A Dominie Dismissed. Alexander Sutherland Neill
up the training on the Seventh Day. The minister talks a lot of prosy platitudes about Faith and Love and Charity, but he never thinks of saying a thing that the squire might take umbrage at."
I broke off and refilled my pipe.
"How are you getting on?" I asked.
"Well enough. The bairns are nice."
"A little bit noisy," he added, "but, of course, I was prepared for that. I heard about your experiment months ago. By the way, what sort of a teacher is Miss Watson?"
"Excellent," I replied.
"How often did you examine her classes?"
"I never examined her classes, not formally, but her bairns spoke to me, and I judged her work from their conversation."
"I examined their work yesterday; her spelling is weak and her geography atrocious."
"Shouldn't wonder," I said carelessly. "I never bothered about those things; I judged her work by what her bairns were, not by what they knew. They're a bright lot when you ask them to think out things."
"No wonder they fired you out," he laughed; "you're impossible as a dominie, you know."
I smiled.
"How do you like Jim Jackson?" I asked suddenly.
"Cheeky devil!"
"He's clever," I said.
"You may call it cleverness, but I have another name for it. He is a fellow that requires to be sat on."
"And you'll sit on him?"
"I certainly shall … heavily too."
I tried to show Macdonald that he was making a criminal blunder, but he got impatient. "I can't stand cheek," he kept saying, and I had to give up all hope of convincing him that I was right. Macdonald is essentially a stupid man. I don't say that merely because he disagrees with me; I say it because he refuses to think out his own attitude. He cries that Jim is cheeky, but he won't go into the other question as to whether humour is impudence. Had he argued that humour is a drawback in life I should have pitied his taste, but I should have admired his ability to make out a good case.
III.
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 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 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 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 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