"Peter Thomson said on Thursday that it was Lloyd George who said
'Father, I cannot tell a lie,' and he was caned by the master who, by
the way, has just been appointed President of the Conservative
Association."
"Mary Brown was late every morning this week."
"John Mackenzie is at present gathering potatoes at Mr. Skinnem's farm,
and is being paid a shilling a day of ten hours. Mr. Skinnem has been
made an elder of the Parish Kirk."
Someone has said that the most arresting piece of literature is your own
name in print. That is true, although I suppose that the thrill wears
off when you become as public as Winston Churchill or Charlie Chaplin.
Why shouldn't the bairns experience this thrill? When I write the report
of a local concert for the local papers I always give prominence to the
children who performed. Incidentally, when I have sung at a concert I
omit all reference to my part; I hate to remind the audience that I
sang. I am a true altruist in both cases.
Publicity is the most pleasing thing in life, and that's why patent
medicines retain their popularity. At present the village cobbler is
figuring in the local paper as a "Cured by Bunkum's Bilious Backache
Bunion Beans" example, and beneath his photograph (taken at the age of
nineteen; he is fifty-four now) is a glowing testimonial which begins
with these words:--"For over a decade I have suffered from an excess of
Uric Acid, from Neurotic Dyspepsia, and from Optical Derangements. Until
I discovered that marvellous panacea...."
I marvel at his improved literary style; it is only a month since he
wrote me as follows:--"Sir, i will be oblidged if you will let peter
away at three oclock tonight hoping that you are well as this leaves me
i am your obidt servent peter Macannish."
The magazine would also contain interesting editorials for the parents.
Art would have a prominent place; if a bairn made a good sketch or a
bonny design it would be reproduced.
Of course, the idea cannot be carried out for lack of funds. Yet I fancy
that the money now spent on hounds and pet dogs would easily run a
magazine for every school in Scotland.
The technical difficulties could easily be overcome. The bigger bairns
could read the proofs and paste up the magazine, and the teachers would
revise it before sending it to the printers.
I must get estimates from the printers, and if they are moderate I
shall try to raise funds by giving a school concert.
* * *
I see that the Educational Institute is advertising for a man who will
combine the post of Editor of _The Educational News_ with the office of
Secretary to the Institute. The salary is £450 per annum.
This combining of the offices seems to me a great mistake. For an editor
should be a literary man with ideas on education, while a good secretary
should be an organizer. Because a man can write columns on education,
that is no proof that he is the best man to write to the office
washerwoman telling her not to come on Monday because it is a holiday.
I could edit the paper (I would take on the job for a hundred a year and
the sport of telling the other fellow that his notions of education were
all wrong), but I couldn't organise a party of boys scouts. Kitchener is
a great organiser, but I shouldn't care for the editorials of _The New
Statesman_ if he were editor.
I think that the Institute does not want a man with ideas. It wants a
man who will mirror the opinions of the Institute. To do this is a work
of genius, for the Institute has no opinions. No man can represent a
body of men. Suppose the Institute decides by a majority that it will
support the introduction of "Love" as a subject of the curriculum. The
editor may be a misogynist, or he may have been married eight times, yet
the poor devil has to sit down and write an editorial beginning: "Love
has too long been absent from our schools. Who does not remember with
holy tenderness his first kiss?..."
A paper can be a force only when it is edited by a man of force and
personality. A man who writes at the dictation of another is a
tenth-rater. That, of course, is why our press says nothing.
* * *
Little Mary Brown was stung by a wasp the other day as she sat in the
class.
"Henceforward," I said, "the wasp that enters this room is to be slain.
Tom Macintosh I appoint you commander in chief."
I begin to think that I prefer the wasp to the campaign against it.
To-day I was in the midst of a dissertation on Trusts when Tom started
up.
"Come on lads, there's a wasp!"
They broke a window and two pens; then they slew the wasp.
The less studious boys keep one eye on the window all day, and I found
Dave Thomson chasing an imaginary wasp all round the room at Arithmetic
time. Dave detests Arithmetic. But when I found that Tom Macintosh was
smearing the inside window-sill with black currant jam, I disbanded the
anti-wasp army.
* * *
The Inspectors refuse to allow teachers to use slates nowadays on the
ground that they are insanitary.
To-day I reintroduced slates to all classes. My one reason was that my
bairns were missing one of the most delightful pastimes of youth--the
joy of making a spittle run down the slate and back again. I always look
back with tenderness to my old slate. It was such a serviceable article.
By running my slate-pencil up it I got all the beats of a drum; its
wooden sides were the acknowledged tests for a new knife, as a hammer
it had few rivals. Then you could play at X-es and O-ies with impunity;
you simply licked your palm and rubbed the whole game out when the
teacher approached.
In the afternoon half a dozen bairns brought sponges, and I sighed for
the good old days when sanitary authorities were plumbers on promotion.
* * *
I have given my bairns two songs--_Screw-Guns_ and _Follow Me Home_,
both by Kipling. I prefer them to the usual "patriotic" song that is
published for school use. I don't see the force of teaching children to
be patriotic; the man who imagines that a dominie can teach a bairn to
love his neighbour or his country is fatuous. Flag-waving is the last
futility of noble minds. The queer thing is that all these titled men
who spout about Imperialism and Patriotism, and "Make the Foreigner Pay"
are enemies of the worker. They don't particularly want to see a State
where slums and slavery will be no more; they are so busy thinking out a
scheme to extend the Empire abroad that they haven't time to think about
the Empire at home. What is the use of an India or a South Africa if
East Ham is to remain?
No, I refuse to teach my bairns to sing, "Britons never, never, never
shall be slaves." My sense of humour won't allow me to introduce that
song.
Although I like Kipling's verses I abominate Kipling's philosophy and
politics. He is always to be found on the same platform with the Curzons
and Milners and Roosevelts. He believes in "the big stick"; to him
Britain is great because of her financiers, her viceroys, her engineers.
He glories in enterprise and big ships. He believes with the late Lord
Roberts that the Englishman is the salt of the earth. I should define
Kipling as a Grown-up Public School Boy.
I always think that the "Patriot's" main contention is that a man ought
to be ready to die for his country. I freely grant that it is a great
thing to die for your country, but I contend that it is still greater to
live for your country; and the man who tries to live for his country
usually earns the epithet "Traitor."
"What do they know of England who only England know?" Kipling says
this, or words to this effect. That's the worst of these travelled
Johnnies; they go out to India or Africa, and two months after their
arrival they pity the narrow vision of the people at home. After having
talked much to travelled men I have come to the conclusion that travel
is the most narrowing thing on earth.
"If I went out to India," I remarked one day to an Anglo-Indian friend
at College, "and if I started to talk about Socialism in a drawing-room,
what would happen?"
"Oh," he said with a smile, "they would listen to you very politely,
but, of course, you wouldn't be asked again."
When I went down to Tilbury to see this friend off to India I looked at
the crowd on the first-class deck.
"Dick," I said, "these people are awful. Look at their smugness, their
eagerness to be correct at any expense. They are saying good-bye to
wives and mothers and sweethearts, and the whole blessed crowd of 'em
haven't an obvious emotion among 'em. I'll bet my hat that they won't
even wave their hands when the tender goes off."
As I left the boat the first-class passengers stood like statues, but
one fat woman, with a delightfully plebeian face cried: "So long, old
sport!" to a man beside me.
"Good!" cried Dick to me with a laugh.
"Lovely!" I called, and waved my hat frantically to the fat woman. Poor
soul, I fear that society out East will be making her suffer for her
lapse into bad form.
Travel is like a school-history reader; it forces you to study mere
incident. The travelled man is an encyclopædia of information; but I
don't want to know what a man has seen; I want to know what he has
thought. I am certain that if I went to live in Calcutta I should cease
to think. I should marvel at the colour and life of the streets; I
should find great pleasure in learning the lore of the native. But in a
year I should very probably be talking of "damned niggers," and cursing
the India Office as a crowd of asses who know nothing about India and
its problems.
I once lent _Ann Veronica_ to a clever young lady. Her father, an
engineer who had been all over the world, picked up the book. Two days
later he returned it with a final note dismissing me as a dangerous
character for his daughter to know. The lady was clever, and had
mentality enough to read anything with impunity.
No, travel doesn't broaden a man's outlook.
My writing is like my teaching, it is an irresponsible ramble. I meant
to write about songs all the time to-night.
I curse my luck in not being a pianist. I want to give my bairns that
loveliest of tenor solos--the _Preislied_ from _The Meistersingers_. I
want to give them Lawrence Hope's _Slave's Song_ from her _Indian Love
Lyrics_--"_Less than the Dust beneath thy Chariot Wheel_." And there are
one or two catchy bits in _Gipsy Love_ and _The Quaker Girl_ that I
should like them to know. I am sure that they would enjoy _Mr. Jeremiah,
Esquire_, and _The Gipsy's Song_.