"Why don't you like the Play Town?" I asked.
"Because the girls are too bossy," he said. "It was my town; I began
it, and I don't see why they should be in it at all."
"And you want a Play Town all to yourself?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Right ho," I said easily. "Why not start to build one?"
His eyes lit up, and away he ran to lay his foundations. He worked
eagerly all day, but at night he seemed dissatisfied.
"I haven't got any railway or houses; Christo won't lend me a bit of
his railway, and Gerda has all the houses."
I left him to work out his problem. In the morning he solved it;
Christo wouldn't lend him any rails, but if Tommy liked he, Christo,
would run his line up to Tommy's town from the class town. Tommy
readily agreed. In a week's time Tommy's town was a suburb of the
bigger town, and Tommy was appointed President of the whole state. He
spent many an hour building his bridges and digging his tunnels. At
first he would allow no one to enter his suburb, but in a few days he
ceased to claim it as his own, and he worked as a member of the gang.
I think that most anti-social children are like Tommy: when their
self-assertion is threatened they react with hostility. The cure for
them is to direct their self-assertion to things instead of people. No
boy will try to break up a ball game if he has a rabbit hutch to
construct.
The danger is that the teacher will often step in when the boy ought to
be left to his companions. The gang is the best disciplinarian.
One day a class and I were writing five-minute essays. I would call
out a word or a phrase, and we would all start to write. The children
loved the method; it allowed so much play for originality. For
example, when I gave the word "broken" one girl wrote of her broken
doll, another of a broken tramp, another of a broken heart; a boy wrote
a witty essay on being stoney broke, another wrote of a broken window.
On this day Wolodia, a boy of eleven, did not want to write essays. I
called out a word, and we started to write. Wolodia began to talk
loudly.
"Stop it, man," I said impatiently, "you're spoiling our essay."
He grinned and went on talking.
"Oh, shut up!" cried Joy.
"Shan't!" he snapped, and he went on talking.
Diana rose with a determined air.
"We'll chuck him out," she said grimly, and the class seized him and
heaved him out. Then they barricaded the door with desks. Wolodia
made a big row by hammering on the door, and as a result we could not
proceed with our writing.
"Let him in," I suggested.
The class protested.
"He'll sit like a lamb for the rest of the period," I said.
They took away the desk and Wolodia came in. He went to his seat . . .
and not a sound came from him during the rest of the period. This
incident impressed me greatly; my complaint, Joy's complaint did not
affect him, but when the gang was against him he was defeated. It was
a beautiful instance of the force of public opinion.
Cases of stealing should be treated by analysis. Moral lectures are
useless; the cause lies in the unconscious, and the moral lecture does
not touch the unconscious. Nor does punishment affect the root cause
of the delinquency. The teacher must dig down into the child's
unconscious in order to find the cause.
An illuminating book for all teachers and parents to read is Healy's
_Mental Disorders and Misconduct_. He shows that stealing is very
often a symptomatic act. The mechanism of many cases is something like
this: a child has been punished for sexual activities; later he breaks
into a store and steals an article. Sex activities and thieving have
this in common, that they are both forbidden, but the boy has found
that much more ado is made about sex activities than about stealing.
So when he is actuated by a sexual urge he dare not indulge it; but his
sexual wish finds a substitute; it goes out to the associated forbidden
thing . . . the article on the store counter.
We see the same sort of mechanism in the neurotic patient; she fears
her own sex impulses, and because she dare not admit her sex wishes
into consciousness she projects her fear on to dogs or mice or rats.
All phobias--fear of closed places, fear of open places, fear of
heights--are displaced fears; the sufferer is really afraid of his own
unconscious wishes.
I do not say that all juvenile stealing is due to repressed sex.
Stealing may mean to a boy a method of self-assertion; it may mean that
thus he rebels against authority of father and teacher; it may be the
result of any one of a dozen causes. But whatever the cause stealing
is always associated with unhappiness, and the teacher must try to cure
the unhappiness.
In my _Dominie's Log_ I confessed that I liked to cheat the railway
company, and I excused it on the ground that "a ten-mile journey
without a ticket is the only romantic experience left in a drab world."
That was a delightful bit of rationalisation. The real reason for my
delinquency lay in my unconscious. As a child I impotently rebelled
against the authority of parents and teachers. Later in life I
unconsciously identified the railway company with the authorities of my
infancy. Authority said: "Don't do that or you will be smacked"; the
railway company put up a notice saying: "Don't travel without a ticket
or you'll be fined forty shillings."
My rebellion was really a rebellion against authority. This may seem
to be a far-fetched explanation, but the fact remains that now that I
have discovered the reason I have no more desire to cheat the railway
company.
* * * * *
Old Jeems Broon was buried to-day, and Dauvit went to the funeral. He
came back chuckling.
"What's the joke, Dauvit?" I asked.
"The burial service," laughed Dauvit. "You ken what sort o' a man
Jeems was; an auld sinner if there ever was a sinner in Tarbonny, a bad
auld scoondrel. Weel, Jeems hadna been at the kirk for twenty years,
and of coorse the minister didna ken ony thing aboot him. So when he
gave the funeral prayer he referred to auld Jeems as 'this holy man
whose life stands as an example to those still tarrying in the flesh.'
Goad, but I burst oot laughin'! I did that!"
"Had I been the minister," said I, "I should certainly have made a few
inquiries about Jeems."
"But there's a better story than that aboot the minister," went on
Dauvit with a laugh. "Mag Currie's little lassie had the diphtheria,
and at the end o' the week the minister was asked to come oot to tak' a
burial service in Mag's bed room. Man, he was eloquent! He spoke
earnestly aboot this flower plucked before it had reached its full
bloom, this innocent life so sadly cut off; he was most touchin' when
he turned to Mag and her man and said: 'Mourn not for those hands that
never did wrong, the lisping tongue that never spoke evil, the wide
pure eyes that looked their love for you.'"
"I suppose the parents broke down at that," I said.
"Not they!" chuckled Dauvit, "for the corpse wasna their lassie ava; it
was auld Drucken Findlay the lodger."
I always like to hear Dauvit talk about ministers, and I encouraged him
to go on.
"It's a very queer thing, dominie, that a body ay wants to laugh at the
wrong time. In the kirk and at a funeral--that's when I want to laugh.
"I mind when the minister was awa' for his holidays, and there was an
auld minister frae the Heelands cam' to tak' his place. This auld man
had a habit o' readin' a verse and syne stoppin' to explain it to the
congregation.
"Weel aweel, wan Sunday he was readin' a chapter frae the Auld
Testament, and he cam' to the words: 'And the Angel of the Lord
appeared unto Hosea.' So he looks at the congregation ower his specs
and he says: 'The Angel of the Lord appeared unto Hosea.' Now,
prethren, we must ask ourselves this important question: Was Hosea
afraid? No, Hosea was not afraid. _You_ would have been afraid,
prethren; I would have been afraid. You and I would have begun to
quake and tremble, but Hosea was not afraid; he was a prave man, a pold
man. When we are in trouble let us remember that Hosea was not afraid.'
"So the auld man he turns ower the page and reads the next verse: 'And
Hosea was sore afraid.'"
"What did he say then?" I asked.
"He was a cunnin' auld deevil," said Dauvit, "for he gave a bit cough
and says: 'Prethren, that is a wrong translation from the original
Hebrew.'"
"I don't think you like ministers, Dauvit," I said.
He paused in his efforts to place a new needle in his sewing-machine.
"No, man, I do not," he said slowly. "Nowadays the kirk is just a job
like anything else; men go in for it for the loaves and fishes mostly,
and their prayers never get past the roof. And as for the
congregation, the kirk is just a respectable sort o' society. I tell
ye, dominie, that releegion is deid. At least, Christianity is deid.
That was bound to come; flowers, folk, hooses, trees, horses, aye, and
nations, have a birth, a youth, middle age, auld age, and then death.
It's the law o' nature, and a religion is no exception."
"True, O philosopher!" I said, "but there is always new life, and new
life comes from the old. The flower dies and its seed lives; man dies
and his seed inherit the earth. Christianity dies and--and what?"
"That may be," he said thoughtfully. "It may be that the new religion
will grow from the seed o' the deid Christianity; that I canna say.
What I do say is that ministers are oot-o'-date; they are doin' useless
labour . . . when they're no fishin' and curlin'."