Macdonald has returned. He has brought a man Macduff with him, a college
friend of his, and now the headmaster of a big school in Perthshire. He
has mentioned Macduff to me more than once. Macduff is his ideal
schoolmaster, a stern disciplinarian and a great producer of "results."
When they came up to see me to-night Macdonald's face glowed with
anticipation; it was evident that he had come to my funeral. Macduff was
to slay me, bury me, and write my epitaph. I thought of agreeing with
Macduff as much as possible, so as to rob Macdonald of his triumph, but
I found it impossible to find more than a few points of agreement. I
managed, however, to carry the war into the enemy's camp, and Macduff
found himself acting on the defensive more than once.
"I read your _Log_," he said agreeably, "and I must congratulate you on
it. I laughed at many of the yarns you have in it."
"The worst of being called a humorist," said I, "is that everybody
seizes on your light bits, and ignores your serious bits."
"I didn't ignore your serious bits," he said, "I read them carefully ...
and, to be frank, thought them damned nonsense. You don't mind my saying
so, do you?"
"Certainly not, my dear fellow! When you've read the evening paper
critics' opinion of yourself you can stand anything. I am all for a free
criticism; it lets you know where you stand at once."
We both became very amiable after that, and I offered him a fill of
Macdonald's baccy. Then I brought out a bottle of whiskey, and we sat
round the bothy fire like brothers.
"And now," I said, "tell me all about the damned nonsensical parts."
"Well," he laughed, "it seems a dirty trick to drink a chap's whiskey
and slate his ideas at the same time, doesn't it?"
"It might be worse," I said with a smile; "you might slate his whiskey
and drink in his ideas at the same time; and I've never met a man who
could stand being accused of keeping bad whiskey, although I know dozens
of men who will sit with a grin on their faces while you tear their
philosophy of life to pieces."
"They grin at your ignorance, eh?"
"Exactly!"
Macdonald held up his glass to the light and eyed it thoughtfully.
"Macduff's theory is that if you spare the rod you spoil the child," he
said.
"Yes," said Macduff, "I agree with old Solomon. You know, it's all very
well to be a heretic, but you are up against the wisdom of the ages. All
the way from Solomon downwards parents have agreed that youngsters must
be trained strictly. You can't smash up the wisdom of the ages as you
try to do."
"The wisdom of the ages!" I mused.... "When I come to think of it the
wisdom of the ages taught men that the earth was flat, that the sun went
round the earth, that the touch of a king cured King's Evil. Do you mean
to say that because a thing has a tradition behind it it must be
believed for ever? Because Solomon said a thing is it eternally true?
The wisdom of the ages must be made to give place to the wisdom of the
age."
"Then you would have each generation ignore all that had been said by
men of previous generations?"
"I don't mean that. By all means find out what wise men of old have
said, but don't worship them; be ready all the time to reject their
wisdom if you feel you can't agree with it. This using the rod business
is a tradition because men found it the easiest method for themselves. A
child was weak and he was noisy; the easiest thing to do was to whack
the little chap. Do you allow conversation in your school?"
"I do not!" he said grimly.
"And why?"
"They can't work if they are talking."
"And that's your sole reason?"
"Yes."
"If an inspector stood at your desk chatting to you about the war, would
you have a silent room?"
"Certainly."
"But why?"
"Oh," he said impatiently, "for various reasons. They aren't there to
talk; and they've got to be disciplined, to understand that they are not
free to do as they like whenever they like."
"Also," I suggested, "the inspector might be annoyed?"
"There's that in it," he confessed with a little confusion.
"The wisdom of the ages agrees with you," I said, "and I think that in
this case the wisdom of the ages is wrong. In the first place I want to
know what you're trying to produce."
"Educated citizens," he replied.
"And since the Solomon tradition has been in vogue for quite a long
time, do you consider that it has produced educated citizens as yet?"
"More or less," he answered.
"I can't see it," I said. "When nine-tenths of the population of these
isles live on the border line of starvation you can't surely argue that
they are educated citizens. They are bullied citizens ... and the first
step in the bullying of them was the refusal of authority in the shape
of the parent and the pedagogue to spare the rod."
"But look here," he interrupted, "come back to the school. Do you think
it wrong for a teacher to compel a boy to attend to a lesson?"
"I do. If he has to be compelled the lesson clearly fails to interest
him. I would have childhood a garden in which one could wander wherever
one pleased; I would abolish fear and punishment."
"And do you mean to tell me," he demanded, "that a boy will offer to
learn his history and geography and arithmetic and grammar of his own
free will?"
"It depends on the boy. Here, again, we come up against the wisdom of
the ages. The wisdom of the ages has decreed that these subjects are the
chief things in education. But are they? I should imagine that it is
more important for a boy to know something about feminine psychology
than about Henry the Eighth. He will one day be called on to choose a
wife, but he'll never be called on to choose a king. Again why should
geography be of more importance than anatomy? A man never wants to know
where Timbuctoo is, but he very often wants to know whether the pain in
his tummy is appendicitis or heartburn."
"Go on!" he laughed, "find a substitute for arithmetic now!"
"Arithmetic," I said, "is the trump card of the man who wants a
utilitarian education. I can do lots of sums--Simple Interest, Profit
and Loss, Ratio and Proportion, Train Sums, Stream Sums.... I could
almost do a Cube Root. So far as I can remember I have never had
occasion to use arithmetic for any purpose other than adding up money
or multiplying a few figures by a few figures. Your utilitarianism
somehow leads in the wrong direction most of the time. I was brought up
under the wisdom of the ages curriculum, and I'll just give you an idea
of some of the things I don't know. I don't know the difference between
a mushroom and a toadstool; I haven't the faintest idea of how they make
glass or soap or paint or wine or whiskey or beer or paper or candles or
matches; I know nothing about the process of law; I don't know what
steps one takes to get married or divorced or cremated or naturalised; I
don't know the starboard side of a ship; I don't know how a vacuum brake
works. I could fill a book with a list of the things I don't know ... a
book as big as the Encyclopædia Britannica.
"What I want to know is this: How are we to determine what things are
important to know? From a utilitarian point of view it is more important
to know how to get married than how to find the latitude and longitude
of Naples. As an exercise of thinking it is quite as important to
inquire into the working of a Westinghouse brake as to inquire into the
working of a Profit and Loss sum."
"Then what curriculum would you have?"
"I wouldn't have any curriculum. I would allow a boy to learn what he
wanted to learn. If he prefers kite-making to sentence-making I want him
to choose kite-making. If he wants to catch minnows instead of reading
about Napoleon, I say let him do it; he is learning what he wants to
learn, and that's exactly what we all do when we leave the compulsion of
the schoolroom."
"It won't do!" cried Macduff.
"Look at it in this way," I said. "Suppose I am three stone heavier than
you. And suppose that I think it would benefit you if you knew all
about--let us say Evolution. I come to you, take you by the back of the
neck and say: 'Macduff, you get up the Darwinian Theory word perfect by
Monday morning. If you don't I'll bash your head for you.' I reckon that
you would call in the police ... and they would naturally call in the
local prison doctor to inquire into my sanity. That is exactly what you
are doing in your school ... only, unfortunately, the police and the
prison doctor are on your side. Personally I could make out a strong
case for your being certified as a dangerous lunatic with homicidal
tendencies."
"Ah!" he said, "but the two cases are different. Your arbitrary
insistence on my learning all about Darwin has no right on its side;
it's merely your opinion that I should know all about Evolution. But
when I make a boy learn his history and grammar I am not acting on my
own opinion. Personally I confess that I teach lots of things and don't
see the use of them."
"You obey the--er--the wisdom of the ages?"
"I suppose I do."
"Education," I said, "should lead a boy to think for himself, but if
teachers refuse to think for themselves in case they disagree with the
wisdom of the ages I don't see that they are the men to lead children to
think for themselves."
Later we discussed motor-cycles, and I learned many tips from Macduff.
He is a mine of information on the subject.
When they had gone I thought out the problem of the curriculum. To
abolish the curriculum involves abolishing large classes. I would have
classes of not more than a dozen pupils. In the free school I picture,
classes would not in fact exist; if there were a hundred and twenty
scholars there would be ten teachers. They would act as guides to be
consulted when necessary. Each teacher would learn with his or her
pupils. A teacher is not an encyclopædia of facts; he is an enquirer.
When we tarred the pigeon-house I did not say: "Now, boys, listen to me,
and learn how to put on tar." The boys brought chunks of pitch in their
pockets (pretty certainly sneaked from the heaps used for tar-spraying
the roads). We got an old pail and melted the solid stuff, then we tried
to put it on. The trial was a complete failure; the tar would not run.
We sat down to consider the matter.
"Tell you what, boys," said Cheery Smith, "we'll thin it wi' some
paraffin."
We thinned it with some paraffin and the stuff ran quite easily.
When I told Macdonald of the incident he cried: "Yes, but think of the
time you wasted!"
What's wrong with Macdonald and Macduff is that they know too much to be
good teachers. They have nothing to learn. They know all the facts about
curriculum subjects; they know exactly what is right and what is wrong;
they know that their authority is infallible; they know that swearing is
bad, that cap-lifting is good; they know that obedience is a great
virtue, that disobedience to their authority is an unforgivable sin.
They are the Supermen of education; their attitude to the school is
exactly the attitude of Charles I. to his Parliament. They believe in
the Divine Right of Dominies. The dominie can do no wrong. Macdonald's
bairns consider him something beyond a human being; he knows everything;
he is above temptation. He has no weaknesses; his pipe goes into his
pocket when he meets a child; he wouldn't allow a child to see him kiss
his wife for all the gold in the Bank of England.
But there are expectations down at the schoolhouse. And I would almost
sell my soul to be in the classroom on the morning when Macdonald enters
it with the word paternity writ large on his prim face. I bet my boots
that, without saying a single word, he will manage to give the bairns
the impression that he had nothing to do with the affair at all.
* * *
A friend of mine, a Londoner, came to stay the week-end with me. To-day
we rambled over the hills, and a pair of new boots began to make my
friend's feet take on a separate existence. We were about three miles
from home, and the prospect of walking that distance painfully was
rather disheartening to him. Luckily Moss-side milk cart came along, and
the boy asked us if we wanted a lift to the village; he was taking the
day's milk to the station.
When we left the cart my friend turned to me in amazement.
"Here," he cried, "didn't you give him something?"
"Good Lord, no!" I laughed.
"Oh, you blooming Scotchman!" he said with fervour. "If I had known I'd
have given the chap a tip myself."
"I never thought of tipping him," I said, "and if I had I wouldn't have
tipped him all the same. You blessed Englishmen can never rise above
your stupid feudal idea of rewarding the lower classes. In your south
country a countryman is a Lickspittle; he touches his cap to anything
with a collar on. We don't breed that kind of specimen in Scotland. That
young lad is a stranger to me, but he and you and I were equals; there
was no servility about him; he chatted to us as an equal. He expected
nothing, and if you had offered him a shilling you would have patronised
him, posed as his superior."
"But, damn it all, the chap earned a bob!"
"He didn't; all he earned was your gratitude. The boy was doing a
decent kindly thing for its own sake, and you want to shove a vulgar tip
into his hand. If I had come along in a Rolls-Royce car and given you a
lift, would you have offered to reward me? What's wrong with you
southerners is that you always think in classes; your tipping isn't
kindness; you tip to save your self-respect; you are afraid that any man
of the lower orders should think you mean. The Scot is not as a rule
hampered by class distinctions, and he often refuses to tip because he
hates to insult a man. You Londoners put it down to meanness, but I
would have felt myself the meanest of low cads if I had tipped that
ploughboy. Scotland is comparatively free from the rotten tipping habit.
A few gamekeepers get tips from English sporting gentlemen, and a few
porters get tips from English travellers."
"You have spoilt that boy for the next unfortunate pedestrian," he said;
"the next time he sees a man limping along the road he will say to
himself: 'Never again!'" I knew then that he had not been listening to
my argument.
If tipping is degrading to the man who tips and the man who holds out
his palm, I cannot see that school prize-giving is any better. The
kindly School Board members who are anxious to encourage the bairns to
work for prizes have essentially the same outlook as my friend from
town. I fancy that the modern interpretation of Christianity has
something to do with this national desire for reward and punishment. To
me the whole attitude is distasteful. Obviously I am what I am; I was
born with a certain nature, and I was brought up in a certain
environment. The making of my ego was a thing outside my direction
altogether. To reward me in an after life for being a religious man is
as unfair as to punish me for being a thief. We don't award a gold medal
to an actress for being beautiful; we don't offer Shaw a peerage because
he is Christlike enough to hate killing animals for sport. Shaw can no
more help being humanitarian than Gladys Cooper can help being bonny.
Down in the school there Ellen Smith can no more help being the best
arithmetician than Dave Ramsay can help being the biggest coward.
Speaking of Dave ... when Macdonald was worrying over the allocation of
prizes the other week, he asked me if Dave was good at anything.
"Well," I said, "he holds the record for spitting farther than any boy
in the school; I think he deserves a prize for that. Believe me,
Macdonald, every boy in the class would rather hold that record than
carry off the prize for arithmetic ... and I don't blame them either."
The subject of Scots and tipping puts me in mind of what is probably the
best "Scot in London" yarn.
A Scot, followed by his five children, entered the Ritz Hotel, and sat
down in the lounge.
"Waiter! A bottle o' leemonade and sax tumblers!" he cried.
The waiter was too dumbfounded to do anything but bring the liquor. He
stood in open-mouthed amazement as the Scot divided the bottle among the
six glasses, but, when the Scot took a bag of buns from his pocket and
proceeded to distribute them, the waiter set off blindly to find the
manager.
The manager approached. He tapped the Scot on the shoulder, and in a
stern voice he said: "Excuse me, but I'm the manager of this
establishment."
The Scot looked up at him sharply.
"O, ye're the manager, are ye? Weel, why the hell's the band's no
playin'?"