"Would you like to read them?" I asked.
"I don't think they would interest me," he admitted.
"Then in heaven's name, why expect children to have any interest in
them? If these classics weren't shoved down children's throats the
adult population of this country would be sitting of an evening reading
and enjoying Milton instead of _John Bull_."
Mac would not have this.
"Children must read the classics so that they may get a good style," he
said.
"Style be blowed!" I cried. "The only way to get a style is by
writing. Mac, I should cut out all the lectures about Chaucer and
Spenser and Shakespeare, and let the children write during the English
period . . . if I had periods, which I wouldn't. I don't want style
from kiddies; I want to see them create in their own way. If they are
free to create they will form their own style."
In a conversation one always has a tendency to overstate a case, and as
the argument went on I found myself saying wild things. Writing calmly
now I still hold to my attitude concerning style. I love a book
written in fine style, but I refuse to impose style on children. In
every child there is a gigantic protest. Thus the son of praying
parents often turns out to be a scoffer. I had a good instance of the
danger of superimposition of style.
I had a class of boys and girls of fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen
years of age. For one period a week we all wrote five minute essays,
and then we read them out. Sometimes we would make criticisms; for
instance one girl used the word "beastly" in a serious essay, and we
all protested against it. Then one day the head-master decided that
they should write essays for him. He set a serious subject--The
Function of Authority, I think it was--and then he went over their
books with a blue pencil and corrected their spelling and style.
Three days later my English period came round. I entered the room and
found the class sitting round the fire.
"Hullo!" I said, "aren't you going to write?"
"No," growled the class.
"Why not?"
"Fed up with writing. We want to talk about economics or psychology."
A fortnight later they made an attempt to write short essays, but it
was a miserable failure; all the joy in creation had been killed by
that blue pencil.
I can give an example of the other way, the only way. One boy of
fifteen hated writing essays, and when I began the five minute essay
game he sat and read a book. After a time I gave out the subject
"Mystery," and I saw him look up quickly with flashing eyes.
"Phew! What a ripping subject!" he cried, "I must have a shot at that!"
His shot was promising, and he continued to make shots, until some of
his essays were praised by the class. Then one day he came to me.
"I don't know anything about stops and things," he said, "and I want
you to tell me about them."
This is my ideal of education; no child ever learns a thing until he
wants to learn it. That lad picked up all he wanted to know about
stops in half-an-hour. He was interested in stops because he wanted to
write better essays. I need hardly say that he had listened to
hundreds of lessons on stops during his school career.
* * * * *
To-morrow I return to London, and to-night I went over to say good-bye
to Dauvit.
"Aye, dominie, and so ye're gaein' back to London!" he said.
"I don't want to leave this lazy life, Dauvit," I said, "but I must go
back and start my school."
"It'll cost ye some bawbees to gang to London," put in Jake Tosh.
"Penny three ha'pennies a mile noo-a-days I onderstand."
"A shullin' a mile for corps," remarked the undertaker.
Dauvit chuckled.
"So ye'll better no dee in London, dominie," he laughed.
"And that reminds me of Peter Wilson, him that passed into the Civil
Service and gaed to London. He came hame onexpectedly wan mornin' and
his father he says: 'What in a' the earth brocht ye hame in the month
o' February, Peter? Surely ye dinna hae a holiday the noo?'
"'No,' says Peter, 'but I had a cauld and I thocht I was maybe takkin'
pewmonia, and, weel father, corpses is a bob a mile on the railway.'"
"Dauvit," I said, "I don't care where I am buried."
"Is that so?" asked Jake in surprise. "What's become o' yer
patriotism, dominie? I canna onderstand a man no wanting to be buried
in his ain country. For my pairt I wudna like to be buried ony place
but the wee kirkyaird up the brae there."
Dauvit grunted.
"What does it matter, Jake, whaur ye're buried?"
"Goad," said Jake, "it matters a lot. The grund up in the kirkyaird is
the best grund in Scotland. It's a' sand, and they tell me that yer
corp will keep for years in that grund."
Dauvit laughed, but the others seemed to take Jake's preservation
argument seriously.
"Jake," said Dauvit, "does it no strike ye that to be buried in yer
native place is a disgrace?"
"Hoo that, na?" said Jake.
"Because the man that bides in the place he was born in is of nae
importance. A' the best men leave their native village, aye, and their
native country. Aye, lads, the best men and the worst women leave
their native country."
"I sincerely trust that you are not insinuating that they leave
together, Dauvit," I put in hastily.
"No, they dinna do that, dominie; but whether they meet in London I
dinna ken," and he smiled wickedly.
Jake spat in the grate.
"I dinna see what the attraction o' London is," he said with a touch of
contempt.
"It is rather difficult to describe," I said. "For one thing you feel
that you are in the centre of things. You are in the midst of all the
best plays and concerts and processions . . . and you never think of
going to see them. Then all the important people are there, the King
and Lloyd George and Bernard Shaw . . . but you never see them
anywhere. Then there are the places of historic interest, the Tower,
Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's . . . and you don't know where they are
until your cousins come up for a week's trip, and then you ask a
policeman where the Tower is. And the strange thing is that you get to
love London."
"There will be a fell puckle funerals I daresay," said the undertaker.
"To tell the truth," I answered, "I have never seen a funeral in
London. In the suburbs, yes, but never in the centre of the West End.
I've often seen them at the crematorium in Golders Green."
The undertaker frowned.
"That crematin' business shud be abolished by act o' Parliament," he
said gruffly. "It's just a waste o' guid wood and coal. They tell me
it taks twa ton o' coal ilka time."
I was surprised to find that the broad-minded Dauvit agreed with the
undertaker in condemning cremation. I suspect that early training has
something to do with it, and there may be an unconscious connecting of
cremation with hell-fire. Dauvit's argument that cremation would
destroy the evidence in poisoning cases was a pure rationalisation.
I wondered why the topic of funerals kept coming up, and I laughingly
put the matter to Dauvit.
"Maybe it's because we're sad because ye're gaein' awa," he said
half-seriously. "We'll miss yer crack at nichts."
At last I got up to go.
"Aweel, Dauvit, I'll be going," I said.
"Aweel, so long," said Dauvit without looking up. The others said
"Guidnicht" or "So Long," and I went out. I was sorry to leave these
good friends, and they were sorry to lose me; yet we parted, it may be,
for years, just as if we were to see each other to-morrow. We are a
queer race.