i lay on a bank this afternoon smoking. janet and jean and annie came along the road, and they sat down beside me.
"i'm tired of the school," said annie wearily; "aw wish aw was fourteen!"
"what's wrong now?" i asked.
"oh, we never get any fun now, the new mester's always so strict, and we get an awful lot o' home lessons now."
"annie got the strap on friday," explained jean. "mester macdonald's braces broke aw think, at least something broke when he was bending doon and he took an awful red face ... and he had to keep his hands in his pouches till night time to keep his breeks up."
"did annie pull them down?" i asked.
jean tittered.
"no, but she laughed and he gave her the strap."
"aye," cried annie in delight, "and they nearly cam doon when he was strappin' me!"
"why do awkward incidents occur to dignity?" i said, more to myself than to the bairns, "my braces wouldn't break in fifty years of teaching." then i laughed.
margaret thomson came down the road on her way to evening service, and she reddened as she passed.
"eh!" laughed janet, looking up into my[pg 40] face, "did ye see yon? maggie blushed! aw wudna wonder if she has a notion o' the mester!"
"how could she help it, jan?" i said. "why, you'll be hopelessly in love with me yourself in a couple of years, you besom!"
she stared before her vacantly for a little.
"aw did have a notion o' you when ye cam first," she said slowly.
i put my arm round her neck.
"you dear kid!" i said.
she smiled up in my face.
"ye had that bonny striped tie on then," she said artlessly.
i pulled her hair.
"ye shud marry maggie tamson," she said after a pause.
"aye," added jean, "and syne ye'll get the farm when her father dies. he's troubled wi' the rheumatics and he'll no live very long. and she wud be a gran worker too."
"dinna haver, jean," said annie scornfully, "the mester will want a gran lady for his wife, one that can play the piano and have ham and egg to her breakfast ilka morning."
"no extravagant wife like that for me!" i protested.
"aweel, an egg ilka day and ham and egg on sundays onywye," compromised annie.
"an egg every second morning, annie," i said firmly, "and ham and egg every second sunday."
"ladies dinna mak good wives," said janet. "willie macintosh along at rinsley married a[pg 41] lassie that was a piano teacher, and she gets her breakfast in her bed and has a wumman to wash up. aye, and she's ay dressed and oot after dinnertime. aye, and she sends a' his collars to the laundry ... and he only wears a clean dicky on sawbath."
"ah!" i said, "i'm glad you told me that, janet; i won't risk marrying a lady. but tell me, janet, how am i to know what sort of woman i am marrying?"
"it's quite easy," she said slowly, "you just have to tear a button off your waistcoat and if she doesna offer to mend it ye shouldna tak her."
"and speer at her what time she gets up in the mornin'," she added; "maggie tamson rises at five ilka mornin'."
"why are you so anxious that it should be margaret?" i asked with real curiosity.
janet shook her head.
"aw just think she's in love wi' ye," she said simply; "she blushed."
* * *
i went out with my bugle to-night, and i sounded all the old calls. i finished up with "come for orders," and i walked slowly down the brae to the farm. jim jackson and dickie gibson came running up to me.
"ye played 'come for orders!'" panted jim as he wiped his sweating face with his bonnet.
"we'll soon remedy matters," i laughed, and i played the "dismiss."
[pg 42]
jim perched himself on a gate.
"we'll hae to fall oot, dick," he said with mock resignation, "come on and we'll sit here till we get oor wind back." and dick climbed up beside him.
"how are the lies getting on, jim?" i asked.
he shook his head dolefully.
"we got an essay the day on the discovery of america ... and ye canna tell mony lies aboot that. aw just said that columbus discovered america, and wrote aboot his ships. the new mester says we must stick to the truth."
"it is difficult to associate the truth with america," i said. "but there is a true side to this discovery business. to say that columbus discovered america is a half-truth; the whole truth is that america isn't quite discovered yet. andrew carnegie was fairly successful, and charlie chaplin is another discoverer of note, but—"
jim clearly did not understand; he thought that i was pulling his leg.
"how's the pond?" i asked, and was grieved to find that neither of the boys had any interest in it. "the mester taks us oot and gies us object lessons on the minnows," said dickie, and i groaned.
"and the pigeons?"
"object lessons too," said jim with evident disgust. "what family did he say doos belonged to, dick?"
[pg 43]
dick had no idea.
"the word dove comes from the latin columba," i said sententiously. "hence the name columbus who was named after the dove that was sent out of the ark. when he learned this as a boy he resolved to live up to his name ... hence the american eagle, which of course has transformed itself into a dove during woodrow wilson's reign."
dick listened open-mouthed, but jim's eyes twinkled.
"the mester gives us derivations ilka day. he telt us the derivation of pond when he was giein' us the object lesson, but i canna mind what it was."
"a weight!" cried dickie suddenly, and i complimented him on his industry.
"aye," giggled jim, "he shud mind it, for he had to write it oot a hunder times."
i made a cryptic remark about ponds and ponderosity, and then i told them of the boy who had to stay in and write the phrase "i have gone" many times in order that he might grasp the correct idiom. he filled five pages; then he wrote something at the bottom of the last page, a message to his teacher. the message read "please, sir, i have went home." dickie immediately asked whether the boy got a lamming next morning, and jim looked at him scornfully. dickie has not got an alert mind.
to-night i am doubting whether i was wise to return to the village. i seem to become[pg 44] sadder every day. my heart is down in the old ugly school, and i am jealous of macdonald. i know that he is an inferior, but he has my bairns in his control. i confess to a sneaking delight in the knowledge that he is not liked by the bairns. in this respect i think i am inferior to him; i don't think he is jealous of my popularity but of course he may be after all.
jim's answering my bugle call makes me want to cry. i can sit out the most pathetic drama unemotionally; when the hero says farewell for ever to the heroine i sit up cheerfully. it is sweetness that affects me; when the hero clasps his love in his arms i snivel. in the cinema when little willie is dying to slow music and the mother is wringing her hands i smile, but if willie recovers and sits up in bed to hug his teddy bear i blow my nose. i am unaffected when peter pan returns to find his mother's window shut against him, but when the fairies build a house over the sleeping lost girl i have to light my pipe and cough sternly.
i wish i hadn't gone out with my bugle to-night.
* * *
macdonald is an ass. he came to me this afternoon. "look here," he began, "i wonder if you've any objection to my making a few alterations in the school live stock?"
"want to introduce a cow?" i asked. "you believe in utilitarianism in education i fancy."
[pg 45]
"it's the pigeons and rabbits," he went on; "i was wondering if you would object to my getting rid of one or two."
"what's wrong?"
"it's the sex matter," he said hurriedly. "i don't like the thing; i don't so much mind the infants asking awkward questions, but why the deuce should they keep them till i am speaking to the infant mistress?"
"refer them to the lady," i said with a chuckle.
he looked troubled.
"i must get rid of one sex," he said.
"macdonald," i said severely, "i don't know that you can do that without the permission of the children. the rabbits and doos are their's; they bought them with their own money."
"that's no great difficulty," he said lightly.
"possibly not ... not for you, macdonald. if you use authority the bairns will hardly question it. but i don't see that you have the right to be an autocrat in this affair."
"it is my duty to protect the children," he said with dignity.
"protect yourself, you mean!" i cried; "you have just confessed that your one aim is to get rid of awkward questions."
"but what can i do?" he stammered.
"do! do nothing, just as i did. let the creatures breed as much as they darned well please; that's what they are there for. you can't very well make sex an object lesson;[pg 46] the logical thing to do is to give a lesson on pollination of plants and then go on to fertilisation of the bird's egg, but if you do that you'll get the sack at once. but there's quite enough of prudery in the world already without your turning a rabbit-hutch into a sultanless harem."
"there are things that children shouldn't know," he said with a touch of aggression.
"and there are things that grown-ups should know and don't," i said. "they ought to know that the sex conspiracy of silence is idiotic and criminal."
"anyway," he said sullenly, "i'll tell them to-morrow that there are too many in the house and that i mean to get rid of a few."
"all right," i said resignedly, "you can lie to them if you want to." then i added: "although, mind you, macdonald, i feel like telling the bairns the real reason for your action."
he looked startled.
"don't be alarmed," i said with a smile, "i won't do it," and he looked relieved.
"why not look in at the school some afternoon?" he said amiably when we parted, "but perhaps you feel that you've shaken off the dust from your feet down there?"
"i'll be delighted to come down," i said; "i didn't shake off the dust from my feet when i left ... there was quite enough dust there already."
i think i'll go down to-morrow afternoon;[pg 47] it was decent of macdonald to ask me after all that i have said to him.
* * *
a man spends his life wishing he had done certain things and wishing that he had not done certain things. i half wish that i had not accepted macdonald's invitation; i feel lonely up here now: on the other hand i am glad that i went. i think now that macdonald's real idea was to show me how he has improved the school.
from his point of view he has improved it. he showed me exercise books that were models of neatness and care; he showed me classes swotting up subjects laboriously; the rooms were as silent as the grave.
when i went in macdonald shook hands with me formally, and i noticed that his school voice and manner were prim and professional. i turned to the bairns and said: "hullo, kids!" and they rose in a body and said: "good afternoon, sir!"
"ah!" i whispered to macdonald, "i see i ought to have said: 'good afternoon, children!' eh?" and he smiled professionally.
the higher classes were drawing. the model was a vase. i walked round the class ... and swore silently. i had spent two years persuading these bairns that there is no boundary line in nature; a white vase appears to have lines as boundaries simply because it usually stands in front of a dark background. i made them work in the background to show up the model,[pg 48] although i never gave them vases or pails; my drawing was all outside sketching of trees and houses. he was making them "line in" the drawing.
"i am not much good at drawing," he explained apologetically, "as a matter of fact i know nothing about it."
"in that case," i said, "why not let them go on with the methods i gave them? i know something about the subject."
he asked what my methods were and i explained them in a few minutes. he expressed his gratitude and seemed honestly glad to learn something about the subject.
"i won't take them out drawing though," he said; "an inspector might come to the school in my absence."
"you conscientious devil!" i said, "let's have a squint at their exercise books."
as he moved to the cupboard a boy whispered to his neighbour and macdonald turned like a flash; the lad visibly quailed before his fixing eye. i fancied that the next inspector's report would commence with the words: "the discipline of this school is excellent."
the books were much neater than mine had been. i began to look for blots, but the search was hopeless.
"oh! for god's sake, macdonald, show me peter mackay's book; surely a good healthy blot will be found there!" but peter's book was scrupulously clean.
"i had to deal with that boy with a stern[pg 49] hand," said macdonald grimly, and as i stood looking at the book i saddened.
"on the outside of this book you should write the words: 'peter mackay ... a tragedy, by william macdonald,'" i said, but i don't think the man understood me.
the three o'clock interval came. "stand!" commanded macdonald, and the class rose as one child. "front seat ... quick march!" the boys saluted him as they passed out, and the girls curtsied. i tried not to laugh at the fatuous fellow's inculcation of "respect." poor devil, i think they will hate him in after years; he is of the brand of dominie that is responsible for the post-schooldays habit of shying divots and opprobrious epithets at teachers passing along the road.
on the way out janet touched my arm playfully, but the eagle-eyed disciplinarian saw the action and he glared at her.
"had you any trouble with swearing?" he asked when the last boy had gone out.
"not particularly. have you?"
"i've put it down with a very firm hand."
"i never bothered about it," i said carelessly. "i very seldom heard it; if i did happen to hear a boy string together a few strong words i ridiculed him, told him they didn't mean anything. once i was trying to unscrew a stiff nut from my motor-bike and i addressed it audibly. i heard a snigger and on looking round found that jim jackson had come up to watch my efforts."
[pg 50]
macdonald raised his eyebrows and whistled.
"pretty awkward, eh?"
"not in the least, macdonald; i merely said: 'jim, never waste good bad language; one day you may be a motor-cyclist and you'll need it all then.' jim nodded approvingly."
"you would have persuaded jim that he never heard your words," i added.
i find that i cannot dislike macdonald. he is essentially a decent fellow with a kindly nature; sometimes i feel that i am quite fond of him. his equanimity is charming; he seldom shows the least trace of irritation when i talk to him. but his mental laziness riles me; he is so cock-sure about his methods of education, and i know that i never can induce him to think the matter out for himself. the tragedy is that there are a thousand macdonalds in scots schools to-day. of course they are hopelessly wrong. i don't know whether i am right, but i know that they are wrong. they stick to a narrow code; they force youth to follow their silly behests regarding respect; they kill the individuality of each child. why in all the earth does civilisation allow such asses to warp the children? who is macdonald that any human being should quail before his awful eye? is he so righteous that he shall punish a boy for swearing? he spent a whole morning lately cross-examining the bairns to discover who wrote the words: "mr. macdonald is daft" on the pigeon-house door. at last one wee chap was intimidated[pg 51] into confessing, and macdonald whacked him and then harangued the whole school. the bairns were convinced that the lad had committed the sin against the holy ghost.
what a mind the man has! i discovered an obscene writing about myself three weeks after i had come to the school. the bairns held their breath while i read it. i sent for a cloth and erased the words.
"what's the use of scribbling silly rot like that?" i said, and lit my pipe. there never was any more writing on the wall in my time.
how the devil are bairns to gain any perspective in life if a fool like macdonald spends half a day investigating nothing? education should aim at giving a child a philosophy, and philosophy simply means the contemplation of the important things in life. if teachers emphasise the importance of things like silence and manners and dignity and respect, we cannot expect our children to rise higher in later years than the cheap gossipy lying press and the absurd system we call party politics.
the macdonalds start out with the assumption that human nature is bad; i start out with the realisation that human nature is good. that is the real distinction between the disciplinarian and the believer in freedom. when my boys stole turnips, wrote swear words on walls, talked and ate sweets as they sat in class i attached little or no importance to their actions; all i tried to do was to bring out the best that was in a lad's nature ... and i[pg 52] succeeded. every child improved ... no, i was forgetting one boy! he came from a city school, and his face was full of impudence. he looked round my free school and marvelled; he had come from a macdonaldised school and he naturally concluded that i was a soft mark. one day i said to him very mildly: "my gentle youth, this school is liberty hall, not because i am weak but because i happen to be rather strong.... i could whack you effectively if i started to you." but i never managed to fit that boy into my scheme of things. he left after a few months, and after he had gone he bounced to other boys that he had shoved many pens and ink-pots down a hole in the floor. i found that he was telling the truth.
what would have happened if the boy had remained at school i don't know, but i think that he would have gradually adapted himself to his environment. he had been reared in the schools where physical force reigned, and he understood no other system. yes, i fancy i could have converted that youth. i think of homer t. lane and his little commonwealth in dorset, where so called criminal children from the police courts are given self-government and become excellent citizens, and i know that the macdonalds are wrong.
not long ago edinburgh school board passed a motion asking the local magistrates to make their birch-rod sentences severe enough to be effective. once upon a time people thought that lunatics were criminals and they lashed[pg 53] them with whips. a time came when people realised that a lunatic was a diseased person and they at once began to care for him tenderly. nowadays the enlightened members of society realise that a criminal is a diseased person ... usually the victim of a diseased society ... and they passionately advocate his being treated as a sick man is treated. and the school board of the capital of scotland recommend that extra stripes with the rod be given to poor laddies who steal a few pence.
i feel quite sure that no minister in the country mentioned the fact from his pulpit. i expect they were all too busy anathematising the "hun" to consider what the attitude of jesus christ was to men and women taken in sin. i should like to preach to that school board from the text "suffer little children to come unto me."
there are two ways in education: macdonalds with authority in the shape of school boards and magistrates and prisons to support him; and mine with the christlike experiment of homer lane to encourage me.
i wonder why there are two sides to this question of education? no one but a fool will contend that the birch rod is better than the little commonwealth. i think that ninety per cent. of the macdonalds of scotland would believe in the little commonwealth. why then would they argue that their system of teaching is better than mine? obviously coercion and authority make a child less individual than he[pg 54] might be. ah! it all turns on our respective attitudes to life. "boys are innately bad," they say, "whack 'em!" "boys are innately good," i say, "i'll light my pipe and ask them how their rabbits are getting on."
* * *
macdonald came hurrying up to me to-night.
"i quite forgot to ask you when you came down what you used to do about your desk. the lock's broken; how long has it been like that?"
"since my first week in school," i said.
"good gracious! mean to tell me your desk was open for two years?"
i nodded, and smiled at his consternation.
"i've sent down to the joiner. the situation is intolerable. why, do you know what i found in it to-day?"
"a packet of sweets," i hazarded ... "chocolates if you were lucky."
"how did you guess?" he cried in amazement.
"my dear fellow, my desk was a sweety shop some days; they used to hide their packets in every corner of it, then they would come to me and say: 'please, sir, my pockie is in the wee corner on the right; dinna let onybody touch it.' who put them in?" i asked.
"gladys miller."
"you have all the luck," i said. "gladys always buys liquorice rolls, you know them ... little yellow sweets with the sugarelly inside.[pg 55] man, i love yon sweets ... and gladys knew it, the besom!"
"oh! it's all very well for you to make a joke of it," he said with annoyance, "but i tell you i don't like it, and after to-day i guess it'll be a long time till anybody opens my desk again. i talked to gladys to some tune i can tell you."
i sighed wearily and filled my pipe.
"two years!" said macdonald musingly, "two years! what about all your private books? anybody might have read your log book, or destroyed it even!" and the thought almost made him turn pale.
"and what about it? nobody will ever read it anyway."
"eh?" his mouth gaped at this latest heresy.
"what about it?" i continued, "what about the whole damned lot of registers and log books and form 9 b's? i didn't care a rap who saw the inside of my desk or my log book. as a matter of fact no one saw what was in the log; never a child opened it. why? because there was no prohibition. you lock up all the blamed things and put the fear of god on any kid that dares touch your desk ... result! they look on all your belongings as forbidden fruit, and if they can handle your log book when you are safely out of the way you bet your boots that they'll do it. can't you see that children are really decent kindly creatures with their own philosophy, that is,[pg 56] their own idea of the importance of things? what is important to them is a toy or a dogfight or a quarrel or a love affair. they don't want to touch stodgy official books. but when you say to them: 'this desk is holy ground' why, every self-respecting kid has but one ambition in life ... to poke his nose into your desk and hide your registers."
"well," he said with a grim smile, "what about those tools in the woodwork room? if children are the saints you make them out to be, how did your boys come to spoil good tools?"
"i admit that i made a mistake," i said cheerfully. "i set out on the assumption that a boy can be trusted with tools. i dropped the belief. wood was scarce and often i couldn't get enough to keep the boys working. result!... they took to hammering nails into benches and walls. i see now that much of a boy is destructiveness. i might have known it, for as a boy i tore the inside out of everything to see how it worked. if i had a small class i could have kept them interested in making an article. yet i remember seeing tom watson, the best worker in the school, make a good rabbit-trough; then when he had finished he deliberately chipped a chunk off a plane with a hammer."
"what did you do?"
"i simply chucked him out of woodwork; told him he wasn't beyond the infant-room stage, and gave him lessons with a class two grades below his own."
[pg 57]
"did you chuck him out forcibly?"
"i suppose i did."
"ah!" macdonald looked triumphant. "in other words you forgot your principles and punished?"
"human nature is weak," i said sadly. "if i saw a boy sticking a pen-knife into the tyre of my bicycle i should kick him ... kick him hard and then kick him again. there is such a thing as elemental rage in every man—even christ used a whip in the temple. there are times when you cannot reason: you act impulsively. principle can't touch this, but it comes in when rage is gone. if i am a magistrate and a boy comes before me charged with destroying a bicycle i personally have no rage against the boy, and if i punish him i'm merely serving out juridical vengeance. if i order him to be birched the jailor has no grudge against the boy. the main point is that the owner of the cycle acts before reasoning, while the magistrate acts after reasoning. and his reason cannot prompt him to behave any better than the injured owner did. the owner is primitive man for the time being: the magistrate stands for reasoning civilisation. in other words reasoning civilisation is no better than the barbarian. that's why i object to juridical punishment."
"ha! ha!" he laughed with a sneer, "when it touches yourself you let all your principles slide, just as the most extreme socialist turns tory if he happens to get money!"
[pg 58]
"macdonald," i said slowly, "i'm sorry you said that, for it means that you'll reject everything i bring forward. you'll grasp the idea that my views are useless because i tell you i can smite when i am angry, and you'll consequently reject everything i say. you're like the man who cries to a socialist orator: 'why don't you sell your watch and divide the proceeds among this crowd?' or like the man who tells a member of the no-hat brigade that he should go naked to be consistent. if i were to adopt your tactics i might ask why you don't get the school boards to provide muzzles for the children on the plea that so much of your energy is taken up in keeping them silent. if you make them salute you i see no logical reason why you shouldn't carry respect to its extreme and force them to kneel down and kiss your boots. if you insist on perfect truthfulness why do you try to hide the truth about the sex of pigeons? you pretend to be a believer in perfect obedience to authority, and yet i saw you ride a bicycle without a light the other night. i am quite willing to prove that every man is inconsistent. bernard shaw would no doubt find some difficulty in explaining how his humanitarian vegetarianism blends with his wearing of leather boots; for i don't suppose that he has boots made from the hides of animals that died of old age. i gave up shooting and fishing because i saw that both were cruel, yet i will kill a wasp or a rat on occasion. if a tiger got loose down in the[pg 59] village i should at once borrow frank thomson's gun, but i should refuse to go tiger-hunting in bengal. my dear chap, i am as full of inconsistencies as an egg's full of meat. so are you; so is every man. the best of us are but poor weaklings, for we are each carrying the instincts of millions of our tree- and cave-dwelling ancestors on our backs. my point, however, is that in spite of our weaknesses and animalisms we are predominantly good. i am a caveman once in five years; i am a reasoning humanitarian the rest of the time. you fasten on my elemental side and refuse to think that there can be any good in my humanitarian side.
"you see, i quite earnestly believe that your respect for law and authority is genuine, almost religious, and the fact that i saw you break the law by riding without a light doesn't make me doubt your respect for law."
"i had had a puncture," he explained.
"exactly! extenuating circumstances. that's what i might plead when i kick the boy who deliberately punctures my machine ... but you would laugh. why, i think i should start in to lecture you on your inconsistencies!"
i find that the worst man to answer is the fundamental antagonist. i used to be stumped by the anti-socialist cry: socialism will destroy enterprise!... until i discovered that the best answer to this was: if enterprise has made modern capitalism and industrialism, by all means let it be destroyed. macdonald will[pg 60] crow over what he considers my failure to be consistent, but it will never once strike him that my frank self-analysis is a thing that he will never practise himself.
confound macdonald! he has led me into defending myself; he never defends himself when i attack him; he is far too cocksure to have any doubts about himself.