Part 2

"Yes, sir," he said, and he glanced down to the second gate. I think that he wouldn't have been very much surprised if he had seen a tiger there. Jim has the power of make-believe developed strongly. A few weeks ago he found a dead sparrow in the playground. He came to me and asked for a coffin. I gave him a match-box and he lined the class up in twos and led them with bared heads towards the grave he had dug. The four foremost boys carried the coffin shoulder high.

Jim laid ropes over the grave and the coffin was lowered reverently. A boy was just about to fill in the grave when Jim cried: "Hold on!" Then he took a handful of earth and sprinkled it over the coffin saying: "Dust to dust, and ashes to ashes."

I blew the Last Post over the grave afterwards. Jim was as serious as could be; for the moment he seemed to think that he was burying his brother.

When he had got his milk he came to the byre door and watched me work for a little.

"Please, sir," he asked, "do you like that better than teaching?"

I told him that I didn't.

"I wish Mester Macdonald wud be a cattleman," he said fervently.

"Some folk might say that he is," I remarked.

"He gave me my licks the first mornin' he cam," he continued. "We got an essay 'How I spent my holidays,' and I said that I was in France and helped the Crown Prince to loot places. We quarrelled about how much we should get each and I shot him. The Mester gave me three scuds for tellin' lies."

"He would," I said grimly.

"But you used to tell me to tell lies!" he cried.

"I did, Jim. And you see the result.... I muck out a byre."

When Jim went away I came to a sudden resolution: I would fight for Jim. I'll do all in my power to help the lad to preserve his own personality.... Frank Thomson is his uncle and I'll try to get Jim to see me often. Professional etiquette! Professional etiquette be damned! I'm not in the profession now anyhow, and all the professional etiquette in the world is as nothing to the saving of a soul.

* * *

I find that I enjoy my food now. Formerly I looked on a meal as an appetiser for a smoke; now I look on a meal as an event. I feel healthier than I ever did in my life before. The land dulls one, however. The old cry "Back to the Land" means "Back to Elemental Mental Stagnation." I spent this forenoon cutting turnips, and I know that I thought of nothing all the time. I have a theory that great thoughts are the product of disease. Possibly this is only another way of saying that genius is allied to madness. Shelley was a physical weakling; Ibsen and Nietzsche went mad. Yes, geniuses are diseased folk, but the converse does not hold.

Macdonald came up to see me to-night; he wanted to ask a few things about the school. We lay on a bank and lit our pipes.

"I can't find your 'Record of Work,'" he said.

"I never kept one."

"But ... the Code demands one!"

"I know ... but I didn't keep one. My record of work is my pupils in after life."

"Yes," he said drily, "I know all about that, but you are supposed to keep a record that will show an inspector what you are doing to produce this after life record."

"Macdonald," I said impatiently, "if you mean to tell me that any man can tell what I am doing to prepare children for after life by squinting at a crowd of entries of the Took-the-History-of-the-Great-Rebellion-this-week order ... well, I don't understand your attitude to life in general."

"That's all very well," he protested, "but we aren't there to make the rules; we're paid servants who have to administer the laws of wiser men."

"How do you know that they are wiser?" I asked.

"They're wiser than I am anyway," he said with a smile.

"I'm not so sure of it, Macdonald; they are more unscrupulous than you are. They know what they want, definitely and finally; they want efficient wage-slaves."

"That's merely a Socialistic cry."

"It may be, but it's true. Who rule us? A definite governing class of trained aristocrats."

"H'm! I shouldn't call Lloyd George and that Labour man Hodge trained aristocrats."

"They aren't born aristocrats I admit, but they are aristocratised democrats. They've adapted themselves to the aristocratic tradition. They are on the side of aristocracy; you won't find them alienating the good opinion of the moneyed classes. We are governed from above; do you admit that?"

"In the main ... yes," he said grudgingly.

"Very good! Well, then, our rulers believe in two kinds of education. They send their sons to the public schools where boys are trained to be governors, but they send the rest of the sons of the community to State schools where they are trained to be disciplined and content with their lot."

"That's nonsense."

"Possibly, but I suppose you know that the members of the House of Lords and the Cabinet don't send their sons to L.C.C. schools."

"You are simply preaching class war," he said.

"I am. There is a class war--there has been for generations--but it is a one-sided war."

"It is," said Macdonald grimly.

"The upper class took the offensive long ago, and it keeps it yet. Look at the squire down in the village. He won't ride in the same railway compartment with you or me; he won't sit beside us in the theatre ... why, he won't lie beside us in the kirkyard: he's got that railed-off corner for his family. I don't blame him; he has been educated up in his belief, just as you and I have been educated up in the belief that we are his inferiors. When I was down in the school I lectured the whole class one day because I saw a boy doff his cap to the squire and nod to his mother three seconds afterwards.

"Don't you see that this village is a little British Empire? Here there are only two classes--the big house and the village ... the ruling class and the ruled. The school trains the ruled to be ruled, and the kirk takes up the training on the Seventh Day. The minister talks a lot of prosy platitudes about Faith and Love and Charity, but he never thinks of saying a thing that the squire might take umbrage at."

I broke off and refilled my pipe.

"How are you getting on?" I asked.

"Well enough. The bairns are nice."

"A little bit noisy," he added, "but, of course, I was prepared for that. I heard about your experiment months ago. By the way, what sort of a teacher is Miss Watson?"

"Excellent," I replied.

"How often did you examine her classes?"

"I never examined her classes, not formally, but her bairns spoke to me, and I judged her work from their conversation."

"I examined their work yesterday; her spelling is weak and her geography atrocious."

"Shouldn't wonder," I said carelessly. "I never bothered about those things; I judged her work by what her bairns were, not by what they knew. They're a bright lot when you ask them to think out things."

"No wonder they fired you out," he laughed; "you're impossible as a dominie, you know."

I smiled.

"How do you like Jim Jackson?" I asked suddenly.

"Cheeky devil!"

"He's clever," I said.

"You may call it cleverness, but I have another name for it. He is a fellow that requires to be sat on."

"And you'll sit on him?"

"I certainly shall ... heavily too."

I tried to show Macdonald that he was making a criminal blunder, but he got impatient. "I can't stand cheek," he kept saying, and I had to give up all hope of convincing him that I was right. Macdonald is essentially a stupid man. I don't say that merely because he disagrees with me; I say it because he refuses to think out his own attitude. He cries that Jim is cheeky, but he won't go into the other question as to whether humour is impudence. Had he argued that humour is a drawback in life I should have pitied his taste, but I should have admired his ability to make out a good case.

III.

I have spent a hard day forking hay along with Margaret Thomson. Margaret is twenty and bonny, but she is very, very shy. She attended my Evening class last winter, and she appears to be afraid to speak to me. I tried to get her to converse again and again to-day, but it was of no use. I think that she fears to make a mistake in grammar or to mispronounce a word.

I hear her voice outside at the horse-trough. She is bantering old Peter Wilson, and talking thirteen to the dozen. Her laugh is a most delightful thing. I wonder did Touchstone like Audrey's laugh!

The Thomsons are carrying out in farming the principles I set myself to carry out in education. They treat their beasts with the greatest kindness. There isn't a wild animal in the place. Spot the collie is a most lovable creature; the sheep are all tame, and the cows are quiet beasts; the bull has a bold eye, but he is as gentle as a lamb. The horses come to the kitchen door from the water-trough, and little Nancy Thomson feeds them with bread. Every member of the family comes into personal immediate contact with the animals, and the animals seem to love the family. There is no fear in this farmyard.

Mrs. Thomson is a kind-hearted soul. She never goes down to the village unless to the kirk on Sunday. She works hard all day, but she is always cheerful. "I like to see them comin' in aboot," she says, and she seems to find the greatest pleasure in preparing the family's meals. On a Saturday bairns come up from the village, and she gives them "pieces" spread thick with fresh butter and strawberry jam. "I'm never happy unless there's a squad o' bairns roond me," she said to me to-day.

Frank Thomson is what the village would call a funny sort o' a billie. His eyes are always twinkling, and he tries to see the funny side of life. He hasn't much humour, but he has a strong sense of fun, and he loves to chaff the youngsters.

"Weel, Wullie," is his invariable greeting when his boy returns from school in the evening, "Weel, Wullie, and did ye get yer licks the day?"

On a Saturday Frank always has a troop of girls hanging on to his coat tails, and he is always playing practical jokes on them--locking them in the stable or covering them with straw.

"Goad!" he will cry, "ye're an awfu' pack o' tormentors; just wait er Aw tell the dominie aboot ye!" and they yell at him.

Mrs. Thomson tells me that he is inordinately proud of having me for a cattleman, and at the cattle mart he boasts about having an M.A. as feeder. I took two stots into the mart yesterday, and when they entered the ring a wag cried: "Are they weel up in the Greek, think ye, Frank?" and the farmers roared.

"Oh, aye," shouted Frank, "they're weel crammed up wi' a'thing that's guid!"

I think that the Scotch Education Department should insist on every teacher's going farming every three years. Inside the profession you lose perspective. The educational papers are full of articles about geography and history and drawing, but teachers seldom show that they are looking beyond the mere curriculum. The training colleges supply the young teacher with what they call Mental Philosophy or Psychology, but it is quite possible for an honours graduate in mental philosophy to have no philosophy at all.

The question for the teacher is: What am I aiming at? Macdonald is aiming at what he calls a bright show before the inspector. To be just to the man I admit that he is honestly trying to educate these bairns according to his lights. He wants to produce good scholars, but when I ask him what he considers the goal of humanity he is at sea.

He tells me that education should not be made to produce little Socialists as I seemed to try to do. But I deny that I ever tried to make my bairns Socialists. I told them the elemental truth that a parasite is an enemy of society; I told them that the world was out of joint. And I gave them freedom to develop their personalities in the hope that, freed from discipline and fear and lies, they might become a better generation than mine has been.

The Macdonalds of life have failed to produce thinking that is free; I merely say: Let the children have a say now; stop thrusting your stupid barbaric Authority down their little throats; let the bairns be free to breathe. Give up all the snobbish nonsense about manners and respect and servility you ram into the child; if he refuses to lift his hat to you, who the devil are you that you should coerce him into doing it?

I think that some of the more important villagers were annoyed at the bairns' obvious lack of respect, or at least the semblance of respect. But they looked for faults. They told me of escapades after school hours, of complaints of bosses against boys who had been with me. I asked George Wilson, the mason, whether he would expand his criticism to include the minister. "Do you blame Mr. Gordon for every drunk and every theft in the village? He has been here for thirty years, and, on your reasoning, he has been a failure."

"Aw dinna pay rates for keepin' up the kirk," he replied, "but I pay rates to keep up the schule, and Aw have a claim to creeticise the wye ye teach the bairns."

I see now that I never had a chance against the enemy. They could point to what they called faults ... Johnnie didn't know his History, Lizzie did too much sketching, Peter wasn't deferential. I could point to nothing. I had abolished fear, I had made the school a place of joy, I had encouraged each child's natural bent ... and the village smiled scornfully and said: "We ken nae difference."

I found myself worrying over the opinions of small men who are of no importance in the world of ideas; stupid fools led me into taking up an eternal position of defence. And I fumed inwardly, for I am not always a ready talker.

But now I am able to smile at the men who baited me a few weeks ago. They don't count. In the great world beyond the hills there are people who take the large broad view of education, and some day education will really be a "leading forth" not a "putting in."

* * *

I met Macdonald to-night, and I asked him how things were doing.

"I'm in the middle of prizes," he said wearily, "and if there's one thing I detest it's prizes."

I began to think that I had misjudged Macdonald.

"Excellent!" I cried, "we agree for once! What's your objection to prizes?"

"They're such a confounded nuisance."

"Granted," I said.

"That's all I have against them. You never know how you are to distribute the things."

"Why do you object to them?" he asked.

I sat down on Wilkie's dyke and lit my pipe.

"I object to them on principle, Macdonald. They're tips, that's what they are."

"Tips?"

"Yes. I give a porter tuppence for seeing my bicycle into the van; I give Mary Ritchie a book for beating the others at reading. I tip both."

"I don't see it."

"The porter shouldn't get a tip; his job is to look after luggage. Mary's job is to read to improve her mind."

"But," said Macdonald, "life is full of rewards."

"I know." Here Peter Mitchell strolled up. "We're talking about prizes," I explained. "Life is full of rewards of all kinds, but the only reward that matters is the joy in doing a thing well. If I write a poem or paint a picture I'm not writing or painting with one eye on royalties or the auction room. I sell my poem or picture in order to live ... in a decent civilisation I wouldn't require to sell it to live, but that's by the way. My point is that prizes are artificial rewards, just as strapping is an artificial punishment."

"Goad!" said Peter Mitchell, "do ye mean to tell me that Aw wasna thinkin' o' the reward when I selt my powney last Saturday?"

"Competition is a good thing," said Macdonald. "Look at running and sports and all that sort of thing."

"I admit it," I said, "you like to beat your partner at golf. But my contention is that the prize at the end is vulgar; the joy is in being the best sprinter in the country. After all you don't glory in the fact that Simpson took seven at the tenth hole; your glory lies in the thought that you did it in three.

"Prizes in school are not only vulgar: they are cruel. Take Ellen Smith. Ellen has always been a first-rate arithmetician; she has the talent. For the past four years she has carried off the first prize for arithmetic. Sarah Nelson is very good, but work as she likes she can't beat Ellen. Sarah becomes despondent every year at prize-giving time. Bairns aren't philosophical; they don't see that the vulgar little book they get isn't worth thinking about. The ignorant noodles who sit on School Boards (Peter Mitchell had moved on by this time) stand up at the school exhibition and talk much cant about prizes. 'Them that don't get them this year must just make a spurt and get them next year.' And the poor bairns imagine that a prize is the golden fruit of life."

I notice that the men who are keenest on school prizes are firm believers in school punishments. And they are generally religious. Their god is a petty tyrant who rewards the good and punishes the wicked. They try to act up to the attitude of their god ... hence, I fancy the term "tin god."

* * *

I see that many eminent people are making speeches about "Education After the War." I can detect but little difference between their attitude and that of the commercial men who keep shouting "Capture Germany's Trade!" "Let us have more technical instruction," cries the educationist, "more discipline; let us beat Germany at her own game!" The commercial man chuckles. "Excellent!" he cries, "first-rate ... but of course we must have Protection also!"

And the educationist and the commercial man will have their way. Education will aim frankly at turning out highly efficient wage-slaves. The New Education has commenced; its first act was to abolish freedom. Free speech is dead; a free press is merely a name; the workers were wheedled into giving up their freedom to sell their commodity labour to the highest bidder, while the profiteer retains his right to sell his goods at the highest price he can get. Every restriction on liberty is alleged to be necessary to win the war.

The alarming feature of the present Prussianisation of Britain lies in the circumstance that the signing of peace will be but the beginning of a new war. If the plans of the Paris Economic Conference are carried out true education is interned for a century. Millions have lost their lives in the military war: millions will lose their souls in the trade war. Just as we have sullenly obeyed the dictates of the war government, we shall sullenly obey the dictates of the trade government. "We must win the trade war," our rulers will cry, and, if the profiteers say that men must work sixteen hours a day if we are to beat Germany, the Press and the Church and the School will persuade the public that the man who strikes for a fifteen hours day is a traitor to his country.

Will anyone try to save education? The commercial men will use it to further their own plans; the educationists will unconsciously play into the profiteers' hands; the women ... only the other day the suffrage band was marching through the streets of London displaying a huge banner bearing the words "We Want Hughes." Hughes is the Premier of Australia, a Labour man dear to the hearts of all the capitalist newspapers. His one text is "Trade after the War."

Who is there to save education? The teaching profession could save it, but teachers are merely servants. They will continue to argue about Compulsory Greek and, no doubt, Compulsory Russian will come up for discussion in the educational papers soon. The commercially-minded gentlemen of Westminster will draw up the new scheme of education, and the teachers will humbly adapt themselves to the new method.

I don't think that anyone will save education.

IV.

I lay on a bank this afternoon smoking. Janet and Jean and Annie came along the road, and they sat down beside me.

"I'm tired of the school," said Annie wearily; "Aw wish Aw was fourteen!"

"What's wrong now?" I asked.

"Oh, we never get any fun now, the new mester's always so strict, and we get an awful lot o' home lessons now."

"Annie got the strap on Friday," explained Jean. "Mester Macdonald's braces broke Aw think, at least something broke when he was bending doon and he took an awful red face ... and he had to keep his hands in his pouches till night time to keep his breeks up."

"Did Annie pull them down?" I asked.

Jean tittered.

"No, but she laughed and he gave her the strap."

"Aye," cried Annie in delight, "and they nearly cam doon when he was strappin' me!"

"Why do awkward incidents occur to dignity?" I said, more to myself than to the bairns, "my braces wouldn't break in fifty years of teaching." Then I laughed.

Margaret Thomson came down the road on her way to Evening Service, and she reddened as she passed.

"Eh!" laughed Janet, looking up into my face, "did ye see yon? Maggie blushed! Aw wudna wonder if she has a notion o' the Mester!"

"How could she help it, Jan?" I said. "Why, you'll be hopelessly in love with me yourself in a couple of years, you besom!"

She stared before her vacantly for a little.

"Aw did have a notion o' you when ye cam first," she said slowly.

I put my arm round her neck.

"You dear kid!" I said.

She smiled up in my face.

"Ye had that bonny striped tie on then," she said artlessly.

I pulled her hair.

"Ye shud marry Maggie Tamson," she said after a pause.

"Aye," added Jean, "and syne ye'll get the farm when her father dies. He's troubled wi' the rheumatics and he'll no live very long. And she wud be a gran worker too."

"Dinna haver, Jean," said Annie scornfully, "the Mester will want a gran lady for his wife, one that can play the piano and have ham and egg to her breakfast ilka morning."

"No extravagant wife like that for me!" I protested.

"Aweel, an egg ilka day and ham and egg on Sundays onywye," compromised Annie.

"An egg every second morning, Annie," I said firmly, "and ham and egg every second Sunday."

"Ladies dinna mak good wives," said Janet. "Willie Macintosh along at Rinsley married a lassie that was a piano teacher, and she gets her breakfast in her bed and has a wumman to wash up. Aye, and she's ay dressed and oot after dinnertime. Aye, and she sends a' his collars to the laundry ... and he only wears a clean dicky on Sawbath."

"Ah!" I said, "I'm glad you told me that, Janet; I won't risk marrying a lady. But tell me, Janet, how am I to know what sort of woman I am marrying?"

"It's quite easy," she said slowly, "you just have to tear a button off your waistcoat and if she doesna offer to mend it ye shouldna tak her."

"And speer at her what time she gets up in the mornin'," she added; "Maggie Tamson rises at five ilka mornin'."

"Why are you so anxious that it should be Margaret?" I asked with real curiosity.

Janet shook her head.

"Aw just think she's in love wi' ye," she said simply; "she blushed."

* * *

I went out with my bugle to-night, and I sounded all the old calls. I finished up with "Come for Orders," and I walked slowly down the brae to the farm. Jim Jackson and Dickie Gibson came running up to me.

"Ye played 'Come for Orders!'" panted Jim as he wiped his sweating face with his bonnet.

"We'll soon remedy matters," I laughed, and I played the "Dismiss."

Jim perched himself on a gate.

"We'll hae to fall oot, Dick," he said with mock resignation, "come on and we'll sit here till we get oor wind back." And Dick climbed up beside him.

"How are the lies getting on, Jim?" I asked.

He shook his head dolefully.

"We got an essay the day on The Discovery of America ... and ye canna tell mony lies aboot that. Aw just said that Columbus discovered America, and wrote aboot his ships. The new Mester says we must stick to the truth."

"It is difficult to associate the truth with America," I said. "But there is a true side to this discovery business. To say that Columbus discovered America is a half-truth; the whole truth is that America isn't quite discovered yet. Andrew Carnegie was fairly successful, and Charlie Chaplin is another discoverer of note, but--"

Jim clearly did not understand; he thought that I was pulling his leg.