i have spent a hard day forking hay along with margaret thomson. margaret is twenty and bonny, but she is very, very shy. she attended my evening class last winter, and she appears to be afraid to speak to me. i tried to get her to converse again and again to-day, but it was of no use. i think that she fears to make a mistake in grammar or to mispronounce a word.
i hear her voice outside at the horse-trough. she is bantering old peter wilson, and talking thirteen to the dozen. her laugh is a most delightful thing. i wonder did touchstone like audrey's laugh!
the thomsons are carrying out in farming the principles i set myself to carry out in education. they treat their beasts with the greatest kindness. there isn't a wild animal in the place. spot the collie is a most lovable creature; the sheep are all tame, and the cows are quiet beasts; the bull has a bold eye, but he is as gentle as a lamb. the horses come to the kitchen door from the water-trough, and little nancy thomson feeds them with bread. every member of the family comes into personal immediate contact with the animals, and the animals seem to love the family. there is no fear in this farmyard.
mrs. thomson is a kind-hearted soul. she[pg 31] never goes down to the village unless to the kirk on sunday. she works hard all day, but she is always cheerful. "i like to see them comin' in aboot," she says, and she seems to find the greatest pleasure in preparing the family's meals. on a saturday bairns come up from the village, and she gives them "pieces" spread thick with fresh butter and strawberry jam. "i'm never happy unless there's a squad o' bairns roond me," she said to me to-day.
frank thomson is what the village would call a funny sort o' a billie. his eyes are always twinkling, and he tries to see the funny side of life. he hasn't much humour, but he has a strong sense of fun, and he loves to chaff the youngsters.
"weel, wullie," is his invariable greeting when his boy returns from school in the evening, "weel, wullie, and did ye get yer licks the day?"
on a saturday frank always has a troop of girls hanging on to his coat tails, and he is always playing practical jokes on them—locking them in the stable or covering them with straw.
"goad!" he will cry, "ye're an awfu' pack o' tormentors; just wait er aw tell the dominie aboot ye!" and they yell at him.
mrs. thomson tells me that he is inordinately proud of having me for a cattleman, and at the cattle mart he boasts about having an m.a. as feeder. i took two stots into the[pg 32] mart yesterday, and when they entered the ring a wag cried: "are they weel up in the greek, think ye, frank?" and the farmers roared.
"oh, aye," shouted frank, "they're weel crammed up wi' a'thing that's guid!"
i think that the scotch education department should insist on every teacher's going farming every three years. inside the profession you lose perspective. the educational papers are full of articles about geography and history and drawing, but teachers seldom show that they are looking beyond the mere curriculum. the training colleges supply the young teacher with what they call mental philosophy or psychology, but it is quite possible for an honours graduate in mental philosophy to have no philosophy at all.
the question for the teacher is: what am i aiming at? macdonald is aiming at what he calls a bright show before the inspector. to be just to the man i admit that he is honestly trying to educate these bairns according to his lights. he wants to produce good scholars, but when i ask him what he considers the goal of humanity he is at sea.
he tells me that education should not be made to produce little socialists as i seemed to try to do. but i deny that i ever tried to make my bairns socialists. i told them the elemental truth that a parasite is an enemy of society; i told them that the world was out of joint. and i gave them freedom to develop[pg 33] their personalities in the hope that, freed from discipline and fear and lies, they might become a better generation than mine has been.
the macdonalds of life have failed to produce thinking that is free; i merely say: let the children have a say now; stop thrusting your stupid barbaric authority down their little throats; let the bairns be free to breathe. give up all the snobbish nonsense about manners and respect and servility you ram into the child; if he refuses to lift his hat to you, who the devil are you that you should coerce him into doing it?
i think that some of the more important villagers were annoyed at the bairns' obvious lack of respect, or at least the semblance of respect. but they looked for faults. they told me of escapades after school hours, of complaints of bosses against boys who had been with me. i asked george wilson, the mason, whether he would expand his criticism to include the minister. "do you blame mr. gordon for every drunk and every theft in the village? he has been here for thirty years, and, on your reasoning, he has been a failure."
"aw dinna pay rates for keepin' up the kirk," he replied, "but i pay rates to keep up the schule, and aw have a claim to creeticise the wye ye teach the bairns."
i see now that i never had a chance against the enemy. they could point to what they called faults ... johnnie didn't know his [pg 34]history, lizzie did too much sketching, peter wasn't deferential. i could point to nothing. i had abolished fear, i had made the school a place of joy, i had encouraged each child's natural bent ... and the village smiled scornfully and said: "we ken nae difference."
i found myself worrying over the opinions of small men who are of no importance in the world of ideas; stupid fools led me into taking up an eternal position of defence. and i fumed inwardly, for i am not always a ready talker.
but now i am able to smile at the men who baited me a few weeks ago. they don't count. in the great world beyond the hills there are people who take the large broad view of education, and some day education will really be a "leading forth" not a "putting in."
* * *
i met macdonald to-night, and i asked him how things were doing.
"i'm in the middle of prizes," he said wearily, "and if there's one thing i detest it's prizes."
i began to think that i had misjudged macdonald.
"excellent!" i cried, "we agree for once! what's your objection to prizes?"
"they're such a confounded nuisance."
"granted," i said.
"that's all i have against them. you never know how you are to distribute the things."
[pg 35]
"why do you object to them?" he asked.
i sat down on wilkie's dyke and lit my pipe.
"i object to them on principle, macdonald. they're tips, that's what they are."
"tips?"
"yes. i give a porter tuppence for seeing my bicycle into the van; i give mary ritchie a book for beating the others at reading. i tip both."
"i don't see it."
"the porter shouldn't get a tip; his job is to look after luggage. mary's job is to read to improve her mind."
"but," said macdonald, "life is full of rewards."
"i know." here peter mitchell strolled up. "we're talking about prizes," i explained. "life is full of rewards of all kinds, but the only reward that matters is the joy in doing a thing well. if i write a poem or paint a picture i'm not writing or painting with one eye on royalties or the auction room. i sell my poem or picture in order to live ... in a decent civilisation i wouldn't require to sell it to live, but that's by the way. my point is that prizes are artificial rewards, just as strapping is an artificial punishment."
"goad!" said peter mitchell, "do ye mean to tell me that aw wasna thinkin' o' the reward when i selt my powney last saturday?"
"competition is a good thing," said macdonald. "look at running and sports and all that sort of thing."
[pg 36]
"i admit it," i said, "you like to beat your partner at golf. but my contention is that the prize at the end is vulgar; the joy is in being the best sprinter in the country. after all you don't glory in the fact that simpson took seven at the tenth hole; your glory lies in the thought that you did it in three.
"prizes in school are not only vulgar: they are cruel. take ellen smith. ellen has always been a first-rate arithmetician; she has the talent. for the past four years she has carried off the first prize for arithmetic. sarah nelson is very good, but work as she likes she can't beat ellen. sarah becomes despondent every year at prize-giving time. bairns aren't philosophical; they don't see that the vulgar little book they get isn't worth thinking about. the ignorant noodles who sit on school boards (peter mitchell had moved on by this time) stand up at the school exhibition and talk much cant about prizes. 'them that don't get them this year must just make a spurt and get them next year.' and the poor bairns imagine that a prize is the golden fruit of life."
i notice that the men who are keenest on school prizes are firm believers in school punishments. and they are generally religious. their god is a petty tyrant who rewards the good and punishes the wicked. they try to act up to the attitude of their god ... hence, i fancy the term "tin god."
* * *
i see that many eminent people are making[pg 37] speeches about "education after the war." i can detect but little difference between their attitude and that of the commercial men who keep shouting "capture germany's trade!" "let us have more technical instruction," cries the educationist, "more discipline; let us beat germany at her own game!" the commercial man chuckles. "excellent!" he cries, "first-rate ... but of course we must have protection also!"
and the educationist and the commercial man will have their way. education will aim frankly at turning out highly efficient wage-slaves. the new education has commenced; its first act was to abolish freedom. free speech is dead; a free press is merely a name; the workers were wheedled into giving up their freedom to sell their commodity labour to the highest bidder, while the profiteer retains his right to sell his goods at the highest price he can get. every restriction on liberty is alleged to be necessary to win the war.
the alarming feature of the present prussianisation of britain lies in the circumstance that the signing of peace will be but the beginning of a new war. if the plans of the paris economic conference are carried out true education is interned for a century. millions have lost their lives in the military war: millions will lose their souls in the trade war. just as we have sullenly obeyed the dictates of the war government, we shall sullenly obey the dictates of the trade government. "we[pg 38] must win the trade war," our rulers will cry, and, if the profiteers say that men must work sixteen hours a day if we are to beat germany, the press and the church and the school will persuade the public that the man who strikes for a fifteen hours day is a traitor to his country.
will anyone try to save education? the commercial men will use it to further their own plans; the educationists will unconsciously play into the profiteers' hands; the women ... only the other day the suffrage band was marching through the streets of london displaying a huge banner bearing the words "we want hughes." hughes is the premier of australia, a labour man dear to the hearts of all the capitalist newspapers. his one text is "trade after the war."
who is there to save education? the teaching profession could save it, but teachers are merely servants. they will continue to argue about compulsory greek and, no doubt, compulsory russian will come up for discussion in the educational papers soon. the commercially-minded gentlemen of westminster will draw up the new scheme of education, and the teachers will humbly adapt themselves to the new method.
i don't think that anyone will save education.
