X.

I tried an experiment to-day. I gave an exam. in History, and each pupil

was allowed to use a text-book. The best one was first, she knew what to

select. I deprecate the usual exam. system of allotting a prescribed

time to each paper. Blyth Webster, the racy young lecturer in English in

Edinburgh University, used to allow us an indefinite time for our Old

English papers. I generally required a half hour to give him all I knew

about Old English, but I believe that some students sat for five hours.

Students write and think at different rates, and the time limit is

always unjust.

I wish the Department would allow me to set the Higher Grade Leavings

English papers for once. My paper would certainly include the

following:--

"If Shakespeare came back to earth what do you think would be his

opinion of Women's Suffrage (refer to _The Taming of the Shrew_) Home

Rule, Sweated Labour, the Kaiser?"

"Have you read any Utopia? If not, it doesn't matter; write one of your

own. (Note ... a Utopia is an ideal country--this side the grave.)"

"Discuss Spenser's idea of chivalry, and state what you think would be

his opinion on table manners, Soho, or any slum you know, "the Present

State of Ireland."

"What would Burns have thought of the prevalence of the kilt among the

Semitic inhabitants of Scotland? Is Burns greater than Harry Lauder?

Tell me why you think he isn't or is."

"Discuss the following humorists and alleged humorists:--Dickens,

Jacobs, Lauder, Jerome, Leacock, Storer Clouston, Wells (in _Kipps_, and

_Mr. Polly_), Locke (in _Septimus_), Bennett (in _The Card_), Mark

Twain, your class teacher, the average magistrate."

"If you have not read any humour at all, write a humorous dialogue

between a brick and the mongrel dog it came in contact with."

I hold that my exam. paper would discover any genius knocking about in

ignorance of his or her powers. I intend to offer it to the Department

... when I am out of the profession.

* * *

It is extremely difficult for any teacher to keep from getting into a

rut. The continual effort to make things simple and elementary for

children is apt to deaden the intellect.

To-night I felt dull; I simply couldn't think. So I took up a volume of

Nietzsche, and I now know the remedy for dullness. Nietzsche is a

genius; he dazzles one ... and he almost persuades. To-night I am

doubting. Is my belief in a great democracy all wrong? Is it true that

there is a slave class that can never be anything else? Is our Christian

morality a slave morality which is evolving the wrong type of human?

I think of the pity and kindness which is making us keep alive the

lunatic and the incurable; I am persuaded to believe that our hospitals

are in the long run conducing to an unfit race. Unfit physically; but

unfit mentally? Is Sandow the Superman? Will Nietzsche's type of Master

man with his physical energy and warlikeness prove to be the best?

I think that the journalists who are anathematising Nietzsche are

wrong; I don't believe the Kaiser ever read a line of his. But I think

that every German is subconsciously a believer in energy and "Master

Morality"; Nietzsche was merely one who realised his nature. The German

religion is undoubtedly the religion of the Old Testament; to them

"good" is all that pertains to power; their God is the tyrant of the Old

Testament. Nietzsche holds that the New Testament code of morals was

invented by a conquered race; the poor were meek and servile, and they

looked forward to a time when they would be in glory while the rich man

frizzled down below.

No man can scorn Nietzsche; you are forced to listen to him. Only fools

can dismiss him with the epithet "Madman!"

But I cannot follow him; I believe that if pity and kindness are wrong,

then wrong is right. Yet I see that Nietzsche is wise in saying that

there must always be one stone at the top of the pyramid. The question

is this:--Will a democracy always be sure to choose the right man? I

wonder.

I found one arresting statement in the book:--"If we have a degenerate

mean environment, the fittest will be the man who is best adapted to

degeneracy and meanness; he will survive." That is what is happening

now. I believe that the people will one day be capable of altering this

basis of society; Nietzsche believed that the people are mostly of the

slave variety, and that a better state of affairs could only come about

through the breeding of Supermen ... masters. "The best shall rule,"

says he. Who are the best? I ask, and I really cannot answer myself.

* * *

As I go forward with these notes I find that I become more and more

impelled to write down thoughts that can only have a remote connection

with the education of children. I think the explanation lies in the fact

that every day I realise more and more the futility of my school-work.

Indeed, I find myself losing interest sometimes; I go through a lesson

on Geography mechanically; in short, I drudge occasionally. But I always

awake at Composition time.

I find it useless to do home correction; a bairn won't read the blue

pencil marks. I must sit down beside him while I correct; and this

takes too much time ... from a timetable point of view.

But the mistakes in spelling and grammar are minor matters, what I look

for are ideas. I never set a dull subject of the How-I-spent-my-holidays

type; every essay must appeal to the imagination. "Suppose you go to

sleep for a thousand years," I said, "and tell the story of your

awaking." I asked my Qualifying to become invisible; most of them took

to thieving and spying. I gave them Wells's _The Invisible Man_ and

_When the Sleeper Wakes_ to read later.

"Go to Mrs. Rabbit's Garden Party, and describe it." One boy went as a

wolf, and returned with the party inside. A girl went as a weasel and

left early because she could not eat the lettuce and cabbage on the

table. One boy went as an elephant and could not get in.

"Write a child of seven's account of washing day," I said to my

Qualifying, and I got some delightful baby-talk from Margaret Steel and

Violet Brown.

"Imagine that you are the last man left alive on earth." This essay

produced some good work; most of the girls were concerned about the

fact that there was no one to bury them when they died.

The best results of all came from this subject:--"Die at the age of

ninety, and write the paragraph about yourself to the local paper." Most

of them made the present minister make a few pious remarks from the

pulpit; one girl was clever enough to name a strange minister.

A newspaper correspondence interests a class. "Make a Mr. James Smith

write a letter to _The Scotsman_ saying that he saw a cow smoking a

cigar one night; then write the replies." One boy made a William Thomson

suggest that a man must have been standing beside the cow in the

darkness. Smith replied that this was impossible, for any man standing

beside a cow would be a farmer or a cattleman, and "neither of them can

afford to smoke cigars."

* * *

I notice that many School Boards insist on having Trained Teachers. Is

it possible to "train" a teacher? Are teachers not born like poets? I

think they are. I have seen untrained teachers at work, and I have seen

trained teachers; I never observed a scrap of difference. All I would

say to a young teacher is: "Ask questions. Ask why there is a fence

round the field, ask why there is a fence round that tree in the field,

then ask whether any plant or tree has a natural fence of its own."

And I think I should say this: "A good teacher will begin a lesson on

Cromwell, touch, in passing, Jack Johnson, Charlie Chaplin, Votes for

Women, guinea pigs, ghosts, and finish up with an enquiry into

Protective Coloration of Animals."

The Code seems to be founded on the assumption that the teachers of

Scotland don't know their business. Why specify that Nature Study will

be taught? Any good teacher will refer to Nature every five minutes of

the day. To me teaching is a ramble through every subject the teacher

knows.

No, I don't think a teacher can be trained, but I am prejudiced; I took

the Acting Teachers' Certificate Exam ... and passed Third Class. In the

King's Scholarship I was ninety-ninth in the list of a hundred and one.

Luckily, the Acting Teachers' list was given in alphabetical order.

I had a friend at the university, Anderson was his name, a medical. He

had passed in Physics, and naturally his name was near the beginning of

the list. His local paper had it "A Brilliant Student." Anderson got

through at the ninth shot.

* * *

To-day I talked about crime and punishment. I told my bairns that a

criminal cannot help himself; heredity and environment make a man good

or bad. I spoke of the environment that makes millions of children

diseased morally and physically, and of the law that punishes a man for

the sins of the community. I told them that there should be no prisons;

if a man is a murderer he is not responsible for his actions, and he

must be confined ... but not in prison.

Our present system is not justice; it is vengeance. I once saw a poor

waif sent to prison for stealing a pair of boots, sent to the care of

warders, sent to acquire a hatred of his fellowmen. Justice would have

asked: "Why did he steal? Why had he no boots? What sort of life has he

been forced to lead?" and I know that the waif would have been

acquitted.

I told my bairns that to cure any evil you must get at the root of it,

and I incidentally pointed to the Insurance Act, and said that it was

like treating a man with a suppurating appendix for the headache that

was one of the symptoms. I told them that their fathers have not tried

to get at the root of evil, that their prisons and cats and oakum are

cowardly expedients. The evil is that the great majority of people are

poor slaves, while the minority live on their earnings. That isn't

politics; it is truth. I told them that if I had been born in the

Cowgate of Edinburgh I should have been a thief and a drunkard ... and

society would have added to my curse of heredity and environment the

pains and brutishness of a prison. And yet men accuse me of attaching

too much importance to material reforms.

* * *

I have not used the strap for many weeks now. I hope that I shall never

use it again. I found a boy smoking a cigarette to-day. Four years ago I

should have run him into the school and welted him. To-day I spoke to

him. "Joseph," I said, "I smoke myself, and at your age I smoked an

occasional Woodbine. But it isn't really good for a boy, and I hope you

won't get into the habit of buying cigs. with your pocket money." He

smiled and told me that he didn't really like it; he just smoked for

fun. And he tossed the cigarette over a wall.

A very clever friend of mine talks about the "Hamlet cramp." I've got

it. Other men have a definite standard of right and wrong; I have none.

The only original sin that I believe in is the cruelty that has come to

man from the remote tree-dweller.