"no reflections or opinions of a general character are to be entered in the log-book."—thus the scotch code.
i have resolved to keep a private log of my own. in the regulation volume i shall write down all the futile never-to-be-seen piffle about mary brown's being laid up with the measles, and about my anxiety lest it should spread. (incidentally, my anxiety is real; i do not want the school to be closed; i want a summer holiday undocked of any days.) in my private log i shall write down my thoughts on education. i think they will be mostly original; there has been no real authority on education, and i do not know of any book from which i can crib.
to-night after my bairns had gone away, i sat down on a desk and thought. what does it all mean? what am i trying to do? these boys are going out to the fields to plough;[pg 12] these girls are going to farms as servants. if i live long enough the new generation will be bringing notes of the plese-excuss-james-as-i-was-washing type ... and the parents who will write them went out at that door five minutes ago. i can teach them to read, and they will read serials in the drivelling weeklies; i can teach them to write, and they will write pathetic notes to me by and bye; i can teach them to count, and they will never count more than the miserable sum they receive as a weekly wage. the "three r's" spell futility.
but what of the rest? can i teach them drawing? i cannot. i can help a boy with a natural talent to improve his work, but of what avail is it? in their future homes they will hang up the same old prints—vile things given away with a pound of tea. i can teach them to sing, but what will they sing?... the tipperary of their day.
my work is hopeless, for education should aim at bringing up a new generation that will be better than the old. the present system is to produce the same kind of man as we see to-day. and how hopeless he is. when first i saw houndsditch, i said aloud: "we[pg 13] have had education for generations ... and yet we have this." yes, my work is hopeless. what is the use of the three r's, of woodwork, of drawing, of geography, if houndsditch is to remain? what is the use of anything?
* * *
i smile as i re-read the words i wrote yesterday, for to-day i feel that hope has not left me. but i am not any more hopeful about the three r's and the others. i am hopeful because i have found a solution. i shall henceforth try to make my bairns realise. yes, realise is the word. realise what? to tell the truth, i have some difficulty in saying. i think i want to make them realise what life means. yes, i want to give them, or rather help them to find an attitude. most of the stuff i teach them will be forgotten in a year or two, but an attitude remains with one throughout life. i want these boys and girls to acquire the habit of looking honestly at life.
ah! i wonder if i look honestly at life myself! am i not a very one-sided man? am i not a socialist, a doubter, a heretic? am i not biassed when i judge men like the[pg 14] cecils and the harmsworths? i admit it. i am a partisan, and yet i try to look at life honestly. i try ... and that is the main point. i do not think that i have any of the current superstitions about morality and religion and art. i try to forget names; i try to get at essentials, at truth. the fathers of my bairns are, i think, interested in names. i wonder how many of them have sat down saying: "i must examine myself, so that i may find out what manner of man i am." i hold that self-knowledge must come before all things. when one has stripped off all the conventions, and superstitions, and hypocrisies, then one is educated.
* * *
these bairns of mine will never know how to find truth; they will merely read the newspapers when they grow up. they will wave their hats to the king, but kingship will be but a word to them; they will shout when a lawyer from the south wins the local seat, but they will not understand the meaning of economics; they will dust their old silk hats and march to the sacrament, but they will not realise what religion means.
[pg 15]
i find that i am becoming pessimistic again, and i did feel hopeful when i began to write. i should feel hopeful, for i am resolved to find another meaning in education. what was it?... ah, yes, i am to help them to find an attitude.
* * *
i have been thinking about discipline overnight. i have seen a headmaster who insisted on what he called perfect discipline. his bairns sat still all day. a movement foreshadowed the strap. every child jumped up at the word of command. he had a very quiet life.
i must confess that i am an atrociously bad disciplinarian. to-day violet brown began to sing tipperary to herself when i was marking the registers. i looked up and said: "why the happiness this morning, violet?" and she blushed and grinned. i am a poor disciplinarian.
i find that normally i am very, very slack; i don't mind if they talk or not. indeed, if the hum of conversation stops, i feel that something has happened and i invariably look towards the door to see whether an inspector has arrived.
[pg 16]
i find that i am almost a good disciplinarian when my liver is bad; i demand silence then ... but i fear i do not get it, and i generally laugh. the only discipline i ask for usually is the discipline that interest draws. if a boy whets his pencil while i am describing the events that led to the great rebellion, i sidetrack him on the topic of rabbits ... and i generally make him sit up. i know that i am teaching badly if the class is loafing, and i am honest enough in my saner moments not to blame the bairns.
i do not like strict discipline, for i do believe that a child should have as much freedom as possible. i want a bairn to be human, and i try to be human myself. i walk to school each morning with my briar between my lips, and if the fill is not smoked, i stand and watch the boys play. i would kiss my wife in my classroom, but ... i do not have a wife. a wee lassie stopped me on the way to school this morning, and she pushed a very sticky sweetie into my hand. i took my pipe from my mouth and ate the sweetie—and i asked for another; she was highly delighted.
[pg 17]
discipline, to me, means a pose on the part of the teacher. it makes him very remote; it lends him dignity. dignity is a thing i abominate. i suppose the bishop is dignified because he wants to show that there is a real difference between his salaried self and the underpaid curate. why should i be dignified before my bairns? will they scorn me if i slide with them? (there was a dandy slide on the road to-day. i gave them half-an-hour's extra play this morning, and i slid all the time. my assistants are adepts at the game.)
but discipline is necessary; there are men known as inspectors. and johnny must be flogged if he does not attend to the lesson. he must know the rivers of russia. after all, why should he? i don't know them, and i don't miss the knowledge. i couldn't tell you the capital of new zealand ... is it wellington? or auckland? i don't know; all i know is that i could find out if i wanted to.
i do not blame inspectors. some of them are men with what i would call a vision. i had the chief inspector of the district in the other day, and i enjoyed his visit. he[pg 18] has a fine taste in poetry, and a sense of humour.
the scotch education department is iniquitous because it is a department; a department cannot have a sense of humour. and it is humour that makes a man decent and kind and human.
if the scotch education department were to die suddenly i should suddenly become a worse disciplinarian than i am now. if willie did not like woodwork, i should say to him: "all right, willie. go and do what you do like, but take my advice and do some work; you will enjoy your football all the better for it."
i believe in discipline, but it is self-discipline that i believe in. i think i can say that i never learned anything by being forced to learn it, but i may be wrong. i was forced to learn the shorter catechism, and to-day i hate the sight of it. i read the other day in barrie's sentimental tommy that its meaning comes to one long afterwards and at a time when one is most in need of it. i confess that the time has not come for me; it will never come, for i don't remember two lines of the catechism.
[pg 19]
it is a fallacy that the nastiest medicines are the most efficacious; epsom salts are not more beneficial than syrup of figs.
a thought!... if i believe in self-discipline, why not persuade willie that woodwork is good for him as a self-discipline? because it isn't my job. if willie dislikes chisels he will always dislike them. what i might do is this: tell him to persevere with his chisels so that he might cut himself badly. then he might discover that his true vocation is bandaging, and straightway go in for medicine.
would willie run away and play at horses if i told him to do what he liked best? i do not think so. he likes school, and i think he likes me. i think he would try to please me if he could.
* * *
when i speak kindly to a bairn i sometimes ask myself what i mean (for i try to find out my motives). do i want the child to think kindly of me? do i try to be popular? am i after the delightful joy of being loved? am i merely being humanly brotherly and kind?
i have tried to analyse my motives, and i[pg 20] really think that there is little of each motive. i want to be loved; i want the bairn to think kindly of me. but in the main i think that my chief desire is to make the bairn happy. no man, no woman, has the right to make the skies cloudy for a bairn; it is the sin against the holy ghost.
i once had an experience in teaching. a boy was dour and unlovable and rebellious and disobedient. i tried all ways—i regret to say i tried the tawse. i was inexperienced at the time yet i hit upon the right way. one day i found he had a decided talent for drawing. i brought down some of my pen-and-ink sketches and showed him them. i gave him pictures to copy, and his interest in art grew. i won him over by interesting myself in him. he discovered that i was only human after all.
only human!... when our scholars discover that we are only human, then they like us, and then they listen to us.
i see the fingers of my tawse hanging out of my desk. they seem to be two accusing fingers. my ideals are all right, but.... i whacked tom wilkie to-night. at three o'clock he bled dave tosh's nose, and because[pg 21] dave was the smaller, i whacked tom. yet i did not feel angry; i regret to say that i whacked tom because i could see that dave expected me to do it, and i hate to disappoint a bairn. if dave had been his size, i know that i should have ignored their battle.
* * *
i have not used the strap all this week, and if my liver keeps well, i hope to abolish it altogether.
to-day i have been thinking about punishment. what is the idea of punishment? a few months ago a poor devil of an engine-driver ran his express into a goods, and half-a-dozen people were killed. he got nine months. why? is his punishment meant to act as a deterrent? will another driver say to himself: "by jove, i'll better not wreck my train or i'll get nine months." nine months is not punishment, but the lifelong thought: "i did it," is hell.
i am trying to think why i punished lizzie smith for talking last friday. bad habit, i expect. yet it acted as a deterrent; it showed that i was in earnest about what i was saying—i was reading the war news from the scotsman.
[pg 22]
i am sorry that i punished her; it was weakness on my part, weakness and irritation. if she had no interest in the war, why should she pretend that she had? but no, i cannot have this. i must inculcate the idea of a community; the bairn must be told that others have rights. i often want to rise up and contradict the minister in kirk, but i don't; the people have rights; they do not come out to listen to me. if i offend against the community, the community will punish me with ostracism or bitterness. we have all a right to live our own lives, but in living them we must live in harmony with the community. lizzie must be told that all the others like the war news, and that in talking she is annoying them. yes, i must remember to emphasise continually the idea of a corporate life.
* * *
i see that it is only the weak man who requires a strap. lord kitchener could rule my school without a strap, but i am not kitchener. moreover, i am glad i'm not. i do not want to be what is called a strong man. john gourlay, in the house with the green shutters was strong enough to rule[pg 23] every school in scotland with sir john struthers superadded; yet i do not want to be gourlay. his son would have been a better teacher, for he was more human. possibly kitchener is very human; i do not know.
