,a ,,dominie',s ,,log ,,what ,,this ,,book ,,is ,,about4 ,a ,dominie's ,log was directly due to the ,scottish code of ,education1 by which it is forbidden to enter general reflections or opinions in the official log-book4 ,requiring a safety-valve1 a young ,dominie decides to keep a private log-book4 ,in it he jots down the troubles and comedies of the day's work4 ,sometimes he startles even his own bairns by his unconventionality4 ,there is a lot in ,education that he does not understand4 ,the one thing1 however1 that he does comprehend is the ,child ,mind1 and he possesses the saving quality of humour4 ,,by ,,the ,,same ,,author ,a ,,dominie ,,abroad #gs4 #f;d4 net4 ,a ,,dominie ,,dismissed #bs4 #f;d4 net4 ,a ,,dominie ,,in ,,doubt #bs4 #f;d4 net4 ,,the ,,booming ,,of ,,bunkie #bs4 #f;d4 net4 ,,carroty ,,broon #bs4 #f;d4 net4 ,a ,,dominie',s ,,log ,,by ,a4 ,s4 ,,neill ,,herbert ,,jenkins ,,limited ,,york ,,street ,,st4 ,,james',s ,s4,w4#a4 ,illustration3 ,a ,,herbert ,,jenkins' ,,book ,printed in ,great ,britain at the ,athenum ,printing ,works1 ,redhill4 ,,as ,a ,,boy ,i ,,attended ,a ,,village ,,school ,,where ,,the ,,bairns ,,chattered ,,and ,,were ,,happy4 ,i ,,trace ,,my ,,love ,,of ,,freedom ,,to ,,my ,,free ,,life ,,there1 ,,and ,i ,,dedicate ,,this ,,book ,,to ,,my ,,former ,,dominie1 ,,my ,,father4 ,,preface4 ,the first four installments of this ,log were published in the ,educational ,news1 under the acting editorship of ,mr4 ,alexander ,sivewright1 who was very anxious to publish the ,log in full1 but apparently public opinion on the subject of the indiscriminate kissing of girls forced him to hold up the remainder4 ,then teachers began to write me letters4 ,some of them were very complimentary2 others weren't4 ,these letters worried me1 for ,i couldn't quite determine whether ,i was a lunatic or a genius4 ,then an unknown lady sent me a tract4 ,the title of the tract was3 ,the ,sin ,that ,found ,him ,out4 ,the hero was a boy called ,willie4 ,he never told a lie1 and when other boys smote him he turned the other cheek and prayed for them4 ,life to him was one long prayer1 said the tract4 ,then troubles came4 ,he grew up and his father took to drink4 ,his elder brother had a disagreement with the local police about his whereabouts on the night of a certain robbery1 and was decidedly unconvincing4 ,willie stepped in and took all the blame4 ,the next chapter takes ,willie as a private to the fields of ,flanders1 and the penultimate chapter sees him a major-general4 ,the last chapter contains the moral1 but what the moral is ,i cannot well make out4 ,in fact ,i don't know whether the title refers to ,willie or his transgressing brother1 but ,i feel that somewhere in that pamphlet there is a lesson for me4 ,before the tract arrived ,i thought of publishing the ,log as a brilliant treatise on education4 ,its arrival altered all my values4 ,i then knew that ,i was the educational equivalent of the awful example who sits on the platform at temperance meetings1 and with great humility ,i besought ,mr4 ,herbert ,jenkins to publish my ,log as a terrible warning to my fellow sinners4 ,a4 ,s4 ,n4 #aiae4 ,a ,,dominie',s ,,log ,i4 ,no reflections or opinions of a general character are to be entered in the log-book4--,thus the ,scotch ,code4 ,i have resolved to keep a private log of my own4 ,in the regulation volume ,i shall write down all the futile never-to-be-seen piffle about ,mary ,brown's being laid up with the measles1 and about my anxiety lest it should spread4 7,incidentally1 my anxiety is real2 ,i do not want the school to be closed2 ,i want a summer holiday undocked of any days47 ,in my private log ,i shall write down my thoughts on education4 ,i think they will be mostly original2 there has been no real authority on education1 and ,i do not know of any book from which ,i can crib4 ,to-night after my bairns had gone away1 ,i sat down on a desk and thought4 ,what does it all mean8 ,what am ,i trying to do8 ,these boys are going out to the fields to plough2 these girls are going to farms as servants4 ,if ,i live long enough the new generation will be bringing notes of the plese-excuss-james-as-,i-was-washing type 444 and the parents who will write them went out at that door five minutes ago4 ,i can teach them to read1 and they will read serials in the drivelling weeklies2 ,i can teach them to write1 and they will write pathetic notes to me by and bye2 ,i can teach them to count1 and they will never count more than the miserable sum they receive as a weekly wage4 ,the ,three ,r's spell futility4 ,but what of the rest8 ,can ,i teach them drawing8 ,i cannot4 ,i can help a boy with a natural talent to improve his work1 but of what avail is it8 ,in their future homes they will hang up the same old prints--vile things given away with a pound of tea4 ,i can teach them to sing1 but what will they sing8444 the ,tipperary of their day4 ,my work is hopeless1 for education should aim at bringing up a new generation that will be better than the old4 ,the present system is to produce the same kind of man as we see to-day4 ,and how hopeless he is4 ,when first ,i saw ,houndsditch1 ,i said aloud3 ,we have had education for generations 444 and yet we have this4 ,yes1 my work is hopeless4 ,what is the use of the ,three ,r's1 of ,woodwork1 of ,drawing1 of ,geography1 if ,houndsditch is to remain8 ,what is the use of anything8 99 99 99 ,i smile as ,i re-read the words ,i wrote yesterday1 for to-day ,i feel that hope has not left me4 ,but ,i am not any more hopeful about the three ,r's and the others4 ,i am hopeful because ,i have found a solution4 ,i shall henceforth try to make my bairns realise4 ,yes1 realise is the word4 ,realise what8 ,to tell the truth1 ,i have some difficulty in saying4 ,i think ,i want to make them realise what life means4 ,yes1 ,i want to give them1 or rather help them to find an attitude4 ,most of the stuff ,i teach them will be forgotten in a year or two1 but an attitude remains with one throughout life4 ,i want these boys and girls to acquire the habit of looking honestly at life4 ,ah6 ,i wonder if ,i look honestly at life myself6 ,am ,i not a very one-sided man8 ,am ,i not a ,socialist1 a doubter1 a heretic8 ,am ,i not biassed when ,i judge men like the ,cecils and the ,harmsworths8 ,i admit it4 ,i am a partisan1 and yet ,i try to look at life honestly4 ,i try 444 and that is the main point4 ,i do not think that ,i have any of the current superstitions about morality and religion and art4 ,i try to forget names2 ,i try to get at essentials1 at truth4 ,the fathers of my bairns are1 ,i think1 interested in names4 ,i wonder how many of them have sat down saying3 ,i must examine myself1 so that ,i may find out what manner of man ,i am4 ,i hold that self-knowledge must come before all things4 ,when one has stripped off all the conventions1 and superstitions1 and hypocrisies1 then one is educated4 99 99 99 ,these bairns of mine will never know how to find truth2 they will merely read the newspapers when they grow up4 ,they will wave their hats to the ,king1 but kingship will be but a word to them2 they will shout when a lawyer from the south wins the local seat1 but they will not understand the meaning of economics2 they will dust their old silk hats and march to the sacrament1 but they will not realise what religion means4 ,i find that ,i am becoming pessimistic again1 and ,i did feel hopeful when ,i began to write4 ,i should feel hopeful1 for ,i am resolved to find another meaning in education4 ,what was it8444 ,ah1 yes1 ,i am to help them to find an attitude4 99 99 99 ,i have been thinking about discipline overnight4 ,i have seen a headmaster who insisted on what he called perfect discipline4 ,his bairns sat still all day4 ,a movement foreshadowed the strap4 ,every child jumped up at the word of command4 ,he had a very quiet life4 ,i must confess that ,i am an atrociously bad disciplinarian4 ,to-day ,violet ,brown began to sing ,tipperary to herself when ,i was marking the registers4 ,i looked up and said3 ,why the happiness this morning1 ,violet8 and she blushed and grinned4 ,i am a poor disciplinarian4 ,i find that normally ,i am very1 very slack2 ,i don't mind if they talk or not4 ,indeed1 if the hum of conversation stops1 ,i feel that something has happened and ,i invariably look towards the door to see whether an ,inspector has arrived4 ,i find that ,i am almost a good disciplinarian when my liver is bad2 ,i demand silence then 444 but ,i fear ,i do not get it1 and ,i generally laugh4 ,the only discipline ,i ask for usually is the discipline that interest draws4 ,if a boy whets his pencil while ,i am describing the events that led to the ,great ,rebellion1 ,i sidetrack him on the topic of rabbits 444 and ,i generally make him sit up4 ,i know that ,i am teaching badly if the class is loafing1 and ,i am honest enough in my saner moments not to blame the bairns4 ,i do not like strict discipline1 for ,i do believe that a child should have as much freedom as possible4 ,i want a bairn to be human1 and ,i try to be human myself4 ,i walk to school each morning with my briar between my lips1 and if the fill is not smoked1 ,i stand and watch the boys play4 ,i would kiss my wife in my classroom1 but 444 ,i do not have a wife4 ,a wee lassie stopped me on the way to school this morning1 and she pushed a very sticky sweetie into my hand4 ,i took my pipe from my mouth and ate the sweetie--and ,i asked for another2 she was highly delighted4 ,discipline1 to me1 means a pose on the part of the teacher4 ,it makes him very remote2 it lends him dignity4 ,dignity is a thing ,i abominate4 ,i suppose the bishop is dignified because he wants to show that there is a real difference between his salaried self and the underpaid curate4 ,why should ,i be dignified before my bairns8 ,will they scorn me if ,i slide with them8 7,there was a dandy slide on the road to-day4 ,i gave them half-an-hour's extra play this morning1 and ,i slid all the time4 ,my assistants are adepts at the game47 ,but discipline is necessary2 there are men known as ,inspectors4 ,and ,johnny must be flogged if he does not attend to the lesson4 ,he must know the rivers of ,russia4 ,after all1 why should he8 ,i don't know them1 and ,i don't miss the knowledge4 ,i couldn't tell you the capital of ,new ,zealand 444 is it ,wellington8 or ,auckland8 ,i don't know2 all ,i know is that ,i could find out if ,i wanted to4 ,i do not blame ,inspectors4 ,some of them are men with what ,i would call a vision4 ,i had the ,chief ,inspector of the district in the other day1 and ,i enjoyed his visit4 ,he has a fine taste in poetry1 and a sense of humour4 ,the ,scotch ,education ,department is iniquitous because it is a department2 a department cannot have a sense of humour4 ,and it is humour that makes a man decent and kind and human4 ,if the ,scotch ,education ,department were to die suddenly ,i should suddenly become a worse disciplinarian than ,i am now4 ,if ,willie did not like ,woodwork1 ,i should say to him3 ,all right1 ,willie4 ,go and do what you do like1 but take my advice and do some work2 you will enjoy your football all the better for it4 ,i believe in discipline1 but it is self-discipline that ,i believe in4 ,i think ,i can say that ,i never learned anything by being forced to learn it1 but ,i may be wrong4 ,i was forced to learn the ,shorter ,catechism1 and to-day ,i hate the sight of it4 ,i read the other day in ,barrie's ,sentimental ,tommy that its meaning comes to one long afterwards and at a time when one is most in need of it4 ,i confess that the time has not come for me2 it will never come1 for ,i don't remember two lines of the ,catechism4 ,it is a fallacy that the nastiest medicines are the most efficacious2 ,epsom ,salts are not more beneficial than ,syrup of ,figs4 ,a thought6444 ,if ,i believe in self-discipline1 why not persuade ,willie that ,woodwork is good for him as a self-discipline8 ,because it isn't my job4 ,if ,willie dislikes chisels he will always dislike them4 ,what ,i might do is this3 tell him to persevere with his chisels so that he might cut himself badly4 ,then he might discover that his true vocation is bandaging1 and straightway go in for medicine4 ,would ,willie run away and play at horses if ,i told him to do what he liked best8 ,i do not think so4 ,he likes school1 and ,i think he likes me4 ,i think he would try to please me if he could4 99 99 99 ,when ,i speak kindly to a bairn ,i sometimes ask myself what ,i mean 7for ,i try to find out my motives74 ,do ,i want the child to think kindly of me8 ,do ,i try to be popular8 ,am ,i after the delightful joy of being loved8 ,am ,i merely being humanly brotherly and kind8 ,i have tried to analyse my motives1 and ,i really think that there is little of each motive4 ,i want to be loved2 ,i want the bairn to think kindly of me4 ,but in the main ,i think that my chief desire is to make the bairn happy4 ,no man1 no woman1 has the right to make the skies cloudy for a bairn2 it is the sin against the ,holy ,ghost4 ,i once had an experience in teaching4 ,a boy was dour and unlovable and rebellious and disobedient4 ,i tried all ways--,i regret to say ,i tried the tawse4 ,i was inexperienced at the time yet ,i hit upon the right way4 ,one day ,i found he had a decided talent for drawing4 ,i brought down some of my pen-and-ink sketches and showed him them4 ,i gave him pictures to copy1 and his interest in art grew4 ,i won him over by interesting myself in him4 ,he discovered that ,i was only human after all4 ,only human6444 when our scholars discover that we are only human1 then they like us1 and then they listen to us4 ,i see the fingers of my tawse hanging out of my desk4 ,they seem to be two accusing fingers4 ,my ideals are all right1 but4444 ,i whacked ,tom ,wilkie to-night4 ,at three o'clock he bled ,dave ,tosh's nose1 and because ,dave was the smaller1 ,i whacked ,tom4 ,yet ,i did not feel angry2 ,i regret to say that ,i whacked ,tom because ,i could see that ,dave expected me to do it1 and ,i hate to disappoint a bairn4 ,if ,dave had been his size1 ,i know that ,i should have ignored their battle4 99 99 99 ,i have not used the strap all this week1 and if my liver keeps well1 ,i hope to abolish it altogether4 ,to-day ,i have been thinking about punishment4 ,what is the idea of punishment8 ,a few months ago a poor devil of an engine-driver ran his express into a goods1 and half-a-dozen people were killed4 ,he got nine months4 ,why8 ,is his punishment meant to act as a deterrent8 ,will another driver say to himself3 ,by ,jove1 ,i'll better not wreck my train or ,i'll get nine months4 ,nine months is not punishment1 but the lifelong thought3 ,i did it1 is hell4 ,i am trying to think why ,i punished ,lizzie ,smith for talking last ,friday4 ,bad habit1 ,i expect4 ,yet it acted as a deterrent2 it showed that ,i was in earnest about what ,i was saying--,i was reading the war news from the ,scotsman4 ,i am sorry that ,i punished her2 it was weakness on my part1 weakness and irritation4 ,if she had no interest in the war1 why should she pretend that she had8 ,but no1 ,i cannot have this4 ,i must inculcate the idea of a community2 the bairn must be told that others have rights4 ,i often want to rise up and contradict the minister in kirk1 but ,i don't2 the people have rights2 they do not come out to listen to me4 ,if ,i offend against the community1 the community will punish me with ostracism or bitterness4 ,we have all a right to live our own lives1 but in living them we must live in harmony with the community4 ,lizzie must be told that all the others like the war news1 and that in talking she is annoying them4 ,yes1 ,i must remember to emphasise continually the idea of a corporate life4 99 99 99 ,i see that it is only the weak man who requires a strap4 ,lord ,kitchener could rule my school without a strap1 but ,i am not ,kitchener4 ,moreover1 ,i am glad ,i'm not4 ,i do not want to be what is called a strong man4 ,john ,gourlay1 in ,the ,house with the ,green ,shutters was strong enough to rule every school in ,scotland with ,sir ,john ,struthers superadded2 yet ,i do not want to be ,gourlay4 ,his son would have been a better teacher1 for he was more human4 ,possibly ,kitchener is very human2 ,i do not know4 ,,ii4 ,i heard a blackie this morning as ,i went to school1 and when ,i came near to the playground ,i heard the girls singing4 ,and ,i realised that ,lenten was come with love to ,town4 ,the game was a jingaring1 and ,violet ,brown was in the centre4 ,the wind and the wind and the wind blows high1 ,the rain comes pattering from the sky4 ,violet ,brown says she'll die ,for the lad with the rolling eye4 ,she is handsome1 she is pretty1 ,she is the girl of the golden city2 ,she is counted one1 two1 three1 ,oh6 ,i wonder who he'll be4 ,willie ,craig says he loves her4444 ,my own early experiences told me that ,willie wasn't far off4 ,yes1 there he was at the same old game4 ,when ,vi entered the ring ,willie began to hammer ,geordie ,steel with his bonnet4 ,but ,i could see ,violet watch him with a corner of her eye1 and ,i am quite sure that she was aware that the exertion of hammering ,geordie did not account for ,willie's burning cheeks4 ,then ,katie ,farmer entered the ring 444 and ,tom ,dixon at once became the hammerer of ,geordie4 ,poor wee ,geordie6 ,i know that he loves ,katie himself1 and ,i know that between blows he is listening for the fatal ,tom ,dixon says he loves her4 ,i re-arranged seats this morning1 and ,willie is now sitting behind his ,vi1 but ,tom ,dixon is not behind ,katie4 ,poor despised ,geordie is there1 but ,i shall shift him to-morrow if he does not make the most of his chances4 99 99 99 ,this morning ,geordie passed a note over to ,katie1 then he sat all in a tremble4 ,i saw ,katie read it 444 and ,i saw her blush4 ,i blew my nose violently1 for ,i knew what was written on that sacred sheet2 at least ,i thought ,i knew4444 ,dear ,katie1 will you be my lass8 ,i will have you if you will have me--,geordie4 ,at minutes ,i listened for the name when ,katie went into the ring4 ,it was ,tom ,dixon again4 ,i blew my whistle and stopped the game4 ,at dinner-time ,i looked out at the window1 and rejoiced to see poor ,geordie hammering ,tom ,dixon4 ,i opened the window and listened4 ,katie was in the ring again1 and ,i almost shouted ,hurrah6 when ,i heard the words1 ,geordie ,steel says he loves her4 ,but ,i placed ,tom ,dixon behind ,katie in the afternoon2 ,i felt that ,i had treated poor ,tom with injustice4 ,to-night ,i tried to tackle ,form #i;b1 but ,i could not concentrate4 ,but it wasn't ,violet and ,katie that ,i was thinking of2 ,i was thinking of the ,violets and ,katies ,i wrote noties to many years ago4 ,i fear ,i am a bit of a sentimentalist1 yet 444 why the devil shouldn't ,i be8 99 99 99 ,i have discovered a girl with a sense of humour4 ,i asked my ,qualifying ,class to draw a graph of the attendance at a village kirk4 ,and you must explain away any rise or fall1 ,i said4 ,margaret ,steel had a huge drop one ,sunday1 and her explanation was ,special ,collection for ,missions4 ,next ,sunday the congregation was abnormally large2 ,margaret wrote ,change of ,minister4 ,few bairns have a sense of humour2 their's is a sense of fun4 ,make a noise like a duck and they will scream1 but tell them your best joke and they will be bored to tears4 ,i try hard to cultivate their sense of humour and their imagination4 ,in their composition ,i give them many autobiographies 444 a tile hat1 a penny1 an old boot1 a nose1 a tooth4 ,to-day ,i asked them to describe in the first person a snail's journey to the end of the road4 ,margaret ,steel talked of her hundred mile crawl1 and she noted the tall forests on each side of the road4 ,the grass would be trees to a snail1 she explained4 ,poor ,margaret6 ,when she is fourteen she will go out to the fields1 and in three years she will be an ignorant country bumpkin4 ,our education system is futile because it does not go far enough4 ,the ,state should see to it that each child has the best of chances4 ,margaret should be sent to a ,secondary ,school and to a ,university free of charge4 ,her food and clothes and books and train fares should be free by right4 ,the lassie has brains 444 and that is argument enough4 ,our rulers do realize to a slight extent the responsibility of the community to the child4 ,it sends a doctor round to look at ,margaret's teeth2 it may feed her at school if she is starving2 it compels her to go to school till she is fourteen4 ,at the age of fourteen she is free to go to the devil--the factory or the herding4 ,but suppose she did go to a ,secondary ,school4 ,what then8 ,possibly she would become a ,junior ,student or a ,university ,student4 ,she would learn much1 but would she think8 ,i found that thinking was not encouraged at the university4 99 99 99 ,to-day ,i asked ,senior ,i4 to write up ,a hen in the ,kirk1 and one or two attempts showed imagination4 ,is it possible that ,i am overdoing the imagination business8 ,shall ,i produce men and women with more imagination than intellect8 ,no1 ,i do not think there is danger4 ,the nation suffers from lack of imagination2 few of us can imagine a better state of society1 a fuller life4 ,who are the men with great imagination8444 ,shelley1 ,blake1 ,browning1 ,nietzsche1 ,ibsen1 ,tolstoy4 ,these men were not content with life as it was2 they had ideals1 and ideals are creatures of the imagination4 ,i once saw a book by1 ,i think1 ,arnold ,forster2 a book that was meant to teach children the meaning of citizenship4 ,if ,i remember aright it dealt with parliament and law1 and local government4 ,who was ,arnold ,forster8 ,why cannot our bairns have the best8 ,why tell them all the stale lies about democracy1 the freedom of the individual1 the justice of our laws8 ,are ,forster's ideas of citizenship as great as the ideas of ,plato1 of ,more1 of ,morris1 of ,wells8 ,i intend to make an abridgement of ,plato's ,republic1 ,more's ,utopia1 ,william ,morris's ,news from ,nowhere1 ,bacon's ,a ,new ,atlantis1 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells' ,a ,modern ,utopia1 and ,new ,worlds for ,old4 ,arnold ,forster was with the majority4 ,nearly every day ,i quote to my bairns ,ibsen's words from ,an ,enemy of the ,people4444 ,the ,majority never has right on its side4 ,never ,i say4 ,every lesson book shouts aloud the words3 ,the majority is always right4 ,do ,i teach my bairns ,socialism8 ,i do not think so4 ,socialism means the owning of a ,state by the people of that ,state1 and this ,state is not fit to own anything4 ,for at present the ,state means the majority in ,parliament1 and that is composed of mediocre men4 ,a ,state that takes up ,home ,rule while the slums of the ,east ,end exist is a ,state run by office boys for office boys 444 to adapt ,salisbury's description of a ,london daily4 ,we could not have ,socialism to-day2 the nation is not ripe for it4 ,the ,germans used to drink to ,the ,day2 every teacher in ,britain should drink daily to ,the ,day when there shall be no poor1 when factory lasses will not rise at five and work till six4 ,i know that ,i shall never see the day1 but ,i shall tell my bairns that it is coming4 ,i know that most of the seed will fall on stony ground1 but a sower can but sow4 99 99 99 ,i have been image-breaking to-day1 and ,i feel happy4 ,it began with patent medicines1 but how ,i got to them ,i cannot recollect4 ,i remember commencing a lesson on ,george ,washington4 ,the word hatchet led naturally to ,women's ,suffrage2 then ducks came up4444 ,heaven only knows how1 and the word quack brought me to ,beans for ,bibulous ,britons4 ,i told how most of these medicines cost half a farthing to make1 and ,i explained that the manufacturer was spending a good part of the shilling profit in advertising4 ,then ,i told of the utter waste of material and energy in advertising1 and went on to thunder against the hideous yellow tyre signs on the roadside4 ,at dinner-time ,i read in my paper that some knight had received his knighthood because of his interest in the ,territorial ,movement4 ,much more likely that he gave a few thousands to the party funds1 ,i said to my wondering bairns4 ,then ,i cursed the cash values that attach to almost everything4 ,i am determined to tear all the rags of hypocrisy from the facts of life2 ,i shall lead my bairns to doubt everything4 ,yet ,i want them to believe in ,peter ,pan1 or is it that ,i want them to believe in the beauty of beautiful stories8 ,i want them to love the alluring lady ,romance1 but ,i think ,i want them to love her in the knowledge that she is only a ,dream ,child4 ,romance means more to the realist than to the romancist4 99 99 99 ,i wish ,i were a musician4 ,if ,i could play the piano ,i should spend each ,friday afternoon playing to my bairns4 ,i should give them ,alexander's ,ragtime ,band and ,hitchy ,coo2 then ,i should play them a ,liszt ,rhapsody and a ,chopin waltz4 ,would they understand and appreciate8 ,who knows what raptures great music might bring to a country child8 ,the village blacksmith was fiddling at a dance in the ,hall last night4 ,aw learnt the fiddle in a week1 he told me4 ,i believed him4 ,what effect would ,ysaye have on a village audience8 ,the divine melody would make them sit up startled at first1 and1 ,i think1 some of them might begin to see pictures4 ,if only ,i could bring ,ysaye and ,pachmann to this village6 ,what an experiment6 ,i think that if ,i were a ,melba or a ,ysaye ,i should say to myself3--,i have had enough of money and admiration2 ,i shall go round the villages on an errand of mercy4 ,the great1 they say1 begin in the village hall and end in the ,albert ,hall4 ,the really great would begin and end in the village hall4 ,,iii4 ,a very young calf had managed to get into the playground this morning1 and when ,i arrived ,i found ,peter ,smith hitting it viciously over the nose with a stick4 ,i said nothing4 ,i read the war news as usual4 ,then ,i addressed the bairns4 ,what would you do to the ,germans who committed atrocities in ,belgium8 ,i asked4 ,peter's hand went up with the others4 ,well1 ,peter8 ,please sir1 shoot them4 ,cruelty should be punished1 eh8 ,i said4 ,yes1 sir4 ,then come here1 you dirty dog6 ,i cried1 and ,i whacked ,peter with a fierce joy4 ,i have often wondered at the strain of cruelty that is so often found in boys4 ,the evolutionists must be right3 the young always tend to resemble their remote ancestors4 ,in a boy there is much of the brute4 ,i have seen a boy cut off the heads of a nest of young sparrows2 ,i wanted to hit him 444 but he was bigger than ,i4 ,this morning ,i was bigger than ,peter2 hence ,i do not take any credit to myself for welting him4 ,i can see that cruelty does not disappear with youth4 ,i confess to a feeling of unholy joy in leathering ,peter1 but ,i think that it was caused by a real indignation4 ,what made ,peter hurt the poor wee thing ,i cannot tell4 ,i am inclined to think that he acted subconsciously2 he was being the elemental hunter1 and he did not realise that he was giving pain4 ,i ought to have talked to him1 to have made him realise4 ,but ,i became elemental also2 ,i punished with no definite motive 444 and ,i would do it again4 99 99 99 ,we have had a return of wintry weather1 and the bairns had a glorious slide made on the road this morning4 ,at dinner-time ,i found them loafing round the door4 ,why aren't you sliding1 ,i asked4 ,they explained that the village policeman had salted the slide4 ,after marking the registers ,i took up the theme4 ,why did he salt the slide8 ,i asked4 ,because the farmers do not want their horses to fall1 said one4 ,then ,i took them to laws and their makers4 ,children have no votes1 ,i said1 farmers have2 hence the law is with the farmers4 ,women have no votes and the law gives them half the salary of a man4 ,but1 said ,margaret ,steel1 would you have horses break their legs8 ,i smiled4 ,no1 ,i said1 and ,i would not object to the policeman's salting the slide if the law was thinking of animals' pain4 ,the law and the farmers are thinking of property4 ,property in ,britain comes before everything4 ,i may steal the life and soul from a woman if ,i employ her at a penny an hour1 and ,i may get a title for doing so4 ,but if ,i steal ,mr4 ,thomson's turnips ,i merely get ten days' hard4 ,you bairns should draw up a ,declaration of ,rights1 ,i added1 and ,i think that a few understood my meaning4 99 99 99 ,i find that my bairns have a genuine love for poetry4 ,to-day ,i read them ,tennyson's ,lady of ,shalott2 then ,i read them ,the ,may ,queen4 ,i asked them which was the better1 and most of them preferred1 ,the ,lady of ,shalott4 ,i asked for reasons1 and ,margaret ,steel said that the one was strange and mysterious1 while the other told of an ordinary death-bed4 ,the whole class seemed to be delighted when ,i called ,the ,may ,queen a silly mawkish piece of sentimentality4 ,i have made them learn many pieces from ,stevenson's ,a ,child's ,garden of ,verses1 and they love the rhythm of such pieces as ,the ,shadow ,march4 ,another poem that they love is ,helen of ,kirkconnell2 ,i asked which stanza was the best1 and they all agreed on this beautifully simple one3-- ,o ,helen fair1 beyond compare1 ,i'll mak a garland o' thy hair2 ,shall bind my heart for evermair1 ,until the day ,i dee1 ,i believe in reading out a long poem and then asking them to memorise a few verses4 ,i did this with ,the ,ancient ,mariner4 ,long poems are an abomination to children2 to ask them to commit to memory a piece like ,gray's ,elegy is unkind4 ,i have given them the first verse of ,francis ,thompson's ,the ,hound of ,heaven4 ,i did not expect them to understand a word of it2 my idea was to test their power of appreciating sound4 ,great music might convey something to rustics1 but great poetry cannot convey much4 ,still1 ,i try to lead them to the greater poetry4 ,i wrote on the board a verse of ,little ,jim and a verse of ,la ,belle ,dame sans ,merci1 and ,i think ,i managed to give them an inkling of what is good and what is bad verse4 ,i begin to think that country children should learn ballads4 ,there is a beauty about the old ballads that even children can catch2 it is the beauty of a sweet simplicity4 ,when ,i think of the orchestration of ,swinburne1 ,i think of the music of the ballads as of a flute playing4 ,and ,i know that orchestration would be lost on country folk4 ,i hate the poems that crowd the average school-book 444 ,little ,jim1 ,we are ,seven1 ,lucy ,gray1 ,the ,wreck of the ,hesperus1 ,the ,boy stood on the ,burning ,deck1 and all the rest of them4 ,i want to select the best of the ,cavalier lyrists' works1 the songs from the old collections like ,davison's ,poetical ,rhapsody and ,england's ,helicon1 the lyrics from the ,elizabethan dramatists4 ,i want to look through moderns like ,william ,watson1 ,robert ,bridges1 ,george ,meredith1 ,thomas ,hardy1 ,henley1 ,dowson1 ,abercrombie1 ,william ,wilfred ,gibson 444 there must be many charming pieces that bairns would enjoy4 ,i read out the old ,tale of ,gamelyn the other day1 and the queer rhythm and language seemed to interest the class4 99 99 99 ,i think that the teaching of history in schools is all wrong4 ,i look through a school-history1 and ,i find that emphasis is laid on incident4 ,of what earthly use is the information given about ,henry ,,viii4's matrimonial vagaries8 ,does it matter a rap to anyone whether ,henry ,i4--or was it ,henry ,,ii48--ever smiled again or not8 ,by all means let us tell the younger children tales of wicked dukes1 but older children ought to be led to think out the meaning of history4 ,the usual school-history is a piece of snobbery2 it can't keep away from the topic of kings and queens4 ,they don't matter2 history should tell the story of the people and their gradual progress from serfdom to 444 sweating4 ,i believe that a boy of eleven can grasp cause and effect4 ,with a little effort he can understand the non-sentimental side of the ,mary ,stewart-,elizabeth story1 the result to ,scotland of the ,franco-,scottish alliance4 ,he can understand why ,philip of ,spain1 a ,roman ,catholic1 preferred that the ,protestant ,elizabeth should be ,queen of ,england rather than the ,catholic ,mary ,stewart4 ,the histories never make bairns think4 ,i have not seen one that mentioned that ,magna ,charta was signed because all classes in the country happened to be united for the moment4 ,i have not seen one that points out that the main feature in ,scots history is the lack of a strong central government4 ,hume ,brown's school ,history of ,scotland is undoubtedly a very good book1 but ,i want to see a history that will leave out all the detail that ,brown gives4 ,all that stuff about the ,ruthven ,raid and the ,black ,dinner of the ,douglases might be left out of the books that the upper classes read4 ,my history would tell the story of how the different parts were united to form the present ,scotland1 without mentioning more than half-a-dozen names of men and dates4 ,then it would go on to tell of the struggles to form a central government4 ,possibly ,hume ,brown does this4 ,i don't know2 ,i am met with so much detail about ,perth ,articles and murders that ,i lose the thread of the story4 ,again1 the school-histories almost always give a wrong impression of men and events4 ,every ,scots schoolboy thinks that ,edward ,i4 of ,england was a sort of thief and bully rolled into one1 and that the carpet-bagger1 ,robert ,bruce1 was a saint from heaven4 ,edward's greatness as a lawgiver is ignored2 at least we ought to give him credit for his statesmanship in making an attempt to unite ,england1 ,scotland1 and ,wales4 ,and ,cromwell's ,drogheda and ,wexford affair is generally mentioned with due emphasis1 while ,charles ,i4's proverbial reputation as a bad king but a good father is seldom omitted4 ,i expect that the school-histories of the future will talk of the scrap of paper aspect of the present war1 and they will anathematise the ,kaiser4 ,but the real historians will be searching for deeper causes2 they will be analysing the national characteristics1 the economical needs1 the diplomatic methods1 of the nations4 ,the school-histories will say3 ,the war came about because the ,kaiser wanted to be master of ,europe1 and the ,german people had no say in the matter at all4 ,the historians will say 444 well1 ,i'm afraid ,i don't know2 but ,i think they will relegate the ,kaiser to a foot-note4 99 99 99 ,the theorist is a lazy man4 ,mac,murray down the road at ,markiton ,school is a hard worker2 he never theorises about education4 ,he grinds away at his history and geography1 and ,i don't suppose he likes geography any more than ,i do4 ,i expect that he gives a thorough lesson on ,canada1 its exports and so on4 ,i do not2 ,i am too lazy to read up the subject4 ,my theory says to me3 ,you are able to think fairly well1 and a knowledge of the amount of square miles in ,manitoba would not help you to think as brightly as ,h4 ,g4 ,wells4 ,so1 why learn up stuff that you can get in a dictionary any day8 ,and ,i teach on this principle4 ,at the same time ,i am aware that facts must precede theories in education4 ,you cannot have a theory on1 say1 the ,marriage ,laws1 unless you know what these laws are4 ,however1 ,i do try to distinguish between facts and facts4 ,to a child 7as to me71 the fact that ,canada grows wheat is of less importance than the fact that if you walk down the street in ,winnipeg in mid winter1 you may have your ears frost-bitten4 ,the only information ,i know about ,japan consists of a few interesting facts ,i got from a lecture by ,arthur ,diosy4 ,i don't know what things are manufactured in ,tokio1 but ,i know that a ,jap almost boils himself when he takes a bath in the morning4 ,i find that ,i am much more interested in humanity than in materials1 and ,i know that the bairns are like me in this4 ,a ,west ,african came to the school the other day1 and asked me to allow him to tell 7for a consideration7 the story of his home life4 ,when ,i discovered that he did not mean his own private home life ,i gladly gave him permission4 ,he talked for half-an-hour about the habits of his home1 the native schools1 the dress of the children 7,i almost blushed at this part1 but ,i was relieved to find that they do dress after all72 then he sang the native version of ',mary had a little ,lamb' 7great applause74 ,the lecture was first-rate2 and1 in my lazy--,i mean my theoretical moments1 ,i squint down the road in hopes that an itinerant ,chinaman will come along4 ,i would have a coloured band of geographers employed by the ,department4 99 99 99 ,i am chuckling at myself to-night4 ,a day or two ago ,i lectured about the policeman's action in salting the slide1 and ,i certainly did not think of the farmer's position4 ,to-day ,i wore a new pair of very light spats 444 and ,lizzie ,adam has a horrid habit of shaking her pen after dipping4 ,look what you've done6 ,i cried in vexation1 can't you stop that silly habit of chucking ink all over the school8 ,then ,i laughed4 ,lizzie1 ,i said sadly1 you won't understand1 but ,i am the farmer who wants the slide salted4 ,the farmer does not want to have his horse ruined1 and ,i do object to having my new spats ruined4 ,the truth is that the interests of the young and of the old are directly antagonistical4 ,i can argue with delightful sophistry that ,i am better than the farmer4 ,i can say that throwing ink is a silly habit1 with no benefit to ,lizzie1 while sliding brings joy to a schoolful of bairns2 hence the joy of these bairns is of greater importance than the loss of a horse4 ,but ,i know what ,i should think if it were my horse1 yes1 ,i know4 ,i find it the most difficult thing in the world to be a theorist 444 and an honest man at the same time4 ,,iv4 ,a ,junior ,inspector called to-day4 ,his subject was handwriting1 and he had theories on the subject4 ,so have ,i4 ,we had an interesting talk4 ,his view is that handwriting is a practical science2 hence we must teach a child to write in such a way as to carry off the job he applies for when he is fourteen4 ,my view is that handwriting is an art1 like sketching4 ,my view is the better1 for it includes his4 ,i am a superior penman to him1 and in a contest ,i could easily beat him4 ,i really failed to see what he was worrying his head about4 ,what does the style matter4 ,it is the art that one puts into a style that makes writing good4 ,i can teach the average bairn to write well in two hours2 it is simply a matter of writing slowly4 ,i like the old-schoolmaster hand1 the round easy writing with its thick downstrokes and thin upstrokes4 ,i like to see the m's with the joinings in the middle4 ,the ,times copy-book is the ideal one--to me4 ,but why write down any more4 ,the topic isn't worth the ink wasted4 99 99 99 ,i picked up a copy of a ,popular ,educator to-day4 ,much of the stuff seems to be well written1 but ,i cannot help thinking that the words low ideals are written over the whole set of volumes4 ,its aim is evidently to enable boys and girls to gain success 444 as the world considers success4 ,study hard1 it blares forth1 and you will become a ,whiteley or a ,gamage4 ,study if you want wealth and position4 ,what an ideal6 ,let us have our ,shorthand ,classes1 our ,cookery ,classes1 our ,typewriting ,classes1 but for any sake don't let us call them education4 ,education is thinking2 it should deal with great thoughts1 with the sthetic things in life1 with life itself4 ,commerce is the profiteer's god1 but it is not mine4 ,i want to teach my bairns how to live2 the ,popular ,educator wants to teach them how to make a living4 ,there is a distinction between the two ideals4 ,the ,scotch ,education ,department would seem to have some of the ,educator's aspirations4 ,it demands ,gardening1 ,woodwork1 ,cookery2 in short1 it is aiming at turning out practical men and women4 ,my objection to men and women is that they are too practical4 ,i used to see a notice in ,edinburgh3 ,john ,brown1 ,practical ,chimney ,sweep4 ,i often used to wonder what a theoretical chimney sweep might be1 and ,i often wished ,i could meet one4 ,my view is that a teacher should turn out theoretical sweeps1 railwaymen1 ploughmen1 servants4 ,heaven knows they will get the practical part knocked into them soon enough4 99 99 99 ,i have been experimenting with ,drawing4 ,i have been a passable black-and-white artist for many years1 and the subject fascinates me4 ,i see that drawing is of less importance than taste1 and ,i find that ,i can get infants who cannot draw a line to make artistic pictures4 ,i commence with far-away objects--a clump of trees on the horizon4 ,the child takes a ,,bb pencil and blocks in the mass of trees4 ,the result is a better picture than the calendar prints the bairns see at home4 ,gradually ,i take nearer objects1 and at length ,i reach what is called drawing4 ,i ignore all vases and cubes and ellipses2 my model is a school-bag or a cloak4 ,the drawing does not matter very much2 but ,i want to see the shadows stand out4 ,i find that only a few in a class ever improve in sketching2 one is born with the gift4 ,designing fascinates many bairns4 ,i asked them to design a kirk window on squared paper to-day4 ,some of the attempts were good4 ,i got the boys to finish off with red ink1 and then ,i pasted up the designs on the wall4 ,i seem to recollect an ,inspector who told me to give up design a good few years ago4 ,i wouldn't give it up now for anyone4 ,it is a delightful study1 and it will bring out an inherent good taste better than any branch of drawing ,i know4 ,drawing 7or rather1 ,sketching7 to me means an art1 not a means to cultivating observation4 ,it belongs solely to ,aesthetics4 ,sketching1 ,music1 and ,poetry are surely intended to make a bairn realise the fuller life that must have beauty always with it4 ,i showed my bairns two sketches of my own to-day 444 the ,tolbooth and the ,whitehorse ,close in ,edinburgh4 ,a few claimed that the ,whitehorse ,close was the better1 because it left more out4 ,it leaves something to the imagination1 said ,tom ,dixon4 99 99 99 ,when will some original publisher give us a decent school ,reader8 ,i have not seen one that is worth using4 ,some of them give excerpts from ,dickens and ,fielding and ,borrow 7that horrid bore7 and ,hawthorne 7another74 ,i cannot find any interest in these excerpts2 they have no beginning and no end4 ,moreover1 a bairn does like the dramatic2 prosiness deadens its wee soul at once4 ,i want to see a ,reader especially written for bairns4 ,i want to see many complete stories1 filled with bright dialogue4 ,every yarn should commence with dialogue4 ,i always think kindly of the late ,guy ,boothby1 because he usually began with1 ,hands up1 or ,i fire6 or a kindred sentence4 ,i wish ,i could lay hands on a ,century ,reader ,i used as a boy4 ,it was full of the dramatic4 ,the first story was one about the ,burning of ,moscow1 then came the tale of ,captain ,dodds and the pirate 7from ,reade's novel1 ,hard ,cash1 ,i admit4 ,an excerpt need not be uninteresting71 then a long passage from ,the ,deerslayer 444 with a picture of ,indians throwing tomahawks at the hero4 ,i loved that book4 ,i think that dramatic reading should precede prosy reading4 ,it is life that a child wants1 not prosy descriptions of sunsets and travels2 life1 and romance4 ,i have scrapped my ,readers2 ,i don't use them even for ,spelling4 ,i do not teach ,spelling2 the teaching of it does not fit into my scheme of education4 ,teaching depends on logic4 ,now ,spelling throws logic to the winds4 ,i tell a child that cough is coff1 and logic leads him to suppose that rough is roff and through is throff4 ,if ,i tell him that spelling is important because it shows whence a word is derived1 ,i am bound in honesty to tell him that a matinee is not a morning performance1 that manufactured goods are not made by hand4 ,hence ,i leave ,spelling alone4 ,at school ,i learned ,spelling1 and ,i could not spell a word until ,i commenced to read much4 ,spelling is of the eye mainly4 ,every boy can spell truly and obliged when he leaves school1 but ten years later he will probably write truely and oblidged4 ,why8 ,i think that the explanation lies in the fact that he does not read as a growing youth4 ,anyway1 dictionaries are cheap4 99 99 99 ,to-night ,i sat down on a desk and lit my pipe4 ,margaret ,steel and ,lizzie ,buchan were tidying up the room4 ,margaret looked at me thoughtfully for a second4 ,please1 sir1 why do you smoke8 she said4 ,i really don't know1 ,margaret1 ,i said4 ,bad habit1 ,i suppose 444 just like writing notes to boys4 ,she suddenly became feverishly anxious to pick up the stray papers4 ,i wonder1 ,i mused1 whether they do it in the same old way4 ,how do they do it1 ,margaret8 ,she dived after a piece of paper4 ,i used to write them myself1 ,i said4 ,margaret looked up quickly4 ,you6 she gasped4 ,i am not so old1 ,i said hastily4 ,please1 sir1 ,i didn't mean that1 she explained in confusion4 ,you did1 you wee bissom1 ,i chuckled4 ,please1 sir1 she said awkwardly1 why--why are you not--not-m-married8 ,i rose and took up my hat4 ,i once kissed a girl behind the school door1 ,margaret1 ,i said absently4 ,she did not understand 444 and when ,i come to think of it ,i am not surprised4 99 99 99 ,to-day was prize-giving day4 ,old ,mr4 ,simpson made a speech4 ,boys1 he said1 study hard and you'll maybe be a minister like ,mr4 ,gordon there4 ,he paused4 ,or1 he continued1 if you don't manage that1 you may become a teacher like ,mr4 ,neill here4 ,otherwise the affair was very pathetic3 the medallist1 a girl1 had already left school and was hired as a servant on a farm4 ,and old ,mr4 ,simpson did not know it2 ,i thought it better not to tell the kindly soul4 ,he spoke earnestly on success in life4 ,i hate prizes4 ,to-day1 ,violet ,brown and ,margaret ,steel1 usually the best of friends1 are looking daggers at each other4 ,to-morrow ,i shall read them the story of the ,judgment of ,paris4 ,and what rubbish these books are6 ,there isn't a decent piece of literature in the bunch--,matty's ,present1 ,the ,girl ,who ,came to ,school4 ,jerusalem6 ,v4 ,the more ,i see of it the more ,i admire the co-education system4 ,to me it is delightful to see boys and girls playing together4 ,segregate boys and you destroy their perspective4 ,i used to find at the university that it was generally the ,english ,public ,school ,boy who set up one standard of morals for his sisters and another for the shop-girls4 ,co-education is the greatest thing in our ,state educational system4 ,the bairns early learn the interdependence of the sexes2 boys and girls early begin to understand each other4 ,all danger of putting women on a pedestal is taken away2 the boys find that the girls are ordinary humans with many failings 7,aw'll tell the mester671 and many virtues4 ,the girls find that boys 444 well1 ,i don't exactly know what the girls find4 ,seldom is there any over-familiarity4 ,the girls have a natural protective aloofness that awes the boys2 the boys generally have strenuous interests that lead them to ignore the girls for long periods4 ,at present the sexes are very friendly1 for love-making 7always a holy thing with bairns71 has come with spring2 but in a few weeks the boys will be playing football or bools1 and they will not be seen in the girls' playground4 ,i can detect no striving after what is called chivalry 7thank heaven67 ,if ,maggie and ,willie both lay hands on a ruler1 they fight it out1 but ,maggie generally gets it2 she can say more4 ,mr4 ,henpeck begins life as a chick4 ,i hate the popular idea of chivalry1 and ,i want my boys to hate it4 ,chivalry to me means rising in the ,tube to offer a typist your seat1 and then going off to the city to boss a score of waitresses who are paid #fs4 a week4 ,as a nation we have no chivalry2 we have only etiquette4 ,we hold doors open for nice women1 and we tamely suffer or forget about a society that condemns poor women to slave for sixteen hours a day sewing shirts at a penny an hour4 ,we say ,thank you when the lady of the house stops playing1 and we banish the prostitutes of ,piccadilly from our minds4 ,chivalry has been dead for a long time now4 ,i want to substitute kindness for the word chivalry4 ,i want to tell my bairns that the only sin in the world is cruelty4 ,i do not preach morality for ,i hardly know what morality is4 ,i have no morals1 ,i am an a-moralist1 or should it be a non-moralist8 ,i judge not1 and ,i mean to school my bairns into judging not4 ,yet ,i am not being quite consistent4 ,i do judge cruelty and uncharitableness2 but ,i judge not those who do not act up to the accustomed code of morals4 ,a code is always a temptation to a healthy person2 it is like a window by a railway siding3 it cries out3 ,chuck a chunk of coal through me4 ,codes never make people moral2 they merely make them hypocritical4 ,i include the ,scotch code4 99 99 99 ,until lately ,i thought that drill was unnecessary for rural bairns4 ,it was the chief inspector of the district who converted me4 ,he pointed out that country children are clumsy and slack4 ,a countryman can heave a sack of potatoes on his back1 he said1 but he has no agility1 no grace of movement4 ,i agree with him now4 ,i find that drill makes my bairns more graceful4 ,but ,i am far from being pleased with any system that ,i know4 ,i don't really care tuppence whether they are physically alert or not1 but ,i want them to be graceful1 if only from an artistic point of view4 ,the system ,i really want to know is ,eurhythmics4 ,i recently read an illustrated article by 7or on87 ,jacques ,dalcroze1 the inventor of the method1 and the founder of the ,eurhythmics ,school near ,dresden4 ,the system is drill combined with music4 ,the pupils walk and dance1 and ,i expect1 sit to music4 ,the photographs were beautiful studies in grace2 the school appears to be full of ,pavlovas4 ,i think ,i shall try to found a ,eurhythmics system on the photographs4 ,i cannot surely invent anything more graceless than ',shun6 ,grace is almost totally absent from rural dances4 ,the ploughman takes off his jacket1 and sweats his roaring way through ,the ,flowers o' ,edinburgh2 but the waltz has no attraction for him4 ,waltzing is a necessity in a rural scheme of education 444 and1 incidentally1 in a ,mayfair scheme of education1 now that the ,bunny ,hug and the ,turkey ,trot and the ,tango have come to these isles4 99 99 99 ,robert ,campbell left the school to-day4 ,he had reached the age limit4 ,he begins work tomorrow morning as a ploughman4 ,and yesterday ,i wrote about introducing ,eurhythmics6 ,robert's leaving brings me to earth with a flop4 ,i am forced to look a grim fact in the face4 ,truly it is like a death2 ,i stand by a new made grave1 and ,i have no hope of a resurrection4 ,robert is dead4 ,pessimism has hold of me to-night4 ,i have tried to point the way to what ,i think best in life1 tried to give ,robert an ideal4 ,tomorrow he will be gathered to his fathers4 ,he will take up the attitude of his neighbours3 he will go to church1 he will vote ,radical or ,tory1 he will elect a farmer to the ,school ,board1 he will marry and live in a hovel4 ,his master said to me recently3 ,bairns are gettin' ower muckle eddication noo-a-days4 ,what eddication does a laddie need to herd kye8 ,yes1 ,i am as pessimistic as any ,schopenhauer to-night1 ,i cannot see the sun4 99 99 99 ,my pessimism has remained with me all day4 ,i feel that ,i am merely pouring water into a sieve4 ,i almost feel that to meddle with education is to begin at the wrong end4 ,i may have an ideal1 but ,i cannot carry it out because ,i am up against all the forces of society4 ,robert ,campbell is damned1 not because education is so very wrong1 but because education is trying to adapt itself to commerce and economics and convention4 ,i think ,i am right in holding that our ,individualist1 as opposed to a ,socialist1 system is to blame4 ,every man for himself is the most cursed saying that was ever said4 ,if we are to allow an idle rich to waste millions yearly1 if we are to allow profiteers to amass thousands at the expense of the slaving majority1 what chance has poor ,robert ,campbell8 ,i complete the saying--and the ,deil tak the henmost4 ,robert is the henmost4 ,o6 the people are poor things4 ,democracy is the last futility4 ,yet ,i should not blame the people2 they never get a chance4 ,our rulers are on the side of the profiteers1 and the latter take very good care that ,robert ,campbell shall leave school when he is fourteen4 ,it isn't that they want more cheap labour2 they are afraid that if he is educated until he is nineteen he will be wise enough to say3 ,why should ,i1 a man made in the image of ,god1 be forced to slave for gains that you will steal8 ,yet1 the only way is to labour on1 to strive to convey some idea of my ideal to my bairns4 ,if every teacher in ,scotland had the same ideal as ,i have ,i think that the fight would not be a long one4 ,but how do ,i know that my ideal is the right one8 ,i cannot say2 ,i just know4 ,which1 ,i admit1 is a woman's reason4 99 99 99 ,i was re-reading ,an ,enemy of the ,people last night1 and the thought suddenly came to me3 ,would my bairns understand it8 ,this morning ,i cut out ,bible instruction and read them the first act4 ,i then questioned them1 and found to my delight that they had grasped the theme4 ,it was peculiarly satisfying to me to find that they recognized ,dr4 ,stockmann as a better man than his grovelling brother ,peter4 ,if my bairns could realise the full significance of ,ibsen's play1 ,the ,day would not be so far off as ,i am in the habit of thinking it is4 ,i must re-read ,shaw's ,widowers' ,houses2 ,i fancy that children might find much thought in it4 ,it is one of his ,unpleasant ,plays1 but ,i see no reason for keeping the unlovely things from bairns4 ,i do not believe in frightening them with tales of murder and ghosts4 ,every human being has something of the gruesome in his composition2 the murder cases are the most popular readings in our press4 ,i want to direct this innate desire for gruesome things to the realising of the most gruesome things in the world--the grinding of soul and body in order to gain profits1 the misery of poverty and cold1 the weariness of toil4 ,if our press really wants to make its readers shudder1 why does it not publish long accounts of infant mortality in the slums1 of gin fed bairns1 of back-doors used as fuel1 of phthisical girls straining their eyes over seams8 ,i know why the press ignores these things1 the public does not want to think of them4 ,if the public wanted such stories every capitalist owner of a newspaper would supply them1 grudgingly1 but with a stern resolve to get dividends4 ,to-day the papers are mostly run for the rich and their parasites4 ,the only way in which ',enery ,smith can get his photograph into the papers is by jumping on ,mrs4 ',enery ,smith until she expires4 ,i wonder that no criminologist has tried to prove that publicity is the greatest incentive to crime4 ,when ,i read the daily papers to my bairns ,i try to tell them what is left out4 ,humour at ,bow ,street1 a heading will run4 ,ye ,gods6 ,humour6 ,i have as much humour as most men1 but if anyone can find humour in the stupid remarks of a law-giver he must be a ,w4 ,w4 ,jacobs1 a ,mark ,twain1 a ,george ,a4 ,birmingham1 and a ,stephen ,leacock rolled into one 444 with the ,devil thrown in4 ,humour at ,bow ,street4 ,i have been there4 ,i have seen the poor ,magdalenes and the pitiable ,lazaruses shuffle in with terror in their eyes4 ,i have seen the inflexible mighty law condemn them to the cells1 ,i have heard their piteous cries for mercy4 ,and the newspapers talk of the humour of the courts4 ,i once read that law's primary object is to protect the rich from the poor4 ,the appalling truth of that saying dawned on me in ,bow ,street4 ,humour6 ,yes1 there is humour in ,bow ,street4 ,the grimmest1 ugliest joke in the world is this4444 ,covent ,garden ,opera ,house stands across the street from the court4 99 99 99 ,to-day ,i told ,senior ,,ii4 to write up the following story1 ,i advised them to add graces to it if they could4 ,a farmer went to ,edinburgh for the day4 ,he was walking down the ,high ,street with open mouth when the fire engine came swinging round the corner4 ,the farmer gave chase down the ,north ,bridge and ,leith ,street1 and owing to the heavy traffic the engine's rate was so slow that he could easily keep up with it4 ,but it turned down ,london ,road1 and in the long silent street soon outdistanced him4 ,he ran until he saw that it was hopeless4 ,then he stopped and held up a clenched fist4 ,ye can keep yer dawmed tattie-chips1 he cried1 ,aw'll get them some other place4 ,mary ,peters began thus3-- ,mr4 ,peter ,mitchell went to ,edinburgh for the day4444 ,mr4 ,peter ,mitchell is ,chairman of the ,school ,board4 99 99 99 ,why did ,i substitute auld for dawmed tattie-chips when ,i told the bairns the story4 ,art demands the dawmed4 ,i think ,i substituted the auld because ,i like a quiet life4 ,i have no time to persuade indignant parents that damn is not a sin4 ,but it was weakness on my part2 ,i compromised1 and compromise is always a lie4 ,,vi4 ,this morning ,i had a note from a farmer in the neighbourhood4 ,,dear ,,sir1--,i send my son ,andrew to get education at the school not ,radical politics4 ,i am1 ,yours respectfully1 ,andrew ,smith4 ,i called ,andrew out4 ,andrew1 ,i said1 with a smile1 when you go home to-night tell your father that ,i hate ,radicalism possibly more than he does4 ,the father came down to-night to apologise4 ,aw thocht ye was ane o' they wheezin' ,radicals1 he explained4 ,then he added1 ,and what micht yer politics be8 ,i am a ,utopian1 ,i said modestly4 ,he scratched his head for a moment1 then he gave it up and asked my opinion of the weather4 ,we discussed turnips for half-an-hour1 at the end of which time ,i am sure he was wondering how an ,m4,a4 could be such an ignoramus4 ,we parted on friendly terms4 99 99 99 ,i do not think that ,i have any definite views on the teaching of religion to bairns2 indeed1 ,i have the vaguest notion of what religion means4 ,i am just enough of a ,nietzschean to protest against teaching children to be meek and lowly4 ,i once shocked a dear old lady by saying that the part of the ,bible that appealed to me most was that in which the ,pharisee said3 ,i thank ,god that ,i am not as other men4 ,i was young then1 ,i have not the courage to say it now4 ,i do1 however1 hold strongly that teaching religion is not my job4 ,the parish minister and the ,u4,f4 minister get good stipends for tending their flocks1 and ,i do not see any reason in the world why ,i should have to look after the lambs4 ,for one thing ,i am not capable4 ,all ,i aim at is teaching bairns how to live 444 possibly that is the true religion2 my early training prevents my getting rid of the idea that religion is intended to teach people how to die4 ,to-day ,i was talking about the probable formation of the earth1 how it was a ball of flaming gas like the sun1 how it cooled gradually1 how life came4 ,a girl looked up and said3 ,please1 sir1 what about the ,bible8 ,i explained that in my opinion the creation story was a story told to children1 to a people who were children in understanding4 ,i pointed out a strange feature1 discovered to me by the parish minister1 that the first chapter of ,genesis follows the order of scientific evolution 444 the earth is without form1 life rises from the sea1 then come the birds1 then the mammals4 ,but ,i am forced to give religious instruction4 ,i confine my efforts to the four gospels2 the bairns read them aloud4 ,i seldom make any comment on the passages4 ,in geography lessons ,i often take occasion to emphasise the fact that ,muhammudans and ,buddhists are not necessarily stupid folk who know no better4 ,i cannot lead bairns to a religion1 but ,i can prevent their being stupidly narrow4 ,no1 ,i fear ,i have no definite opinions on religion4 ,i set out to enter the church1 but ,i think that ,i could not have stayed in it4 ,i fancy that one fine ,sunday morning ,i would have stood up in the pulpit and said3 ,friends1 ,i am no follower of ,christ4 ,i like fine linen and tobacco1 books and comfort4 ,i should be in the slums1 but ,i am not ,christlike enough to go there4 ,goodbye4 ,i wonder6 ,why then do ,i not stand up and say to the ,school ,board3 ,i do not believe in this system of education at all4 ,i am a hypocrite when ,i teach subjects that ,i abominate4 ,give me my month's screw4 ,goodbye4 ,i sigh 444 yet ,i like to fancy that ,i could not have stayed in the kirk4 ,one thing ,i am sure of3 a big stipend would not have tempted me to stay4 ,i have no wish for money2 at least1 ,i wouldn't go out of my way to get it4 ,i wouldn't edit a popular newspaper for ten thousand a year4 ,of that ,i am sure4 ,quite sure4 ,quite4 ,yet ,i once applied for a job on a ,tory daily4 ,i was hungry then4 ,what if ,i were hungry now8 ,the flesh is weak 444 but1 ,i could always go out on tramp4 ,i more than half long for the temptation4 ,then ,i should discover whether ,i am an idealist or a talker4 ,possibly ,i am a little of both4 ,i began to write about religion1 and ,i find myself talking about myself4 ,can it be that my god is my ego8 99 99 99 ,i began these log-notes in order to discover my philosophy of education1 and ,i find that ,i am discovering myself4 ,this discovery of self must come first4 ,personality goes far in teaching4 ,may it go too far8 ,is it possible that ,i am a danger to these bairns8 ,may ,i not be influencing them too much8 ,i do not think so4 ,anything ,i may say will surely be negatived at home2 my word1 unfortunately1 is not so weighty as father's4 ,in what is called ,spelling ,reform we cannot have a revolution2 all we can hope for is a reform within ,spelling1 a reform that will abolish existing anomalies4 ,so in education we cannot have a revolution4 ,all we can hope for is a reform wrought within education by the teacher4 ,if every teacher were a sort of ,wellsian-,shavian-,nietzschean-,webbian fellow1 the children would be directly under two potent influences--the parents and teachers4 ,what is ,truth8 millions of ,pilates have asked4 ,it is because we have no standard of ,truth that our education is a failure4 ,each of us gets hold of a corner of the page of ,truth1 but the trouble is that so many grasp the same corner4 ,it is a corner dirty with thumb-marks 444 ,humour in ,bow ,street1 ,knighthood for ,tooting ,philanthropist1 ,dastardly ,act by ,leeds ,strikers1 ,special ,service of ,praise in the ,parish ,kirk 444 marks do not obliterate the page4 ,my corner is free from thumbmarks1 and anyone can read the clear type of ,christlessness in ,bow ,street1 ,jobbery in the ,sale of ,honours1 ,murder of ,starving ,strikers1 ,thanksgiving ,service for the ,blessing of ,whitechapel 444 but few will read this corner's story2 the majority likes the filthy corner with the beautiful news4 ,i have discovered my mission4 ,i am the apostle of the clean corner with the dirty news written on it4 99 99 99 ,i began to read the second act of ,an ,enemy of the ,people this morning1 but ,i had to give it up2 the bairns had lost interest4 ,i closed the book4 ,suppose1 ,i said1 suppose that this village suddenly became famous as a health-resort4 ,people would build houses and hotels1 your fathers would grow richer2 and suppose that the doctor discovered that the water supply was poisonous1 that the pipes lay through a swamp where fever germs were4 ,what would the men who had built hotels and houses say about the doctor8 ,what would they do about the water supply8 ,the unanimous opinion was that the water-pipes would be relaid2 the people would not want visitors to come and take fever4 ,this opinion leads me to conclude that bairns are idealists2 childhood takes the ,christian view4 ,barrie says that genius is the power of being a boy again at will2 ,i agree1 but ,barrie and ,i are possibly thinking of different aspects4 ,ibsen was a genius because he became as a little child4 ,dr4 ,stockmann 7,ibsen7 is a simple child2 he cannot realise that self-interest can make his own brother a criminal to society4 ,i told my bairns what the men in the play did4 ,but1 said one in amazement1 they would not do that in real life8 ,they are doing it every day1 ,i said4 ,this school is old1 badly ventilated1 overcrowded4 ,it is a danger to your health and mine4 ,yet1 if ,i asked for a new school1 the whole village would rise up against me4 ',more money on the rates6' they would cry1 and they would treat me very much as the people in the play treated ,dr4 ,stockmann4 99 99 99 ,i find it difficult to discuss the causes of the war with the bairns4 ,i refuse to accept the usual tags about going to the assistance of a weak neighbour whom we agreed to protect4 ,we all want to think that we are fighting for ,belgium but are we8 ,i look to ,mexico and ,i find it has been bathed in blood because the ,american ,oil ,kings and the ,british ,oil ,kings were at war4 ,president ,diaz was pro-,english1 ,madero was pro-,american1 ,huerta was pro-,english 444 and the ,united ,states supported the notorious ,villa4 ,villa's rival1 ,carranzo1 was pro-,english4 ,it is an accepted belief that the ,american ,oil ,kings financed the first risings in order to drive the ,british oil interests out of the country4 ,hence1 widows and orphans in ,mexico are the victims of a dollar massacre4 ,can we trace the present war to the financiers8 ,it is said that the ,triple ,entente is the result of ,russia's receiving loans from ,france and ,britain4 ,i cannot find a solution4 ,i am inclined to attach little value to what is called national feeling4 ,the workers are the masses1 and ,i cannot imagine a ,german navvy's having any hatred of a ,british navvy4 ,a world of workers would not fight1 but at present the workers are so badly organised that they fight at the bidding of kings and diplomatists and financiers4 ,war comes from the classes above1 and by means of their press the upper classes convert the proletariat to their way of thinking4 ,a more important subject is that of the ending of wars4 ,the idealistic vapourings of the ,i4,l4,p4 with its silly talk of internationalism will do nothing to stop war4 ,norman ,angell's cry that war doesn't pay will not stop war4 ,but a true democracy in each country will stop it4 ,i think of ,russia with all its darkness and cruelty1 and ,i am appalled2 a true democracy there will be centuries in coming4 ,for ,germany ,i do not fear2 out of her militarism will surely arise a great democratic nation4 ,and out of our own great trial a true democracy is arising4 ,capitalism has failed2 the ,state now sees that it must control the railways and engineering shops in a crisis4 ,the men who struck work on the ,clyde are of the same class as the men who are dying in ,flanders4 ,why should one lot be heroes and the other lot be cursed as traitors8 ,the answer is simple4 ,the soldiers are fighting for the nation2 the engineers are working primarily for the profiteers1 and only secondarily for the nation4 ,profiteering has not stood the test1 and the workers are beginning to realise the significance of its failure4 ,,vii4 ,to-day ,i have scrapped somebody's ,rural ,arithmetic4 ,it is full of sums of the ,how-much-will-it-take-to-paper a-room8 type4 ,this cursed utilitarianism in education riles me4 ,who wants to know what it will take to paper a room8 ,personally ,i should call in the painter1 and take my meals on the parlour piano for a day or two4 ,anyway1 why this suspicion of the poor painter8 ,is he worse than other tradesmen8 ,if we must have a utilitarian arithmetic then ,i want to see a book that will tell me if the watchmaker is a liar when he tells me that the mainspring of my watch is broken4 ,i want to see sums like this3--,how long will a plumber take to lay a ten foot pipe if father can do it at the rate of a yard in three minutes8 7,ans41 three days74 ,to me ,arithmetic is an art not a science4 ,i do not know a single rule2 ,i must always go back to first principles4 ,i love catch questions1 questions that will make a bairn think all the time4 ,inspectors' ,tests give but little scope for the ,art of ,arithmetic2 they are usually poor peddling things that smell strongly of materialism4 ,in other words1 they appeal to the mechanical part of a bairn's brain instead of to the imagination4 ,i want to see a test that will include a sum like this3--#bc4d 4#jfe #ed4fgh #j4 ,the cram will start in to multiply out2 the imaginative bairn will glance along and see the nought1 and will at once spot that the answer is zero4 99 99 99 ,i have just discovered an excellent song-book--,curwen's ,approved ,songs4 ,it includes all the lovely songs of ,cavalier and ,puritan times1 tunes like ,polly ,oliver and ,golden ,slumbers4 ,at present my bairns are singing a ,christmas ,carol by ,bridge1 ,sweeter than ,songs of ,summer4 ,they sing treble1 alto1 and tenor1 while ,i supply the bass4 ,the time is long past ,christmas1 but details like that don't worry me4 ,this carol is the sweetest piece of harmonising ,i have heard for a long time4 99 99 99 ,i have been re-reading ,shaw's remarks on ,sex in ,education4 ,i cannot see that he has anything very illuminating to say on the subject2 for that matter no one has4 ,most of us realise that something is wrong with our views on sex4 ,the present attitude of education is to ignore sex1 and the result is that sex remains a conspiracy of silence4 ,the ideal some of us have is to raise sex to its proper position as a wondrous beautiful thing4 ,to-day we try to convey to bairns that birth is a disgrace to humanity4 ,the problem before me comes to this3 ,how can ,i bring my bairns to take a rational elemental view of sex instead of a conventional hypocritical one8 ,how can ,i convey to them the realisation that our virtue is mostly cowardice1 that our sex morality is founded on mere respectability8 7,it is the easiest thing in the world to be virtuous in ,padanarum2 it is not so easy to be a saint in ,oxford ,street4 ,not because ,oxford ,street has more temptation1 but because nobody knows you there47 ,in reality ,i can do nothing4 ,if ,i mentioned sex in school ,i should be dismissed at once4 ,but if a philanthropist would come along and offer me a private school to run as ,i pleased1 then ,i should introduce sex into my scheme of education4 ,bairns would be encouraged to believe in the stork theory of birth until they reached the age of nine4 ,at that age they would get the naked truth4 ,a friend of mine1 one of the cleverest men ,i know1 and his wife1 a wise woman1 resolved to tell their children anything they asked4 ,the eldest1 a girl of four1 asked one day where she came from4 ,they told her1 and she showed no surprise4 ,but ,i would begin at nine chiefly because the stork story is so delightful that it would be cruel to deprive a bairn of it altogether4 ,yet1 after all1 the stork story is all the more charming when you know the bald truth4 ,well1 at the age of nine my bairns would be taken in hand by a doctor4 ,they would learn that modesty is mainly an accidental result of the invention of clothes4 ,they would gradually come to look upon sex as a normal fact of life2 in short1 they would recognise it as a healthy thing4 ,shaw is right in saying that children must get the truth from a teacher1 because parents find a natural shyness in mentioning sex to their children4 ,but ,i think that the next generation of parents will have a better perspective2 shyness will almost disappear4 ,the bairns must be told2 of that there is no doubt4 ,the present evasion and deceit lead to the dirtiness which constitutes the sex education of boys and girls4 ,the great drawback to a frank education on sex matters is the disgusting fact that most grown-up people persist in associating sex with sin4 ,the phrase born in sin is still applied to an illegitimate child4 ,when ,i think of the damnable cruelty of virtuous married women to a girl who has had a child ,i want to change the phrase into born into sin4 99 99 99 ,i have just discovered a section of the ,code that deals with the subject of ,temperance4 ,i smile sadly when ,i think that my bairns will never have more than a pound a week to be intemperate on4 ,i suspect that if ,i had to slave for a week for a pound ,i should trek for the nearest pub on pay night2 ,i should seek oblivion in some way4 ,temperance6 ,why waste time telling poor bairns to be temperate8 ,when they are fourteen they will learn that to be intemperate means the sack4 ,if we must teach temperance let us begin at ,oxford and ,cambridge2 at ,westminster 7,i really forget how much wine and beer was consumed there last year2 the amount raised a thirst in me at any rate74 ,temperance6 ,the profiteers see to it that the poor cannot afford to be intemperate4 ,coals are up now1 the men who draw a royalty on each ton as it leaves the pit do not know the meaning of temperance4 ,i want to cry to my bairns3 ,be intemperate6 ,demand more of the fine things of life4 ,don't waste time in the beershops1 spend your leisure hours persuading your neighbour to help you to impose temperance on your masters4 ,the ,code talks about food4 ,but it does not do so honestly4 ,i would insert the following in the ,code3-- ,teachers in slum districts should point out to the children that most of their food is adulterated4 ,most of their boots are made of paper4 ,most of their clothes are made of shoddy4 99 99 99 ,the best thing ,i have found in the ,code is the section on the teaching of ,english4 ,i fancy it is the work of ,j4 ,c4 ,smith1 the ,editor of the ,oxford ,spenser4 ,i used to have him round at my classes2 he was a first-rate examiner4 ,if a class had any originality in it he drew it out4 ,but ,i never forgave ,j4 ,c4 ,smith for editing ,much ,ado ,about ,nothing4 ,he made no effort to remark on the absurdity of the plot and motives4 ,to me the play is as silly as ,diplomacy or ,our ,boys4 ,no grammar1 says the ,code1 should be taught until written composition begins4 ,i like that1 but ,i should re-write it thus3 ,no grammar should be taught this side the ,styx4 ,grammar is always changing1 and the grammar of yesterday is scrapped to-day4 ,a child requires to know how to speak and how to write correctly4 ,i can write passably well1 and when ,i write ,i do not need to know whether a word is an adjective or an adverb1 whether a clause is a noun clause or an adverbial clause of time modifying a certain verb 444 or is it a noun8 ,society ladies speak grammatically 7,i am told71 and ,i'm quite sure that not three people in the ,row could tell me whether a word is a verb or an adverb 7,i shouldn't care to ask74 ,the fact that ,i really could tell what each word is makes absolutely no difference to me4 ,a middle-class boy of five will know that the sentence ,i and nurse is going to the ,pictures is wrong4 ,but ,i must confess that grammar has influenced me in one way4 ,i know ,i should say ,whom did you see8 but ,i always say ,who did you see8 ,and ,i used to try not to split my infinitives until ,i found out that you can't split an infinitive2 to has nothing to do with the infinitive anyway4 ,i want to abolish the terms ,subject1 ,predicate1 ,object1 ,extension1 ,noun1 ,verb1 c4 ,i fancy we could get along very well without them4 ,difficulties might arise in learning a foreign tongue4 ,i don't know anything about foreign tongues2 all ,i know is the ,greek alphabet and a line of ,homer1 and the fact that all ,gaul is divided into three parts4 ,yet ,i imagine that one could learn ,french or ,german as a child learns a language4 ,good speaking and writing mean the correct use of idiom1 and idiom is the best phrasing of the best people--best according to our standards at the present time4 ,i have heard ,parsing and ,analysis defended on the ground of their being an exercise in reasoning4 ,i admit that they do require reasoning1 but ,i hold that the time would be better spent in ,mathematics4 ,i hope to take my senior pupils through the first and third books of ,euclid this summer4 ,personally1 ,i can find much pleasure in a stiff deduction1 but ,i find nothing but intense weariness in an analysis of sentences4 ,my theories on education are purely personal2 if ,i don't like a thing ,i presume that my bairns dislike it4 ,and the strange thing is that my presumptions are nearly always right4 99 99 99 ,folklore fascinates me4 ,i find that the children of ,forfarshire and ,dumfriesshire have the same ring song1 ,the ,wind and the ,wind and the ,wind ,blows ,high4 ,i once discovered in the ,british ,museum a book on ,english ,folksongs1 and in it ,i found the same song obtaining in ,staffordshire4 ,naturally1 variations occur4 ,did these songs all spring from a common stock8 ,or did incomers bring them to a district8 ,when ,i am sacked 444 and ,i half expect to be some day soon 444 ,i shall wander round the schools of ,scotland collecting the folk-songs4 ,i shall take a ,punch and ,judy show with me1 for ,i know that this is a long felt want in the country4 ,that reminds me3--a broken-down fellow came to me to-day and told pathetically how he had lost his school 444 wrongous dismissal he called it4 ,i wept and gave him sixpence4 ,to-night ,i visited the minister4 ,i had a sad case in to-day1 he began1 a poor fellow who had a kirk in ,ross-shire4 ,poor chap1 his wife took to drink1 and he lost his kirk4 ,chap with a reddish moustache8 ,i asked4 ,yes1 did you see him8 ,i ignored the question4 ,charity1 ,i said1 is foolish4 ,i don't believe in charity of that kind4 ,you gave him something8 ,er--a shilling4 ,you have too much heart1 ,i said1 and ,i took my departure4 ,if ,i have to go on tramp ,i shall try to live by selling sermons after school-hours4 ,,viii4 ,to-day ,i discussed the ,women's ,movement with my class4 ,they were all agreed that women should not have votes4 ,i asked for reasons4 ,they can't fight like men1 said a boy4 ,i pointed out that they risk their lives more than men do4 ,a woman risks her life so that life may come into the world2 a soldier risks his life so that death may come into the world4 ,women speak too much1 said ,margaret ,steel4 ,read the ,parliamentary debates1 said ,i4 ,women have not the brains1 said a boy4 ,i made no reply1 ,i lifted his last exam4 paper1 and showed the class his #ba per cent1 then ,i showed him ,violet ,brown's #ic per cent4 ,but ,i was careful to add that the illustration was not conclusive4 ,i went on to tell them that the vote was of little use to men1 and that ,i did not consider it worth striving for4 ,but ,i tried to show them that the ,women's ,movement was a much bigger thing than a fight for political power4 ,it was a protest against the system that made sons doctors and ministers1 and daughters typists and shopgirls1 that made girls black their idle brothers' boots1 that offered #fj to a lady teacher who was doing as good work as the man in the next room with his #acj4 ,i did not take them to the deeper topics of ,marriage1 ,inheritance1 the economic dependence of women on men that makes so many marry for a home4 ,but ,i tried to show that owing to woman's being voteless the laws are on the man's side1 and ,i instanced the ,corporation ,baths in the neighbouring city4 ,there only one day a week is set aside for women4 ,then it struck me that perhaps the women of the city have municipal votes1 and ,i suggested that if this were the case1 women are less interested in cold water than men1 a circumstance that goes to show that women have a greater need of freedom than ,i thought they had4 ,on the whole it was a disappointing discussion4 99 99 99 ,i went up to see ,lawson of ,rinsley ,school to-night4 ,i talked away gaily about having scrapped my ,readers and ,rural ,arithmetic4 ,he was amused2 ,i know that he considers me a cheerful idiot4 ,but he grew serious when ,i talked about my ,socialism4 ,you blooming ,socialists1 he said1 with a dry laugh1 are the most cocky people ,i have yet struck4 ,you think you are the salt of the earth and that all the others are fatheads4 ,quite right1 ,lawson1 ,i said with a laugh4 ,and ,i added seriously3 ,you see1 my boy1 that if you have a theory1 you've simply got to think the other fellow an idiot4 ,i believe in ,socialism--the ,guild ,socialism of ,the ,new ,age1 and naturally ,i think that ,lloyd ,george and ,bonar ,law and the ,cecils1 and all that lot are hopelessly wrong4 ,do you mean to tell me that you are a greater thinker than ,arthur ,james ,balfour8 ,lawson sat back in his chair and watched the effect of this shot4 ,i considered for a minute4 ,it's like this1 ,i said slowly1 you really cannot compare a duck with a rabbit4 ,you can't say that ,shakespeare is greater than ,napoleon or ,burns than ,titian4 ,balfour is a good man in his own line1 and-- ,and you8 ,i sometimes think of great things1 ,i replied modestly4 ,balfour has an ideal2 he believes1 as ,lord ,roberts believed1 in the ,public ,schools1 in ,oxford and ,cambridge1 in the type of ,englishman who becomes an ,imperialist ,cromer4 ,he believes in the aristocracy1 in land1 in heredity of succession4 ,his ideal1 so far as ,i can make out1 is to have an aristocracy that behaves kindly and charitably to a deserving working-class--which1 after all1 is ,nietzsche's ideal4 ,i believe in few of these things4 ,i detest charity of that kind2 ,i hate the type of youth that our ,public ,schools and ,oxfords turn out4 ,i want to see the land belong to the people1 ,i want to see every unit of the ,state working for the delight that work1 as opposed to toil1 can bring4 ,the aristocracy has merits that ,i appreciate4 ,along with the poor they cheerfully die for their country 444 it is the profiteering class with its ,business as ,usual cant that ,i want to slay4 ,i want to see all the excellent material that exists in our aristocracy turned to nobler uses than bossing niggers in ,india so that millionaires at home may be multi-millionaires1 than wasting time and wealth in the social rounds of ,london4 ,are you a greater thinker than ,balfour8 ,i sighed4 ,i think ,i have a greater ideal1 ,i said4 ,and1 ,i added1 ,i am sure that if ,balfour were asked about it he would reply3 ',i wish ,i could have got out of my aristocratic environment at your age4' ,lawson1 ,i continued1 ,i gathered tatties behind the digger once4 ,that is the chief difference between me and ,balfour4 ,when first ,i went through ,eton on a motor-bus and saw the boys on the playing grounds1 ,i said to myself1 ',thank ,god ,i wasn't sent to ,eton6' ,class prejudice and jealousy1 said ,lawson4 ,will the ,rangers get into the ,final8 99 99 99 ,i met ,wilkie the mason1 on the road to-night4 ,he cannot write his name1 and he is the richest man in the village4 ,what's this ,aw hear aboot you bein' are o' they ,socialists8 he demanded4 ,aw didna ken that when ,aw voted for ye4 ,if you had8 ,not a vote wud ye hae gotten frae me4 ,ye'll be layin' yer bombs a' ower the place1 he said half jocularly4 ,ye manna put ony o' they ideas in the bairns' heids1 he continued anxiously4 ,politics have no place in a schule4 ,i did not pursue the subject2 ,i sidetracked him on to turnips1 and by using what ,i had picked up from ,andrew ,smith ,i made a fairly good effort4 ,when we parted ,wilkie grasped my hand4 ,ye're no dozzent1 he said kindly1 but1 tak ma advice1 and leave they politics alone4 ,it's a dangerous game for a schulemester to play4 99 99 99 ,i find that ,i am becoming obsessed by my creed4 ,i see that ,i place politics before everything else in education4 ,but ,i feel that ,i am doing the best ,i can for true education4 ,after all it isn't ,socialism ,i am teaching1 it is heresy4 ,i am trying to form minds that will question and destroy and rebuild4 ,morris's ,news from ,nowhere appeals to me most as a ,utopia4 ,like him ,i want to see an artistic world4 ,i travelled to ,newcastle on ,saturday1 and the brick squalor that stretches for miles out ,elswick and ,blaydon way sickened me4 ,dirty bairns were playing on muddy patches1 dirty women were gossiping at doors1 miners were wandering off in twos and threes with whippets at their heels4 ,and smoke was over all4 ,britain is the workshop of the world4 ,good old ,merrie ,england6 ,these are strange entries for a ,dominie's ,log4 ,i must bring my mind back to ,vulgar ,fractions and ,composition4 99 99 99 ,there was a ,cinema ,show in the village hall to-night4 ,my bairns turned out in force4 ,most of the pictures were drivel 444 the typist wrongly accused1 the seducing employer2 the weeping parents at home4 ,the average cinema plot is of the same brand as the plots in a washerwoman's weekly4 ,then we had the inevitable ,indian chase on horseback1 and the hero pardoned after the rope was round his neck4 ,i enjoyed the comic films4 ,to see the comic go down in diver's dress to wreck a ,german submarine was delightfully ludicrous4 ,he took off his helmet under water and wiped the sweat from his brow4 ,excellent fun6 ,i have often thought about the cinema as an aid to education4 ,at the present time it is a drag on education1 for its chief attraction is its piffling melodrama4 ,yet ,i have seen good plays and playlets filmed 444 that is good melodramatic and incident plays4 ,i have seen ,hamlet filmed1 and then ,i understood what ,tolstoi 7or was it ,shaw87 meant when he said that ,shakespeare without his word music is nowhere4 ,yet ,i must be just2 philosophy had to go along with music when the cinema took up ,hamlet4 ,the cinema may have a future as an educational force1 but it will deal with what ,i consider the subsidiary part of education--the facts of life4 ,pictures of foreign countries are undoubtedly of great use4 ,the cinema can never give us theories and philosophy4 ,so with its lighter side4 ,charley's ,aunt might make a good film2 ,the ,importance of ,being ,earnest could not4 ,the cinema can give us humour but not wit4 ,what will happen when the cinema and the phonograph are made to work together perfectly ,i do not know4 ,i may yet be able to take my bairns to a performance of ,nan or ,the ,wild ,duck or ,the ,doctor's ,dilemma4 99 99 99 ,please1 sir1 ,willie ,smith was swearing4 ,thus little ,maggie ,shepherd to me to-day4 ,i always fear this complaint1 for what can ,i do8 ,i can't very well ask ,maggie what he said1 and if he says he wasn't swearing 444 well1 his word is as good as ,maggie's4 ,i can summon witnesses1 but bairns have but the haziest notion of what swearing is4 7,for that matter so do ,i47 ,if a boy shoves his fingers to his nose4444 ,please1 sir1 he swore6 ,i try to be a just man1 and 444 well1 ,i was bunkered at the ninth hole on ,saturday1 and ,i dismissed ,willie ,smith--without an admonition4 ,but ,i am worried to-night1 for ,i can't recollect whether ,willie has ever caddied for me2 ,i have a shrewd suspicion that he has4 ,,ix4 ,the word republican came up to-day in a lesson1 and ,i asked what it meant4 ,four girls told me that their fathers were republicans1 but they had no idea of the meaning of the word4 ,one lassie thought that it meant a man who is always quarrelling with the ,tories 444 a fairly penetrating definition4 ,i explained the meaning of the word1 and said that a republican in this country was wasting his time and energy4 ,i pointed to ,america with its ,oil ,kings1 ,steel ,kings1 ,meat ,kings1 and called it a country worse than ,russia4 ,i told of the corruption of politics in ,france4 ,then ,i rambled on to ,kings and ,kingship4 ,it is a difficult subject to tackle even with children1 but ,i tried to walk warily4 ,i said that the notion of a king was for people in an elementary stage of development4 ,intellectual folk have no use for all the pomp and pageantry of kingship4 ,royalty as it exists to-day is bad for us and for the royal family4 ,the poor princes and princesses are reared in an atmosphere of make-believe4 ,their individuality and their loves are crushed by a system4 ,and it is really a system of lies4 ,in the ,king's name6 ,why make all this pretence when everyone knows that it is ,in the ,cabinet's name8 ,it is not fair to the king4 ,i am no republican2 ,i do not want to see monarchy abolished in this land4 ,i recognise that monarchy is necessary to the masses4 ,but ,i want to bring my bairns to see monarchy stripped of its robes1 its pageantry1 its remoteness1 its circumstance4 ,loyalty is a name to most of us4 ,people sing the ,national ,anthem in very much the same way as they say ,grace before ,meat4 ,the ,grace-sayer is thinking of his dinner2 the singer is wondering if he'll manage to get out in time to collar a taxi4 ,i do not blame the kings2 ,i blame their advisers4 ,we are kept in the dark by them4 ,we hear of a monarch's good deeds1 but we never hear the truth about him4 ,the unwritten law demands that the truth shall be kept secret until a few generations have passed4 ,i know nothing about the king4 ,i don't know what he thinks of ,republicanism 7in his shoes ,i should be a red-hot ,republican71 ,socialism1 ,religion1 ,morals2 and ,i want to know whether he likes ,locke's novels or ,galsworthy's drama4 ,in short1 ,i want to know the man that must of necessity be greater than the king4 ,i am tired of processions and functions4 ,i became a loyalist when first ,i went to ,windsor ,castle4 ,three massed bands were playing in the quadrangle2 thousands of visitors wandered around4 ,the ,king came to the window and bowed4 ,i wanted to go up and take him by the arm and say3 ,poor ,king1 you are not allowed to enjoy the sensation of being in a crowd1 you are an abstraction1 you are behind a barrier of nobility through which no commoner can pass4 ,come down and have a smoke with me amongst all these typists and clerks4 ,and ,i expect that every man and woman in that crowd was thinking3 ,how nice it must be to be a king6 ,yet if a king were to come down from the pedestal on which the courtiers have placed him1 ,i fear that the people would scorn him4 ,they would cry3 ,he is only a man6 ,i am forced to the conclusion that pomp and circumstance are necessary after all4 ,the people are to blame4 ,the ,king is all right2 he looks a decent1 kindly soul with a good heart4 ,but the people are not interested in good hearts2 the fools want gilt coaches and crimson carpets and all the rubbish of show4 99 99 99 ,a lady asked me to-day whether ,i taught my children manners4 ,i told her that ,i did not4 ,she asked why4 ,i replied that manners were sham1 and my chief duty was to get rid of sham4 ,then she asked me why ,i lifted my hat to her 444 and naturally ,i collapsed incontinently4 ,once again ,i write the words1 ,it is a difficult thing to be a theorist 444 and an honest man at the same time4 ,on reflection ,i think that it is a case of personality versus the whole community4 ,no man can be consistent4 ,were ,i to carry my convictions to their natural conclusion ,i should be an outcast 444 and an outcast is of no value to the community4 ,i lift my hat to a lady not because ,i respect her 7,i occasionally do4 ,i always doff my hat to the school charwoman1 but ,i am rather afraid of her71 but because it is not worth while to protest against the little things of life4 ,incidentally1 the whole case against hat-lifting is this3--,in the lower and lower middle classes the son does not lift his hat to his mother though he does to the minister's wife4 ,no1 ,i do not teach manners4 ,if a boy ,sirs me1 he does it of his own free will4 ,i believe that you cannot teach manners2 taught manners are always forced1 always overdone4 ,my model of a true gentleman is a man with an innate good taste and artistry4 ,my idea of a lady 444 well1 one of the truest ladies ,i have yet known kept a dairy in the ,canongate of ,edinburgh4 ,i try to get my bairns to do to others as they would like others to do to them4 ,shaw says ,no3 their tastes may not be the same as yours4 ,good old ,g4 ,b4 ,s46 ,i once was in a school where manners were taught religiously4 ,i whacked a boy one day4 ,he said1 ,thank you1 sir4 99 99 99 ,i wonder how much influence on observation the so-called ,nature ,study has4 ,at one time ,i attended a ,saturday class4 ,we went botanising4 ,i learned nothing about ,botany1 but that was because ,margaret was there4 ,i observed much 444 her eyes were grey and her eyelashes long4 ,we generally managed to lose the class in less than no time4 ,yet we did pretend4 ,she was pretending to show me the something or other marks on a horse-chestnut twig when ,i first kissed her4 ,she is married now4 ,i don't believe in ,saturday excursions4 ,i got up my scanty ,nature ,study from ,grant ,allen's little shilling book on plants4 ,it was a delightful book full of an almost ,yankee imagination4 ,it theorised all the way 444 grass developed a long narrow blade so that it might edge its way to the sun2 wild tobacco has a broad blade because it doesn't need to care tuppence for the competition of other plants1 it can grow on wet clay of railway bankings4 ,i think now that ,grant ,allen was a romancer not a scientist4 ,i do not see the point in asking bairns to count the stamens of a buttercup 7,dr4 ,johnson hated the poets who count the streaks of the tulip74 ,but ,i do want to make them ,grant ,allens2 ,i want them to make a theory4 ,nature ,study has but little result unless bairns get a lead4 ,no boy will guess that the lines on a petal are intended to lead bees to the honey2 at least1 ,i know ,i would never have guessed it4 ,i should never have guessed that flowers are beautiful or perfumed in order to attract insects4 ,but ,i am really no criterion4 ,i could not tell at this moment the colour of my bedroom wallpaper2 ,i can't tell whether my father wears a moustache or side-whiskers4 ,until ,i began to teach ,woodwork ,i never observed a mortise1 or if ,i did1 ,i never wondered how it was made4 ,i never noticed that the tops of houses sloped downward until ,i took up ,perspective4 ,anyway1 observation is a poor attainment unless it is combined with genius as in ,darwin's case4 ,sherlock ,holmes is a nobody4 ,observation should follow fancy4 ,the average youth has successive hobbies4 ,he takes up photography1 and is led 7sometimes7 to enquire into the action of silver salts2 he takes up wood-carving1 and begins to find untold discoveries in the easy-chair4 ,i would advocate the keeping of animals at school4 ,i would have a rabbit run1 a pigeon loft1 one or two dogs1 and a few cats for the girls4 ,let a boy keep homers and fly them1 and he will observe much4 ,apart from the observation side of the question ,i would advocate a live stock school-farm on humanitarian grounds2 every child would acquire a sense of duty to animals4 ,i am sure all my bairns would turn out on a ,sunday to feed their pets4 ,and what a delightful reward for kindness 444 make a boy or girl ,feeder-in-,chief for the week6 ,incidentally1 the study of pigeons and rabbits would conduce to a frank realisation of sex4 99 99 99 ,i have just bought the new shilling edition of ,h4 ,g4 ,wells's ,new ,worlds for ,old1 and ,i have come upon this passage 444 444 ,socialists turn to the most creative profession of all1 to that great calling which1 with each generation1 renews the world's 'circle of ideas1' the ,teachers6 ,but why he puts the mark of exclamation at the end ,i do not know4 ,on the same page he says3 ,the constructive ,socialist logically declares the teacher master of the situation4 ,if the ,teachers are masters of the situation ,i wish every teacher in ,scotland would get ,the ,new ,age each week4 ,orage's ,notes of the ,week are easily the best commentary on the war ,i have seen4 ,the ,new ,age is so very amusing1 too2 its band of warm young men are the kind who can't stand ,nietzsche because of his damnable philanthropy as a journalist friend of mine once phrased it4 ,they despise ,shaw and ,wells and ,webb 444 the old back-numbers4 ,the magazine is pulsating with life and youth4 ,every contributor is so cock-sure of himself4 ,it is the only fearless journal ,i know2 it has no advertisements1 and with advertisements a journal is muzzled4 99 99 99 ,one or two bairns are going to try the bursary competition of the neighbouring ,secondary ,school1 and ,i have just got hold of the last year's papers4 ,name an important event in ,british ,history for each of any eight of the following years3--#acad1 #afhh1 #agei1 c4 444 and ,wells says that teaching is the most creative profession of all6 ,write an essay of twenty lines or so on any one of these subjects3--,school1 ,holidays1 ,examinations1 ,bursaries1 ,books4 ,the examiners might have added a few other bright interesting topics such as ,truth1 ,morals1 ,faith1 ,courage4 ,name the poem to which each of the following lines belongs1 and add1 if you can1 the next line in each case1 c4 ,there are ten lines1 and ,i can only spot six of them4 ,and ,i am1 theoretically1 an ,english scholar2 ,i took an ,honours ,english ,degree under ,saintsbury4 ,but my degree is only a second class one2 that no doubt accounts for my lack of knowledge4 ,that the compilers of the paper are not fools is shown by the fact that they ask a question like this3--,a man loses a dog1 you find it2 write and tell him that you have found it4 ,the ,arithmetic paper is quite good4 ,my bairns are to fail2 ,i simply cannot teach them to answer papers like these4 ,x4 ,i tried an experiment to-day4 ,i gave an exam4 in ,history1 and each pupil was allowed to use a text-book4 ,the best one was first1 she knew what to select4 ,i deprecate the usual exam4 system of allotting a prescribed time to each paper4 ,blyth ,webster1 the racy young lecturer in ,english in ,edinburgh ,university1 used to allow us an indefinite time for our ,old ,english papers4 ,i generally required a half hour to give him all ,i knew about ,old ,english1 but ,i believe that some students sat for five hours4 ,students write and think at different rates1 and the time limit is always unjust4 ,i wish the ,department would allow me to set the ,higher ,grade ,leavings ,english papers for once4 ,my paper would certainly include the following3-- ,if ,shakespeare came back to earth what do you think would be his opinion of ,women's ,suffrage 7refer to ,the ,taming of the ,shrew7 ,home ,rule1 ,sweated ,labour1 the ,kaiser8 ,have you read any ,utopia8 ,if not1 it doesn't matter2 write one of your own4 7,note 444 a ,utopia is an ideal country--this side the grave47 ,discuss ,spenser's idea of chivalry1 and state what you think would be his opinion on table manners1 ,soho1 or any slum you know1 the ,present ,state of ,ireland4 ,what would ,burns have thought of the prevalence of the kilt among the ,semitic inhabitants of ,scotland8 ,is ,burns greater than ,harry ,lauder8 ,tell me why you think he isn't or is4 ,discuss the following humorists and alleged humorists3--,dickens1 ,jacobs1 ,lauder1 ,jerome1 ,leacock1 ,storer ,clouston1 ,wells 7in ,kipps1 and ,mr4 ,polly71 ,locke 7in ,septimus71 ,bennett 7in ,the ,card71 ,mark ,twain1 your class teacher1 the average magistrate4 ,if you have not read any humour at all1 write a humorous dialogue between a brick and the mongrel dog it came in contact with4 ,i hold that my exam4 paper would discover any genius knocking about in ignorance of his or her powers4 ,i intend to offer it to the ,department 444 when ,i am out of the profession4 99 99 99 ,it is extremely difficult for any teacher to keep from getting into a rut4 ,the continual effort to make things simple and elementary for children is apt to deaden the intellect4 ,to-night ,i felt dull2 ,i simply couldn't think4 ,so ,i took up a volume of ,nietzsche1 and ,i now know the remedy for dullness4 ,nietzsche is a genius2 he dazzles one 444 and he almost persuades4 ,to-night ,i am doubting4 ,is my belief in a great democracy all wrong8 ,is it true that there is a slave class that can never be anything else8 ,is our ,christian morality a slave morality which is evolving the wrong type of human8 ,i think of the pity and kindness which is making us keep alive the lunatic and the incurable2 ,i am persuaded to believe that our hospitals are in the long run conducing to an unfit race4 ,unfit physically2 but unfit mentally8 ,is ,sandow the ,superman8 ,will ,nietzsche's type of ,master man with his physical energy and warlikeness prove to be the best8 ,i think that the journalists who are anathematising ,nietzsche are wrong2 ,i don't believe the ,kaiser ever read a line of his4 ,but ,i think that every ,german is subconsciously a believer in energy and ,master ,morality2 ,nietzsche was merely one who realised his nature4 ,the ,german religion is undoubtedly the religion of the ,old ,testament2 to them good is all that pertains to power2 their ,god is the tyrant of the ,old ,testament4 ,nietzsche holds that the ,new ,testament code of morals was invented by a conquered race2 the poor were meek and servile1 and they looked forward to a time when they would be in glory while the rich man frizzled down below4 ,no man can scorn ,nietzsche2 you are forced to listen to him4 ,only fools can dismiss him with the epithet ,madman6 ,but ,i cannot follow him2 ,i believe that if pity and kindness are wrong1 then wrong is right4 ,yet ,i see that ,nietzsche is wise in saying that there must always be one stone at the top of the pyramid4 ,the question is this3--,will a democracy always be sure to choose the right man8 ,i wonder4 ,i found one arresting statement in the book3--,if we have a degenerate mean environment1 the fittest will be the man who is best adapted to degeneracy and meanness2 he will survive4 ,that is what is happening now4 ,i believe that the people will one day be capable of altering this basis of society2 ,nietzsche believed that the people are mostly of the slave variety1 and that a better state of affairs could only come about through the breeding of ,supermen 444 masters4 ,the best shall rule1 says he4 ,who are the best8 ,i ask1 and ,i really cannot answer myself4 99 99 99 ,as ,i go forward with these notes ,i find that ,i become more and more impelled to write down thoughts that can only have a remote connection with the education of children4 ,i think the explanation lies in the fact that every day ,i realise more and more the futility of my school-work4 ,indeed1 ,i find myself losing interest sometimes2 ,i go through a lesson on ,geography mechanically2 in short1 ,i drudge occasionally4 ,but ,i always awake at ,composition time4 ,i find it useless to do home correction2 a bairn won't read the blue pencil marks4 ,i must sit down beside him while ,i correct2 and this takes too much time 444 from a timetable point of view4 ,but the mistakes in spelling and grammar are minor matters1 what ,i look for are ideas4 ,i never set a dull subject of the ,how-,i-spent-my-holidays type2 every essay must appeal to the imagination4 ,suppose you go to sleep for a thousand years1 ,i said1 and tell the story of your awaking4 ,i asked my ,qualifying to become invisible2 most of them took to thieving and spying4 ,i gave them ,wells's ,the ,invisible ,man and ,when the ,sleeper ,wakes to read later4 ,go to ,mrs4 ,rabbit's ,garden ,party1 and describe it4 ,one boy went as a wolf1 and returned with the party inside4 ,a girl went as a weasel and left early because she could not eat the lettuce and cabbage on the table4 ,one boy went as an elephant and could not get in4 ,write a child of seven's account of washing day1 ,i said to my ,qualifying1 and ,i got some delightful baby-talk from ,margaret ,steel and ,violet ,brown4 ,imagine that you are the last man left alive on earth4 ,this essay produced some good work2 most of the girls were concerned about the fact that there was no one to bury them when they died4 ,the best results of all came from this subject3--,die at the age of ninety1 and write the paragraph about yourself to the local paper4 ,most of them made the present minister make a few pious remarks from the pulpit2 one girl was clever enough to name a strange minister4 ,a newspaper correspondence interests a class4 ,make a ,mr4 ,james ,smith write a letter to ,the ,scotsman saying that he saw a cow smoking a cigar one night2 then write the replies4 ,one boy made a ,william ,thomson suggest that a man must have been standing beside the cow in the darkness4 ,smith replied that this was impossible1 for any man standing beside a cow would be a farmer or a cattleman1 and neither of them can afford to smoke cigars4 99 99 99 ,i notice that many ,school ,boards insist on having ,trained ,teachers4 ,is it possible to train a teacher8 ,are teachers not born like poets8 ,i think they are4 ,i have seen untrained teachers at work1 and ,i have seen trained teachers2 ,i never observed a scrap of difference4 ,all ,i would say to a young teacher is3 ,ask questions4 ,ask why there is a fence round the field1 ask why there is a fence round that tree in the field1 then ask whether any plant or tree has a natural fence of its own4 ,and ,i think ,i should say this3 ,a good teacher will begin a lesson on ,cromwell1 touch1 in passing1 ,jack ,johnson1 ,charlie ,chaplin1 ,votes for ,women1 guinea pigs1 ghosts1 and finish up with an enquiry into ,protective ,coloration of ,animals4 ,the ,code seems to be founded on the assumption that the teachers of ,scotland don't know their business4 ,why specify that ,nature ,study will be taught8 ,any good teacher will refer to ,nature every five minutes of the day4 ,to me teaching is a ramble through every subject the teacher knows4 ,no1 ,i don't think a teacher can be trained1 but ,i am prejudiced2 ,i took the ,acting ,teachers' ,certificate ,exam 444 and passed ,third ,class4 ,in the ,king's ,scholarship ,i was ninety-ninth in the list of a hundred and one4 ,luckily1 the ,acting ,teachers' list was given in alphabetical order4 ,i had a friend at the university1 ,anderson was his name1 a medical4 ,he had passed in ,physics1 and naturally his name was near the beginning of the list4 ,his local paper had it ,a ,brilliant ,student4 ,anderson got through at the ninth shot4 99 99 99 ,to-day ,i talked about crime and punishment4 ,i told my bairns that a criminal cannot help himself2 heredity and environment make a man good or bad4 ,i spoke of the environment that makes millions of children diseased morally and physically1 and of the law that punishes a man for the sins of the community4 ,i told them that there should be no prisons2 if a man is a murderer he is not responsible for his actions1 and he must be confined 444 but not in prison4 ,our present system is not justice2 it is vengeance4 ,i once saw a poor waif sent to prison for stealing a pair of boots1 sent to the care of warders1 sent to acquire a hatred of his fellowmen4 ,justice would have asked3 ,why did he steal8 ,why had he no boots8 ,what sort of life has he been forced to lead8 and ,i know that the waif would have been acquitted4 ,i told my bairns that to cure any evil you must get at the root of it1 and ,i incidentally pointed to the ,insurance ,act1 and said that it was like treating a man with a suppurating appendix for the headache that was one of the symptoms4 ,i told them that their fathers have not tried to get at the root of evil1 that their prisons and cats and oakum are cowardly expedients4 ,the evil is that the great majority of people are poor slaves1 while the minority live on their earnings4 ,that isn't politics2 it is truth4 ,i told them that if ,i had been born in the ,cowgate of ,edinburgh ,i should have been a thief and a drunkard 444 and society would have added to my curse of heredity and environment the pains and brutishness of a prison4 ,and yet men accuse me of attaching too much importance to material reforms4 99 99 99 ,i have not used the strap for many weeks now4 ,i hope that ,i shall never use it again4 ,i found a boy smoking a cigarette to-day4 ,four years ago ,i should have run him into the school and welted him4 ,to-day ,i spoke to him4 ,joseph1 ,i said1 ,i smoke myself1 and at your age ,i smoked an occasional ,woodbine4 ,but it isn't really good for a boy1 and ,i hope you won't get into the habit of buying cigs4 with your pocket money4 ,he smiled and told me that he didn't really like it2 he just smoked for fun4 ,and he tossed the cigarette over a wall4 ,a very clever friend of mine talks about the ,hamlet cramp4 ,i've got it4 ,other men have a definite standard of right and wrong2 ,i have none4 ,the only original sin that ,i believe in is the cruelty that has come to man from the remote tree-dweller4 ,,xi4 ,a villager stopped me on my way to school this morning4 ,look at that1 he cried1 pointing to a broken branch on a tree in his garden1 that's what comes o' yer nae discipline ideas4 ,that's ane o' yer laddies that put his kite into ma gairden4 ,dawm it1 ,a'll no stand that6 ,ye'll jest go doon to the school and gie that boy the biggest leathering that he's ever had in his life4 ,i explained patiently that ,i was not the village constable1 and ,i told him that the broken branch had nothing to do with me4 ,he became angry1 but he became speechless when ,i said1 ,i sympathise with you4 ,had it been my garden ,i should have sworn possibly harder than you have done4 ,on the other hand1 had it been twenty years ago and my kite1 well1 ,i should have done exactly what the boy did4 ,good morning4 ,although it was no concern of mine ,i called the boy out1 and advised him to try to think of other people4 ,then ,i addressed the bairns4 ,you might convey to your parents1 ,i said1 that ,i am not the policeman in this village2 ,i'm a schoolmaster4 ,i think that many parents are annoyed at my giving up punishment4 ,they feel that ,i am not doing their work for them2 they think that the dominie should do the training of children 444 other people's children1 not their own4 ,i find that ,i am trying to do a very difficult thing4 ,the home influence is bad in many cases2 the children hear their parents slight the teacher1 and they do not know what to think4 ,the average parent looks upon the teacher as an enemy4 ,if ,i hit a boy the parents side with him1 if ,i don't hit the boy who hit their boy1 they indignantly ask what education is coming to4 ,many a night ,i feel disheartened4 ,i find that ,i am on the side of the bairns4 ,i am against law and discipline2 ,i am all for freedom of action4 99 99 99 ,at last ,i have attained my ambition4 ,as a boy my great ambition was to possess a cavalry trumpet and bugle4 ,i have just bought both4 ,i call the bairns to school with ,stables or the ,fall ,in1 and ,i gleefully look forward to playtime so that ,i may have another tootle4 ,the bairns love to hear the calls1 but ,i think ,i enjoy them most4 ,i try hard to share the bairns' joys4 ,at present ,i am out with them every day flying kites1 and ,i never tire of this4 ,the boys bring me their comic papers1 but ,i find that ,i cannot laugh at them as ,i used to do4 ,yet1 ,i like to see ,chips2 ,weary ,willie and ,tired ,tim are still figuring on the front page1 but their pristine glory is gone4 ,when ,i first knew them they were the creation of ,tom ,browne1 and no artist can follow ,tom in his own line4 ,i miss the old bloods2 ,i used to glory in the exploits of ,frank ,reade and ,deadwood ,dick4 ,i have sat on a ,sunday with ,deadwood ,dick in the covers of a family ,bible1 and my old grandmother patted my head and told me ,i was a promising lad4 ,then there was ,buffalo ,bill--tuppence coloured2 ,i never see his name now4 ,i wonder why so many parents and teachers cuff boys' heads when they find them reading comic papers and bloods4 ,i see no harm in either4 ,i wish that people would get out of the absurd habit of taking it for granted that whatever a boy does is wrong4 ,i hold that a boy is nearly always right4 ,i see in to-day's ,scotsman that a ,sheriff substitute in ,edinburgh has sentenced two brothers of nine and ten to twelve stripes with the birch rod for stealing tuppence ha'penny4 ,the account remarked that the brothers had previously had a few stripes for a similar theft4 ,that punishment is no prevention is proved in this case4 ,the ,sheriff ,substitute must have a very definite idea of righteousness2 ,i envy him his conscience free from all remembrance of shortcomings in the past4 ,for my part had ,i been sitting in judgment on the poor laddies ,i should have recollected the various times ,i have travelled first with a third ticket1 sneaked into circuses by lifting the tent cover1 laid farthings on the railway so that they might become ha'pennies1 or1 with a special piece of luck--a goods train--pennies4 ,then ,i should have invited the boys to tea1 and sent them home with ,comic ,cuts1 two oranges1 and a considerable bit of chewing gum4 ,anyhow1 my method would have brought out any good in the boys4 ,the method of the judge will bring out no good2 it may make the boys feel that they are enemies of society4 ,and ,i should like to ask the gentleman what he would do if his young son stole the jam4 ,i'm sure he would not send for the birch rod4 ,the damnable thing about the whole affair is that he is probably a very nice kindly man who would not whip a dog with his own hand4 ,his misfortune is his being part of a system4 99 99 99 ,i have just added a few volumes to my school library4 ,i tried to recollect the books that ,i liked as a youth2 then ,i wrote for catalogues of sevenpennies4 ,the new books include these3--,the ,prisoner of ,zenda and its sequel1 ,rupert of ,hentzau1 ,king ,solomon's ,mines1 ,montezuma's ,daughter1 ,the ,four ,feathers1 ,a ,gentleman of ,france1 ,white ,fang1 ,the ,call of the ,wild1 ,the ,invisible ,man1 ,the ,war of the ,worlds1 ,the ,war in the ,air1 ,dr4 ,nikola1 ,a ,bid for ,fortune1 ,micah ,clarke4 ,i find that the average bairn of thirteen cannot appreciate these stories4 ,margaret ,steel was the only one who read ,the ,scarlet ,pimpernel and asked for the sequel4 ,most of them stuck half way with ,zenda4 ,guy ,boothby's novels1 the worst of the lot possibly1 appealed to them strongly4 ,the love element bores the boys1 but the girls rather like it4 ,one boy sat and yawned over ,king ,solomon's ,mines2 then he took out a coloured comic and turned to the serial4 ,i took the book away and told him to read the serial4 ,violet ,brown prefers a book about giants from the infant room to all the romantic stories extant4 ,after all1 they are but children4 99 99 99 ,i am delighted with my sketching results4 ,we go out every ,wednesday and ,friday afternoon1 and many bairns are giving me good work4 ,we usually end up with races or wading in the sea4 ,there was much wonder when first they saw my bare feet1 but now they take my feet for granted4 ,modesty is strong here4 ,the other day the big girls came to me and asked if they could come to school slipshod4 ,you can come in your nighties for all ,i care1 ,i said1 and they gasped4 ,we sit outside all day now4 ,my classes take books and wander away down the road and lie on the banks4 ,when ,i want them ,i call with the bugle4 ,each class has a regimental call1 and they come promptly4 ,they most of them sit down separately1 but the chatterers like to sit together4 ,i force no bairn to learn in my school4 ,the few who dislike books and lessons sit up when ,i talk to the class4 ,the slackers are not always the most ignorant4 ,i am beginning to compliment myself on having a good temper4 ,for the past six weeks ,i have left the manual room open at playtime and the boys have made many toys4 ,but they have made a woeful mess of the cutting tools4 ,it is trying to find that your favourite plane has been cracked by a boy who has extreme theories on the fixing of plane irons4 ,but it is very comforting to know that the ,school ,board will have to pay for the damage4 ,yes1 my temper is excellent4 99 99 99 ,on ,saturday ,i went to a ,bazaar1 and various members of the aristocracy talked to me4 ,they talked very much in the manner they talk to their gardeners1 and ,i was led to muse upon the social status of a dominie4 ,what struck me most was the fact that they imitate royalty in the broaching of topics of conversation2 ,i knew that ,i presumed when ,i entered new ground of conversation4 ,the ladies were very polite and very regal1 and very well pleased with themselves4 ,one of them said3 ,i hope that you do your best to make these children realise that there are classes in society2 so many of their parents refuse to see the good in other classes6 ,for my part1 ,i answered1 ,i acknowledge one aristocracy--the aristocracy of intellect4 ,i teach my children to have respect for thinking4 ,she stared at me1 and went away4 ,i am not prejudiced against the county people1 but any superiority of manner annoys me4 ,i simply have no use for ladies who live drifting lives4 ,the lady-bountifuls1 or should it be the ladies-bountiful8 of ,britain would be much better as typists2 in these days of alleged scarcity of labour they might come down and mix with the lower orders4 ,their grace and breeding would do much to improve us1 and we might be able to help them in some ways4 ,i am not being cynical1 ,i have a genuine admiration for the breeding and beauty of some society women4 ,the doctor and the minister are seldom patronised4 ,i cannot for the life of me see why it is more lowly to cure a child of ignorance than measles4 ,i have heard it said that the real reason of the teacher's low social status is the fact that very often he is the son of a humble labourer4 ,there is some truth in this4 ,at the ,training ,college and the ,university the student meets men of his own class only2 he never learns the little tricks of deportment that make up society's criterion of a gentleman4 ,but for my part ,i blame the circumstances under which a dominie works4 ,in ,scotland he is the servant of a ,school ,board1 and a ,school ,board is generally composed of men who have but the haziest notion of the meaning of education4 ,that is bad enough1 but very often there is a feud between one or two members and the teacher4 ,perhaps the teacher does not get his coals from ,mr4 ,brown the ,chairman1 perhaps ,mr4 ,brown voted for another man when the appointment was made4 ,it is difficult for a man who is ruled by a few low-idealed semi-illiterate farmers and pig-dealers to emphasise his social position4 ,larger areas have been spoken of by politicians4 ,personally1 ,i don't want larger areas2 ,i want to see the profession run by the members1 just as ,law and ,medicine are4 ,it is significant that the medical profession has dropped considerably in the social scale since it allowed itself to work under the ,insurance ,act4 ,my ideal is an ,education ,guild which will replace the ,scotch ,education ,department4 ,it will draw up its own scheme of instruction1 fix the salaries of its members1 appoint its own inspectors1 build its own schools4 ,it will be directly responsible to the ,state which will remain the supreme authority4 ,i blame the teachers for their low social status4 ,to-day they have no idea of corporate action4 ,they pay their subscriptions to their ,institute1 and for the most part talk of stopping them on the ground that it is money wasted4 ,the authorities of the ,institute try to work for a better union1 but they try clumsily and stodgily4 ,they never write or talk forcibly2 they resemble the ,labour ,members of ,parliament in their having an eager desire to be respectable at any price4 ,i don't know why it is1 but when a professional man tries to put his thoughts on paper he almost always succeeds in saving nothing in many fine phrases4 ,what is really wrong with the ,educational ,institute of ,scotland is hoary-headedness4 ,it is run by old men and old wives4 ,a big man in the ,institute is usually a teacher with thirty years' experience as a headmaster4 ,well 444 if a man can teach under the present system for thirty years and retain any originality or imagination at the end of that time he must be a genius4 ,i object to age and experience2 ,i am all for youth and empiricism4 ,after all1 what is the use of experience in teaching8 ,i could bet my boots that ninety-nine out of a hundred teachers use the methods they learned as pupil-teachers4 ,experience6 ,i have heard dominies expatiate on innovations like ,kindergarten and ,blackboard ,drawing4 ,i still have to meet a dominie of experience who has any name but fad for anything in education later than #ahhj4 ,i have never tried to define the word fad4 ,i should put it thus3--,a fad is a half-formed idea that a sub-inspector has borrowed from a bad translation of a distinguished foreigner's treatise on ,education1 and handed on to a deferential dominie4 99 99 99 ,an inspector called to-day2 a middle-aged kindly gentleman with a sharp eye4 ,his chief interest in life was tables4 ,how many pence in fifty-seven farthings8 he fired at my highest class4 ,when he found that they had to divide mentally by four1 he became annoyed4 ,they ought to know their tables1 he said to me4 ,what tables8 ,i asked4 ,o1 they should learn up that2 why ,i can tell you at once what sixty-nine farthings are4 ,i explained humbly that ,i couldn't1 and should never acquire the skill4 ,i did not like his manner of talking at the teacher through the class4 ,when an inspector says1 ,you ought to know this1 the scholars glance at the teacher1 for they are shrewd enough to see that the teacher is being condemned4 ,he fired his parting shot as he went out4 ,you must learn not to talk in school1 he said4 ,i am a peaceful man1 and ,i hate a scene4 ,i said nothing1 but ,i shall do nothing4 ,if he returns he will find no difference in the school4 ,the bairns did talk to each other when the inspector talked to me1 but when he asked for attention he got it4 ,i am surprised to find that his visit does not worry me2 ,i have at last lost my fear of the terror of teaching--,h4,m4,i4,s4 ,,xii4 ,i went drumming last night4 ,i like the ,american word drummer1 it is so much more expressive than our commercial traveller4 ,i made a series of postcards1 and ,i went round the shops trying to place them4 ,one man refused to take them up because the profits would not be large enough4 ,as the profits work out at #da per cent ,i begin to wonder what he usually makes4 ,to-day ,i talked to the bairns about commerce1 and ,i pointed out that much in commerce was thieving4 ,this is commerce1 ,i said3 ,suppose ,i am a pig-dealer4 ,i hear one day from a friend that pigs will rise in price in a few days4 ,i at once set out on a tour of neighbouring farms1 and by nightfall ,i have bought twenty pigs at the market price4 ,next morning pigs have doubled in price1 and these farmers naturally want to shoot me4 ,why don't they shoot me8 ,they would be hanged1 said ,violet ,brown4 ,because they would buy pigs in the same way if they had the chance1 said ,margaret ,steel4 ,i went on to say that buying pigs like that is stealing1 and ,i said that the successful business man is usually the man who is most unscrupulous4 ,i told them of the murderous system that allows a big firm to place a shop next door to a small merchant and undersell him till his business dies4 ,it is all done under the name of competition1 but of course there is no more competition about the affair than there is about the relationship between a wolf and a lamb4 ,i try very very hard to keep my bairns from low ideals4 ,some one1 ,oscar ,wilde or ,shaw1 ,i think1 says that love of money is the root of all good4 ,that is the sort of paradox that isn't true1 and not even funny4 ,i see farmers growing rich on child labour3 fifteen pence a day for spreading manure4 ,i meet the poor little boys of thirteen and fourteen on the road1 and the smile has gone from their faces2 their bodies are bent and racked4 ,when ,i was thirteen ,i went to the potato-gathering at a farm4 ,even now1 when ,i pass a field where potatoes are being lifted1 the peculiar smell of potato earth brings back to me those ten days of misery4 ,i seldom had time to straighten my back4 ,i had but one thought all day3 ,when will that sun get down to the west8 ,my neighbour1 ,jock ,tamson1 always seemed fresh and cheerful1 but1 unfortunately1 ,i did not discover the cause of his optimism until the last day4 ,foo are you feenished so quick1 ,jock8 ,i asked4 ,jock winked and nodded his head in the direction of the farmer4 ,look6 he said1 and he skilfully tramped a big potato into the earth with his right foot2 then he surreptitiously happed it over with his left4 ,i have never forgiven ,jock for being so tardy in spreading his gospel4 99 99 99 ,to-day ,i received from the ,clerk the ,report on my school4 ,discipline1 it says1 which is kindly1 might be firmer1 especially in the ,senior ,division1 so as to prevent a tendency to talk on the part of the pupils whenever opportunity occurs4 ,an earlier part runs thus3 ,the pupils in the ,senior ,division are intelligent and bright under oral examination1 and make an exceedingly good appearance in the class subjects4 ,i scratch my head thoughtfully4 ,if the inspector finds the bairns intelligent and bright1 why does he want them to be silent in school8 ,i cannot tell2 ,i suspect that talking children annoy him4 ,i fancy that stern disciplinarians are men who hate to be irritated4 ,more attention1 however1 should be paid to neatness of method and penmanship in copybooks and jotters4 ,i wonder4 ,i freely admit to myself that the jotters are not neat1 but ,i want to know why they should be4 ,i can beat most men at marring a page with hasty figures2 on the other hand ,i can make a page look like copperplate if ,i want to4 ,i find that my bairns do neat work on an examination paper4 ,the truth is that ,i am incapable of teaching neatness4 ,my desk is a jumble2 my sitting-room is generally littered with books and papers4 ,some men are born tidy3 some have tidiness thrust upon them4 ,i am of the latter crowd4 ,between the school charwoman and my landlady ,i live strenuously4 ,i object to my report4 ,i hate to be the victim of a man ,i can't reply to1 even when he says nice things4 ,but the main objection ,i have to the report is this3 the ,school ,board gets not a single word of criticism4 ,if ,i were not almost proud of my lack of neatness1 ,i might argue that no man could be neat in an ugly school4 ,it is always filthy because the ashed playground is undrained4 ,broken windows stand for months2 the plaster of the ceiling came down months ago1 and the lathes are still showing4 ,the ,school ,board does not worry2 its avowed object is to keep down the rates at any price in meanness 7some members are big ratepayers74 ,the sanitary arrangements are a disgrace to a long-suffering nation4 ,nothing is done4 99 99 99 ,it would be a good plan to make teachers forward reports of inspectors' visits to the ,scotch ,education ,department4 ,i should love to write one4 ,mr4 ,silas ,k4 ,beans1 ,h4,m4,i4,s41 paid a visit to this school to-day1 and he made quite a passable appearance before the pupils4 ,it was perhaps unfortunate that ,mr4 ,beans laboured under the delusion that ,mrs4 ,hemans wrote ,come into the ,garden1 ,maud1 but on the whole the subject was adequately treated4 ,the geography lesson showed ,mr4 ,beans at his best1 but it might be advisable for him to consider whether the precise whereabouts of ,seville possesses the importance in the scheme of things that he attributes to it4 ,and it might be suggested that children of twelve find some difficulty in spelling ,prsym--,prysem--,pryems----anyway1 the name of the town that has kept the alleged comic weeklies alive during a trying period4 ,the school staff would have liked ,mr4 ,beans to have stayed long enough to discover that a few of the scholars possessed imagination1 and it hoped that he will be able to make his visit longer than four hours next time4 ,mr4 ,beans's knowledge of dates is wonderful1 and his parsing has all the glory of ,early ,victorian furniture4 ,,xiii4 ,to-night ,mac,murray invited me down to meet his former head1 ,simpson1 a big man in the ,educational ,institute1 and a likely ,president next year4 ,mac introduced me as a chap with theories on education2 doesn't care a rap for inspectors and abominates discipline4 ,simpson looked me over2 then he grunted4 ,you'll grow out of that1 young man1 he said sagely4 ,i laughed4 ,that's what ,i'm afraid of1 ,i said1 ,i fear that the continual holding of my nose to the grindstone will destroy my perspective4 ,you'll find that experience doesn't destroy perspective4 ,experience1 ,i cried1 is1 or at least1 should be one of ,oscar ,wilde's ,seven ,deadly ,virtues4 ,the experienced man is the chap who funks doing a thing because he's had his fingers burnt4 ',tis experience that makes cowards of us all4 ,of course1 said ,simpson1 you're joking4 ,it stands to reason that ,i1 for instance1 with a thirty-four years' experience of teaching know more about education than you do1 if you don't mind my saying so4 ,man1 ,i was teaching laddies before your father and mother met1 he added4 ,if you saw a lad and a lass making love would you arrange that he should sit near her8 ,good gracious1 no6 he cried4 ,what has that got to do with the subject4 ,but why not give them chances to spoon8 ,i asked4 ,why not8 ,if a teacher encouraged that sort of thing1 why1 it might lead to anything6 ,exactly1 ,i said1 experience tells you that you have to do all you can to preserve the morals of the bairns8 ,i could give you instances-- ,i don't want them particularly1 ,i interrupted4 ,my main point is that experience has made you a funk4 ,pass the baccy1 ,mac4 ,mean to tell me that's how you teach8 cried ,simpson4 ,how in all the world do you do for discipline8 ,i do without it4 ,my goodness6 that's the limit6 ,may ,i ask why you do without it8 ,it is a purely personal matter1 ,i answered4 ,i don't want anyone to lay down definite rules for me1 and ,i refuse to lay down definite rules of conduct for my bairns4 ,but how in all the earth do you get any work done8 ,work1 ,i said1 is an over-rated thing1 just as knowledge is overrated4 ,nonsense1 said ,simpson4 ,all right1 ,i remarked mildly1 if knowledge is so important1 why is a university professor usually a talker of platitudes8 ,why is the average medallist at a university a man of tenth-rate ideas8 ,then our ,scotch education is all in vain8 ,speaking generally1 it is4 ,i think it was at this stage that ,simpson began to doubt my sanity4 ,young man1 he said severely1 one day you will realise that work and knowledge and discipline are of supreme importance4 ,look at the ,germans6 ,he waved his hand in the direction of the sideboard1 and ,i looked round hastily4 ,look what ,germany has done with work and knowledge and discipline6 ,then why all this bother to crush a ,state that has all the virtues8 ,i asked diffidently4 ,it isn't the discipline we are trying to crush2 it is the militarism4 ,good6 ,i cried1 ,i'm glad to hear it4 ,that's what ,i want to do in ,scotland2 ,i want to crush the militarism in our schools1 and1 as most teachers call their militarism discipline1 ,i curse discipline4 ,that's all rubbish1 you know1 he said shortly4 ,no it isn't4 ,if ,i leather a boy for making a mistake in a sum1 ,i am no better than the ,prussian officer who shoots a ,belgian civilian for crossing the street4 ,i am equally stupid and a bully4 ,then you allow carelessness to go unpunished8 he sneered4 ,i do4 ,you see ,i am a very careless devil myself4 ,i'll swear that ,i left your garden gate open when ,i came in1 ,mac1 and your hens will be all over the road4 ,mac looked out at the window4 ,they are6 he chuckled1 and ,i laughed4 ,you seem to think that slovenliness is a virtue1 said ,simpson with a faint smile4 ,i don't1 really1 but ,i hold that it is a natural human quality4 ,are your pupils slovenly8 he asked4 ,lots of 'em are4 ,you're born tidy or you aren't4 ,when these boys go out to the workshop1 what then8 ,will a joiner keep an apprentice who makes a slovenly job8 ,ah6 ,i said1 you're talking about trade now4 ,you evidently want our schools to turn out practical workmen4 ,i don't4 ,mind you ,i'm quite willing to admit that a shoemaker who theorises about leather is a public nuisance4 ,neatness and skill are necessary in practical manufacture1 but ,i refuse to reduce education to the level of cobbling or coffin-making4 ,i don't care how slovenly a boy is if he thinks4 ,if he is slovenly he won't think1 said ,simpson4 ,i smiled4 ,i think you are wrong4 ,personally1 ,i am a very lazy man2 ,i have my library all over the floor as a rule4 ,yet1 though ,i am lazy physically ,i am not lazy mentally4 ,i hold that the really lazy teacher is your ring the bell at nine sharp man2 he hustles so much that he hasn't time to think4 ,if you work hard all day you never have time to think4 ,simpson laughed4 ,man1 ,i'd like to see your school6 ,why not8 ,come up tomorrow morning1 ,i said4 ,first rate6 he cried1 ,i'll be there at nine4 ,better not1 ,i said with a smile1 or you'll have to wait for ten minutes4 99 99 99 ,he arrived as ,i blew the ,fall in on my bugle4 ,you don't line them up and march them in8 he said4 ,i used to1 but ,i've given it up1 ,i confessed4 ,to tell the truth ,i'm not enamoured of straight lines4 ,we entered my classroom4 ,simpson stood looking sternly at my chattering family while ,i marked the registers4 ,i couldn't tolerate this row1 he said4 ,it isn't so noisy as your golf club on a ,saturday night1 is it8 ,he smiled slightly4 ,jim ,burnett came out to my desk and lifted ,the ,glasgow ,herald1 then he went out to the playground humming ,on the ,mississippi4 ,what's the idea8 asked ,simpson4 ,he's the only boy who is keen on the war news1 ,i explained4 ,then ,margaret ,steel came out4 ,please1 sir1 ,i took ,the ,four ,feathers home and my mother began to read them2 she thinks she'll finish them by ,sunday4 ,is anybody reading ,the ,invisible ,man8 ,i gave her the book and she went out4 ,then ,tom ,macintosh came out and asked for the ,manual ,room key2 he wanted to finish a boat he was making4 ,do you let them do as they like8 asked ,simpson4 ,in the upper classes1 ,i replied4 ,soon all the ,supplementary and ,qualifying pupils had found a novel and had gone out to the roadside4 ,i turned to give the other classes arithmetic4 ,mary ,wilson in the front seat held out a bag of sweets to me4 ,i took one4 ,please1 sir1 would the gentleman like one1 too8 ,simpson took one with the air of a man on holiday who doesn't care what sins he commits4 ,i say1 he whispered1 do you let them eat in school8 ,there's a boy in the back seat eating nuts4 ,i fixed ,ralph ,ritchie with my eye4 ,ralph6 ,if you throw any nutshells on that floor ,mrs4 ,findlay will eat you4 ,i'm putting them in my pooch1 he said4 ,good6 ,write down this sum4 ,what are the others doing8 asked ,simpson after a time4 ,margaret ,steel and ,violet ,brown are reading1 ,i said promptly4 ,annie ,dixon is playing fivies on the sand1 ,jack ,white and ,bob ,tosh are most likely arguing about horses1 but the other boys are reading1 we'll go and see4 ,and together we walked down the road4 ,annie was playing fivies all right1 but ,jack and ,bob weren't discussing horses2 they were reading ,chips4 ,and the scamps haven't the decency to hide it when you appear6 cried ,simpson4 ,haven't the fear1 ,i corrected4 ,on the way back to the school he said3 ,it's all very pleasant and picnicy1 but eating nuts and sweets in class6 ,makes your right arm itch8 ,i suggested pleasantly4 ,it does1 he said with a short laugh1 ,man1 do you never get irritated8 ,sometimes4 ,ah6 ,he looked relieved4 ,so the system isn't perfect8 ,good heavens6 ,i cried1 ,what do you think ,i am8 ,a saint from heaven8 ,you surely don't imagine that a man with nerves and a temperament is always able to enter into the moods of bairns6 ,i get ratty occasionally1 but ,i generally blame myself4 ,i sent a girl for my bugle and sounded the ,dismiss4 ,what do you do now8 ,i pulled out my pipe and baccy4 ,have a fill1 ,i said1 it's ,john ,cotton4 99 99 99 ,to-night ,i have been thinking about ,simpson4 ,he is really a kindly man2 in the golf-house he is voted a good fellow4 ,yet ,mac,murray tells me that he is a very strict disciplinarian2 he saw him give a boy six scuds with the tawse one day for drawing a man's face on the inside cover of his drawing book4 ,i suppose that ,simpson considers that he is an eminently just man4 ,i think that the foundation of true justice is self-analysis4 ,it is mental laziness that is at the root of the militarism in our schools4 ,simpson is as lazy mentally as the proverbial mother who cried3 ,see what ,willie's doing and tell him he musn't4 ,i wonder what he would have replied if the boy had said3 ,why is it wrong to draw a man's face in a drawing book8 ,very likely he would have given him another six for impertinence4 ,it is strange that our boasted democracy uses its power to set up bullies4 ,the law bullies the poor and gives them the cat if they trespass2 the police bully everyone who hasn't a clean collar2 the dominie bullies the young2 and the ,school ,board bullies the dominie4 ,yet1 in theory1 the judge1 the constable1 the dominie1 and the ,school ,board are the servants of democracy4 ,heaven protect us from the bureaucratic ,socialism of people like the ,webbs6 ,it is significant that ,germany1 the country of the super-official is the country of the super-bully4 ,paradoxically1 ,i1 as a ,socialist1 believe that the one thing that will save the people is individualism4 ,no democracy can control a stupid teacher or a stupid judge4 ,if our universities produce teachers who leather a boy for drawing a face1 and judges who give boys the cat for stealing tuppence ha'penny1 then our universities are all wrong4 ,or human nature is all wrong4 ,if ,i admit the latter ,i must fall back on pessimism4 ,but ,i don't admit it4 ,our cruel teachers and magistrates are good fellows in their clubs and homes2 they are bad fellows in their schools and courts because they have never come to think1 to examine themselves4 ,in my ,utopia self-examination will be the only examination that will matter4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells in ,the ,new ,machiavelli talks of ,love and ,fine ,thinking as the salvation of the world4 ,i like the phrase1 but ,i prefer the word ,realisation4 ,i want men like ,simpson to realise that their arbitrary rules are unjust and cowardly and inhuman4 99 99 99 ,i saw a good fight to-night4 ,at four o'clock ,i noticed a general move towards ,murray's ,corner1 and ,i knew that blood was about to be shed4 ,moreover ,i knew that ,jim ,steel was to tackle the new boy ,welsh1 for ,i had seen ,jim put his fist to his nose significantly in the afternoon4 ,i followed the crowd4 ,i want to see fair play1 ,i said4 ,welsh kept shouting that he could fecht the hale schule wi' wan hand tied ahent 'is back4 ,in this district school fights have an etiquette of their own4 ,one boy touches the other on the arm saying3 ,there's the dunt6 ,the other returns the touch with the same remark4 ,if he fails to return it he receives a harder dunt on the arm with the words1 ,and there's the coordly6 ,if he fails to return that also he is accounted the loser1 and the small boys throw divots at him4 ,steel began in the usual way with his3 ,there's the dunt6 ,welsh promptly hit him in the teeth and knocked him down4 ,the boys appealed to me4 ,no1 ,i said1 ,welsh didn't know the rules4 ,after this you should shake hands as you do in boxing4 ,welsh never had a chance4 ,he had no science2 he came on with his arms swinging in windmill fashion4 ,jim stepped aside and drove a straight left to the jaw1 and before ,welsh knew what was happening ,jim landed him on the nose with his right4 ,welsh began to weep1 and ,i stopped the fight4 ,i told him that ,steel had the advantage because ,i had taught my boys the value of a straight left1 but that ,i would give him a few lessons with the gloves later on4 ,then ,i asked how the quarrel had arisen4 ,as ,i had conjectured ,steel and ,welsh had no real quarrel4 ,welsh had cuffed little ,geordie ,burnett's ears1 and ,geordie had cried1 ,ye wudna hit ,jim ,steel6 ,welsh had no alternative but to reply3 ,wud ,aw no6 ,straightway ,geordie had run off to ,steel saying3 ,hi6 ,jim6 ,peter ,welsh says he'll fecht ye6 ,so far as ,i can remember all my own battles at school were arranged by disobliging little boys in this manner4 ,if ,jock ,tamson said to me3 ,bob ,young cud aisy fecht ye and ca' yer nose up among yer hair6 ,i1 as a man of honour1 had to reply3 ,aw'll try ,bob ,young ony day he likes6 ,and even if ,bob were my bosom friend1 ,i would have to face him at the brig at four o'clock4 ,i noticed that the girls were all on ,steel's side before the fight began1 and obviously on ,welsh's side when he was beaten1 the bissoms6 ,,xiv4 ,i gave a lecture in the village hall on ,friday night1 and many parents came out to hear what ,i had to say on the subject of ,children and their ,parents4 ,after the lecture ,i invited questions4 ,what wud ye hae a man do if his laddie wudna do what he was bidden8 asked ,brown the joiner4 ,i would have the man think very seriously whether he had any right to give the order that was disobeyed4 ,for instance1 if you ordered your ,jim to stop singing while you were reading1 you would be taking an unfair advantage of your years and size4 ,from what ,i know of ,jim he would certainly stop singing if you asked him to do so as a favour4 ,aw dinna believe in askin' favours o' ma laddies1 he said4 ,i smiled4 ,yet you ask them of other laddies4 ,you don't collar ,fred ,thomson and shout3 ',post that letter at once6' ,you say very nicely3 ',you might post that letter like a good laddie1' and ,fred enjoys posting your letter more than posting a ton of letters for his own father4 ,the audience laughed1 and ,fred's father cried3 ,goad6 ,ye're quite richt1 dominie6 ,as a boy1 ,i continued1 ,i hated being set to weed the garden1 though ,i spent hours helping to weed the garden next door4 ,a boy likes to grant favours4 ,aye1 said ,brown1 when there's a penny at the tail end o' them6 ,yes1 ,i said after the laughter had died1 but your ,jim would rather have ,mr4 ,thomson's penny than your sixpence4 ,the real reason is that you boss your son1 and nobody likes to be bossed4 ,believe me1 ladies and gentlemen1 ,i think that the father is the curse of the home4 7,laughter47 ,the father never talks to his son as man to man4 ,as a result a boy suppresses much of his nature1 and if he is left alone with his father for five minutes he feels awkward1 though not quite so awkward as the father does4 ,you find among the lower animals that the father is of no importance2 indeed1 he is looked on as a danger4 ,have you ever seen a bitch flare up when the father comes too near her puppies8 ,female spiders1 ,i am told1 solve the problem of the father by eating him4 7,great laughter47 ,what aboot the mothers8 said a voice1 and the men cackled4 ,mothers are worse1 ,i said4 ,fathers usually imagine that they have a sense of justice1 but mothers have absolutely no sense of justice4 ,it is the mother who cries1 ',liz1 ye lazy slut1 run and clean your brother's boots1 the poor laddie6 ,lod1 ,i dinna ken what would happen to you1 my poor laddie1 if your mother wasna here to look after you4' ,you mothers make your girls work at nights and on ,saturdays1 and you allow your boys to play outside4 ,that is most unjust4 ,your boys should clean their own boots and mend their own clothes4 ,they should help in the washing of dishes and the sweeping of floors4 ,wud ye say that the mother is the curse o' the hame1 too8 asked ,brown4 ,no1 ,i said1 she is a necessity1 and in spite of her lack of justice1 she is nearer to the children than the father is4 ,she is less aloof and less stern4 ,you'll find that a boy will tell his mother much more than he will tell his father4 ,speaking generally1 a stupid mother is more dangerous than a stupid father1 but a mother of average intelligence is better for a child than a father of average intelligence4 ,this is a problem that cannot be solved4 ,the mother must remain with her children1 and ,i cannot see how we are to chuck the father out of the house4 ,as a matter of fact he is usually so henpecked that he is prevented from being too much of an evil to the bairns4 ,the truth is that the parents of to-day are not fit to be parents1 and the parents of the next generation will be no better4 ,the mothers of the next generation are now in my school4 ,they will leave at the age of fourteen--some of them will be exempted and leave at thirteen--and they will slave in the fields or the factory for five or six years4 ,then society will accept them as legitimate guardians of the morals and spiritual welfare of children4 ,i say that this is a damnable system4 ,a mother who has never learned to think has absolute control of a growing young mind1 and an almost absolute control of a growing young body4 ,she can beat her child2 she can starve it4 ,she can poison its mind with malice1 just as she can poison its body with gin and bitters4 ,what can we do8 ,the home is the ,englishman's castle6 ,anyway1 in these days of high explosives1 castles are out of date1 and it is high time that the castle called home had some airing4 99 99 99 ,i cannot flatter myself that ,i made a single parent think on ,friday night4 ,most of the villagers treated the affair as a huge joke4 ,i have just decided to hold an ,evening ,school next winter4 ,i see that the ,code offers ,the ,life and ,duties of a ,citizen as a subject4 ,i shall have the lads and lasses of sixteen to nineteen in my classroom twice a week1 and ,i guess ,i'll tell them things about citizenship they won't forget4 ,it occurs to me that married people are not easily persuaded to think4 ,the village girl considers marriage the end of all things4 ,she dons the bridal white1 and at once she rises meteorically in the social scale4 ,yesterday she was ,mag ,broon1 an outworker at ,millside2 to-day she is ,mrs4 ,smith with a house of her own4 ,her mental horizon is widened4 ,she can talk about anything now2 the topic of childbirth can now be discussed openly with other married wives4 ,aggressiveness and mental arrogance follow naturally1 and with these come a respect for church-going and an abhorrence of ,atheism4 ,i refuse to believe those who prate about marriage as an emancipation for a woman4 ,marriage is a prison4 ,it shuts a woman up within her four walls1 and she hugs all her prejudices and hypocrisies to her bosom4 ,the men who shout ,women's place is the home6 at ,suffragette meetings are fools4 ,the home isn't good enough for women4 ,a girl once said to me3 ,i always think that marriage makes a girl a 'has been4' ,what she meant was that marriage ended flirtation1 poor innocent that she was6 ,yet her remark is true in a wider sense4 ,the average married woman is a has been in thought1 while not a few are never wasers4 ,hence ,i have more hope of my evening school lasses than of their mothers4 ,they have not become smug1 nor have they concluded that they are past enlightenment4 ,they are not too omniscient to resent the offering of new ideas4 ,a man's marriage makes no great change in his life4 ,his wife replaces his mother in such matters as cooking and washing and feeding the brute4 ,he finds that he is allowed to spend less1 and he has to keep elders' hours4 ,but in essentials his life is unchanged4 ,he still has his pint on a ,saturday night1 and his evening crack at the ,brig4 ,he has gained no additional authority1 and he is extremely blessed of the gods if he has not lost part of the authority he had4 ,the revolution in his mental outfit comes later when he becomes a father4 ,he thinks that his education is complete when the midwife whispers3 ,hi1 ,jock1 it's a lassie6 ,he immediately realises that he is a man of importance1 a guide and preacher rolled into one2 and he talks dictatorially to the dominie about education4 ,then he discovers that precept must be accompanied by example1 and he aspires to be a deacon or an elder4 ,now ,i want to get at ,jock before the midwife gets at him4 ,i don't care tuppence whether he is married or not 444 but he mustn't be a father4 99 99 99 ,to-day ,i began to read ,mary ,johnston's ,by ,order of the ,company to my bairns4 ,i love the story1 and ,i love the style4 ,it reminds me of ,malory's style2 she has his trick of running on in a breathless string of ands4 ,when ,i think of style ,i am forced to recollect the stylists ,i had to read at the university4 ,there was ,sir ,thomas ,browne and his ,urn ,burial4 ,what the devil is the use of people like ,browne ,i don't know4 ,he gives us word music and imagery ,i admit1 but ,i don't want word music and imagery from prose1 ,i want ideas or a story4 ,i can't think of one idea ,i got from ,browne or ,fisher or ,ruskin1 or any of the stylists1 yet ,i have found many ideas in translations of ,nietzsche and ,ibsen4 ,style is the curse of ,english literature4 ,when ,i read ,mary ,johnston ,i forget all about words4 ,i vaguely realise that she is using the right words all the time1 but the story is the thing4 ,when ,i read ,browne ,i fail to scrape together the faintest interest in burials2 the organ music of his ,dead ,march drowns everything else4 ,when a man writes too musically and ornately ,i always suspect him of having a paucity of ideas4 ,if you have anything important to say you use plain language4 ,the man who writes to the local paper complaining of those itinerant denizens of the underworld yclept hawkers1 who make the day hideous with raucous cries1 is a pompous ass4 ,yet he is no worse than the average stylist in writing4 ,i think it was ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton who said that a certain popular authoress said nothing because she believed in words4 ,he might have applied the phrase to #ij per cent of ,english writers4 ,poetry cannot be changed4 ,substitute a word for felicity in the line3 ,absent thee from felicity awhile and you destroy the poetry4 ,but ,i hold that prose should be able to stand translation4 ,the prose that cannot stand it is the empty stuff produced by our ,ruskins and our ,brownes4 ,empty barrels always have made the most sound4 99 99 99 ,there must be something in style after all4 ,i had this note from a mother this morning4 ,,dear ,,sir1 ,please change ,jane's seat for she brings home more than belongs to her4 ,i refuse to comment on this work of art4 99 99 99 ,i must get a cornet4 ,eurhythmics with an artillery bugle is too much for my wind and my dignity4 ,just when the graceful bend is coming forward my wind gives out1 and ,i make a vain attempt to whistle the rest4 ,perhaps a concertina would be better than a cornet4 ,i tried ,willie ,hunter with his mouth-organ1 but the attempt was stale and unprofitable1 and incidentally flat4 ,then ,tom ,macintosh brought a comb to the school and offered to perform on it4 ,after that ,i gave ,eurhythmics a rest4 ,when the war is over ,i hope that the ,government will retain ,lloyd ,george as ,minister of ,munitions 444 for ,schools4 ,i haven't got a tenth of the munitions ,i should have2 ,i want a player-piano1 a gramophone1 a cinematograph with comic films1 a library with magazines and pictures4 ,i want swings and see-saws in the playground1 ,i want rabbits and white mice2 ,i want instruments for a school brass and wood band4 ,i like building castles in ,spain4 ,the truth is that if the ,school ,board would yield to my importunities and lay a few loads of gravel on the muddy patch commonly known as the playground ,i should almost die of surprise and joy4 ,one learns to be content with small mercies when one is serving those ratepayers who control the rates4 ,,xv4 ,margaret ,steel has left school1 and to-morrow morning she goes off at five o'clock to the factory4 ,to-day ,margaret is a bright-eyed1 rosy-cheeked lassie2 in three years she will be hollow-eyed and pale-faced4 ,never again will she know what it is to waken naturally after sleep2 the factory syren will haunt her dreams always4 ,she will rise at half-past four summer and winter2 she will tramp the two mile road to the factory1 and when six comes at night she will wearily tramp home again4 ,possibly she will marry a factory worker and continue working in the factory1 for his wage will not keep up a home4 ,in the neighbouring town hundreds of homes are locked all day 444 and ,bruce the manufacturer's daughters are in county society4 ,heigh ho6 ,it is a queer thing civilisation6 ,i wonder when the people will begin to realise what wagery means4 ,when they do begin to realise they will commence the revolution by driving women out of industry4 ,to-day the women are used by the profiteer as instruments to exploit the men4 ,surely a factory worker has the right to earn enough to support a family on4 ,the profiteer says ,no6 ,you must marry one of my hands1 and then your combined wages will set up a home for you4 ,i spoke of this to the manager of ,bruce's factory once4 ,but1 he said1 if we did away with female labour we'd have to close down4 ,we couldn't compete with other firms4 ,not if they abolished female labour too8 ,i was thinking of the ,calcutta mills where labour is dirt cheap1 he said4 ,i see1 ,i said1 so the ,scotch lassie is to compete with the native8 ,it comes to that1 he admitted4 ,i think ,i see a very pretty problem awaiting ,labour in the near future4 ,as the ,trade ,unions become more powerful and show their determination to take the mines and factories into their own hands1 capitalists will turn to ,asia and ,africa4 ,the exploitation of the native is just beginning4 ,at a time when ,britain is a ,socialistic ,state all the evils of capitalism will be reproduced with ten-fold intensity in ,india and ,china and ,africa4 ,i see an ,asia ruled by lash and revolver2 the profiteer has a short way with the striker in ,eastern climes4 ,the recent history of ,south ,africa is sinister4 ,a few years ago our brothers died presumably that white men should have the rights of citizenship in the ,transvaal4 ,what they seemed to have died for was the right of profiteers to shoot white strikers from the windows of the ,rand ,club4 ,if white men are treated thus ,i tremble for the fate of the black man who strikes4 ,yes1 the present profiteering system is a preparation for an exploited ,east4 ,margaret ,steel and her fellows are slaving so that a ,persia may be opened up1 a ,mexico robbed of its oil wells4 99 99 99 ,to-day ,i gave a lesson on ,capital4 ,if1 ,i said1 ,i have a factory ,i have to pay out wages and money for machinery and raw material4 ,when ,i sell my cloth ,i get more money than ,i paid out4 ,this money is called profit1 and with this money ,i can set up a new factory4 ,now what ,i want you to understand is this3--,unless work is done by someone there is no wealth4 ,if ,i make a fortune out of linen ,i make it by using the labour of your fathers1 and the machinery that was invented by clever men4 ,of course1 ,i have to work hard myself1 but ,i am repaid for my work fully4 ,margaret ,steel at this moment standing at a loom1 is working hard too1 but she is getting a wage that is miserable4 ,note that the owner of the factory is getting an income of1 say1 ten thousand pounds a year4 ,now1 what does he do with the money8 ,spends it on motor cars1 said a boy4 ,buys cigarettes1 said a girl4 ,please1 sir1 ,mr4 ,bruce gives money to the infirmary1 said another girl4 ,he keeps it in a box beneath the bed1 said another1 and ,i found that the majority in the room favoured this theory4 ,this suggestion reminded me of the limitations of childhood1 and ,i tried to talk more simply4 ,i told them of banks and stocks1 ,i talked of luxuries1 and pointed out that a man who lived by selling expensive dresses to women was doing unnecessary labour4 ,tom ,macintosh showed signs of thinking deeply4 ,please1 sir1 what would all the dressmakers and footmen do if there was no money to pay them8 ,they would do useful work1 ,tom1 ,i said4 ,your father works from six to six every day1 but if all the footmen and chauffeurs and grooms and gamekeepers were doing useful work1 your father would only need to work maybe seven hours a day4 ,see8 ,in ,britain there are forty millions of people1 and the annual income of the country is twenty-four hundred million pounds4 ,one million of people take half this sum1 and the other thirty-nine millions have to take the other half4 ,please1 sir1 said ,tom1 what half are you in8 ,tom1 ,i said1 ,i am with the majority4 ,for once the majority has right on its side4 99 99 99 ,bruce the manufacturer had an advertisement in to-day's local paper4 ,no encumbrances1 says the ad4 ,bruce has a family of at least a dozen1 and he possibly thinks that he has earned the right to talk of encumbrances4 ,i sympathise with the old chap4 ,but ,i want to know why gardeners and chauffeurs must have no encumbrances4 ,if the manorial system spreads1 a day will come when the only children at this school will be the offspring of the parish minister4 ,then1 ,i suppose1 dominies and ministers will be compelled to be polygamists by ,act of ,parliament4 ,i like the ,lord of the ,manor's damned impudence4 ,he breeds cattle for showing1 he breeds pheasants for slaughtering1 he breeds children to heir his estates4 ,then he sits down and pens an advertisement for a slave without encumbrances4 ,why he doesn't import a few harem attendants from ,turkey ,i don't know2 possibly he is waiting till the ,dardanelles are opened up4 99 99 99 ,i have just been reading a few schoolboy howlers4 ,i fancy that most of these howlers are manufactured4 ,i cannot be persuaded that any boy ever defined a lie as ,an abomination unto the ,lord but a very present help in time of trouble4 ,howlers bore me2 so do most school yarns4 ,the only one worth remembering is the one about the inspector who was ratty4 ,here1 boy1 he fired at a sleepy youth1 who wrote ,hamlet8 ,the boy started violently4 ,p--please1 sir1 it wasna me1 he stammered4 ,that evening the inspector was dining with the local squire4 ,very funny thing happened to-day1 he said1 as they lit their cigars4 ,i was a little bit irritated1 and ,i shouted at a boy1 ',who wrote ,hamlet8' ,the little chap was flustered4 ',p--please1 sir1 it wasna me6' he stuttered4 ,the squire guffawed loudly4 ,and ,i suppose the little devil had done it after all6 he roared4 99 99 99 ,lawson came down to see me to-night1 and as usual we talked shop4 ,it's all very well1 he said1 for you to talk about education being all wrong4 ,any idiot can burn down a house that took many men to build4 ,have you got a definite scheme to put in its place8 ,the question was familiar to me4 ,i had had it fired at me scores of times in the days when ,i talked ,socialism from a soap-box in ,hyde ,park4 ,i think ,i have a scheme1 ,i said modestly4 ,lawson lay back in his chair4 ,good6 ,cough it up1 my son6 ,i smoked hard for a minute4 ,well1 ,lawson1 it's like this1 my scheme could only be a success if the economic basis of society were altered4 ,so long as one million people take half the national yearly income you can't have any decent scheme of education4 ,right ,o6 said ,lawson cheerfully1 for the sake of argument1 or rather peace1 we'll give you a ,utopia where there are no idle rich4 ,fire away6 ,good6 ,i'll talk about the present day education first4 ,twenty years ago education had one aim--to abolish illiteracy4 ,in consequence the ,three ,r4's were of supreme importance4 ,nowadays they are held to be quite as important1 but a dozen other things have been placed beside them on the pedestal4 ,gradually education has come to aim at turning out a man or a woman capable of earning a living4 ,cookery1 ,woodwork1 ,typing1 ,bookkeeping1 ,shorthand 444 all these were introduced so that we should have better wives and joiners and clerks4 ,lawson1 ,i would chuck the whole blamed lot out of the elementary school4 ,i don't want children to be trained to make pea-soup and picture frames1 ,i want them to be trained to think4 ,i would cut out ,history and ,geography as subjects4 ,eh8 said ,lawson4 ,they'd come in incidentally4 ,for instance1 ,i could teach for a week on the text of a newspaper report of a fire in ,new ,york4 ,the fire would light up the whole world1 so to speak1 said ,lawson with a smile4 ,under the present system the teacher never gets under way4 ,he is just getting to the interesting part of his subject when ,maggie ,brown ups and says1 ',please1 sir1 it's ,cookery now4' ,the chap who makes a religion of his teaching says ',damn6' very forcibly1 and the girls troop out4 ,i would keep ,composition and ,reading and ,arithmetic in the curriculum4 ,drill and ,music would come into the play hours1 and ,sketching would be an outside hobby for warm days4 ,where would you bring in the technical subjects8 ,each school would have a workshop where boys could repair their bikes or make kites and arrows1 but there would not be any formal instruction in woodwork or engineering4 ,technical education would begin at the age of sixteen4 ,six what8 ,sixteen4 ,you see my pupils are to stay at school till they are twenty4 ,you are providing the cash you know4 ,well1 at sixteen the child would be allowed to select any subject he liked4 ,suppose he is keen on mechanics4 ,he spends a good part of the day in the engineering shop and the drawing room--mechanical drawing ,i mean4 ,but the thinking side of his education is still going on4 ,he is studying political economy1 eugenics1 evolution1 philosophy4 ,by the time he is eighteen he has read ,nietzsche1 ,ibsen1 ,bjornson1 ,shaw1 ,galsworthy1 ,wells1 ,strindberg1 ,tolstoi1 that is if ideas appeal to him4 ,ah6 ,of course1 ,i don't say that one man in a hundred will read ,ibsen4 ,you will always have the majority who are averse to thinking if they can get out of it4 ,these will be good mechanics and typists and joiners in many cases4 ,my point is that every boy or girl has the chance to absorb ideas during their teens4 ,would you make it compulsory8 ,for instance1 that boy ,willie ,smith in your school2 do you think that he would learn much more if he had to stay at school till he was twenty8 ,no1 ,i said1 ,i wouldn't force anyone to stay at school1 but to-day boys quite as stupid naturally as ,smith stay at the university and love it4 ,a few years' rubbing shoulders with other men is bound to make a man more alert4 ,take away1 as you have done for argument's sake1 the necessity of a boy's leaving school at fourteen to earn a living and you simply make every school a university4 ,and it isn't three weeks since ,i heard you curse universities6 said ,lawson with a grin4 ,i'm thinking of the social side of a university1 ,i explained4 ,that is good4 ,the educational side of our universities is bad because it is mostly cram4 ,i crammed ,botany and ,zoo for my degree and ,i know nothing about either2 ,i was too busy trying to remember words like ,caryophylacia1 or whatever it is1 to ask why flowers droop their heads at night4 ,so in ,english ,i had to cram up what ,hazlitt and ,coleridge said about ,shakespeare when ,i should have been reading ,othello4 ,the university fails because it refuses to connect education with contemporary life4 ,you go there and you learn a lot of rot about syllogisms and pentameters1 and nothing is done to explain to you the meaning of the life in the streets outside4 ,no wonder that ,oxford and ,cambridge dons write to the papers saying that life has no opening for a university man4 ,but ,i thought that you didn't want education to produce a practical man4 ,you wanted a theoretical chimney-sweep1 didn't you8 said ,lawson smiling4 ,the present university turns out men who are neither practical nor theoretical4 ,i want a university that will turn out thinkers4 ,the men who have done most to stimulate thought these past few years are men like ,wells and ,shaw and ,chesterton2 and ,i don't think that one of them is a 'varsity man4' ,you can't run a world on thought1 said he4 ,i don't know1 ,i said1 we seem to run this old ,state of ours without thought4 ,the truth is that there will always be more workers than thinkers4 ,while one chap is planning a new heaven on earth1 the other ninety-nine are working hard at motors and benches4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells is always asking for better technical schools1 more research1 more invention4 ,all these are absolutely necessary1 but ,i want more than that2 along with science and art ,i want the thinking part of education to go on4 ,it goes on now4 ,no1 ,i said1 it doesn't4 ,your so-called educated man is often a stupid fellow4 ,doctors have a good specialist education1 yet ,i know a score of doctors who think that ,socialism means ',the ,great ,divide4' ,when ,osteopathy came over from ,america a few years ago thousands of medical men pronounced it 'damned quackery' at once2 only a few were wide enough to study the thing to see what it was worth4 ,so with inoculation2 the doctors follow the antitoxin authority like sheep4 ,at the university ,i once saw a raid on an ,anti-,vivisection shop1 and ,i'm sure that not one medical student in the crowd had ever thought about vivisection4 ,mention ,women's ,freedom to the average lawyer1 and he will think you a madman4 ,don't you see what ,i am driving at8 ,i want first-class doctors and engineers and chemists1 but ,i want them to think also1 to think about things outside their immediate interests4 ,this is the age of the specialist4 ,that's what's wrong with it4 ,somebody1 ,matthew ,arnold1 ,i think1 wanted a man who knew everything of something and something of everything4 ,it's a jolly good definition of education4 ,that is the idea of the ,scotch ,code1 said ,lawson4 ,yes1 perhaps it is4 ,they want our bairns to learn tons of somethings about everything that doesn't matter a damn in life4 99 99 99 ,my talk with ,lawson last night makes me realise again how hopeless it is to plan a system of education when the economic system is all out of joint4 ,i believe that this nation has the wealth to educate its children properly4 ,i wonder what the ,conscriptionists would say if ,i hinted to them that if a ,state can afford to take its youth away from industry to do unprofitable labour in the army and navy it can afford to educate its youth till the age of twenty is reached4 ,the stuff we teach in school leads nowhere2 the ,code subjects simply lull a child to sleep4 ,how the devil is a lad to build a ,utopia on ,geography and ,nature ,study and ,woodwork8 ,education should prove that the world is out of joint1 and it should point a ,kitchener finger at each child and say1 ,your ,country ,needs ,you 444 to set it ,right4 ,,xvi4 ,this has been a delightful day4 ,about eleven o'clock a rap came at the door1 and a young lady entered my classroom4 ,jerusalem6 ,i gasped4 ,dorothy6 ,where did you drop from8 ,i'm motoring to ,edinburgh1 she explained1 on tour1 you know1 old thing6 ,dorothy is an actress in a musical comedy touring company1 and she is a very old friend of mine4 ,she is a delightful child1 full of fun and mischief1 yet she can be a most serious lady on occasion4 ,she looked at my bairns1 then she clasped her hands4 ,o1 ,sandy6 ,fancy you teaching all these kiddies6 ,won't you teach me1 too8 ,and she sat down beside ,violet ,brown4 ,i thanked my stars that ,i had never been dignified in that room4 ,dorothy1 ,i said severely1 you're talking to ,violet ,brown and ,i must give you the strap4 ,the bairns simply howled1 and when ,dorothy took out her wee handkerchief and pretended to cry1 laughter was dissolved in tears4 ,it was minutes time1 and she insisted on blowing the ,dismiss on the bugle4 ,her efforts brought the house down4 ,the girls refused to dismiss1 they crowded round ,dorothy and touched her furs4 ,she was in high spirits4 ,you know1 girls1 ,i'm an actress and this big bad teacher of yours is a very old pal of mine4 ,he isn't such a bad sort really1 you know1 and she put her arm round my shoulders4 ,see her little game1 girls8 ,i said4 ,do you notice that this woman from a disreputable profession is making advances to me8 ,she really wants me to kiss her1 you know4 ,she-- ,but ,dorothy shoved a piece of chalk into my mouth4 ,what a day we had6 ,dorothy stayed all day1 and by four o'clock she knew all the big girls by their ,christian names4 ,she insisted on their calling her ,dorothy4 ,she even tried to talk their dialect1 and they screamed at her attempt to say ,guid nicht the noo4 ,in the afternoon ,i got her to sing and play2 then she danced a ragtime1 and in a few minutes she had the whole crowd ragging up and down the floor4 ,she stayed to tea1 and we reminisced about ,london4 ,dear old ,dorothy6 ,what a joy it was to see her again1 but how dull will school be tomorrow6 ,ah1 well1 it is a workaday world1 and the butterflies do not come out every day4 ,if ,dorothy could read that sentence she would purse up her pretty lips and say1 ,butterfly1 indeed1 you old bluebottle6 ,the dear child6 99 99 99 ,the school to-day was like a ballroom the morning after4 ,the bairns sat and talked about ,dorothy1 and they talked in hushed tones as about one who is dead4 ,please1 sir1 asked ,violet1 will she come back again8 ,i'm afraid not1 ,i answered4 ,please1 sir1 you should marry her1 and then she'll always be here4 ,she loves another man1 ,vi1 ,i said ruefully1 and when ,vi whispered to ,katie ,farmer1 ,what a shame6 ,i felt very sad4 ,for the moment ,i loved ,dorothy1 but it was mere sentimentalism1 ,dorothy and ,i could never love1 we are too much of the pal to each other for emotion to enter4 ,she is very pretty1 said ,peggy ,smith4 ,very1 ,i assented4 ,p--please1 sir1 you--you could marry her if you really tried8 said ,violet4 ,she had been thinking hard for a bit4 ,and break the other man's heart6 ,i laughed4 ,violet wrinkled her brows4 ,please1 sir1 it wouldn't matter for him1 we don't know him4 ,why6 ,i cried1 he is a very old friend of mine6 ,oh6 ,violet gasped4 ,please1 sir1 she said after a while1 do you know any more actresses8 ,i seized her by the shoulders and shook her4 ,you wee bissom6 ,you don't care a rap about me2 all you want is that ,i should marry an actress4 ,you want my wife to come and teach you ragtimes and tangoes6 ,and she blushed guiltily4 99 99 99 ,lawson came down to see me again to-night2 he wanted to tell me of an inspector's visit to-day4 ,why don't you apply for an inspectorship8 he asked4 ,i lit my pipe4 ,various reasons1 old fellow1 ,i said4 ,for one thing ,i don't happen to know a fellow who knows a chap who lives next door to a woman whose husband works in the ,scotch ,education ,department4 ,again1 ,i'm not qualified2 ,i never took the ,education ,class at ,oxford4 ,finally1 ,i don't want the job4 ,i suppose1 said ,lawson1 that lots of 'em get in by wire-pulling4 ,very probably1 but some of them probably get in straight4 ,naturally1 you cannot get geniuses by wire-pulling2 the chap who uses influence to get a job is a third-rater always4 ,lawson reddened4 ,i pulled wires to get into my job1 he said4 ,that's all right1 ,i said cheerfully1 ,i've pulled wires all my days4 ,but1 ,i added1 ,i wouldn't do it again4 ,caught religion8 ,not quite4 ,the truth is that ,i have at last realised that you never get anything worth having if you've got to beg for it4 ,it's about the softest job ,i know1 whether you have to beg for it or not4 ,the only job that beats it for softness is the kirk1 he said4 ,i wouldn't exactly call it a soft job1 ,lawson2 a rotten job1 yes1 but a soft job1 no4 ,inspecting schools is half spying and half policing4 ,it isn't supposed to be you know1 but it is4 ,you know as well as ,i do that every teacher starts guiltily whenever the inspector shoves his nose into the room4 ,nosing1 that's what it is4 ,you would make a fairly decent inspector1 said ,lawson4 ,thanks1 ,i said1 the insinuation being that ,i could nose well1 eh8 ,i didn't mean that4 ,suppose you had to examine my school how would you do it8 ,i would come in and sit down on a bench and say3 ',just imagine ,i am a new boy1 and give me an idea of the ways of the school4 ,i warn you that my attention may wander4 ,fire away6 ,but1 ,i say1 ,i hope you don't mind my finishing this pie2 ,i had a rotten breakfast this morning4' ,go on1 said ,lawson laughing4 ,i wouldn't examine the kids at all4 ,when you let them out for minutes ,i would have a crack with you4 ,i would say something like this3 ',i've got a dirty job1 but ,i must earn my screw in some way4 ,i want to have a wee lecture all to myself4 ,in the first place ,i don't like your discipline4 ,it's inhuman to make kids attend the way you do4 ,the natural desire of each boy in this room was to watch me put myself outside that pie1 and not one looked at me4 ',then you are far too strenuous4 ,you went from ,arithmetic to ,reading without a break4 ,you should give them a five minutes chat between each lesson4 ,and ,i think you have too much dignity4 ,you would never think of dancing a ragtime on this floor1 would you8 ,i thought not4 ,try it1 old chap4 ,apart from its merits as an antidote to dignity it is a first-rate liver stimulator4' ,hello6 ,where are you going8 ,time to take 'em in again8 ',o1 ,i say1 ,i'm your guest1 uninvited guest1 ,i admit1 but that's no reason why you should take advantage of me4 ,man1 my pipe isn't half smoked1 and ,i have a cigarette to smoke yet4 ,come out and watch me play footer with the boys4' ,you think you would do all that1 said ,lawson slowly1 but you wouldn't you know4 ,i remember a young inspector who came into my school with a blush on his face4 ',i'm a new inspector1' he said very gingerly1 'and ,i don't know what ,i am supposed to do4' ,a year later that chap came in like whirlwind1 and called me 'young man4' ,man1 you can't escape becoming smug and dignified if you are an inspector4 ,i'd have a darned good try1 anyway1 ,i said4 ,getting any eggs just now8 99 99 99 ,to-night ,i have been glancing at ,the ,educational ,news4 ,there is a letter in it about inspectors1 it is signed ,disgusted4 ,that pseudonym damns the teaching profession utterly and irretrievably4 ,again and again letters appear1 and very seldom does a teacher sign his own name4 ,naturally1 a letter signed with a pseudonym isn't worth reading1 for a moral coward is no authority on inspectors or anything else4 ,it sickens me to see the abject cringing cowardice of my fellow teachers4 ,disgusted would no doubt defend himself by saying1 ,i have a wife and family depending on me and ,i simply can't afford to offend the inspector4 ,i grant that there is no point in making an inspector ratty1 or for that matter making anyone ratty4 ,i don't advise a man to seize every opportunity for a scrap4 ,there is little use in arguing with an inspector who has methods of arithmetic different to your methods2 it is easier to think over his advice and reject it if you are a better arithmetician than he4 ,but if a man feels strongly enough on a subject to write to the papers about it1 he ought to write as a man not as a slave4 ,incidentally1 the habit of using a pseudonym damns the inspectorate at the same time4 ,for this habit is universal1 and teachers must have heard tales of the victimising of bold writers4 ,most educational papers suggest by their contributed articles that the teachers of ,britain are like a crowd of ,public ,school boys who fear to send their erotic verses to the school magazine lest the ,head flays them4 ,no wonder the social status of teachers is low2 a profession that consists of ,disgusted and ,rural ,school and ,vindex and their kind is a profession of nonentities4 99 99 99 ,once in my palmy days ,i told a patient audience of ,londoners that the ,post ,office was a ,socialist concern4 ,any profits go to the ,state1 ,i said4 ,a postman in the crowd stepped forward and told me what his weekly wage was1 and ,i hastily withdrew my statement4 ,to-day ,i should define it as a ,state ,concern run on the principles of ,private ,profiteering1 i4e41 it considers labour a commodity to be bought4 ,the ,school ,board here is theoretically a ,socialistic body4 ,its members are chosen by the people to spend the public money on education4 ,no member can make a profit out of a ,board deal4 ,yet this board perpetrates all the evils of the private profiteer4 ,mrs4 ,findlay gets ten pounds a year for cleaning the school4 ,to the best of my knowledge she works four or five hours a day1 and she spends the whole of each ,saturday morning cleaning out the lavatories4 ,this sum works out at about sixpence a day or three ha'pence an hour4 ,most of her work consists of carrying out the very considerable part of the playground that the bairns carry in on their boots4 ,yet all my requests for a few loads of gravel are ignored4 ,the members do not think that they are using sweated labour2 they say that if ,mrs4 ,findlay doesn't do it for the money half a dozen widows in the village will apply for the job4 ,they believe in competition and the market value of labour4 ,a few ,saturdays ago ,i rehearsed a cantata in the school1 and ,i offered ,mrs4 ,findlay half a crown for her extra trouble in sweeping the room twice4 ,she refused it with dignity1 she didn't mind obliging me1 she said4 ,and this kindly soul is merely a hand to be bought at the lowest price necessary for subsistence4 ,sometimes ,i curse the ,board as a crowd of exploiters1 but in my more rational moments ,i see that they could not do much better if they tried4 ,if ,mrs4 ,findlay had a pound a week the employees of the farmers on the ,board would naturally object to a woman's getting a pound a week out of the public funds for working four hours a day while they slaved from sunrise to sunset for less than a pound4 ,a public conscience can never be better than the conscience of the public's representatives4 ,hence ,i have no faith in ,socialism by ,act of ,parliament2 ,i have no faith in municipalisation of trams and gas and water4 ,private profit disappears when the town council takes over the trams1 but the greater evil--exploitation of labour remains4 ,ah6 ,i suddenly recollect that ,mrs4 ,findlay has her old age pension each ,friday4 ,she thus has eight and six a week4 ,i wonder did ,lloyd ,george realise that his pension scheme would one day prevent fat farmers from having conscience qualms when they gave a widow sixpence a day8 99 99 99 ,as ,i came along the road this morning ,i saw half a dozen carts disgorging bricks on one of ,lappiedub's fields4 ,lappiedub himself was standing by1 and ,i asked him what was happening4 ,man1 he cried lustily1 they've fund coal here and they're to sink pits a' ower the countryside4 ,when ,i reached the school the bairns were waiting to tell me the news4 ,please1 sir1 said ,willie ,ramsay1 they're going to build a town here bigger than ,london4 ,bigger than ,glasgow even1 said ,peter ,smith4 ,a few navvies went past the school4 ,they're going to build huts for thousands of navvies1 said a lassie4 ,please1 sir1 they'll maybe knock down the school and have a mine here1 suggested ,violet ,brown4 ,they won't1 ,i said firmly1 this ugly school will stand until the countryside becomes as ugly as itself4 ,poor bairns6 ,you don't know what you're coming to4 ,in three years this bonny village will be a smoky blot on ,god's earth like ,newcastle4 ,dirty women will gossip at dirty doors4 ,you1 ,willie1 will become a miner1 and you will walk up that road with a black face4 ,you1 ,lizzie1 will be a trollop of a wife living in a brick hovel4 ,you can hardly escape4 ,mr4 ,macnab of ,lappiedub will lose all his land1 said a boy4 ,he didn't seem sad when ,i saw him this morning1 ,i remarked4 ,maybe he's tired of farming1 suggested a girl4 ,perhaps1 ,i said1 if he is he doesn't need to worry about farming4 ,he will be a millionaire in a few years4 ,he will get a royalty on every ton of coals that comes up from the pit1 and he will sit at home and wait for his money4 ,simply because he is lucky he will be kept by the people who buy the coals4 ,if he gets sixpence a ton your fathers will pay sixpence more on every ton4 ,i want you to realise that this is sheer waste4 ,the men who own the mines will take big profits and keep up big houses with servants and idle daughters4 ,then ,mr4 ,macnab will have his share4 ,then a man called a middleman will buy the coals and sell them to coal merchants in the towns1 and he will have his share4 ,and these men will sell them to the householders4 ,when your father buys his ton of coals he is paying for these things3--the coalowner's income1 ,mr4 ,macnab's royalty1 the middleman's profit1 the town coal merchant's profit1 and the miners' wages4 ,if the miners want more wages and strike1 they will get them1 but these men won't lose their profits2 they will increase the price of coals and the householders will pay for the increase4 ,don't run away with the idea that ,i am calling ,mr4 ,macnab a scoundrel4 ,he is a decent1 honest1 good-natured man who wouldn't steal a penny from anyone4 ,it isn't his fault or merit that he is to be rich1 it is the system that is bad4 ,thomas ,hardy somewhere talks about the ache of modernism4 ,i adapt the phrase and talk about the ache of industrialism4 ,i look out at my wee window and ,i see the town that will be4 ,there will be gin palaces and picture houses and music-halls--none of them bad things in themselves1 but in a filthy atmosphere they will be hideous tawdry things with horrid glaring lights4 ,i see rows of brick houses and acres of clay land littered with bricks and stones thrown down any way4 ,stores will sell cheap boots and frozen meat and patent pills1 packmen will lug round their parcels of shoddy and sheen4 ,and education6 ,they will erect a new school with a ,higher ,grade department1 and the ,board will talk of turning out the type of scholar the needs of the community require4 ,they will have for ,rector a ,b4,sc41 and technical instruction will be of first importance4 ,when that happens ,i shall trek inland and shall seek some rural spot where ,i can be of some service to the community4 ,i might be able to stand the smoke and filth1 but before long there would be a labour candidate for the burgh1 and ,i couldn't stand hearing him spout4 ,,xvii4 ,i have been considering the subject of school magazines1 and ,i wonder whether it would be possible to run a school magazine here4 ,i have had no experience with a school magazine1 but ,i edited a university weekly for a year4 ,it wasn't a success4 ,i wrote yellow editorials and placarded the quadrangles with flaring bills which screamed ,liars6 ,are ,school ,teachers ,socially ,impossible8 ,the ,peril and the ,pity of the ,princes ,street ,parade1 at the undergraduates passing by4 ,it was of no use4 ,no one bothered to reply to my philippics1 and ,i had to sit down and write scathing replies to my own articles4 ,i could never bring my circulation up to the watermark of a previous editor who had written editorials on such bright topics as ,the ,medical ,congress and ,the ,work of the ,international ,academic ,committee4 ,in ,edinburgh the students are indifferent to their 'varsity magazine1 but in ,st4 ,andrews the publication of ,college ,echoes is the event of the week4 ,the reason is that the ,st4 ,andrew's students form a small happy family2 if a reference is made to ,bejant ,smith everyone understands it4 ,if you mentioned ,bejant ,smith in the ,edinburgh ,student no one would know whom you were referring to4 ,the success of ,college ,echoes gives me the idea of a school magazine that would succeed4 ,a magazine for my hundred and fifty bairns would be useless2 what ,i want is a magazine for parents and children4 ,it would be issued weekly1 and would mingle school gossip with advice4 ,if ,willie ,wilson knew that ,friday's edition might contain a paragraph to the effect that he had been discovered murdering two young robins1 ,i fancy that he would think twice before he cut their heads off4 ,i imagine entries like the following3-- ,peter ,thomson said on ,thursday that it was ,lloyd ,george who said ',father1 ,i cannot tell a lie1' and he was caned by the master who1 by the way1 has just been appointed ,president of the ,conservative ,association4 ,mary ,brown was late every morning this week4 ,john ,mackenzie is at present gathering potatoes at ,mr4 ,skinnem's farm1 and is being paid a shilling a day of ten hours4 ,mr4 ,skinnem has been made an elder of the ,parish ,kirk4 ,someone has said that the most arresting piece of literature is your own name in print4 ,that is true1 although ,i suppose that the thrill wears off when you become as public as ,winston ,churchill or ,charlie ,chaplin4 ,why shouldn't the bairns experience this thrill8 ,when ,i write the report of a local concert for the local papers ,i always give prominence to the children who performed4 ,incidentally1 when ,i have sung at a concert ,i omit all reference to my part2 ,i hate to remind the audience that ,i sang4 ,i am a true altruist in both cases4 ,publicity is the most pleasing thing in life1 and that's why patent medicines retain their popularity4 ,at present the village cobbler is figuring in the local paper as a ,cured by ,bunkum's ,bilious ,backache ,bunion ,beans example1 and beneath his photograph 7taken at the age of nineteen2 he is fifty-four now7 is a glowing testimonial which begins with these words3--,for over a decade ,i have suffered from an excess of ,uric ,acid1 from ,neurotic ,dyspepsia1 and from ,optical ,derangements4 ,until ,i discovered that marvellous panacea4444 ,i marvel at his improved literary style2 it is only a month since he wrote me as follows3--,sir1 i will be oblidged if you will let peter away at three oclock tonight hoping that you are well as this leaves me i am your obidt servent peter ,macannish4 ,the magazine would also contain interesting editorials for the parents4 ,art would have a prominent place2 if a bairn made a good sketch or a bonny design it would be reproduced4 ,of course1 the idea cannot be carried out for lack of funds4 ,yet ,i fancy that the money now spent on hounds and pet dogs would easily run a magazine for every school in ,scotland4 ,the technical difficulties could easily be overcome4 ,the bigger bairns could read the proofs and paste up the magazine1 and the teachers would revise it before sending it to the printers4 ,i must get estimates from the printers1 and if they are moderate ,i shall try to raise funds by giving a school concert4 99 99 99 ,i see that the ,educational ,institute is advertising for a man who will combine the post of ,editor of ,the ,educational ,news with the office of ,secretary to the ,institute4 ,the salary is #dej per annum4 ,this combining of the offices seems to me a great mistake4 ,for an editor should be a literary man with ideas on education1 while a good secretary should be an organizer4 ,because a man can write columns on education1 that is no proof that he is the best man to write to the office washerwoman telling her not to come on ,monday because it is a holiday4 ,i could edit the paper 7,i would take on the job for a hundred a year and the sport of telling the other fellow that his notions of education were all wrong71 but ,i couldn't organise a party of boys scouts4 ,kitchener is a great organiser1 but ,i shouldn't care for the editorials of ,the ,new ,statesman if he were editor4 ,i think that the ,institute does not want a man with ideas4 ,it wants a man who will mirror the opinions of the ,institute4 ,to do this is a work of genius1 for the ,institute has no opinions4 ,no man can represent a body of men4 ,suppose the ,institute decides by a majority that it will support the introduction of ,love as a subject of the curriculum4 ,the editor may be a misogynist1 or he may have been married eight times1 yet the poor devil has to sit down and write an editorial beginning3 ,love has too long been absent from our schools4 ,who does not remember with holy tenderness his first kiss8444 ,a paper can be a force only when it is edited by a man of force and personality4 ,a man who writes at the dictation of another is a tenth-rater4 ,that1 of course1 is why our press says nothing4 99 99 99 ,little ,mary ,brown was stung by a wasp the other day as she sat in the class4 ,henceforward1 ,i said1 the wasp that enters this room is to be slain4 ,tom ,macintosh ,i appoint you commander in chief4 ,i begin to think that ,i prefer the wasp to the campaign against it4 ,to-day ,i was in the midst of a dissertation on ,trusts when ,tom started up4 ,come on lads1 there's a wasp6 ,they broke a window and two pens2 then they slew the wasp4 ,the less studious boys keep one eye on the window all day1 and ,i found ,dave ,thomson chasing an imaginary wasp all round the room at ,arithmetic time4 ,dave detests ,arithmetic4 ,but when ,i found that ,tom ,macintosh was smearing the inside window-sill with black currant jam1 ,i disbanded the anti-wasp army4 99 99 99 ,the ,inspectors refuse to allow teachers to use slates nowadays on the ground that they are insanitary4 ,to-day ,i reintroduced slates to all classes4 ,my one reason was that my bairns were missing one of the most delightful pastimes of youth--the joy of making a spittle run down the slate and back again4 ,i always look back with tenderness to my old slate4 ,it was such a serviceable article4 ,by running my slate-pencil up it ,i got all the beats of a drum2 its wooden sides were the acknowledged tests for a new knife1 as a hammer it had few rivals4 ,then you could play at ,x-es and ,o-ies with impunity2 you simply licked your palm and rubbed the whole game out when the teacher approached4 ,in the afternoon half a dozen bairns brought sponges1 and ,i sighed for the good old days when sanitary authorities were plumbers on promotion4 99 99 99 ,i have given my bairns two songs--,screw-,guns and ,follow ,me ,home1 both by ,kipling4 ,i prefer them to the usual patriotic song that is published for school use4 ,i don't see the force of teaching children to be patriotic2 the man who imagines that a dominie can teach a bairn to love his neighbour or his country is fatuous4 ,flag-waving is the last futility of noble minds4 ,the queer thing is that all these titled men who spout about ,imperialism and ,patriotism1 and ,make the ,foreigner ,pay are enemies of the worker4 ,they don't particularly want to see a ,state where slums and slavery will be no more2 they are so busy thinking out a scheme to extend the ,empire abroad that they haven't time to think about the ,empire at home4 ,what is the use of an ,india or a ,south ,africa if ,east ,ham is to remain8 ,no1 ,i refuse to teach my bairns to sing1 ,britons never1 never1 never shall be slaves4 ,my sense of humour won't allow me to introduce that song4 ,although ,i like ,kipling's verses ,i abominate ,kipling's philosophy and politics4 ,he is always to be found on the same platform with the ,curzons and ,milners and ,roosevelts4 ,he believes in the big stick2 to him ,britain is great because of her financiers1 her viceroys1 her engineers4 ,he glories in enterprise and big ships4 ,he believes with the late ,lord ,roberts that the ,englishman is the salt of the earth4 ,i should define ,kipling as a ,grown-up ,public ,school ,boy4 ,i always think that the ,patriot's main contention is that a man ought to be ready to die for his country4 ,i freely grant that it is a great thing to die for your country1 but ,i contend that it is still greater to live for your country2 and the man who tries to live for his country usually earns the epithet ,traitor4 ,what do they know of ,england who only ,england know8 ,kipling says this1 or words to this effect4 ,that's the worst of these travelled ,johnnies2 they go out to ,india or ,africa1 and two months after their arrival they pity the narrow vision of the people at home4 ,after having talked much to travelled men ,i have come to the conclusion that travel is the most narrowing thing on earth4 ,if ,i went out to ,india1 ,i remarked one day to an ,anglo-,indian friend at ,college1 and if ,i started to talk about ,socialism in a drawing-room1 what would happen8 ,oh1 he said with a smile1 they would listen to you very politely1 but1 of course1 you wouldn't be asked again4 ,when ,i went down to ,tilbury to see this friend off to ,india ,i looked at the crowd on the first-class deck4 ,dick1 ,i said1 these people are awful4 ,look at their smugness1 their eagerness to be correct at any expense4 ,they are saying good-bye to wives and mothers and sweethearts1 and the whole blessed crowd of 'em haven't an obvious emotion among 'em4 ,i'll bet my hat that they won't even wave their hands when the tender goes off4 ,as ,i left the boat the first-class passengers stood like statues1 but one fat woman1 with a delightfully plebeian face cried3 ,so long1 old sport6 to a man beside me4 ,good6 cried ,dick to me with a laugh4 ,lovely6 ,i called1 and waved my hat frantically to the fat woman4 ,poor soul1 ,i fear that society out ,east will be making her suffer for her lapse into bad form4 ,travel is like a school-history reader2 it forces you to study mere incident4 ,the travelled man is an encyclopdia of information2 but ,i don't want to know what a man has seen2 ,i want to know what he has thought4 ,i am certain that if ,i went to live in ,calcutta ,i should cease to think4 ,i should marvel at the colour and life of the streets2 ,i should find great pleasure in learning the lore of the native4 ,but in a year ,i should very probably be talking of damned niggers1 and cursing the ,india ,office as a crowd of asses who know nothing about ,india and its problems4 ,i once lent ,ann ,veronica to a clever young lady4 ,her father1 an engineer who had been all over the world1 picked up the book4 ,two days later he returned it with a final note dismissing me as a dangerous character for his daughter to know4 ,the lady was clever1 and had mentality enough to read anything with impunity4 ,no1 travel doesn't broaden a man's outlook4 ,my writing is like my teaching1 it is an irresponsible ramble4 ,i meant to write about songs all the time to-night4 ,i curse my luck in not being a pianist4 ,i want to give my bairns that loveliest of tenor solos--the ,preislied from ,the ,meistersingers4 ,i want to give them ,lawrence ,hope's ,slave's ,song from her ,indian ,love ,lyrics--,less than the ,dust beneath thy ,chariot ,wheel4 ,and there are one or two catchy bits in ,gipsy ,love and ,the ,quaker ,girl that ,i should like them to know4 ,i am sure that they would enjoy ,mr4 ,jeremiah1 ,esquire1 and ,the ,gipsy's ,song4 ,,xviii4 ,the essay ,i set to-day was this3--,imagine that you are an old lady who ordered a duck from ,gamage's1 and imagine that they sent you an aeroplane in a crate by mistake4 ,then describe in the first person the feelings of the aviator who found the duck awaiting him at breakfast time4 ,one girl wrote3--,dear ,mr4 ,gamage1 ,i have not opened the basket1 but it seems to be an ostrich that you have sent4 ,what will ,i feed it on8 ,a boy1 as the aviator1 wrote3 ,if you think ,i am going to risk my life on the machine you sent you are wrong4 ,it hasn't got a petrol tank4 ,the theme was too difficult for the bairns2 they could not see the ludicrous side4 ,i don't think one of them visualised the poor old woman gazing in dismay on the workmen unloading the crate4 ,h4 ,m4 ,bateman would have made an excellent drawing of the incident4 ,i tried another theme4 ,a few days ago ,i gave you a ha'penny each1 ,i said4 ,write a description of how you spent it1 and ,i'll give sixpence to the one who tells the biggest lie4 ,i got some tall yarns4 ,one chap bought an aeroplane and torpedoed a ,zeppelin with it2 one girl bought a thousand motor-cars4 ,but ,jack ,hood1 the dunce of the class1 wrote these words3 ,i took it to the church on ,sunday and put it in the clecshun bag4 ,i gave him the tanner1 although ,i knew that he had won it by accident4 ,i don't think that ,jack will ever get so great a surprise again in this life4 99 99 99 ,we rambled out to sketch this afternoon4 ,it was very hot1 and we lay down under a tree and slept for half-an-hour4 ,suddenly ,violet ,brown started up4 ,here's ,antonio6 she cried1 and the ,italian drew his van to the side of the road4 ,a slider for each of us1 ,i said1 and he began to hustle4 ,my turn came last4 ,you like a glass1 zir1 instead of a zlider8 said ,antonio4 ,yes1 ,i replied1 a jolly good suggestion2 ,i haven't had the joy of licking an ice-cream glass dry for many a long day4 ,it was glorious4 ,on the way back a girl bought sweets at the village shop4 ,she gave me one4 ,please1 sir1 it's one of them changing kind1 she said4 ,eh8 ,i hastily took it out and looked at it4 ,by ,george1 so it is1 ,katie6 ,i cried1 ,i thought they were dead long since4 ,it was white at first but it changed to blue1 then red1 then green1 then purple4 ,unfortunately1 ,i bit it unthinkingly1 and ,i never discovered its complete spectrum4 ,i call this a lucky day2 ice cream and changing balls in one afternoon are the quintessence of luck4 ,but man is insatiable2 to-night ,i have a great craving for a stick of twisted sugarelly--the polite call it liquorice4 99 99 99 ,a couple of ,revivalists came to the village a week ago1 and they have made a few converts4 ,one of them stopped me on the road to-night and asked if ,i were saved4 ,i am1 or1 at least1 was1 a journalist1 ,i said1 and walked on chuckling4 ,of course he gaped1 for he did not know why ,i chuckled4 ,i was thinking of the reporter sitting in the back seat at a ,salvationist ,meeting4 ,a ,salvation lass bent over him4 ,are you saved1 my friend8 she whispered4 ,he looked up in alarm4 ,i'm a journalist1 he said hastily4 ,o6 ,i beg your pardon1 she said1 and moved on4 ,i don't like ,revivalism4 ,a couple of preachers came to our village when ,i was a lad1 and for a month ,i thought of nothing but hell4 ,only believe6 one of them used to say when he met you on the road2 the other one had a shorter salutation3 ,glory6 he shouted at you fiercely4 ,incidentally1 the village was a hotbed of petty strife when they departed4 ,and the young women who had stood up to give their ,testimony were back to the glad-eye phase again within three weeks4 ,lizzie ,jane ,gunn was a typical convert4 ,lizzie ,jane used to describe the night of her testimony-giving thus3--,mind you1 ,aw was gaein' alang the road1 and ,aw had just been gieing ma testimony1 and it was gye dark and ,aw was by ma leensome4 ,weel1 a' at eence something fell into ma hand1 and ,aw thocht that it was a message frae the ,loard2 so ,aw just grippit ma hand ticht1 an' ,aw didna look to see fat it wuz4 ,fan ,aw got hame ,aw lookit to see fat wuz in ma hand1 an' d'ye ken fat it wus8444 a button aff ma jaicket6 ,i have no sympathy with all this saving business4 ,it's a cowardly selfish religion that makes people so anxious about their tuppence-ha'penny souls4 ,when ,i think of all the illiterate lay preachers ,i have listened to ,i feel like little ,willie at the ,sunday ,school4 ,hands up all those who would like to go to ,heaven6 said the teacher4 ,willie alone did not put his hand up4 ,what6 ,mean to tell me1 ,willie1 that you don't want to go to ,heaven8 ,willie jerked a contemptuous thumb towards the others4 ,no bloomin' fear1 he muttered1 not if that crowd's goin'4 ,shelley says that most wretched men are cradled into poetry through wrong4 ,i think that most wretched preachers are cradled into preaching through conceit4 ,it is thrilling to have an audience hang upon your words2 we all like the limelight4 ,usually we have to master a stiff part before we can face the audience4 ,preaching needs no preparation1 no thinking1 no merit2 all you do is to stand up and say3 ,deara friendsa1 when ,i was in the jimmynasium at ,peebles1 a fellow lodger of mine blasphemeda4 ,from that daya1 deara friendsa1 that son of the devila nevera prospereda4 ,o1 friendsa6 ,if you could only looka into your evila heartsa4444 ,i note that when ,revivalists come to a village the so-called village lunatic is always among the first to give his testimony4 ,willie ,baffers has been whistling ,life1 ,life1 ,eternal ,life all the week1 but ,i was glad to note that he was back to ,stop yer ,ticklin'1 ,jock1 to-night4 99 99 99 ,i have introduced two new text-books--,secret ,remedies1 and ,more ,secret ,remedies4 ,these books are published by the ,british ,medical ,association at a shilling each1 and they give the ingredients and cost of popular patent medicines4 ,these books should be in every school4 ,everyone should know the truth about these medicines1 and unless our schools tell the truth1 the public will never know it4 ,no daily newspaper would think of giving the truth1 for the average daily is kept alive by patent medicine advertisements4 ,i marvel at the mentality of the man who can sell a farthing's worth of drugs for three and sixpence4 ,i don't blame the man2 ,i merely marvel at him4 ,what is his standard of truth8 ,what does he imagine the purpose of life to be8 ,poor fellow6 ,i fancy he is a man born with a silver knife in his mouth1 as ,chesterton says in another context2 either that1 or he is born poor in worldly goods and in spirit4 ,he is dumped down in an out-of-joint world where money and power are honoured1 where honesty is never the best policy2 the poor1 miserable little grub realises that he has not the ability to earn money or power honestly2 but he knows that people are fools1 and that a knave always gets the better of a fool4 ,our laws are really funny4 ,i can swindle thousands by selling a nostrum1 but if ,i sign ,andrew ,carnegie's name on a cheque ,i am sent to ,peterhead ,prison4 ,britain is individualistic to the backbone4 ,the individual must be protected1 but the crowd can look after itself4 ,if ,i steal a pair of boots and run for it1 ,i am a base thief2 if ,i turn bookie and become a welsher ,i have entered the higher realms of sport1 and ,i get a certain amount of admiration 444 from those who didn't plunge at my corner4 ,i have seen a cheap-jack swindle a crowd of ,forfarshire ploughmen out of a month's earnings1 but not one of them thought of dusting the street with him4 ,honesty must be a relative thing4 ,personally ,i will swick a railway company by travelling without a ticket on any possible occasion2 yet1 when a cycle agent puts a new nut on my motor-bike and charges a shilling ,i call him a vulgar thief4 ,of course he is2 there is no romance in making a broken-down motor-cyclist pay through the nose1 but a ten mile journey without a ticket is the only romantic experience left in a drab world4 ,i once saw an article on ,railway ,criminals in1 ,i think1 ,tit-,bits4 ,it pointed out that the men who are convicted of swindling the railway companies have well marked facial characteristics4 ,i recollect going to the mirror at the time and saying ,tu quoque6 ,in these days ,i had a firm belief in physiognomy2 ,i believed that you had only to gaze into a person's eyes to see whether he was telling the truth or not4 ,i am wiser now that ,i know ,peter ,young4 ,pete is ten1 and he has a clear1 honest countenance4 ,to-night ,i found him tinkering with the valve of my back tyre4 ,who loosened that valve8 ,i demanded4 ,please1 sir1 it was ,jim ,steel1 he said unblushingly1 and he looked me straight in the eyes4 ,all right1 ,george ,washington1 ,i remarked4 ,there's a seat in the ,cabinet1 waiting for you1 my lad4 ,and ,i meant it too4 ,i believe in the survival of the fittest1 and ,i know that ,peter is the best adapted to survive in a modern civilisation4 ,it is said of his father that he bought an old woman's ill-grown pig1 a white one1 and promised her a fine piebald pig in a week's time4 ,he brought her the piebald4 ,then rain came4444 ,i often condemn the press for not seeking truth1 yet no man has a greater admiration for a good liar than ,i have4 ,when ,i hear a fellow break in on a conversation with the words3 ,talking of ,lloyd ,george1 when ,i was in the ,argentine last winter4444 ,i grapple him to my soul with hoops of steel4 ,i can't stand the common or garden liar with his trite expressions4444 ,so the missis is keeping better1 old man8 ,glad to hear it4 ,your singing has improved wonderfully1 my dear4 ,i was kept late at the office1 and all that sort of lie4 ,all the same ,i recognise that we are all liars1 and few of us can evade the trite manner of lying4 ,i met a man on the road to-night1 and he stopped to talk4 ,i hate the fellow2 he is one of those mean men who would plant potatoes on his mother's grave if the cemetery authorities would allow it4 ,yet ,i shook his greasy hand when he held it out4 ,if ,i had had the tense honesty of ,ibsen's ,brand ,i should have refused to see his hand4 ,but we all lie in this way2 indeed1 life would be intolerable if we were all ,brands and cried ,all or ,nothing6 ,we all compromise1 and compromise is the worst lie of all4 ,compromise ,i can pardon1 but not gush4 ,i know men who could say to old greasy-fist3 ,man1 ,i'm glad to see you looking so well6 men who would cut his throat if they had the pluck4 ,nevertheless gush is not one of the ,scot's chief characteristics4 ,there is a shepherd's hut up north1 and ,george ,broon lives there alone4 ,once another shepherd came up that way1 and he thought he would settle down with ,george for a time4 ,the newcomer1 ,tam ,kennedy1 came in after his day's work1 and the two smoked in silence for two hours4 ,then ,tam remarked3 ,aw saw a bull doon the road the nicht4 ,next morning ,george ,broon said3 ,it wasna a bull2 it was a coo4 ,tam at once set about packing his bag4 ,are ye gaein' awa8 asked ,george in surprise4 ,yus1 said ,tam savagely1 there's far ower much argy-bargying here4 99 99 99 ,summer holidays at last6 ,many a day ,i have longed for them1 but now that they are here ,i feel very very sad4 ,for to-day some of these bairns of mine sat on these benches for the last time4 ,when ,i blow my bugle again ,i shall miss familiar faces4 ,i shall miss ,violet with her bonny smile2 ,i shall miss ,tom ,macintosh with his cheery face4 ,vi is going to the ,secondary ,school1 and ,tom is going to the railway station4 ,they are sweethearts just now1 and ,i know that both are sad at leaving4 ,never mind1 ,tam1 ,i heard her say1 ,aw'll aye see ye at the station1 ilka mornin' and nicht4 ,we'll get merried when ,aw'm station mester1 ,vi1 said ,tom hopefully1 and she smiled and blushed4 ,poor ,tom6 ,i'm sorry for you my lad4 ,in three years you will be carrying her luggage1 and she won't take any notice of you1 for she is a lawyer's daughter4 ,confound realism6 ,once ,i felt as ,tom feels4 ,i loved a farmer's daughter1 and ,i suffered untold agony when she told me that her father's lease expired in seventeen years4 ,then we're flittin' to ,glesga1 she said1 and ,i was wretched for a week4 ,she was ten then2 now she is the mother of four4 ,annie and her seventeen years reminds me of the professor who was lecturing on ,astronomy to a village audience4 ,in seven hundred million years1 my friends1 he said solemnly1 the sun will be a cold body like the moon4 ,there will be no warmth on earth1 no light1 no life 444 nothing4 ,a chair was pushed back noisily at the back of the hall1 and a big farmer got up in great agitation4 ,excuse me1 mister1 but hoo lang did ye say it wud be till that happened8 ,seven hundred million years1 my friend4 ,the farmer sank into his chair with a great sigh of relief4 ,thank ,goad6 he gasped1 ,aw thocht ye said seven million4 ,they say that when a man dies after a long life he looks back and mourns the things that he's left undone4 ,i suppose that some teachers look back over a year's work and regret their sins of omission4 ,i do not4 ,i know that ,i have had many lazy days this session2 ,i know that there were exercises that ,i failed to correct1 subjects that ,i failed to teach4 ,i regret none of these things1 for they do not count4 ,rachel ,smith is leaving the district1 and to-day ,mary ,wilson shook her hand4 ,weel1 by bye1 ,rachel1 ye'll have to gang to anither schule1 and ye'll maybe have to work there1 she said4 ,eh8 ,i cried1 do you mean to say1 ,mary ,wilson1 that ,rachel hadn't to work in this school8 ,no very much1 said ,mary1 ma father says that we just play ourselves at this school4 ,mary's father is right2 ,i have converted a hard-working school into a playground4 ,and ,i rejoice4 ,these bairns have had a year of happiness and liberty4 ,they have done what they liked2 they have sung their songs while they were working at graphs1 they have eaten their sweets while they read their books4 ,they have hung on to my arms as we rambled along in search of artistic corners4 ,it was only yesterday that ,jim ,jackson marched up the road to meet me at dinner-time with his gun team and gun1 a log of wood mounted on a pair of perambulator wheels4 ,as ,i approached ,i heard his command3 ,men1 lay the gun6 and when ,i was twenty yards off he shouted ,fire6 ,please1 sir1 he cried1 you're killed now1 but we'll take you prisoner instead4 ,and the team lined up in two columns and escorted me back to the school to the strains of ,alexander's ,ragtime ,band played on the mouth-organ4 ,is it usual1 ,colonel1 ,i asked1 for the commander of the gun team to act as the band8 ,jim scratched his head4 ,the band was all killed at ,mons1 he said1 and the privates aren't musical4 ,then he struck up ,sister ,susie's ,sewing ,shirts for ,soldiers4 ,i know that ,i have brought out all the innate goodness of these bairns4 ,when ,jim ,jackson came to the school he had a bad look2 if a girl happened to push him he turned on her with a murderous scowl4 ,now that ,i think of it ,i realise that ,jim is always a bright cheery boy now4 ,when ,i knew him first ,i could see that he looked upon me as a natural enemy1 and if ,i had thrashed him ,i might have made him fear me1 but the bad look would never have left his face4 ,if ,i told anyone that ,i had made these bairns better ,i should be met with the contemptuous glance that usually greets the man who blows his own horn4 ,stupid people can never understand the man who indulges in introspection2 they cannot realise that a man can be honest with himself4 ,if ,i make a pretty sketch ,i never hesitate to praise it4 ,on the other hand ,i am readier than anyone else to declare one of my inferior sketches bad4 ,humility is nine-tenths hypocrisy4 ,i do have a certain amount of honesty1 and ,i close my log with a solemn declaration of my belief that ,i have done my work well4 ,as for the work that the ,scotch ,education ,department expected me to do 444 well1 ,i think the last entry in my official ,log ,book is a fair sample of that4 ,the school was closed to-day for the summer holidays4 ,i have received ,form #i;b from the ,clerk4 ,,advertisements ,,herbert ,,jenkins' ,new ,popular ,novels #b_/f net #a ,mc,p,h,e,e ,a football story by ,sydney ,horler4 #b ,,gentleman ,,bill ,a boxing story by ,philip ,mac,donald1 telling how ,bill ,tressider's left made boxing history4 ,published in the first instance at #b #f net4 #c ,a ,,dominie',s ,,log ,the frank confessions of a ,scottish schoolmaster1 by ,a4 ,s4 ,neill1 which created a sensation when originally published4 ,popular edition4 #d ,a ,,dominie ,,dismissed ,some further leaves from the note-book of a ,scottish schoolmaster1 dismissed for his educational indiscretions4 ,by ,a4 ,s4 ,neill4 ,popular edition4 #e ,a ,,dominie ,,in ,,doubt ,still franker confessions of a ,scottish schoolmaster that1 after all1 he may have been wrong in his previous conclusions4 ,by ,a4 ,s4 ,neill4 ,popular edition4 #f ,,cheiro',s ,,guide ,,to ,,the ,,hand ,a practical book on palmistry1 based on the system and experience of ,cheiro4 ,with numerous illustrations4 ,popular edition4 #g ,,when ,,were ,,you ,,born8 ,a book that will bring you success1 your character told1 your tendencies explained1 your future indicated4 ,with engravings illustrating life's mysterious triangles4 ,by ,cheiro4 ,popular edition4 #h ,,handy ,,andy ,a popular edition of ,samuel ,lever's famous story of the man who possessed the ingenious knack of doing the right thing in the wrong way4 ,a full list of the famous ,green ,label popular novels will be sent on application to ,herbert ,jenkins1 ,ltd41 ,three1 ,york ,street1 ,st4 ,james's1 ,london1 ,s4,w4#a4 ,,herbert ,,jenkins' ,new ,popular ,novels #c_/f net #a ,,klondyke ,,kit',s ,,revenge ,by ,george ,goodchild1 author of ,colorado ,jim4 ,out in the icy solitudes of ,klondyke1 ,kit closes the eyes of his pal1 and pockets a scrap of paper that appoints him the dead man's heir4 ,he comes to ,england to claim his inheritance1 and finds to his astonishment that it comprises an enormous estate1 and that others are in possession4 ,he decides to wait and watch4 ,in the process he falls in love4 ,klondike ,kit's ,revenge has all the dramatic qualities of that great popular success1 ,colorado ,jim4 #b ,,the ,,secret of the ,,sandhills ,by ,arthur ,gask4 ,in shabby cloths and frayed collar1 ,john ,stratton stood watching the life and bustle outside the post office1 conscious that his position was desperate4 ,a grey motor-car1 a pretty girl1 and a dropped pocket-book1 temporarily send up his stock4 ,then comes the murder on ,henley ,beach1 the police1 and--danger4 ,john ,stratton has to confess that he is in rather a tight corner2 but there are always the blue eyes of the girl in the grey car4 #c ,,confessions ,,of ,,mrs4 ,,may ,by ,t4 le ,breton1 author of ,mrs4 ,may4 ,mrs4 ,may is a typical cockney1 with a cockney's dislike of being put upon4 ,to call her a woman1 or even a charwoman1 is to earn her undying enmity4 ,she has very clearly defined views on life and her own rights4 ,in her confessions she tells of some further episodes in her career4 ,i reckon ,i've a 'ead on me1 says ,mrs4 ,may1 and there are few who would venture to question the statement1 particularly as she has a brawny arm and an absent-minded habit of rolling up her sleeves4 ,a full list of the famous ,green ,label popular novels will be sent on application to ,herbert ,jenkins1 ,ltd41 ,three1 ,york ,street1 ,st4 ,james's1 ,london1 ,s4,w4#a4 ,,herbert ,,jenkins' ,green ,label ,novels #a ,,the ,,adventures ,,of ,,sally ,a new book of laughter by ,p4 ,g4 ,wodehouse1 author of ,jill the ,reckless1 ,piccadilly ,jim1 etc4 #gs4 #f;d4 net4 #b ,,rachel ,,bland',s ,,inheritance ,by ,w4 ,riley1 author of ,windyridge4 ,a powerful story of ,yorkshire life and character4 #gs4 #f;d4 net4 #c ,,an ,,ordinary ,,couple ,a novel by ,j4 ,e4 ,buckrose1 dealing with the domestic experiences and adventures of a newly married pair4 ,crown #hvo4 #d ,,the ,,return ,,of ,,clubfoot ,by ,valentine ,williams1 author of ,the ,man with the ,clubfoot1 further adventures of ,desmond ,okewood on an island in the ,pacific4 #gs4 #f;d4 net4 #e ,,the ,,return ,,of ,,blue ,,pete ,another thrilling adventure of the famous ,blue ,pete and his horse1 ,whiskers4 ,by ,luke ,allan1 author of ,blue ,pete3 ,half-,breed4 #gs4 #f;d4 net4 #f ,the ,,mysterious ,mr4 ,,garland ,another ,anthony ,trent ,story by ,wyndham ,martyn1 author of ,anthony ,trent1 ,master ,criminal1 and ,the ,secret of the ,silver ,car4 #gs4 #f;d4 net4 #g ,,the ,,smuggled ,,masterpiece ,a comedy novel by ,edgar ,jepson1 author of ,the ,whiskered ,footman1 full of humour and dramatic incident4 #gs4 #f;d4 net4 #h ,,the ,,mazaroff ,,murder ,by ,j4 ,s4 ,fletcher1 author of ,the ,markenmore ,mystery4 ,who killed ,mr4 ,mazaroff1 and why did it become known as the ,mazaroff affair throughout three continents4 ,by ,j4 ,s4 ,fletcher4 #gs4 #f;d4 net4 #i ,,the ,,house ,,of ,,marney ,by ,john ,goodwin1 author of ,without ,mercy4 ,the yachting adventure gives a new atmosphere to this striking drama of the ,east ,coast4 #gs4 #f;d4 net4 ,,books ,,by ,w4 ,,riley ,upwards of half a million copies of ,w4 ,riley's books have already been called for in this country4 ,the following is a complete list3 ,,windyridge #b_/- net4 ,,netherleigh #b_/- net4 ,,the ,,way ,,of ,,the ,,winepress #b_/- net4 ,,number ,,seven ,,brick ,,row #b_/- net4 ,,olive ,,of ,,sylcote #b_/- net4 ,,jerry ,,and ,,ben #b_/- net4 ,,the ,,lady ,,of ,,the ,,lawn #b_/- net4 ,,men ,,of ,,mawm #g_/f net4 ,,rachel ,,bland',s ,,inheritance #g_/f net4 ,,through ,a ,,yorkshire ,,window #g_/f net4 ,a ,,yorkshire ,,suburb #g_/f net4 ,with #af ,illustrations4 ,with ,coloured ,illustrations by ,c4 ,morse4 ,,herbert ,,jenkins ,,limited1 ,,the ,,house ,,of ,,the ,,green ,,label