others, usually\nwilling to laugh with Violet, protested.\n\n\"That's just silly, Violet,\" they said.  \"If you propose silly things\nlike that we'll send you to Coventry.\"\n\nThen someone got up and proposed that Violet be sent to Coventry for\nbeing silly, and Diana at once took the chair.  I got up and moved the\nnegative, pointing out that I made no charge against her, and she was\nacquitted by a majority of one.  I mention this to show that children\nof eleven and twelve can take their responsibilities seriously.\n\nWhen I told the story to Macdonald he said: \"But why didn't you join in\ntheir noise?\"\n\n\"For two reasons, Mac,\" I said.  \"Firstly these children were not under\nthe suppression of government schools; secondly it wasn't my school.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe servant girl at the Manse has had an illegitimate child, and Meg\nCaddam, the out-worker at East Mains is cutting her dead.  Thus the\ngossip of Mrs. Macdonald.  Meg Caddam is the unmarried mother of three.\n\nI have noticed again and again that the most severe critic of the\nunmarried mother is the unmarried mother, and I have many a time\nwondered at the fact.  Now I know the explanation; it is the familiar\nProjection of a Reproach.  Meg feels guilty because of her three\nchildren, but her guilt is repressed, driven down into the unconscious.\n\nShe dare not allow her conscious mind to face the truth, for then the\ntruth would lower her self-respect; it would be unpleasant, out of\nharmony with her ego-ideal.  But it is easy for her to project this\ninner reproach on to someone else, hence her blaming of the Manse\nlassie.  Meg Caddam is really condemning herself, but she does not know\nit.\n\nI used to despise the Meg Caddams as hypocrites, but, poor souls, they\nare not hypocrites.  Their condemnation of their fallen sisters is\ngenuine.  It is wonderful how we all manage to divide our minds into\ncompartments.  Sandy Marshall of Brigs Farm is a most religious man,\nyet the other day he was fined for watering his milk.  It is unjust to\nsay that his religion is hypocritical.  What happens is that his\nreligion is shut up in one compartment of his mind, and his dishonesty\nis shut up in another compartment . . . and there is no direct\ncommunication between the compartments.\n\nThe mind is like one of the older railway carriages; education's task\nis to convert the old carriage into a new corridor carriage with\ncommunication between the compartments.  Meg Caddam's own transgression\nagainst current morality is locked up in one compartment; her\ncondemnation of the Manse girl is in another compartment.  There is an\nunconscious communication, but there is no conscious communication.  I\ndon't know what Meg would say if a cruel friend pointed out to her that\nshe also was a fallen woman.\n\nI think that the gossip of this village mostly consists of projected\nreproaches.  Liz Ramsay, an old maid and the super-gossip of Tarbonny,\ncame into the schoolhouse this morning.\n\n\"Do ye ken this,\" she said to Mrs. Macdonald, \"it's my opeenion that\nMrs. Broon died o' neglect.  I went to the door the day afore she died\nto speer hoo she was, and her daughter cam to the door, and do ye ken\nthis?  That lassie was smiling . . . _smilin'_ . . . and her auld\nmother upstairs at death's door.  Eh, Mrs. Macdonald, she's a heartless\nwoman that Mary Broon.  She killed her mother by neglect, that's what\nshe did.\"\n\nAfter she had gone I said to Mrs. Macdonald: \"Who nursed Liz's mother\nwhen she died last June?\"\n\n\"Nobody,\" said Mrs. Macdonald grimly.  \"Liz had too much gossip to\nretail in the village, and I'm told that Liz was seldom in the house.\"\n\nI think I am guessing fairly rightly when I say that Liz feels guilty\nof neglecting her own mother, and like Meg Caddam she projects the\nreproach on to someone else.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *      *\n\nLast Friday night I gave a lecture to the literary Society in Tarby,\nour nearest town.  I chose the subject of forgetting, and I told the\naudience of Freud and his great work in connection with the\nunconscious.  To-day's _Tarby Herald_ in reporting the lecture prints\nphonetically the spelling \"Froid,\" but the _Tarby Observer_ goes one\nbetter when it says: \"Mr. Neill is an exponent of the new science of\nCycloanalysis.\"\n\nWhich reminds me of a painful episode that took place when I was\neighteen.  I was much enamoured of a young university student, and I\nalways strove to gain her favour by being interested in the things she\nliked.  One day she informed me that she intended to take the\nPsychology class at St. Andrews the following session.  I had never\nheard the word before, and I made a bold guess that it had something to\ndo with cycles.  In consequence we talked at cross purposes for a while.\n\n\"I'd love a subject like that,\" I said warmly.\n\n\"Most of it will be experimental psychology,\" she said.\n\nMy enthusiasm increased.  I thought of the many experiments I had tried\nwith my old cushion-tyred cycle.\n\n\"Excellent!\" I cried.  \"A sort of training in inventing.  Cranks, eh?\"\nAt that time my one ambition in life was to invent a folding crank that\nwould give double power on hills.\n\nThe lady looked at me sharply.\n\n\"Why cranks?\" she demanded.  \"I don't see it.  Psychology has nothing\nto do with crystal-gazing you know.\"\n\nI was gravelled.\n\n\"But what's the idea?\" I asked.  \"Improvement of design?\"\n\nThis made her think hard.\n\n\"H'm, yes, I think I know what you mean,\" she said slowly.  \"But\nremember that before you can improve the psyche you must know the\npsyche.\"\n\nI hastened to agree.\n\n\"Certainly, but all the same there is much room for improvement.  You\ndon't want to come off at every hill, do you?\"\n\nThis seemed to make her more thoughtful still.\n\n\"No,\" she said, \"but don't you think that the mind makes the hill?\"\n\nThis staggered me.\n\n\"Eh?\" I gasped.  \"Mean to say that I broke my chain on Logie Brae\nyesterday because----\"\n\n\"I'm afraid it is too difficult for me,\" she said apologetically.  \"I\nget lost in metaphors.\"\n\nThen I asked her something about ball bearings, and she threw me a\ngrateful smile . . . for changing the subject--as she thought.\n\nThe most amusing joke is the joke about the innocent or ignorant.\nEveryone is tickled at the Hamlet joke I referred to in my _Log_.\n\nThe school inspector was dining with the local squire.\n\n\"Funny thing happened in the village school to-day,\" he said.  \"I was a\nlittle bit ratty, and I fired a question at a sleepy-looking boy at the\nbottom of the class.\n\n\"Here, boy, who wrote _Hamlet_?\"\n\nThe little chap got very flustered.\n\n\"P--please, sir, it wasna me!\"\n\nThe squire laughed boisterously.\n\n\"And I suppose the little devil had done if after all!\" he cried.\n\nWe laugh at that story because we have all made mistakes owing to\nignorance, and blushed for them a hundred times later.  When we laugh\nat the squire, we are really laughing at ourselves; we are getting rid\nof our pent-up self-shame.  That's why a good laugh is a medicine; it\nallows us to get rid of psychic poison, just as a good sweat rids us of\nsomatic poison.  Charlie Chaplin has possibly cured more people than\nall the psycho-analysts in the world.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nPublic speaking is a most difficult thing.  It is difficult enough when\nyou know your subject, and it is almost impossible if you don't.  At a\ndinner someone asks you to get up and propose the health of the ladies.\nI tried proposing that toast once; luckily most of the diners were\nunder the table by that time.  What can one say about the ladies?\n\nWhen you have a definite subject to talk about, and when you know\neverything about it, even then public speaking is difficult.  You stand\nup before a sea of faces.  You see no one; you dare not catch anyone's\neye.  The best plan is to fix your eye on the blurred face of the man\nat the back of the hall.  You feel that the audience is vaguely hostile.\n\nAt one time I used to go straight into my subject . . .  \"Ladies and\ngentlemen, the subject of evolution has occupied the minds of--\"  Then\nthe audience began to rustle, and the women turned to look at the hats\nbehind them.\n\nNowadays I am more wary.  I stand up and gaze over the sea of faces for\na full minute.  There is absolute silence.  I put my hands into my\ntrouser pockets and gaze at the ceiling, as if I were considering\nwhether I should go on or give it up and go home.  Even the boys at the\nback of the hall begin to look towards the platform.\n\nThen I look down and find that my tie is hanging out of my waistcoat,\nand I adjust it.  A girl of ten giggles.\n\n\"What can you expect for fivepence half-penny?\" I ask, and the audience\ngasps.\n\n\"Why doesn't someone invent a long tie that won't come out at the\nends?\" I ask wearily, and there is a laugh.  I go on from ties to\ncollars, and there is another laugh.  After that I can speak on\neducation for two hours, and everyone in the hall will listen with\ngreat attention.\n\nThe first thing in public speaking is to get on good terms with your\naudience, and I claim that the best way to do this is to show them the\nhuman side of yourself.  Some of your hearers are agin you; they have\ncome out to criticise you.  You disarm them at once by treating\nyourself as a joke.  Of course you must suit your tactics to your\naudience.  The tie remark will put me on good terms with a rural\naudience, but it would fail in a lecture to teachers in the Albert Hall.\n\nAn important thing to remember is that crowd humour is quite different\nfrom individual humour.  A crowd will roar with delight if the lecturer\naccidentally knocks over the drinking glass on the table, but no\nindividual ever laughs when a similar accident happens in a private\nroom.  Read the reports of speeches in the House of Commons.  You will\nread that Lloyd George, in a speech, says: \"And now let us turn to\nIreland (loud laughter).\"  But in cold print it isn't a very good joke.\n\nQuite a good way of commencing a lecture is to tell a short story . . .\nabout the chairman if possible.  But you must be careful.  Keep off the\ntopic of the chairman's marital affairs; he may have lodged a divorce\npetition the week before.\n\nOn second thoughts I think it better not to mention the chairman at\nall.  Last winter the local mayor was presiding at a lecture I gave in\nan English town.  After I had delivered the lecture, he got up.\n\n\"I came to this meeting feeling dead tired,\" he said, \"but after Mr.\nNeill's lecture I feel as fresh as a daisy.\"\n\nI rose in alarm.\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen,\" I said hastily, \"the mayor has been sitting\nbehind me.  Do tell me: has he been asleep?\"\n\nIn the ante-room afterwards he assured me solemnly that he hadn't been\nasleep.\n\nOn Friday night I began thus: \"Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I am\ngoing to talk about Forgetting.\"  Then I put my hand in my inside coat\npocket; then I tried another pocket, and got very excited while I\nrummaged every pocket I had.\n\n\"I must apologise,\" I said, \"but I have forgotten my notes.\"\n\nThe audience laughed, and we became the best of friends.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nForgetting is very often intentional.  We forget what we do not want to\nremember.  Brown writes to me saying that he is taking the wife and\nkids to the seaside, and would I please pay him the fiver I owe him?  I\nat once sit down and write: \"My dear Brown, I enclose a cheque for five\nquid.  Many thanks for the loan.  Hope you all have a good time at the\nsea.\"\n\nThree days later Brown replies.\n\n\"Thanks for your letter, old man, but you forgot to enclose the cheque.\"\n\nWhy did I forget the cheque?  Because I did not want to pay up.\nConsciously I did want to pay, for I wrote out the cheque all right,\nbut my unconscious did not want to pay, and it was my unconscious that\nmade me slip the cheque under the blotter.\n\nLast summer I was invited to spend the week-end with some people at\nStanmore.  I did not want to go; a previous week-end with them had been\nmost boring.  However, I reluctantly consented to go out on the\nSaturday morning.  When Saturday morning came I was not very much\nsurprised to find that I had forgotten to put out my boots to be\ncleaned the night before.\n\n\"It looks as if I weren't keen on this trip,\" I said to myself.\n\nI went down to Baker Street and got into the train.  We stopped at many\nstations, and after an hour's journey I began to wonder what was wrong.\nI asked another man in the compartment when we were due at Stanmore,\nand he looked surprised.\n\n\"Why,\" he said, \"you're on the wrong line; you ought to have changed at\nHarrow.\"\n\nI got out at the next station and found that I had an hour to wait for\nthe return train to Harrow.  As I sat on the platform I took from my\npocket my host's letter.\n\n\"Remember,\" it ran, \"to change at Harrow,\" and the words were\nunderlined.\n\nI arrived four hours late . . . and spent a pleasant week-end.\n\nOne night I was dining out in London, and I told my host the new theory\nof forgetting.\n\n\"That's all bunkum,\" he said.  \"Why, there is a flower growing at the\nfront door there, and I can never remember the name of it.  I am fond\nof flowers and never have any difficulty in remembering their names as\na rule.\"\n\n\"What flower is it?\" I asked.\n\nHe tried to recall it, and had to give it up.\n\n\"It's the joke of the family,\" said his wife.  \"He can never remember\nthe name Begonia.\"\n\n\"Begonia!\" cried my host, \"that's the name!  But surely you don't mean\nto tell me that I want to forget it?  Why should I?\"\n\n\"It may be associated with something unpleasant in your life,\" I said.\n\n\"Nonsense!\" he laughed.  \"The name conveys nothing to me.\"\n\nWe began to talk about other things.  Ten minutes later my host\nsuddenly exclaimed:\n\n\"I've got it!\"\n\n\"What?\" I asked.\n\n\"That Begonia business.  When I began business as a chartered\naccountant over twenty years ago, the first books I had to audit were\nthe books of a company calling itself The Begonia Furnishing Company.\nI glanced through the books and soon concluded that they were\nswindlers.  I worried over that case for a week; you see it was my\nfirst case, and I felt a little superstitious about it.  However, at\nthe end of a week I sent the books back saying that I couldn't see my\nway to undertake the auditing.  I've never given them a thought since.\"\n\nI explained the mechanisms to him.  The whole idea of this Begonia\nCompany was so painful to him that he repressed it, that is, drove it\ndown into the unconscious.  Twenty years later he was unconsciously\nafraid to recall the name of the flower, because the name might have\nbrought back the painful memories of the questionable books.\n\nOn Friday night during question time one man got up.\n\n\"Why is it, then,\" he asked, \"that I cannot forget the painful time\nwhen my wife died?\"\n\nI explained that a big thing like that cannot be forgotten, but pointed\nout that in a case like that the tendency is to forget little things in\nconnection with the big pain.  I told him of a case I had myself known.\nA lady of my acquaintance lived for a few years in Glasgow; then she\nmoved to Edinburgh, where she lived for almost thirty years.  Now she\nlives in London.  When she talks of her old home in Edinburgh she\nalways says: \"When we were in Glasgow.\"  Invariably she makes this\nmistake.  The reason is almost certainly this: just before she left\nEdinburgh she lost the one she loved most in life.  She says: \"When we\nwere in Glasgow\" because the word Edinburgh would at once bring back\nthe painful memories connected with her loved one's death.\n\nWhen I was teaching in Hampstead one of my pupils, a boy of sixteen,\ncame to me one day.\n\n\"That's all rot, what you say about wanting to forget things,\" he said.\n\"I went and left my walking-stick in a bus yesterday.\"\n\n\"Were you tired of it?\" I asked.\n\n\"Tired of it?\" he said indignantly.  \"Why, it was a beauty, a\nsilver-topped cane, got it from mother on my birthday.  That proves\nyour theory is all wrong.\"\n\n\"Tell me about yesterday,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, I was going to a match at lord's, and it looked rather dull, so\nmother told me I'd better take a gamp.  I said it wasn't going to rain,\nand took my cane, but I had just got on the top of a bus when down came\nthe rain in bucketfuls and I tell you I was wet to the skin.\"\n\n\"So you did mean to leave your cane behind?\" I asked, with a smile.\n\n\"But I tell you I didn't!\"\n\n\"You did, all the same.  You kicked yourself because you hadn't taken\nyour mother's advice and brought a gamp.  You deliberately left your\ncane behind you because it had proved useless.\"\n\nI must add that I failed to convince him.\n\nConnected with forgetting are what Freud calls symptomatic acts.  I\nleave my stick or gloves behind when I am calling at a house: I\nconclude that I want to go back there.  I go to dinner at the\nThomsons', and at their front door I absent-mindedly take out my\nlatch-key.  This may mean that I feel at home there; on the other hand,\nit may mean that I wish I were at home.  It is dangerous to dogmatise\nabout the unconscious.\n\nI was sitting one night with Wilson, an old college friend of mine.  We\ntalked of old times, and I remarked that he had been very lucky in his\nlodgings during his college course.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"I was in the same digs all the five years.  She was a\nripping landlady was Mrs.--Mrs.--Good Lord!  I've forgotten her name!\"\n\nHe tried to recall the name, but had to give it up.  Two hours later,\nas he rose to go, he exclaimed: \"I remember the name now!  Mrs. Watson!\"\n\n\"What are your associations to the name Watson?\" I asked.\n\n\"Associations?  What do you mean?\"\n\n\"What's the first thing that comes into your head in connection with\nthe name?\" I asked.\n\nHe made an effort to concentrate his mind, then suddenly he laughed\nshortly.\n\n\"Good Lord!\" he cried, \"that's my wife's name!\"\n\nI felt that I could not very well ask him anything further, but I\nsuspected that Wilson and his wife were not getting on well together.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nMacdonald's self-government scheme has fizzled out.  Yesterday his\nscholars besought him to return to the old way of authority.\n\n\"They were fed up with looking after themselves,\" explained Mac to me.\n\"They were always trying each other for misdemeanours, and they got\nsick of it.\"\n\nI tried to explain to Mac why his attempt had failed.  Self-government\nalways fails unless it is complete self-government.  Mac was the\ndirector and guide; it was he who decided the time-table; it was he who\nrang the bell and decided the length of the intervals.  The children\nhad nothing to do but to keep themselves in order, hence they came to\nspy on each other.  All their energies were directed to penal measures.\nTheir meeting degenerated into a police court.  That was inevitable;\nMac, by laying down all the laws, prevented their using their creative\nenergy on things and ideas.  Naturally they put all the energy they had\ninto the only thing open to them--the trial of offenders.  In short,\nthey were employing energy in destruction when they ought to have been\nemploying it in construction.  Mac seems indifferent now.  \"The thing\nis unworkable,\" he says.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nDuncan came over to-night.  I decided to let him do most of the\ntalking, and he did it well.  He has been doing a lot of Regional\nGeography, and I learned much from his conversation.  As the evening\nwore on he became very affable, and he treated me with the greatest\nkindness.  When Mac was seeing him out Duncan remarked to him: \"That\nchap Neill isn't such a bad fellow after all.\"  Now that I have shown\nDuncan that I am his inferior in Geography he will listen to me with\nless irritation.\n\nAfter supper I went over to see Dauvit.  His shop was crowded.\nConversation was going slowly, and Dauvit seemed to welcome my entrance.\n\n\"Man, Dominie,\" he said, \"I am very glad to see ye, cos the smith here\nhas been tellin' his usual lees aboot the ten pund troot that he nearly\nlanded in the Kernet.\"\n\n\"I doot ye dreamt it, smith,\" said the foreman from Hillend.  \"I ken\nfor mysell that the biggest troot I ever catched were in my dreams.\"\n\n\"Dreams is just a curran blethers,\" said the smith in scorn.\n\nDauvit looked at him thoughtfully.\n\n\"That's a very ignorant remark, smith,\" he said gravely.  \"There's\nnaebody kens what a dream is.  Some o' thae spiritualist lads say that\nwhen ye are asleep yer spirit goes to the next plane, and that maks yer\ndreams.\"\n\nThe smith laughed loudly.\n\n\"Oh, Dauvit!  Why, man, I dreamed last nicht that I was sittin' we a\ngreat muckle pint o' beer in my hand.  Do ye mean to tell me that there\nis beer in heaven?\"\n\nThere was a laugh at Dauvit's expense, but the laugh turned against the\nsmith when Dauvit remarked dryly: \"I didna mention heaven; I said the\nnext plane, and onybody that kens you, smith, kens that the plane\nyou're gaein' to is the doon plane.\"\n\n\"Naturally, a muckle pint o' beer will be the exact thing ye need doon\nthere,\" he added.\n\n\"It's my opeenion,\" said old John Peters, \"that dreams is just like a\nmotor car withoot the driver.  Or like a schule withoot the mester; the\nbairns just run aboot whaur they like, nae control as ye micht say.\nWeel, that's jest what happens in dreams; the mester is sleepin' and\nthe bairns do all sorts o' mad things.\"\n\n\"Aye, man, John,\" said Dauvit, who seemed to be struck with the idea,\n\"there's maybe something in that.  Just as bairns when they get free do\na' the things they're no meant to do, we do the same things in oor\ndreams.  Goad, but I've done some awfu' things in my dreams!\"\n\nHere Jake Tosh the roadman began to cough, and Jake's cough always\nmeans that he is about to say something.\n\n\"You're just a lot o' haverin' craturs,\" he said with conviction.  \"If\nye had ony sense ye wud ken that the dream is just cheese and tripe for\nsupper.\"\n\nDauvit's eyes twinkled.\n\n\"And does the cheese wander frae yer stammick up to yer heid, Jake?\"\n\n\"I wudna go so far as that,\" said Jake seriously, \"but what I say is\nthat a' the different parts o' the body work thegether.  If the\nstammick has to work a' nicht to digest the cheese, the heid has to\nkeep workin' at the same rate, and that's why ye dream.\"\n\n\"Aye, man, Jake,\" said Dauvit, \"it's a bonny theory, but wud ye jest\ntell me exactly what work yer toes and fingers and hair are doin' a'\nnicht to keep upsides wi' yer stammick?\"\n\nJake dismissed the question with an airy wave of his hand.\n\n\"Onybody kens that,\" he said; \"they grow.  Yer hair and yer nails grow\nat nichts, and that's why ye need a shave in the mornin'!\"\n\n\"What if you don't dream at all, Jake?\" I asked.\n\n\"Ye're needin' some grub,\" said Jake shortly.\n\nOn thinking it over I feel that Jake's theory throws some light on\nJung's theory of the libido.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nThis morning I had a letter from a friend in London asking when I am\ngoing to set up my \"Crank School\" in London.  I began to think about the\nword Crank.  What is a Crank?  Usually the name is applied to people who\nwear long hair, eat vegetarian diet, wear sandals . . . or something in\nthat line.  A Crank therefore is someone who differs from the crowd, and\nI am led to conclude that the Crank not only differs from the crowd but\nis usually ahead of the crowd.\n\nAccording to Sir Martin Conway the crowd has no head; it can only feel.\nHence it comes that the main feature of a crowd is its emotion.  When we\nstudy the street crowd, the mob, this fact is evident; but can we say the\nsame of other crowds . . . the Public School crowd, the Church, the\nMiners, the Doctors?  I think so.  The anger that Alec Waugh's book, _The\nLoom of Youth_, aroused in the public schools was not a thought-out\nanger; it came from the public school emotion.  So with vivisection; the\ndoctors' rage at the anti-vivisectionists is not an intellectual rage; it\nis simply a professional emotion.  Just before I left London I happened\none night to be in a company of men who were arguing about\nRe-incarnation.  I had no special views on the subject, but I soon found\nmyself supporting the crowd that was sceptical about Re-incarnation.  The\nreason was that the leader of the anti-reincarnation crowd happened to be\na man called Neill.  It is highly probable that if two rag-and-bone men\ngot into a scrap in a public house they would support each other simply\nout of a professional crowd emotion.\n\nThat the crowd has no head is evident when we read the popular papers or\nsee the popular films.  The most successful papers are those that touch\nthe passions of the mob.  I proved this one week last spring.  Judges\nwere beginning to introduce the \"cat\" for criminals, as a means to stem\nthe crime wave.  I sat down and wrote an article on the subject, pointing\nout that this was a going back to the days of barbarism when lunatics\nwere whipped behind the cart's tail.  I made a strong plea for the\npsychological treatment of the criminal, basing my plea on the fact that\ncrime is the result of unconscious workings of the mind, and stating that\ninstead of sending a poor man to penal servitude we ought to analyse his\nmind and cure him of his anti-social tendencies.\n\nI thought it a jolly good article, and when a prominent Sunday paper\nreturned the manuscript to me I was surprised.  My surprise left me on\nthe following Sunday when the same paper blared forth an article by\nHoratio Bottomley.  His title was: \"Wanted--the Cat!\"\n\nMy article was more thoughtful, more humane, more scientific.  Why, then,\nwas it suppressed?  The answer is simple: it did not fit in with the\npassions of the crowd.  It becomes clear why our best public\nmen--editors, cabinet ministers, publicists are not great thinkers.  They\nmust keep in touch with the crowd; they must express the emotions of the\ncrowd.\n\nThe attitude of the crowd to the anti-crowd person, the Crank, is never\none of contemptuous indifference.  It is always distinctly hostile.  If I\ntravel by tube from Hampstead to Piccadilly without a hat the other\ntravellers stare at me with mild hostility.  Why?  Conway, in _The Crowd\nin Peace and War_, an excellent book, says that this hostility comes from\nfear.  A crowd is always afraid of another crowd, because the only force\nthat can destroy a crowd is a rival crowd.  Every individual who differs\nfrom the herd is suspect because he is perhaps the nucleus of a rival\ncrowd.  That is why the world always crucifies its Christs.\n\nThe Crank School, then, is a school where anti-crowd people send their\nchildren.  It is the school _par excellence_ of the Intelligentsia.  The\ntendency of every Crank School is to exaggerate the difference between\nthe crank and the crowd; hence its adoption of an ideal and its\nconcomitant crazes.  I cannot for the life of me see why ideals are\nassociated with vegetarianism, long hair, Grecian dress, and sandals,\njust as I cannot see why art should attach itself to huge bow-ties, long\nhair, and foot-long cigarette holders.\n\nThe Crank School holds up an ideal.  It plasters its walls with busts of\nWalt Whitman and Blake; it hangs bad reproductions of Botticelli round\nthe walls; it sings songs to Freedom; it rhapsodises about Beethoven and\nBach.  The children of the Crank Schools are, I rejoice to say, not\ncranks.  They leave the boredom of Bach and seek the jazz record on the\ngramophone; they ignore the pictures of Whitman and Blake and study _The\nPicture Show_ or _Funny Bits_.  Many of them think more highly of Charlie\nChaplin than of William Shakespeare.\n\nI say again that I rejoice in this; it serves the Crank School people\njolly well right.  I cannot see by what right educators force what they\nconsider good taste down the children's throats.  That is a return to the\nold way of authority, of treating the child's mind as a blank slate.  If\nthe Crank Schools are to improve, they must drop their high moral purpose\ntone and come down to earth.  They must realise that Charlie Chaplin and\n_John Bull_ have their place in education just as Shakespeare and\nBeethoven have their place.  We do not want to turn out cranks who will\nform a new superior crowd; we want to turn out men and women who will\nreadily join the conventional crowd and help it to reach better ideals.\n\nThis question of good taste is a sore one with me.  I think it fatal to\nimpose good taste on any child; the child must form his own taste.  I\nknow that it is possible to cultivate good taste and to become a very\nsuperior cultivated person, but I know that the human, erring, vulgar,\nmusic-hall, Charlie Chaplin part of such a person's make-up is not\nannihilated; it is merely repressed into the unconscious.\n\nI have a theory that each of us has a definite amount of human nature,\nsome of it high, some of it low, or, to phrase it differently, some of it\nanimal, some of it spiritual.  We can repress one part, and then we\nbecome either a saint or a sinner; the better way is to be both saint and\nsinner, to look life straight in the face, condemning no one, judging no\none.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nMacdonald was re-reading _A Dominie Dismissed_ to-night, and he looked up\nand said: \"Look here, you've got an awful lot of swear-words in this\nbook!\"\n\n\"That,\" I said, \"has a cause, Mac.  They aren't really swear-words; the\nworld has grown out of being shocked at a 'damn,' but I am willing to\nadmit that there are more damns and hells than is usual.  They are\nsymptomatic; they date back to my early days when swearing was a crime\npunishable with the strap.  They are simply symbols of my freedom.  Most\nbad language is from a like cause.  When you foozle on the first tee\nthere is no earthy reason why you should say 'Hell' rather than 'Onions'!\nBut if onions had been taboo when you were a child you would find\nyourself using the word as a swear.  The curse word is the link that\njoins your foozle with the nursery; whenever you curse you regress, that\nis, you go back to the infantile.\"\n\n\"But,\" said Mac, \"you don't mean to say that if swearing were permitted\nto children that they wouldn't curse when they were grown up?\"\n\n\"I don't think they would,\" I said.  \"Nor would there be any unprintable\nstories if we had a frank sex education.  It's a sad fact, Mac, but\nnine-tenths of humour is due to early suppression and repression.\"\n\n\"Seems to me,\" said Mac with a laugh, \"that if everybody were\npsycho-analysed, the world would be a pretty dull place.\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nA few days ago I found a pot of light paint in Mac's workshop, and,\nimpelled by heaven only knows what unconscious process, I painted my\nbicycle blue.  This morning, the paint being dry, I rode forth into an\nunsympathetic world.  Women came to their doors to stare at my machine,\nand as they stared they broke into laughter.  When I reached the village\nof Cordyke the school was coming out, and I was greeted with a howl of\nderision.  I thought it a good instance of crowd psychology; I was\ndifferent from the crowd, and I evoked laughter and derision.\n\nAfter cycling a few miles, I came to an old man breaking stones at the\nbottom of a hill.  On my approaching he threw down his hammer and turned\nto stare at my cycle.  I dismounted.\n\n\"Almichty me!\" he said with surprise.  \"That's a michty colour!\"\n\n\"It's unusual,\" I said, as I lit a cigarette.\n\nHe fumbled for his clay pipe.\n\n\"I've seen black anes, and I wance saw a silver-plated ane, but I never\nheard tell o' a blue bike afore,\" he said.  \"Did you pent it?\"\n\nI acknowledged that it was my very own handiwork.\n\n\"But,\" he said in puzzled tones, \"what was yer idea?\" and he stared at it\nagain.  \"A michty colour that!\"\n\nI threw my bike down on the grass and sat down on the cairn.\n\n\"Between you and me,\" I said mysteriously, \"I had to paint it blue.\"\n\nHe raised his eyebrows.\n\n\"Yea, man!\"\n\n\"Government orders,\" I said carelessly, and began to throw stones at a\ntree trunk at the other side of the road.\n\n\"Government orders?\"  He looked very much surprised.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said airily.  \"You see, it's like this.  The Coalition\nGovernment isn't very firmly placed these days, and, well, I'm an agent\nfor it.  Of course, you know that it is really a Tory government, and my\nbike, as it were, invites the electorate to vote True Blue.\"\n\n\"Yea, man!  I thocht that you was maybe ane o' thae temperance lads frae\nAmericky.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" I said solemnly, \"that reminds me; Pussyfoot tried to induce me to\nmake my tour a sort of joint thing.  He suggested that I might carry on\nmy Tory work, and at the same time take part in the blue ribbon campaign.\nOf course I refused.\"\n\n\"Of coorse,\" he nodded.\n\n\"Officially I am doing Coalition work,\" I continued conversationally,\n\"but I have motives of my own.\"\n\n\"You don't say!\"\n\n\"Oh, yes.  I am a great admirer of Lord Fisher and the Blue Water school,\nsometimes spoken of as the Blue Funk school.  Again, I find that the\nGreat War has left many people in the blues, and by means of homeopathy I\ncure 'em; I mean to say that they come to their doors and laugh at my\nblue bike.  My blue dispels their blues.\"\n\nThe old man did not seem to follow this.\n\n\"Of course,\" I went on, \"the Bluebells of Scotland have something to do\nwith my selection of the colour.\"\n\n\"A verra nice sang,\" he commented.\n\n\"An excellent song!  Then there is the well-known phrase 'Once in a Blue\nMoon,' and innumerable songs about the pale moonlight.  Also I once knew\na man who had the blue devils.\"\n\nI tried to think of other phases of blueness, but my stock was almost\nexhausted.\n\n\"Of course,\" I added, \"I am not forgetting the other blues, the Oxford\nblues, Reckitt's Blue, Blue Coupons, and--and--I'm afraid I can't think\nof any other blues just at the moment.\"\n\nThe old man drew the back of his hand over his mouth.\n\n\"There's the 'Blue Bonnets' up at the tap o' the brae,\" he suggested\nthirstily.\n\n\"Good idea!\" I cried, \"come on!\" and together we climbed the brae.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nA friend of mine in London has written me asking if I will write an\narticle on Co-education for an educational journal, in which she is\ninterested.  I replied: \"I can't see where the problem comes in; to a\nScot co-education is not a thing that has to be supported by argument; he\naccepts it as he accepts the law of gravitation.\"\n\nI wonder why English people are so afraid of co-education.  To this day\nschools like Bedales, King Alfred's, Harpenden, and Arundale are reckoned\nas crank schools.  The great middle-class of England believes in\nsegregation.  Even Dr. Ernest Jones, the most prominent Freudian\npsycho-analyst in England, appears to be afraid of it.\n\nI can only conjecture that Jones agrees with the middle and upper classes\nin associating sex with sin.  I have never tried to think out my reasons\nfor believing in co-education; possibly the true reason is that having\ngrown up in a co-education atmosphere, co-education has become a part of\nme just as my Scots accent has.  In other words, I may have a\nco-education complex.  If that is so, my arguments will be mere\nrationalisations, but I give them for what they are worth.\n\nWe are all born with a strong sex instinct, and this instinct must find\nexpression in some way.  We know that the sex energy can be sublimated,\nthat is, raised to a higher power.  For instance, the creative sex urge\nmay be directed to the making of a bookcase, or the making of a century\nat cricket.  But I know of no evidence to prove that all the instinct can\nbe sublimated.  An adolescent may spend his days at craftwork and games,\nbut he will have erotic dreams at nights.  All the drawing and painting\nin the world will not prevent his having emotion when he looks at the\nface of a pretty girl.\n\nIn our segregation schools boys and girls see nothing of each other.  The\nunsublimated sex instinct finds expression in homosexuality, that is the\nemotion that should go to the opposite sex is fixed on a person of the\nsame sex.  I admit that we are all more or less homosexual; otherwise\nthere could be no friendship between man and man, or woman and woman.  In\nour boarding schools the sex instinct often takes the road of\nauto-eroticism.\n\nIn a co-education school the sex impulse is directed to one of the\nopposite sex.  This attachment is nearly always a romantic ideal\nattachment.  I have never known a case that went the length of kissing;\namong little children at a rural school, yes; at the age of seven I\nkissed my first sweetheart; but among adolescents I find that neither the\nboy nor the girl has the courage to kiss.  Theirs is a sublimated\ncourtship; they never use the word Love; they talk about \"liking\nSo-and-so.\"\n\nThat at many co-education schools this romantic attachment is more or\nless an underground affair is due to the moral attitude of teachers.\nThey pride themselves on the beautiful sexless attachments of their\npupils; they give moral lectures on the subject of kissing, and naturally\nevery pupil in school at once becomes painfully self-conscious on the\nsubject.  The truth is that many co-educationists do not in their hearts\nbelieve in the system; they still see sin in sex.\n\nTo be a thorough success the co-education school must include sex\neducation in its curriculum.  The children of the most advanced parents\nseldom get it at home, and they come to school with the old attitude to\nsex.  Sex education does not mean telling children where babies come\nfrom; it should dwell mostly on the psychological side of the question.\nThe child ought to learn the truth about its sex instinct.  Most\nimportant of all, the child who has indulged in auto-eroticism ought to\nbe helped to get rid of his or her sense of guilt.  This sense of guilt\nis the primary evil of self-abuse; abolish it, and the child is on the\nway to a self-cure.\n\nHow many children can go to their teacher and make confession of sex\ntroubles?  Very few.  It is the teachers' fault; they set themselves up\nas moralists, and a moralist is a positive danger to any child.\n\nNot long ago I was addressing a meeting of teachers in south London.  At\nquestion time a woman challenged me.\n\n\"You have condemned moralists,\" she said; \"do you mean to say that you\nwould never teach a child the difference between right and wrong?\"\n\n\"Never,\" I answered, \"for I do not know what is right and what is wrong.\"\n\n\"Then I think you ought not to be a teacher,\" she said.\n\n\"I know what is right for me, and wrong for me,\" I went on to explain,\n\"but I do not know what is right and wrong for you.  Nor do I presume to\nknow what is right or wrong for a child.\"\n\nI was pleasingly surprised to find that the meeting roared approval of my\nreply.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nMacdonald had to attend a funeral to-day, and he asked me if I would take\nhis classes for an hour.  I gladly agreed.\n\n\"Give them a lesson on psychology,\" he said; \"it will maybe improve their\nbehaviour.\"\n\nI went over to the school at two o'clock, and Mac introduced me, although\nI had already made friends with most of the children in the playground\nand the fields.  Mac then went away and I sat down at his desk.\n\n\"We'll have a talk,\" I said, \"just a little friendly talk between you and\nme.  I want to hear your opinions on some things.\"\n\nThey looked at me with interest.\n\n\"Why,\" I said, \"why do you sit quiet in school?\"\n\nAndrew Smith put up his hand.\n\n\"Please, sir, 'cause if we don't the mester gies us the strap.\"\n\n\"A very sound reason, too,\" I commented.  \"And now I want to ask you why\nyou sometimes want to throw papers or slate-pencils about the room.\"\n\n\"Please, sir, we never do that,\" said little Jeannie Simpson.\n\n\"The mester wud punish us,\" said another girl.\n\n\"But,\" I cried, \"surely one of you has thrown things about the room?\"\n\nTom Murray, the bad boy of the school (according to Mac), put up his hand.\n\n\"Please, sir, I did it once, but the mester licked me.\"\n\n\"Why did you do it, Tom?\"\n\nTom thought hard.\n\n\"I didna like the lesson,\" he said simply.\n\nI then went on further.\n\n\"Now I want you all to think this out: was Tom being selfish when he\nthrew paper, or was he unselfish?\"\n\nEveryone, Tom included, judged that the paper-throwing was a selfish act.\n\n\"I don't agree,\" I said.  \"Tom was trying to do a service to the others;\nyou were all bored by a lesson, and Tom stepped in and took your\nattention.  Unfortunately he also attracted the attention of Mr.\nMacdonald, but that has nothing to do with Tom's reason for doing it.\nTom was the most unselfish of the lot of you; he showed more good than\nany of you.\"\n\n\"The mester didna think that!\" said Tom, with a grin.\n\nPeter Wallace carefully rolled a paper pellet and threw it at Tom.\n\n\"Now,\" I said with a smile, \"let's think this out; why did Peter throw\nthat pellet just now?\"\n\n\"Because the class is bored,\" said a little girl, and there was a good\nlaugh at my expense.\n\n\"Righto!\" I laughed, \"shall we do something else?\" but the class shouted\n\"No!\" and I proceeded.\n\n\"Peter, do tell us why you threw that pellet.\"\n\n\"For fun,\" said Peter, blushing and smiling.\n\n\"He did it so's the class wud look at him,\" said Tom Murray, and Peter\nhid his diminished head.\n\n\"A wise answer, Tom,\" I said; \"but we are all like that; we all like to\nbe looked at.  Who is the best at arithmetic?\"\n\n\"Willie Broon,\" said the class, and Willie Broon cocked his head proudly.\n\n\"And who is the best fighter?\"\n\n\"Tom Murray,\" answered the boys, and one little chap added: \"Tom cud\nfecht Willie Broon wi' one hand.\"\n\nTom tried to look modest.\n\nI went round the class and with one exception every child had at least\none branch of life in which he or she found a sense of superiority.  The\nexception was Geordie Wylie, a small lad of thirteen with a white face\nand a starved appearance.  The class were unanimous in declaring that\nGeordie had no talent.\n\n\"He canna even spit far enough,\" said one boy.\n\nGeordie's embarrassment made me change the subject quickly, but I made up\nmy mind to have a talk with him later.\n\nSome of the reasons for individual pride were strange.  Jake Tosh's\nfeeling of superiority lay in the circumstance that his father had laid\nout a gamekeeper while poaching.  Jock Wilson had once found a shilling;\nanother boy had seen \"fower swine stickit a' in wan day;\" another could\nsmoke a pipe of Bogie Roll without sickening (but I had to promise not to\ntell the Mester).  The girls seemed to find their superiority mostly in\nlessons, although a few were proud of their needle-work.\n\nI then went on to ask them what their highest ambition in life was.  The\nboys showed less imagination than the girls.  Six of them wanted to be\nploughmen like their fathers.  To a townsman this might appear to be a\nvery modest ambition, but to a boy it means power and position; to drive\na pair of horses tandem fashion as they do on the East Coast, with the\ntracer prancing on the braes; that is what being a ploughman means to a\nvillage lad.  One boy wanted to be an engineer, another a clerk (\"'cos he\ndoesna need to tak' aff his jaicket to work!\"), another a soldier.\n\n\"Not a single teacher!\" I said.\n\n\"We're no clever enough,\" said Tom Murray.\n\nI turned to the girls.\n\n\"Now, let's see what ambition you have,\" I said hopefully.  The result\nwas good; three teachers, two nurses, one typist, one lady doctor,\none . . . lady.  This was Maggie Clark.  She just wanted to be like one\nof thae ladies in the picters with a motor car.\n\n\"And husband?\" I asked.\n\n\"No, I dinna want a man, but I wud like a lot of bairns,\" she said, and\nthere was a snigger from the boys who had got their sex education from\nthe ploughmen at the Brig of evenings.\n\nAnother girl remarked that Maggie's ambition was a selfish one.\n\n\"But are you not all selfish?\" I asked.\n\nThe class indignantly denied it.\n\n\"Right,\" I said, \"what do you say to a composition exercise?\"\n\nThey obediently got out their composition books, but I told them that my\nexercise was an easy one.  I tore up a few pages into slips and\ndistributed them.\n\n\"Now,\" I said, \"suppose I give you five pounds to do what you like with.\nWrite down what you would do with it, fold the paper, and hand it in to\nme.\"\n\nThey eagerly agreed, and at the end of five minutes I had a hatful of\nslips.  I then drew a line down the centre of the blackboard.  On one\nside I wrote the word Selfish; on the other Unselfish.  The class groaned\nand laughed.\n\n\"Now,\" I said cheerfully, \"this will prove whether the class is unselfish\nor not,\" and I unfolded the first slip.\n\n\"But you'll say we are selfish!\" said a boy.\n\n\"I have nothing to do with it,\" I said; \"you are to decide by vote.\nFirst person . . . 'I would buy a bicycle': selfish or unselfish?\"\n\n\"Selfish!\" roared the class, and I put a mark in the first column.\n\n\"Next paper . . . 'Scooter, knife, and the rest on ice-cream.'\"\n\n\"Selfish!\" and I put down another mark.\n\n\"Next: . . . 'Buy a pair of boots' . . . selfish or unselfish?\"\n\nThe class had to stop and think here.\n\n\"Selfish!\" said a few.\n\n\"Unselfish,\" said others, \"'cos he wud be helpin' his mother.\"\n\n\"Then we'll vote on it,\" I said, and by a majority of two the act was\ndeclared to be unselfish.\n\nWe then had a run of knives, tops, candy, cycles, and no vote was\nnecessary.  Then came a puzzler.\n\n\"I would send every penny to the starving babies of Germany.\"\n\n\"Unselfish!\" cried the class in one voice.  I was just about to put the\nmark in the unselfish column when a boy said: \"That's selfish, cos she'd\nfeel proud of being so--so unselfish.\"\n\n\"How do you know it is a she?\" I asked.\n\n\"'Cause I ken it's Jean Wilson,\" he answered promptly; \"she has took a\nreid face.\"\n\nThere followed a breezy debate on Jean's act.\n\n\"It is selfish,\" said Mary, \"because when you do a kind action you feel\npleased with yourself, and it was selfish because if it hadna pleased her\nshe wud never ha' done it.\"\n\nI asked for a vote and to my astonishment the act was declared selfish by\na majority of three.  I suspect that conventional Hun Hatred had\nsomething to do with the voting.\n\nThe voting over I totted up the marks.\n\n\"You have judged yourselves,\" I said, \"and according to your own showing\nyou as a class are 87 per cent. selfish and 13 per cent. unselfish.\"\n\nThis essay in composition was not original; I got the idea from Homer\nLane, who claimed that it was the best introduction to school psychology.\n\"It is the best way to make children think of their own behaviour,\" he\nsaid, and my experiment has shown this.\n\nWhen Mac came back I said to him; \"You've got a fine lot of bairns, Mac.\"\n\n\"Had you any difficulty?\" he asked.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Oh, I half thought they would try to pull your leg, especially a boy\nlike Tom Murray.  He is a most difficult chap, you know.\"\n\n\"Tom's a saint,\" I said; \"every child is a saint if you treat him as an\nequal.  No, I had no difficulty, but I want you to send over Geordie\nWylie to me this afternoon.  There is something wrong with that boy; he\nhas no ambition and he has one of the worst inferiority complexes I have\never struck.  I want to have a quiet talk with him.\"\n\nMac promised, and at three o'clock Geordie came over to the schoolhouse.\nI took him into the parlour, and he sat nervously on the edge of a chair.\n\n\"Tell me about yourself, Geordie,\" I said, but he did not answer.\n\n\"Do you keep rabbits?\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"What kind?\"\n\n\"Twa Himalayas and a half Patty.\"\n\n\"Keep doos?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nIt was like drawing blood from a milestone.\n\n\"What do you do when you go home at nights?\"\n\nIt was a long difficult task to get anything out of him.  The only fact\nof value I got was that he was a great reader of Wild West stories.  I\nasked him to come to me again, and he said he would.\n\nTo-night I asked Mac about him.\n\n\"He's a dreamer,\" said Mac, \"and he's lazy.  I am always strapping him\nfor inattention.  He's not a manly boy, never plays games, always stands\nin a corner of the playground.\"\n\n\"Does he ever fight?\" I asked.\n\n\"He's a great coward, but there's one queer thing about him; when any boy\nchallenges him to fight he goes white about the gills but he always\nfights . . . and gets licked.\"\n\n\"Mac,\" I said, \"will you do me a favour?  Don't whack him again; it is\nthe worst treatment you can give him.  He is a poor wee chap, and he is\nbadly in need of real help.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said the kindly Mac, \"I'll try not to touch him, but he\nirritates me many a time.\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nI had Geordie for an hour this morning.  He was taciturn at first, but\nlater he talked freely.  He is very much afraid of his father, and he\nweeps when his father scolds him.  This makes the father angrier and he\ncalls Geordie a lassie, a greetin' lassie.  This jeer wounds the boy\ndeeply.  He is afraid in the dark.  He told me that he was puzzled about\none thing; when he goes for his milk at night he is never afraid on the\noutward journey, but when he leaves the dairy to come home he is always\nin terror.  I asked him what he was afraid of and he told me that he\nalways imagined that there was a man in a cheese-cutter cap waiting to\nmurder him.\n\n\"What is a cheese-cutter?\" I asked.\n\n\"It is a bonnet with a big snout, something like a railway porter's.  My\nfather's a porter and he has ane.\"\n\nEvidently the man he is afraid of is his father.  This may account for\nhis lack of fear when he is walking from his home to the dairy.  Then he\nis leaving his father; when he starts to return he is going back to his\nfather and is afraid.\n\nI asked him about his fights with other boys.  He always feared a fight\nbut he went through with it so that the other boys should not call him a\ncoward.  Naturally he always lost the battle; he fought with a divided\nmind; while his less imaginative opponent thought only of hitting and\nwinning, Geordie was picturing the end of the fight.\n\nI asked him if he had a sweetheart, and he blushed deeply.  He told me\nthat he often took fancies for girls, but they would not have him.  Frank\nMurray always cut him out; Frank was a big hefty lad and the girls like\nthe beefy manly boy.\n\nHe does much day-dreaming, phantasying it is called in analysis.  His\ndreams always take the form of conquests; in his day-dream he is the best\nfighter in the school, the best scholar, the most loved of the girls.\nHis night dreams are often terrifying, and he has more than once dreamt\nthat his father and Macdonald were dead.  He finds compensation for his\nweaknesses in his day-dreams and his reading.  He likes tales of heroes\nwho always kill the villians and carry off the heroines.\n\nIt is difficult to know what to do in a case like this.  The best way\nwould be to change the boy's environment, but that is out of the\nquestion.  Even then the early fears would go with him; he would transfer\nhis father-complex to another man.\n\nI tried to explain to Mac the condition of Geordie.  The boy is all\nbottled up; his energy should be going into play and work, but instead it\nis regressing, going back to early ways of adaptation to environment.\n\n\"But what can I do with him?\" asked Mac.\n\n\"Give him your love,\" I said.  \"He fears you now, and your attitude to\nhim makes him worse.  You must never punish him again, Mac.\"\n\n\"That's all very well,\" said Mac ruefully, \"but what am I to do?  Suppose\nTom Murray and he talk during a lesson, am I to whack Tom and allow\nGeordie to get off?\"\n\n\"Chuck punishment altogether,\" I said.  \"You don't need it; it is always\nthe resort of a weak teacher.\"\n\n\"I couldn't do without it,\" he said.\n\n\"All right then,\" I said wearily, \"but I want you to realise that your\npunishments are making Geordie a cripple for life.\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nI went down and had a talk with Geordie's father.  He was not very\npleasant about it; indeed he was almost unpleasant.\n\n\"There's nothing wrong wi' the laddie,\" he said aggressively.  \"He's a\nwee bit lassie-like and he has no pluck.\"\n\nHere Geordie entered the kitchen, and his father turned on him harshly.\n\n\"Started to yer lessons yet?\" he demanded.\n\nGeordie muttered something about having had to feed his rabbits.\n\n\"I'll rabbit ye!  Get yer books oot this minute!\" and Geordie crept to a\ncorner and rummaged among some old clothes for his school-bag.\n\nI tried to be as amiable as I could, and avoided controversy.  I soon saw\nthat father and mother were not pulling well together, and I suspected\nthat the father's harshness to Geordie was often a weapon to wound the\nfond mother.  I saw that nothing I could say would do any good, and I\ntook my departure.\n\nLater I went to see Dauvit, and found him alone.  I asked him to tell me\nabout the Wylies.\n\n\"Tarn Wylie is wan o' the stupidest men in a ten mile radius,\" said\nDauvit.  \"But he's no stupid whaur money is concerned; they tell me that\nhe drinks aboot half his week's wages, and his puir wife has to suffer.\nThat laddie o' theirs, he was born afore the marriage, and they tell me\nthat Tarn wud never ha' married her if he hadna been fell drunk the nicht\nhe put in the banns.\"\n\nThis case of poor Geordie shows what a complexity there is in human\naffairs.  His father has a mental conflict, and he drinks so that he may\nget away from reality.  The father's drinking and the son's reading of\nromances are fundamentally the same thing; each is trying to get away\nfrom a reality he dare not face.  No treatment of Geordie could be\nsatisfactory unless at the same time the parents were being treated.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nCarrotty Broon, one of my old scholars, came to Dauvit's shop to-night,\nand he talked about his pigeons . . . his doos he calls them.  He keeps\na pigeon loft of homers, and he spends a considerable amount in\ntraining them.\n\n\"Some fowk think,\" he said, \"that a homer will flee hame if ye throw it\nup five hunder miles awa.\"\n\n\"I've read of flights of seven hundred miles,\" I said.\n\nCarrotty Broon chuckled.\n\n\"I mind o' a homer I had,\" he went on.  \"He was a beauty, a reid\nchequer.  His father had flown frae London to Glasgow, and his mither\nwas a flier too.  Weel, I took him doon to Monibreck on my bike, and\nlet him off.  I never saw him again; five mile, and he cudna find his\nway hame!\"\n\n\"He must ha' been shot,\" said Dauvit, \"for thae homers find their way\nhame by instinct.\"\n\n\"Na, na, Dauvit,\" said Broon, \"they flee by sicht.  When ye train a\nhomer ye tak it a mile the first day, syne three miles, syne maybe\nseven, ten, twenty, fifty, and so on.  Send the purest bred homer fower\nmile without trainin' and ye'll never see him again.\"\n\nCarrotty Broon told us many interesting things about doos and their\nways.  We listened to him because he was an authority and we knew\nlittle about the subject.\n\n\"The only thing I ken aboot doos,\" said Dauvit with a laugh, \"is that\nwhen I was a laddie auld Peter Smith and John Wylie keepit homers and\nthey were aye trying compeetitions in fleein'.  John was gaein' to\nLondon for his summer holiday, and so him and Peter made a bargain that\nthey wud flee twa homers from London.  Weel, John he got to London, and\nhe thocht to himsell that seein' they had a bet o' twa pund on the\nrace, he wud mak sure o' winnin', and so what does he do but tak a pair\no' shears and cut the wing o' Peter's doo.\n\n\"When John cam hame after a fortnight's trip he met auld Peter at the\nstation.\n\n\"'Weel, Peter,' says he, 'wha won the race?'\n\n\"'You,' said Peter; 'your doo cam hame the next day, but mine only got\nhame this mornin'.  And it has corns on its feet like tatties.'\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nTo-day was Macdonald's Inspection Day, and at dinner time he brought\nover Mr. J. F. Mackenzie, H.M.I.S., a middle-aged man and Mr. L. P.\nSmart, assistant I.S., a cheery youth fresh from Oxford.  When\ninspectors dine with the village dominie they never mention the word\neducation.  These two talked a lot, and all their conversation was\nabout mountain-climbing in Switzerland.  They swopped long prosy yarns\nabout dull incidents, and I was very much bored.  So was Mac, but he\npretended to be interested, but then he was to see them again, and I\nwasn't . . . at least I prayed that I might not.  After a time I began\nto feel that I was being left out of the conversation, and I waited\nuntil Mackenzie paused for a breath.\n\n\"Switzerland is very beautiful,\" I remarked, \"but you should see the\nAndes.\"\n\nMackenzie looked at me coldly.\n\n\"I haven't been to South America,\" he said.\n\n\"Same here,\" said I cheerfully, \"but I remember seeing pictures of them\nin the geography book at school.\"\n\nMackenzie looked at me more coldly than before.  I don't think he liked\nme, and when the younger man chuckled Mackenzie glared at him.  Smart\nhad a sense of humour.\n\n\"I'm afraid we have been boring you,\" he said to me with a smile.\n\n\"I'd rather listen to you two talking education,\" I confessed.\n\nMackenzie waved the suggestion away.\n\n\"I leave education behind when I walk out of the school,\" he said in\ngrand manner.  \"Most excellent rhubarb, Mrs. Macdonald.  Home grown?\"\nAnd then we had ten minutes of garden products versus shop greens.  I\nadmit that this inspector had a genius for small talk.  We dismissed\ngreens and I led the conversation to hens and ducks.  Mackenzie did not\nknow much about them, and he confirmed my opinion of his genius for\nsmall talk by saying: \"Buff Orpingtons!  They are named after Orpington\nin Kent.  I remember staying a night there before I went to Switzerland\n. . .\" and the dirty dog took the conversation back to his mountain\nclimbing.\n\nI made a gesture to the younger man and got him out into the garden.\n\n\"Why does he waste precious time talking about cabbages and dreary\nSwiss inns?\" I asked.\n\nSmart laughed shortly.\n\n\"You know how rich folk talk at table when the servants are present?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"Well, that's the Chief's attitude to teachers; he never says anything\nof any importance whatever.\"\n\n\"But why?\"\n\n\"He is of the old school.  He has been inspecting schools for forty\nyears.  In the olden days an inspector was a sort of Almighty; teachers\nquaked before him because with a stroke of his pen he could reduce\ntheir money grant.  To this day the old man treats teachers as a king\ntreats his subjects--with kindness but with distance.\"\n\n\"Has he any views on education?\" I asked.\n\nSmart shook his head.\n\n\"None, but he has heaps of views on instruction and discipline.  By the\nway, he thinks that Macdonald's discipline is very good.\"\n\n\"And you?\"\n\n\"I think it rotten,\" he said ruefully, \"but what can I do?  A junior\ninspector is a nobody; if he has any views of his own he has to pocket\nthem.  I would chuck out all this discipline rot and go in for the\nMontessori stunt.  Take my tip and never accept an inspectorship.\"\n\n\"I won't,\" I said hastily.\n\nI liked Smart, and I wish we had more of his stamp in the inspectorate.\n\nWhen we returned to the dining-room Mackenzie looked at me with\ninterest.\n\n\"I didn't know that you were the _Dominie's Log_ man till Mr. Macdonald\ntold me two minutes ago,\" he said.  \"I am delighted to meet you.  I\nenjoyed your book very much indeed.  Very amusing.\"\n\nHe was quite affable now.  Writing a book gives a man a certain\nstanding.  I fancy it is the dignity of print that does it, and we all\nhave the print superstition.  I find myself accepting statements in\nbooks, whereas if someone said the same things to me over a\ndinner-table I should refute them with scorn.  \"If it is in _John Bull_\nit is so!\"  Mr. Bottomley is a sound psychologist.\n\nWhen they were departing I said to Smart: \"Yes, he's very amiable and\nall that, but I am jolly glad I had Frank Michie and not him as my\nchief inspector when I wrote my _Log_.\"\n\nSmart laughed.\n\n\"My dear chap, Mackenzie would have let you run your school in your own\nway.\"\n\n\"But,\" I cried, \"he doesn't believe in freedom!\"\n\n\"He doesn't, but don't you see that he simply couldn't have jumped on\nyou?  He would have thought you either a lunatic or a genius, and he\nwould have feared to condemn you in case you might turn out to be the\nlatter.  I know an art critic in London, and, believe me, the poor\ndevil lives in terror lest he should damn the work of a new Augustus\nJohn.  The Futurists aren't flourishing on their merits; they are\nflourishing because the critics are in a holy funk to condemn them in\ncase they might be artists after all.\"\n\nI want to meet Smart again.  I like his style.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nI am indeed a Dominie in Doubt.  What is education striving after?  I\ncannot say, for education is life and what the aim of life is no one\nknows.  Psycho-analysis can clear up a life; it can release bottled up\nenergy, but it cannot say how the released energy is to be used.  The\nanalyst cannot advise, because no man can tell another how to live his\nlife.  Freud clears up the past, but he cannot clear up the future.\n\nIs there such a thing as Re-incarnation?  I wonder.  Am I living the\nlife that my past lives on earth fitted me for?  If so analysis is\nwrong.  If I am suffering from a severe neurosis it is because I earned\nthis punishment in my past lives, and Freud has no right to cure me.\nHe is interfering with the plans of the Almighty.  If, as I have heard\na Theosophist declare, the children in the slums are miserable because\nthey failed to learn their lesson in previous lives, then the people\nwho try to abolish slums are all wrong.  I think my Theosophist would\nargue that the charitable person is growing in grace, thereby rising\nabove his previous lives.  And thus one soul helps another to rise to\nperfection.  It may be, and I hope it is so, for then life would have a\nmeaning.  Pain and war would then be less terrible, for they would be\nbut incidents in the eternal unfolding of perfection.\n\nYet I find myself doubting.  If I am William Shakespeare born again I\ndo not know it, and I am left in doubt as to whether I may not have\nbeen Charles Peace instead.  Possibly I was both.\n\nThen there is psychical research.  I have been to a medium and have\nheard things that all the psycho-analysis in the world cannot account\nfor.  I want to believe that the dead can speak to us, but where are\nthe dead?  I have read Sir Oliver Lodge's _Raymond_, and the\ndescription of the next world given there.  Frankly I don't fancy it,\nand I have no desire to go there.\n\nHow then can I attempt to educate children when the ultimate solution\nof life is denied me?  I can only stand by and give them freedom to\nunfold.  I do not know whither they are going, but that is all the more\na reason why I ought not to try to guide their footsteps.  This is the\nfinal argument for the abolition of authority.  We may beat and break a\nhorse because we selfishly require a horse's service, and according to\nthe accepted view a horse has no immortal soul.  We dare not beat and\nbreak a child, for a child is going to an end that we cannot know.\n\nI like the Theosophist schools, although I do not like all\nTheosophists.  Some of them seem to be living the higher life\nconsciously, and repressing their lower natures.  Most of them do not\nsmoke or drink or eat meat or swear or go to music-halls.  That may be\nliving on a higher plane, but it is not living fully.  Still, in many\nways they are broad-minded.  In their schools they do not force\nTheosophy down the children's throats; they allow a great amount of\nfreedom, but their schools are not free schools.  There is a definite\nattempt to mould character chiefly by insisting on good taste.  I am\nquite sure that no head-master of a Theosophical School would take his\nchildren to see a Charlie Chaplin film.  Charlie is not obviously\nliving the higher life; he stands for the vulgar side of life; he picks\nup girls and gets drunk (in the play) and is sea-sick and very vulgar\nabout soda-water.\n\nI find myself insisting on the inclusion of Charlie in any scheme of\neducation because no one ought to be taught to be shocked at\nsea-sickness and soda-water squirting.  Charlie to me is the antidote\nto the higher-plane crowd; he and his kind are as essential as Shelley.\nI admit that reading Shelley is a higher kind of pleasure than watching\n\"Champion Charlie,\" but no human being can safely live on the higher\nplane, and no child wants to.  Education must deal with _all_ life; a\nhigher plane diet will produce hot-house plants, beautiful perhaps, but\ndelicate and artificial.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nOld Willie Murray the cobbler had been bed-ridden for over a year, and\nwhen I dropped into Dauvit's shop this morning Mary Rickart was telling\nDauvit that his old master was dead.\n\n\"Aye, Dauvit,\" she was saying when I entered, \"I'm no the kind that\nspeaks ill o' the deid, but I will say this, that Wull Murray had his\nfaults.  Aye, and though he's a corp the day, I canna pertend that he\nwas ony freend o' mine.\"\n\nWhen Mary had gone Dauvit turned to me with a queer smile.\n\n\"Dominie, you tell me that you have studied the science o' the mind,\npsy--what is't you call it?\"\n\n\"Psychology,\" I said.\n\n\"That's the word.  Weel then, dominie, just tell me why Mary Rickart\nhad sic a pick at auld Willie Murray.\"\n\nI smoked for a time thoughtfully.\n\n\"It's difficult, Dauvit.  I haven't got enough evidence.  However I\nthink I can make a good guess.\"\n\n\"Weel?\"\n\n\"Mary and Willie sat in the same class at school?\"\n\n\"Good!\" said Dauvit, \"they did.\"\n\n\"And Mary was Willie's first sweetheart?\"\n\n\"Imphm!\"\n\n\"Mary loved Willie and he loved her.  They were sweethearts for a long\ntime, but another damsel came and stole Willie's heart away.  Mary wept\nbitter tears, but in time she repressed her love . . . and it changed\ninto hate.\"\n\nDauvit chuckled.\n\n\"A very nice story,\" he said, \"but, ye ken, it's just a story.  You\ncudna guess the real reason why Mary hated him so much.\"\n\n\"Then what was the real reason, Dauvit?\"\n\nHe laughed.\n\n\"Mary hated Willie Murray because he aince telt her that she was a\nsilly woman to think that she cud wear a number fower shoe on a number\nacht foot.\"\n\nWe laughed together, and then I said:\n\n\"Dauvit, why did you never marry?  You like women I fancy.\"\n\nMy remark made him thoughtful.\n\n\"Man,\" he said, \"I've often speered the same question o' mysel.  As a\nyoung man I was gye fond o' the lassies, but . . .  I dinna ken!\" and\nhe broke off suddenly and took up a boot.  \"Thae soles are just paper\nnoo-a-days,\" he growled.\n\nI refused to let him run away from the subject.\n\n\"Had you a sweetheart?\" I asked.\n\nHe laughed boisterously to hide his confusion.\n\n\"Dozens o' them!\" he cried.\n\n\"Then why didn't you marry one of them?\"\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n\"Dominie, that's the question.\"  He stared at the grate for a while.\n\"There was Maggie Adams, a bonny lassie she was.  Man, I mind when I\ntook her to Kirriemair Market . . .\"  He sighed.  \"Aye, man, dominie, I\nliked Maggie mair than ony o' the others.\"\n\n\"Did she love someone else?\" I asked softly.\n\nDauvit took some time to reply.\n\n\"No, man, Maggie wanted me.\"\n\n\"Then the fault lay on your side?  You didn't love her!\"\n\nDauvit brought his hand down on the board.\n\n\"Goad, man, but I did!\"\n\nI could not understand.\n\n\"Man, on the road hame frae Kirrie Market I was to speer if she wud\nmarry me . . . but I didna.\"\n\nWe smoked silently for a long minute.\n\n\"Ye see,\" he went on slowly, \"Maggie was a bonny lassie and I liked to\nkiss and cuddle her, but kissin' and cuddlin' are a very sma' part o'\nmarriage, dominie.  There was something in Maggie that I was aye\nlookin' for, but cud never find.  Aye, I tried to find it in other\nlassies, but I never fund it.\"\n\n\"What was it you wanted to find, Dauvit?\"\n\nDauvit paused.\n\n\"Ye micht call it a soul,\" he said.  \"Oh, aye,\" he went on, \"Maggie was\na bonny lassie wi' a heart o' gold, but she hadna a soul.  Wud ye like\nto ken what stoppit me speerin' her that nicht as we cam through Zoar?\nMan, I said to mysel: When we come to the toll bar I'll tak Maggie in\nmy arms and say: 'Maggie, I want ye, lassie!'\"\n\nHe had to light his pipe here.\n\n\"Weelaweel, we got to the toll bar and I said: 'Maggie, we'll sit doon\non the bank for a while.'  So we sat doon, and I was just tryin' to\nscrew up my courage when she pointed to the settin' sun.  'I'd like a\ndress like that, only bonnier,' she said.  Man, dominie, I looked at\nthat sunset wi' its gold and purple . . . and syne I kent that Maggie\nwas nae wife for me.  I kent that she had nae soul.\"\n\nAfter a time I remarked: \"And so, Dauvit, you are a bachelor because\nyou were a poet!\"\n\nHe busied himself with the paper sole.\n\n\"Maggie married Bob Wilson the farmer o' East Mains.  Aye, and the\nmarriage turned oot a happy one, for Bob never rose abune neeps and\ntatties in his life.\"  Dauvit sighed.  \"But I sometimes used to look at\nthe twa o' them when their bairns were roond their knees, and syne I\nused to gie a big _Dawm!_ and ging back to my wee hoose and mak my ain\ntea.\"\n\n\"It doesna pay to hae a soul, dominie,\" he added with a short laugh.\n\n\"Perhaps you could have given her a soul, Dauvit,\" I said.\n\nHe shook his head with decision.\n\n\"Na, dominie, a soul is something ye're born wi'; if it isna there it\ncanna be put there.  You say that I'm a poet, and you may be richt;\nthere may be a wee bit o' the artist in me, and ye never heard o' an\nartist that was happily married.  Wumman and art are opposites, and a\nman canna marry both.\"\n\n\"That is true, Dauvit.  But art is the feminine side of a man's nature;\nit is the woman in him . . . and the woman is superfluous to him, for\nshe becomes the rival of the woman in himself.\"\n\nThis thought impressed Dauvit.\n\n\"Noo I understand Rabbie Burns,\" he cried.  \"Rabbie cudna love a wumman\nbecause he loved the wumman in himsel.  She was the wife that bore his\nbairns--his poems.\"  He paused, and a pained look came to his face.\n\"There may be a poet in me, dominie,\" he said ruefully, \"but she has\nborne me nae bairns.  I am ane o' the mute inglorious Miltons . . . and\nI wud ha' been better if I had married Maggie and talked aboot neeps\nand tatties a' my life.\"\n\n\"You couldn't have done it, Dauvit,\" I said as I rose to go.\n\nFrom the door I looked back at the old man as he stared at the fender.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nOne of the analysts says that the flirt is suffering from a mother\ncomplex.  He has never got over his infantile love for his mother, and\nhe is always trying to find the mother again in women.  Hence he is\nlike a bee, sipping at one flower and then flying on to another.\n\nI suspect that many a bachelor is a bachelor because his early love is\nfixed on the mother.  Few mothers realise the danger of coddling their\nchildren.  I have heard grown men dying in pain call on their mothers.\nIt is a hard task for parents, but they must always try to break their\nchildren's fixation upon them.\n\nWomen having father-complexes are common.  The other day I met a girl\nwho had no interest in young men; all her interest was in men with\nbeards.  No matter what the conversation was about she managed to\nmention her father. . .  \"Father says!\"  She will probably marry a man\ntwice her age.  It is well-known that boys of seventeen often fall in\nlove with women of thirty, while adolescent girls usually fall in love\nwith men of thirty.  They are not really in love; they are looking for\na substitute for the mother or father.\n\nThe psychology of the man of forty who falls in love with the girl of\nsixteen is more difficult to grasp.  I think that in most cases the\nman's love interest is fixed away back in childhood; often the girl of\nsixteen is a substitute for a beloved sister.  Perhaps on the other\nhand, a man of forty's paternal instinct has been starved so long that\nhe wants to find at once a wife and a child.\n\nFew of us realise how much of our love interest is fixed in the past.\nThink of the men who want to be mothered by their wives . . . they\ngenerally address their wives as \"Mother.\"  I know happily married men\nwho are psychically children; \"mother\" won't allow them to carry coals\nor wash dishes or brush clothes; she treats them as they unconsciously\ndesire to be treated--as babes.\n\nIt may be that Dauvit has a strong mother complex.  He often talks of\nhis mother, and more than once I have heard him say that she was the\nbest woman he had ever known.  It may be that he was unconsciously\nlooking for the mother in Maggie and the other girls, and failed to\nfind her.  Maggie's remark about the sunset and the dress was not\nenough to stifle his love declaration.  The soul he longed to find in\nMaggie may have been the soul of the mother he knew as an infant . . .\nthe soul of his ideal woman.\n\nThe more I see of men the less importance I pay to their conscious\nreasons for attitudes.  \"I hate Brown; he never washes\"; \"I dislike\nMrs. Smith; she uses bad language.\"  \"Murphy is a rotter; he has no\nmanners.\"  Statements like these are rationalisations; the real reason\nfor the dislike lies deeper in every case.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nThe law courts have re-introduced flogging for criminals.  To the best\nof my knowledge no member of the law profession has protested.  If\nthere is a reform movement within the law I never heard of it.\n\nThe curse of law is that it works according to precedent, and it is\ntherefore conservative.  Our judges hand out sentences in blissful\nignorance of later psychology.  Last week a boy of eleven was birched\nfor holding up another boy of nine on the highway and demanding\ntuppence or his life.  The attitude of the bench is that fear of\nanother flogging will prevent that boy from turning highwayman again.\nI admit that fear will cure him of that special vice, but what the\nbench does not know is that the boy's anti-social energy will take\nanother form.  Every act of man is prompted by a wish, and very often\nthis wish is unconscious.  And all the birching in the world will not\ndestroy a wish; the most it can do is to change its form.\n\nWithout an analysis of the boy no one can tell what unconscious wish\nimpelled him to turn highwayman, but speaking generally a boy expresses\nhis self-assertion in terms of anti-social behaviour only when his\neducation has been bad.  I believe that all juvenile delinquency is due\nto bad education.  Our schools enforce passivity on the child; his\ncreative energy is bottled up.  No boy who has tools and a bench to\nwork with will express himself by smashing windows.  Delinquency is\nmerely displaced social conduct; the motive of the little boy who\nturned highwayman was essentially the motive of the boy who builds a\nboat.\n\nAh! but we have Industrial Schools for bad boys!\n\nI spent an evening with an Industrial School boy of thirteen not long\nago.  It was an unlovely tale he told me of his life in school.  I got\nthe impression of a building half-prison, half-barracks.  No one was\nallowed to go out unless to football matches when the school team was\nplaying.  Punishment was stern and frequent.\n\n\"One old guy, 'e sends you to the boss for punishment and says you gave\n'im an insubordinate look, and you ain't allowed to deny wot 'e says.\"\n\n\"Look here, Jim,\" I said, \"suppose I took you to a free school\nto-morrow, a school where you could do what you liked, what's the first\nthing you would do?\"\n\nA wild look came into his eyes.\n\n\"I'd lay out the blarsted staff,\" he said tensely.\n\n\"But,\" I laughed, \"what would be the point of laying me out if I gave\nyou freedom?  What have you got against _me_?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" he said, \"I thought you meant if I got freedom in the Industrial\nSchool!\"\n\nThat school is condemned; if a school produces one boy who hates and\nfears its teachers, it is a bad school.\n\nI think of the other way, the Homer Lane way.\n\nHomer Lane was superintendent of the little Commonwealth in Dorset.  He\nattended the juvenile courts and begged the magistrates to hand over to\nhim the worst cases they had.  He took the children down to Dorset and\ngave them freedom.  He refused to lay down any laws, and naturally the\nbeginning of the Commonwealth was chaos.  Lane joined in the\nanti-social behaviour; he became one of the gang.  When the citizens\nthought that their best way of expressing themselves was to smash\nwindows, Lane helped them to smash them.  His marvellous psychological\ninsight will best be illustrated by the story of Jabez.\n\nJabez was a thoroughly bad character; he had been thief and highwayman,\na bully who could fight with science.  He came to the Commonwealth and\nwas astonished.  He found boys and girls working hard all day, and\nmaking their own laws at their citizen meetings at night.  Jabez could\nnot understand it, and not understanding he felt hostile.\n\nThe citizens lived in cottages, and one night Lane went over to the\ncottage in which Jabez lived.  They were having tea, and Lane sat down\nbeside Jabez.\n\n\"What are you always grousing about, Jabez?\" he asked.  \"Don't you like\nthe Commonwealth?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Jabez viciously.\n\n\"What's wrong with it?\"\n\n\"It's too respectable for me,\" said Jabez, and his eyes wandered to the\ntable.  \"Them fancy cups and saucers!  Wot's the good o' things like\nthat to me?  I'd like to smash the whole lot o' them.\"\n\nLane rose from the table, walked to the fireplace, took up the poker\nand handed it to Jabez.\n\n\"Smash them,\" he said.\n\nJabez had all eyes turned towards him.  He seized the poker and smashed\nhis cup and saucer.\n\n\"Excellent!\" cried Lane, \"Jabez is making the Commonwealth a better\nplace,\" and he pushed forward another cup and saucer.  These were at\nonce smashed, and Lane proceeded to shove forward the other dishes.\nBut by this time Jabez was beginning to feel queer.  Breaking dishes\nwas good fun when you were breaking laws, but here there was no law to\nbreak, and Jabez felt that he was doing a foolish thing.  He wanted to\nstop, but he could not see how he was to stop with dignity.\nFortunately one of the other inmates of the cottage came to his aid.\n\n\"It's all very well for you, Mr. Lane,\" she said, \"but this isn't your\ncottage, and you are making Jabez break our dishes.\"\n\nJabez hailed the idea with delight; he now had an excellent excuse for\nstopping.\n\n\"Right you are!\" cried Lane cheerfully, \"Jabez will break something\nelse,\" and he took out his gold watch and placed it on the table.\n\n\"Smash that, Jabez.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Jabez, \"I won't smash your watch.\"\n\nNow Jabez had a saying that if a man were dared to do a thing and he\ndidn't do it he was a coward.\n\n\"I dare you to smash the watch.\"\n\nJabez seized the poker again.\n\n\"What!  You dare me!\"\n\n\"Yes, I dare you.\"\n\nHe looked at the watch for a few seconds; then he threw down the poker\nand rushed from the room.\n\nPoor Jabez was killed in France.  I saw the letters that he wrote to\nLane from the front, and they were the letters of a decent, good boy.\n\nThe early history of Jabez was one of constant suppression.  Authority\nwas always stepping in and saying: \"Don't do that!\"  As a result Jabez\nat the age of seventeen was psychically an infant.  The infantile\ndesire to break things was suppressed, but it lived on in the\nunconscious, and years later Jabez found himself behaving like a child\nof three.  The cure was to encourage him to act in his infantile way;\nby smashing a few cups Jabez got rid of his long pent up infantile wish\nto destroy.  Discipline would have kept the childish wish underground;\nfreedom led to the expression of the wish.\n\nHomer Lane is the apostle of Release.  He holds that Authority is fatal\nfor the child; suppression is bad; the only way is to allow the child\nfreedom to express itself in the way it wants to.  And because I count\namong my friends boys and girls who once went to the Little\nCommonwealth as criminals, I believe that Lane is right.  I also\nbelieve that the schools will come to see that he was right . . .\nsomewhere about the year 2500.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nConversation to-night in Dauvit's shop turned on Spiritualism.  Dauvit\nis a firm believer, and he often goes to Dundee and Aberdeen to attend\nseances.\n\n\"It's just a lot o' blethers,\" said Jake Tosh contemptuously.  \"When\nye're deid ye're deid, and that's a' aboot it.  Na, na, Dauvit, them\nthat sees ghosts is either drunk or daft.\"\n\n\"That's just yer ignorance, Jake,\" said Dauvit.  \"Do ye ken whaur\nBrazil is?\"\n\n\"Wha is he?\" asked Jake puzzled.\n\n\"It's no a he; it's a place.  I asked ye that question just to prove\nthat a man that doesna ken his ain world canna speak wi' ony authority\no' the next world.  Yer mind's ower narrow, Jake; ye've no vision.\"\n\n\"Na, na, Dauvit,\" laughed Jake, \"it winna do.  Spooks and things is\njust a curran nonsense, and no sane man wud believe in them.  What do\nyou say, dominie?\"\n\n\"I am willing to believe that the dead do communicate,\" I said.\n\nJake was thoroughly amused.\n\n\"It's a queer thing,\" he said musingly, \"that the more eddication a man\nhas the more he believes in rubbish.  Here's Dauvit here, a man that\nreads Shakespeare and Burns and Carlyle, and the dominie there that\nwent through a college, and the both o' you believe things that I\nstoppit believin' when I was sax year auld.  Then there's Sir Oliver\nLodge, and Conan Doyle.  Oh, aye, the Bible was quite richt when it\nsaid: Much learning hath made them mad.\"\n\n\"What do you think happens to the dead, Jake?\" I asked.\n\n\"As the tree falleth so it lies,\" quoted Jake.  \"There's only the twa\nplaces after death; if ye're good ye go to Heaven; if ye're bad ye go\nto Hell.  And that's why I say that thae messages from the deid are\nrubbish, cos if a man's in Heaven he's no going to leave a place like\nthat to come doon to speak to a daft auld cobbler like Dauvit in a wee\nroom doon in Dundee.  And if a man's in Hell the Devil will tak good\ncare that he doesna get oot.\"\n\nI wondered to find that Dauvit had no answer to this.  I guessed that\nDauvit's silence was due to his early training.  He was brought up in\nthe old stern Scots way, and although he has now rejected the old\nbeliefs intellectually, his unconscious still clings to them\nemotionally.  I fancy that if I were very very ill I might go back to\nmy childish fear of Hell-fire, for, in illness old emotions return, and\nintellect flees.  Dauvit would no doubt react in the same way.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nMany people seem to have a decided fear of psycho-analysis.  A mother\nwrites me from London saying that she would like to send her girl to my\nnew school, only she is afraid that I shall attempt to analyse the\nchildren.\n\nThe fear of psycho-analysis comes from the general belief that Freud\ntraces every neurosis to early sex experiences.  Whether Freud is right\nor not does not concern the teacher; he deals with normal children, and\nto try to analyse a normal child appears to me to be unnecessary.  The\nteacher's job is to see that the children are free from fear and free\nto create; if he does his task well he is preventing neurosis.\n\nA neurosis is the outcome of repression; the neurotic is a person whose\nlibido or life force is bottled up; he can be cured only by letting his\npent up emotions free.  The aim of education is to allow emotional\nrelease, so that there will be no bottling up, and no future neurosis;\nand this release comes through interest.  The boy who hates algebra and\nhas to work examples is getting no release whatever, for his mind is\ndivided; his attention goes to his quadratic equations, but his\ninterest is elsewhere.\n\nHence I do not think analysis is necessary when children are being\nfreely educated.  In an exceptional case a little analysis will do\ngood.  If I see a child unhappy, moody, anti-social, a thief, a bully,\nI consider it my job to make an attempt to find out what is at the back\nof his mind.  With a young boy it is not advisable to tell him the\nwhole truth about himself; the teacher discovers the truth by watching\nthe child at play, by studying his wishes as expressed in his writing,\nby noting his attitude to his playmates.  When he has made his\ndiagnosis the teacher can then make the necessary changes in the boy's\nenvironment.\n\nI recall the case of Tommy, aged ten.  His class was constructing a\nPlay Town after the fashion set by Caldwell Cook in his delightful book\n_The Play Way_.  Tommy worked with enthusiasm, too much enthusiasm, for\nhe pinched the girls' sand for his railway track.  The girls objected,\nand a regular wordy battle took place.  Tommy felt that he was beaten,\nand he ceased work.\n\nI was not very much surprised when the girls came and told me that\nTommy was shying bricks at the railway line he had been so keen on\nconstructing.  Tommy was brought up before the assembled class, and\nthey voted unanimously that he be forbidden to approach within ten\nyards of Play Town.  Tommy grinned maliciously.  That night the town\nappeared to have been the victim of an earthquake.\n\nI went to Tommy.\n\n\"Why don't you like the Play Town?\" I asked.\n\n\"Because the girls are too bossy,\" he said.  \"It was my town; I began\nit, and I don't see why they should be in it at all.\"\n\n\"And you want a Play Town all to yourself?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Right ho,\" I said easily.  \"Why not start to build one?\"\n\nHis eyes lit up, and away he ran to lay his foundations.  He worked\neagerly all day, but at night he seemed dissatisfied.\n\n\"I haven't got any railway or houses; Christo won't lend me a bit of\nhis railway, and Gerda has all the houses.\"\n\nI left him to work out his problem.  In the morning he solved it;\nChristo wouldn't lend him any rails, but if Tommy liked he, Christo,\nwould run his line up to Tommy's town from the class town.  Tommy\nreadily agreed.  In a week's time Tommy's town was a suburb of the\nbigger town, and Tommy was appointed President of the whole state.  He\nspent many an hour building his bridges and digging his tunnels.  At\nfirst he would allow no one to enter his suburb, but in a few days he\nceased to claim it as his own, and he worked as a member of the gang.\n\nI think that most anti-social children are like Tommy: when their\nself-assertion is threatened they react with hostility.  The cure for\nthem is to direct their self-assertion to things instead of people.  No\nboy will try to break up a ball game if he has a rabbit hutch to\nconstruct.\n\nThe danger is that the teacher will often step in when the boy ought to\nbe left to his companions.  The gang is the best disciplinarian.\n\nOne day a class and I were writing five-minute essays.  I would call\nout a word or a phrase, and we would all start to write.  The children\nloved the method; it allowed so much play for originality.  For\nexample, when I gave the word \"broken\" one girl wrote of her broken\ndoll, another of a broken tramp, another of a broken heart; a boy wrote\na witty essay on being stoney broke, another wrote of a broken window.\n\nOn this day Wolodia, a boy of eleven, did not want to write essays.  I\ncalled out a word, and we started to write.  Wolodia began to talk\nloudly.\n\n\"Stop it, man,\" I said impatiently, \"you're spoiling our essay.\"\n\nHe grinned and went on talking.\n\n\"Oh, shut up!\" cried Joy.\n\n\"Shan't!\" he snapped, and he went on talking.\n\nDiana rose with a determined air.\n\n\"We'll chuck him out,\" she said grimly, and the class seized him and\nheaved him out.  Then they barricaded the door with desks.  Wolodia\nmade a big row by hammering on the door, and as a result we could not\nproceed with our writing.\n\n\"Let him in,\" I suggested.\n\nThe class protested.\n\n\"He'll sit like a lamb for the rest of the period,\" I said.\n\nThey took away the desk and Wolodia came in.  He went to his seat . . .\nand not a sound came from him during the rest of the period.  This\nincident impressed me greatly; my complaint, Joy's complaint did not\naffect him, but when the gang was against him he was defeated.  It was\na beautiful instance of the force of public opinion.\n\nCases of stealing should be treated by analysis.  Moral lectures are\nuseless; the cause lies in the unconscious, and the moral lecture does\nnot touch the unconscious.  Nor does punishment affect the root cause\nof the delinquency.  The teacher must dig down into the child's\nunconscious in order to find the cause.\n\nAn illuminating book for all teachers and parents to read is Healy's\n_Mental Disorders and Misconduct_.  He shows that stealing is very\noften a symptomatic act.  The mechanism of many cases is something like\nthis: a child has been punished for sexual activities; later he breaks\ninto a store and steals an article.  Sex activities and thieving have\nthis in common, that they are both forbidden, but the boy has found\nthat much more ado is made about sex activities than about stealing.\nSo when he is actuated by a sexual urge he dare not indulge it; but his\nsexual wish finds a substitute; it goes out to the associated forbidden\nthing . . . the article on the store counter.\n\nWe see the same sort of mechanism in the neurotic patient; she fears\nher own sex impulses, and because she dare not admit her sex wishes\ninto consciousness she projects her fear on to dogs or mice or rats.\nAll phobias--fear of closed places, fear of open places, fear of\nheights--are displaced fears; the sufferer is really afraid of his own\nunconscious wishes.\n\nI do not say that all juvenile stealing is due to repressed sex.\nStealing may mean to a boy a method of self-assertion; it may mean that\nthus he rebels against authority of father and teacher; it may be the\nresult of any one of a dozen causes.  But whatever the cause stealing\nis always associated with unhappiness, and the teacher must try to cure\nthe unhappiness.\n\nIn my _Dominie's Log_ I confessed that I liked to cheat the railway\ncompany, and I excused it on the ground that \"a ten-mile journey\nwithout a ticket is the only romantic experience left in a drab world.\"\nThat was a delightful bit of rationalisation.  The real reason for my\ndelinquency lay in my unconscious.  As a child I impotently rebelled\nagainst the authority of parents and teachers.  Later in life I\nunconsciously identified the railway company with the authorities of my\ninfancy.  Authority said: \"Don't do that or you will be smacked\"; the\nrailway company put up a notice saying: \"Don't travel without a ticket\nor you'll be fined forty shillings.\"\n\nMy rebellion was really a rebellion against authority.  This may seem\nto be a far-fetched explanation, but the fact remains that now that I\nhave discovered the reason I have no more desire to cheat the railway\ncompany.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nOld Jeems Broon was buried to-day, and Dauvit went to the funeral.  He\ncame back chuckling.\n\n\"What's the joke, Dauvit?\" I asked.\n\n\"The burial service,\" laughed Dauvit.  \"You ken what sort o' a man\nJeems was; an auld sinner if there ever was a sinner in Tarbonny, a bad\nauld scoondrel.  Weel, Jeems hadna been at the kirk for twenty years,\nand of coorse the minister didna ken ony thing aboot him.  So when he\ngave the funeral prayer he referred to auld Jeems as 'this holy man\nwhose life stands as an example to those still tarrying in the flesh.'\nGoad, but I burst oot laughin'!  I did that!\"\n\n\"Had I been the minister,\" said I, \"I should certainly have made a few\ninquiries about Jeems.\"\n\n\"But there's a better story than that aboot the minister,\" went on\nDauvit with a laugh.  \"Mag Currie's little lassie had the diphtheria,\nand at the end o' the week the minister was asked to come oot to tak' a\nburial service in Mag's bed room.  Man, he was eloquent!  He spoke\nearnestly aboot this flower plucked before it had reached its full\nbloom, this innocent life so sadly cut off; he was most touchin' when\nhe turned to Mag and her man and said: 'Mourn not for those hands that\nnever did wrong, the lisping tongue that never spoke evil, the wide\npure eyes that looked their love for you.'\"\n\n\"I suppose the parents broke down at that,\" I said.\n\n\"Not they!\" chuckled Dauvit, \"for the corpse wasna their lassie ava; it\nwas auld Drucken Findlay the lodger.\"\n\nI always like to hear Dauvit talk about ministers, and I encouraged him\nto go on.\n\n\"It's a very queer thing, dominie, that a body ay wants to laugh at the\nwrong time.  In the kirk and at a funeral--that's when I want to laugh.\n\n\"I mind when the minister was awa' for his holidays, and there was an\nauld minister frae the Heelands cam' to tak' his place.  This auld man\nhad a habit o' readin' a verse and syne stoppin' to explain it to the\ncongregation.\n\n\"Weel aweel, wan Sunday he was readin' a chapter frae the Auld\nTestament, and he cam' to the words: 'And the Angel of the Lord\nappeared unto Hosea.'  So he looks at the congregation ower his specs\nand he says: 'The Angel of the Lord appeared unto Hosea.'  Now,\nprethren, we must ask ourselves this important question: Was Hosea\nafraid?  No, Hosea was not afraid.  _You_ would have been afraid,\nprethren; I would have been afraid.  You and I would have begun to\nquake and tremble, but Hosea was not afraid; he was a prave man, a pold\nman.  When we are in trouble let us remember that Hosea was not afraid.'\n\n\"So the auld man he turns ower the page and reads the next verse: 'And\nHosea was sore afraid.'\"\n\n\"What did he say then?\" I asked.\n\n\"He was a cunnin' auld deevil,\" said Dauvit, \"for he gave a bit cough\nand says: 'Prethren, that is a wrong translation from the original\nHebrew.'\"\n\n\"I don't think you like ministers, Dauvit,\" I said.\n\nHe paused in his efforts to place a new needle in his sewing-machine.\n\n\"No, man, I do not,\" he said slowly.  \"Nowadays the kirk is just a job\nlike anything else; men go in for it for the loaves and fishes mostly,\nand their prayers never get past the roof.  And as for the\ncongregation, the kirk is just a respectable sort o' society.  I tell\nye, dominie, that releegion is deid.  At least, Christianity is deid.\nThat was bound to come; flowers, folk, hooses, trees, horses, aye, and\nnations, have a birth, a youth, middle age, auld age, and then death.\nIt's the law o' nature, and a religion is no exception.\"\n\n\"True, O philosopher!\" I said, \"but there is always new life, and new\nlife comes from the old.  The flower dies and its seed lives; man dies\nand his seed inherit the earth.  Christianity dies and--and what?\"\n\n\"That may be,\" he said thoughtfully.  \"It may be that the new religion\nwill grow from the seed o' the deid Christianity; that I canna say.\nWhat I do say is that ministers are oot-o'-date; they are doin' useless\nlabour . . . when they're no fishin' and curlin'.\"\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nDuncan came over to-night, and he asked my advice about books.\n\n\"What books would you advise a teacher to buy?\" he asked.\n\n\"There are scores of good books,\" I replied, \"but no teacher can afford\nto buy them.\"\n\n\"I know,\" he said crossly; \"I've had a row with the Income Tax people.  I\nasked for a rebate of ten pounds for necessary school books, and they\nwouldn't allow it, although I'm told that if a London merchant buys a\nLondon Directory he gets a rebate for the amount.\"\n\n\"I agree that it is unjust,\" I said, \"but the new Income Tax proposals\nallow twenty pounds a year for teachers' books.\"\n\n\"Just tell us what you would advise a teacher to spend his twenty quid\non,\" said Macdonald.\n\n\"It depends on his tastes,\" I said.  \"If his subject is History he will\nbuy history books; if his subject is behaviour, he'll buy psychology\nbooks.\"\n\n\"Give us an idea of your own library,\" said Duncan.\n\nI sat down and wrote out a list from memory.\n\nIt ran as follows:--\n\nBOOKS ON EDUCATION:--\n  _The Play Way_, by Caldwell Cook.\n  _The Path to Freedom in the School_, by Norman MacMunn.\n  _What Is and What Might Be_, by Edmond Holmes.\n  Montessori's three volumes.\n  _An Adventure in Education_, by J. H. Simpson.\n\nBOOKS ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND PSYCHOLOGY:\n  Freud's _Interpretation of Dreams, Psychopathology\n    of Everyday Life, Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory_.\n  Jung's _Psychology of the Unconscious, Studies\n    in Word Association, Analytical Psychology_.\n  Frink's _Morbid Fears and Compulsions_.\n  Maurice Nicoll's _Dream Psychology_.\n  Morton Prince's _The Unconscious_.\n  Pfister's _The Psycho-analytic Method_.\n  Ernest Jones' _Psycho-analysis_.\n  Ferenczi's _Contributions to Psycho-analysis_.\n  Wilfred Lay's _The Child's Unconscious Mind_.\n  Moll's _The Sexual Life of the Child_.\n  Adler's _The Neurotic Constitution_.\n  Bernard Hart's _The Psychology of Insanity_.\n\nCROWD PSYCHOLOGY:--\n  _The Crowd in Peace and War_, Martin Conway.\n  _Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War_, Trotter.\n  _The Crowd_, Gustave le Bon.\n\nGENERAL PSYCHOLOGY:--\n  _Psychology and Everyday Life_, Swift.\n  _Textbook of Psychology_, James.\n  _The Boy and His Gang_, Puffer.\n  _Mental Conflicts and Misconduct_, Healy.\n  _The Individual Delinquent_, Healy.\n  _Rational Sex Ethics_, Robie.\n  _Social Psychology_, McDougall.\n  _The Play of Man_, Groos.\n\n\"That's too much for me,\" said Duncan.  \"I couldn't afford a quarter of\nthese books.  What books would you recommend if you had to choose half a\ndozen for a hard-up dominie?\"\n\nI thought for a little, and then I replied: \"Bernard Hart's _The\nPsychology of Insanity_, two bob; Frink's _Morbid Fears and Compulsions_,\na first-rate book on analysis, a guinea; _The Crowd in Peace and War_, by\nSir Martin Conway, eight and six; Healy's _Mental Conflicts and\nMisconduct_, ten and six; and Wilfred Lay's _The Child's Unconscious\nMind_, ten and six.\"\n\n\"But,\" cried Duncan, \"I don't want to set up an asylum!  What's the good\nof books on insanity and morbid fears to a teacher?\"\n\nI explained that the titles of Hart's and Frink's books were misleading,\nalthough the difference between the mind of the lunatic and the mind of\nthe average man is merely one of degree.  Bernard Hart shows that the\nlunatic has the same faults as we have, only more so.  Frink's book is\nbadly named; it is an excellent work on mind mechanisms.  Any teacher who\nreads these six books with understanding will never again use a strap on\na pupil.  If I were Education Minister, I should present every school in\nBritain with a copy of each of the six.\n\nMacdonald asked if I had any books on hypnotism and suggestion.\n\n\"No,\" I said, \"but I have read them through a library.  I don't believe\nin either because they do not touch root causes.  We are all suffering\nfrom bottled up infantile emotion, and analysis goes to the root of the\nmatter; it makes what is unconscious conscious, and enables the patient\nto re-educate himself, to use the old repressed emotion up in his daily\nlife.  Analysis means release.  Suggestion does not touch the root\nrepressed emotion, and I fancy that after suggestion the symptom merely\nchanges.  A man has a phobia of cats.  By suggestion I can dispel his\nfear of cats, but the fear is transferred to something else, and he then\nhas an exaggerated fear of catching tuberculosis.  Unless the ancient\ncause becomes conscious it is not released.\n\n\"We see suggestion working in our schools daily.  By suggestion parents\nand teachers force the child to inhibit his gross sexual wishes, and in a\nshort time the child accepts the ideals of his masters.  At first he\ninhibits a desire because father thinks it naughty; later he inhibits it\nbecause he himself thinks it naughty.  But the gross sexual wish lives on\nin the unconscious . . . hence the neurosis, hence the respectable old\nmen who are imprisoned for showing gross pictures to children, hence the\nfrequent indecent assaults on children.  All these unfortunate people are\nsuffering from the results of early suggestion--the suggestion that sex\nis sin.  That primitive sex impulses can be sublimated I admit, but the\nteacher's job is not to preach that sex activities are evil; his job is\nto help the child to use up his primitive sex energy in creative work.\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nWhat is education's chief aim?  The reply generally given is that\neducation's aim is to help a child to live its life fully.  Yet it seems\nto me that that reply does not go far enough; I think that the aim should\nbe to help a child to live its cosmic life fully, to live for others.\nEvery human is egocentric, selfish.  No human ever rises above\nselfishness, only there are degrees of selfishness.  I buy a motor-cycle\nbecause I am selfish; and you found a hospital for orphans because you\nare selfish.  It is my pleasure to have a Sunbeam; it is yours to help\nthe poor.  Your selfishness has become altruism; that is, in pleasing\nyourself you have managed to please others.  The aim in education is not\nto abolish selfishness; it is to educe the selfishness that is\naltruistic.  Hence it may be said that education's chief aim is to teach\none how to love.  No, that won't do; no one can teach another how to\nlove; the teacher's job is to evoke love.  This he can do only by loving.\nIf I hate my pupils I evoke hate from them; if I love them I evoke love\nfrom them in return.\n\nIs it possible to love your neighbour as yourself?  It is when you know\nyourself.  You hate in others what you hate in yourself, and you love in\nothers what is lovable in yourself.  So that in loving your neighbour you\nare loving yourself.\n\nIf, then, the teacher's first aim is to evoke the love of his pupils, he\nmust know himself, and knowing must love himself.  Every day pupils are\nsuffering because of the teacher's hatred of himself.\n\nDominie Brown rises in the morning surly and unhappy.  He complains about\nthe bacon and eggs at breakfast . . . no, the red herring; dominies\ncannot afford bacon and eggs . . . and Mrs. Brown makes unpleasant\nremarks.  Brown crosses the road to school with thunder on his face, and\nthe children shiver in terror all morning.\n\nIf Brown could sit down calmly to think out his bad mood, he would\nrealise that he was punishing the children because he was worsted in his\nword battle with his wife.  And _he would be quite wrong_.  The truth\nwould be that he was punishing the children because he was at war with\nhimself.  His early morning ugly mood betrayed a mental conflict.  Hating\nhimself, he hated his wife; his hate evoked her hate . . . and thus the\ncircle was completed.\n\nWe might trace all the futilities, all the stupidities of mankind, all\nthe wars and crimes and injustices to man's ignorance of self.  To know\nall is to forgive all.  Christ condemned no one because he was at peace\nwith himself.  Yet, I suddenly remember that He whipped the\nmoney-changers out of the Temple.  This incident is comforting, for it\nshows that the most lovable man who ever lived betrayed one human frailty\non one occasion at least.  But now I am preaching again.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nI went to see Charlie Chaplin in \"Shoulder Arms\" last night.  Charlie is\nan artist of high quality; for once I think as the crowd thinks.  But I\nleave the crowd when it comes to appreciating the \"moving human dramas\"\nin five parts.\n\nThe cinema must be reckoned with in any educational scheme.  One may\nlearn more about crowd psychology from attendance at cinemas than from\nreading books on crowd psychology.  The cinema is popular because it\nencourages day-dreaming or phantasy.  There are two kinds of thinking,\nreality thinking and phantasy or day-dreaming.  Phantasying is the easier\nof the two; I can sit for hours building castles in Spain, and I never\ngrow tired; but if I have to sit down and think out the Theory of\nQuadratics I soon become weary.  In reality thinking the intellect is\nactive, but in day-dreaming emotion is in control.  Day-dreaming gets\nnowhere; the asylums are full of day-dreamers who spend their hours\nconstructing beautiful phantasies.  In childhood phantasy is supreme.\nBobby turns the nursery into a jungle; the sofa is a tiger, the chairs\nare lions, the rocking-horse is an elephant.  It is all real to him.  And\nin later years Bobby often returns to his childish phantasying.  We all\ndo.  What young lover has not phantasied a burning mansion where his lady\nlove is imprisoned?  Have we not all clambered up the water pipes and\nrescued her from the flames?\n\nThe world of the theatre is a phantasy world.  With the rising of the\ncurtain we forget our outside life; we live the part of the hero or the\nheroine.  To this day I always leave a theatre with a vague depression of\nspirits; everyday humdrum life chills me when I come out to the street.\nReality is always difficult to face.  The great popularity of the cinema\nis due to this human desire for make-believe.  Cinema-going is a\nregression to the infantile; we return to the childish phase where the\nwish was all powerful.  In the cinema the villain is always worsted; the\nwronged heroine always falls into the hero's arms at the end.  Life for\nmost of us means trials and sorrows and conflicts, and we long to return\nto the nursery phase where life was what we wished it to be.  The cinema\nand the public-house are the most convenient doors by which we can\nregress.\n\nThe \"moving drama\" is the other side of the industrial picture.  Life for\nthe masses means dirt and disease, ugly factories, sordid homes, mean\nstreets.  The moving drama takes the masses away from grim reality; they\nsee beautifully gowned women in drawing-rooms; they see the King\nreviewing his regiments; they see wild and free cowboys chasing Red\nIndians.  For two hours they live . . . and then they go out again into\ntheir world of mere existence.  And it is all wrong, tragically wrong.\nThe cinema craze means that life is too ugly to face; it means that the\nmasses are fleeing from reality and to flee from reality is fatal.\nDay-dreams are laudable only when they come true.  If the masses\nday-dreamed of an economic Utopia and forthwith set about building a New\nJerusalem, their phantasies would become realities; but the moving human\ndrama never leads to building; it is raw whisky swallowed to bring\noblivion.  The moving human drama will live and flourish so long as\nmankind tolerates the slavery of industrialism.  It is a powerful weapon\nfor capitalism; like the church and the public-house, it keeps the\nwage-slaves quiet.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nTo-night the conversation in Dauvit's shop turned to the subject of\nhonours.\n\n\"They tell me,\" said Jake Tosh, \"that you can buy a knighthood, or a\npeerage for that matter.\"\n\n\"Yea, man!\" said Willie Simpson, the joiner and undertaker from\nTillymains.\n\n\"So there's no muckle chance o' you getting ane, Willie,\" said Dauvit.\n\nThe joiner smoked thoughtfully for a while.\n\n\"Na, Dauvit,\" he said, \"there's little chance o' an undertaker gettin' a\ntitle.  You would think na that the man that coffined the likes o' Lloyd\nGeorge wud get a knighthood.\"\n\nDauvit cackled.\n\n\"Honours are sold, as Jake says; they are never given for public\nservices.\"\n\nI am afraid the joke was lost on most of the assembly.  Jake failed to\nsee it.  It is said that Jake has been known to laugh at a joke only\nonce, and that was when the earth gave way beneath the minister's feet\nwhen he was conducting a service at a grave-side, and he fell into the\nopen grave.\n\n\"Undertakin',\" continued the joiner, \"is a verra queer trade.\"\n\nJake shivered.\n\n\"I dinna ken how ye can do it,\" he said; \"man, it wud gie me the\nscunners.\"\n\n\"Man, ye soon get accustomed to it,\" said the joiner.  \"Of course, it has\nits limitations; ye canna verra weel advertise in the front page o' _The\nDaily Mail_, but, man, it's what ye micht call a safe trade.\"\n\n\"How safe?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, ye never need to worry aboot yer custom; it's aye there.  Noo in\nother lines the laws o' supply and demand are tricky.  I mind a gey\npuckle years syne there was a craze for walkin'-sticks wi' ebony handles.\nWeel, I went doon to Dundee and bocht ten pund worth o' ebony, and afore\nthe wood was delivered the fashion had changed, and the men were all\nbuyin' cheese-cutter bonnets, so here was I left wi' ten pund worth o'\nebony on my hands . . . and if I hadna sold it to Davie Lamb the\ncabinet-maker for thirteen pund I micht ha' lost the money.  Noo, in my\ntrade there's no sudden change o' fashion as ye micht say; the demand is\nwhat ye micht call constant, and that's what makes me say it is a safe\ntrade.\"\n\nDauvit winked to me surreptitiously.\n\n\"Noo, joiner,\" he said, \"will ye tell me wan thing?  I want to ken the\ninner workin's o' an undertakker's mind.  When somebody is verra ill,\nwhat's your attitude?  I mean to say, do ye sort o' look on the illness\nwi' hope or what?  When ye see a fine set-up man on the road, do ye look\nat him wi' a professional eye and say to yersell: 'Sax feet by twa; a\nbonny corp!'?\"\n\n\"I'm no so bad as that, Dauvit,\" he laughed, \"though I dinna mind sayin'\nthat I've sometimes been a wee bit disappointed when somebody got better.\nOn the other hand, when big Tamson was badly, I keepit prayin' that he\nwud get better.\"\n\n\"An unbusinesslike thing to do,\" I laughed.\n\n\"Aweel,\" said the joiner, \"big Tamson weighed aboot saxteen stone, and at\nthe time I hadna the wood.\"\n\n\"I dinna like to hear aboot things like that,\" said Jake Tosh nervously;\n\"things like that give me the creeps, and besides it's no a proper way to\nspeak.\"\n\nDauvit turned to me.\n\n\"Man, dominie, it's a queer thing, but the more religious a man is the\nless he likes to hear aboot death.  Jake here is an elder o' the auld\nkirk; he's on the straight and narrow path; he's going straight to heaven\nwhen he dees . . . and I never saw onybody so feared o' death as Jake is.\nHow wud ye explain that?\"\n\n\"I think,\" I replied, \"that it is due to the fact that Jake has been\nbrought up in the fear of the Lord.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" nodded Dauvit.  \"It's my belief that most religious fowk are\nreligious not becos they want specially to play harps in the next world,\nbut becos they dinna want to be roasted.\"\n\nDauvit's philosophy comes pretty near that of Edmond Holmes.  In _What Is\nand What Might Be_ Holmes argues that our education system is founded on\nthe Old Testament.  Man is a sinner, prone to evil; a stern angry God\nchastises him when he transgresses.  Education treats children as\nsinners; it punishes the wrongdoer.  I believe Holmes is right, only he\ndoes not trace back education far enough.  The God of the Old Testament\nwas a man-made God (Jung says that man makes his God in his own image;\nhis God is his ego-ideal).\n\nThe genesis of education is not the God of the Old Testament; it is the\nunconscious wish of the primitive men who invented that God.  The\nreligion of the Old Testament is a father complex religion; God is the\nhated and feared father, the authority who punishes, the provider of food\nand clothing, the maker of laws.  Authority always makes the governed\ninferior and dependent; the man with a father complex cannot stand alone;\nhe must always flee to his father or father substitute when he meets a\ndifficulty.  Thus does the Christian act; he seeks the Father; he places\nhis burden on the Lord; he avoids responsibility.  The Hebraic religion\nand our modern education both demand that the individual shall avoid\nresponsibility; the good Christian and the good schoolboy must obey the\nLaw.  I think that if the world is to be free the church and the school\nmust aim at breaking the power of the Father.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\"Look here, Mac,\" I said last night, \"I am going to pay you for my board.\"\n\nMac protested vigorously.\n\n\"You'll do nothing of the kind,\" he said firmly.\n\nI went to the kitchen and made the offer to his wife, and she also\nprotested.\n\nThis morning I cycled to Dundee and bought a knife-cleaner and a vacuum\ncleaner.  They arrived to-night, and Mrs. Mac gave a gasp of delight.\nMac tried to frown, but he could not manage it.  Both protested against\nwhat they called my idiotic kindness, but their protests were\nhalf-hearted.\n\nIt is a strange thing that money itself is considered a sordid thing.\nWhy should Mac refuse five pounds with anger, and accept a ten pound gift\nwith pleasure?  If anyone wants to study the psychological meaning of\nmoney I recommend Chapter XL. in Dr. Ernest Jones' _Psycho-analysis_.  In\nthe unconscious, at any rate, money is assuredly \"filthy lucre.\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nA teacher should know very little about the subject he professes to\nteach.  In my London school I succeeded a line of excellent teachers of\ndrawing.  I had not been long in the school when Di, aged 15, looked over\nmy shoulder one day and said: \"Rotten!  You can't draw for nuts!\"\n\nA week later Malcolm looked at a water colour of mine.\n\n\"You've got a horrible sense of colour,\" he said brightly.\n\nThen I began to wonder why everyone in school was much more keen on\ndrawing and painting than they had ever been in the days of the skilled\nteachers.  The conclusion I came to was that my bad drawing encouraged\nthe children.  I remembered the beautiful copy-book headlines of my\nboyhood, and I recalled the hopelessness of ever reaching the standard\nset by the lithographers.  No child should have perfection put before\nhim.  The teacher should never try to teach; he should work alongside the\nchildren; he should be a co-worker, not a model.\n\nMost teachers set themselves on a pedestal.  They think that they lose\ndignity if they are not able to answer every question that a child puts\nto them.  One result is that the child develops a dangerous inferiority\ncomplex.  I knew one boy who was a duffer at mathematics.  His weakness\nwas due to the inferiority he felt when he saw the learned mathematical\nmaster juggle with figures as easily as a conjurer juggles with billiard\nballs.  The little chap lost all hope, and when he worked problems he\nworked solely to escape punishment.\n\nThe difficulty is that if a teacher works at a subject year after year he\nis bound to become an expert.  The only remedy I can think of is to make\neach teacher take up a new subject at the beginning of every school year.\nBy the time that he had been master of Mathematics, History, Drawing,\nEnglish, French, German, Latin, Geography, Chemistry, Physics,\nPsychology, Physiology, Eurhythmics, Music, Woodwork, it would be time to\nretire . . . with a pension or a psychosis.  The late Sir William Osier\nsaid that a man was too old at forty; my experience leads me to conclude\nthat many a teacher is too old at twenty.\n\nI sometimes think that every man has a certain definite psychic age fixed\nfor him by the Almighty before he is born.  I know a man of seventy who\nis psychically five years old, and he will never grow older.  I know a\nboy of ten who is psychically sixty years old, and he will never grow\nyounger.\n\nPsycho-analysis is doing a lot of good, but I fear that it may do a lot\nof harm, for, one fine day Professor Freud or Dr. Jung will get hold of\nPeter Pan, take him by the back of the neck, and say: \"My lad, you've got\na fixation somewhere; you are the super-regression-to-the-infantile\nspecimen; you've got to be analysed.\"  And then Peter will grow up and\nread _The Daily News_ and own an allotment and a season ticket.\n\nWhen we know all about psychology, the world will be rather dull.  The\nFreudians have said that the play of _Hamlet_ is the result of\nShakespeare's Oedipus Complex.  If Shakespeare had not had an unconscious\nhatred of his father, _Hamlet_ would never have been written.  In other\nwords, if Bacon had discovered the psychology of the unconscious,\nShakespeare might have been analysed and forthwith might have gone in for\nkeeping bees instead of writing plays.\n\nIt is the neurotic who leads the world; he is a rebel and he is an\nidealist.  Yet when you analyse him you find what a poor devil he is.\nHis noble crusade against vivisection is due to the abnormal strain of\ncruelty he is repressing in himself; his passion for Socialism comes from\nhis infant fear of and rebellion against his father.  The ardent\nsuffragette who smashes windows in a just cause is merely doing so\nbecause the vote is a symbol of freedom from an arrogant husband.\n\nWhat I want to know is this: In the year 5000, when everyone is free from\nrepressions and suppressions, will there be any rebels to spur humanity\non?  But then if humanity is free from unconscious urges there will be no\nneed for rebels, for there will be no crime or prison or wars or\npoliticians.  Every man will be a superman.\n\nI firmly believe that Freud's discovery will have a greater influence on\nthe evolution of humanity than any discovery of the last ten centuries.\nFreud has begun the road that leads to superman, and, although Jung and\nAdler and others have begun to lead sideroads off the main track, the\nsideroads are all leading forward.  Theirs is a great message of hope.\n\nAnd yet, nineteen hundred years ago Jesus Christ gave the world a New\nPsychology . . . and none of us have tried to apply it to our souls.\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nMac came across a vulgar word in a composition he was correcting\nto-night, and it seemed to alarm him.  He could not understand why I\nlaughed, and I explained to him that I liked vulgarity.\n\nI remember when a high-minded mother came into my class-room in\nHampstead.  The highest class was writing essays.  On her asking what\nthe subject was, I replied that each pupil had a different subject.\nShe walked round and looked over their shoulders.  I saw the lady's\neyebrows go up as she read titles such as these:--\"I Grow Forty Feet\nhigh in One Night\"; \"I Edit the Greenland _Morning Frost_\" (the news\nthis boy gave was delightful); \"I Interview Noah for the _Daily Mail_\"\n(photos on back page).  She nodded approvingly when she read the titles\nof the more serious essays.  Then I saw her adjust her spectacles in\ngreat haste; she was looking over Muriel's shoulder.\n\n\"Mr. Neill,\" she gasped, \"do you think this a suitable subject for a\ngirl?\"\n\nI glanced at the title; it was; \"Autobiography of My Nose.\"\n\n\"Er--what's wrong with it?\" I said falteringly.\n\n\"It lends itself too readily to vulgarity,\" she said.\n\nI picked up the book, and together we read the opening words.\n\n\"When first I began to run . . . .\"\n\nThe high-minded lady left the room hurriedly.\n\nI loved that class.  Often I wish that I had kept their essays.  One\nday we had a five minute essay on the subject: Waiting for My Cue.\nLawrence wrote of standing on the steps in a cold sweat of fear.  He\nhad only five words to say--\"The carriage waits, my lord,\" but he had\nnever acted before.  His cue was: \"Ho!  Who comes here?\"\n\n\"At last,\" he wrote, \"I heard the fateful words: 'Ho!  Who comes\nhere?'  I could not move; I stood trembling on the stairs.\n\n\"'Get on, you idiot!' whispered the stage manager savagely, but still I\ncould not move.\n\n\"'Ho!  Who comes here?' repeated the fool on the stage.  Still I could\nnot move a step.\n\n\"'Ho!  Who comes here?'\n\n\"Suddenly I became aware of a disturbance in the auditorium.  The noise\nincreased, and then I heard the agonising words: 'Fire!  Fire!'  Panic\nfollowed, and cries of terror rang out.\n\n\"But I . . . I jumped on the stage and cried: 'Hurrah!\nHoo-blinking-rah!'  It was the happiest moment of my life.\"\n\nSydney took a different line.  Her cue was the sound of a stage kiss.\nBoldly she walked on, and the stage lovers glared at her, for she\narrived before the kiss was finished or rather properly begun.  The\naudience chuckled.  At the next performance she determined to be less\npunctual.  She heard the smack of the kiss, but she did not move.  As\nshe waited she heard the audience roaring with laughter, and then she\nrealised that the poor lovers had been standing kissing each other for\na full five minutes.\n\nI must write to these dear old children to ask if they kept their\nessays.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nDuncan was in to-night, and he told a school story that was new to me.\n\nIn a certain council school it was the custom for teachers to write\ndown on the blackboard any instructions they might have for the janitor\nbefore they left at night.  One night he came in and read the words:\nFind the L.C.M.\n\n\"Good gracious!\" he growled, \"has that dam thing gone and got lost\nagain?\"\n\nThat version was new to me.  My own version ran thus:--\n\nLittle Willie is doing his home lessons, and he asks his father to help\nhim with a sum.  The father takes the slate in his hand and reads the\nwords:  Find the G.C.M.\n\n\"Good heavens!\" he cries, \"haven't they found that blamed thing yet?\nThey were hunting for it when I was at school.\"\n\nI think both versions are very good.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nI have a strong Montessori complex.  I find myself being critical of\nher system, and I have often wondered why.  I used to think that my\ndislike of Montessori was a projection: I disliked a lady who raved\nabout Montessori, and I fancied that I had transferred my dislike of\nthe lady to poor Montessori.  But now I refuse to accept that\nexplanation; it is not good enough for me; there must be something\ndeeper.  I shall try to discover that something deeper.\n\nWhen I first read Montessori's books I said to myself: \"She is devoid\nof humour.\"  This to me suggests a limitation in art, and I feel that\nMontessori is always a scientist but never an artist.  Her system is\nhighly intellectual, but sadly lacking in emotionalism.  This is seen\nin her attitude to phantasy.  She would probably argue that phantasy is\nbad for a child, but it is a fact that much of a child's life is lived\nin phantasy.  Phantasy is a means of gratifying an unfulfilled wish.\nThe kitchen-maid in her day-dream marries a prince, and, as Maurice\nNicoll says in his _Dream Psychology_, to destroy her phantasy without\nputting something in its place is dangerous.\n\nTo a child, as to Cinderella, phantasy is a means of overcoming\nreality.  Father bullies Willie and the boy retires into a day-dream\nworld where he becomes an all-powerful person . . . hence the fairy\ntales of giants (fathers) killed by little Jacks.  In later life Willie\ntakes to drink or identifies himself with the hero of a cinema drama.\n\nThe extreme form of phantasy is insanity, where the patient completely\ngoes over to the unreal world and becomes the Queen of the World.  And\nit might be objected that phantasying is the first stage of insanity.\nYes, but it is the last stage of poetry.  Coleridge's _Kubla Khan_, one\nof the most glorious poems in the language, is pure phantasy.  I rather\nfear that one day a grown-up Montessori child will prove conclusively\nthat the feet of Maud did not, when they touched the meadows, leave the\ndaisies rosy.\n\nNo, the Montessori world is too scientific for me; it is too orderly,\ntoo didactic.  The name \"didactic apparatus\" frightens me.\n\nI quote a sentence from _The New Children_, by Mrs. Radice.\n\n\"'Per carita!  Get up at once!' she (Montessori) has exclaimed before\nnow to a conscientious teacher found dishevelled on the ground with a\nclass of little Bolshevists sitting on top of her.\"\n\nIn heaven's name, I ask, why get up?  Life is more than meat, and\neducation is more than matching colours and fitting cylinders into\nholes.\n\nMontessori was thinking of the conscious mind of the child when she\nevolved her system, and the apparatus does not satisfy the whole of the\nchild's unconscious mind.  Noise is suppressed in a Montessori school,\nbut every child should be allowed to make a noise, for noise means\npower to him, and he will use it only as long as it means power to him.\nI have watched Norman MacMunn's war orphans at Tiptree Hall at work.\nMacMunn, the author of _A Path to Freedom in the School_, did not say\n\"Hush!\"; his boys filled the room with noisy talk as they worked, and\nnever have I seen children do more work with so much joy.\n\nThe Montessori teacher, when she finds that Jimmy is interfering with\nthe work of Alice, segregates the bad Jimmy, and treats him as a sick\nperson.  But the right thing to do is to solve Jimmy's problem as well\nas Alice's.  What is behind Jimmy's aggressiveness?  Jimmy does not\nknow, nor does the Montessori teacher, because she has been trained in\nthe psychology of the conscious only.\n\nAnother reason why I am not wholly on the side of Montessori is, I\nfancy, that her religious attitude repels me.  She is a church woman;\nshe has a definite idea of right and wrong.  Thus, although she allows\nchildren freedom to choose their own occupations, she allows them no\nfreedom to challenge adult morality.  But for a child to accept a\nready-made code of morals is dangerous; education in morality is a\nthousand times more important than intellectual education with a\ndidactic apparatus.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nTo-night Duncan came in, and as usual we talked education.  I took up\nthe subject of punishment, and condemned it on the ground that it\ntreats effect instead of cause.  After a little persuasion Duncan\nseemed inclined to agree with me.\n\n\"I see what you mean,\" he said, \"but what I say is that if you abolish\npunishment you must also abolish reward.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" I said.  \"The case against rewards is just as simple.  A\nchild should do a lesson for the joy of doing it.  Milton certainly did\nnot write _Paradise Lost_ for the five pounds he got for it.\"\n\n\"Yes, I see that,\" said Duncan thoughtfully, \"but what about\ncompetition?  The prize at the end introduces a breezy struggle for\nplace.\"\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\"No competition!  I won't have it.  It makes the chap at the top of the\nclass a prig, and gives the poor chap at the bottom an inferiority\ncomplex.  No, we want to encourage not competition but co-operation.\nCompetition leads naturally to another world war, as competition\nbetween British and American capital is doing now.\"\n\nThen Duncan floored me.\n\n\"And would you discourage football because it introduces the idea of\ncompetition?\" he asked.\n\n\"Of course not,\" I replied\n\n\"Then why discourage it in arithmetic?\" he asked.\n\nIt was an arresting question, and I had to grope for an answer that\nwould convince not only Duncan but myself.  That every healthy boy\nlikes to try his strength against his fellows is a fact that we cannot\nignore.  Mr. Arthur Balfour's desire to beat his golfing partner and\nJock Broon's desire to spit farther than Jake Tosh are fundamentally\nthe same desire, the desire for self-assertion.  And I see that the man\nwho comes in last in the quarter-mile race is in the same position of\ninferiority as the boy who is always at the bottom of the class.  Yet I\ncondemn competition in school-work while I appreciate competition in\ngames.  Why?\n\nI think I should leave it to the children.  Obviously they like to\ncompete in games and races, but they have no natural desire to compete\nin lessons.  It appears that some things naturally lend themselves to\ncompetition--racing, boxing, billiards, jumping, football and so on.\nOther things do not encourage competition.  Bernard Shaw and G. K.\nChesterton do not compete in the output of books; Freud and Jung do not\nstruggle to publish the record number of analysis cases; George Robey\nand Little Tich do not appear together on the stage of the Palladium\nand try to prove which is the funnier.  Rivalry there always is, but it\nremains only rivalry until _The Daily Mail_ offers a prize for the\nbiggest cabbage or sweet-pea, and then competition seizes suburbia.\n\nI should therefore leave the children to discover for themselves what\ninterests lend themselves to competition, and what interests do not.  I\nknow beforehand that of their own accord they will not introduce it\ninto school subjects.  This is in accord with my views on the authority\nquestion.  I insist that the teacher will impose nothing; that his task\nis to watch the children find their own solution.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nI must write down a wise saying that came from Dauvit.  A rambling and\nill-informed discussion of Bolshevism arose in his shop to-night.\nDauvit took no part in it, but when we rose to go he said: \"Tak' my\nword for it, Bolshevism is wrong.\"\n\n\"How do you make that out, Dauvit?\" I asked.\n\n\"Because it's a success,\" he said shortly.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nTo-night the Rev. Mr. Smith, the U.F. minister, came in.  He is one of\nthe unco' guid, and to him all pleasures are sinful.  It happened that\nI was telling Macdonald the Freudian theory of dreams when he entered,\nand when Mac told him what the conversation had been about, he begged\nme to continue.  It was evident that he had never heard of dream\ninterpretation, and he was surprised.\n\n\"And every dream has a meaning?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said.\n\n\"I had a dream last night,\" he began, but I held up a warning hand.\n\n\"You shouldn't tell your dreams in public,\" I said hastily; \"they may\ngive things away that you don't want others to know.\"\n\nHe laughed.\n\n\"I don't mind that,\" he said, \"I'll take the risk.  Last night I dreamt\nthat I was in a public-house among a lot of men who were telling most\nobscene stories.  According to Freud every dream is the fulfilment of a\nwish.  Do you mean to tell me that I wish to be in such a company?\"\n\nI explained that the dream as told is not the dream in reality, the\nmeaning lies behind the symbolism, and it can be got at by the method\nof free association.  I also explained that I did not believe the Freud\ntheory, that the dream is always a wish, and suggested that Jung was a\nsurer guide.\n\n\"According to Jung,\" I said, \"the dream is often compensatory.  In your\nown case you are consciously living the higher life, but there is\nanother side of life that you are ignoring, and that is the vulgar pub\nside.  Your dream is a hint that the vulgar side of life cannot be\nignored.  You may ignore it consciously, but your unconscious will seek\nthe other side in your dreams.\"\n\nThis seemed to make him think.\n\n\"But the saints and martyrs!\" he cried.  \"Think of the thousands who\ncrucified the flesh so that they might win the everlasting crown!  Do\nyou tell me that they were all wrong?\"\n\nI lit my pipe.\n\n\"I think they were,\" I said, \"for they merely repressed their animal\nlife.  They thought that they had conquered it, but they only buried\nit.  The real saint is the man who faces his flesh boldly and loves it\ntoo, just as much as he loves his God.\"\n\nThen the minister fled.\n\nThe interpretation of dreams is one of the most fascinating studies in\nthe world.  The method as evolved by Freud is simple, although the\ninterpretation is anything but simple.  Obviously the average dream has\nno meaning.  You dream that a horse speaks to you, and then it turns\ninto your brother.  It is all nonsense, yet behind the nonsense is a\nserious meaning.  Not long ago I was analysing a girl of sixteen.\nAbout a week after the analysis began she brought a dream which began\nthus: \"I am invisible, and I have a tail that I can take off or put on.\"\n\nFollowing the method of free association I said to her: \"What comes\ninto your mind about being invisible?\"\n\n\"Oh, I've often wanted to be invisible, for then I could do what I\nliked; then I would be free.\"\n\nBeing invisible therefore meant being free.\n\nThen I asked her associations to the tail part.\n\n\"Tail . . . monkeys at the Zoo; they are poor things always kept behind\nbars.  Just like me.  I forgot to say that my tail wasn't on in the\ndream.\"\n\nTail therefore meant something associated with confinement and\nrestriction.  It is significant that her tail was unattached.  I took\nit to mean a wish-fulfilment dream; in it she got free from her\nneurosis.\n\nThe following night she dreamt that she was being driven in a motor car\nby a swanky chauffeur.  They came to the bottom of a hill, and the car\nstopped, and she got out and walked.  Her first association was: \"The\nchauffeur had a big green coat on, one just like the coat you wear.\"\n\n\"So I was the chauffeur?\" I asked.\n\nShe brightened at once.\n\n\"I see it!\" she cried.  \"The car is the analysis; you are driving me\naway from my old life!\"\n\n\"Excellent!\" I said, \"but don't forget that the car stopped at the\nbottom of the hill.  What does the word hill give you?\"\n\n\"Something difficult to climb.  I hated climbing it and thought it a\nshame that the motor didn't take me up.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I've got to climb to get better, haven't I?\"\n\n\"That's right,\" I said.  \"I told you the other night that no analyst\nshould give advice, and I refused when you asked me for it.  In your\nunconscious you realise that the chauffeur is not going to take you up\nthe hill; in other words you've got to do most of the work.\"\n\nFreud holds that there is a censor standing between the conscious and\nthe unconscious.  Primitive wishes seek to come from the unconscious,\nbut the censor holds up his hand.  \"No,\" he says, \"that's too\ndisgusting; the conscious mind couldn't stand that; it would be\nshocked.  You must disguise yourself in harmless form!\"  And so the\ninfantile sex wish is changed into a harmless dog or cycle.  But if\nthis is the case why should my little girl dream of me as a chauffeur?\nThere was nothing disgusting about me, nothing that her conscious mind\ncould not face.\n\nI prefer Jung's theory.  He says that we dream in symbols because\nsymbolism is the oldest language in the world, and, as the unconscious\nis primitive it uses this language.  We all dream of shocking things,\nand if the endopsychic censor were really on duty he would never allow\nthese disgusting dreams to get through.\n\nIf I dream that my father is dead the Freudians declare that I either\nwish or, in the past, have wished unconsciously for my father's death.\nBut surely so alarming a wish would be changed into a harmless form if\nthere were a censor.  One night I dreamt that an acquaintance, Murray,\nwas dead.  The first association to Murray was: \"He's a lazy sort of\nchap.\"  I think that all he stood for was laziness, and he was merely\nmy own laziness symbolised.  The dream was a hint to me to be up and\ndoing, for I had been neglecting a task that I should have undertaken.\n\nThere is what might be called the cheese-and-tripe supper theory of the\ndream held by many people.\n\n\"There's nothing in dreams,\" they say, \"nothing but the disorders\nfollowing late supper.\"\n\nA cheese-and-tripe supper will cause queer dreams, but the advocates of\nthis theory cannot explain why a tripe supper should make me dream\nof--say--a tiger.  Why not a lion or a mouse?\n\nIt is an accepted fact now in psychology that the dream is the working\nof the unconscious.  Some theosophists claim that during sleep your\nspirit leaves your body and seeks the astral plane, but I have never\nseen anything resembling evidence of this.  It may be a fact for all\nthat.\n\nConcerning the prophetic aspect of dreams I know nothing.  I have heard\nthat the night before the Tay Bridge disaster a woman dreamt that it\nwas to take place, and she persuaded her husband not to travel by that\nill-fated train, but I cannot vouch for the story.  I believe, however,\nthat the dream is prophetic in that the unconscious during the night is\nworking out the problems of the next day.  The popular saying about\nsleeping over a problem shows that there is a real belief in this\naspect.  I know a lady who was undergoing analysis.  She was suffering\nfrom a father complex, that is, her infantile fixation on the father\nhad remained with her, and unconsciously she was approving or\ndisapproving of every man she met according as he did or did not in\nsome way resemble her father.\n\nFor a few weeks after the analysis began she was always dreaming that\nshe was back in her childhood home, and in her dreams she was always\ntrying to get away from home and her father was always restraining her\nfrom going.  Often the figure in the dream was not the father, but the\nassociations always showed that the figure was standing for the father.\nOne night the figure was the King, and her first association was: \"The\nKing's name is George. . . .  That's father's name too.\"\n\nThis seems to be a case where the unconscious is striving to find a\nsolution.\n\nThe way the unconscious does things is wonderful.  I remember one night\nlistening to a lecture by Homer Lane.  He brought forward a new theory\nabout education, and it was so deep that I did not quite grasp its\nmeaning.  At the time Alan, Homer Lane's youngest child, was one of the\npupils in the school in which I taught.  That night I dreamt that I was\nstanding before a class.  Alan was sitting in the front seat, and\nbehind him was a boy whom in the dream I called \"Homer Lane's youngest\nchild.\"  The new theory had become in the language of symbolism Alan's\nyounger brother . . . in short, Lane's latest.  Here again I cannot see\nwhy any censor should change a theory into a child.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\nIn my _Log_ I make a very, very poor statement about sex instruction.\nI say that children should be encouraged to believe in the stork theory\nof birth until the age of nine.  That was a wrong belief, but then at\nthat time I had not read Freud or Bloch or Moll.  I see now that the\nchild should be told the truth about sex whenever he asks for\ninformation.  But I fear, that many modern mothers think that they have\nsexually educated their child when they tell him where babies come\nfrom.  The physiological side of sex is the less important; you can\ntake a child through all the usual stages--pollination of plants,\nfertilisation of eggs, right up to human birth, but the child will find\nno help in these informations when he faces his sex instinct at\nadolescence.  Sex instruction should be psychological; it should deal\nwith the sex instinct as one form of life force or libido.  The child\nshould be led to face it openly.  It should be entirely dissociated\nfrom sin, and moral lectures should not be given.\n\nWho is to give the instruction?  That is the difficulty.  Most parents\nand teachers cannot do it because their own sex instinct is all wrong.\nMake a remark about sex in the company of adults, and it will be\nreacted to in two ways; some will grin and laugh; others will be\nshocked.  I hasten to add that the shocked ones are worse than the\nlaughers.  The laugh is a release of sex repressions; the shocked\nappearance is a compensation for an unconscious over-interest in sex.\nAnyway neither type is capable of talking about sex to children, and\nsince humanity is roughly divided into prudes and sinners (not saints\nand sinners), there is little hope of a frank sex education for kiddies.\n\nMany people say: \"Oh, leave it to the doctors,\" but personally I\nhaven't enough faith in doctors.  Their attitude to sex is usually no\nbetter than the attitude of the layman.  I know doctors who could give\nexcellent instruction to children on the physiology of sex, but the\nonly doctors of my acquaintance who could teach the psychological side\nare psycho-analysts or psycho-therapists of some sort.\n\nTeachers can tackle the sex problem negatively.  Sex activity is a form\nof life force or interest, and if a child is not finding life\ninteresting enough there is a danger that he will regress to what is\ncalled auto-eroticism.  When we remember that the sexual instinct is\nthe creative instinct, and that creation in dancing or music or poetry\nor art of any kind is sublimated sex, that is sex raised to a higher\npower, we can readily see that one of the most important parts of a\nteacher's job is to provide ways and means for creation.  I realise\nthat this is not enough, but, as I say, I cannot see the way to a good\nsex education, until every teacher and parent has discovered his or her\nown sex complexes.  Co-education helps, for then the commingling of the\nsexes affords a harmless and unconscious outlet for sex interest.  But\nco-education is no panacea, for the sex problems of the individual\nchild in a co-educational school are almost as immediate as those of\nthe child from the segregated school.\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\nThis morning I was setting off for Dundee when Willie Marshall entered\nthe compartment.  He was dressed in his Sunday best, and I wondered why\nhe was going to Dundee on a Wednesday.\n\n\"Hullo, Willie!\" I cried, \"what's on to-day?\"\n\nHe looked troubled and angry.\n\n\"I've been summoned to serve on the jury that's tryin' that dawmed rat\nthat stailt ten pund frae the minister,\" he said viciously, \"and I had\nlittle need to lose a day, for I hae far mair work than I can dae.\nMossbank's twa cairts cam in yestreen, and he's swearin' like onything\nthat he maun hae them by the nicht.\"  Willie is a joiner, and most of\nhis work is building and repairing carts.\n\n\"So you think that Nosie Broon is guilty?\" I said with a smile.\n\n\"Of coorse he is,\" he cried with emphasis.\n\n\"But,\" I said seriously, \"you'll maybe alter your mind when you hear\nthe evidence.\"\n\nHe grunted.\n\n\"Dawn nae fear!  I'll show him that he's no to drag me awa frae ma work\nfor nothing!\"\n\nHe opened his _Dundee Courier_, and I sat and thought of the trial by\njury method.  I would not condemn it on the strength of Willie's\ndangerous misunderstanding of what it means, but I do condemn it on\nother grounds.  Weighing evidence is a difficult enough business even\nfor the specialist, for it is almost impossible to eliminate emotion in\nforming a judgment.  With a jury of citizens, some of them possibly\nilliterate, too much depends on the advocates, or on outside causes.\n\nDuring the war there was a glaring instance of this.  A soldier shot\nthe man who had been trying to steal his wife's love . . . and the\nverdict of the jury was Not Guilty.  The emotional factor in this case\nwas that the dead man was a German.  I am not arguing that the prisoner\nshould have been hanged or imprisoned, for I think both procedures are\nbad; I merely point out that in the eyes of legalism the soldier was\nguilty, yet the jury threw legalism overboard.\n\nAnother instance of the emotional factor over-ruling legalism is seen\nin the trial of the man who shot Jaures.  He was acquitted. . . .  Not\nGuilty . . . the man who slew one of the best men in Europe.  On the\nother hand the youth who attempted to assassinate Clemenceau was\nsentenced to death, pardoned, and sent to penal servitude.  In France\ntherefore it is a crime to kill a politician of the right, but a virtue\nto kill one of the Socialist left.\n\nAbstract justice is a figment.  No jury and no judge can be impartial.\nThe other day a man was charged with striking a Socialist orator with\nan ice-pick.  The judge lectured the orator on his Bolshevism, and then\ngave the accused imprisonment for a short term in the second division.\nSuppose that the Bolshevist had used an ice-pick on a Cabinet Minister!\n\nI do not think that our judges and magistrates ever consciously show\npartiality.  They are an upright class of men, men above suspicion.  It\nis their unconscious that shows partiality just as mine does.  The army\ncolonels who tried Conscientious Objectors were upright men, but it was\nwrong to imagine that they could possibly see the C.O.'s point of view.\nSo it was with the regular R.A.M.C. doctors.  To some of them the\nneurotic patient was a swinger of the lead, a malingerer.  They had\nnever heard of the new psychiatry, and the neurotic was a strange\ncreature to them.  Their ignorance supplemented their prejudice, and\nthey could not possibly have treated these men with justice.\n\nThe truth is that we all make up our minds according as our buried\ncomplexes impel us.  If I saw a Frenchman fighting a Scot I should take\nthe Scot's side, because I have a Scot complex.  Occasionally our\ncomplexes work in the opposite way.  I fancy that the few people who\nsided with the Germans in the war were suffering from an \"agin the\ngovernment\" complex, which, if you trace it deep enough is usually\nfound to be an infantile rebellion against the father.  In this case\nthe State represented the father, and Germany was the outside helper\nwho should conquer the father (or mother) country.  Had Germany won,\nthe unpatriotic man would immediately have turned his hate against\nPrussia, for then Prussia would have been the father substitute.\n\nOur loves and hates and fears are within ourselves.  I know a man who\nhas a nagging wife; she has a constant wish for new things.  He bought\nher a hat, and for two days she was happy; then she nagged, and he\nbought her a dress.  Three days later she demanded a necklace, and he\ngave her a necklace.  He may continue giving her everything she asks\nfor, but if he buys her a Rolls Royce and a house in Park Lane she will\nbe a dissatisfied woman, for \"the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our\nstars but in ourselves.\"  I advised him to spend his money on having\nher psycho-analysed.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nTo-night Tammas Lownie the joiner came into Dauvit's shop.  He is an\ninfrequent attender at Dauvit's parliament, and Dauvit seemed slightly\nsurprised at his entry.\n\n\"Weel, Tammas,\" he said, \"it's no often that we see you here.  What's\nbrocht ye here the nicht?\"\n\nTammas spat in the grate.\n\n\"Oh, it was a fine nicht, and I thought I'd just tak a daunder yont,\"\nhe said easily.\n\nDauvit looked at him searchingly.\n\n\"Na, na, Tammas, it winna dae!  It wasna the fine nicht that brocht ye\nyont.  Ye've got some news I'm thinkin'.\"\n\nTammas laughed loudly.\n\n\"Dauvit, ye're oncanny!\" he cried.  \"Ye seem to read what's at the back\no' a man's held.  But I have nae news to gie ye.\"\n\nDauvit chuckled.\n\n\"I wudna wonder if ye didna come yont to tell me aboot the eldership,\"\nhe said slowly.\n\nThe expression on Tammas's face showed that he _had_ come to tell us\nthat the minister had asked him to become an elder.\n\n\"'Od, Dauvit, noo that ye come to mention it I wud like to hear yer\nadvice aboot the matter.  I dinna see how I can tak an eldership,\nDauvit.\"\n\n\"How no?\" asked Dauvit in surprise.\n\nThen he added: \"But maybe ye ken whether ye've got a sinfu' heart or\nno.\"\n\n\"It's no that,\" said Tammas hastily, \"I'm nae worse than some other\nelders I ken,\" and he glanced at Jake Tosh.  \"No, it's no the sin I'm\nthinkin' o'; it's my trade.\"\n\n\"But,\" I put in, \"why shouldn't a joiner be an elder?\"\n\nTammas bit off a chunk of Bogie Roll.\n\n\"That may as may be, dominie, but I'm mair than a joiner; I'm an\nundertakker.\"\n\n\"Weel,\" said Dauvit, \"what aboot that?\"\n\nTammas shook his head sadly.\n\n\"An undertakker canna be an elder, Dauvit.  Suppose the minister was\nawa preachin' or at the Assembly, and ane o' his congregation was\ndeein', me as an elder micht hae to ging to the bedside and offer up a\nbit prayer.\"\n\n\"There's nothing in that,\" said Jake proudly; \"I've offered up a bit\nprayer afore noo when the minister was awa.\"\n\n\"Aye, Jake,\" said Tammas, \"but ye see you're a roadman.  But an\nundertakker is a different matter.  Goad, lads, I canna gie a man a bit\nprayer at sax o'clock and syne measure him for his coffin at acht.\nThat wud look like mixin' religion wi' business.\"\n\nThe assembly thought over this aspect.\n\n\"All the same,\" said the smith, \"Dr. Hall is an elder, and naebody ever\nthinks o' accusin' him o' mixin' religion wi' his business.\"\n\nWe all considered this statement.\n\n\"Tammas,\" said Dauvit, \"if ye want to be an elder tak it, and never\nmind the undertakkin'.  But if ever ye have to gie a prayer just get\nJake here to tak on the job.\"\n\nHe began to laugh here.\n\n\"I mind o' Jeemie Ritchie when he got his eldership.  The minister gaed\nawa to the Assembly in Edinbro, and as it happened auld Jess Tosh was\ndeein', so Jeemie was asked to come up and gie her a prayer.  Jeemie\nwas in my shop when the lassie Tosh cam for him, and I never saw a man\nin sic a state.\n\n\"'Dauvit,' he cries, 'I canna dae it!  I never offered up a prayer in\nmy life!'\n\n\"'Hoots, Jeemie,' says I, 'it's easy; just bring in a few bitties frae\nthe Bible.'\n\n\"Auld Jeemie he scarted his heid.\n\n\"'Man, Dauvit,' says he, 'I cudna say twa words o' the Bible.'\n\n\"Weel-a-weel, I had to shove him oot o' the shop, and I tell ye, boys,\nhe was shakin' like a shakky-trummly.\n\n\"Weel, in aboot half-an-hour Jeemie cam back, and he was smilin' like\nonything.\n\n\"'Hoo did ye get on?' I speered.\n\n\"'Graund!' he cried, '. . . she was deid afore I got there!'\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nWhen I published my _Log_ a correspondent wrote accusing me of being\ndisloyal to my colleagues in the teaching profession.\n\n\"Where is your professional etiquette?\" he wrote.\n\nI had lots of letters from teachers, some flattering, some not.  One\nman wrote me from Croydon:--\n\n\"Dear Sir,--Are you a fool or merely a silly ass?\"\n\n\"Both,\" I replied, \"else I should not have paid 2d. for your letter.\"\n\nIn haste the poor man hastened to forward two penny stamps, and to\napologise for not having stamped the letter he sent me.\n\n\"I really thought that I had stamped it,\" he wrote.\n\nThen I wrote him a nice letter telling him that the mistake was mine,\nfor his first letter had had a stamp on it after all.  He never replied\nto that, and I suppose that now he goes about telling his friends that\nI am a fool, a silly ass, and a typical Scot.\n\nAuthors hear queer things about themselves.  The other day a friend of\nmine asked for my _Log_ in a West End library.  As the librarian handed\nover the book she shook her head sadly.\n\n\"Isn't it sad about the man who wrote that book?\" she said.\n\nMy friend was startled.\n\n\"Sad!  What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Oh, haven't you heard?\" asked the librarian in surprise; \"he's a\nconfirmed drunkard now.\"\n\n\"Impossible!\" cried my friend, \"with whisky at ten and six a bottle!\"\n\nBut I meant to write about colleagues.  One day a class was holding a\nself-government meeting, and they sent for me.  I was annoyed because I\nwas having my after-dinner smoke in the staff-room.  However I went up.\n\n\"Hullo!\" I said as I entered, \"what do you want?\"\n\nEglantine the chairman said: \"A member of this class has insulted you.\"\n\n\"Impossible!\" I cried.\n\nThen Mary got up.\n\n\"I did,\" she blurted out nervously; \"I said you were just a silly ass.\"\n\n\"That's all right!\" I said cheerfully, \"I am,\" and I made for the door.\nThen the class got excited.\n\n\"Aren't you going to do anything?\" asked Ian in surprise.\n\n\"Good Lord, no!\" I cried.  \"Why should I?\"\n\n\"You're on the staff,\" said Ian.\n\n\"Look here,\" I said impatiently, \"I hereby authorise the crowd of you\nto call me any name you like.\"\n\nThe class became indignant.\n\n\"You can't criticise the staff,\" said one.\n\n\"Why not?\" I asked, and they looked at each other in alarm.  This was\ncarrying self-government too far.\n\nSuddenly Mary jumped up.\n\n\"Then if we can criticise the staff here goes!  I accuse Miss Brown of\nfavouritism.\"\n\nIt was a bombshell.  Everyone jumped up, and some cried: \"Shame!\nWithdraw!\"  The chairman appealed to me.\n\n\"I have nothing to do with it,\" I protested.\n\nThen bitter words flew.  They told me that I, as a member of the staff,\nshould squash Mary.  Voices became louder, but then the bell rang and\nthe class had to go to its own class-room to work.\n\nMy colleagues when they heard the story agreed with the children; they\nheld that I acted wrongly in listening to an accusation against a\ncolleague.  My argument was that I was a guest at a meeting; I had no\nvote, nor would I have interfered had I been a member of the meeting.\nI was quite sure that if the bell had not broken up the meeting\nsomebody would have made the discovery that Miss Brown was the proper\nperson to make the accusation to.  When they thought that Mary insulted\nme they sent for me, and I fully expected they would send for Miss\nBrown.  Again I argued that if Miss Brown had favourites the class had\na right to criticise her.  If she had no favourites let her arraign the\nclass before a meeting of the whole school and accuse them of libel.\n\nLooking back I still think my attitude was right, for unless the staff\ncan lay aside all dignity and become members of the gang education is\nnot free.  Yet I see now that I was secretly exulting in the\ndiscomfiture of a colleague . . . a common human failing which none of\nus care to recognise in ourselves.  It is a sad fact but a true one\nthat however much Dr. A. protests when a patient tells him that Dr. B.\nis a clumsy fool, unconsciously at least Dr. A. is gratified at the\ncriticism of his rival.  Psycho-analysts, that is people who are\nsupposed to know the contents of their unconscious, are just as guilty\nin this respect as other doctors, and if anyone doubts this let him ask\na Freudian what he thinks of the Jungian in the next street.\n\nMy earliest memory of professional jealousy goes back to the age of\nseven.  I lived next door to a dentist, a real qualified L.D.S.  Across\nthe street lived a quack dental surgeon.  When trade was dull these two\nused to come to their respective doors and converse with each other in\nthe good old simple way of putting the fingers to the nose.  They never\nspoke to each other.  Life in a northern town was simple in these days.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nHelen Macdonald is four years old, and her mother and I have some\nbreezy discussions about her upbringing.  Mrs. Mac has a great\nadmiration for her own mother, and she is bent on bringing up her\ndaughter in the way that she was brought up.\n\n\"Mother made me obey and I'll make Helen obey,\" she said to-day with\ndecision.\n\n\"It's dangerous,\" I said.\n\n\"No it isn't; it worked well enough in my case anyway.\"\n\n\"Don't blow your own trumpet, madam!\"\n\nShe smiled.\n\n\"I don't think I am a bad product of the good old way,\" she said with a\nself-satisfied air.\n\n\"Madam, shall I tell you the truth about yourself?\"\n\nShe bubbled and drew her chair closer to mine.\n\n\"Do!\" she cried, and then added: \"But I won't believe the nasty bits.\"\n\nMac chuckled.\n\n\"To begin with,\" I said pompously, \"you are an awful example of a bad\neducation.\"\n\nShe bowed mockingly and Mac guffawed.  He is a wee bit afraid of his\nwife and he marvels at my courage in ragging her.\n\n\"You,\" I continued, \"were made to obey as a child, and as a result you\nbecame dependent on your mother.  In short you are your own mother.\"\n\n\"Don't be silly,\" she said with a frown; \"I want your serious opinion.\"\n\n\"And you are getting it,\" I replied.  \"Because you had to obey you\nnever lived your own life, and naturally you never had a mind of your\nown.  To this day you act as your mother acted.  She made her daughter\nobey; you follow her example; she made scones in such and such a way;\nyou make scones in exactly the same way.\"\n\n\"That's right!\" laughed Mac.\n\nMrs. Mac looked thoughtful.\n\n\"Anyway,\" she said quickly, \"they are excellent scones.\"\n\n\"Most excellent scones,\" I hastened to add, \"but my point is that if we\nall follow our parents there will be no progress.\"\n\n\"Progress will never bring better scones,\" said Mac and he patted his\nwife's cheek.\n\n\"Mac,\" I said gallantly, \"your wife has brought scones to their perfect\nand utmost evolution.  She has made the super-scone.  Only, Helen isn't\na scone you know.\"\n\nAt this point Helen was found trying to pull the marble clock down from\nthe mantlepiece.  Her mother rescued the clock as it was falling, and\nshe scolded the fair Helen.\n\n\"You are all theory,\" she cried to me.  \"What would you do in a case\nlike this?\"\n\n\"Same as you did,\" I answered hastily, and then added: \"Only I would\ntry to give her so many interesting things to play with that she'd\nforget to want the clock.\"\n\nThen Mrs. Mac indignantly dragged out Helen's toys from a cupboard.\n\n\"Dozens of them!\" she cried, \"and she is tired of every one.\"\n\nThen I discoursed on toys.  The toys of the world are nearly all bad.\nHelen has a beautiful sleeping doll that cost five pounds; rather I\nshould say that Helen _had_ a beautiful sleeping doll that cost five\npounds.  On the one occasion that Helen was allowed to play with it she\nmade a careful attempt to open the head with a pair of scissors to see\nwhat made the eyes close and open.  Then her mother put the doll in a\nbox, packed the box in a trunk, and explained to Helen that the doll\nwas to lie in that trunk until Helen had a little baby girl of her own.\n\nI explained to Mrs. Mac that the toy a child needs is one that will\ntake to pieces.  Every toy should be a mine of discovery.  The only\ngood toys that I know of are Meccano and Primus, but there is much need\nfor constructive toys for younger children.\n\n\"Mac,\" I said, \"if you were even a passably good husband you would be\nmaking Montessori apparatus for your offspring.\"\n\nWe have many arguments like this.  Mrs. Mac's problem is that of a\nmillion mothers; she has to fit the child into an adult environment.\nYesterday she was painting in oils.  The baker whistled outside and she\nran out to get the bread.  On her return she found that Helen was\nbusily painting the pink wall-paper a prussian blue.\n\nWealthy mothers solve the problem by employing nurses, but the solution\nis a poor one.  Few nurses know enough about children, and many do\npositive harm by frightening the child.  Nor can the hired nurse give\nthe infinite amount of love that a child demands.  If she could it is\nprobable that she would be sacked, for no mother likes to see her child\nlavish his love on another.  On more than one occasion I have\ndiscovered that the parents of children who loved me were hostile to\nme.  That is natural.  If a father is continually hearing his daughter\nsay: \"Mr. Neill says this; Mr. Neill says that,\" I have every sympathy\nwith him when he growls: \"Damn this Neill blighter!\"  On the other hand\nI have no sympathy with him if he expects me to ask his little Ada how\nher dear charming papa is.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nA book of ten volumes might well be written on the subject of parents\nand teachers.  If a teacher were the author no publisher would look at\nit, for the language would be unprintable.\n\nTo the teacher the parent is an enemy.  When Mrs. Brown comes to school\nshe and the dominie chat pleasantly about the weather, while the\nchildren look on and marvel.  Little Willie is amazed to see his mother\nsmile as she talks, for it was only last night that he heard her say:\n\"That Mr. Smith is by no means a gentleman.  Did you see his nails?\"\nPoor little Willie does not know that his mother and the dominie are\nusing fair smiles to cover a real hostility.  Mrs. Brown will talk\nagreeably all through her visit, but as she is shaking hands on the\ndoorstep she will say, \"Oh, by the way, Mr. Smith, Willie came home\nlast night saying that he wasn't allowed to play hockey yesterday.  I\nwant him to play every Wednesday.\"\n\n\"But,\" says Mr. Smith deferentially, \"I--er--well, Wednesday is the day\nwhen the Seniors play, and--er--since Willie is a Junior I--er--I--\"\n\n\"Oh, thank you so much,\" she gushes, \"I knew that you would arrange\nthat he will play on Wednesdays,\" and she sails away.\n\nOr perhaps Mrs. Brown will put it on to her husband.\n\n\"The way things are done at that school are disgraceful, Tom.  You must\ngo and see Smith and insist that the boy has his hockey.\"\n\nWell, the poor father comes up to school, and he and the dominie\ndiscuss the weather and Lloyd George.  All the time Brown is trying to\nmuster up enough courage to tackle the hockey question.\n\n\"Er,\" he begins after clearing his throat, \"my wife was saying\nsomething about--er--what a splendid view you have from here!\"\n\n\"First rate,\" nods the dominie.  \"Your wife was saying?\"\n\n\"Er--something about hockey.\"  He coughs.  \"Splendid game!  I--er--I\nmust go . . . er--good-bye.\"\n\nNo mere man can badger a dominie.\n\nFrom the parent's point of view a teacher is a rival when he isn't a\nsort of under-gardener.  The parent would never think of arguing with\nthe doctor when he says that Willie has measles; the doctor is a\nspecialist in disease, and the parent is not.  But it is different with\nthe dominie.  He is a specialist in education, but then so is the\nparent.  That is possibly one of the reasons that the teaching\nprofession is such a low-class one, for a teacher is merely a\nspecialist in a world of specialists.  Everybody knows how a child\nought to be brought up.  In justice to parents I must confess that\nthere are only two teachers in Britain to whom I should trust the\neducation of any child of mine.  Most teachers are instructionists\nonly, and the parent has some ground for suspicion.\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nDuncan was talking about awkward moments to-night, and he told of the\nshock he got when he joined the army and found that the sergeant of his\nsquad was an old pupil of his.\n\n\"I think I can beat that, Duncan,\" I said, and told him the story of an\narmy lecture.  I had a commission in the R.G.A. for a short time, and\none morning I had to give a lecture to the men of the battery on lines\nof fire.  They were mostly miners, and I tried to make the lecture as\nsimple as possible.  I began with the definition of an angle and went\non to circular measurement.  I noticed that one man stared at the\nblackboard in bewilderment, a very stupid looking fellow he was.  When\nthe lecture was over I approached him.\n\n\"I don't think you understood what I was trying to tell you,\" I said.\n\n\"I did have some difficulty in following it, sir,\" he said.\n\n\"H'm!  What were you in civil life?\"\n\n\"Mathematical master in a secondary school, sir.\"\n\nI could not rise to the occasion.  I fled to the mess and ordered a\nbrandy and soda.\n\nSpeaking about rising to the occasion brings to my mind another army\nincident in which I did not shine.  I was a recruit in the infantry,\nand a gym sergeant was putting us through physical jerks.  He told us\nthe familiar tale that although we had broken our mothers' hearts we\nwouldn't break his; in short he put the wind up us.  I got very nervous.\n\n\"Right turn!\" he roared, and I thought he said \"Right about turn.\"\n\nHe told the squad to stand easy, and then he eyed me curiously.\n\n\"You!  Big fellow!  Take that smile off your face!\"\n\nI don't know why he said that for I couldn't have smiled at that moment\nfor anything less than my ticket.  He studied me carefully for a bit,\nthen enlightenment seemed to dawn on him.\n\n\"I got it!\" he exclaimed triumphantly.\n\n\"I know wot's wrong with you!  You've got a stupid face; you can't\nthink; you never thought in yer life.\"\n\nI looked on the ground.\n\n\"_Did_ yer ever think in yer life?\"\n\n\"No, sergeant,\" I said humbly.\n\n\"I blinkin' well thought so!\" he said and moved away.\n\nThen the worm turned.  Who was he that he should bully a scholar and a\ngentleman?  I would lower him to the dust.\n\n\"Sergeant!\"\n\nHe turned quickly.\n\n\"Wot d'ye want?\" and he tried to freeze me with his look.\n\n\"It isn't my fault I can't think, sergeant; I was unfortunate enough to\nspend five years at a university.\"\n\nHis mouth gaped, and his eyes stared, but only for a moment.  Then he\nrose to the occasion.\n\n\"I blinkin' well thought so!\" he cried.  \"Squad! . . . .  Tshun!\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nIt is Sunday night, and I have just been to town.  At the Cross I stood\nand listened to a revivalist bellowing from a soap-box.  His message\nwas Salvation but I was more interested in the man than his message.\nConsciously he is out to save sinners, but I suspect that unconsciously\nhe is out to draw attention to himself.  I do not blame him.  I do the\nsame thing when I publish a book; Lloyd George and George Robey and the\nrevivalist and I are all striving each in his little corner to draw\nattention to ourselves.\n\nThe exhibition impulse is in every child.  A child loves to run about\nnaked, but then society in the form of the mother steps in and says:\n\"You must not do that!\"  But we know that every wish lives on in the\ndepths of the mind, and the childish wish to exhibit the body appears\nin later years as a desire to preach or sing or act or lecture.\n\nThis is the psychology of the testimonials for liver pills which appear\nin every local paper.  It is the psychology of much crime.  Many a slum\nyouth glories in having been birched, simply because his gang looks on\nhim as a hero.\n\nI hasten to state that exhibitionism alone does not make a Cabinet\nMinister or a comedian.  There are other motives from infancy, an\nimportant one being the desire for power.  I recall that as a boy I\ndelighted in following a drove of cattle and smiting the poor creatures\nhard with a cudgel.  Freud would say that in this way I was releasing\nsex energy, but I think that the infantile sense of power was at the\nroot of my cruelty; here was I, a wee boy, controlling a big heavy\nstot.  It is love of power that makes little boys want to be\nengine-drivers.\n\nTo the teacher this love of power is the most vital thing in a child's\nmake-up.  Discipline thwarts the boy at every turn, and our adult\nauthority is fatally injuring the boy's character.  Our task is to\nprovide the child with opportunity to wield his power.  We suppress it\nand the lad shows his power in destructive instead of constructive\nactivities.  I find that I keep returning to this subject of\nsuppression, but it is the most important evil in education.  It does\nnot matter how perfect a teacher makes his instruction in arithmetic;\nif he has not come to see that suppression of a child is a tragedy, his\ninstruction is of no value.  From an examination point of view, yes;\nfrom a spiritual point of view, no.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nParents and teachers fail because they cannot see the world as the\nchild sees it.  The child of three is a frank egoist.  He cares for no\none but himself, and the world is his.  Anger him and he would have you\ndrawn and quartered if he had the power.  His instincts prompt him to\nmaster his environment, and to begin with, when he is a few weeks old,\nhis environment and his own person are indistinguishable.\n\nHomer Lane gives a delightful description of the child's first efforts\nand how they are frustrated by ignorant adults.\n\n\"At a very early age the child becomes aware through various processes\nthat his own hand which he has seen moving across his line of vision is\na part of himself, and that he can move it himself.  He has discovered\npower.  He then enters upon his career.  The same motive that will\ngovern his behaviour for the rest of his life comes into operation, and\nhe wants to use this new-found power for some purpose that will\nincrease his enjoyment of life.  Up to this time he has had only one\npleasure, and that was to do with the commissariat.  Having discovered\npower over his fist he therefore wants to put it in his mouth . . . a\ndifficult task requiring much practice and patient perseverance.\n\n\"As he goes on working he learns that his power increases with effort,\nand now his motive is modified.  At first it was purely materialistic;\nhe wanted to have his fist in his mouth.  Now he wants to put it there.\nHis interest is in doing the thing rather than in having it.\n\n\"This is the spiritual element in his present desire, and now comes the\nfirst mistake in education.  The mother, analysing the behaviour of the\nchild, has noticed his complaint at the difficulty of the task as\nfatigue sets in, and, misunderstanding the motive of the child she\nhelps him to put his fist in his mouth.  But that is just what the\nchild did not want, and he protests violently against this interference\nwith his purpose in life.\n\n\"The mother again makes a false analysis of the situation, and\nconcludes that his protest is the result of his disappointment that\nthere is no nourishment in the fist.  She then gives him food or\nparegoric, whatever may be her method of dealing with the spiritual\nunrest of her child, and thus drugs his creative faculties.\"\n\nI have said that the infant is an egoist.  If his egoism is allowed\nfull scope he will enter upon the next stage of life, the\nself-assertive stage, with a huge capacity for being altruistic.  This\nstage comes on about the age of six or seven.  But if the child has had\nparents who believe in moulding character he will have had many severe\nlectures about his selfishness.  These lectures will not have cured his\nselfishness; they will have driven it underground for the moment.  The\nselfishness of adults is one result of the moral lecture in childhood,\nfor no wish or emotion will remain buried for ever.\n\nThe age of self-assertion is the rowdy age, and naturally it is now\nthat father uses his authority.  The child is still ego-centric, but in\na different way.  At the age of three he was the king of the world; at\nthe age of seven he is the king of the other boys who play with him.\nHe is now reckoning with society, and he uses society as a background\nagainst which he may play the hero.  Thus be bleeds Jack's nose for no\nreason in the world other than that he thus asserts himself.  If he\nplays horses with the boy next door he insists upon being the driver.\n\nIt is at this period that he should be free from authority.  If\nauthority in the shape of father or teacher or policeman steps in to\nsuppress his self-assertion the boy becomes an enemy of all authority\nand very often anti-social.  The \"rebel\" in the Socialist camp is a\ngood specimen of the man whose self-assertive period was injured by\nauthority, and I suspect that the truculent drunk is letting off the\nsteam that he should have let off at the age of eight.\n\nThe third stage in the evolution of a child is the adolescent stage.\nFor the first time the boy becomes a unit in society.  Hitherto he has\nplayed for his own hand; his games have been games in which personal\nprowess was the desired aim.  Now he feels that he is one of a team.\nEven before puberty the team-forming impulse is seen; Putter, for\ninstance, in _The Boy and his Gang_, gives ten to sixteen as the gang\nage.\n\nThese divisions are purely arbitrary, and children differ much in\nevolution.  The teacher, however, should have a general knowledge of\nthese three phases.  I have often seen a school prescribe cricket or\nhockey for boys who are still in the self-assertive stage.  The result\nwas that, having no team impulse, each boy had no further interest in\nthe game when the umpire shouted: \"Out!\"\n\nI used to umpire for boys and girls of eight to eleven, and it was a\ntiresome business.  Quite often when a boy had been bowled with the\nfirst ball, he would throw down the bat in disgust and refuse to give\nthe other side an innings.  There was nothing wrong with the children;\nwhat was wrong was that a team phase game was being forced on a\nself-assertive phase group.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nDuncan and two other dominies were in to-night and we got on to golf\nyarns.  I remarked that there were very few good ones, and they all\ntrotted out their favourites.  I liked Duncan's best.\n\nAn oldish man was ploughing his way to the tenth hole at St. Andrews,\nand, when he ultimately holed out in nineteen, he turned to his caddie.\n\n\"Caddie,\" he cried in disgust, \"this is the worst game I ever played.\"\n\nThe caddie stared at him open-mouthed.\n\n\"So ye _have_ played afore, have ye?\" he gasped in amazement.\n\nWhy are there no cricket or football stories, I wonder?  Possibly\nbecause they are team games; a team is a crowd, and I never heard of a\njoke against a crowd.  A crowd is an impersonal thing, and no one can\njoke about an impersonal thing.  I never heard of a joke about the moon\nor a turnip.  Yet are there not jokes against a nation, and a nation is\na crowd?  Take the joke about the Scot who was brought up at Bow Street\nfor being drunk and disorderly.  The magistrate, before passing\nsentence, asked the accused if he had anything to say for himself.\n\n\"Weel, ma lord, it was like this.  I travelled frae Glesga to London\nyesterday, and I got into bad company in the train.\"\n\n\"Bad company?\"\n\n\"Aye, ma lord.  When I got into the train at Glesga Central I had twa\nbottles o' whuskey in my bag, and . . . a' the other men in my\ncompartment was teetotal.\"\n\nThat looks like a joke against a long-suffering race, but is it so in\nreality?  Make the traveller an 'Oodersfield' man on his way to see the\nCup-tie Final at Chelsea, and it is not changed in essence.  Only it\nhas become a convention that the Scot is a hard drinker.  It is the\npersonal touch that makes the joke, and it is the individual that we\nlaugh at.\n\nI presume that the typical joke about Scots' meanness appeals to\nEnglishmen because Englishmen are mean themselves.  No joke appeals to\na man unless it releases some repressed wish of his own.  No one\nexpects a devout Roman Catholic to see the point of a joke about\nextreme unction.  The professional comedian to be a success must know\nwhat the crowd repressions are.  Dickens is a great humorist because he\nknew by intuition what the crowd would laugh at.  And that brings me to\nthe subject of human types.\n\nBroadly speaking there are two types of man.  One is called an\nextrovert (Latin, to turn outwards); he identifies himself with the\ncrowd, and he lives the life of the crowd.  Lloyd George and Horatio\nBottomley are typical extroverts; they seem to know instinctively what\nthe crowd is thinking, and unconsciously they speak and act as the\ncrowd wants them to speak and act.  Dickens was another, and that is\nwhy he has so universal an appeal.\n\nThe other type, the introvert type, turns inward.  They do not identify\nthemselves with the crowd.  What the public wants does not concern\nthem; they give the crowd what they think it ought to want.  This class\nincludes the thinkers, the men who are in advance of their time.  An\nintrovert is never popular with the crowd because the crowd never\nunderstands him.  He can never get away from himself, and he sums up\nevents according to the personal effect they have on himself.  Yet to\nthe unconscious of the introvert crowd opinion is of the greatest\nimportance.\n\nIn the realm of humour the extrovert is a success; what amuses him\namuses the crowds.  But the introvert laughs alone, and in some cases\nhe decides that the crowd has no sense of humour, and he becomes a\ncynic.\n\nIt is necessary that the teacher should be able to recognise the\ndifferent types.  The extrovert is popular; he it is who leads the\ngang.  Doubts and fears do not trouble him; life is pleasant and he\nlaughs his way through it.  But the introvert is the boy who stands\napart in a corner of the playground; he is timid and fears the rough\nand tumble of team games.  He feels inferior and he turns in upon\nhimself to find superiority.  Thus he will day-dream of situations in\nwhich he is a hero like David Copperfield when he stood at Dora's\ngarden gate and saw himself rescuing her from the burning house.\n\nI think that the job of the teacher is to help each type to a position\nmidway between introversion and extroversion.  The boy who lives in the\ncrowd might well be tempted to take more interest in his own\nindividuality, and the introvert might well be encouraged to project\nhis emotions outward.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nTo-night Mac told me a story about old Simpson the dominie over at\nPikerton.  Last summer an English bishop was touring Scotland, and one\nmorning he drove up to Simpson's school in a big car, flung open the\ndoor and walked in.\n\n\"Good morning, children,\" he cried.\n\nThe bairns sat gazing at him in awe.  He turned to Simpson.\n\n\"My good sir,\" he protested, \"when I enter a village school in England,\nthe children all rise and say: 'Good morning, sir'!\"\n\n\"Possibly,\" said Simpson dryly, \"but in Scotland children are not\naccustomed to see strangers walk into a school.  Scots visitors always\nknock at the door and await the headmaster's invitation to enter.\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nMac and I were talking about education to-night.\n\n\"I never heard you mention the teaching side of education,\" he\nremarked.  \"Giving a child freedom isn't enough, you know.  What about\nHistory and Geography and so on?\"\n\n\"I think they are jolly well taught in many schools, Mac,\" I said.  \"It\nis the psychological side of education that is a thousand years behind\nthe times.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mac doubtfully, \"but suppose you have a school of your own,\nI presume you'd teach the English yourself?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"How would you do it?\"\n\nI thought for a while.\n\n\"I'd reverse the usual process, Mac,\" I said.  \"Usually the teacher\nbegins with Chaucer and works forward to Dickens; I would begin with\n_Comic Cuts_ and _Dead-wood Dick_ and work back to Chaucer.\"\n\n\"Oh, do be serious for once,\" he said impatiently.\n\n\"I am quite serious, Mac,\" I said.  \"The only thing that matters in\nschool work is interest, and I know from experience that the child is\ninterested in _Comic Cuts_ but not in the _Canterbury Tales_.  My job\nis to encourage the boy's interest in _Comic Cuts_.\"\n\nI ignored Macdonald's reference to idiocy, and went on.\n\n\"You see, Mac, what you do is this: you see a boy reading _Dead-wood\nDick_, and you take his paper away from him and possibly whack the\nlittle chap for wasting his time.  But you don't kill his interest in\npenny dreadfuls, and the result is that in later years he reads the\nSunday paper that supplies the most lurid details of murders and\noutrages.  My way is to encourage the lad to devour tales of blood and\nthunder so that in a short time blood and thunder have no more interest\nfor him.  The reason why most of the literature published to-day is\ntripe is that the public likes tripe, and it likes tripe because its\ninfantile interest in tripe was suppressed in favour of Chaucer and\nShakespeare.\"\n\n\"But,\" cried Mac, \"isn't Shakespeare better for him than tripe?\"\n\n\"Yes and no.  If every poet were a Shakespeare the world would be a\ndull place; you need the tripe to form a contrast.  The best way to\nenjoy the quintessence of roses, Mac, is to take a walk through the\ndung-heaps first.\"\n\n\"What books would you advise your pupils to read?\" asked Mac.\n\n\"In their proper sequence . . .  _Comic Cuts, Deadwood Dick, John Bull,\nAnswers, Pearson's Weekly, Boy's Own Paper, Scout, Treasure Island,\nKing Solomon's Mines, White Fang, The Call of the Wild, The Invisible\nMan,_ practically anything of Jack London, Rider Haggard, Conan Doyle,\nKipling.\"\n\n\"And serious literature?\"\n\n\"All literature is serious, Mac.\"\n\n\"I mean Dr. Johnson, Swift, Bunyan, Milton, Dryden, and that lot,\" said\nMac.\n\nI smiled.\n\n\"Mac, I want you to answer this question: have you read Boswell's _Life\nof Johnson_?\"\n\n\"Extracts,\" he admitted awkwardly.\n\n\"Bunyan's _Life and Death of Mr. Badman_?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Milton's _Areopagitica_?\"\n\n\"Er--no.\"\n\n\"Swift's _Tale of a Tub_?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nI sighed.\n\n\"Would you like to read them?\" I asked.\n\n\"I don't think they would interest me,\" he admitted.\n\n\"Then in heaven's name, why expect children to have any interest in\nthem?  If these classics weren't shoved down children's throats the\nadult population of this country would be sitting of an evening reading\nand enjoying Milton instead of _John Bull_.\"\n\nMac would not have this.\n\n\"Children must read the classics so that they may get a good style,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"Style be blowed!\" I cried.  \"The only way to get a style is by\nwriting.  Mac, I should cut out all the lectures about Chaucer and\nSpenser and Shakespeare, and let the children write during the English\nperiod . . . if I had periods, which I wouldn't.  I don't want style\nfrom kiddies; I want to see them create in their own way.  If they are\nfree to create they will form their own style.\"\n\nIn a conversation one always has a tendency to overstate a case, and as\nthe argument went on I found myself saying wild things.  Writing calmly\nnow I still hold to my attitude concerning style.  I love a book\nwritten in fine style, but I refuse to impose style on children.  In\nevery child there is a gigantic protest.  Thus the son of praying\nparents often turns out to be a scoffer.  I had a good instance of the\ndanger of superimposition of style.\n\nI had a class of boys and girls of fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen\nyears of age.  For one period a week we all wrote five minute essays,\nand then we read them out.  Sometimes we would make criticisms; for\ninstance one girl used the word \"beastly\" in a serious essay, and we\nall protested against it.  Then one day the head-master decided that\nthey should write essays for him.  He set a serious subject--The\nFunction of Authority, I think it was--and then he went over their\nbooks with a blue pencil and corrected their spelling and style.\n\nThree days later my English period came round.  I entered the room and\nfound the class sitting round the fire.\n\n\"Hullo!\" I said, \"aren't you going to write?\"\n\n\"No,\" growled the class.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Fed up with writing.  We want to talk about economics or psychology.\"\n\nA fortnight later they made an attempt to write short essays, but it\nwas a miserable failure; all the joy in creation had been killed by\nthat blue pencil.\n\nI can give an example of the other way, the only way.  One boy of\nfifteen hated writing essays, and when I began the five minute essay\ngame he sat and read a book.  After a time I gave out the subject\n\"Mystery,\" and I saw him look up quickly with flashing eyes.\n\n\"Phew!  What a ripping subject!\" he cried, \"I must have a shot at that!\"\n\nHis shot was promising, and he continued to make shots, until some of\nhis essays were praised by the class.  Then one day he came to me.\n\n\"I don't know anything about stops and things,\" he said, \"and I want\nyou to tell me about them.\"\n\nThis is my ideal of education; no child ever learns a thing until he\nwants to learn it.  That lad picked up all he wanted to know about\nstops in half-an-hour.  He was interested in stops because he wanted to\nwrite better essays.  I need hardly say that he had listened to\nhundreds of lessons on stops during his school career.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nTo-morrow I return to London, and to-night I went over to say good-bye\nto Dauvit.\n\n\"Aye, dominie, and so ye're gaein' back to London!\" he said.\n\n\"I don't want to leave this lazy life, Dauvit,\" I said, \"but I must go\nback and start my school.\"\n\n\"It'll cost ye some bawbees to gang to London,\" put in Jake Tosh.\n\"Penny three ha'pennies a mile noo-a-days I onderstand.\"\n\n\"A shullin' a mile for corps,\" remarked the undertaker.\n\nDauvit chuckled.\n\n\"So ye'll better no dee in London, dominie,\" he laughed.\n\n\"And that reminds me of Peter Wilson, him that passed into the Civil\nService and gaed to London.  He came hame onexpectedly wan mornin' and\nhis father he says: 'What in a' the earth brocht ye hame in the month\no' February, Peter?  Surely ye dinna hae a holiday the noo?'\n\n\"'No,' says Peter, 'but I had a cauld and I thocht I was maybe takkin'\npewmonia, and, weel father, corpses is a bob a mile on the railway.'\"\n\n\"Dauvit,\" I said, \"I don't care where I am buried.\"\n\n\"Is that so?\" asked Jake in surprise.  \"What's become o' yer\npatriotism, dominie?  I canna onderstand a man no wanting to be buried\nin his ain country.  For my pairt I wudna like to be buried ony place\nbut the wee kirkyaird up the brae there.\"\n\nDauvit grunted.\n\n\"What does it matter, Jake, whaur ye're buried?\"\n\n\"Goad,\" said Jake, \"it matters a lot.  The grund up in the kirkyaird is\nthe best grund in Scotland.  It's a' sand, and they tell me that yer\ncorp will keep for years in that grund.\"\n\nDauvit laughed, but the others seemed to take Jake's preservation\nargument seriously.\n\n\"Jake,\" said Dauvit, \"does it no strike ye that to be buried in yer\nnative place is a disgrace?\"\n\n\"Hoo that, na?\" said Jake.\n\n\"Because the man that bides in the place he was born in is of nae\nimportance.  A' the best men leave their native village, aye, and their\nnative country.  Aye, lads, the best men and the worst women leave\ntheir native country.\"\n\n\"I sincerely trust that you are not insinuating that they leave\ntogether, Dauvit,\" I put in hastily.\n\n\"No, they dinna do that, dominie; but whether they meet in London I\ndinna ken,\" and he smiled wickedly.\n\nJake spat in the grate.\n\n\"I dinna see what the attraction o' London is,\" he said with a touch of\ncontempt.\n\n\"It is rather difficult to describe,\" I said.  \"For one thing you feel\nthat you are in the centre of things.  You are in the midst of all the\nbest plays and concerts and processions . . . and you never think of\ngoing to see them.  Then all the important people are there, the King\nand Lloyd George and Bernard Shaw . . . but you never see them\nanywhere.  Then there are the places of historic interest, the Tower,\nWestminster Abbey, St. Paul's . . . and you don't know where they are\nuntil your cousins come up for a week's trip, and then you ask a\npoliceman where the Tower is.  And the strange thing is that you get to\nlove London.\"\n\n\"There will be a fell puckle funerals I daresay,\" said the undertaker.\n\n\"To tell the truth,\" I answered, \"I have never seen a funeral in\nLondon.  In the suburbs, yes, but never in the centre of the West End.\nI've often seen them at the crematorium in Golders Green.\"\n\nThe undertaker frowned.\n\n\"That crematin' business shud be abolished by act o' Parliament,\" he\nsaid gruffly.  \"It's just a waste o' guid wood and coal.  They tell me\nit taks twa ton o' coal ilka time.\"\n\nI was surprised to find that the broad-minded Dauvit agreed with the\nundertaker in condemning cremation.  I suspect that early training has\nsomething to do with it, and there may be an unconscious connecting of\ncremation with hell-fire.  Dauvit's argument that cremation would\ndestroy the evidence in poisoning cases was a pure rationalisation.\n\nI wondered why the topic of funerals kept coming up, and I laughingly\nput the matter to Dauvit.\n\n\"Maybe it's because we're sad because ye're gaein' awa,\" he said\nhalf-seriously.  \"We'll miss yer crack at nichts.\"\n\nAt last I got up to go.\n\n\"Aweel, Dauvit, I'll be going,\" I said.\n\n\"Aweel, so long,\" said Dauvit without looking up.  The others said\n\"Guidnicht\" or \"So Long,\" and I went out.  I was sorry to leave these\ngood friends, and they were sorry to lose me; yet we parted, it may be,\nfor years, just as if we were to see each other to-morrow.  We are a\nqueer race.\n\n\n\n\nXI.\n\nWhen I arrived in London to-night I received a blow.  A letter awaited\nme saying that the landlord of the school I was taking over had decided\nto sell the property.  Thus all my dreams of a free school vanished in\nsmoke.  There isn't a house to rent in London; thousands are for sale,\nbut I have no money to buy.  If I had money I should hesitate to buy,\nfor if a school is a success it expands, and the ideal thing to do is\nto take it out to the country where there is fresh air and space to\ngrow.\n\nTo-night I feel pessimistic; it is difficult to be an optimist when a\nlong-planned scheme suddenly falls to pieces.\n\nI think of my capitalist friend Lindsay.  He could buy me a school\nto-morrow, and never miss the money, but I don't think I should accept\nit.  He would always have a big say in the running of it, and his\nideals are not mine.  I know other people with money, but I fancy that\nthey have no faith in me.  That is one of the disadvantages of writing\nlight books like _A Dominie's Log_.  The adult reads it and says:\n\"Funny chap this!\"  But people have little faith in funny chaps.  You\ncan be a funny chap if you are a magistrate or a cabinet minister, but\na teacher must be a staid dignified person.  He must be a man who by\nhis serious demeanour will impress the children and lead them out of\nthe morass of original sin in which they were born.  Montessori is\ncatching on in the educational world not entirely because of her\nexcellent system; part of her success is due to the fact that she never\nmakes a joke; she is always the dignified moral model teacher.\n\nPoor Montessori!  Here I am transferring my irritation at the landlord\nwho sold my school to her.  I beg her pardon.  Nor am I really annoyed\nwith the landlord; the person I am annoyed with is myself.  I bungled\nthat school business.\n\nNow I feel better.  When I am irritated I always think of the traveller\nfrom St. Andrews.  He arrived at Leuchars Junction and had five minutes\nto wait for the Edinburgh train.  He entered the bar and had a drink.\nHe had a second drink, and then awoke to the fact that he had missed\nthe train.  The next train was due in two hours.  The barmaid shut the\nbar between trains and the traveller went out on the platform.  It was\na cold rainy November night.  He went to the waiting room, but there\nwas no fire there.\n\n\"Anyway,\" he said, \"I'll have a smoke,\" and he filled his pipe.  Then\nhe found that he had but one match left.  He struck it, and it went\nout.  He went out to the platform and found an old porter screwing down\nthe lamps.  The porter knelt down to tie his lace and the traveller\napproached him.\n\n\"Could you oblige me with a match?\"\n\nThe old porter eyed him dispassionately.\n\n\"I dinna smoke.  I dinna believe in smokin'.  I dinna hae a match.\"\n\nThe traveller walked wearily forward to an automatic machine and\ninserted his last penny . . . and drew out a bar of butterscotch.  He\ntossed it over the line, and then he threw his pipe after it.  He\nwalked along the platform, and then he came back.  The old porter was\nagain tying his lace.  The traveller suddenly rushed at him and kicked\nhim as hard as he could.\n\n\"What did ye do that for?\" demanded the poor old man when he picked\nhimself up.\n\nThe traveller turned away in disgust.\n\n\"Och, to hell wi' you; ye're ay tying your lace!\" he said.\n\nLots of people cannot see the joke in this yarn, and I challenge anyone\nto explain the point.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nGood fortune came to rescue me from sorrowing over my lost school.  It\nsent me to Holland thuswise: about five hundred Famine Area children\nwere coming from Vienna to England, and I was invited to become one of\nthe escort.  Then it struck me that I might go over earlier and have a\nlook at the Dutch schools.  I hastened to get a few passport\nphotographs; I looked at them . . . and then I thought I shouldn't risk\ngoing.  However, on second thoughts, I decided to risk it, and went to\nthe passport office.  There a gentleman with a big cigar looked at the\nphotograph; then he looked at me.\n\n\"The face of a criminal,\" his eyes seemed to say as he studied the\nphoto.\n\n\"Isn't it like me?\" I asked in alarm.\n\n\"Quite a good likeness,\" he said brusquely, and passed me on to the\nnext pigeon-hole.\n\nAt last I landed in Flushing, and a kind guard found me a carriage.\nThere I began to learn the Dutch language.  \"Niet rooken.\"  Scots\n_reek_ means _smoke_: hurrah! \"do not smoke!\"\n\n\"Verbodden te spuwen.\"  \"It is forbidden to----\" no, that wouldn't be\nnice!  Got it!  \"Do not spit!\"\n\nAt this juncture a pretty Scheveningen lassie entered and greeted me.\nAlas!  I knew but five words of Dutch, and when I thought the matter\nover I concluded that they were not very appropriate for carrying on a\nmild flirtation.  Still, it's wonderful how much you can do with facial\nexpression.  Just before the train started a man entered.  He knew\nEnglish, and with more kindness than knowledge of humanity he offered\nto act as interpreter.  The ass! as if a fellow can tell a girl through\nan interpreter that her hair is just the shade he admires.  This fisher\nlassie was the only pretty girl I saw in Holland in ten days.\n\nRotterdam.  My first and abiding impression was that never before had I\nseen so many badly-dressed people.  If I had money and a profiteering\ncomplex I should set up a Bond Street shop in the centre of Rotterdam.\nNo, that's wrong; that wasn't my first impression at all: my first\nimpression was of a window filled with cigars at six cents each--one\nand a fifth pence.  From that moment I loved Holland and the Dutch.\nWhat did it matter if their clothes were badly cut?  What did anything\nmatter?  I dived into that shop and bought twenty . . . and ten yards\nfarther on discovered a shop with fatter and longer cigars at five\ncents each.  Three days later in the Hague I walked round the cigar\nshops for two hours, dying for a smoke, but not daring to buy a cigar\nat five cents lest in the next street I should find a shop offering\nthem at four cents.\n\nIt was in Rotterdam that I discovered how bad my manners were.  I was\nsitting in a cafe when a gentleman entered.  He swept off his hat and\nbowed graciously . . . and I hastily put a protecting hand on the\npocket containing my pocket-book.  But every man who entered greeted me\nin the same way, and I realised that I was in a polite country.  By the\nend of the week I was beating the Dutch at their own game, for I swept\noff my hat to every policeman, shopkeeper, tramwayman I spoke to.\n\nOn a Monday morning I walked forth to inspect the Dutch schools.  I saw\na troop of little girls following a mistress, and I joined the\nprocession.  They turned into a playground, and I followed.  I\napproached the lady.\n\n\"Do you speak English?\"\n\n\"Engelish!  Ja!\" she said with a smile.\n\n\"I am an English--no, Scots teacher,\" I explained, \"and I should like\nto see the school.\"\n\n\"I will ask the head-mistress,\" she said, and entered the school, while\nI stood and admired the bonny white dresses of the girls.\n\nShe returned shaking her head.\n\n\"The head-mistress says that it is not allowed to visit a school in\nHolland without a permit from the Mansion House.\"\n\n\"A rotten country!\" I growled, and went away.\n\nIn the street I ran into a group of boys led by a master who was\nsmoking a fat cigar.\n\n\"Speak English?\" I asked, lifting my hat gracefully.\n\n\"Nichtenrichtilbricht,\" he said; at least that's how it sounded.\n\n\"Thank you,\" I said, lifted my hat again, and fell in behind the boys.\nI was determined to see this thing through.\n\nI tackled him again when we reached the playground.\n\n\"I the head would see,\" I began, \"the ober-johnny, the chef.\"\n\n\"Ja!\" he exclaimed with an enlightened grin, and nodded.  In ten\nseconds the chief stood before me.  He could speak a broken English,\nand said he would be glad to show me round.  It was a third class\nschool, and I gathered that in Holland there are three grades of State\nschool; the first class is attended by the rich, the second by the\nmiddle class, and the third by the poor.\n\nThe school was very like a Board School in England.  The children sat\nin the familiar desks and were spoon-fed by the familiar teacher.\nThere was nothing new about it.  I noticed that hand writing seemed to\nbe the most important thing, and each class teacher proudly showed me\nexercise books filled with beautiful copper-plate writing.  Most\nobliging class teachers they were.  Would I like to hear some singing?\nIt was wonderful singing in three parts; what surprised me was that the\nboys seemed to be just as keen on singing as the girls.  I have always\nfound it otherwise in Scotland and England.\n\nIn this school I got the gratifying news that corporal punishment is\nnot allowed in Dutch schools, and later I learned that this applies to\nall reformatories also.\n\nI think the Dutch are fond of children.  Children seem to be\neverywhere.  I went to the police-station to register as an alien, and\nas the inspector was examining my passport this wee girl of three\ntoddled in and climbed on his knees.  He laid down his pen and fondled\nthe child.  Then his wife came in; she had been out shopping, and\nwanted him to admire the big potatoes she had bought.  I was delighted\nto see the human element mingle with the official.  A country that\nallows wives and children to mix up with its red-tape is on the right\nroad to health if not wealth.\n\nI went to the Hague next day, and English friends met me at the station\nand piloted me to their home.  Next morning I visited an establishment\ncalled the Observatiehuis, and found that the superintendent had spent\nsix years in England and had an English wife.  The observation house,\nhe explained, is a home for bad boys.  When convicted they are sent\nthere and are \"observed.\"  If a boy is well-behaved he is sent to live\nwith a family and learn a trade; if he is incorrigible he is sent to a\nreformatory.\n\nI looked in vain for the new psychological way of treating delinquents.\nThere was discipline here, but it was kindly discipline, for Mr. Engels\nis a kindly man; the boys sang as they swept the stairs.  That was\ngood, yet, it was Mr. Engels that brought freedom into the school; his\nsuccessor may be a bully.\n\nFrom Mr. Engels I got a letter of introduction to a real reformatory in\nAmersfoort, and off I set.  Amersfoort is inland and I expected to find\nmuch language difficulty there, for I thought it unlikely that English\nwould be spoken so far inland.\n\nAmersfoort is a beautiful old town, and I at once set out to find the\nCoppleport mentioned in my guide-book.  I suppose I looked a lost soul.\nA youth of eighteen jumped off his cycle and lifted his cap.  Then he\npointed to a badge he wore in his coat.\n\n\"Boy scout!\" he said.\n\n\"Excellent!\" I cried, \"you speak English?\"\n\nHe held out his hand.\n\n\"Good bye!\" he said; \"pleased you to meet!\"\n\n\"How do you do?\" I said.\n\nHe grinned.\n\n\"God damn!\" he said sweetly.\n\nAfter that conversation seemed to die down.  I managed to convey to him\nthat I was looking for the Coppleport, and he led me to it.  Gradually\nhis English improved, and he told me of his brother in England.  A nice\nlad.  I told him that I had once had a long conversation with the great\nB.P., but he looked blank.\n\n\"Baden Powell, your chief,\" I explained.\n\nHe shook his head; he had never heard of B.P.  I think now that what\nwas wrong was that he did not understand the name as I pronounced it;\npossibly he knows B.P. under the sound of Bahah Povell or something\nsimilar.\n\nOn the following morning I went to the reformatory.  It was a beautiful\nbuilding fitted with every appliance necessary . . . and one not\nnecessary--a solitary confinement room.  A young teacher, Mr. Conijn, a\nvery decent chap, who could speak excellent English, showed me round.\nEvery door we came to had to be opened with a key and locked behind us.\nHere there was more of military discipline than in the Observatiehuis,\nbut none of the boys looked sulky or unhappy.  The relations of the\nboys and the teachers were fine; as Conijn passed a lad he would pull\nhis hair or pass a funny remark, and the boy would grin and reply.\n\n\"Any self-government?\" I asked.\n\n\"We tried it but it was no good.  It may work with English boys but not\nwith Dutch,\" said Mr. Conijn.\n\n\"Did you have locked doors?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, yes.\"\n\n\"Then self-government hadn't the ghost of a chance to succeed,\" I\nremarked.\n\nWe entered a class where an old man of about eighty was teaching a\ngroup.\n\n\"Why do these lads keep their eyes on the ground?\" I asked.  \"Is their\nspirit crushed out of them?\"\n\nConijn laughed.\n\n\"They are admiring your boots!\" he cried.\n\nI wore a pair of ski-ing boots on my trip, and all Holland stared\nopen-mouthed at them.  If I had been wanted for a murder I don't think\nanyone in Holland could have identified me, for their eyes never got\nabove my boots.\n\nOne of the masters, Mr. van Something-or-other, very trustingly lent me\nhis bike, and on the following day I cycled to Laren to see the\nHumanitarian School there.  Nearly every road has a cycle path on one\nside and a riding path on the other, but in spite of the excellent\nroads I did not enjoy cycling in Holland; a free wheel was of little\nvalue on the flat surface.  One delightful feature about cycling in\nHolland is that there are no mid-day closing times for pubs, but on the\nother hand you cannot raise much of a thirst in a flat country.\n\nWell, I reached Laren after many narrow escapes, for I was continually\nforgetting that you keep to the right in Holland.  A postman came\nalong, and I jumped off.\n\n\"Humanitaire School?\" I asked as I doffed my hat.\n\nBy his expression I judged that he did not know the institution under\nthat name.\n\n\"School,\" I said, and he nodded and pointed to the village State school.\n\n\"Nay!  School Humanitaire!\" I persisted.\n\nAt this juncture another man came forward, and the two of them jawed\naway gutturally for some time.  I began to grow weary.\n\n\"Hell!\" I murmured to myself half aloud.\n\nThe postman brightened, and enlightenment came to him.\n\n\"Engelissman!\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"Liar!\" I cried, \"I'm a Scot,\" and I left the two of them discussing\nEngelissmen.\n\nAfter much trouble and many bitter words I found the school.  A\ngentleman who looked extremely like Bernard Shaw before Shaw's hair\nturned grey, was digging in a garden with a lot of boys and girls.  He\nwas Mr. Elbrink, the head-master.  He could speak English and he showed\nme round.\n\nThe school is rather like what is known as the crank school in England.\nIn a manner it is the super-crank school, for everyone on the staff is\nteetotal, vegetarian, and a non-smoker.  Here it was that I heard of\nLightheart for the first time, and I blushed for my ignorance of the\ngentleman.  It appears that he was a great educational reformer, a sort\nof Froebel I fancied, for handwork seemed to be the main consideration\nin the school.  But I regret to say that the school did not impress me\nmuch.  Too many children were doing the same sort of work; they sat in\ndesks and held themselves more or less rigid.  Here was benevolent\nauthority again, not true freedom.  All schools in Holland are State\nschools, and the Humanitarian School is one of them.  It is almost\nimpossible for a State school to be very much advanced; I think it is\nimpossible, for the State is the national crowd, and a large crowd has\nlittle use for the crank.\n\nI returned to Amersfoort, where by this time I had become the guest of\nthe International School of Philosophy.  This is a building standing in\nabout twenty acres of ground amid the pine forests two miles south of\nthe town.  I was the sole guest, for the summer classes had not\nstarted.  This school is the beginning of a great movement.  Here\nstudents from every country will meet and discuss life and education.\nMr. Reiman, the president, talked long and earnestly to me about the\nscheme, but I found myself challenging his insistence on spiritual\neducation.\n\nThe aim of the school is to develop the spiritual side of man, an\nexcellent aim . . . so long as man does not imagine that by living on\nthe higher plane he is annihilating his earthly self.  Everyone there\nwas very, very kind to me, but I did not feel quite in my element, for\nI am not an obviously spiritual person.  I find that I can discuss the\nhigher life best when I have a glass of Pilsener at my elbow and a\npenny cigar in my mouth.  It is clear that I have a complex about the\nhigher life, and it may be a sour-grapes complex.  All the same I\nshould like to attend a summer course at Amersfoort and listen to the\nwise men dilate on the Bhagavadgita, Psycho-analysis and Religion,\nPlato, Sufism, and other subjects on the programme; anyway I would have\nno prepossessions and prejudices in listening to Dr. G. R. S. Meads'\ncourse of lectures on The Mystical Philosophy and Gnosis of the\nTrismegistic Tractates.\n\nFrom Amersfoort I went to Amsterdam.\n\n\"Umsterdum, dree klasse, returig,\" I said to the ticket office girl.\n\n\"Third class return?\" she asked with a smile and gave me the ticket.\n\nI was indignant.\n\nIt is the most humiliating thing in the world to ask a question in\nDutch and to be answered in English.  In Rotterdam I had stopped a\nseafaring looking man and tried to ask him in Dutch what was the way to\nthe Hotel de France.  He listened patiently while I struggled with the\nlanguage; then he spat on my boot.\n\n\"Hotel de France?\" he replied in broad Cockney, \"damned if I know.\"\n\nOn the way to Amsterdam I got into a carriage full of farmers and one\nof them made a remark to me.  I shook my head.\n\n\"Engelissman?\" he said.\n\nI nodded.\n\nThen those men began to talk about Engelissmen, and they talked and\nlaughed all the way to Amsterdam.  Every now and then one of them would\njerk his thumb in my direction.  It was a trying journey.\n\nArrived in Amsterdam I made for the Rijks Museum.  At the door a\nseedy-looking man touched me on the arm.\n\n\"Guide, sir?\"\n\n\"No thank you.\"\n\n\"Two hundred rooms, sir!  Official guide.\"\n\n\"No thank you.\"\n\nHe kept pace with me, and in a weak moment I inquired his charge.  It\nwas three guilden (five shillings), and I saw at once that the dirty\ndog had won, for he took on an air of possession.\n\n\"Righto,\" I said resignedly, and he led me into the building.\n\nHe began his tiresome patter.\n\n\"Thees picture was painted in 1547; beautiful ees eet not?  Wonderful\narteest!\"\n\nI sighed.\n\n\"Take me to the Rembrandts,\" I said.\n\nI cannot describe this incident.  I hated the beast because I had been\nso weak as to accept his services.  The beauty of Rembrandt and Franz\nHals was lost on me; all I could see was the dirty face of that guide.\nRembrandt's _Night Watch_ made me forget the creature for a moment, but\nwhen he began to describe it I fled in horror.  We finished up in the\nmodern section, and as I looked at van Gogh and Cezanne and Whistler's\n_Effie Deans_ his squeaky voice kept up a running commentary.  I rushed\nfrom the building after a ten minutes' tour, paid the worm his three\nguilden . . . and then went back and enjoyed the gallery.  But I nearly\ncommitted murder in the Rijks Museum that day.  If ever I am hanged it\nwill be for murdering an official guide.  This particular specimen\nspoiled my visit to Amsterdam.  I could not get away from the thought\nof my weakness, and I fled the city.\n\nIn the train going back to Amersfoort a genial Dutchman made a remark\nto me.  I resolved that I should pretend to be a fellow-countryman.\n\n\"Ja!\" I said, and the answer seemed to satisfy him.  He went on to say\nother things, and when his facial expression seemed to demand an\naffirmative I said \"Ja!\"\n\nAfter a time he frowned as he said a sentence.\n\n\"Nay!\" said I.\n\nThat did it.  He became white with anger, and swore at me all the way\nto Amersfoort.  He had a fine command of language, too, and I was\nextremely sorry that I could not understand it.\n\nOn the Saturday I set off on my return journey to Rotterdam, doing a\ntour in American fashion of Leiden on the way.  It was like going home,\nfor I liked Rotterdam.  I think it was the gay paint on the barges that\nattracted me so much.\n\nOn the Sunday morning the Austrian kiddies arrived, and my sight-seeing\nended.\n\n\n\n\nXII.\n\nThe Austrian kiddies arrived at the Maas station on Sunday morning, and\nthe Dutch folk gave them a kindly welcome.  The Rotterdam committee was\nin charge, and I stood back because it was not my job.  The kiddies\ncame tumbling out of the train with great relief, for they had\ntravelled for two nights.  All had heavy rucksacks, many of them the\npacks of their dead fathers and brothers.\n\nMy eye lit on little Hansi.  She stood on the platform crying, and I\nwent forward to comfort her.  Alas!  I knew less German than I did\nDutch, and I knew not what she said; but one of the Austrian escort\ntold me that she had been homesick all the way.  There is, however, a\nuniversal language that all children understand, and I took wee Hansi\nin my arms and cuddled her.  The flow of tears stopped and she took\nfrom a small basket slung to her neck a tiny naked doll.  I included\nPuppe in the cuddle, and Hansi smiled.  A dear wee mite she was, very\nvery thin, with great big eyes that were sunken.  Her tears did not\naffect me, but when she smiled I found myself weeping, and I had to\nblow my nose hard.\n\nThe four hundred and fifty-eight children were bundled across the road\nto a ship, which took them in two parts across the Maas to the large\nbuilding used by the Cunard Line for emigrants.  Many of them thought\nthey were on the way to England, and ten minutes later I found a wee\nchap gazing round in wonder on the land of England.\n\n\"This aint England, anywye,\" he said at last in evident disgust; \"look\nat them clogs!  This is Holland.\"\n\nThe boy was a Londoner resident in Vienna.  There were about a dozen\nEnglish children in the party.  Later I found one standing in front of\na group of Austrian boys.\n\n\"Any one o' you,\" he was shouting, \"I'll box the whole gang o' you!\"\n\nThis Cockney, his little brother, and their sister were the thorn in\nthe flesh of the escort.\n\n\"Absolute terrors,\" declared everyone, but I liked them.\n\nMany of the children were middle class, children of doctors, lawyers,\narchitects, and so on; nice kiddies they were.  The bigger girls could\nspeak English, and I used them as interpreters.\n\nOn the Monday morning the English escort took charge.  The first task\nwas medical inspection, and the two English doctors and four or five\nDutch doctors prepared for action.  Our job was to marshal the kiddies,\nhelp them to take their shirts off, and then bundle them into the\ninspection room.  It sounds easy, but it was a weary business.  You\nlooked down the list for No. 258, and you found a name.\n\n\"Mitzi Dvoracek!\" you called, and wondered whether a boy or a girl\nwould appear.  There was no answer . . . and an hour later you found a\nlittle girl who had lost her identity card, and you concluded that she\nwas Dvoracek, but she wasn't; her name was Leopoldine Czsthmkyghw, or\nsomething resembling that.\n\nI was greatly troubled by their questions.  Following a method I had\nused with indifferent effect while conversing with garrulous Dutchmen\nin railway carriages, I answered \"Ja\" and \"Nay\" alternately.  Many of\nthe children stared at me in wonder and I marvelled . . . until I\ndiscovered that most of them had been asking me the way to the\nlavatory.  After that I just pointed to a door in the wall when a boy\nasked me a question, and when one lad didn't seem to understand, I took\nhim by the back of the neck and shoved him through the door.  Then I\nfound that he had been asking the time.\n\nI gave up replying to questions after that.\n\nThe children had all been examined, and one lad stood alone; he had no\ncard and no one could place him.  Then he confessed that he was a\nstowaway who had been too old to join the batch, and had boarded the\ntrain quietly at Vienna.  Mrs. Ensor, the secretary of the Famine Area\nCommittee, proved herself a sport by declaring that she would take him\nto England.  The good Dutch folk also rose to the occasion, and went\nout and bought him a pair of short trousers.\n\nIn the afternoon I sat down beside a few boys.  And then I did a fatal\nthing.  A boy dropped his pencil and I picked it up, threw it over the\nhouse . . . and then produced it from another lad's pocket.  That did\nit.  In two seconds I had a hundred children round me roaring at me.\nAn Austrian lady explained that they were calling me a magician and\nasking for more.  I blushingly told her to explain to them that it was\nmy only trick.  Sighs of disgust followed, and I was on the point of\nlosing my popularity when I hastily got the lady to explain to them\nthat I had a better talent . . .  I could make anyone laugh merely by\nlooking at him.  Fifty of them at once challenged me to begin, and I\nhad a great time.  One lad beat me, but then he had toothache, a\nblistered heel, and was homesick.\n\nAfter a time I asked them to sing to me, and they sang sweet folk songs\nof their home.  They were delightful singers, and the boys sang as\neagerly and as well as the girls.  In England boys usually hate\nsinging.  I marvelled at their all knowing the same songs, and one of\nthe girls explained to me that in Austria every school has the same\nsongs; more than that, every school has the same class-books, and if\ntwo children living a hundred miles apart meet on the street they can\nsay to each other: \"I'm at page 67 of my Geography.  What page are you\nat?\"\n\nThey demanded a song from me, and I sang _Now is the Month of Maying_,\nand, by special request, _Tipperary_.  Then I asked them to sing their\nNational Anthem, and the lady began it, but the children did not follow\nher.  At my look of surprise the lady said: \"They cannot sing it\nbecause now they feel that they have no Austria left to sing about.\"\n\nA man's voice sounded from inside the building, and they rushed\nindoors, for it was the voice of their beloved Ministry of Health\ndoctor, who had brought them from Vienna, and they all loved him.  They\nforgot me at once and left me . . . all but one.  Little Hansi put her\nwee hand in mine and snuggled closer . . . and that's why I love her so\nvery much.\n\nOn Tuesday morning they all took up their packs, and we set off for\nEngland via the Maas boat and station.  We packed into carriages and\nset off.  There was no water on the train, but we laughed and said:\n\"We'll be in Flushing in two hours!  We are a special!\"  We were.  We\nleft the Maas station at one o'clock, and we travelled until three.\nThen we drew up . . . and found we were back at the Maas station.\nWhere we had been I don't know, but it was the biggest mystery of my\nlife.  Well, we crawled along past picturesque villages where women\nwith white caps and red arms smiled on us and gave us water to drink.\nAnd at eight o'clock we reached Flushing all very weary and extremely\ndirty.  The kiddies had a good meal set out on white tablecloths, and\nthe doctor and I had the best Pilsener of our lives.  We handed over\nthe kiddies to the ship stewards and the fresh escort from England, and\nretired to rest.\n\nI awoke at six and found that all the children were on deck, and the\nbad English boy almost in the water, for his heels were off the ground\nand his head far down towards the water.  He was looking for fish, he\nsaid.  None of the children had seen the sea before, but I think they\nwere too tired to be excited about it.  They did become excited when\nthey saw the cliffs of Dover.\n\nMuch to my annoyance a gentleman had been teaching them _God Save the\nKing_ on the way over.  I was annoyed because I knew it was a piece of\njingoism meant for the journalists at Folkestone.  When we drew up at\nthe pier, sure enough the gentleman struck up the tune, and the kiddies\nsang it.  But the girls who could speak English sang _God Save YOUR\nGracious King_.  I thought it a beautiful touch; the finest piece of\ngood taste I have ever come across.\n\nI didn't like the well-dressed ladies who came bossing around at\nFolkestone.  Frankly I was jealous.  As I was leading the children off\nthe steamer, one of them touched me on the arm and asked me to make way\nfor the children.  And I smiled to see that the women in rich dresses\nmanaged somehow to get in front of the camera.\n\nWe took the children to Sandwich by rail and then to a camp by motor\nlorry.  It was a tiresome job loading and unloading the lorry, but\nafter six trips I found that every child was in camp.  I went off to\nhave a wash and some tea, and then, glowing with self-satisfaction at\nall I had done, I lit a cigar and walked outside.  A gentleman passed\nme.\n\n\"Are you a worker?\" he demanded.\n\n\"I--er--I suppose I am--in a way,\" I said modestly.\n\n\"Well, don't you think you might find something to do?\" he asked.\n\"There's plenty to do, you know.\"\n\nThen for the first time in my life I understood the old Mons Ribbon men\nwho used to annihilate the recruit with the terse phrase: \"Afore you\ncame up!\"\n\nThe pressmen passed by, a dozen of them with the stowaway in their\nmidst.  Presently they posed him and a dozen cameras snapped while a\ncinema burred.  And next day the papers told a romantic story; the\nstowaway had crept into the train at Vienna, and, foodless, had hid\nuntil he arrived in Rotterdam.  Then darkly he had crept on board the\nship and had been discovered at Folkestone.  Also when next day I saw\nin the pictorial papers a photograph of a boy violinist playing to his\nchums, I was not very much surprised to find the title of the photo\nwas: _The Stowaway Entertains His Companions_.  As a matter of fact,\nthe fiddler wasn't the stowaway at all, but this incident makes me\nthink hard about history.  If a Fleet Street reporter changes one boy\ninto another, why, we may be all wrong in our history.  Henry VIII. may\nonly have had one wife, and the reporter who interviewed him may have\nhad so much sack to drink that his vision along with the journalistic\ntouch may have manufactured the other five.  The tale of King Harold\nbeing shot through the eye at the Battle of Hastings may have arisen\nfrom a reporter's using the figurative expression that William the\nConqueror \"put his eye out.\"  Nor, after reading the account of the\nlanding of the Austrian children, can I believe the tale of the\nminstrel Taillifer who sprang into the water to lead the Normans in\nlanding.  And as for the time-honoured phrases, \"Take away that\nbauble!\" and \"England expects every man to do his duty,\" I don't\nbelieve they were ever uttered--not now.\n\nI am not singling out journalists as special misreporters.  Not one of\nus can report an incident truly.  There is a good example of this truth\nin Swift's _Psychology and Everyday Life_, just published.  Swift\nprepared a stunt as a test for his adult class.  In the midst of a\nserious lecture two men and two women students created a disturbance\noutside in the lobby, then they burst into the room.  One held a banana\npistol-wise at another's head.  Swift dropped a toy bomb, and one of\nthe students staggered back crying: \"I'm shot!\"\n\nOne student dropped a parcel containing a brick, and all yelled and\nmade much noise.  The class was seriously alarmed until they were\nassured that the whole affair was a put-up job.  Each student was asked\nto write an account of what had happened, and the result of their\nattempts is so astounding that the reader becomes uncertain whether any\nwitness in a law-court ever tells the truth.  Few, if any, students\ncould identify one of the wranglers; every account said that the banana\nwas a real pistol; only one or two saw the brick drop.  The strangest\nthing was that many were quite sure of the identity of the actors . . .\nand one or two of the accounts named students who had long since left\nthe college.  I write from memory, but the facts were as arresting as\nthe ones I have given.\n\nThis makes one uneasy about the methods the police adopt to identify a\nprisoner.  If I saw a man shoot another in Piccadilly, it is a thousand\nto one chance that I should not be able to identify him later.  Yet\nmany a man has been hanged on identification.\n\nBut I meant to finish my account of the Austrian kiddies.  The time\ncame when I had to leave them and return to London.  I set out to find\nmy Hansi to say good-bye to her.  I saw her in the distance . . . and\nthen I ran away, for I hate saying good-bye.\n\nI liked those kiddies, dear wee souls, just as sweet as any English\nkiddies, but then children have no nationality; they are lovable for\nthey all belong to the Never Never Land.  Barrie proved himself a\ngenius when he created Peter Pan, for Peter symbolises man's highest\nwish--to become a little child and never grow up.  \"Genius,\" he says,\n\"is the power of being a boy again at will.\"  It is true in his case.\nYet this kind of genius is retrospective; it is a regression.  The\ngenius who will help man to look forward instead of backward must not\nreturn to boyhood; he must go forward to superman.  To put it\npsychologically, Barrie's genius comes from the unconscious, but what\nthe world needs is a man whose genius will come from the\nsuperconscious, the divine.\n\n\n\n\nXIII.\n\nI have just been reading Jack London's _Michael, Brother of Jerry_, and\nI am full of righteous rage.  What a picture!  It is the story of how\nperforming animals are trained, and before I had read half the book I\nmade a vow that never again will I sit through a performance of animals.\n\nThe tale of Ben Bolt the tiger, if known by the masses, would kill\nevery animal turn on the stage.  Ben Bolt, fresh from the jungle, is\nbroken by the trainers.  The method is unspeakable; he is lashed with\niron bars and stabbed with forks until in agony he falls senseless in\nthe arena.  This treatment goes on for weeks . . . and in the end many\ngood, kindly people see Ben Bolt, a miserable, broken animal, sit up in\na chair like a human.  And they laugh.  My God!\n\nThen there is Barney the good-natured mule that was once a family pet.\nLater he becomes the celebrated bucking mule, and a prize is offered to\nanyone who will keep on his back for one minute.  Audiences go into\nfits of laughter at his antics.  But the audiences do not know that\nBarney was trained with a spiked saddle, and that for months life was\none long agony of pain.\n\nIs my anger due to the cruelty I am repressing in myself?  I don't care\nwhether it is sadism or the spark of the divine in me.  All I care\nabout is that this inferno of pain must cease.\n\nNever has any book affected me as this one has done.  By word of mouth\nand by my pen I shall try my hardest to send dear old Jack London's\nmessage round the world.  Public opinion is the only thing that can\nstop the misery of these broken creatures, and I suggest that the\nanti-vivisectionists turn their energies to this infinitely worse evil.\nThe vivisectionists, at any rate, are working for humanity, but the\nbrutes who break performing animals are merely amusing crowds of good\npeople who know nothing about what goes on behind the scenes.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nI see in the newspaper that Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks held up\nthe traffic in Piccadilly.  They appeared on a balcony at the Ritz, and\nthe crowd went frantic.  The super-hero and the super-heroine of the\ncinema drew the crowd's emotion to them, and Tagore the Indian poet\narrived in town at the same time unnoticed.  It would seem that the\ncrowd responds to the presence of the unimportant person only.  London\nwent mad over Hawker and Jack Johnson, and Georges Carpentier; and if\nCharlie Chaplin were to come over, I fancy London would take a general\nholiday.\n\nNo one will contend that these people are of supreme importance in the\nscheme of life.  Charlie is a funny little man; Douglas Fairbanks is a\nfine lump of a fellow; Mary Pickford is a sweet little woman.  But\nTagore will live longer; Thomas Hardy, Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell,\nSigmund Freud are of greater moment to humanity, yet each could walk\nout of Paddington Station and be unrecognised by the crowd.\n\nThe morning paper shows well that the crowd is interested only in\nunessentials.  \"Punish the profiteers!\" was the press cry a few months\nago.  Well, they punished the profiteers . . . and prices continued to\nrise.  A few years ago the cry was: \"Flog the white slave traffickers!\"\nThey flogged them, and yet I still see thousands of white slaves in the\nWest End of London.  And while Europe is sinking into anarchy and\nbankruptcy to-day, the only remedies the crowd representatives--the\npress--can think of are remedies of the Hang-the-Kaiser type.  I\nbelieve that the crowd still thinks that juvenile crime is mainly\ncaused by cinema five-part dramas.\n\nThe crowd is rather like the individual unconscious; it is primitive,\nand like the unconscious it can only wish.  The crowd that welcomed\nMary and Douglas was closely akin to the personal unconscious.  Douglas\nstands to each individual in the crowd as the eternal hero, the man who\nalways wins.  Each man in the crowd sees in Douglas his own ideal self,\nso that when the office boy cheers Douglas he is cheering himself.\nMary has been well named \"the world's sweet-heart\"; she is the ideal\nheroine, beautiful, wronged, protected by six foot of masculinity.\nBoth come from the world of make-believe, the world of phantasy.  Their\narrival in England simply made a dream come true.\n\nNow I am certain that if any individual in the great Piccadilly crowd\nhad met Douglas and Mary on the boat, he or she would have looked at\nthem with interest, but there would have been no cheering and throwing\nof roses.  What the crowd does is to raise an emotion to a superlative\ndegree.  In a full hall you will laugh at a joke that would not bring a\nsmile to your face in a room.  You become absorbed in your crowd, and\nyou are fully open to your crowd's suggestion.  I generally laugh at\nCharlie Chaplin, but one night a cinema manager, a friend of mine, gave\nme a private view of Charlie's latest production.  I sat alone in the\nlarge cinema palace . . . and I couldn't even smile.  Had a crowd been\nthere to share my laugh, I should have roared.\n\nThe Douglas-Mary episode makes me pessimistic about the future of\ndemocracy.  For democracy is crowd rule, and the crowd is a baby when\nit isn't a savage.  Yet we have no real democracy in this country.  We\nhave a slave state, the exploiters and the exploited, the \"haves\" and\nthe \"have nots.\"  Douglas and Mary came over, and the poor\nbeauty-starved populace forgot for the moment its poverty, and showered\nall its pent-up emotion on the people from picture-book land.\n\nIn Elizabethan times the world was a place of wonder; every mariner was\ncoming home with wondrous tales of Spanish gold and men with necks like\nbulls.  All you had to do to find a reality that was more wonderful\nthan fancy was to sail away across the sea.  But to-day the world holds\nno mystery; there are no pirates to overcome, no prisoned maidens to\nrescue.  Reality means toil and taxes and trouble.  But there is a land\nwhere men are dew-lapped like bulls . . . the land of phantasy.  There\nis a society where the villain always gets his deserts . . . the land\nof film pictures.  And when your hero and heroine walk out of the\npicture and become real flesh and blood, what are you to do?  After\nall, you cannot pour all your emotion into your looms and office-desks\nand counters.  Sweet-faced Mary does not know it, but she is one of the\nbest allies that our capitalist system could have; for if the crowd\nwere not showering its emotion on her it might well be using it up in\nthe smashing of all the ugly things in our civilisation.\n\n     *     *     *     *     *\n\nI have been thinking of the crowd in another aspect.  Last year in a\nmerry mood I sat down to write a novel.  I meant it to be a comedy,\nbut, having no control over the characters, I found that they insisted\nin making the story a farce.  The result was _The Booming of Bunkie_.\nI thought it a very funny book, and I laughed at some of my own jokes\nand murmured, \"Good!\"  I impatiently awaited the book's appearance, and\nwhen the day of publication came I sat down hopefully to await the\npress notices.  The first one to come in was lukewarm.\n\n\"Why do papers send a funny book to an old fossil of a reviewer with no\nsense of humour?\" I said, testily and waited for the next post.  Well,\nit came; it brought three adverse notices and a letter.\n\n\"Dear Dominie, I admired your _Log_, but why, oh why, did you\nperpetrate such a monstrosity as _The Booming of Bunkie_?\"\n\nThen a friend wrote me a letter.\n\n\"Dear old chap,--You are suffering from the effects of the war.  If the\nwar has induced you to write _Bunkie_, I am all for hanging the Kaiser.\"\n\nFor weeks I clung to the belief that the crowd had no sense of\nhumour . . . then I re-read my novel.  I still hold that it is funny in\nparts, but I see what is wrong.  It is a specialised type of humour, or\nrather wit, the type that undergraduates might appreciate.  In fact I\nwas recently gratified to hear that the students of a Scots university\nwere rhapsodising about it.  The real fault of the book is that it is\nclever, and to be clever is to be at once suspect.\n\nI naturally like to think that the circulation of a book is generally\nin inverse proportion to its intrinsic merit.  J. D. Beresford's novels\nare, to me, much better than those of the late Charles Garvice, yet I\nmake a guess that Garvice's circulation was many times greater than\nBeresford's.  Still I cannot argue that the reverse is true--that\nbecause a book does not go into its second edition it is necessarily\ngood.  I find that the problem of circulations is a difficult one.  I\ncannot, for instance, understand why _The Young Visitors_ sold in\nthousands; I failed to raise a smile at it.  Again, there is my friend\nalthough publisher, Herbert Jenkins.  I didn't think _Bindle_ funny,\nyet it has been translated into umpteen European languages.  Jenkins\nhimself does not think it funny, and that, possibly, is why he is my\nfriend.\n\nThe most surprising success to me was Ian Hay's _The First Hundred\nThousand_.  I read Pat MacGill's _Red Horizon_ about the same time, and\nthought Hay was stilted and superior with a public-school man's\npatronising Punch-like attitude to the working-class recruits.  I\nthought that he didn't know what he was writing about, that he had not\nreached the souls of the men.  MacGill, on the other hand, gave me the\nimpression of a warm, passionate, intense knowledge of men; he wrote as\none who lived with ordinary men and knew them through and through.  Yet\nI fancy that _The Red Horizon_, popular as it was, did not have the\nsales of _The First Hundred Thousand_.\n\nI was lunching with Professor John Adams one day in London.  We got on\nto the subject of circulations, and he said that he had just been\nasking the biggest bookseller in London what novel sold best.\n\n\"Have a guess,\" said the Professor to me.\n\n\"_David Copperfield_,\" I said promptly.\n\nHe laughed.\n\n\"Not bad!\" he said, \"you've got the author right, but the book is _A\nTale of Two Cities_.\"\n\nHe then asked me to guess what two authors sold best among the troops\nat the front during the war.\n\n\"Charles Garvice and Nat Gould,\" I said, and the Professor thought me a\nwonderful fellow, for I had guessed aright.\n\nThere is a whiskered Ford story which tells that Mr. Ford took a new\ncar from his factory and invited a visitor to have a spin.  They\nstarted off, and went seven miles out.  Then the car stopped.  Ford\njumped out and lifted the bonnet.\n\n\"Good Lord!\" he cried, \"the engine hasn't been put in!  The car must\nhave run seven miles on its reputation!\"\n\nI think that books run many miles on reputation alone.  Like a snowball\nthe farther a circulation rolls the more it gathers to itself.  But\nwhat is it that makes a book popular?  The best press notices in the\nworld will not send the circulation of a book up to a hundred thousand\nlevel.  What sells a book is talk.  Scores of people said to me: \"Oh,\n_have_ you read _The Young Visitors_?\"  I hasten to add, as a Scot,\nthat I personally did not help to increase the circulation; I borrowed\nthe book from an enthusiast.  Talk sells a book, but we have to\ndiscover why people talk about _The Young Visitors_ and not\nabout--er--_The Booming of Bunkie_.  The book that is to sell well must\nbe able to touch a chord in the crowd heart, and _The Young Visitors_\nsold because it touched the infantile chord in the crowd heart; it\nbrought back the happiest days of life, the schooldays: again, its\nnaive Malapropisms appealed to the crowd, because we are all glad to\nlaugh at the social and grammatical errors we have made and\nconveniently forgotten about.\n\n_Bunkie_ did not reach the hundred thousand level because it was too\nclever; it was a purely intellectual essay in wit rather than humour.\nAnd the crowd distrusts wit, and that is why the witty plays of Oscar\nWilde are seldom produced, while _Charley's Aunt_ goes on for ever.\n\nI am tempted to go on to a comparison of wit with humour, but I shall\nonly remark that wit is an intellectual thing, whereas humour is\nemotional.  Humour is elemental, but wit is cultural.  Without a\nlanguage you could have humour, but without language there could be no\nwit.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nI have just come across a small book entitled _Hints on School\nDiscipline_, by Ernest F. Row, B.Sc.\n\n\"Boys will only respect a master whom they fear,\" he says.  I have been\npreaching this doctrine for years . . . that respect always has fear\nbehind it . . . and it pleases me to find that an exponent of the old\nmethods should support my argument.\n\nWhen I began to read the book I was amazed.\n\n\"Good Lord!\" I cried, \"this chap should have published his book in the\nyear 1820.  He advocates a system that modern psychology has shown to\nbe fatal to the child.  It is army discipline applied to schools.\"\n\nI found it hard to finish the book, but I read every word of it and\nthen I said to myself: \"The majority is on the side of Row.  Eton,\nHarrow, many elementary teachers would agree with him.  He is evidently\nan honest sort of fellow, and he must be reckoned with.  I must try to\nsee his point of view.\"\n\nAnd I think I see it.  He accepts current education with its set\nsubjects, time-tables, order, morality, and he is trying to adapt the\nyoung teacher to what is established.  Hence to maintain all these\nthings, we must have stern discipline and swift punishment.  But I\nwonder if Row has thought of the other side of the question; I wonder\nif he has asked himself whether order and time-tables and obedience and\nrespect are really necessary.  I should like to meet him and have a\nchat; I think I should like him, and further, I think that I could\nconvert him to the other way . . . if he is under forty.\n\nAh!  Horrid thought!  Is it possible that Row is pulling our legs?  No,\nhe writes as an honest man.  Perhaps he knows all about the modern\nmovement; perhaps he has studied Montessori, Freud, Jung, Homer Lane,\nEdmond Holmes, and found that they are all pathetically wrong.  Mayhap\nhe has proved that the child _is_ a sinner.\n\n\"The young teacher should never address a boy by his Christian name or\nnickname,\" he says.\n\nOh, surely he _is_ pulling our legs!\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nAt intervals during the past few years I have been puzzled when people\ncongratulated me on my village school in Lancashire.  I had quite a\nnumber of misunderstandings on the subject.  Then one day I discovered\nthat there was a village schoolmaster in Lancashire called E. F.\nO'Neill.  I wrote him telling him that I was coming to see his school,\nand one July morning I alighted at one of the ugliest villages in the\nworld, and I walked past slag-heaps and all the horrors of\nindustrialism to a red building on the outskirts.  Three or four boys\nwere digging in the school garden.  I walked into the school, and two\nseconds after entering I said to myself: \"E. F. O'Neill, you are a\ngreat man!\"\n\nThere were no desks, and I could see no teacher.  Half-a-dozen children\nstood round a table weighing things and cutting things.\n\n\"What's this?\" I asked.\n\n\"The shop,\" said a girl, and after a little time I grasped the idea.\nYou have paste-board coins, and you come to the shop and buy a pound of\nbutter (plasticene), two pounds of sugar (sand), and a bottle of\nYorkshire Relish (a brown mixture unrecognisable to me).  You pay your\nsovereign and the shop-keeper gives you the change, remarks on the\nlikelihood of the weather's keeping up and turns to the next customer.\n\nI walked on and found a boy writing.\n\n\"Hullo, sonny, what are you on?\"\n\n\"My novel,\" he said, and showed me the beginning of chapter XII.\n\nA young man came forward, a slim youth with twinkling eyes.\n\n\"E. F. O'Neill?\"\n\n\"A. S. Neill?\"\n\nWe shook hands, and then he began to talk.  I wanted to tell him that\nhis school was a pure delight, but I couldn't get a word in edgeways.\nIf anything, he was over-explanatory, but I pardoned him, for I\nrealised that the poor man's life must be spent in explaining himself\nto unbelievers.  I disliked his tacit classing of me with the infidel,\nand I indignantly took the side of the infidel and asked him questions.\nThen he gave me of his best.\n\nHe is a great man.  I don't think he has any theoretical knowledge, and\nI believe that anyone could trip him up over Freud or Jung, Montessori\nor Froebel, Dewey or Homer Lane; but the man seems to know it all by\ninstinct or intuition.  To him creation is everything.  I was half\nafraid that he might have the typical crank's belief in imposing his\ntaste on the pupils, and I mentioned my doubt.\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"we have a gramophone with fox-trots, ragtimes,\nBeethoven and Melba, and the children nearly always choose the best\nrecords.\"\n\nLove of beauty is a real thing in this school.  The playground is full\nof bonny corners with flowers and bushes.  The school writing books are\nbound in artistic wallpaper by the children, and hand-made frames\nenclose reproductions of good pictures on the walls.\n\nI saw no corporate teaching, and I should have asked O'Neill if he had\nany.  If he hasn't I think he is wrong, for the other way--the\nlearn-by-doing individual way--starves the group spirit.  The\nclass-teaching system has many faults, and O'Neill seems to have\nabolished spoon-feeding, but the class has one merit--it is a crowd.\nEach child measures himself against the others, not necessarily in\ncompetition.  Perhaps it is the psychological effect of having an\naudience that I am trying to praise.  Yes, that is it: the\nindividual-work way is like a rehearsal of a play to empty seats; the\nclass-way is like a performance before a crowded house.  It is a\nprojection of one's ego outward.\n\n\"This method,\" said O'Neill, \"may be out-of-date in a month.\"\n\nI think highly of him for these words alone.  He has no fixed beliefs\nabout methods of study; he himself learns by doing, and to-morrow will\nbe cheerfully willing to scrap the method he is using to-day.  If the\nideal teacher is the man who is always learning, then O'Neill comes\npretty near that ideal.  I wish that every teacher in Britain could see\nhis school.\n\nThe big problem for the heretical teacher is the problem of order, or\nrather of disorder.  When a child is free from authority, he usually\nleaves his path untidy; he leaves his chisels on the bench or the\nground; he strews the floor with papers; he throws his books all over\nthe room.  Now O'Neill's school was not untidy, and I marvelled.\n\n\"Oh, the kiddies look after that,\" he explained.  \"They have voluntary\nworkers among themselves who do all that, and if a child does not do\nhis job, the others naturally complain: 'Why did you take it on if you\naren't going to do it properly?'\"\n\nBut somehow I am not convinced; I want to know more about this\nbusiness.  To find so highly developed a social sense in small children\nruns dead against all my experience.  I must write to O'Neill for\nfurther information.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nOn re-reading the pages of this book I feel like throwing it on the\nfire.  I find myself disagreeing with the statements I made a few weeks\nago.  When I began to write it I was a more or less complete Freudian,\nand in an airy fashion I explained away my actions.  Why should pale\nblue be my favourite colour?  I asked myself this when I painted my\ncycle blue, and I found a ready answer in a reminiscence . . . my first\nsweetheart wore a blue tam-o'-shanter.  This is called the \"nothing\nbut\" psychology.  Do I dream of a train?  Quite simple!  It is merely\n\"nothing but\" a sexual symbol!\n\nLife is too complex for a \"nothing but\" psychology.  Last night a girl\ntold me a sexual dream she had had, but when she gave her associations\nwe found that the deep meaning of the dream had nothing to do with sex.\nFreud says that about every dream is the mark of the beast, but then I\nthink he believes in original sin.\n\nI have been thinking a lot recently about the psychology of flogging.\nIt is generally stated that the flogger is a sexual pervert, a Sadist,\nand undoubtedly there are pathological cases where men find sexual\ngratification in inflicting or in watching the infliction of pain.  In\nthe pathological case the gratification is conscious, but I believe\nthat many respectable parents and teachers find an unconscious\ngratification.  It is absurd to say to a man like Macdonald: \"Your\npunishing is 'nothing but' Sadism.\"  Yet I think that a little test\nmight decide the matter.  If the accused flogger is shocked or\nindignant at the idea I should be inclined to think that the accusation\nwas a just one.\n\nIf I say to Simpson: \"Excuse my mentioning it, old man, but I don't\nthink you love your wife,\" he will laugh heartily, for he has been\nmarried for a month only, and is still very much in love.  His laugh\nshows that his love is real; my rude remark touches no chord in his\nunconscious.  But suppose I make a similar remark to Smith, who has\nbeen very much married for ten years!  He will hit me in the eye,\nthereby betraying the fact that my remark touched what his unconscious\nknows to be true.  His blow is physically directed to me, but\npsychically he is hitting to defend his conscious from his unconscious.\n\nHence if a flogger is angry when I accuse him of being a Sadist, I\nguess that he is a Sadist.\n\nI tried the experiment on Macdonald.  He shook his head sadly.\n\n\"Poor chap,\" he said feelingly, \"you're daft!\"\n\n\"Right!\" I said, \"you aren't a Sadist, anyway, Mac.  You must flog\nbecause it is your method of self-assertion.  As I've told you many\ntimes, you strap kids because wielding a strap is your childish way of\nshowing your power.\"\n\nThen Mac became angry, and when I hinted that my remarks must have hit\nthe bull's-eye . . . he laughed again.  He is a baffling study in\npsychology.\n\n\"You don't know much about it, old chap,\" he said genially.\n\n\"Hardly anything at all,\" I said with true modesty, \"only I know one\nthing about you, and that is that the fault always lies in yourself.\nWhen you flog Tom Murray, you are really chastising the Tom Murray in\nyourself . . . that is, the part that your wife knows so well--the part\nof you that leaves the new graip out in the rain all night, that rebels\nagainst the authority of the School Board and the inspectorate.  Tom is\nbeing crucified for your transgressions.\"\n\nBarrie, wizard as he is, failed to understand the full significance of\nShakespeare's line: \"The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but\nin ourselves.\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nThe opposite of the Sadist is the Masochist--the person who finds\nsexual gratification in being beaten or bullied.  When 'Arriet proudly\nboasts about the black eye that 'Arry gave her on Saturday night, she\nis being masochistic, and the woman who likes to be bullied by the\nstrong, silent man is likewise a masochist.  I do not say \"nothing but\"\na masochist, because she is also a Sadist, for Sadism and Masochism are\ncomplementary in the same person.\n\nIt is an understood fact that many people find joy in suffering, and I\ncan recollect feeling something akin to joy when the dentist, before\nthe days of the local anaesthetic, used to lay hold on my molars.\n\nHence I look back to the day when I whacked Peter Smith for cruelty to\na calf, and I acknowledge that I was wrong.  I recall explaining to him\nthat I wanted him to realise what suffering meant, but I was completely\nmistaken.  If Peter were a Sadist in his cruelty, my cruelty to him was\ngiving unconscious gratification to the Masochistic part of him.  If\nhis cruelty to the calf was due to his self-assertion again I did the\nwrong thing, for the fear evoked by my strap merely inhibited his\ndesire to assert himself in cudgelling calves.  I think now that there\nwas nothing to be done; his cruelty showed that his whole education had\nbeen wrong.  Had he been allowed to create all the way up from one week\nold he would have applied his interest to making rabbit-hutches instead\nof to beating calves.\n\nI remember a questioner at one of my lectures.  I had been trying to\nelaborate the release theory, and had said that a boy should be\nencouraged to make a noise so that he will release all his interest in\nnoise as power.\n\n\"If a boy liked torturing cats, would you encourage him on the theory\nthat suppression by an adult would cause the child to retain his\ninterest in torturing cats?\"\n\n\"Certainly not,\" I said, and the lady crowed.  I do dislike questioners\nat any time, but when they crow . . . .!  However, I tried to hide the\nmurder in my heart by smiling.\n\n\"What would you do?\" she asked sweetly.\n\n\"I don't know, madam,\" I said, \"but I can make a rapid guess . . .  I\nvery probably would use the toe of my boot on him, thereby showing that\nmy own interest in cruelty was still alive.  But five minutes later I\nshould try to discover what was at the back of the boy's mind.\"\n\nNot long ago I studied a small boy whose chief pleasure was in pulling\nbees' wings off.  I never mentioned bees to him, but I got him to talk\nabout himself.  He was suffering from a deep hatred of his teacher, and\nhe had a bad inferiority complex.  He feared to play games like\nfootball and hockey because of his sense of inferiority.  All that was\nwrong with him was that he was regressing.  Life was too difficult for\nhim, and he took refuge in his infantile past; his pulling off wings\nwas the destructiveness of the infant.  But the important thing to\nremember is that destructiveness is simply constructiveness gone wrong.\nThe child is born good, and all his instincts are to do good.  Bad\nbehaviour is the result of thwarted desire to do good.  This is shown\nin the case of Tommy on page 115.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nAt one time I was absolutely certain that the Great War was caused by\neconomic factors; British and German capital were competing, and the\nlosing party took up the sword.  I am not so certain now.  It may be\nthat the cataclysm was a natural ebullition of human nature, and as a\ncause the economic rivalry may have been just as insignificant as the\nmurder of the Archduke.\n\nDuring the last few decades education has been almost wholly\nintellectual and material; intellectual education gave us the don, and\nmaterial education gave us the cotton-spinner.  The emotional and the\nspiritual in mankind had no outlet.  In the unconscious of man there is\na God and a Devil, and intellectual activities afford no means of\nexpression to either.  And when any godlike or devilish libido can find\nno outlet it regresses to infantile primitive forms; thus, while the\nbrain of man was concerned with mathematics and logic, the heart of man\nwas seeking primitive things--cruelty, hate, and blood.\n\nIt may be then that the war was the direct result of the world's bad\nsystem of education.  No boy will destroy property if he is free to\ncreate property, and no nation will take to killing if it is free to be\ncreative.  Intellectual education allows no freedom for the creative\nimpulse; it not only starves the creative impulse but it drives it into\nrebellion.  An outlet is always a door to purification.  The old men\nwho sat at home hated the Hun because their libido was being bottled\nup, but the young men who were using up their libido in fighting talked\ncheerfully of \"Old Fritz.\"  The chained dog soon becomes savage, and\nthe chained libido reverts to savagery also.\n\nI have often said that the outrages of the German troops in Belgium\nbecame understandable to me when I studied a Scots school where\nsuppressive discipline turned good boys into demons.  The brutality of\nthe German army was a natural result of the brutality of their\ndiscipline.  So is it in the individual soul, and in the national soul.\nIntellectualism and materialism were the Prussian drill-sergeants who\nenslaved the emotional life of the citizen and of the nation.  War was\na means of releasing this pent-up emotion.\n\nThe ultimate cure for war is the releasing of the beast in the heart of\nmankind . . . not the releasing after chaining him up, but the\nreleasing of the beast from the beginning.  Personally I do not believe\nthat he is a wild beast until we make him one by chaining him; he is\nprimitive and animal and amoral, but I believe that by kind treatment\nwe can make him our ally in living a goodly life.  The Devil is merely\na chained God.\n\nThe problem for man and for mankind is to reconcile the God and the\nDevil in himself.  The saint represses the devil; the sinner represses\nthe god.  The atheist cries: \"There is no God!\" because he has\nrepressed the God in himself.  Then, again, many people project their\npersonal devil; the men who shouted \"Hang the Kaiser!\" were\nsubjectively crying \"Hang the Devil in me!\"\n\nWho and what is this devil we carry in our hearts?  We cannot tame him\nunless we can know him.  The Freudians would say that he is the\nprimitive unconscious, the tree-dweller in us.  But that explanation is\nnot enough for me.  The tiger has no devil in him, and why should our\nremote savage ancestors leave us a devil as legacy?  Yet the tiger is a\ndevil whenever man formulates a law against killing; the man-eater\nbecomes bad because he is a danger to man, and because the tiger is bad\nit is assumed that man is good.  The ox that is slaughtered for our\ndinners might well look upon man as its special objective devil.\n\nI have often argued that it is Authority that makes the beast in\nchildren a wild beast.  That is true, but it does not go down to first\ncauses.  Why do adults exercise authority?  To keep down the devil in\nthemselves, the beast that _their_ parents and teachers made wild by\nauthority.  Truly a vicious circle!  But the devil is the cause of\nauthority in the beginning.\n\nSince there is no devil in the tiger and the ox, the animalism of man\ncannot be his devil.  But man made his animalism a devil when he began\nto have ideals.  Then it was that he began to talk of crucifying the\nflesh; then it was that the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.\nThe devil in man is the negative of man's ego-ideal.  The ethical self\nsays that honesty is good, and dishonesty comes to be of the devil; it\nsays that love is good, and hate then becomes devilish.  No ego-ideal,\nno devil.  The ox has no ego-ideal; therefore it has no devil.  Man\ninvented the devil to account for his failures.\n\nThis brings me to the question: why should man want to have an\nego-ideal?  Why should he praise self-sacrifice, love, charity,\nhonesty, unselfishness, while he contemns hats, murder, cruelty,\nstealing, selfishness?  It might be argued that he praises those\nattributes that make for the good of the herd, but I cannot take this\nargument as final.  Rather am I inclined to look for the answer in what\nwe vaguely call the divine.  I think that there is a power . . . call\nit God or intuition or the superconscious or what-not . . . that draws\nman toward higher things.  This spark of the divine raises man above\nthe beast of the field, but yesterday he was the beast of the field,\nand like the _nouveau riche_, he scorns his humble origins.\n\nI am forced to conclude that wars will not cease until man realises\nthat his ego-ideal must be capable of being the working partner of his\nprimitive animalism.  When that time comes man will know that he is\nneither god nor devil, but . . . mere man.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nI am spending my days wandering round London suburbs looking for a\nschool.  Of an evening I sit and think about how I shall furnish it.\nThere will be no desks; instead there will be tables for writing and\ndrawing on, chairs of all descriptions--arm-chairs, deck-chairs,\nstraight backed chairs, stools.  The children will make the tables and\nstools, and we may make a combined effort to make and upholster an\narm-chair.\n\nThen we must have at least one typewriter, not for office use, but for\nthe children's use.  The children will use it to type their novels and\npoems, and I think they would be tempted to type out poems from Keats\nand Coleridge, binding their own anthologies in leather or coloured\npaper.\n\nThere will be no school readers and no school poetry books.  I hope\nthat with the aid of the typewriter each child will make his own\nselection of prose and poetry.\n\nThe wall decorations will be left to the children, and if they bring\nbad, sentimental prints from the Christmas numbers I shall say nothing\nwhen they hang them up.  But as an active member of the community, I\nshall bring reproductions of the work of Rembrandt, Velasquez, Angelo,\nAugustus John, Cezanne, Nevinson; I shall buy _Colour_ every month.\n\nSo with music.  I shall sing _Eliza Jane_ with them if they want to\nsing _Eliza Jane_, but I shall bring to their notice _To Music_\n(Schumann), Blake's _Jerusalem_, and the bonny old English songs like\n_Golden Slumbers, Now is the Month of Maying, Polly Oliver_.  Then a\ngramophone is a necessity, and all kinds of records will be\nnecessary--Beethoven, Stravinsky, Rimski-Korsikoff, Harry Lauder, Fox\nTrots, Sousa.  O'Neill told me that his Lancashire kiddies have tired\nof ragtime, and are now playing classical music only.  Personally, I\nhaven't reached that standard of taste yet; I still have Fox Trot\nmoods.  I also want a player-piano--an Angelus, if possible.\n\nNow for the library.  I shall leave the choice of periodicals to the\ncommunity, and I expect to find them select a list of this\nkind:--_Scout, Boy's Own Paper, Girl's Own Paper, Popular Mechanics, My\nMagazine, Punch, Chips, Comic Cuts, Tit-Bits, Answers, Strand, Sketch,\nSphere_.  It will be interesting to watch the career of _Chips_; I will\nnot be surprised if the community tires of _Chips_ in a month.\n\nOur book library will be stocked from the children's homes, I fancy.\nEach child will bring his or her favourite novel, and gladly hand it\nround.  I shall certainly hand on my own fiction library:--Conan Doyle,\nWells, Jack London, Rider Haggard, Cutcliffe Hyne, Guy Boothby, Barrie,\nO. Henry, Leacock, Jacobs, Leonard Merrick, Seton Merriman, Stanley\nWeyman, and a host of others.\n\nNo, this won't do!  How can I furnish before my self-governing school\ndecides what furniture it will have?  The children may demand desks and\ntime-tables, but I do not think it likely.  Anyhow, I am counting my\nchickens before they are hatched.\n\n\n\n\nXIV.\n\nI finish this book in the place where I began it, in Forfarshire, but\nnot in Tarbonny Village.  Hustling Herbert Jenkins sent me the galley\nproofs this morning with an urgent demand that I should return them at\nonce.  I do dislike publishers.  At first I took them at their own\nvaluation: I believed what they said.\n\n\"Machines waiting,\" Jenkins would wire.  \"Send MS. at once.\"\n\nAnd I, simple I, would sit up late correcting proofs.  I know better\nnow.  I know that Jenkins always divides time by 20.  His \"at once\"\nmeans that twenty days hence he will say to his Secretary: \"That new\nbook of Neill's . . . has it gone to the printer yet?\"  And his\nSecretary will 'phone down to the office secretary and say: \"You've got\nto send Neill's new book to the printer.\"  Then this lady will order\nthe office-boy to take the MS. to the printer . . . and I bet the\nlittle devil reads _Deadwood Dick on the Boomerang Prairie_ as he\ncrawls to the printer's office with my masterpiece under his arm.\n\nHence, understanding Jenkins, I tossed the proofs into a corner this\nmorning, and went out to continue the game of ring quoits that Nellie\nand I had to give up as darkness fell last night.  Nellie is a Dundee\nlassie of thirteen and she is spending her holidays with her auntie\nhere.\n\nNellie won, and we sat down on the bank and I began to ask her about\nher school-life.\n\n\"I dinna like the school, and I wish I was left,\" she said.\n\n\"Tell me why you dislike it, Nellie.\"\n\n\"If ye speak ye get the strap.\"\n\n\"What!\" I cried, \"are you _never_ allowed to speak?\"\n\n\"Only at playtime,\" she replied.  \"And ye never get less than six\nscuds.\"\n\nAnd it was only the other day that a lady wrote me saying that when I\npreach against Prussianism in schools I am merely resuscitating a dead\nbogey for the purpose of knocking it down.\n\nI get quite a lot of information of schools from children.  I remember\nwhen I was in Lyme Regis last Easter I went out sketching one day.  As\nI passed a village school a troupe of happy children came out.  Joy lit\nup their faces.\n\n\"The ideal school!\" I cried, and stopped to speak to them.\n\n\"Tell me, children, tell me why you have laughter in your eyes,\" I\nsaid, \"tell me of your happy school.\"\n\nThe oldest boy grinned.\n\n\"Master's gone off for the day to a funeral,\" he said.\n\nI walked on deep in thought.\n\nNellie dislikes school.  What a tragedy.  She is a dear sweet child\nwith kind eyes and a bonny smile.  She spoke frankly to me at first but\nwhen I told her that I was a teacher she looked at me with fear and (I\nsmiled at this) dropped her Dundee dialect and answered me in School\nEnglish.  I had to throw plantain heads at her for a full five minutes\nbefore the look of fear left her eyes and her dialect returned.\n\n\"I dinna believe ye _are_ a teacher,\" she said to-night.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Ye're no like ane,\" she said hesitatingly.  \"Ye're ower--ower daft.\"\n\n\"But why shouldn't a teacher be daft?\" I asked.\n\n\"They shud be respectable,\" she said, \"or the children winna respect\nthem.\"\n\nI looked alarmed.\n\n\"What!\" I cried, \"don't you respect me?\"\n\nShe laughed gaily.\n\n\"No!\" she cried, then she added seriously: \"But I'd like to be at your\nschule.\"\n\nShe returns to Dundee to-morrow, to a class of fifty, where silence\nreigns.  Poor Nellie!  What worries me is that when Nellie's teacher\nreads this book she will most probably agree with Nellie's remark that\nI'm \"daft\".  But she won't mean what Nellie meant.\n\nA telegraph girl approached.\n\n\"Machines are waiting.--Jenkins.\"\n\nNellie looked anxious.\n\n\"That's twa telegrams ye've got the day,\" she said.  \"Is onybody deid?\"\n\nI looked at the words on the telegraph form.\n\n\"No, Nellie, unfortunately no!\" I said slowly, and I went in to read my\ngalley proofs.\n\n\n\n\nTHE END.","title":"A Dominie in Doubt","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":54704}