Dickie Gibson cut me dead to-night, and I think that Jim Jackson will
one day look the other way when I pass. It is very sad, and I feel
to-night that all my work was in vain. I cannot, however, blame
Macdonald this time, for Dickie has left the school. I feel somewhat
grieved at not being able to lay the fault at Macdonald's door. I should
blame myself if I honestly could, but I cannot, for Dickie was a lad who
loved the school.
I recollect the morning when we arrived to find a huge stone cast in the
middle of the pond.
"It's been some of the big lads," said Dickie.
"But why?" I asked. "Why should they do a dirty trick like that? Would
you do a thing like that, Dickie, after you had left the school?"
He thought for a minute.
"Aye," he said slowly, "if Aw was with bigger lads and they did it Aw
wud do it too."
I suppose that if I had been a really great man I might have conquered
the spirit of the village. I was only a poor pioneer striving to make
these bairns happier and better. Dickie's cutting me proves that I was
not good enough to lead him away from the atmosphere of the village. I
used to forget about the homes; I used to forget that many a child had
to listen to harsh criticisms of my methods. I marvel now that they were
so nice at school. I wonder whether we could not form a Board to enquire
into the upbringing of children. We might call it the Board of Parental
Control. It would bring parents before it and examine them. Parents
convicted of stupidity would be ordered to hand over their children to a
Playyard School, and each child would be so taught that it could take in
hand the education of its parents when it was seventeen.
My idea was to produce a generation that would be better than the
present one, and I thought that I could successfully fight the
environment of home. I failed.... Dickie has cut me. The fight was
unequal; the village won. After all I had Dickie for two short years,
and the village has had him for fourteen. Poor boy, he has much good in
him, much innate kindliness. But the village is stupid and spiteful. I
am absolutely sure that Dickie cut me because he wanted to follow the
public opinion of the village.
Am I magnifying a merely personal matter? Am I merely piqued because I
was cut? No one likes to be cut; it isn't a compliment at any time. No,
I am not piqued: I am intensely angry, not at poor Dickie, but at the
dirty environment that makes him a cad. Lucky is the dominie who teaches
bairns from good homes. Last summer when I spent half a day in the King
Alfred School in Hampstead I envied John Russell his pupils. They were
all children of parents who were intellectual enough to seek a free
education for their children in a land where the schools are barracks.
"If I only had children like these!" I said to him, but a moment later I
thought of my little school up north and I said: "No! Mine need freedom
more than these."
The King Alfred School is a delightful place. There is co-education ...
a marvellous thing to an Englishman, but not noticeable by a Scot who
has never known any other kind. There is no reward and no punishment, no
marks, no competition. A child looks on each task as a work of art, and
his one desire is to please himself rather than please his teacher. The
tone of the school is excellent; the pupils are frankly critical and
delightfully self-possessed. And since parents choose this school
voluntarily I presume that the education we call home-life is ideal. How
easy it must be for John Russell! If my Dickie had been going home each
night to a father and mother who were as eager for truth and freedom as
I was, I don't think that Dickie would have cut me to-night.
* * *
Dickie came up for his milk to-night, and I hailed him as he went down
the brae.
"Here, Dickie!" I called, "why have you given up looking at me?"
He grew very red, and he stood kicking a stone with his heel.
"I don't want you to touch your cap, Dickie, but you might at least say
Hullo to me in the passing. Some of the big lads who left school before
I came look at me impudently, and I know that their look means: 'Bah!
I've left the school and I don't care a button for you or any other
dominie!' But, Dickie, you know me well; you never were afraid of me,
and I know that you don't think me your enemy. Why in all the earth
should you pretend that you do?"